by Faith Hunter
Someone to question meant torture. Derek had been tortured. “Find Adan. Find who he’s working with at HQ. Start with Raisin. She smelled wrong.” The next part came out as a growl that vibrated in my chest. “They’re mine.”
Bruiser breathed a soft laugh. “I never doubted that, My Queen and my love.”
I was so tired my bones and joints ached. It even hurt to breathe. “Imma take a little nap right here. Wake me when y’all figure out who my enemies are at HQ.”
Bruiser kissed me on the cheek, and I felt pelt between my skin and his lips, and the soft scrape of beard. He muscled upright to a knee and toes, his arms on either side of me.
“I failed,” I whispered into the air between us.
Bruiser rose to his feet. “You did not fail. We did not know the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses and so could not adequately prepare. Now we know, and you will make the Mithran world quake with fear. You are the Dark Queen. Le breloque has chosen you.” With those words, he left the room, shutting the door silently.
I was left with the reverberation of his words and the memory of Derek. Dead. Storm. Dead. The humans the sniper had killed. Silently I cried myself to sleep.
* * *
* * *
Like a vampire, I woke at dusk. I was pretty sure it was the foundation-rattling snore that woke me. Apparently when I have a muzzle and sleep on my back, I’m noisy. I was utterly certain that the boys would tease me unmercifully, but that thought vanished as the memories washed through me.
Derek. Derek was dead. Storm was dead. I was going to war, starting in HQ.
I tossed the blankets and sheets into the corner because they were covered in cat hair and dried filth. I stripped and showered. Only when I was clean and my pelt rubbed half dry did I look at myself in the mirror. I was . . . interesting.
I had a full golden pelt all over, except from under my chin, my boobs, belly, and along the inside of my thighs. Some parts that had hair as a human were bare. Weird looking. Somehow I had put on thirty pounds of much needed muscle. I was cat-faced, full nose and muzzle, fangs that would do an ancient vampire proud. Claws that terrified even me. I flexed them out. My finger claws were huge and sharp enough to rip armor. I’d have to be careful, or I might hurt myself. I had shoulders like a linebacker. Thighs of solid muscle. Calves that were so well defined it was as if this new body had been chiseled from stone. Or concrete and roadway.
I had a cat face, cat ears sitting high and taller than usual, with unusual tufts at the end, like a caracal cat. My long hair was gone, a fact I had realized when I showered. That was strange. It was now short and kinda mane-like, almost like an African lion, but running down my back to my waist and black as tar. I reached up and tried to get a claw under le breloque. I cut my forehead. That sucker wasn’t coming off, and my head was bruised from sleeping with it on. Which was a totally unimportant and, considering the loss of two of my friends, irreverent thought. I let my claws resheathe and studied myself again. I was terrifying. In a way that I had never viewed myself, in a way that only another monster would view me, I was dangerous. I was fearsome.
When my enemies saw me, they’d poo their pants.
“Okay. Time for war.” I blow-dried my pelt, which took way longer than I liked, and dressed in the scarlet armor. But no boots because my paw-feet and claws were bigger than before. I extruded the claws on my toes. Yeah, they’d eat through the boots, even the specially made expandable combat boots. But the paw pads were tougher than usual, so I’d go barefoot.
I weaponed up. Every weapon I had, including the newer Benelli spine rig and its shotgun, which someone had retrieved from the SUV and put on my bed while I showered. I had put on enough mass that I had to loosen the rigs. I made sure I had my lucky gold nugget in place and put on the titanium gorget, layering the gold and citrine over it. It matched the crown.
I had never been pretty. But by all that was holy, I was badder than bad.
I Velcroed the paper bag containing a scrap of the cloth stained with Grandmother’s sweat into a secure pocket. Debated on carrying the locket. I didn’t know what it did or if it might interfere with the crown and the Glob. I decided against it. Same for the winged lizard amulet.
A soft knock came at the door. I smelled Quint’s scent from beneath. Thema was with her. “Come,” I said. Leo-like.
They entered. Looked me over. Thema started laughing, approval in the tone. Quint merely nodded and adjusted the position of my weapons for more perfect draws.
