Chapter Sixteen

And death sought the raven

R avyn once again wearily raised her head a degree. Ibis hadn’t been wrong in knowing that Ravyn, weakened with loss of blood, would still only need to slumber a few hours when the sun hit its zenith. Her body had known the moment the sun stood high, and her world went black.

Immediately, she knew outside of Toby that she wasn’t alone. A drip , drip , drip echoed around the chamber, and she found herself counting the drips in her head without realizing. She reached 224 before her mind once again caught up with her situation, and she prayed to the goddess that Toby’s bleeding had stopped. The hours were too long for the pup to be bleeding so freely. Before she even opened her eyes, she checked on the soft, often rattling, slow breaths he took in. Thankfully, he slept as well. The dripping continued echoing in the chamber, but her fuzzy eyesight couldn’t determine the direction it came from. Slowly one, two, three, four drops echoed as Ravyn waited for the sleep to pass and forced herself to stop counting the sounds.

Taking a deep breath, she could taste the evil of Ibis’s magic tainting the air. Why was she back? Waiting to taunt Ravyn with more threats?

“Wakey, wakey time.” Ibis’s voice cracked through the air, and Ravyn couldn’t help but compare the grating sound to Anya’s soft tones. A small chuckle escaped the magical being. Ibis spoke with both glee and wonderment. “I knew you were stronger than the sun. It’s been centuries since I could take such a short nap.”

Lifting her head slightly higher, Ravyn took in the figure of Ibis sitting primly in a chair, her legs crossed at her ankles as if she were sitting at a garden party and not participating in kidnapping and torture. How could one so beautiful be so evil?

“You, my dear Little Bird, are the one I hoped for. Even with continual draining, you still managed to wake up faster than vampires half you age.”

With horror, Ravyn realized the dripping— seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven —came from her. The sound of her blood pinging on the floor echoed through her head. This bitch had spent all afternoon draining her slowly and as the cuts healed, she would begin again. With a bit of focus, Ravyn could feel the blood pooling from her wrists even as her body fought to heal her wounds.

Ibis’s wide, maniacal eyes met Ravyn and without looking away, she brought up the knife that had been used for hours to maintain the blood flow. Dried as well as fresh blood still appeared on it, as if just minutes ago Ibis had used the knife. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she brought the knife to her lips and licked off the edge of the blood, expelling a deep breath of satisfaction as she did so.

“Even now I can taste your power.” Ibis shuddered and closed her eyes as the bit of blood rolled around in her mouth before she swallowed it. “It’s so difficult to not drain you now. But for the highest chance of success, we’ll wait for the new moon just as those priests did millennia ago. With one shot at this, we want the most chance for success. Right, my Little Bird?” Ibis asked, as if Ravyn were a willing participant in this plan.

Standing up, with a wave of the knife Ibis added, “Don’t worry about Bertrando; he wore himself out last night. The fool likes to eat and then chase after the moonlight—as if he could catch it. Thankfully for me, he’s now sleeping the day away, so it’s just you and me.” Pausing, she glanced toward the end of the room where a sleeping Toby still half stood, chained in place. “Except, of course, for your little friend. Tsk tsk, Ravyn. I didn’t realize you’d taken up feeding from children.”

Ravyn seethed silently, waiting for the point—whatever it was—that Ibis was trying to make. There was no point in arguing or begging. She refused to give Ibis the satisfaction.

Ibis just stood with her head tilted, bouncing the flat side of the knife in her hand as she examined Ravyn for several long moments.

“Do you even comprehend how special you are? The gifts you, and maybe you alone, received? Seventy years ago, before my immortality was ripped from me, I hid from the daylight twelve hours a day. Twelve hours,” she reiterated, biting out the words sharply. “Half the time we’re given in a day. And we slumbered like the dead for eight of those hours. I’ll bet the only time you slept that long was when you chose to go to ground for a few decades.”

