by Faith Hunter
“Yeah, well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to annihilation,” I said, “but I intend to rescue Ed from the Flayer, and I’ll kill you before I let you harm my primo. Just so we’re clear.”
“Can he get inside your head easily?” Eli asked Kojo, moving silently around us, taking in everything, and simultaneously getting a better shot angle. “If so,” he continued, his voice so soft it was its own kind of threat, “that makes you a liability.”
“No,” Kojo said, the single word hard. “Not without him taking my blood once again,” he said, his accent growing stronger. “Before, when he stole my blood to claim me, I was his prisoner. He made use of my wife, against her will. Even now, if he tries to drink of me, tries to take over my mind with his spirit of darkness, I will die true-dead first.”
“As will I,” Thema said. And she was suddenly holding a small subgun, a different configuration, make, and model from one of Eli’s, but no less dangerous. Eli moved almost vamp-fast, keeping them both in line of sight, his fingers at the triggers. This was going bad fast.
Thema went on, “We parley with the Dark Queen.”
“Okay,” I said. “The Dark Queen hears.”
“We will feed your Onorio. We will leave no chevalier vampire in the hands of the Maker. We will save your servant-knight. We will fight at your command. We will put away our weapons. But we will not give them up.”
“Chevalier vampire?” I asked.
“Knight of the Dark Queen,” Shaddock said, then clarified: “Edmund.” He sounded amused, his eyes moving between us as if we were an entertainment just for his enjoyment.
“Edmund is not just a knight. He’s the Master of the City of New Orleans,” Eli said, not moving his lethal muzzles away from them, “and the emperor of the European Mithrans, should the empress fall.”
Kojo tilted his head, disdain on his face. “The heir of all Europe allowed himself to be captured? How is such a raeb, one powerful enough to inherit the emperorship, taken and used by the Flayer of Mithrans?”
I had no idea what raeb was, but I understood the question. There was a lot of crap going on here and it needed to be brought to an end, fast. “Betrayal,” I said simply.
“I have heard whispers, my heart,” Thema said to Kojo. “Those loyal to the Flayer, with territory in the French countryside, helped with some treachery.” She added to me, “These same treacherous ones welcomed the Nazis with open arms and gave those of us with darker skin to be tested and used. We fought and killed many, and my heart and I were not taken, though we lost many friends. There is no shame in being bested by betrayal. But vengeance is demanded.”
Yeah. Vengeance. That was exactly want I wanted. I put a hint of command in my tone and shifted on my paw-pad feet to better display my scarlet-painted claws. “Put down your weapon, Thema. Stand down, Kojo. Once they stand down, put away your weapons, Eli.”
“Copy.”
Copy meant he’d heard, not that he would put away the weapons. I sighed. “Pretty please?” I asked. “With sugar on top?”
Eli snorted. Thema hesitated and then dropped her head in obeisance, placing her weapon on the floor. She was really limber. When she stood upright, Eli lowered his little killer guns. The stench of violence began to fade from the air.
I glanced at Eli. “You’ll make sure everything that needs to be done is done?”
“Yes, my queen.”
My queen? Ooookaaay. Someone was making a point. I said, “And that the meat is put in the kitchen?”
Eli chuckled. “Roger that.”
Alex said from the shadows, “If you’re interested, I know where the Flayer has been for the last few months.” I nodded and he entered the main room, holding a tiny laptop on one arm, the screen balanced open in front of him. “The Flayer of Mithrans has been staying in Chambord Castle, Loir-et-Cher”—he mangled the words—“in France.”
“I know this place,” Thema said, her voice going tighter, her body drawing up into a fighter’s stance.
“The largest French Renaissance castle in the Loire Valley.” Alex glanced up at me and I nodded again. Things seemed to be ratcheting down. Dang vamp politics and all the mumbo jumbo that went along with it. Alex visibly relaxed and went on. “The castle was built by Francis the First in 1519 as a hunting lodge for the royal court, but it was rarely lived in. One hundred rooms out of four hundred forty are open to the public. The remaining three hundred plus are private. Lots of places to hide and hunt.”