I was starving, especially with the scent of seared red meat coming through the cracked bedroom door. With my newer-better-sniffer nose, I could also smell baked potato slathered in butter, sour cream, and bacon. There was also something vegetably that smelled of alkaloids and chlorophyll, and made me want to gag.
I glanced in the mirror one last time. Satisfied that I looked like the Dark Queen should, I strode to the partially open door, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled it open. Ripped it from its hinges. Threw it across the room. Quint, battle reflexes always on high, ducked fast.
The door hit the far wall with a wham that I felt through my paws and resonated through the house. It broke the wallboard. When I looked back out, Eli was standing behind the wall on the other side of the stairs with a weapon pointed at my chest.
“Sorry,” I said.
The minigun targeting me pointed to the floor. “Don’t know your own strength, babe?” he asked.
“Clearly not.” I met his eyes, and his face was drawn with grief. Tears prickled under my cat lids.
“Food?” he asked.
“I seem to find the smell of veggies foul. Meat? Yes. And a lot of it. We have a war to plan.”
“Three pounds of sirloin just for you. Rare enough to still be kicking. Sort of. Nice ears, by the way. I think you put on enough muscle to maybe take me down.”
I snorted and strode from my bedroom, taking my place at the table, having to half-straddle the chair because of the weapons. The steak was tender; the fangs weren’t so big they got in the way of me chewing, which was good, because my throat closed up several times in grief as I ate. I could hardly taste the food. It was sustenance.
When my plate was empty, I was joined at the table by Aya, Eli, Alex, and Quint. I looked them all over as I sipped my cooling tea. Each face, except maybe Quint’s, was etched with grief. Aya looked pretty good for a guy who had nearly died as a bird only hours ago.
I set down my mug. “Any news on Leo’s whereabouts?”
“Nothing,” Alex said. “We sent teams to every known possible lair. No sign of him anywhere.”
I grunted and asked, “Anything on the newly installed cameras and microphones, and any recent sensor data from HQ?” When Cowbird Protocol went into effect again, Wrassler and his security crew had installed mics and cameras in areas of the Council Chambers that had previously been off-limits, and they were all accessed into Alex’s system.
There was a peculiar silence after my question. Eli got up and served me dessert, which was a side of bacon.
“Yeah. We got stuff,” Alex said.
I shoved three crispy bacon slices into my mouth. “I’m listening.”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
“Didn’t expect to.” I chewed.
Alex talked. The more he talked, the angrier I got. When I saw the video and heard the conversations, that anger went from hot to cold and determined. My nose and the hidden surveillance equipment had finally found our biggest traitor. The lynchpin.
I was Dark Queen. It was my job to make sure justice was carried out. And for once I’d take pleasure in death.
* * *
* * *
As I walked into the repaired airlock at HQ after dusk, my presence was being announced over the building-wide communication system and into my headset. Humans and vamps came out of the woodwork to get a look at me, watching as I
walked through the inner airlock doors, my armed entourage behind me. I stood there waiting, the vamp scents rising, floral, herbal, bloody. Letting them look. Letting the vamps smell me. Predator. Top of the food chain. More vamps and humans arrived in the foyer, stopping; the vamps silent, still as stone; the humans whispering, breathing, shuffling into better positions.
The humans smelled of uncertainty and curiosity.
Rising over the vamps’ natural scents was the tang of their desire. They wanted to taste my blood. Some of them wanted a full dinner; in vamp terms, they wanted sex and blood at the same time. Once upon a time, that would have offended me, maybe even frightened me. Now it was something I could use to avenge Derek and Storm. I stared them down. I smiled.
The vamps’ scents began to alter, morphing from desire to something more acerbic, resembling anxiety. Gently I began to draw on the power of the crown stuck to my head. The crown of power over vamps for the person who could use it. Smelling their unease grow, I stepped forward. They separated, leaving the way open to the main steps. I walked between them, letting them look. Letting them worry. I didn’t pull a weapon. I was a weapon.
