Page 63 (1/2)

"The priestess of the sepulcher--she told you this hidden story?" Big H asked

I figured he ulilar, the oldest Mithran I knew She had toldthe origin of vaotha I nodded

He sighed, a sound aliveof the medicine It has been many centuries since I felt thus I find I do not s "I will tell you the rest of the story, of the iron that bound flesh to tree Ferro chiodo The others, however,anywhere, fanghead," Rick growled

"Yes You will," I said, studying the vampire Master of the City of Natchez His bald head was paler than it had been, but histhat took control and practice He was in control of himself and of his people "Go on I’ away frorowl, and the hiss of whispered words, and then the sound of people and equipri holy water by the gallons against a Mithran’s lair How did you get a priest to bless such a voluet out anyway

Big H e that drains would be installed in all his lairs soon

"They’re gone" I said You were speaking of the ferro chiodo Whatever that is"

"I speak of the iron spikes that bound Christ to the cross," the olderinholy in this tale" His voice took on the pitch of a story told often, and when he spoke, he quoted the same words I had heard spoken by Sabina "When the sons of Ioudas heard that the master had risen, they went to the mount of the skull to find the cross where he died, to steal the wood bathed in his blood, to work arcane ics with the blood and the cross But the crosses of the thief, the murderer, and the rabbi had been pulled down, broken up, and piled together, the wood confused andthe Master of the City Others entered through the broken door and sat there as well Some small, irreverent part ofaround at story tiured that if I giggled at the creation story of the curse of the Mithrans, I et drained in retaliation

"They took it all, all the wood of the crosses By dark of night they pulled their father’s body frorave, and with their witch power and arcane rites they laid his body upon the pile of bloody, broken wood My own histories say they sacrificed the life of their small sister on the wooden pile Others say not But with arcane rites, they sought to raise their father froiven over to the night and the dark Soulless, he walked for two nights, a ravening beast And he could not be killed, though he rotted and the flesh fell fro that soleaned from their sin, his sons drank the blood and ate the flesh of their father And they were changed"

I nodded I had heard the story, almost word for word

"But what is not spoken of is the iron," he said to lish "Forged reat value For death on a tree, aments of animals, easy to make and to replace For iron to be used, the punishated people upon them, the Ro H’s voice took on the storytelling teathered the wood, they found, piled nearby, the iron that had bound the three, and they gathered it and the wood from all three trees When their father could not be killed and yet walked the Earth, a rotting corpse, they reat spike hich to kill their father"

I looked at the necklace in my hand, the sliver of iron wrapped in copper I opened , but I had no words None at all

"When the Mithrans were forced into the diaspora, the outclan priestesses took the wood of the crosses and created weapons to be used against our kind The Naturaleza took the iron, and created weapons of binding and control Two great tribes arose, the Faht for many years and across many countries, until the Naturaleza heard of the New World And they came here Lucas Vazquez de Allyon was one such"

"And with the weapon of the iron spike, or a part of one, and the ics of the witch circle and the sickness that the vaht--"he hoped to take over the New World now, in the twenty-first century, after the first va H looked up from the necklace I still clutched "The ferro chiodo creates With its binding powers it takes that which is and n, the ihtmare"

"Like the father of the Sons of Darkness"