The House of Flame Lilies Ch. 03

His thick brows knitted together. She saw a tendon rise in his forearm. She resisted a smile, and gave him a small, reassuring nod. He ground his teeth, but stepped backwards and swung the door closed.

Vestalia walked gracefully around the chair with its back to the low fire and sat, luxuriating in the cushions and spreading her skirts out in a vibrant fan. Sandu towered over her from the other side of the coffee table, the minimal light carving into her face and making it even harsher. She reached into her coat, like the folded, leathery wings of an enormous bat, (which Vestalia found amusingly ironic). She cast something small onto the table with a light clack.

Vestalia nudged her pointed chin forward and looked down at the object. It was a little, metal horseshoe charm, looped onto a bow of entwined red and white thread. She blinked disinterestedly. "That's a quaint trinket."

Sandu's upper lip curled like a hound's. "That was a gift from a good woman to a good man." She took a long stride forward to throw Vestalia into her shadow, her shoulders folding back. "A good man you took from the mountainside."

A delicate crinkle appeared above Vestalia's nose. "Lerae, you seem to be confused."

"Confused?" Sandu almost laughed, but it soured into a huff of anger. Her tense restraint tightened, like her voice was on a rack. "I sent five men on patrol. One came back dead, one on the edge of death, and one haunted, telling me tales of a monster with a woman's voice. Two men did not come back at all, dragged by this monster into the dark."

Vestalia stroked down the arm of the chair and drummed her fingers on it. "What a remarkable story, I shall have to tell Cyrus to be careful on his hikes."

"Shall I tell you their names?" Sandu coursed on. "The names of the two men who did not return?"

Vestalia rolled her eyes. It was always like this with Sandu. She would have made an excellent priest.

"Daniel and Sorin." Sandu growled in her throat. "Daniel is 28 and his aging father's sole carer. He has a neighbour who bakes for him. He plays the flute. He's good with animals. Sorin is in love with a girl he grew up with, who trusts and adores him more than the sun. She gave him that quaint trinket. He's 20. 20. Barely more than a boy."

Vestalia shot Sandu a twinkling glance. "Every mortal man is barely more than a boy to me."

Sandu gestured sharply, as if to knock the flippant comment out of the air. "I came for my men. I'm not leaving without them."

Vestalia's slow pulse flickered. "They're not here."

"Liar."

"Your men are not here, Lerae."

"Liar!"

Sandu moved so suddenly, Vestalia only sensed it a fraction of a fraction of a second before it happened. The coat burst wide, like the ruff of an attacking frill-necked lizard. There was a flash of piercing silver, and a bang, as Sandu's boot landed on the coffee table. A blade lunged out from her descending form.

The room was plunged into darkness. The flames of the hearth and candles all extinguished with a sharp hiss.

Sandu's blade thumped into a cushion.

She swore and withdrew it, whirling around, her toes grinding on the rug between the table and chair. Her pulse pounded in her ears. The blanketing darkness and wisp of smoke from the doused fire smothered her senses. She forced herself still, silencing her breath, bending her knees, ready to spring. She turned slowly, focusing her hearing over the creak of her boots. Her fingers moved on the handle of the knife. She listened.

A rustle to her right.

She spun and lunged. The blade sliced through air. A heavy blow cracked against her elbow, a painful darting shock up and down the nerves in her arm. Her hand spasmed and flew open. The knife fell.

She did not hear it hit the floor.

She snatched at her belt and rapidly drew her pistol. A sting lanced her hand, the stolen blade gashing her fist. Again, her weapon fell. Again, she didn't hear it land.

Her heart stoppered her throat. Her stomach see-sawed. She whipped around, swiping at the darkness, gathering her composure and hardening herself against the rush of terror. Her mind whirred furiously, mapping the space as she saw it before losing the light, cataloguing everything she knew about her enemy, every detail of motion, every possible motive, looking for any chink in this armour of darkness, any advantage, any next move. Should she speak? Should she risk another weapon? What could she hear? Where was the creature? She darted her hand back into her coat, fingers closing on the handle of a wooden stake.

Pain.

It hacked her in half, seized her gut, set fire to her spine and her pelvis.

The knife was in her side.

Sandu gasped gratingly. Adrenaline pumped into her body, isolating the agony and freezing her on the blade just under her ribs. She fought against the flooding shock.Stay alert. Can you move? How deep is it? How-

A lethal hiss snaked into her ear, spiced breath brushing her face. A cold presence was unnervingly close at her back, creeping over her. "Now then, Lerae, shall we have this conversation like civilised people?"

