by Faith Hunter
“Tsu Tsu Inoli.” Aya murmured a translation from Tsalagi. “Mark Black Fox. Who is Mark Black Fox?”
“That name’s in Immanuel’s journal,” I said softly. “I didn’t bother to read the context.”
“I will give you the power I gave to Tsu Tsu,” Grandmother said to Aya. “The power I tried to give to Ka N’vsita. Together we can retake our power, can take our rightful places in this land. We can go back in time to the massacre and kill the destroyer. We can restore the power of the skinwalkers. Then we can kill all the vampires,” she screeched, “just as your sister and I killed the white man who killed your father.”
I flinched. My father had been killed by two white men when I was a child. Grandmother had put a blade into my hand and taught me how to kill, cutting them slowly until they bled to death. Now she wanted to kill vamps. Probably all the vamps. I remembered the drawing in de Allyon’s La Historia de Los Mithrans en Los Americas, from so long ago: skinwalkers dead all around the powerful vamp. Only one Cherokee skinwalker woman had still been alive, at his feet. Had Gramma heard about the massacre? Or was that drawing of the skinwalker woman actually Hyalasti Sixmankiller? Had she been there? Perhaps that massacre could have been the beginning of her u’tlun’ta magic.
“Help me kill them all!” Gramma screeched, writhing in their hands. “Help me to go back and kill the destroyer!”
Yeah. My nutso crazy gramma wanted to timewalk and stop that event.
Timewalking back beyond even a few minutes meant changing everything. In Eli’s terms, going back to the fifteen hundreds would be a precision strike, and no matter how careful, the consequences could be catastrophic. I remembered the vision of the dead world, a world without life. Was that the most likely outcome of Ka and Gramma going back in time?
Was that why they needed three skinwalkers?
Aya said, “I remember the tales you told us, Grandmother. I remember the tales of the killing field of skinwalkers, slaughtered by the hand of Lucas Vasquez de Allyon.” He turned his amber eyes to me. “I will speak these words aloud so my sister and her court will know them to be true. I heard the old tales. I did not know my Grandmother wished to change that history. I did not understand it was even possible.”
“I’m not sure it is,” I said. “The potential for a screw-up that changes history way more than she expects is . . . I don’t even know how to measure it. The arcenciels haven’t gone back in time to fix what they consider the worst crime in all of human history because getting there without catastrophic failure is so difficult. And they’re the masters of timewalking.”
Aya inclined his head. He continued, “Grandmother, hear me. You cannot control your own skinwalker gifts, let alone a time-jump so far into the past. Even should Jane and I agree to help, even with all the magical amulets you might find or steal, you would not be likely to end up in the right place and time. It has been too many years. You have told many different versions of the destroyer and the killing fields, Grandmother. The exact place and time are lost to you. You do not remember. And worse,” he took a slow breath and met her eyes, “you are no longer sane, Grandmother.”
She screeched and writhed in his hands, her shape changing over and over. “You will help me! I command it!”
“No. You are u’tlun’ta.” Aya’s words were formal, carefully spaced. I knew he wanted to be speaking Tsalagi, but for us, he spoke English. “Not as a law enforcement officer of PsyLED, but as an Elder of The People, I take you into custody. Wrapped in null cuffs, you shall be delivered to the null prison managed by the council of witches, and you shall be judged by your clan before being taken to the top of the mountains and thrown from the high places. Hayalasti Sixmankiller,” he pronounced, “you have lost your soul.”
He had said something similar once before and I recognized the words as an Elder’s judgment. He was going to kill Grandmother.
The old woman sagged in Aya’s and Bruiser’s hands, sobbing, and for a moment she sounded almost sane. “I tried so hard. I had everything prepared. All we needed was George Dumas and my granddaughter. With them, we could have avenged our people, destroyed the drinkers of blood who killed all of my people, all the skinwalkers whom I loved. Our people would return to us. Tsalagi would rise again, would become our own.” She stared at Aya. “Do not do this, my child. Do not unmake what I have worked for so long. The Tsalagi can rise as a people, today, now, under skinwalker rule.”
