Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [106]
His gaze took in the room, and hesitated over the dead vamp in the middle. But he fell to one knee in front of Itzpapalotl, his back to us and our guns, fur-covered head bowed. “What would you have of me, holy mistress?”
I fought to keep my face blank. Holy mistress? Good grief.
“I want to show our visitors how a god is fed.”
He looked up then, looking into her face. “Who am I to worship, holy mistress?”
“Diego,” she said.
The brown-haired vampire startled at the name, and though his face was blank, empty, I knew he wasn’t happy. “Yes, my dark goddess, what would you have of me?”
“Seth will offer sacrifice to you.” She caressed a delicate hand across the fur of the man’s hood.
“As you like, my dark goddess,” Diego said. His voice was as empty as his face tried to be.
The werejaguar, Seth, crawled on all fours, mimicking the animal whose skin he wore. He pressed his forehead to his hands, lying nearly prostrate at Diego’s feet.
“Rise, priest of our dark goddess, and make sacrifice to us.”
The werejaguar stood, and he was nearly half a foot taller than the vampire. He did something on the front of the jaguar skin, and it opened, enough for him to lift the headpiece over his head, so that the animal’s sightless glass eyes stared back at us over the man’s shoulders. The head flopped bonelessly like a broken-necked thing. His hair was a rich honey blond, sun-streaked, held back in a long club, woven back and forth so that it looked like a lot of hair, but held close to his head so the jaguar skin would slip on easily. It was just like the hairdo on the one who had gotten cut up by the priest backstage.
“Turn so our visitors can see all,” Itzpapalotl said.
The men turned so we had a side view. The werejaguar’s earlobes were covered in; thick white scars. He drew a small silver knife from his belt, the hilt was carved jade. He placed the sliver blade against his earlobe, steadying it with his other hand and sliced it open. Blood spilled in scarlet lines on his fingers, down the blade, to drip on the shoulders of the jaguar skin.
Diego went to the taller man, putting a hand behind his neck, and another at the small of his back. It looked oddly like a kiss, as he drew the werejaguar’s head downward. The vampire’s mouth sealed around the earlobe, drawing it and some of the ear into his mouth. His throat worked as he swallowed, sucking on the wound, drawing it down. The pale blue of his eyes had spread to a sparkling fire like palest sapphires sparkling in the sun. His skin began to glow as if there was white fire inside. The brown of his hair darkened, or maybe that was illusion because of how glowing white his skin had become.
The werejaguar had closed his eyes, head thrown back, breath catching in his throat, as if it felt good. One of his hands lay on the vampire’s bare shoulder, and you could see the pressure of his fingers in that pale, glowing flesh.
Diego drew back, flashing fangs. “The wound closes.”
“Another offering, my cat,” she said.
The vampire moved back just enough for the other man to use the silver blade on the other ear. Then he fell on him, like a lover long refused. He drew back, eyes sparkling with blue light. He looked blind and heavy-lidded as he drew back from him. “The wound closes.”
It was actually interesting that the wound closed as fast as it did. Vamps had an anticoagulant in their saliva that should have kept it flowing, and silver should have forced the shapeshifter to heal human normal, but the wound was closing pretty fast, not fast enough to make me comfortable, but a lot faster than it should have. The only thing I could figure was that Itzpapalotl had somehow given her shapeshifters even more healing ability than a normal shapeshifter. Maybe normal silver bullets wouldn’t work on them, not to kill them anyway. It was something to think about, just in case.
“I want them to see what it is to be a god, Diego. Show them, my cat.”
The werejaguar opened a seam on the fur that looked almost like it was