by Faith Hunter
My powers were different from a master of the city; I couldn’t summon people like Linc could. But I had the power of my office—not that I knew how to use it yet. But I knew how to use the power of the skinwalker. Power was power. Right? Maybe? Sorta?
I took a slow breath and thought about le breloque, its magic, its purpose, its meaning, and I wrapped myself in the mantle of the Dark Queen. My head went up, my nostrils flared. The paranormal power that came from the Dark Queen’s position threaded through me, strengthening my bones, rooting me to the earth. I reached out with that magic. “Put down your weapons,” I said, my voice cold and demanding. “Now.”
They lowered their swords. I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to do next. And it hit me. They had obeyed me. Holy crap.
Shaddock ignored Koun, speaking to me in his old-fashioned country accent. “I took in the broken humans just like My Queen demanded, just like all the others left in my broken city when her enemies came here searching for her, destroying everything I had built, and killing so many of my scions. Every human will be attended to and cared for and healed as best my people are able. These two? They drink from my cattle and give back nothing.”
“We fight your battles,” Kojo spat. “Our swords have been yours.”
“I got plenty of warriors. What I need are Infermieri.”
I had never heard the word before, but it sounded like a title.
Shaddock turned his eyes to me, trying to roll me with his mesmerism. Like the vamped out state, it was a challenge. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but unlike Leo, Shaddock wouldn’t find me amusing. “You can’t roll me, Linc,” I said, my power brushing across him. “Don’t even try.”
He blinked slowly, as if he hadn’t known he was trying something wrong and now had to get himself back under control. His pupils constricted slowly, and his sclera pinkened to a watery blood shade. But his fangs stayed down on their little hinges.
“What’s an Infermieri?” I asked.
“Infermieri heal the broken cattle and heal Mithrans in danger of true death. These two are old and their blood would be potent. When they came to kill the Flayer of Mithrans, I accepted their swords at my side to defeat him. But that danger’s long gone, My Queen. They drink from my cattle but don’t feed or heal them. They leave ’em half drained and blood drunk. And beyond the use of their swords in war, they ain’t bothered to swear to me.”
“Bad guests who outlasted their welcome?”
“Something like that, Queenie.”
“Okay. But this sounds like a long-term problem. What happened that made all-a y’all get so bent outta shape tonight?”
“I am not bent,” Thema said.
“Their blood is powerful as all get out, while my best healer scions are worn slap out. You created a problem, and I don’t have enough healthy healers to deal with it. They know how stretched my people are, yet they refused help to heal the new broken cattle from tonight’s battles.”
It was common knowledge that the two didn’t want a blood-family, but I hadn’t known they were abusing the humans they drank from by not sharing blood in return. “You two got a reason for this?” I asked. “Or are you both just buttholes?”
The two glanced at each other, probably saying dozens of things in that one glimpse. Kojo said, “Our blood is old. It can be dangerous to those unaccustomed to it. It is not wise to share it.”
I’d had blood from vamps two thousand years old. They weren’t telling the full story here. “So that’s why you hang around Shaddock’s place and my place. So you can move back and forth, hoping no one notices that you drink but don’t share your blood. That’s—” I almost said mean, something left over from a childhood spent in a Christian children’s home. I changed it to “unacceptable.”
“Their belongings will be removed from my clan home,” Shaddock said, “and delivered to the Winter Court of the Dark Queen.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have my people look for an unaligned Infermieri, which I’ll be happy to share with you and your scions.”
“I once had such a Mithran. If she will come home that will help greatly.”
I tapped my mic. “Alex, you got that?”
“On it now.”
Shaddock inclined his head, telling me he had heard. He took two steps away and sheathed his swords, jumped into his vamp-mobile, and it pulled away fast.
“It is nearly dawn,” Koun said. “The Consort is on the way to pick us up. You two will curl up in the trunk.” Koun looked at me. “The Consort will drive. I will be your protection, with you in the back seat. There will be no argument, My Queen.”