Slowly I stepped up the stairs. At the top, I looked down at the foyer with my crest on the floor, exposed by the flood of people who had arrived and then stepped back. Wrassler was on his honeymoon. The woman standing in the security nook doorway was familiar, Sarah Spieth, a new former military person chosen by . . . Derek.
“Now,” I said.
She pulled a massive weapon, a GatCrank, forward and aimed it on the gathered. We had planned this on the way over. “Send the announcement. All the fangheads are to gather in the gym.” I swiveled my head around, taking them in. “All of them. Anyone who refuses to gather is to be staked with wood and brought down anyway.”
The smell of shock and anger began to rise on the air. Not unexpected.
Some of the vamps smelled like fear now too. I snarled, showing my fangs. “I am your queen.” Almost as if I knew what I was doing, using the skill I had learned healing Aya, I drew on the blasted crown, yanking the power into me. Gathering it inside myself. Holding it in a loose fist of my will.
So softly it was only a whisper, I said, “Kneel!” I shoved my power into the group.
All around the foyer, vamps fell to their knees. All except a select few. I memorized their faces and scents.
My personal security popped from the airlock into the foyer, vamp-fast, armed to the teeth. Thema and Kojo raced through the crowd, shoving the resistant vamps facedown to the floor. Staking them. I knew who my people were and who my enemies were.
Through the loudspeaker system, an announcement went out. “All Mithrans are to gather in the gym,” Sarah commanded. “HQ is in full lockdown mode. There is no way out. You have fifteen minutes.”
Satisfied, I turned and walked to my destination, showing them my back.
Leo had taught me well.
Koun was on my tail. He was wearing basic armor in a dull black and carried lots of weapons. And he had both swords out.
I wasn’t sure where Leo was, but in this form, I had a very good nose, and he wasn’t on the premises. I didn’t smell him anywhere. I had thought he might be hiding here and that perhaps I could smell him in this form. I was wrong.
I shoved open the door. It dented the wall where it hit. I was doing that a lot now. I strode into Raisin’s office, silent on my pawed feet, the scarlet armor a declaration of war. Two feet in, I stopped.
The old blood-servant was looking at me. Her eyes wide, her lips pursed into dozens of vertical crevices and wrinkles. One hand was beneath her desk. Before she could pull out her hand and aim, Quint flew under my arm and up into the room. Her body twisted in midair, somersaulting and uncoiling. Like a ninja in some old movie.
Time deescalated. I crouched.
The petite blonde crashed into Raisin feet first. A gun fired. Small caliber. It blew out a ceiling light as they disappeared behind the desk. Tumbling.
Quint stood, lifting Raisin by the hair and slammed her facedown onto the desk, breaking her nose. Almost as fast as a vamp, Quint yanked Raisin’s arms back and secured them with a supersized zip strip. She smashed Raisin’s face down again, leaving a bloody smear on the formerly pristine desktop. “My Queen,” Quint said. Not even out of breath.
It was pretty amazing.
Koun laughed in appreciation. He scented of sexual interest.
Raisin spit blood at me.
Quint wrapped a gag around her mouth before shoving her head back to the desk, her cheek pressed into her blood.
I meandered closer. I bent and smelled Raisin, soft little fluttering sounds coming from my cat nostrils. Vamps. Several vamps. I dropped my head to two inches from Raisin’s eyes, opened my mouth, curled back my lips, showing her my fangs. I sucked in air through my mouth, over my tongue, across the scent sacs in the roof of my mouth. Raisin was older than a lot of vamps. She would have been around when Ka and Adan were here and when Immanuel became u’tlun’ta so long ago. And she had been drinking of Adan. Adan’s blood smelled of Monique, the not-yet-dead creature in the scion room.
“Ahhh,” I said. Adan had been part of the group I was unable to see while I was in Monique’s soul home. I stepped back and sat in the chair that miraculously appeared there, placed by a human, who whispered, “My Queen,” and darted out of the room. The chair was leather, comfy, and big enough for my new, wider shoulders. I could get used to this kind of service.
“Ernestine,” I said, using Raisin’s real name. “You have been accused of treason.”