Sandu spilled her righteous, vengeful anger over her fear, salt on ice. "Go to He- AH!"

Vestalia twisted the knife. Sandu gagged on her roar of pain, her insides grinding. She tried to draw the stake, but the movement gauged her. She gripped the wooden handle and wheezed roughly.

Vestalia's hiss continued abrasively, frosting her ear. "That good, thick coat has saved you. I couldn't quite go deep enough to hit the mesenteric artery. Do you know which that is? It's the large channel arising from your aorta, going straight down your body. If I push just a little further in, if I so much as nick it, your body will flood. You'll die in moments."

Sandu's free hand groped behind her and closed on nothing. She tried again for the stake. The knife twisted again. Her stomach heaved.

"I've already been merciful. I went just under your kidneys. I missed your stomach, your pancreas, your spleen, your liver and your gallbladder. Your intestines on the other hand..." One more mangling twist. "That's a different story, I'm afraid. There isn't much blood here. It's a slow way to die. It would actually be much kinder, if I pushed that final half-inch."

Sandu sucked the breath rapidly between her teeth, eyes revolving in the darkness, pain splitting her ribs and back.

"So, I'll ask you once more: won't you stay for a drink?"

Sandu grit her teeth. Her fingers finally loosened on the stake. She nodded, feeling a coil of silken hair nudge her cheek.

"Excellent."

The knife sang out of Sandu. A fresh agony tore her senses. She dropped to her knees, the hand on the stake moving to crush into the wound and stem the blood flow. Her body crashed between wanting to collapse and wanting to vomit. She gripped her mind and dug her fist deeper into the wound to shock herself alert. Her eyes hazed, then sharpened, as the low, red glimmer rose back into the room.

Vestalia stood over her in a swirl of crimson, holding the dripping knife with one hand, levelling the pistol at her with the other. Her face was as pale and still as a plaster cast. She looked almost bored. Sandu bared her teeth, panting pointedly, her throat raw. Vestalia raised the knife to her lips. A long, dark tongue snaked over the slick of blood on the blade. She took a long, lascivious lap, then lashed her tongue and sniffed sharply.

"Silver. You tricksy kitten," she purred. "Your taste is almost worth it."

Sandu's face contorted in a silent snarl.

Vestalia lowered the knife. Her spiked thumb flicked over the hammer of the pistol. It cocked with a loud click. "What a lot of equipment you brought with you. See, this is why I would have preferred you let Cyrus take your coat. Off with it now, please."

Sandu hesitated, but couldn't find an alternative. With a series of pained, resentful grunts, she eased herself out of the coat. It tumbled to the floor with a heavy thud and a wooden clatter. Shedding the weight gave her fleeting relief, but moving her body while still staunching her wound pierced her repeatedly. The covering fell away to reveal the hilt of a knife protruding from her boot and a handheld crossbow hanging from a holster at her belt. Vestalia smiled like she was catching a toddler with an apron full of sticks. She twitched the pistol at them. Sandu jutted her jaw out, but unbuckled the holster, drew the knife, and cast them aside. She heard a skittering behind her, her weaponry and coat being dragged away. Her rosary lay under her shirt. She lifted her free hand slowly and tugged the collar down to unveil the crucifix.

Vestalia wrinkled her nose, but seemed otherwise unaffected. "Worth a try, wasn't it?"

Sandu dropped her hand ruefully, her shirt drifting back up over the cross.

Vestalia narrowed her eyes. "Roll up your sleeve."

Sandu ticked her jaw. Her wound spat hot blood over her knuckles, as she raised the fist plugging it. With her other hand, she snicked open her shirt cuff and slid it down. There was a symbol tattooed on the inside of her wrist, a triangle bisected with a horizontal line pointing up to a circle with a dot in the centre.

Vestalia's look of disgust darkened. "You know which sleeve."

Sandu pursed her lips and glowered. She unhooked the other sleeve and pulled it down to reveal a wrist brace strapping a vial of water to her arm.

"Hand it over."

Sandu unfastened the brace and took the vial from the slot. She tossed it up to Vestalia, then plunged both hands back over the leaking wound with a stifled groan and momentary swoon.

Vestalia tossed the knife away, with a clang, and caught the vial. She lifted it to her pert nose. "Mmm, straight from the font." Her eyes fixed to Sandu's and flared with Hellish fire. She raised the vial and curled her long fingers around it.