“The Rule of Three,” Bruiser murmured. “Three Onorios, three skinwalkers, plenty of Mithrans, and an outclan priestess. Three times three times three, with their power growing exponentially with each of the groups of three. Three icons with arcenciel blood and scales. And the remaining slivers and ingots from the iron Spike of Golgotha. And a cup of arcenciel blood. They could have done anything. Anything they ever wanted.”
“With the fresh arcenciel blood from Storm’s death,” I said, “it’s possible that they could have timewalked back to the massacre of skinwalkers. They could have killed the Spaniard vamp—de Allyon.”
Grandmother looked at me. Though she was still fighting Bruiser’s magic, her eyes were taking on that strange cast of light that an Onorio’s mind-bound slave always got. Bruiser was still draining her. I hated Onorio binding. So did my Consort. But to keep our people safe, he would attempt anything that needed to be done.
Grandmother struggled against his hands and said, “Shaun is still here. His plan is still in place. He has not been defeated. He will come for us, for he needs the power we possess. You have not yet won.”
“And Mainet Pellissier?” I asked.
“Maaaineeet.” She laughed at the name. “The Heir thought to change history to his own desires. I let him think he would win. But we three—Ka, you, and I, granddaughter—together we have the power and the amulets and the place where true power is chained. Only we know where it is.”
More crazy talk. Or more angel talk. Crap.
“Ka’s caught and bound and brought to nothing. And so are your plans,” I said.
“We can take Shaun’s place and together we can defeat the Heir to the Sons of Darkness.”
“Not working with you, old woman. You have no honor.”
Grandmother screamed again. Her body writhed and shifted, bones cracking and splitting, partial shapes resolving and sliding away. Somehow the men kept hold of her.
Bruiser, his face white from the strain of trying to control a mad skinwalker, let her go and hunched his body away from Grandmother. Skinwalkers can’t be bound—or even controlled—easily, and Grandmother, perhaps, not at all.
Aya stared down at the woman who had raised him. There was pain and horror and a grieving misery in his eyes.
Grandmother shifted to Sabina, who looked at me. “Protect the amulets from the invaders. Keep our kind and your kind and the witches, as well, safe from the place of binding and shape-changing and freedom.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“You will find it,” the priestess said. “But you cannot let the one who ate me live. Kill her now. Take and protect the amulets. Save the place of power and the being who is chained there.”
Aya said, “Her death is the duty of her clan and her children. But—” He looked at me, his expression shifting through indecision to something harder. “Her trial before the elders will take time to arrange. I am an officer of the law as well as an elder of the Tsalagi. I have a duty. May I borrow a vehicle to take them to the witch null prison?”
He couldn’t kill her. I got that. It might be a horrible decision to leave her alive, but . . . Gramma was Aya’s responsibility. Not the Dark Queen’s. I blew out a breath, knowing I was putting off the inevitable. “Yeah.”
I addressed the vamp I trusted more than anyone knew. “Koun, will you arrange a security team to help. Eli and I will be . . . ummm . . .” I smiled weakly, “tied up here.”
“Yes, My Queen.”
Who Knew with Suckheads?
Crap started again at dusk. I rolled over, finding myself in Leo’s old bedroom. Mine now. There were people shouting in the hallway and over my earbuds, which were laying on the bedside table. No gunshots, no announcements about being attacked, so that was good.
I was fully human, still with about twenty-five extra pounds of muscle, my head on Bruiser’s pillow beside the crown, which had come off again as I slept and changed shape. He was gone of course, because he needed less sleep than I did. I was sweating and miserable and threw off the covers so the AC could cool me. Outside the door, something thumped. Loud.
I hadn’t missed all this at the inn, in the mountains, in my place of peace: the constant violence, ornery vamps, and a heat wave in midfall. According to the weather app on my cell, temps had reached ninety during the day and were still in the eighties.