Raisin shook her head so hard her hair smeared into the blood.
“Alex, please be so kind as to play the recording in question,” I said into my mic.
Raisin stiffened as if hit with a cattle prod.
“Yeah,” I said. “Your sanctuary, which you make certain is swept for devices every day, has been the subject of an internal probe.”
Adan’s voice came over the speaker system, saying, “There are many of us who will not have a beast as a queen. Many who feel that only a Mithran should have access to la corona. That only a powerful Mithran has the right to rule, not an aberration.”
“Many of us?” Raisin said, her voice tinny from the recording. “It takes only one brave soul to bring death to a fool. Amaury Pellissier drank blood from a whore who ingested colloidal silver and he died. It is not difficult to kill the powerful.”
My eyes narrowed at Raisin’s insult. She was talking about Bruiser’s mother. The audio continued.
“I always wondered how the human woman acquired colloidal silver to drink,” Adan said. The sound of a chair cushion exhaling came over the recording. “In those days it was difficult to acquire in good quality. I salute you.”
Raisin closed her eyes as her recorded British voice said, “Difficult. Not impossible for those with the resources. I have always had excellent resources. Leo’s uncle was vicious enough, but not wise enough for this city. Leo was much more . . . useful. He was not intended to die. The creature who has the crown was supposed to die in his place.”
“And yet she rules. You miscalculated,” Adan said. “This time one brave soul is not enough. We need more. Will you turn over your people to us and to the one who leads us?”
“You say us, yet I see only you. Who is this vaunted leader of whom you have spoken?”
On the desktop, Raisin struggled. Tears and bloody snot ran down her wrinkled face, adding to the smears on her desk.
In the recording, I heard a paper slide across the desk. “These are my people. Our master, the Heir, has been pulling strings for centuries, waiting for the time to be ripe, and though the creature killed many of his players since she arrived in this city, she and this one”—a grunt sounded. Pain. Muffled. Derek. Had to be—“opened the way at the end. We have Shaun MacLaughlinn to lead the attack and an amulet that gives
him strength and speed. He will kill the creature’s protectors. We have a skinwalker to eat her and take her place. Our master, the Heir, will be revealed only after you have proven your worthiness to us, to our cause, and to Shaun MacLaughlinn’s power.”
“You will be pleased with the assistance that I can provide. The doors that I can open.” Raisin’s tone was like the snake in the garden, slithering and full of malice.
Adan said, “Immediately Shaun can commit nearly-sixty Mithrans. Shaun is a leader who can destroy the creature. The master has many, many more. Together we can hold the States and take back the European cities from the fops who currently rule in the creature’s name.”
“I accept. You have my loyalty. I shall bow to your leader, Shaun MacLaughlinn, and this heir you speak of. My blood shall be his blood. I so swear.”
From behind me, Thema said, “So many Mithrans and blood-servants, each with so many agendas. The curse of our people has always been disloyalty.”
Into my earbud, Alex whispered. “Two intruders in HQ, passing laser alarms and cameras, hidden behind obfuscation workings, the old spell versions that still let us collect heat sigs. One fanghead, one human. Both are going up the back stairs. They’re converging on Ernestine’s office.”
Softly Alex added, “Another being, possibly human is in the scion lair, trying to free Monique Giovanni.”
I had been told several times to end her. I should have listened. “Send a stealth team to the intersecting hallways of Raisin’s office and one to the scion lair.”
“Closest team has Aya on it.”
I sighed softly. “Do it. What’s Raisin’s full name?” Alex told me. I stood and gestured Koun forward. My Executioner. I had never given him a job like this before. Tonight was gonna suck.
Koun stepped between us, one sword high, the other still sheathed. Behind him, Thema and Kojo turned to face the hallway, guarding us from attack. “Ernestine Frida Bisset. You have been accused of treason. You have, by the words of your mouth, consorted with our enemies. You have admitted collusion in the death of Amaury Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans. We hereby condemn you to death, according to the Vampira Carta of the Americas.” To Quint I said, “Remove her gag. Sit her up in her chair.”