“Okey dokey.”
Koun’s head tilted to one side. “You are never going to act like a monarch, are you?”
“Nope.” A black SUV pulled up, Bruiser driving. There wasn’t a trunk. Too bad. I really wanted to see the two malcontent love birds curled up in one. Instead they crawled to the floor behind the back seat and pulled a heavy-duty tarp over themselves, just in case of an accident that resulted in a stray sunbeam. Koun and I got in the back seats.
Moments later, we were still forty minutes from the inn, and the sun rose behind the morning’s clouds. Koun and the travelers were old enough to stay awake if they had to, but the two in back fell asleep, a sign of trust maybe. I pulled a reflective tarp over Koun, who grumbled that he was awake, and he was, sorta. I patted his arm soothingly. Satisfied that I wasn’t going to damage the expectations of my scions and guests, I removed my weapons and headgear, crawled into the front seat, and snuggled with my honeybunny. He slipped an arm around me and nuzzled my head near my furry ears, all the while not taking his eyes off the road. Now that was a queen’s life. Not that it would last.
At the inn, we backed into the winery fermentation room—which had several huge steel fermentation tanks, two filled with table wines—a white and a red from this year’s very first grape harvest. There was a small windowless room just inside the door, nominally a lab to test when the grapes had high enough sugar content to pick. Bruiser also used it to taste and test the wines at various points in the fermentation process and to combine various types of grapes for different sugar content and tastes. Bruiser’s winey stuff. And to dump vamps when sunlight made it necessary.
He waved away the new manager, Josue Gagne, a French winemaker he had hired to run things while we were in New Orleans. He backed the SUV into the narrow room, easing in beside the long workbench. Together we dumped half-snoozing vamps onto the concrete floor, leaving Kojo and Thema in a tangle of arms and legs as they twisted themselves into more comfortable positions, and Koun slumped against a wall. We disarmed them, just in case they woke up testy and wanted to fight some more.
“Thank you,” Koun murmured as he curled to his side.
“We need an underground garage,” I said, not for the first time, “so we don’t have to keep dumping our friends here.”
“Yes, My Queen,” Bruiser said, again, not for the first time, sounding serene.
“Will you do me a big?” I asked as we got back in the SUV. “Don’t challenge Giovanni to a duel today, okay? Get some rest? Eat a meal or two? Drink some vamp blood?”
Bruiser pulled me into a one-armed hug and kissed my fuzzy ear, his fuzzy chin scraping me. “I have already been fed by Linc.” He kissed my other ear. “You can ask me anything, my love.”
I could think of a lot of anythings I might want, but not while I was furry. That would be just—ick. So I hugged him back, liking that even in this form, he was still just a little bit taller and a lot broader than me.
Bruiser maneuvered the SUV out, closed and locked the door to the windowless room, parked the SUV, and we walked toward the inn. Thirty feet out, the skies opened, and a cold fall rain shower inundated us. At least the rain washed the vamp blood from my armor, which had begun to stink.
CHAPTER 3
; This Idiot Man Has Your Back
I woke alone again, in Jane form this time, and checked the clock. I had slept three hours.
I climbed out of bed, did all the girly things I had to do after I shifted shape, and pulled on comfy sweats. The bedroom hadn’t changed a whole lot except for the rugs. The floors were now covered with tribal rugs, primarily ultra-antique Tabriz and Hamadan rugs in all the shades of the color spectrum. Bruiser had a collection he had stored for decades with a family of rug collectors and brokers, and he had begun bringing his possessions out of storage to actually use, live with, and enjoy together with me and our extended family. I figured that was a good sign, that it meant he was getting over losing Leo, losing his job, losing his place in a changing society and culture. His whole world had been turned upside down when he left Leo and came to me. And then Leo, who had been his entire life for decades, ended up dead.
I liked the rugs. They made me want to walk around in my bare feet no matter the season, sliding my soles over the different nap depths and designs, some of which had a feel of magic to them, though why that might be so, I had no idea. The wool rugs were especially nice on rainy, chilly days like today.
