Chapter 415
Despite Katelina's pessimism, she eventually drifted into the rest of the exhausted. Her dreams were a tangled mass of jungle branches and chattering monkeys with bloody mouths. The trees faded away and she was standing in a room with a platform at one end, like a low stage. He sat on a pillow in the center, his face turned down, so that his long hair fell around his shoulders in a shower of shimmering obsidian.
The familiar, overwhelming feeling of peace washed over her and she breathed it in and held it, as if she could trap it in her lungs.
"The truth approaches, are you ready to leave the dreams behind?"
She wasn't sure of the answer. If this was the dream he wanted her to give up then no, she didn't want to.
"Not this dream, but the other. It does not matter. The time for waking approaches. He will try again to use that which he has hidden. Do not allow him to. The door should not be opened until I arrive, and then I will seal it for all days."
She was aware that she was nodding along to the words, as if she understood them.
"Then we will feast on her blood together and I will make you eternal."
"Her?" What woman would Jorick want to feast on?
"Lilith."
He looked up and she gasped as she found herself staring into eyes like two burning suns. It wasn't Jorick. It had never been Jorick in the dreams but
Katelina woke with a start and clutched Jorick's shirt. There was something important in her dream, something that made sense, somethingbut it faded and she was left with a vague sense of shock and confusion.
Jorick stirred and she was suddenly aware of Torina and Oren arguing in the background.
"What was I supposed to do? Let her die?"
"You could have! We barely know her and now we'll be stuck with her!"
"She can hear you!"
"I don't care if the whole God damn world can hear me, Oren! That was a mistake and you're going to live to regret it!"
When Katelina woke they were airborne. It took her a moment to focus on the cabin. Etsuko lay on the couch, curled on her side and covered up with Sorino's sleeping bag. Oren was reclined in his seat, his arms under his head. He looked as if every muscle was taut, and Katelina suspected that if someone were to touch him he'd make a sound like a plucked guitar string.
She turned to Jorick, who sat next to her, his nose in a magazine. "What's wrong with Oren?"
Jorick glanced at her, then back to his article. "He's tired. Making a fledgling weakens a vampire and it will take him several days to fully recover. Right before a fight is a bad time to do it." He turned the page. "I can't think of a worse time, except during the battle."
"And Etsuko?"
He spoke like a detached doctor laying out the progression of an incurable disease. "She'll be fine. She knows who she is, where she is, and how she got there. She's past the first agonies. Those are the worst. She'll go back and forth between waking and sleeping for a while, and then she should have the second agonies. That lasts a few hours and there is often some delirium with it, but it usually passes. By tomorrow afternoon she should be fine. Usually if they survive the first agonies there won't be a problem."
Katelina pushed her seat into an upright position. "You say survive as if there's an option."
"There is." Jorick turned another page. "If you don't give them enough blood they can die, and if they're not drained enough they won't change. If you leave them too long on the threshold of death they can lose part of themselves to the oblivion." His eyes flicked to Verchiel and back to his magazine. "And I've heard of conflicting blood causing a rejection, but I've never seen it. I suspect it's only a legend."
"What's that?"
"They claim that if a human has had too much blood from another master, trying to turn them can be fatal. Like if someone besides Sorino tried to turn Kai. I doubt it's true. Weak blood, however, can have ill effects."
"What do you mean weak?"
"If one hasn't fed enough. It's the same thing as Samael. When he gave you blood it hadn't been in his body long, so very little of his power passed to you. Had he turned you, you would have been a weaker fledgling than if he waited a couple of hours to let all of the blood mix. I'm not sure Oren fed enough before this, so she's likely to be weaker than she'd have been otherwise." He turned another page. "That seems to be his pattern. He turned Jesslynn and Torina nearly back to back, and I doubt he'd fed enough before either one. Of course he was only two weeks old himself, so thankfully the pair of them didn't inherit much."
Katelina had listened to the blood/power connection before; the older a vampire was when he made a fledgling the more powerful he was and so the more powerful the fledgling would be.
"Do you think Etsuko will be able to read minds?" Katelina asked.
"We'll have to wait and see."
Silence fell and then Jorick said, "I suppose you're having second thoughts about being turned." He stared at the magazine, but it didn't look like he was reading it anymore. "Now that you've seen it."
She hadn't actually considered it. "Not really. Is it always like that?"
"Sometimes it's worse."
That explained his sudden concern. "Maybe it looks worse than it is?"
He finally met her eyes. "I honestly don't remember."
She patted his leg comfortingly. "I guess we'll find out someday."
***
They beat Fethillen and the others to Indonesia. "With that plane it will take them some time," Sorino said. "We'd be best served by finding accommodations."
The city was all lights, glass, and pulsing neon. Katelina clicked off a few pictures, including one of the hotel Sorino selected. There was a last minute scramble about who was paying. Despite being a vampire, Micah was always broke. Ume was, too, and Loren had some cash, but not enough for a place like that. In the end Verchiel whipped out his handy Guild issued credit card.
Katelina waited in the lobby with the others. The room was modern; lots of glass, marble slabs, and a splattering of bright green plants. She expected he'd be back any moment, announcing that his card was cancelled. Instead he showed up with keycards. They took the elevator to their rooms, and when Katelina walked in she clutched her dirty travel bag and stared. The room was half the size of the summer headquarters' house. The double bed was black wood. A pile of fluffy pillows gleamed white under the many lights, and the swirl patterned bedspread echoed the more subdued markings on the carpet. The dresser and night stand matched, and there were a pair of low chaise longues with a glass topped table between them. The bathroom was through a large open door and consisted of a spa tub and lots of light wood paneling.
"I don't want to know how much this cost."
Jorick grunted. "It's the idiot's problem. I assume you'll have to try out the bathtub?"
Though the open floor plan was a little uncomfortable, she refused to let it dampen her spirits and happily mixed the provided bubble baths to create a perfumy, sudsy mess that she sank into for an hour. When she finished she slid into her least offensive clothes just as someone knocked on the door.