Thema moved to Kojo. He stood and she laid her head on his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her to his side, but they each had one arm free, and the bulges beneath their snow-damp clothing were proof of more hidden weapons.
Thema said, “The Flayer of Mithrans would have taken over what empty rooms he wanted and his scions would hunt in the park and nature preserve that surrounds it, as well as the nearby countryside, taking humans to feed upon. That they are close to so many humans, and yet there are no reported deaths or large numbers of missing humans, implies they are not drinking as Naturaleza. Or were not. If they are truly coming here, and if they truly intend battle, they will need to drink freely.”
“They are,” I said.
She looked at me, sloe eyes tilted and deceptively sleepy. “Many humans will die, if you allow him free feeding in your territory. His scions will capture you. They will lock you in a cage and drink you down. They will own you. The Flayer will try to take your mind, for you are a strange creature and he desires to possess strange creatures.”
“Not a chance in heaven,” I said, thinking about Edmund. Then thinking about Hayyel, I lifted my jaw in a Cherokee gesture, pride and certainty in my stance and tone. “I have an angel on my side.”
She shrugged, a bony shoulder moving beneath her thin T-shirt. “Angels have little interest in taking the side of humans or strange creatures. If you fight on the side of an angel, he will use you and then discard you.”
I’d think about that later. I said, “There’s a cottage for you on the grounds. Unit number three.” I glanced at Shaddock, who was no longer testing me, but standing with his hands in his jeans pockets, watching us. His face wore a hawkish, speculative expression, his eyes hooded by powerful brows. I wasn’t sure if the glare meant he was willing to help and follow me into battle or he was thinking about taking my head and mounting it on a pole. “Unit two is for you,” I said.
Shaddock interrupted me. “This place ain’t what you might call well defensible. A small army of European fighters is headed this way, along with any local recruits they might find. You gonna parley in town?”
“We have defenses and plans,” I said. “Talk to my partner, Eli Younger.”
Shaddock nodded to Eli. “Pleasure, sir.”
“At your service, sir,” Eli responded.
“Unit one belongs to Edmund,” I said, getting back to the immediate.
“A Mithran who will be my emperor,” Shaddock said. “If he can best me.”
“Yup. Once the Flayer is dead and everyone is healed, you can challenge him. He’ll love owning Asheville.”
Lincoln Shaddock barked a laugh. So did I.
Molly stuck her head around the corner. “You people finished playing fanghead games yet? I need to get in the kitchen.”
Smiling a purely human smile, Lincoln said, “Miz Everhart-Trueblood. It’s a pleasure, ma’am.” He gave her a small bow and stepped aside.
CHAPTER 7
If My Hands Had Worked, I’d Have Flipped Him Off
The Winter Court of the Dark Queen of the Mithrans had a new, traditional sweathouse above the tumbling creek out back. Well after midnight, in the freezing air, I stood in half-form at the sweathouse’s open door, smelling sawdust, the glue of the marine-grade plywood, and the pine two-by-fours from the construction. The interior was lightless. My Beast-eyes took their time adjusting to the dark after the sno
w-bright night outside, but things began to resolve and my brain made patterns of them.
Eli had built the sweathouse according to instructions given to him by Aggie One Feather, my mentor and Cherokee Elder back in NOLA. He had done compass measurements so the sweathouse was aligned to the rising sun on the equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices. There were little doors high in the gables on the eastern side to let in the rising sun on each of these days. A small table near the door held folded cloth, and there were empty hooks on the wall above it.
There was a stone-lined fire pit in the center, in a circular, clay-lined depression. There was an aged oak log, sawn in half and shellacked, the two halves at north and south. There was what could have been a shallow dough bowl, a pitcher and ladle, split wood and kindling, in stacks according to the wood type, each bundle bound by white cord. I smelled oak, walnut, hickory, and cedar. Near the pitcher and ladle was a drum. I walked in and picked it up, studying it in Beast’s night vision. It had an ancient clay pot–style base, the opening covered by a new tanned hide, maybe raccoon skin. There were tiny copper bells all around the top, and when I tapped the skin, they jingled.