Barefoot, I padded out of the bedroom wing, down the stairs to the kitchen, which smelled wonderful. Inside the ovens, I saw three big loaves of bread cooking in one and several quiches in another. In the quiche oven, I counted shrimp, mushroom and spinach, four cheese, and a meat lovers that had bacon crisscrossed on the top of the eggy mixture. The kitchen—the entire lower floor, actually—smelled heavenly.
I rinsed out one of Bruiser’s whistling kettles, poured in water to heat, and rinsed out a teapot to prepare tea, opening a tin of lavender black that was a little too floral for me but that some of the vamps particularly liked. As the water heated, I studied the kitchen, which was strangely empty of people for the time of day.
Bruiser had received more deliveries, and his stuff was piled on the island: an antique French coffee maker, two old carafes, a twelve-piece set of Spanish-looking fancy gold utensils, a new stack of china that matched the original blaze orange Le Creuset cookware, and some in a post–World War II color called Élysées Yellow that had come early on. Bruiser was nesting, building a home of his own for the first time in his life. With me.
The water was taking its time, so I wandered the inn, snacking on beef jerky and PowerBars, seeing more rugs, tables, shelves, couches, and chairs in the various seating areas offered by the sizeable inn that had become our mountain home and my official winter court. Bruiser had put original art on the walls and art objects on the shelves, some bronze statues of naked women and bucking bulls and little children squatting, looking at flowers. I stopped and wrapped my arms around me, my toes buried in colorful wool, and turned in a circle, studying the house from the central area. All this stuff . . . Stuff Bruiser loved. Modern stuff he had wanted and never bought until now, or stuff he had bought long ago and never used, because he had lived in Leo’s house. I didn’t give a lick about stuff, except a comfortable bed, squishy sofas, and a nice shower. Bruiser liked stuff. But he had been Leo’s and never his own.
Now he was his own man for the first time in his long life. He was making this place home. This once-an-inn, tucked away in the mountains of Beast’s hunting territory, was his home, giving Bruiser space to put out all the stuff he had collected and never used. Tears gathered, hot in my eyes. His very first home. I breathed deeply and pushed the tears away. This was good stuff, not girly cry stuff.
Maybe someday Bruiser would bring his collection of motorcycles here, though I was pretty sure they would be harder to transport from New Orleans than the smaller items.
I stepped into Alex’s office, which was empty of people, programs running in the background but the screens black. I was curious, but I’d never touch his stuff. I valued my paws. And my fingers. In the corner was a large memory foam mattress where Brute and two of Tex’s dogs, Martha and Jangles, were sleeping, Brute snoring mightily. The flying lizard was nowhere to be seen. I’d once found it sleeping in a teapot, and after that, we had all been careful to check inside the pots before pouring in boiling water.
The kettle whistled, calling me and waking the dogs. Tex’s two raced past me and outside. Brute’s claws clicked across the floor, and he nudged my leg. Looked at me with those crystal blue eyes for long enough that he might have been trying to tell me something. Then he turned and went out the cat-dog door into the rain. He’d be soaked when he came back in. No way was I bathing and drying that big hairy werewolf.
Making sure it was still empty, I poured steaming water over the leaves in the strainer into the teapot. While the tea was steeping, I found mugs and set up a proper tea tray. I’d been watching Bruiser’s ritual, and though I couldn’t tell the difference in tea made by my usual methods and Bruiser’s fancy-schmancy one, he always seemed quietly pleased when I noticed what he liked and how he did things. And he swore he could tell the difference in taste. So few people ever did a kindness for the Consort, the former primo, without wanting something in return, without it being a way to get to Leo (and now to me), to receive a favor, or to obtain power. This small thing with tea made him happy.
