Blood Sacrifice by Maria Lima Page B

either. We’d been too wound up with preparations and the little blood shared as part of the ceremony hadn’t been for nutrition but only symbolic. He’d fed a little before he left, but not enough to satisfy. I doubted that either Niko or Tucker had done any better.
    “Tucker filled you in?” I asked Niko, who’d pulled apew to one side and positioned a folding table in front of it.
    “Yes,” he answered. “Here, help me, would you?” He motioned to another pew. “Could you bring that one over here, too? That way we can sit around the table.”
    I did as he asked. Adam stood silent, facing the altar. Was he praying? Thinking? Probably not the former, as he, unlike Niko, had never been human, never followed a religion. Perhaps just contemplating our limited options.
    My first instinct had been to rush to the ranch as soon as it was dark, only we couldn’t. That damnable Challenge forbade it.
    “So, food’s on,” announced Tucker as he entered, bearing at least two laden trays, with a couple of jugs of water dangling from each hand. “Shall we eat and contemplate our imminent demise?”
    I laughed, unable to help myself. Only my brother. “Let’s shall,” I said. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tonight…”
    “Tonight,” echoed Adam. “We may die.”
    Food. Drink. Comfort, right? Only not today. Not this afternoon. The sandwich went into my belly like lead. The water sloshed down my gullet, chilling me. We ate in silence, the vampires drinking water and sipping on some blood wine that Tucker had packed. Better than nothing, but I knew that both Adam and Niko would have to feed—which meant Tucker and I had to eat as heartily as possible. I managed to chew through a hefty roast beef on ciabatta with a side of crudités. I knew I needed the nutrition, but I could’ve been eatingweek-old plastic-wrapped vending machine food for all I tasted.
    “This totally sucks,” I finally said, tossing the last bit of crust onto the tray. “What fucking choice do we have?”
    Adam looked up from some scribbling he was doing on a piece of parchment that had lined the serving tray. “At this point? Nothing.”
    “They’ve desecrated our land, Adam,” I began, my voice rising.
    “And we shall deal with it,” he responded. “I’m trying to figure out these symbols.” He pointed to the paper. “See this?”
    It was a squiggle topped by a slanted line and a few more lines bisecting it. “What language is that in? I recognize the Ogham runes, but…”
    “Ogham runes spelling out… hmm… seems to be some Latin words perhaps. Could be the Old Language, possibly a shortcut spell symbol.”
    “Possibly? Could you be a bit less vague?”
    “Hmm.” Adam murmured something I couldn’t make out, then bent back over his scribblings. “Can’t really,” he finally said, after retracing a symbol or two. “The photos the sheriff sent weren’t clear enough. He concentrated on the destruction, not the symbols. Probably thought they were just scribbles.”
    “Or gang tags,” I said.
    “We’re going to have to go there, aren’t we?” Tucker asked.
    “If we wish to decipher these spell markers, yes.”
    Niko’s eyes widened. “But the Challenge restrictions—”
    “Yes, well, there’s the rub.” Adam pushed aside hispaper and tossed the pen back onto the food tray. “This is useless. Other than the one warespell I recognized, without seeing them in person, I can do nothing.”
    “But if we go…” Repeating Niko’s statement wasn’t likely to get me a different answer, but I had to.
    “Yes, exactly.” Adam leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. “It has been a very long time since I felt this caught between options,” he said.
    “What if we leave this alone?” Tucker pulled the paper off the tray and studied it. “I can recognize variations on a theme, but as you said, there’s no way to tell if you’re right. In my opinion, this is one of Gideon’s tricks—hire someone to