No roads led into its depths. Stone walls and gates, half derelict, set the entire area apart from the rest of the city. So much of the city was a crash of mismatched sculptures, neighborhoods of buildings that had fallen into disarray and then been repurposed alongside newer structures, as if several cities had been built on top of each other, and their styles were not the same. We were a graveyard of cities, of legacies, and thus Serenity itself was as much a living-again as the moon-souls who dwelled in it. The city did not remember all the things it had once been. Our new realms were formed in the cracks of those old identities. The night-streets were not actually contiguous streets but an overlay of multiple past neighborhoods, and we simply hadn’t built roads between the different sectors the way a city full of mortals would have needed to.
One had to jump, fly, or climb down the inward face to enter. I floated gracefully to the light-striped ground, the thick sounds and smells of booze and bodies and sex hitting me like a fist.
Ah. Already felt like wading in sweat. This was Kadzuhikhan and Umber’s domain, all right.
A small crowd was clumped around where I landed. Food-stalls and liquor vendors dotted the worn crossing paths, creating natural clusters of activity. Kadzuhikhan also took part in the trade of aliment, especially booze, and most of all the silver-spiked booze that moon-souls enjoyed. This would be a well-catered event.
Mortal visitors—or regulars—clad in white or black cloth, tight enough to make their bodies look painted. A bevvy of them turned and hailed as my wings were folding around me, calling and dancing in unison. Drunk as hell no doubt. I hailed back, my instincts still in place. Had to give a show. All the partygoers seemed to love a dove-soul, or so Kadzuhikhan had always claimed. It didn’t seem to only be our gift for healing. Perhaps it was the plenitude of myths about birds of peace, being with wings of rock and beige, pouring tenderness on the world.
Do you realize you’re their god of pleasure? Umber had once said. It would take nothing to act the part.
Good thing nothing was what I had, but I didn’t want godhood. Even though I let the newcomers flock to me, pawing at my wings and laughing. Some of them looked barely older than I did. I whistled and sang, let them drape their drunken fantasies on me.
Ah, the night-streets. The home of noise, furious trading, and an eternal celebration scene. I would hate to live here, but it was a hell of a place for a party.
Kadzuhikhan shifted through the crowd, and somehow he’d parted their number with a youth on each arm, one man and one woman. “Well, look who the hell decided to crack open his coffin. Good to see you acting like there’s some blood in you.”
I gifted him a rude gesture, pulling wet laughter from his wards. “Thanks. I don’t know if I’ll stay long.” A dim anxiety was already slithering through my guts. Like I might wear out fast. If his companions were his workers, then at least they seemed in good spirits and not to be suffering, though I knew how illusory that could be. “Where’s the best place to have some fun with people who aren’t completely drunk off their heads?”
His smirk reflected the red glare from behind me. “Relax. No one’s asking you to abandon your honor. And the sun is barely setting. Give it a second or two if you’re that urgent.”
I considered that, whether it was a better reason to just go home or take his advice and unclench. My back already hurt from the tension. Then he grinned down at the young woman in his arms, her dreamy eagerness. “Want to play with your winged prince here, my love? Wouldn’t want him to get lonely.”
Her nod accompanied a cascade of giggles, and then she slid to me. I curved a wing over her by reflex. Hmph. I hadn’t asked for an escort. But Kadzuhikhan was waggling his fingers, cat’s tail and the limp boy it was spiraled around fading into the flow. Fucker. But she seemed a partygoer rather than a regular worker, and either way it would be good to keep a careful eye on her.
The woman clung to my arm like it was driftwood. “You smell good.” Oh, god, how drunk was she?
I did my best to approximate Kadzuhikhan’s sensual purr. “Well, good evening to you too. You know what else may smell good? Kebabs. I bet you could use something to nibble.”
The giggles escalated. “Maybe you could too.” Her palms were warm, sliding up my arms, around my shoulders.
The picture became clear: her arms bare, neck exposed. Hair pulled back. A golden chain around her throat, with three ruby-red crystal beads clinking on it. She was here to give blood and be shown a good time in exchange. Each bead represented a sip of blood she was offering up. After someone had taken a good swig, she would snap off a bead—or, given how drunk she was, the drinker would do the honors. If they weren’t an asshole, and Umber had hell in store for people he found breaking the rule. As drowning as it felt to be surrounded by so many warm bodies, there weren’t actually that many mortals in Serenity. If any of them died by blood loss, Umber would start collecting heads.
My tummy rumbled slightly. Urgh. Such a strange practice; we weren’t exactly designed to drink human blood. Even with the spirit of a prey animal animating me, I tended to crave ordinary meat. Animal flesh. Some juicy beef or chicken livers. Mere blood, of any kind, was more like candy. But for these eager young mortals, smearing the night like heat-radiant fireflies, to offer up drops of themselves felt intimate, ritual. Like making sacrifices to their personal gods, taken by the living-again.
As long as we took care and tended to our donors, it did them no harm; I may as well indulge her request. Could always heal her afterward. I leaned in with a playful grin, tapping one of the beads. “May I?”
Her eyes widened. She was absolutely flying, but it seemed more from delight than intoxication. “You may.” One of her fingers hooked under a bead and snapped it off.
I deferred to her to pick the spot—upper arm. A slice against my canine, and blood gelled into a bead as dark as those around her neck. I licked it from her, let her have the sensual experience she’d no doubt come for. No reason to hurry, or to try to drink my fill. None of the moon-souls here would need turn to the life fluid of living newcomers to sustain ourselves, and we couldn’t starve. Moon-souls who bit deep, who drew more than they needed for a taste, were all pieces of shit as far as I was concerned. But also not exactly uncommon.
A few drops in and my head was already growing lighter. Mmm. The burn in my mouth and throat were like stronger echoes of alcohol, but drink didn’t blur my vision like this. So she’d been sucking down silvered booze. The toxic effect of the metal was the strongest drug for us, but would leave her unscathed. It hit me like a wave of nausea—I wanted the haze, that weary half-oblivion of mild silver poisoning.
She was loopy, snickering and kissing my ear as I sipped. But it was enough. My virtue pulsed forth as I drank—the cut was already healing, and I wouldn’t make another.
A pair of hands emerged through the sensations, suddenly separating me from my dance partner. I scowled up. Tamueji? She had pulled the eager young woman away, cradling her against a wing. Tamueji herself looked unnervingly calm and still, which was something I’d learned meant she was on alert.