* * *
* * *
I got a fire going in the big central area fireplace. I can make a fire from dry wood and matches if needed, but natural gas and a remote made it so much easier. Sitting on a big comfy sofa in front of the gas fire, I tucked my bare feet under a cushion, enjoying my solitude, sipping my tea from a big mug. The cup was bloodred on the bottom half and white on the top half. There was a drawing of a vamp on the top half, his head half off and his blood appearing to spurt into the bottom half of the mug, as if still filling it up. The vamp had a bubble over his head with the words “You vant to drink my blood.”
I had no idea who brought in the mug, but I had claimed it. Between sips, I replaited my hair into a sloppy braid. Tied it off with a string I pulled out of my sweatshirt hem.
Alex and Eli came in the back, stripped out of rain gear, and made matching cups of espresso. Eli tested the quiches and left them cooking. The rain softened to a slow patter.
Both men joined me on the big couch. Saying nothing. Not a word. It was comfortable and pleasant and calm, the way things used to be when we lived together in the freebie house in New Orleans. A shaft of longing stabbed through me. I wished things could always be like this.
But they stayed silent a little too long, sipping their extrastrong brews, and that was weird. It hit me that they might be ticked off at me. I glanced back and forth between them. Yeah. Matching expressions, somehow neutral and disappointed at the same time. I had done something bad. Go me.
I sipped the cooling lavender tea, thinking through my night and morning, figuring out why they were unhappy with me and then trying to decide how I wanted to address the issues. When my cup was empty I said, “You two planned a reconnaissance mission that turned into a rescue, an attack by our enemies, and a defense against incursion.”
Eli tilted his head the barest hint to show he was listening.
I said, “I showed up. The vamps hiding in the woods then attacked. That initial reconnaissance mission went south. You think that it’s possible that if I hadn’t shown up, the vamps in the trees would have left and attacked another time. But I think that’s a fallacy. Linc says they planned to take whatever they could get, meaning that they would have killed or captured the MOC, my Consort, and my brother of choice, knowing that would be enough to draw me out. To make me go after them. Without you to back me up.”
Eli frowned ever so slightly and nodded again, that bare hint of movement.
“Our enemies think. They plan ahead. Multilayers of plans. Plans that take decades to come to a finale. They have a plan A, plan B, plan C, D, and E. They incorporate one plan into other plans. They refine and restructure. And I’m the wild card. Leo knew that. He put me in place to be the wild card t
hat would keep them unbalanced and uncertain.”
“You can’t be a wild card if you’re dead, babe,” Eli said softly. “And here’s the thing. We know some layers you don’t. One in particular.”
“Holy crap.” A bunch of crazy stuff came together like magnets attracting and pulling in filaments. It was so clear I could almost hear clicking in my brain as they snapped into place. “Leo talked to you before he died. He told you stuff,” I accused.
“Pretty much,” Alex said, shooting me a side-eye grin. “He called us into his office at HQ once, while you were off—ah, um, canoodling with Bruiser.”
That could have been anytime in the last few years. Bruiser and I canoodled pretty often, and the boys were often at NOLA HQ together while the aforesaid canoodling took place. Easy peasy for Leo to get them together. “Could you narrow it down some?” I demanded.
Eli chortled, a soft burbling sound. It didn’t last long, but it made me feel good. He gave the side-eye too. “Early on, after you first achieved half-form, Leo told us we had one job: to keep you alive. He said the SOD hanging in sub-five basement had been bitten by a dangerous creature, and that bite gave Joses the ability to see bits and pieces of the future. This was before we knew much about the arcenciels.”
I went cold as stone. An arcenciel—a shape-shifting creature of pure energy from another realm—had bitten the eldest Son of Darkness (aka Joses Santana and a few more akas) and made him insane. Other arcenciels had visited him in subbasement five, where he had hung on a wall for decades, starved and sucked on. I had no idea why they had shown up there.
Leo had drunk Joses’s poisoned, tainted blood for decades. Leo had been partially nutso too for all those decades, but he kept drinking that blood. Why?
Because with it, he could see parts of the future.
I had been fed healing blood from vamps who might also have drunk blood from the poisoned vamp.