to be able to win a decisive victory. They therefore decided to change humans, or whatever creatures came to hand, improving them and forging them—”
“Into armies to fight their wars for them.”
The dark eyes narrowed. “This is not the first time you have heard this.”
“No.” I thought back to a strange creature I had met several times recently, the last in Hong Kong during the desperate fight for the city. He had died there, but not before telling me a strange story that didn’t seem all that relevant at the time. But then, his kind were basically the secret service of hell: fallen angels with a network specializing in information who frequently seemed to know more than they should have about what was coming.
I stared up at what remained of an ancient demigod, and wondered what he’d known about this.
“An Irin told me,” I said.
“Ah. Fascinating creatures.”
That was one way of putting it.
“Well, the Irin was absolutely right,” Hassani said. “The gods made themselves armies, but they did it so well that they began to worry. The creatures were made to battle other gods, after all. What if they decided to turn on their makers? That is why later generations had limitations added deliberately—vulnerability to sunlight, weak points at the heart and neck, helpless early years—”
“I wouldn’t say helpless,” I muttered.
“—but Setep-en-Ra had none of these. He was virtually indestructible physically.”
“And mentally?”
Hassani shook his head. “He grew progressively more paranoid and detached from a world he no longer recognized. After the gods were banished, he began to think of himself as a god himself, and his delusions grew. As his strongest Children, your consul and Antony plotted to take him down, although in the end, they were not enough. Your father had to assist—”
“At two years old?” Because that was what father had been, at least in vampire terms in 1449. He should have had trouble defending himself, much less . . .
I looked up again, and shuddered.
Hassani smiled. “He was always very clever, your father, and sometimes, that is more useful than power.”
I crossed my arms. “Is there a reason you’re telling me all this?”
“Yes, in fact. I—”
Hassani stopped suddenly, and cocked his head, as if listening to someone. Which he probably was. Vamps’ ability to communicate mentally with members of their family, or in the case of someone as powerful as Hassani, with virtually any vampire, was one thing that made them so deadly.
I waited it out, my arms wrapped around myself, and that horrible, decaying stench in my nose. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t have had this conversation upstairs. I didn’t understand why we had to have it at all. Old vamps liked to be mysterious, and centuries of having people kowtow to them hadn’t helped encourage them to get to the damned point already. But I really wished he’d hurry up.
I’d been in some creepy ass places before, but this one was really starting to get to me. And I wasn’t alone. I glanced back at Lantern Boy to find him looking miserable, his mouth turned down and his eyes darting here and there, as if anticipating an attack.
And then widening in apparent horror, as if witnessing one.
I looked quickly back at Hassani, expecting I don’t know what.
But there was nothing happening. The consul still looked a little zoned out, but perfectly fine. Until he suddenly reached out and touched the shed skin.
Lantern Boy made a sound and I sucked in a breath, even though it didn’t make sense. Whatever this thing had been, it was long dead now. But I still didn’t like him touching it.
Hassani, however, seemed to like it fine. He rubbed a bit of the brittle skin between his fingers for a moment, then crushed it in his fist. Lantern Boy gave a bleat of terror and fled, while I just stood there, frozen in place. But Hassani wasn’t done. He suddenly jerked at it, not a piece but the whole thing, and he put a master’s strength behind it. He pulled not once or twice, but over and over and over, until the entire, carefully displayed snakeskin was on the floor and broken into pieces.
I joined Lantern Boy in the creepy, scratched up antechamber, mainly because I couldn’t breathe in the burial chamber anymore. Pieces of ancient god fluttered through the air and dusted my lungs, even out here. While inside . . .