She crushed it in her hand.

Specks of glass burst from her fist and sparked in the candlelight. With an acidic hiss, the holy water gushed over her hand and consumed it in steam. Her flesh erupted into biting blisters. The water trickled down her bare forearm, leaving red tracks of peeled, burned skin. She held Sandu's gaze throughout, never flinching, not making a sound, the stench of seared flesh blooming between them. The steam dissipated. Vestalia rubbed her ruined fingers together and sprinkled the last remnants of the vial onto the floor.

Sandu swallowed, suppressing a flicker of fear. She glanced between the creature's penetrating gaze and the eye of the still-levelled gun.

Shapes moved in the darkness at the rims of the walls and furniture, dwarfish, misshapen figures crawling in the shadows and taking away the knife, sneaking into unseen hollows and returning with the clinking sound of china. Vestalia finally lowered the pistol and moved it behind her, where one of the goblins must have taken it, because her hand was empty when it came back into view.

She put her unmarred hand on her hip and gusted an exasperated sigh out of her nose. "Right, let's see that wound."

Sandu frowned in confusion, momentarily distracted trying to glimpse the goblins. The occasional stubby wing or claw poked into a pool of light and looked oddly like stone. "What?" she gruffed.

Vestalia gestured casually, speaking as if she was ordering cotton from a taylor. "I hardly want you bleeding out on my carpet, it's all the way from Persia. Show me."

Sandu drew back, but even that motion hurt in her centre. The edges of her brain were blurring, the sickness receding less and less when it rose. She tilted to expose her stabbed flank, untucking her shirt from her britches and pulling it up. The golden light gleamed on the fine, red slit and the beads of blood oozing from it. A large, ceramic dish slid out of the shadow to Sandu, water rippling in it, smelling faintly of salt, a cloth folded neatly over the edge. Vestalia crouched beside her, her skirts flowing, the same colour as Sandu's wound. Vestalia extended her elegant, uninjured hand, the burned one cradled over her belly, and sloshed the cloth in the salt water with a gentle, lapping sound. She pressed it to the wound.

A vicious sting injected into Sandu's flesh. She winced and growled through clenched teeth. Vestalia ignored her, cleaning the wound as if she was polishing a vase. Sandu watched her like a fox, ready to leap away the minute her fangs showed. But Vestalia's mouth stayed relaxed and closed. When the smears of blood had been washed away, she dropped the cloth in the pink-tinged water. She slipped her thumb into her mouth. She bit down. She withdrew her thumb with a fat jewel of blood blooming on the pad. Sandu's gut lurched. She tried to scramble away, but the slashes in her intestines held her firm. Vestalia ran her thumb over the wound, leaving a stroke of blood across it. Sandu's heart was in her mouth. She felt as if she'd just been drizzled with the toxic saliva of a Komodo dragon. The ugly notion of filth stole through her body.

But the pain ebbed.

She gaped, as the skin stitched back together. She felt the healing sink through her, repairing her severed intestinal walls and cleansing her insides. The sickness rolled away, the rending pain faded into a dull soreness. She moved gingerly and felt no tug against the wound. She stared in a mixture of wonder and horror into Vestalia's placid face. Vestalia blinked at her with a complete lack of expression. She sucked the already sealed cut on her thumb, then washed her hand in the bowl and stood fluidly. She walked leisurely back to the coffee table, nudging the stack of books back into place that had been displaced by Sandu's leap. There was now a tray beside them, bearing a blue china teapot and two cups. She folded back into her chair.

Sandu watched her, mouth still hanging open. Then she shook herself and heaved to stand, still testing her healed side. She shifted her weight carefully, then rolled her shoulders, the slimy feeling of violation still clinging to her skin.

"You're welcome," Vestalia drawled from where the fire silhouetted her.

Sandu glared. "I do not thank you."

A mildly indignant sniff. "I just healed you."

"With your tainted blood."

"I won't tell, if you won't." The note of play in her voice was vexing.

"And it was you that stabbed me," Sandu added bitterly.

Vestalia shrugged. "You started it."

"You-!"

"Tea?"