And then I remembered. I flopped over, the horror flashing through me.
Storm and Derek dead in the street. Raisin dead. Adan dead. Bruiser reading vamps, trying not to bind them, his face showing nothing. Nothing at all of the misery he had been feeling at taking on the burden of such a terrible act. Monique headless-dead. Gramma and Ka being loaded into the SUV and taken to the witch null prison, where they were now, under guard. I had a bad feeling about them, but despite the evil they had done, they weren’t mine to sentence. They were the problems of Panther Clan Elders. They were Aya’s responsibility, unless they got free and killed witches or humans in my city. So far as I could prove, they hadn’t, and until they did, my hands were bound. Once they killed the people I was sworn to protect, all bets were off. I’d take their heads. Kill. Again.
I rolled out of bed, showered, and did the girly things I needed to do in this shape.
Wearing a plush bathrobe, I padded barefoot out of the bath to find my bed had been made while I was in the shower, and my weapons had been laid out on the spread. I figured Quint had been involved, though in this form, I couldn’t really differentiate her scent her over the blood and vamp aromas carried on the air system.
The noise in the hallway had decreased as vamps and their dinners paired off, or tripled off, or multipled off for blood sharing. My stomach growled, and I thought about walking barefoot and robed down to the kitchen, but I didn’t want to appear to be presenting myself as a potential dinner to any vamps. I threw open the closet doors, and the first thing I saw was a brand-new set of armor in a gorgeous gold, which hadn’t been here before. I no longer knew how many suits of armor I owned. I knew what one set cost. The Dark Queen’s fashion and defensive wardrobe expenditures had to be astronomical. I shoved the gold suit aside on its hanger.
Fortunately the clothing in the closet had been replaced and was all stuff I liked—no weird colors, just black, gold, and red—so I could mix and match. I wasn’t good with fashion, but I figured even I couldn’t mess up with the minimal color choices. The pants and skirts were all black, except the one scarlet dancing skirt that had to be a full circle of the lightest flowing silk. Everything in the closet had slides at the waist with decorative or hidden buttons to give me inches where I needed them. The pockets were mostly faux, so I could always carry concealed. The necklines of the tops were loose and flowing or skintight stretchy stuff. Two shirts had crossover necklines to be worn over a tank or camisole. Each piece had been made with shape-shifting and weapons in mind.
It should be easy to decide what to wear. I started with the narrow cabinets to the sides of the closet and pulled open drawers that held undies and bras in my size, most way too fancy. But I found a few things tucked away that were more useful than lace, satin, and silk, as if someone other than Madame Melisende had snuck them in. Go Quint. I pulled on cotton undies, a Lycra jogging bra, and a body-hugging T-shirt. I had more boobs again, which was nice, but I needed padding to protect my more delicate bits from weapon harnesses. Satisfied with the start, I studied the clothing.
Tonight was the scheduled duello between my executioner and the warrior chosen by the latest invader, Shaun MacLaughlinn, assuming he showed up after breaking parley and attacking us. It was also the date of the execution of the vamps in the basement, which Shaun surely knew, and so he might show up at HQ to attack again and to try and get his people back. Who knew with suckheads? Knowing he had been working with Monique, Granny, and Ka, and that his cohorts were now dead or imprisoned, he might be planning most anything tonight. It was what any self-respecting vamp would do—promise to be on best behavior, cheat, promise again, and then cheat again. I should wear the armor. So maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped.
A soft knock sounded on the door, and I heard a voice say, “It’s Quint.”
Despite only having a human nose, under the door, I smelled seafood and only one person. “Come,” I said, unlocking the door, drawing on the robe and palming a throwing knife. Just in case.
The door opened, and the scent of fresh shrimp seared with peppers and homemade bread hot from the oven filled the room. Quint carried in a tray over her head, like a waiter in a fine restaurant, and laid out my meal on the tiny table in the corner. It had drop-down sides, and when they were lifted, it could easily seat three. There was a pitcher of iced green tea with lots of lemon, a green salad, bacon-wrapped asparagus, a bottle of wine, which we both knew I wouldn’t appreciate, and the fabulous shrimp.