Ibis flipped the knife lightly in the air, the steel shining and catching tiny bits of light as it flew. “You feign weakness, but I see you. You hide away for barely eight hours and I’m not certain you need to do that. And your slumber? Your slumber is nearly a choice. Even drained, your body fought to waken. I was busy, busy for several hours, but if those damn Houska twins taught me anything, it was patience. Yes, patience and more importantly, perseverance with experimentation.”

“I had nothing…” Ravyn began weakly, her vocal cords swollen from hanging so long with the coils around her neck.

A curl of Ibis’s lip and a shake of her head cut off her words. “Little Bird, don’t. There is no one else. I want you. I want your blood to pump through my veins. The power of your blood was enough to awaken the little succubus half-breed.” Ibis shuddered in anticipation. “Never before has that been recorded. With your blood, I will transform into more. You. Will. Not. Deny. Me. This. You will not deny me my immortality.”

Ravyn couldn’t find the will to argue with her. She was insane. Not only magic held her together, but insanity weaved the cords as well. The twins had been right in locking this creature away. How did she know so much, though? Ravyn knew her aversion to the daylight hours, while weak by human standards, wasn’t so much by old vampire standards. Already so many of them revered her due to being an original, but knowing that she stood better against sunlight than any other ancient put a target on her.

She did, in truth, need to sleep four or maybe five hours, but if she was well fed—and Ravyn tended to stay well fed—she could cut that in half. She did need to avoid the sunlight for around eight hours and as long as she stayed out of the sunlight, it didn’t weaken her like other vampires, especially elder vamps.

She was an anomaly and clearly, her attempts to stay under the radar hadn’t gone completely unnoticed. And if Ibis knew, then who else might?

Ibis wasn’t finished yet. Having a captive audience, one who might understand her, certainly made her chatty. “For years—decades—I was kept in a cage. Treated as less than. Worse than one might treat an animal. But I could see glimpses of Anya’s life,” Ibis sneered, “like sunshine in the darkness, one might imagine, but it wasn’t. It was simply more torture. Living out her life, the grand, disgusting life she thought she wanted. It gave me a dream as well. I dreamed of ripping apart the man she loved while she watched before doing the same to her. But it turned out so much better than I imagined. She still had to watch her beloved die and now she’s slowly being eaten away until death takes her as well. Fitting.”

Ravyn knew she couldn’t explain to the sneering, angry creature before her that that was exactly the life and death Anya had wanted. This wasn’t about living an eternal life, but a life filled with love and loving. Ibis, with her anger and hatred, would never understand that. The creature who stood before her, the leftover magic that had formed Ibis, didn’t have the capacity to understand that.

“She couldn’t turn him, you know,” Ibis added abruptly. This bit of news caused Ravyn to look quickly at her sister despite the fact that she didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. “She couldn't be sure that he had any demon blood in him. Are you shocked, Little Sister? All those years ago, when they tasted and tested our blood, they were searching for the taint of demon blood. It didn’t matter how little; they still took us from our families, even those they knew without a doubt didn’t have enough to transform.”

Despite’s Ravyn’s attempt to ignore Ibis, she couldn’t. That was why they’d been picked, of course. But she’d known that already. Their tainted blood was why they’d been torn away from their families and sacrificed.

“How little you know despite your years, Sister,” Ibis spat out. “Haven’t you ever wondered why some can receive the gift of eternal life and others cannot? It’s simply a matter of whether Grandma or Great-grandma or beyond hooked up with a demon lover. And of course, against all odds, the child survived on this plane and managed to procreate. So many things have to line up perfectly for us to receive our gift. Anya just couldn’t be certain her human could survive the gift, so she killed herself to be with him instead.”

Astonished, Ravyn considered those whom she’d attempted to turn over the years. Not many, but at the same time, even fewer survived. She’d assumed it was because they truly didn’t want the gift of immortality, or they were simply too close to death to complete the transformation. This explained so much.

