Persephone Alcmedi 00 - Wicked Circle

next. He wanted to deny Giovanni, but showing a discord between them would only give the shabbubitum something to work with. He held his tongue, but it was not easy.
    Heldridge joined them.
    The sisters had a completely different reaction to the broad-shouldered and handsome vampire. Ailo and Talto came to their feet beside Liyliy. Chests heaved and fell as adoring sighs were cast into the air. Mero could not deny the smirk that crawled over his mouth when he saw Giovanni’s jaw flex angrily while the females admired Heldridge.
    Giovanni saw Mero’s sordid satisfaction and growled to Liyliy, “Read him. Tell me if he believes the Northeastern Quarterlord bears the mark of a witch.”
    “Who are you that I should obey your order?”
    Giovanni glowered.
    “Liyliy,” Mero said, “tell us if Heldridge sincerely believes the Northeastern Quarterlord bears the mark of a witch.”
    “Gladly.” Liyliy strode forward, circled Heldridge once as she appraised him. Before him, her silken gown faded into a puddle of mist at her feet. Her sisters joined her. “Give us your hands.”
    Heldridge swallowed hard. He had feared the Excelsior would require that he prove the truth in his words. No matter how gorgeous these women were, he knew that what was going to happen to him would be terrible. He’d heard Menessos’s tale.
    But my former master, my Maker, will get what he deserves.
    He offered them his hands.
    The most beautiful one touched him. “What is your name?” he whispered.
    “Liyliy.” As soon as she had answered, she began whispering a chant.
    Her clothes had dropped away and he was mesmerized by her voice, her pert breasts. Her sisters whispered, too, and in seconds the mist swirled like a tentacle around his neck. He had only a moment to worry about it, then that mist surrounded his head like a mask and thickened. As he smothered under what now seemed like cloth, instincts overpowered him. He shook his head as if that could loosen the fabric—but it couldn’t. Then he felt them, thousands of . . . somethings . . . like tiny mites marching across his face, crawling under his eyelids. They surged into his ears and up his nose. They tunneled into every pore. He screamed and they flooded into his mouth.
    It was like being eaten alive.
    Suddenly his lungs were full with them, each one now like an atom of oxygen racing into his bloodstream and being carried throughout his body. Worse, the tiny assailants burrowed through his skull. His head felt perforated, as if he would crumble in on himself at the slightest touch. If he’d had the breath to scream again, it would surely have killed him.
    Then these tiny things slithered into his brain like electric eels, jolting him, sinking barbed teeth into his memories, then twisting without letting go, wringing every thought he’d ever had and drinking up whatever spilled.
    Mero had witnessed the method of information transference before, so instead of observing the shabbubitum at work, he watched Giovanni. He wanted his coadvisor, who had been so eager to unleash this trio, to be sickened by the scene, to be horrified by the screams and disgusted by the red foam that bubbled up from Heldridge’s throat onto his lips. But Giovanni seemed to notice only Liyliy’s writhing nakedness.
    When it was done, Liyliy languished in her position atop Heldridge, arching her back and stretching her arms up high. The tentacle of mist that had coiled around Heldridge’s head retreated from the vampire and slithered up to form black satin gloves on Liyliy’s upraised arms.
    It could have been a beautiful display, but the vampire’s screams of pain were still echoing about the cabin as she topped that sound with her own throaty, maniacal laughter.
    Her sisters traded glances and joined her in the sinister mirth, wrapping their arms around her waist. Liyliy’s arms fell about her sisters, and the disturbing joy continued into awkwardness for those around them.
    Mero understood what had spawned the sister’s reaction, though he doubted Giovanni did. Menessos had given these women power that led to their self-destruction, then Menessos had confined them in stone. Now, Heldridge had demanded they be set free to judge the very vampire who had imprisoned them.
    Moreover, the treacherous sisters now had the not-so-naïve knowledge that Heldridge possessed. That data would contain inner workings of the vampire power structure as it existed today, as well as U.S. and international