Page 38 of The Rising Dark
“And worst of all, you would have to be…withthem.”
“Excellent point.What was up with that kid?Should he really be involved with things like that?”
“Well, I met Balor for the first time over forty years ago,” Lavinia said.
“No way.”Michelle started upright—another jolt through Lavinia’s hip.Still, Lavinia wouldn’t move away or sit on one of the armchairs.She was exactly where she wanted to be.
Lavinia nodded.“I don’t know what the witches call…what he is.We call them the forever children, because they don’t age.It is said that it is a bargain they make, where they choose magic over the growth of a normal human life.I don’t know of any making it past sixty.Balor is quite old for his kind.”
“So they make achilddo that to themselves?”
“I don’t know whether they have a say in their own creation or not, but yes.”
Michelle slumped back into the cushions.“God.I’m starting to see why you all don’t like them.”
“Don’t like who?”Proserpina sauntered into the room.Rest had done her good.Her olive skin had regained warmth, and she moved with more ease.She, too, was relegated to staying inside until she had regrown her torn lung tissue and restored her cracked ribs.She still slept through most of the day, the hours that she was awake extending slowly.When the weather was clear, she and Lavinia lay on the grass for an hour at the height of night, allowing their bodies to heal under the moonlight’s rejuvenating rays.Lavinia had taken over some of Pina’s duties around the mansion’s defence, checking the security systems, both visible and invisible, that protected the Sisterhood’s headquarters until Pina was well enough again.
“Witches,” Lavinia said.Pina picked up a strawberry from the plate on the coffee table and popped it into her mouth.The soft thickness of bandages around her chest still filled out Pina’s loose hoodie, but Lavinia was pleased to see her friend’s steady recovery.
“Fucking witches,” Pina agreed.Then she looked at Michelle.“No offence.”
“Apparently I don’t count, which is fine by me,” she replied.
“Then I stand by it.”Pina sat down on one of the armchairs and folded her legs underneath her.“I don’t know how you can stand it, Vin.I’m bored out of my mind.”
“Teaches you not to get impaled by a chair leg next time,” Lavinia said mildly.
“I swear, those rogues were the most coordinated I’ve ever seen.And so fast.”
Lavinia nodded.She had been thinking much the same.
“How can you tell someone is a rogue, and not like, just another vampire?”Michelle asked.
Pina lifted one perfectly manicured finger.“Well, first of all, a vampire in their right mind would never threaten a Sister of Twilight.But with a rogue, it’s more than that.They have a certain smell, all sour and bitter.They feed until their victim dies, and that death clings to them.It’s in their eyes, their movements.It’s hard to explain, but once a vampire truly gives themselves up to their thirst for blood, they leave their senses behind.They usually barely speak—reasoning with them is impossible.It’s like they have reverted into an animalistic state.”
“And they never come back from it?”
“Never,” Pina said.
“Couldn’t they be locked up or something?”
“Annihilation is the only justice vampires know,” Pina said.
“It just seems so…”
“Cruel?”Pina supplied.
“Yeah.Maybe.”
It wasn’t like humans had a much better track record.Lavinia could well remember the festival atmosphere of the London public executions of the early nineteenth century.Then, due to changes in ideas of morality, they had been curtailed, held behind closed doors.Now, the Brits no longer killed their murderers but kept them to live out their lives in crumbling estates.Lavinia wasn’t a moral philosopher.All she knew was that rogues were a danger to civilians, vampire and human alike.
“You have to remember a rogue could live on for centuries.As they descend deeper, they become increasingly engulfed by their frustrated desires.Quite frankly, keeping them alive only to suffer would be torture,” Pina said.
“It’s an imperfect response,” Lavinia agreed.It was certainly dirty work, and dangerous.“But it’s the only one we have right now.”If there was a way to bring a rogue back from the brink, that would be vastly preferable.No one had ever been able to.Many rogues killed their family members, or even loved ones, if they stood between them and the objects of their obsessions.
“You should talk to Octavia about this.She lives for this kind of shit.”Pina lowered her voice to mimic Octavia’s, pinching her eyebrows.“Pina, we need to dismantle the matriarchy, or true equality will never prevail.”She returned to her normal voice.“She doesn’t have to tell me, I was born under a different star.”
“What does that mean, born under a different star?”Michelle asked.