I placed my chair in the corner, kept the throwing knife in my lap, and sat. Quint watched my every move, and though there was no way she could have seen the small blade, I was pretty sure she knew it was in my lap. Out of the fixins, I put a po’boy together. Though the asparagus was an odd contribution, the bacon made it all work.
“So good,” I mumbled through a mouthful.
“Why did you open the door without checking if I was alone?” Quint asked. “You did the same thing at your house when Thema and I were together. Yet you sit with a throwing knife ready to defend against me.”
I chewed and swallowed. Took a sip of the lemon green tea. It was pretty good, for iced stuff. “I could smell food. And you. At the house, I could smell you and Thema. And I carry the knife because you’re a sociopath, and I’m not one hundred percent sure of you yet.” I shrugged.
Quint studied me, her body deceptively lax and loose. “Most people can’t tell that about me. My family doesn’t know. The only other person who knew is dead. How do you?”
“All animals know. It’s in your body language. Small things.” I didn’t offer to tell her what things, especially in light of the other person who knew is dead comment. I was getting smarter in this world of bloodsuckers, other paras, and humans with issues.
Her expression didn’t change. She turned her back on me and looked at my closet. “Tonight you have a duello, which may not take place, though you will know soon. And after that, there may be executions. Or not. The prisoners at HQ might agree to go to new masters.” She shrugged. “Either way, you must be appropriately attired. Your scarlet armor has been cleaned and is airing out. I can have your black armor or the white armor sent over. But if you don’t like the idea of armor again, the black pants, scarlet crossover shirt, and black jacket would be acceptable. With the extra body mass, you no longer look weak and defenseless. The business clothes give an aura of strength, as in, you’re so tough and well protected you don’t need armor.”
“Fine. In which case, you can stand in front of me and take any shots,” I joked.
“Of course,” Quint said, as if it went without saying. “I’ll have your black dancing shoes sent over. Your extra weight doesn’t appear to have affected your height or shoe size.” She pulled the items out of my closet and hung them on a rack she suspended from the closet door top. “What are you going to do with your hair?”
“Something basic. Tight braid. Tied in a fighting queue at my nape in case I have to armor up after all. I’ll do it and my makeup myself.” I didn’t want h
er touching my hair again. I pushed away from the table. “Take the tray. Be back in twenty, armored and armed.”
“Of course,” she said again. Quint stopped. “Your sense of smell is much better than human, even in human form?”
“Yes.”
“Can you smell sickness? Emotions?”
“In Beast form and half-form, yes. Not so well in this form.”
“I see.” She left the room as she came in, tray up high.
When she was gone, I let out the breath I had been holding. Quint was a seriously scary woman. Beast purred deep inside. Good predator woman.
Yeah. She is.
* * *
* * *
“The Sangre Duello will take place as arranged in parley,” Bruiser said softly.
“Why?” I asked, my question serious. “They attacked us. Multiple times. Why should we give them opportunity again?”
“Because if there is no official duel, they will continue to attack us, killing our people. If Koun wins, they will likely use treachery, attack after the duel, and then we can destroy all your enemies, who will be gathered in one place. There will be an end to it. If Koun loses, we can use parley and protect our people. Again, there will be an end to it.” He smiled at my expression. “The Dark Queen’s honor will not be besmirched. I promise. Our people have parleyed the details and announced them to the world.”
“Treachery can work both ways,” I said.
Bruiser smiled slowly. “Yes. It can. We will be ready. We will be on our home grounds.”
Eli, at my side in a rolling chair, said, “We got this, babe.”
I sighed and blew out a breath. I kicked off the dancing shoes Quint had messengered over from my home and put my feet up on the big table in the security room, the massive screens overhead. “I’m listening.”
“A swordsman named Dovic, no last name, or perhaps no first name,” Bruiser said, “is to be Koun’s opponent.”