17
Blood. Where to get living blood to tempt the jaded palate of an ancient vampire?
Astarion racked his brain. Perhaps the Guild would have some leads?
Or Rat’s Run…hmm. There was a rakshasa associated with Rat’s Run, but Astarion did not see that conflict ending well.
Unless I could convince her to simply donate a vial…
“Pardon me, my tiger-headed beauty, but may I just open a vein for a moment?”
He didn’t see that going well, either. I’ll leave that as a last resort.
His thoughts were interrupted by a hesitant knock on the door. Caution kept him from simply throwing the door open. It would be just like Violet to decide to hamstring the competition. She couldn’t enter his room without permission, but she could certainly throw a knife in, or a vial of acid.
“Who is it?”
“Dalyria.”
Astarion opened the door, making sure the wood stayed between his body and the hallway. When nothing happened after a moment, he looked around the edge and saw Dalyria and…Yousen?
“May we enter?” Dalyria asked, glancing nervously over her shoulder.
Astarion was fairly certain that the two of them together would present no challenge for him. “Freely and of your own will,” he said, stepping aside. The elf and the gnome crowded inside, and he shut the door behind them.
Dalyria seemed to relax once the door was closed. “We…ah…have a proposition for you.”
“Darling, I’m flattered, but is this really the time?”
Yousen flushed, but Dalyria only rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. This contest. We—Yousen and I—have no hope of winning. We know that.”
Astarion happened to agree with this but felt it would be impolitic to say so. “Go on.”
They exchanged a glance. Then Dalyria said, all in a rush, “If he makes the winner into a true vampire, we’d rather it was you.”
Now he actually was flattered, if only slightly. “Better me than Petras or Violet, you mean? And what about Aurelia?”
“Gone,” Dalyria said. “We tried her room first. Sorry.”
That startled a laugh out of him. “I can hardly fault you for that. But you realize that it’s probably moot? This is bound to be a trick. He’s never going to actually make one of us a vampire.”
“Probably not.” There was a suppressed fire behind Dalyria’s eyes. “But are you willing to take the chance that he’s serious and someone else will win the prize?”
The doctor might not have a good grasp of people, but she obviously knew Astarion well enough. “No. No, I am not. But if you’ve simply come to deliver your well-wishes, I am grateful but rather busy.”
“We can help you.”
He raised an eyebrow at that. Dalyria’s connections as a doctor might well prove useful, but Yousen would bolt at the slightest hint of danger. “Can you, now?”
Dalyria met his eyes, as she so rarely did. “I know where to get the blood of a god.”
Astarion’s breath hissed between his teeth.
Yousen piped up in his thin voice. “And I’m the one who can get you there.”
* * *
—
“So let me see if I have this correct. Yousen is going to lead me through tunnels below the Undercity to an undead cult, who are worshipping an artifact that Dalyria happens to know is the blood of a dead god.”
“Right,” Dalyria said.
“Mask, god of thieves and shadows, specifically.”
“Right.”
“But the blood is still alive.”
“So my sources say.”
“How do your sources know that?”
Dalyria studied the ceiling for a moment, clearly debating how much to tell him. Astarion folded his arms. “I know that it doesn’t come easily to any of us, my dear, but if you want me to take part in this wild-goose chase, you will simply have to trust me.”
She nodded to him, or possibly the ceiling. “You know that Cazador has me sourcing his various ingredients and reagents.”
“Indeed.” Astarion gestured for her to continue.
“I put it out some years ago that I was particularly interested in exotic bloods. That’s why that fool wizard kept trying to sell me his unicorn scab. Another, more reliable source informed me of the cult, but I had no real way of reaching it. You, however…”
Astarion massaged his temples. He felt a headache coming on. “If you two want to kill me, I must say, this is excessively elaborate.”
“We don’t want to kill you,” Yousen said earnestly. “We want you to win.”
“You realize that I can’t turn you, even if I’m a vampire. You’ll still be Cazador’s spawn. His blood is the only thing that can change you into a true vampire.”
“No, of course not,” Dalyria said. “But if you win, Violet and Petras lose. And I find the notion of you with power far more congenial. You, at least, have been supportive of my experiments.”
That was true enough. Astarion tapped a manicured fingernail against his lower lip. And why have you been making such an effort to befriend her, if not for moments such as this? Yousen, granted, was a contemptible little wretch, but even he might prove useful, if only as the source of an extra vial.
“We’ll say that, provisionally, I accept your explanation. What is bothering me the most is that apparently there has been an undead cult under the city for decades and no one has bothered to mention it.”
Yousen looked surprised. “You didn’t know?”
“You did?”
“Where did you think all those skeletons in the sewers kept coming from?”
“I assumed that people bought them when they were small and cute, and then, when they grew up and became difficult to control, their owners dumped them down the privy.”
Yousen at least laughed. Dalyria just looked blank.
Astarion was mildly appalled to realize that he was actually considering taking them up on it. It’s not as if you have any better ideas. And if this ends up as a wild-goose chase, you can always stroll into the Rat’s Run and ask the rakshasa for a donation to the cause.
“There is one thing,” Dalyria said.
Here we go. Astarion was actually rather relieved to hear that she had an ulterior motive. He would have assumed she had one anyway, and this meant he didn’t have to keep wondering what it was.
She held out her vial. “Take two samples of the god’s blood. I’m not going to give mine to Cazador. I want to experiment on it.”
“The unicorn scab didn’t work? How shocking.”
“It taught me a great deal. If I had a live unicorn willing to transfuse its blood directly into my veins and accept mine in return, it might well be able to cleanse the vampire taint over time.”
Her lips twisted sideways in a scowl. “Or possibly it would cross the other way, and we’d end up with a vampire unicorn enslaved to Cazador.”
Astarion rubbed his temples again. “That would certainly be…novel.”
“It is, at any rate, moot, since I lack a live unicorn willing to help me proceed. Sadly, I do not believe that its healing power would function if it was an unwilling captive.”
Dalyria sighed, clearly annoyed by the world’s lack of available scientifically minded unicorns.
“Nevertheless, I have high hopes for the living blood of a god. There is no magical cure for vampirism, but if we posit that a god is a being of a miraculous rather than a magical nature—”
“I’ll go,” Astarion said, holding up his hands to forestall the lecture.
“I’ll at least investigate this cult you claim exists.”
He looked over at Yousen. The gnome squared his small shoulders and met Astarion’s gaze unflinchingly.
“Give me twenty minutes to prepare, and then I shall meet you at the entrance to the eastern passage. And do try not to trip and fall on Violet’s knife on the way.”
* * *