On the other side of the house, Sparrow paced agitatedly around the library, wringing his hands and winding them into the ripples of his loose, cotton shirt. His hair drifted about his face, his waistcoat hung open, he had dressed in a hurry, suddenly cold without Vestalia, despite the fire. His boots clacked on the varnished floorboards, the harsh noises spitting in his ear and jabbing his pulse faster, like the smacks of a crop. The sounds of that pistol shattering the calm and the furious, bestial roar of the stranger at the gate echoed in his skull. He hastened between the cases of curiosities, trying to distract himself. Vestalia had asked him to stay and he ardently wanted to do as she wished. But he hated being apart from her when she might be in danger. He hated the thought of not being able to help. He looked down at himself. He understood that she was stronger than him, that she wanted his young, willowy body kept far from harm. It moved him deeply. But she didn't know what he could do. She didn't know that if she was hurt, or worse, she would need him. She didn't know that he could...

He couldn't stand it any more.

He straightened his back and dashed to the door. He unlocked it swiftly and slipped through. He wasn't sure exactly which room the drawing room was, but he trusted the corridors to guide him. This house wanted its mistress safe as much as he did.

The tea trickled musically into the dainty cups, mingling with the quiet munching of the fire on logs. Plumes of fragrant steam sighed into the air, momentarily veiling the creature's eerie visage, as she gracefully poured. The hand ravaged by holy water was now tucked into an elbow-length, black, satin glove. The tea was amber and smelled of roots and dried flowers, a peculiarly pleasant, homey scent in this wicked place.

Sandu bent forward, shifting in her seat, elbows on her knees. She smelled the steam, but did not drink. She eyed Vestalia grimly. "You broke our accord."

Vestalia swilled her tea a little in her cup and took a sip. She smacked her lips around her reply. "Oh, please, it was not our accord. That treaty was made years ago, before you even bore that crest." She gestured dismissively with the cup. "Why, when humans are blessed with a light, fleeting life, must they weigh it miserably down with the affairs of the dead before them? I mean even the name of your little hunting club, L'Héritiers du Sang Mortel. Heirs? Why? Why do you want to be heirs when you have been given infinite materials with which to forge your own path?"

Sandu glared. "We aren't hunters. We're defenders."

Vestalia's mouth twisted. "I'm sure that's what farmers say when they shoot at wolves around their livestock. But, they always forget," she took a deep sip and flicked her startling eyes to Sandu over the rim, "the wolf was there first."

Sandu met her gaze. For a long moment, the two of them searched each other's faces. Neither found anything they could use.

Sandu laced her fingers between her knees. "Whether you understand it or not, when the Skarpo chapter of Sang Mortel passed to me, I was presented with a border that ran through the mountains, and was told that it had been agreed with the lady of this land. That she would not hunt beyond it, if we left her be."

Vestalia dusted something off her skirt. "Sounds familiar."

"So, when I sent my men to patrol our side of the border, they should have remained untouched."

"Theoretically."

Sandu swallowed a surge of bile and spoke slowly, battling to keep her control. "So. Why. Weren't. They?"

Vestalia sipped again, the slight, ghostly echo natural to her voice emphasised by the cup at her lips. "I couldn't possibly say. These forests are swarming with dangers." She swallowed and replaced the cup on the tray. She stayed bent forward, one hand rested on her knee, the other combing the ends of her hair. "What I can say, though, is that that treaty was made before Skarpo had grown to be such a thriving town. Many of the mountain villages have drained into it. It makes for sparse prey for the predators of the higher forest."

The acid in Sandu's stomach boiled. "So you attacked my party to... what? Make a point? Call for a renegotiation of territory?"

"If I attacked your men," Vestalia replied, voice serpentine, "it would be because I was hungry. Nothing more." She tilted her head, her eyes catching the candlelight and becoming twin, radiating lamps. "Everything I do is because I am hungry, Lerae. What better reason is there to do anything?"

"Spoken like the voice of Hell."

Vestalia groaned and flopped back in her chair petulantly, flicking a scarlet-tipped lock of hair over her shoulder. "Oh, and I suppose everything you do has wholly virtuous motives?"

"I have only one motive you need concern yourself with: retrieving my men." Sandu unlaced her fingers and stretched one hand out to plant on the gleaming mahogany, like she was presenting a hand of cards. "Give them back."

Sparrow crept along the dim corridors, until he finally heard Vestalia's voice floating to him, siren song. He tip-toed to the door it was coming from and pressed his ear to it. He held his breath. Her and the stranger's voices eked through the dense wood.

"There are no men of yours in this house," Vestalia said in a finite tone.

"I know you're holding them somewhere." The stranger's voice was deep and official and laced with anger. "Return them to me, and we can discuss redrawing the hunting grounds."