Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [777]
Edward had my arm. He had turned me to face him. We were both standing, though I didn’t remember getting up. “Anita, are you okay?”
I had to swallow twice to find my voice. “I’m okay, I think. Yeah, I’m okay.” But the power was still beating against me like frantic wings, birds crying that they’ve been shut out in the dark and they want inside to the light and the warmth. How could I leave them crying in the dark when all I had to do was open and they would be safe?
“Stop it,” I said. I turned to face them. They were still smiling, still welcoming. She held her hand out to me, the other still holding Pinotl’s hand. I knew if I took that hand that all this power would flow into me. That I could share it with them. It was an offering to share. But at what price, because there was always a price?
“What do you want?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure who I was asking.
“I want the knowledge of how your triad of power was achieved.”
“I can tell you that. You don’t need to do this.”
“You know that I cannot tell truth from lie. It is not one of my powers. Touch me and I will gain the knowledge from you.”
The wings were flowing over my skin as if the flying things had found a current of air just above my body. “What do I gain?”
“Think of one question, and if I have the answer, you will draw it from my mind.”
Ramirez was standing. He motioned and I knew without looking that the uniforms were coming this way. “I don’t know what’s happening, but we’re not doing it.”
“Answer one question first,” I said.
“If I can,” she said.
“Who is the Red Woman’s Husband?”
Her face showed nothing, but her voice was puzzled. “The Red Woman was another term for blood among the Mexicanas, among the Aztecs. I truly do not know who the Red Woman’s Husband would be.”
I’d half reached out to her. I didn’t really mean to. Three things happened almost together. Ramirez and Edward both grabbed me to pull me back, and Itzpapalotl grabbed my hand.
The wings erupted into a torrent of birds. My body opened, though I knew it didn’t, and the winged things, only half-glimpsed spilled into that opening. The power flowed into me, through me, and out again. I was part of some great circuit, and I felt the connection with every vampire she’d touched. It was as if I flowed through them, and they through me like water coming together to form something larger. Then I was floating in the soothing dark, and there were stars, distant and glittering.
A voice, her voice came. “Ask one question, and it shall be yours.”
I asked, though my mouth never moved, still I heard the words. “How did Nicky Baco learn to do what Pinotl did to Seth?” With the words came the image of Nicky’s creature so clear I could smell the dryness of it, and hear that voice whispering, “Help me.”
Images then, and they had force to them like things slamming into my body. I saw Itzpapalotl standing on the top of a pyramid temple surrounded by trees, jungle. I could smell the rich greenness of it, and hear the night call of a monkey, the scream of a jaguar. Pinotl knelt and fed from the bloody wound on her chest. He became her servant, and he gained power. Many powers, and one of them was this. And I understood how he’d taken Seth’s essence. More than that I understood how it was done, and how it was undone. I knew how to unmake Nicky’ s creature, though what he’d done to them might mean that to bring them back to flesh would kill them. We didn’t need Nicky to undo the spell; I could do it. Pinotl could do it.
She didn’t ask if I understood. She knew when I had it all. “Now for my question.” And before I could say or think “Wait,” she was inside my head. She drew the memories from me: images, pieces, and I couldn’t stop her. She saw Jean-Claude mark me, and she saw Richard, and she saw the three of us calling power