Ugh - fanatical humans! Sometimes she hated them so much.
"We know that a war between us is coming," Dixon insisted. "If your kind isn't contained, you'll destroy us all."
Carrow s"uinted at her. "I'm warming to the idea. Especially with mortals like you. Don't you get it? Human fanatics are more monster than any of the Lore."
"More than the Libitinae?"
The Libitinae often forced men to self-castrate or die - for fun.
"Or maybe the Neoptera?" Dixon continued.
Insectlike humanoids, the stuff of nightmares. At the mention of the latter, Chase tensed even more, the muscle in his jaw bulging. Interesting.
Watching for any reaction, Carrow slowly said, "No, I'll grant you that the Neoptera are depraved. They don't kill their "uarry; they keep it, tormenting it hour after hour."
Had sweat beaded on Chase's upper lip? If those creatures had gotten hold of this man ... Well, Carrow knew what they did for shits and giggles, what they did to their victim's skin, and it made her stomach turn.
Was that why Chase had covered as much of his body as possible? How was he still sane? Was he?
The inmates gossiped about this man constantly; apparently, he hated to be touched, had once clocked an orderly who'd made the mistake of tapping his shoulder.
That would explain the gloves.
She almost felt a shred of pity for him, until he grated, "And the witch believes she's better than they are."
And the witch is talking to a madman. "Okay, clearly you two are beyond rational debate, so let's just get to it. Why did you take me?"
Dixon answered, "Our aim is not only to study you, but to conceal your existence. Most immortals fly under the radar. You flaunt your powers in front of humans."
Carrow had been repeatedly chastised by her coven for this. But, as she'd often argued, she never used her powers around sober humans. "So why'd you bring me here tonight?"
"You're going to help us capture a vampiric demon, a male named Malkom Slaine."
Heh. Twenty large says I'm not. "A vemon? You really think they exist?" she asked innocently. Vemons had been thought an impossibility, a "true myth" - oxymoron, hello? - until one had been unleashed on New Orleans last year.
Unimaginably strong, he'd defeated several fierce Valkyrie, who'd survived only by chance. He'd barely been destroyed by the powerful Lykae king, and only because he'd been threatening the werewolf's mate.
"They're rare, but we have knowledge of one's existence," Dixon said. "You'll seek out this male, then lead him to us."
"You want me to go out and coax some poor sap to his death?"
"We don't intend to kill him," she said. "We want to discover his weaknesses - "
"And how he was made, huh?"
Dixon held up her palms. "We are interested in the anomalous beings among the Lore."
Anomalous. What a mild way of putting it.
"He lives in Oblivion, a demon hell plane."
The demon planes weren't parallel universes, but self-contained, hidden territories with their own climates, cultures, and demonarchies. Most of their societies were feudal and old-fashioned. Not exactly hotbeds of technology - or, say, women's liberties.
"I've heard of it," Carrow said. A wasteland once used as a gulag for Lore criminals, Oblivion was the former home of the Trothan Demonarchy. Before the vampires overthrew their royal line.
"We've been able to compile information about your target, taken from detained Trothan demons."
Carrow raised her brows. "You torture them to spill the beans?"