A memory flashed like lightning through my brain, searing everything in the here and now, taking me back. A fire in a longhouse. The scent of smoke and man sweat and bear fat strong on the air. Burning herbs, different from the herbs used in women’s rituals. Different from the sweathouse. These were harsh and acerbic and stung my nose.
The longhouse was dark, lit only by a large fire. Men were moving around the fire, each with their left arm out to the flames. Dancing. It was a war dance. My father was in the circle, long legs bare, a breechclout covering his middle. His body was painted with white chalk and ocher and black ashes. His hair was braided in a complicated pattern and there were feathers in his headband, oddly, all hanging down. His bone-and-teeth necklace popped up and down with each step, his toes spread wide. He wore bone anklets and they clattered with each step.
A drum was in the hands of an old man, face lined and eyes whitened by age, his body wrapped in woven robes and a bearskin, the fur turned inward for warmth. The old man was sitting at north, tapping on the drum, a complicated six-beat rhythm, and tiny shells and hollow wood reeds rang with each beat. Rain pattered on the roof overhead. Smoke swirled on the slow air.
I was sitting with Uni lisi, her smell that of cat and owl and strong woman. Beside her was the outclan priestess of the vampires. Sabina.
Another shock of electricity zinged through me. I was back in my sweathouse. I tapped the raccoon skin top. The single thrum was sharp. The bells tinkled. Just like my memory. I was holding a war drum of the Tsalagi. I had no idea where it had come from. Or when the memory had been except that I was very young. Three? Four? Sabina had been there. With my grandmother, who smelled like an owl. I shivered and the bells shrilled with my motion. A memory of Sabina in my own distant past was alarming. Why had Sabina been allowed to be present at a war dance? Why had I? The war dance was only for the men and the beloved women—the war women.
Sabina was Mediterranean. Had her olive skin and prominent nose been enough like The People for her to be considered one of them? Had she mesmerized them? Drank them down? Left them blood-drunk?
“Crap,” I whispered.
I shook the drum. It rang, shrill and strident. New sweathouse. War drum. New memory and a weird one at that.
Maybe the memory came because I’d be breaking in a new elder soon, whenever she managed to get here, out in the boonies. Had the new elder sent a war drum to me? My new Cherokee Elder, found for me by Aggie One Feather, was from Long Hair Clan. Not my clan. Not a skinwalker. But still—an Elder of The People. I wondered what would happen if I showed up in half-form and scared the heck out of her. I might get my knuckles rapped or something.
The sweathouse door closed behind me with a bang and I jumped. War drum bells rang. Outside, a gust of wind hit the sweathouse. Feeling silly, I set down the drum and crossed my arms over my narrow waist, gripping my elbows; boney, knobby joints like river stones. And wondered how my soul home would look, with another elder leading me to healing. I figured I was going to hate it.
It was now intensely dark inside. The sweathouse was small, able to hold six people at most. I hadn’t noticed the icy air outside but somehow, in the sweathouse, with no flames in the firepit, no fire-heated rocks, no smell of smoke and ash and herbs that I was used to, the air felt colder. Sterile. Waiting. Did sweathouses need to be smudged? Probably.
I closed my eyes and thought about my soul home. The dark. The hollow echo of water dripping. My mind dropped into the place where my life force resided. The awareness of the air changed, warmed slightly.
I opened my eyes and raised them. Studied the open area of the cave-like place. Like the sweathouse, there was no fire. No flicker of flames, no warmth. No movement of air. It was as if my soul home had stopped breathing and gone cold. It felt empty. Lonely.
The wide space had a smooth floor and walls, stalactites and stalagmites hanging and rising, a few meeting in the middle in bizarre-shaped columns. No sign of Beast. A medicine bag hung on my chest. My father’s medicine bag. Here, it was no longer tattered and faded, the deer hide still smelling of tannins and dyes. I was wearing pants and a long shirt wrapped and tied with a cloth belt, dressed the way my father had dressed. I was in half-form and carried a knife at my waist, one with a deer antler handle.
The domed ceiling rose over me, pale gray and feathered.
