Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [666]
Olaf was making a high-pitched hiss under his breath, fast and faster. If the circumstances had been different, I’d have said he was working up to an orgasm. If that was what he was doing, I so didn’t want to know. I ignored him, or did my best to.
The werejaguar stood there through it all, nude, body going limp, the cut long healed as he watched the vampire’s body be torn apart. He watched it with a neutral face, but occasionally when a blow was particularly vicious, or when the first hint of bone showed through, he winced, gaze sliding away, as if he didn’t want to watch but was afraid to actually turn his head away.
“Enough.” That one word, and the whips stopped, drooping like wilted flowers. The silver balls had all turned crimson, and blood dripped from the end of the whips in slow spatters. The women’s faces had never changed, as if the faces were just masks, and what lay underneath was inhuman and held all the emotions that the masks could not show. As if the monstrousness inside was more human than the human shells they wore.
The four women walked in a line to a small stone basin in the far corner. They dipped each whip into the water in turn, then ran their hands over each lash almost lovingly.
Olaf tried twice to speak, had to clear his throat, and finally said, “Do you use saddle soap and mink oil on the leather?”
The four women turned as one toward him. Then they all looked at Itzpapalotl. She answered for them. “You sound knowledgable about such things.”
“Not as knowledgeable as they are,” he said, and he sounded impressed, like a cellist seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform for the first time.
“They have had centuries to perfect their craft.”
“Do they use their craft just on the bodies of the men who hurt them?” he asked.
“Not always,” she said.
“Can they speak?” he asked. He was watching them as if they were something precious and lovely.
“They have taken a vow of silence until the last of their tormentors is dead.”
I had to ask. “Are they executing them periodically?”
“No,” she said.
I frowned, and the question must have shown on my face.
“We do not execute them. We merely harm them, and if they die of their injuries, then so be it. If they survive, then they live to see another night.”
“So you’re not going to give Diego any medical attention?” I asked.
Edward’s hand had never let go of me during the torture as if he truly didn’t trust me not to do something heroic and suicidal. His hand dug into me again, and I’d had my fill. “Let me the fuck go, now, or we are going to have a disagreement . . . Ted.” I wasn’t feeling good about watching Diego bleed. I was feeling worse because it hadn’t bothered me as much as I thought it should have. I’d have helped him if I could have, as long as it wasn’t suicide. He was a stranger and a vampire. I wasn’t risking our lives for him, and that was that. Had there been a time when I would have risked us all, even for a strange vampire? I just didn’t know anymore.
“Diego has survived far worse than this. He is the strongest of all of them. We broke all the others before they died. They did everything we asked them in the end. Except Diego, and still he fights us.” She shook her head, as if dismissing it all. “But we must show you how it is to be done properly. Chualtalocal, show them how the sacrifice is to be embraced.”
The vamp that stood at her right hand stepped forward. He walked around the fallen Diego as if he were a pile of trash to be avoided, and left for someone else to clean up. He faced the werejaguar as Diego had faced him, but things had changed. Seth had been all pumped up from having his ears sucked when he first stripped, hard and eager to please. Now he was just naked, and his eyes kept going to the bloody mess that Diego had become as if he was wondering when his turn was coming.
“Make your offering, my cat,” she said.
Seth was looking from Diego’s body to the vampire in front of me. “My holy mistress,