No one made them anymore—because no one believed in the health benefits of bleeding.
Except for vampires.
Anna rolled up her white sleeve and proffered me her wrist. Another observer brought up a golden urn that had been fitted with a delicate tap.
“I trust you,” she said, looking down at me. I knew what the stakes were, but—“Edie. It will be okay. I trust you.”
I knew I couldn’t hurt her—doing this wouldn’t hurt her. And many times vampires, and even sometimes me, found pleasure inside pain. But still.
Where was the difference between piercing someone’s skin with a needle, for their own good, and setting this thing’s blackened grinding blades onto her? How many times had I hurt to make things better—hurt other people, and hurt myself?
She wanted me to do it. If I didn’t, it might be the end of her. And the end of us.
I set the box on her skin. Then I stabilized it with my thumb, holding it still, my fingers cupping her wrist. I could feel the smoothness of her skin.
And then, God help me, I spun the handle around. The blades dug down. I didn’t dare look up.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
She didn’t flinch.
The blades were dull—it’d been a century since they were sharp. At least sterility didn’t matter—this predated the idea of germs, much less the autoclave—since there was nothing Anna could contract. I pressed the box harder and spun the handle with more force. I felt like a perverted organ grinder’s monkey, paid a pittance to liberate someone’s blood.
The first drops emerged. Snaking down her arm in red tributaries, joining on her wrist to become a river, following the same path of least resistance to pool in the palm of her hand.
Warm in a way their blood would never be, hot as it rolled down to drip drip drip into the urn. I could hear the first few drops ting, like rain on a cheap window, before there was enough blood to make it sound like slow running water.
I couldn’t see the vampires in attendance, but I felt their attention, rapt. How much blood did one body hold? Her size, her slight weight? I knew the answer, somewhere. I tried not to think about it. Hard.
Those who were helping with the ceremony came up and twisted the tap, decanting Anna’s blood into trays of small glasses, which I realized with a shock were communion cups. Some of them were precise, catching every drop. Others were wasteful, overfilling glasses, letting blood drip down between. Anna ignored them, I almost said something, and she put her free hand on my shoulder before I could speak.
“I heal quickly, even now. Keep going,” she said.
* * *
I hadn’t counted the congregants before. I wished I had. Tray after tray of glasses was filled, dispensed, and filled again. Anna’s hand on my shoulder didn’t change; it didn’t claw me with pain or fade away with the urge to faint.
I wanted to think I would have stopped all this if it had.
After what seemed like hours, the last tray was full, and there was no one else in line. Anna stood there, still white and gleaming, if you ignored the carnage down her right arm. Sensing things were through, I lifted the scarficator, saw where it had ripped through the skin and into the muscles of her forearm, the shreds of exposed white tendon, the dull gleam of living bone. Just as quickly, she began to heal, tendons reknitting, muscle sheaths regrowing.
I had never seen the process up close before. I gasped aloud. It was genuinely miraculous.
From the front of the stage I could finally see the crowd—and I knew now why I had been chosen. They were rapt with lust. The room was silent, charged.
“So you see,” Anna announced to the group before us, rolling her sleeve back down her arm. “I have passed the final test. I thank you for those who donated to my trials. Drink now, and think well of me.”
Some vampires darted long tongues into the small cups, others tipped them back to drink each drop, and still others swirled elegant fingers inside, pulling out drops of blood to lick like cake batter. So cruel to be limited to just a sip of her blood, when they could take—and she would make—so much more. If one of them had been here, instead of me, and she hadn’t been absolutely sure of their loyalty as she was of mine—
There was a commotion at the back of the room. A group of vampires forced their way in, jostling one another and the already seated host, each of them dressed as elaborately as the lone Bathory speaker before. None of them wore their attire like they were born to it, like they shared its age. Instead they looked like a well-funded Renaissance fair troupe had gotten loose.
“The House of Bathory will now decide!”
“Your time has passed,” the master of ceremonies intoned.