Lilith turned to face Cain and came in closer to him to put a firm hand on his huge forearm. "Why do you think it always ends in a stalemate?" Lilith's voice became an urgent plea as she went into a flurry of Dananu. "As much as I have wanted to end that bitch's worthless existence, for the empire and the food sources her fertility provides, even I have never dared smite her so severely that she might perish. I beg your clarity of thought on this." She looked at his throne and shook her head. "Your offer is enticing, but what good is ruler-ship over a dying planet?"
"I have thought about all of this while you have presented apoignant argument that I respect," Cain said calmly, now holding his bloodied stump of tail. He grimaced as his grasp became more firm and he leveled his black blade over his injury, a hand-width above where Damali's blow had severed it. "If I survive, a healthy feeding will repair the limb no longer beset by the Neteru's incision. My mother's spirit, if she survives, will be severed from mine after the shock separates us."
He glared at Lilith when she closed her eyes. "As my familiar, gov�erned by the edict of my grandfather, I command you to feed me and regenerate me once this is done. If you let me bleed out and die to ac�complish your shortsighted aim, then his wrath for not following my direct command be upon you."
Cain waited for Lilith to stare at him and nod.
"I cannot disobey a direct command from you and you know that."
"Very well," Cain said, breathing hard as the pain from just hold�ing the damaged limb nearly made him pass out. "Summon the black blood from Level Seven and have it waiting."
Cain took a deep breath and raised his sword as he pressed the thick, dripping section of his tail against the throne armrest hard. "Good-bye, Mother," he whispered through blurred vision. "May we forever be separated that you flourish again in fertility." With all his might he swung, cutting off another hunk of his tail, and the cry he released started an avalanche within the Vampire Council Chambers.
A meaty thud of flesh hit the floor as his body went into convul�sions and the blade fell from his hand. He scrabbled at the throne as he slid to the floor, sobbing in agony, vomiting bile, and then clawed at the black marble beneath him. Harpies filled the room in battle readi�ness, thinking their leader was under siege. Cain's piteous death wails made bats scream and cover their contorted faces and beady, red gleaming eyes with their wings. Bulked, armed cavern messengers broke into the chamber and turned away the moment they saw and understood.
Lilith dry heaved and dropped to her knees beside Cain. The ago�nized pounding from his fists against the marble floor began to open small fissures under his hand as she sat on his back facing his tail and grasped his flailing limb in her arms, almost unable to subdue the ap�pendage.
"Do it!" Cain hollered, tears streaming down his face. "Mercy in your withered soul, woman-do it!"
Her body thrashed back and forth with the powerful jerks riddling the tail in her arms as she rode Cain's writhing form. In a serpent-quick strike, she sank her long fangs into the blackened flesh of his opened wound, causing Cain's body to buckle, arch, and his cries to topple thrones. But she held on, eating away at the flesh until it was bloodied pulp, creating a valley around now-exposed tailbone with a thin margin of scaled skin surface to hold blood around it like a chal�lis, then spewed black blood into it and sealed it shut.
She sat that way for several minutes as Cain thrashed, holding his tail upright so the black blood could adhere, and didn't release him until the flaps of outer skin began to seal over the exposed bone.
Moving quickly, she rolled Cain onto his side, using all of her strength as she shoved a sobbing sovereign into a feed position. She slit her jugular and allowed her thickened black blood to ooze into his mouth, but Cain was so pain-dazed that he almost couldn't swallow-it. He convulsed once, and then dropped his head, unconscious.
"You brilliant... arrogant... fool," she murmured, standing and staggering away. Lilith wiped her brow, depleted. "If you live, I think even your grandfather would be proud."
Yonnie swept into Gabrielle's Nevada condo and rushed to her crum�pled body on the dining room floor. "Oh, baby... not you, of all people," he whispered, gathering her up in his arms and kissing her forehead.
Her terrified eyes snapped open, and he knew that Lilith or the Chairman were the only ones of his realm that could deliver an instant-turn bite. He dared not send an SOS to Carlos with the air�waves totally compromised at this juncture. As he watched Gabrielle's first crest of fangs lower and her body begin to tremble with new vampire awareness, he held her to his throat.
"It wasn't supposed to happen to you, or like this," he said, gently stroking her hair. "Feed only from me or the bottles. They violated supernatural law, and this was the same way Carlos broke out. You haven't been dead three nights yet-there's still time."
"What's happening to me, Yonnie?" she shrieked, becoming hys�terical in his arms. "I... I..." Pain stopped her words as she wailed and began tearing at his pants and ripping off his clothes.
"Feed," he said gently, rocking her body against his. "That'll stop the burn. It's the only way Then, as your friend, I'll do you... and will explain everything later."
Sara gently held Carlos's wrist as he and Jose began digging a grave for Tara in the sand. "Last night we all went through a lot, and experi�enced physical, spiritual, and emotional pain that will take a very long time to heal. Do not make a decision in haste to put this all behind you."
The group's weary attention focused on the small being who stared up at Carlos with wide, shimmering, turquoise eyes.
"Neteru, take her body with us to be buried on true hallowed ground," the nymph said quietly. She continued to stare up at Carlos when he didn't immediately respond and she squinted in the sunlight, covering her eyes to shield them. "Please."
The team looked at Carlos and Jose, and then everyone looked at Rider.
"It's only fitting," Rider said quietly. "I'll carry her, now that Mar�lene anointed her and said a few prayers over her."
"She'll disintegrate in the bright light within the whirl," Carlos said in a gentle voice, sparing everyone, especially Rider, the grim de�tails of what that really meant. This was exactly what he'd wanted to avoid--just having to come out and say it. The heat of a transpo en�ergy whirl would unmask all of Sara's good deeds of making Tara presentable to the family.
"Neither you nor your family should have to endure that," Hubert said, knowing what Carlos had failed to disclose. He walked over to Carlos to place a hand on his shoulder. "Let me carry her. I do not travel by white light, but by an energy current that's been trapped be�tween dimensions. It's not as... harsh."
Damali nodded and came to stand beside Carlos. "Let them do it," she said in a quiet voice. "There's a convent in the state of Morelos, Mexico, not far from where the team will be."
Carlos leaned on his shovel and stared at Rider for a moment, and then looked at Hubert. "We're going to Morelos, the smallest state in central Mexico and staying just outside of Morelos's jewel city, Cuer-navaca, which is thinly populated-to avoid as many human civilian casualties as possible. That's like ninety kilometers from Mexico City, which is a quick whirl so we can get supplies fast without a problem."
"We will not be traveling together?" Hubert looked to Carlos and then at Sara. "I thought we would travel in tandem?"
"Hubert, it is best that we... deliver her to hallowed ground and then follow the Neteru team to the safe place," the nymph said in a near whisper. "If my work becomes undone..."