“Of course, you would never wonder why so few can complete the transformation. You’re all about poor Ravyn. You dumb skank! The humans need to have enough demon DNA to accept the transition. Years ago, those bastard priests knew well before that night who would have the best chance of beating death. The rest were just bodies to distract us. Unless, of course, by chance they did turn; then they were a bonus prize. You, you with all your power would have been a boon to them. Your dear father? Most likely you were sired by a demon. They were probably thrilled to suckle your demon laced blood.”

Slow, deep breaths in and out and with a cock of her head, Ravyn once again checked that Toby still breathed and his heart slowly pumped. She found herself wanting to cry like the little girl from long ago who’d played along the river’s edge. Despite Ibis’s taunts, the man who had raised her was still her father. Nothing she could say, would change that.

Would she see Sebastian again? Her heart squeezed tightly at the thought of never seeing him again. And she hadn’t even got to meet his wolf. Would he mourn her or hate her for getting herself in this situation? And Toby too. Dammit and Toby.

“Pay attention, bitch. Although that might not be the insult it once was, now that you sully yourself.

“Those twins knew, though. They claim to be descendants of the vampire creators, the bloody priests who thought they could conquer death. They claim they’re different, but still they trap, they control, they study. Anya feared her love couldn’t transition. So, she gave all of it up for her shell of a life and a short, bitter end. I suspect as the hangman’s noose tightens around her neck, she’ll choke on curses of him.”

But Ibis wasn’t done. Goddess, couldn’t she just take herself and leave in peace? But it was almost like she never got to speak to anyone and now, Ravyn was her chosen confidant—or confessor.

“Meeting the wendigo was a stroke of good luck. If the gods before had abandoned me, that day they smiled upon me. It’s a clever creature in some respects. One must be to live this long, of course. Years spent gathering money and power, all as a means to feed itself. Otherwise, it’s meaningless. Hunger is its driving force. Its only desire is to fill its hunger and early on, it found a way to do so. The coven your people killed off in minutes during your little half-demon rescue? It had spent years building it. They desired power and immortality. They worshiped the wendigo like a god, but only its need for them kept them from being food. Its guards are lesser demons, demons that crawled out of Houska and other hell gates over the years. They wear the skin of humans held together by black magic.”

Ibis stopped pacing, holding her knife loosely in her hand as she examined Ravyn curiously. “Aligning myself with that creature, feeding it bits of information, hints of satisfying its hunger… it was all so simple. Now, the scryer, she was a surprise. It just saw her as a meal and didn’t even realize what it had. A little wisp of a thing, barely any power at all. She didn’t even realize what she could do until I saw the smallest of flames in her. Even with me channeling her magic, it was too weak to see the future or the past, but enough to see the present, to see you at least on occasion, once all of our other doorways closed. Thank the gods she didn’t need all her fingers to scry and that the wendigo left her one eye.” With a roll of her own eyes, Ibis admitted, “Its hunger will be its downfall, but I will be long gone by then.”

Ravyn closed her eyes; the wendigo’s threats weren’t empty. Opening them again, she looked straight at Ibis and pleaded, but not for herself, “Help him, please.” She looked toward Toby. “He’s not a part of this and hasn’t done anything to any of you. Just let him go so he can get help.”

Ibis chuckled, slowly shaking her head. “Oh, sweet Little Bird, I don’t think you understand. I. Don’t. Care.” With a wave of her hand, she explained, “I don’t care what happens to the mutt. I don’t care what happens to you. The whole world can burn and I still won’t care. I want my life back. And you’ll give it to me. You woke the succubus in your half-breed parasite, and you will do the same for me. Then I’ll walk away and not look back.”

After Ibis left, the silence sat thick and heavy in the cell. Even Ravyn’s blood had dried up, no longer hitting the floor with timely pings.

Ravyn’s mind raced as she considered her next move, any move at all.

A small, exhausted voice from across the room whispered, “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

Heart dropping, Ravyn couldn’t bring herself to answer. Toby didn’t deserve a lie, but unless Sebastian came through soon in a big way, they just might. As weakened as she was, she couldn’t fight her way out.