Mistress Amin was on her feet. "I am highly offended, Evelyn! How could you present her with such a delicacy like that and snub the other wives?"
"She's the councilman's wife," Evelyn said nervously. "Some things are protocol, ladies. To do any less would be a grave offense."
Standing quickly, Mistress Tetrosky folded her arms over her chest and sneered down at Evelyn. "Wait until Gustav hears about this. I never - " She spun on Damali, her eyes blazing. "Someone of her ilk would know nothing about what to do with a suckling infant."
Oh, yeah... it was on. Damali could feel a very dark part of herself concentrating, being amplified by the oppressive energies in the castle, and drawing power from every cell in her body all the way to the marrow. It was such an old rage, so visceral, and so familiar, one she'd lived with as a child, people thinking they were better than her for no other reason than the accident of birth. It was as though the castle itself was bringing out the worst in her. And then she realized that it wasn't just the environment, these bitches had been quietly working on her head.
"Her, Evelyn?" Mistress Xe hissed, adding more venom to her argument. "I can trace my lineage all the way back to the Ming Dynasty, and Alani can go back to Kemet! Kiersten hails from the time before the Druids." Her gaze narrowed on Damali as she pointed at her. "And this little bitch probably doesn't even know who her own mother or grandmother was - just like you Aussies can't go back worth a damn!"
An image slammed into Damali that brought tears to her eyes. One of the females had shown her her mother in the dirt, crying and screaming in the driveway of their home on her hands and knees, pleading for her father to come back. Instantly, another hurtful image slammed into Damali's mind. She tried to ward it off, but her mother's ritual to call up Nuit came crashing into her head. Just as that image faded, she saw her foster father coming at her, then his face blurred and became her father's with fangs.
"She comes from pure human trash," Mistress Li said with a sly smile, "and you wasted a baby on her?"
The rage that had been building within Damali propelled her forward, stole her will, and eclipsed all judgment. They were talking about her dead parents - a real sore subject. Worse, they'd gotten into her mind. The tears burned away. Bad form, as Evelyn called it, from where she came from, too. Mass gathered in her bloodstream. Yeah, from her world a nasty comment about your momma meant a sho' nuff beat down. But laughing at her family tragedy wasn't even done among vamps of the same level, so she'd been told. Instantly, the image of Carlos with the were-demon in Brazil shot into her mind's eye. Oh, no... they had not taken her there... They'd thrown down the gauntlet. If she let this pass, they'd attack her for sure. Something within her snapped like a twig. It was on.
"Who you calling a bitch, bitch?"
Instantly, Lai Xe transformed. Suddenly she had six arms, three on each side, and her head moved hypnotically from side to side with a serpent's grace.
Evelyn was on her feet in a flash. "Ladies, please, let's not ruin - "
"Shut up, Evelyn," Alani Amin snarled, transforming instantly. What had once been a regal, statuesque beauty was now a fanged creature with the woman's face, but crouched low, the upper body of a woman, lower body of a lion, a twitching spaded tail, and large leathery wings.
Damali didn't move. It wasn't fear that held her, but strategy. If they'd transformed into forms stronger than regular vamp females with fangs, it meant that they were unsure of her strength. She watched them. They seemed to be waiting for her to show them her best shape-shift. Damali smiled. The fact that she was holding non-fang-bearing human form was messing with their minds. She could feel it as they began posturing for an attack, using the transformative abilities like were-demons from the realms above level six.
"I've had enough of this human scented pretender to the throne," Mistress Tetrosky roared, then threw her head back, shot a funnel of fire, and transformed into a griffin. "No council-level master should be tethered to a low-bred bitch like this - a waste of a valuable male resource in the empire!"
She didn't care what they'd turned into, there was nothing more dangerous than a pissed-off sister from 'round the way. Then Evelyn reluctantly dropped to all fours and transformed into a crocodile. Oh, so it was like that? Punk whore. She was supposed to have her back, had practically asked outright to go down on her in the parlor. But when it came time to stand her ground, Evelyn was with her girls.
Damali gripped the Isis handle so tightly that she could feel her palm bleed. Every affront she'd ever experienced, every clique she'd been shunned from, and every humiliation ever thrust upon her, galvanized in one central battle cry. "Bring it, bitch!"
Damali threw her head back, her voice now a weapon of its own, blood-spiked colors behind her shut lids. She could feel something happening to her, a bloodlust ramping into a vampiric flux, and the sensation was both disorienting and exhilarating at the same time. Her heart stopped for a second and then beat an erratic seizure against her breastbone, her gums ripped, and when she opened her eyes to lunge, she saw the females before her backing up. Near-stroke-level fury made her shudder as her voice drew density, velocity. The air began to stain red, then mix with an eerie purple magenta fusion. Male vampires instantly came through the walls into the room from all directions, forming a ring at the outskirts. Carlos rushed toward her and then stopped within a few feet of her. Their male presence, fangs in full battle mode, dredged a rage-induced scream which she let loose at the top of her lungs.
The huge bay window blew out, the bookcase rippled and shed its thick leatherbound classics like missiles, and the chandelier quaked and began separating from the ceiling. Tiffany lamps exploded as Damali's line of vision swept every male protecting a female vamp in the room, sending shards of colored glass everywhere.
Words seized in her throat, she couldn't draw in enough air fast enough as the rage almost made her levitate off the ground.
"You bitches have no concept of who you are f**king with tonight!"
Instantly, the Hell-hounds flew through the window, snarling and barking, sensing she was in danger, making the group back up, as they landed between Carlos and Damali, and the others, holding the other masters at bay.
"Go back on guard," Damali shouted at the animals, making them give her a confused glance, but then they sulked away and took flight out of the window.
"Baby..." a low, too-serene male voice said.
She whirled on the speaker. "Fuck detente!"
Carlos stepped back. Damali reached out her hand toward Mistress Tetrosky, her will pulling her from across the room. It was a standoff for a second, the woman trembling between them as her husband's hold loosened, and Damali's gained more strength against the magnetic force her husband was struggling to maintain to keep the woman at his side. A loud crack sounded as though a tree limb had been felled. Instantly, Damali drew the Transylvanian diplomat's wife from across the room, grabbed her throat, gripping it, causing her to transform back into the fragile blonde. Damali body slammed her on the Oriental carpet, raised the Isis with both hands tight at the handle, and stood over her, legs apart with the Isis pointed toward the center of the female vampire's chest.
"I may not be able to trace back to the Druids, bitch, but I will tell you this: your ass will respect me! And when you disrespect me, you disrespect my man - and that I ain't having from none of y'all!"
"Damali, baby..." Carlos said, very carefully.
Damali took two deep breaths, then angrily stepped away, grumbling about the momma comment. She stalked away from the female vamp and allowed her to scramble back to her husband's side. She looked at the Transylvanian master hard. "You'd better keep that bitch in check." She paced back and forth like a caged animal in front of the sofa, her gaze narrowing on the African diplomat's wife as she huddled against her man.
As Damali railed, the air in the room got darker and darker with the deep magenta-purple stain of her rage. Damali stalked back to the bookcase, punched it, making four more volumes fall as a shelf splintered, and then came back to the center of the room. What had begun as strategic theater had gotten a stranglehold on her. It was as though the castle and the mind dredge combined with the eminent threat all around her was producing an incredible flux between ultimate Neteru battle mode and vamp attack.
Try as she might, she couldn't stop herself. Words formed in her mouth and she spat them out as the strange flux imploded within her system.