Chapter 361
Jorick snarled and charged inside, and Verchiel made a show of ducking behind Katelina as if she was a shield. They went in a half circle before Katelina jerked away from them. "For the love of God, who cares? Shut the damn door and tell me what the hell is going on!"
Jorick gave a final growl and then slammed the door while Verchiel dodged to one of the deep red chairs and dropped into it. "Looks like that incident with Samael has come back to bite you. Heh-heh. Bite you. Get it?"
"Shut up," Jorick snapped, then turned to Katelina. He opened and closed his mouth rapidly, as if trying to speak, and then ran an exasperated hand through his hair. "Samael." The word came out in a long, low growl.
"What about him?" She looked back and forth between the two vampires. "Why do we have to stay here? Because he bit me? What the hell does that matter?"
Jorick turned his back to her, and she could see his tense shoulders rise and fall, as if he was trying to stay calm.
Verchiel sighed. "It's not a matter of being bitten, Kately, but of being healed."
Jorick turned back and met her eyes. His voice was even, though obviously at great control. "At the temple, Samael fed on you, Katelina. But who healed you?"
She realized the vampire at the trial had meant Jorick. "One did not even know it had occurred." She hadn't thought to tell himsurely he'd known. Then again, maybe he hadn't. They'd been separated when it happened, and when they were reunited again it was already healed. But why hadn't he seen it in her mind?
"Katelina!" His voice snapped her back to the present. "If Samael fed on you, then who healed you?"
"I-I don't-"
Verchiel swept to his feet. "Since it's come to this"
"Don't." Jorick held up a hand to silence him. "Don't lie and take the credit."
The redhead shrugged. "I wasn't going to. It was Samael, after he sent the shower of rocks down on everyone."
Jorick's eyes narrowed. "How do you know?"
"Because I wasn't under the rocks. I'm a bit faster, as you might have noticed." He absently brushed at his shirt, then met Jorick's hard gaze. "Things were a bit dusty, but I did see that Samael had picked her up from the floor. When the clouds settled I saw him taking his arm back from her, then he stood there, staring at her, which is where you eventually came in."
Jorick made a long, low sound of fury, then turned and slammed his fist into the wall. The plaster cracked and fell away to leave a hole down to the lathes.
Katelina jumped back, and Verchiel snickered. "You won't get your deposit back."
"Shut up!" Jorick spun on him. "If you knew, why didn't you say so sooner?"
"Because there were more important things to worry about."
"More important than Katelina?" Jorick took a deep breath and spoke to himself, "All right. All right." He massaged his forehead. "His blood is old. Beyond old. I can't- there is no comparison."
Verchiel brightened. "Luckily he'd only recently been bloodless, so it hadn't had time to really soak in yet. That's probably why it didn't turn Kately into some sort of super creature."
It was her turn to glare at him. "What are you talking about?"
"You know. When a vampire first drinks they're a lot like a container, holding the blood. Normally they have a lot of vampire blood pumping through their veins so it mixes up pretty fast and they could even turn you within half an hour or so of feeding, but Samael didn't have any - well, obviously there was some in the deep tissue, but you know what I mean. He didn't have enough to count, so when he drained everyone dry there wasn't a lot of his blood for it to mix with, meaning it wasn't even a fifth as potent as it would've been had he waited an hour or two for it to process and become assimilated."
"God, you make it sound like the borg." She dropped into the nearby chair. "So what would've happened if he had waited?"
"I can't even guess," Jorick said. "As it is, he's done enough."
"What has he done?" she cried wretchedly. "They said tainted. What the hell did they mean?"
At her distress, some of the fight left Jorick. He moved to stand in front of her, took her hands in his and met her eyes. "Tainted was a poor choice of words, little one. You're not tainted but-" His eyes dropped away. "I noticed it when we first arrived, then thought I must be wrong." He paused, as if trying to find the right way to phrase it. "At the trial-did you not notice that you-you blocked them from reading your mind, Katelina. All of them. That's quite a feat for a vampire, but for a human-" he trailed off and shook his head.
A strange panic bubbled up in her. What did he mean? Yes, they'd been prying into her mind and then- and then-
Get out.
"Oh my God. What does that mean?"
"Honestly, little one, I don't know."
Silence fell as she tried to absorb everything. If she could do thatreally do thatwhat else could she do? And what did that make her? Some kind of freak. Not vampire, but no longer human.
Jorick caught her chin in his hand and stroked her cheek with his thumb. "No. You're still human. You don't drink blood. You can walk in daylight. Your soul is intact."
"Don't start," she muttered. A theological conversation was more than she wanted to deal with. "I thought you checked me over after the fight in the temple. Verchiel said you were making sure Samael hadn't embedded a kill switch."
It was Jorick's turn at confusion. "A what?"
"I don't know." She looked at the redhead accusingly. "He said certain vampires could implant some terrible action in a person's mind, with a trigger, and when the trigger happens the person goes crazy and kills everyone in sight. He said you'd checked for that."
Jorick made a strange noise and looked away.
"You did, didn't you?"
"You're fine," he said at last. "Yes, I checked and there was nothing out of place, all right?"
She felt a little better, though not a lot. "What happens now? With the Kugsankal, I mean?"
"I don't know. Someone will have to wake them."
"If they're not already awake," Verchiel suggested. "They were up and about the last time we were here. With the way they look at time, we've barely been gone. Hardly worth climbing back into bed for."
Katelina shivered as she thought of their last visit to Munich and the secret council in the basement. The Kugsankal, or True Council, was made of the oldest living vampiresor near enough, depending on how Samael fit into the equation. After thousands of years, the True Council had handed the day-to-day activities of ruling over to others, such as der H?here Rat and The Guilds in all the other countries, and locked themselves up in the deepest parts of the underground stronghold where they lived in a sort of sleep-like state, only waking or being woken when matters requiring their ancient power or wisdom occurred.
While they had been there last time Malick had attacked, looking for Jorick and the Heart, and Inanna, one of the Kugsankal, had actually left her basement to confront him. That was something unprecedented. What was it Cyprus had said?
"I've never seen them, and I doubt many living vampires have, short of Wolfe who leads the Scharfrichter. The trio remains isolated on the bottom most level of the stronghold. As far as I can tell, it's been decades since they left their chambers."
Verchiel grinned. "As Wolfe said, we walk among the legends, huh? Ah, cheer up, Kately. Things are just starting to get exciting."
"I don't want exciting!" she cried. "I want to go home!" She buried her face in her hands. This had turned out to be every bit the disaster she'd expected. Could things get any worse?
