Briyani had been made to stand at the doorway, but Max was allowed to step forward into the center of the chamber.
“So you demand to see me?” Akvan boomed from a large chair. With his return to earth he had taken human form, but in a horrific, distorted manner in that every aspect was exaggerated and awkward. And, by any definition, horrifically ugly. He was much larger than any man, easily half again as tall as Max himself. “And who are you?”
“I am who called you back to this earth,” Max told him, facing him boldly.
“He is a Venator,” came a voice he recognized all too well. “A powerful one. You are right to keep him at a distance.”
“Sarafina,” Max said, turning as the blond woman he’d nearly married appeared, pushing her way through the small throng from the side of the room. George Starcasset was close by her side. “I see you have wasted no time in finding another companion.”
“Do not be jealous, Maximilian…no one could replace you.” She smiled in a manner that was much less naive than any expression she’d worn when he’d first met her, more than a year ago. The glint in her eyes reminded him of the one he’d seen when he’d been unable to extricate himself from a shopping trip with her: sly and covetous. “I’m delighted to see that you’ve returned to us. I was quite annoyed to find you missing after our visit. Is it perhaps too much to hope that you’ve seen the error of your ways and have come back to the Tutela?”
“A Venator?” Akvan’s low, grating voice drew Max’s attention back to the matter at hand. “No Venator can harm me—it is written in the Shah-Nameh. Let him approach.”
“But he is the concubine of Lilith,” Sara, ever the gossipmonger, insisted. She was moving toward him as if she owned the chamber, not Akvan.
“You know nothing,” Max said, turning away from her. “Be still.”
“Hold him,” she ordered, gesturing sharply at four of the others, “and I shall prove it, Master Div.” She gave a short, almost insolent bow to the demon as the guards she’d summoned swarmed toward him.
Max’s skin crawled as four pairs of hands grasped his shoulders and arms, but he stood stoically as Sara’s delicate little fingers pulled at his shirt, opening the collar to show the new bite.
“See? She has marked him, and the bite never heals…and no undead dares to touch him for fear of bringing her wrath down upon them.” Her hands were warm and smooth over his skin, brushing his neck and dipping down beneath the fabric of his shirt as if she owned him. “And here—Hold him, I said!” She yanked on the ties of the shirt, and then the two halves, opening it over his chest, flicking her finger over the vis bulla that hung uselessly from his areola. “How I’ve missed this,” she murmured cannily, giving it a tug—without noticing that it wasn’t his.
It was painful, but he kept his face blank and his breathing steady. He hadn’t expected Sara to be such an asset to his plan, to move things along so quickly and easily. “Tell your fiends to release me,” he ordered Akvan. “I came of my own will.”
Akvan waved his hand and the four men stepped away, but Sara remained. “Begone,” Max told her. “I have things to discuss with your master.” Sara did not like being mastered by anyone; now that her father was gone she was the heir apparent to the Tutela leadership. The flare of annoyance in her eyes told him he’d hit the mark.
“Get away from him.” George Starcasset, the cowardly weasel, spoke. Jealousy colored his voice. “Or you will drive Lilith’s anger down upon yourself.”
“But I am safe here with Akvan,” Sara said pertly, her eyes sliding over Max one last time as she glided back toward her companion. She shot a coy look at the demon, and Max was certain he saw her flutter her eyelashes. “She’d not dare to show her face here, for she’s been hiding in her mountains for almost two years now.”
Max would have laughed at her innocent comment if he’d been in any other situation. How little she knew Lilith.
“Why have you come?” Akvan boomed. “Only three days ago you escaped from my…hospitality.” His laugh was deep and raspy.
“I’ve come because I called you back from nothing when I destroyed your obelisk. And for that you owe me a boon.”
“A boon? I owe you a boon?”
“Without me you would still be trapped in nothing, whilst the son of Lilith would wield your power here on this earth.” Max felt the cool air over his bare skin, but held off the urge to draw his shirt back together.
Akvan’s jowls were shaking, and his eyes had nearly disappeared among the folds of their lids and his crinkled skin. His laugh was silent, yet condescension exuded from every one of his large pores. “And what favor is it that you demand?”
The demon was obviously just humoring Max’s conversation, but that served the plan. Weave the web, one thin skein at a time.
For the first time Max allowed himself to show a bit of a falter, a hesitation. Now he pulled the edges of his shirt together. “What I have to say is for your ears only.” And large, malformed ones they were.
Akvan looked at him, his eyes visible again, and sharp. “No. You speak aloud, here, among all.”
Indeed. “There is no love lost between you and Lilith,” he began, letting his eyes flicker around. “And I bear her no love myself.”
“I knew it was so,” Sara hissed from the side.
“Shut up,” Starcasset snapped back.
Ah. Division among the ranks.
“Those pieces are too small to reconstruct your obelisk,” Max said, gesturing to the small pile of obsidian. “I can obtain a much larger shard that you can use to rebuild and restore your power.”
“The one in the possession of the Venator?” asked Akvan. “I do not need it.”
Max shrugged. “Then our business is concluded.” He turned to leave, his eyes meeting Briyani’s at the back of the room. The other man gave a bare nod of readiness. Now they would see.
“Wait.”
Max turned and faced Akvan, allowing a trace of apprehension to show on his face. “Yes?”
“You have this shard?”
“I can get it for you.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“I wish to ally myself with one who has greater power than Lilith. I desire to destroy her hold over me. She promised to release me if I destroyed your obelisk, but she has refused.”