Courts and Cabals 2 by G.S. D'Moore (warren buffett book recommendations TXT) 📗

As far as first impressions go, it was about the worst one I could think of. I fell out of the portal, projectile vomiting a stream of stomach acid and bile in front of me until I smashed face first into the ground. To add insult to injury, the ground was marble. The kinetic impact of my fall traveled up my nose and into my brain, where it merged with the migraine that had been festering since I blocked a blade in the bleeding grounds with a conjured shield. I had no idea how I did it, but it hurt like a motherfucker.

The sudden violence that racked my brain led to another bout of nausea. Thankfully, I was able to turn my head to the side so I didn’t drown in my own sick. The only bright side in this whole fucked up episode was that I didn’t smash my nose flat on impact. It still hurt like hell, but a quick touch told me it wasn’t broken.

Everyone else was doing much better. Dani and Xamira looked a little wobbly on their feet, and the dwarf’s face was a little green, but she kept it together. Lilith didn’t look affected at all; which was saying a lot when she was still naked and covered in blood. You could tell how beautiful someone was when they could pull off that look.

My eyes were fixed on the taught, roundness of her ass for several seconds, and it helped get my shit together enough to realize we weren’t alone. I struggled to my feet and took in my surroundings.

“This is fancy,” I catalogued the plush robes on racks next to a sauna door. The marble floor, which was spotless until a moment ago, had the slight condensation common in places with high humidity. There were also rubber walking mats, so people didn’t slip on the condensation. I’d managed to miss those entirely during my entrance.

The room they’d arrived in was a waiting room of some sort. Three doors branched off this room, but all were quickly filling with the acrid stench of sick. Two were dressing rooms of some sort with the universal male and female insignias. The third led out into whatever other mysteries the building held. In front of that door stood a woman.

Despite it being hot and humid, she wore a dress that went from her neck to her ankles. She had a matronly look like those nuns from the past who’d smack you with a ruler for misbehaving. I could see from the glint in her eye she wanted to command me to clean up after myself; but despite her aged face and gun-metal gray hair, she bowed her head to the much younger-looking Lilith.

“We felt the portal activate and were unsure what to expect,” the woman stated as she looked over our small group with thinly veiled disapproval. Her voice was sharp, and it was clear she was used to giving commands and having them obeyed. “We did not expect you or we would have gathered a proper welcoming committee.”

Lilith smiled back reassuringly. “We were forced to make a hasty retreat with Via’s assistance. We won’t trouble you long; especially on a night of such joy for your coven. All we require is a place to rest, a fresh set of clothes, and a car.”

“It is the least we can do,” the woman bowed in return and gestured toward the door behind her.

“Coven,” I caught that bit and watched the women closely.

As a mere human, I made sure to stay up to date on all thing’s vampire. It was a smart thing to do when vamps liked to drink your blood, and had been preying on your people since the dawn of recorded history. Since there were several at my school, I was even more motivated to stay in the loop. Most of the younger vamps tended to be vegan, but I’d had one ask if they could bite me before. Makaylah helped me fill in the blanks with anything I wanted to know after that.

There were two types of vamps: born and turned. Makaylah was one of the former. She was born to two vampires and had been infected with vampirism since she was a single-cell organism. Born vamps aged from infancy to full-grown adulthood at a normal human rate. Once they reached maturity, their development progressed far slower. When your species lived for over a thousand years, and was evolutionarily designed to blend in, that led to dramatically reduced aging. Makaylah had yet to reach maturity, but in her early twenties, she would cease to age at all for at least the next century as her vampirism held on to her peak physical condition as long as possible.

That was not true for turned vamps. Vamps who were turned were frozen at the time of their turning for however long their vamp life lasted. They didn’t get younger, more beautiful, or grow muscles they didn’t have before. For that reason, most turned vamps got in the best shape possible before beginning the process. It was a bit ironic since the human body needed to be incredibly weakened for the vampiric virus to initiate the change. A healthy immune system was the best defense against vampirism. A single bite wouldn’t change anyone, no matter what Hollywood would like people to think; or the world would have been overrun with vamps long ago. In the modern era, turning someone was a deeply spiritual event in the vampire community.

Vampire elders helped the process along with their magic. A lot of painstaking trial and error had helped the masters of the vampire race fine-tune the process to achieve higher success rates. Unlike most supernatural species that could wield magic, only certain vampires could tap into the chaotic energy of the universe. I don’t know why that’s the case, and I don’t really care, but those