Hayyel’s wings were draped on the roof and down the depth of my soul. He was watching over me. Or just watching me. “What do you want?” I asked him, the words ringing. “Is it to kill the last son of Judas Iscariot? Do you want the blood of the Son of Shadows on my blade? Do you wish me to destroy the maker of vampires? Will you be done with me then?”
Something stirred in the air behind me. I turned but no one was there. A familiar voice spoke into the silence, melodic and lyrical; unlike the dripping water in the distance, it didn’t echo. “Walk into the dark of your soul home. Walk into the passage.”
I peered into the tunnel in the far part of the cavern, a long curving hallway. I had made my way into the dark here before. There had been a waterfall in the distance, but I didn’t hear the roar of the water now. I stepped into the gloom, following the snaking tube-like tunnel, darkness all around me, my feet sure in the perpetual night, Beast’s eyes glowing, the world appearing in deep shades of greens and charcoal and black, my paw-feet-pads steady on the cold floor.
Within a few yards, the roar of water came to me faintly. I rounded a curve and the air grew wetter, the rumble a vibration beneath my paw-pads. The tunnel narrowed and twisted. It opened out into a bigger room, the floor littered with cracked and broken stone. A stalagmite had fallen and shattered and now blocked my path. An underground stream gushed from a hole in the rock wall just ahead and to my left. The cascade sent plumes of mist and water droplets into the air. Each was pristine and perfectly round.
I stepped over the broken stone and stopped at the edge of the underground river, the water a good ten-foot drop below me. Downstream, I saw the presence of future time in the water droplets. I saw war among the arcenciels, war with lightning, storms, eruptions of volcanoes, earthquakes. There was fighting in the heavens like angels and demons in battle. Human jets and bombers circled among them, firing weapons that did nothing to the rainbow dragons, passed through the demons without effect. Nuclear bombs detonated in the atmosphere. The droplets grew crimson and vanished. Instead of battle in the droplets, I now saw a dry and barren world. A war-ravaged world with craters and rents deep into the Earth’s crust. The crimson tint obscured the timeline. In its place, I saw droplets depicting a wet and dripping world covered with mold and slimes and colonies of bacteria the size of dinner plates. In the next spray human bones were piled high in desolate and broken cities, as if thousands of bodies had been shoved out of the way
, to rot. In other droplets and sprays, I saw emptiness, no living humans, no mammals, no birds, no reptiles, no insects. Not anywhere. I understood that every single droplet vision was a variant of the world after arcenciel war. After human war. After destruction on a scale I never dreamed even in nightmares. I closed my eyes and forced the visions away.
When I opened them again, my gaze traced the passage of water from upstream, between the rocks, where the water roared from the chasm, above the waterfall, high into the past. My childhood came alive in the droplets. Edoda, my father, teaching me to throw an ax. His body, on the floor of our cabin. The sensation of cold as I painted my face in my father’s blood. My five-year-old hand clenching the knife that killed my first man, Edoda’s murderer.
I followed the trail of my life in the droplets back along the flow of the underground river, downstream into my own future. Seeing death and war, seeing hope and love. Seeing my future evil as I killed and ate humans, then my death as a liver-eater at the hand of an elderly Eli. His rage and sorrow and determination as I tried to kill him and Alex and three small children.
My entire life was death and destruction. And each droplet of my future was a world of even more horrors if I didn’t fix what was happening here and now. Or if I allowed the arcenciels to go back in time and destroy the vamps at conception. Or if I allowed the war in the heavens to start. But I didn’t know how to stop any of that.
I studied each potential world, each possibility as it rose and fell into the fast-moving river, upstream and down. A series of them showed torture. Disease. Destruction. War. Another series showed the vamps and the trail of bodies as they attacked and killed entire villages. Others displayed vamps hanging in storage lockers, their blood harvested. Most droplets of the underground stream were filled with fear and pain. The very few that led to peace and living humans and a healthy world were a narrow spray that started with me. But there was nothing that showed what I did to avert a war. Nothing that showed me how to get through to the narrow possibility of goodness.