Page 53 of Tin God
“In a manner of speaking.” Tenzin closed her eyes again, picturing the slant of the snow falling in the moonlight. There was a vivid memory that lingered, even after millennia, a type of flowering tree that grew along the riverbanks when she was human. When the wind blew, the flowers fell and swirled in the air like snow.
That’s what had popped into Tenzin’s head the night she’d killed Zasha’s mate. The last memory of her human life that had been happy, when her daughter laughed in a basket on the riverbank, waving chubby fingers at the flower petals as they fell around her.
“I had a daughter once.” Tenzin stared at the blank wall across from the bed, the flat white paint dirtied with fingerprints and smears.
“I didn’t know that.” Brigid’s voice was soft and sorrowful.
Ugh.
She didn’t want the woman’s pity.
Tenzin looked at her. “Human life is brief and harsh and painful. And beautiful for those reasons. Mine was taken from me very early, and the first centuries of my immortal life were terrifying and horrible and no one should know about them. I was the single immortal female in the middle of a male vampire horde. Do you understand why it was terrible?”
A mask fell over Brigid’s face. “Yes.”
“Exactly. That horde was led by a vampire my own sire created, and his name was Temur.”
Temur, Temur, Temur, whom the girl in her had loved in a sad, sick way even as the vengeful hunter drove the knife into his back. He had broken her too many times.
They feared your madness, and I trusted you!
He shouldn’t have trusted her. Not ever.
Tenzin looked at Brigid. “When I was strong enough, I killed Temur, and then I killed every one of Zhang’s other children—they were all sons—and I hunted down any vampire they had sired and I killed those too.”
Brigid sat on the narrow bed across from Tenzin. “Including Zasha’s mate.”
“Yes. It took me over a thousand years, but I killed them all. Except for that one. I didn’t know he existed until I heard stories. I smelled him.” She wrinkled her nose at the memory. “Zasha’s mate was the last of Temur’s blood, and he was living quietly in…” She frowned. “Siberia, I think. He had hidden himself very well because he knew what would happen if I found him.”
Brigid kept her voice low. “If he was living quietly, why would you kill him? Had he been in Temur’s horde?”
“No.” She turned her eyes back to the wall. “I doubt he’d even been born when I killed Temur.”
“Then why kill him?”
“Because I made a promise.” Tenzin frowned and looked at the young one. “Who are you to question me? When I was born, your human ancestors were living in the mud.”
Brigid lifted her chin. “I’m allowed to judge you.”
“Why?”
She didn’t have an answer, because of course she didn’t.
Whatever small indignities the human Brigid had endured, they were nothing to what the girl Tenzin had survived. “I killed those who needed to be killed. Mymercy, Brigid Connor, is the reason that Walter’s family is dead.”
Brigid blinked. “What?”
“Zasha’s mate pleaded with me to spare her. Zasha was living as a woman then. Their mate begged me to leave Zasha alone. He begged me to spare them, and I was stupid enough to have mercy. ‘I will only kill her if she tries to kill me.’ That’s what I promised him. I vowed it on my children’s blood.” Tenzin smiled a little bit. “And ever since then, Zasha has never tried to kill me.”
Brigid frowned. “New Orleans. You and Zasha were attacking each other and?—”
“Please.” The girl didn’t know what an attack really was. “That was Zasha playing. With you as well. I don’t think they ever really wanted to hurt you. In an odd way, I suspect they want to be your friend.”
“That’s fuckin’ disturbin’,” Brigid muttered.
“Yes, Zasha is very disturbed,” Tenzin whispered.
She saw a flicker in the corner of the room and a tiny wind vampire crouched in the corner, pointing and laughing at her, a hand clapped over her mouth to hide the fangs.