"No. It was other Sorceri bent on stealing her goddesslike power. They poisoned her." The Sorceri so adore their poisons, she thought bitterly. But then she frowned at the memories. "It did things to the young girl's mind, this repeated dying. Like an arrowhead forged in fire, she was made sharp and deadly from con­stant pressure and blows. And she began to covet life as no other before her. Whenever she felt hers was in danger, a mindless fury swept through her, the need to lash out undeniable."
When some of their eyes widened, Sabine realized her pensiveness had made the cell appear to be choked with mist. She often unwittingly displayed illusions that mirrored her thoughts and emotions, even when dreaming.
As she swiftly cleared the air, another patient said, "Good miss, wh-what happened after the poisoning?"
"The sisters just wanted to survive, to be left alone, to amass a fortune in gold through just a bit of sorcery. Was that too much to ask?" She gave them an "hon­estly ?' look.
"But the Vrekeners were unrelenting, tracking them by the girls' sorcery. Especially the boy. Because he hadn't reached his immortality by the time he made that leap, he didn't regenerate. He'd been broken, scarred and deformed from his injuries forever."
They'd since learned his name was Thronos and that he was the son of the Vrekener Sabine had beheaded all those years ago. "Without the use of sorcery, the girls wer-e starving. Sabine was now sixteen and old enough to begin doing what any girl like her would."
Brazen Mortal crossed her arms over her chest and knowingly said, "Prostitution."
"Wrong. Commercial fishing."
"Really?"
"Noooo," Sabine said. "Fortune-telling. Which promptly earned her a death sentence for being a witch."
She fingered the white streak in her red hair, the one she hid from others with an illusion. "They didn't always burn witches at stakes. That's a fallacy. No, sometimes a village had burned its quota, so they killed secretly, burying a group alive." Her tone grew soft. "Can you imagine what it was like for the girl to breathe earth? To feel it compacting in her lungs?"
She gazed over her silent audience. Their eyes had gone wide-she could hear a pin drop.
"The humans expired quickly, but not so for Sabine," she continued. "The girl withstood the reaper's call for as long as she could, but felt herself fading. Yet then she heard a ringing voice from above, commanding her to live and to rise from her grave. So Sabine mind­lessly obeyed, digging against others' dead flesh, blindly stretching, desperate for another inch closer to the surface."
From behind them, Lanthe's voice intoned, "At last, Sabine's hand shot up from the muddy ground, pale and clenched. Finally, Melanthe could find her sister. As she hauled Sabine out of her grave, lightning struck all around and hail pelted them-like the earth was angry to lose her catch. Since that fateful night, Sabine doesn't care about anything."
Sabine sighed. "It's not true that she doesn't care about anything. She cares about nothing very much."
Lanthe glared, her eyes shimmering a metallic blue from her recent infusion of power.
"How amusing, Sabine," she said, laying the words directly into Sabine's mind.
Sabine jumped. "Telepathy. Outstanding. Try to retain it." Gods, she was relieved to see Lanthe acquire another power. Her sister's persuasion had been exhausted keep­ing Sabine alive.
It seemed that all those deaths had made Sabine even more powerful while weakening Lanthe-in both ability and resilience.
"That sorceress also had the power to talk to animals," Lanthe continued. "Guess what you're getting for your birthday!"
"Oh, bully." One of the least sought powers of all Sorceri. The problem with communicating with ani­mals was that there were rarely enough within earshot to be helpful. "I can only hope a plague of locusts is milling about when 1 need them." To her audience, Sabine said, "We're finished here."
The long-haired male asked, "Wait, what happened after that burial?"
"Things got much, much worse," Sabine said dismis-sively.
The crying female cried harder. "H-how could it get worse than dying so much?"
Sabine dryly answered, "They met Omort the Death­less. He was a sorcerer who could never know death's
kiss, and so he was instantly smitten with the girl so well acquainted with it."
Lanthe met her eyes. "He'll be wondering where we are."
"But he knows we'll always return." Omort had controls in place for the sisters. Sabine gave a bitter laugh. Had they actually once thought they'd be safe with him?
Just then, Sabine heard the sound of wings outside.
"They've come." Lanthe's eyes darted to the cham­ber's high window. "We run, run for the tunnels beneath the city, and try to find our portal above."
"I'm not in the mood to run." The building began to rock-or it appeared to-with Sabine's anger.
"When are you ever? But we have to."
Though Sabine and Lanthe were nearly as fast as the fey and were notoriously dirty fighters, the Vrekeners' sheer numbers were unstoppable. And the sisters pos­sessed no battle sorcery.
Lanthe's gaze swept over the room, searching for escape. "They'll catch us even if you make us invisible."
With a flick of her hand, Sabine wove an illusion. Suddenly she and Lanthe both looked like patients. "We'll create a stampede of humans and run out into the night with them."
Lanthe shook her head. "The Vrekeners will scent us."
Sabine blinked at her. "Lanthe, have you not smelled my humans?"
1
Present day
The Tongue and Groove Strip Club, Southern Louisiana
A lap dance for the sexy demon?"
With a firm shake of his head, Rydstrom Woede turned down the half-clad female.
"With a lap like yours, I'll make myself at home," another told him. "For free." She cupped one of her br**sts upward and dipped her tongue to her nipple.
That got him to raise an eyebrow, but still he said, "Not interested."
This was one of the low points of his life, surrounded by strippers in a neon-lit Lore club. He was on edge in this ridiculous place, feeling like the worst hypocrite. If his ne'er-do-well brother found out where he'd been, he would never hear the end of it.
But Rydstrom's contact had insisted on meeting here.
When a pretty nymph sidled up behind him to mas-
sage his shoulders, he picked up her hands and faced her. "I said no."