Amazon Queen a-2

by Лори Девоти

  "And she did. That's who we stole him from."

  "You stole him?" Her expression sharpened.

  "Yes, but we lost him soon after. The sons stole him back. . " I paused, thinking. "How did the council know where Mateo would be?"

  "Mateo?"

  "Andres's father. . the baby's father."

  "Oh. . I don't know. Padia must have run some kind of spell that located him."

  "So Padia is behind all this?" A priestess, it made sense.

  Kale placed her hand over her eyes as if the early evening light bothered them. "Yes. I don't know why she was so adamant about killing your mother's child, but she was. . I don't think. . " She shook her head and stared at the clumps of green floating in her glass. "What happened to me?" she murmured.

  I waited for her to sort out whatever she was going through. "Do you remember anything else? Why you came to the safe camp? When? Do you think someone drugged you?" My mind went to the flask she had dropped when we first entered the clearing.

  "Drugged? Could I have been?" she asked. She sat there frowning, seemed lost in her own thoughts. "Drugged. . that would explain how-" She looked up. "I don't even know how I got here. I remember leaving the Northwest, knowing I needed to find you for some reason, or maybe it was your mother. That would make sense, that I was going to help her keep the baby from Padia, but. . " Her words faded away. Uncertainty. . insecurity. . shone from her eyes. She stared down into the glass. There was only an inch or two of the green liquid left.

  "How did I come to this?" she murmured.

  My fingers dug into the stuffed cow in my lap. The dog, waiting for me to throw it again, looked up expectantly.

  I wondered the same thing as Kale.

  How had any of us come to this?

  Chapter 20

  The sheriff showed up a half hour later. I was still out with the dogs when Bern whistled the alert.

  I plucked all three puppies from their box and slapped my leg to call the mother dog to my side. Then I walked quickly in the direction of the main road.

  The car, a white sedan with a gold stripe down the side, pulled to the side of the road as I approached. An older man wearing a tan uniform rolled down his window.

  "You live around here?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "Not lately. My boyfriend owns the house, or what was a house, next door."

  "Oh yeah, sorry about that." He cast his glance to the home behind me, then back at me, a question in his eyes.

  I smiled. "Damn dog." I gestured to the mother dog walking beside me. "She disappeared the night of the fire. Jack dropped me off so I could look for her. I found a little something extra."

  He laughed. "Looks like you did at that."

  I nodded to the runt. "You wouldn't want one, would you?"

  He held up his hands. "Not me. Might want to tell your boyfriend he needs to get the bitch fixed, though. Or maybe this will teach him."

  With a sigh, I replied, "Maybe."

  After a few more questions, ending with me assuring him there was no one around Jack's property or his neighbor's house, he backed the car back out the way he'd come.

  The bitch needed to be fixed.

  He didn't know how true the statement was. And now, thanks to my conversation with Kale, I knew who the bitch was. . I just needed to find her.

  After the sheriff left, I went to find Mel. She was standing on the other side of the garage talking on her cell phone. Probably looking for privacy. I walked up and stood a couple feet behind her.

  Her shoulders tightened, but she didn't turn. She didn't alter her tone, volume, or what she was saying either.

  "No more tattoos."

  Pause.

  "I don't care."

  Longer pause.

  "Get Peter."

  Short pause accented by Mel moving two short angry strides forward.

  "Harmony-"

  Her daughter must have hung up. Mel muttered a curse and stared at her phone. She started dialing.

  I stepped around her, so we were facing. Her expression said to back off.

  I didn't. "Is she looking at a full sleeve?"

  Mel flicked her eyes upward.

  "Neck tattoo, or maybe some kind of mask?"

  "This isn't funny." She had lowered her phone, but I could tell by how she was holding it that she was one good breath away from blowing me off the continent so she could recall Harmony and restart their argument. Finally she sighed. "You asked how I could trust Makis with her? Well, I don't-not one hundred percent. I'm new to this too. It's not easy letting go. And I know more than anyone the power tattoos can have. What I don't know is everything about how the sons use them." She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. "She says it's purely decoration, on her ankle, but how do I know that?"

  I tilted my head in a do whatever you like gesture. "If you call her and say no again, she's just going to want it more."

  Mel's nostrils flared. I could see she didn't like my answer, but without replying, she shoved the phone into her pocket. . hard.

  Her arms crossed over her chest, she asked, "You just eavesdropping or did something happen?"

  It was a little of both, but she knew that. I filled her in on both my conversation with Kale and the sheriff's visit.

  "So you think Padia is the problem?"

  "Or the hearth-keeper who brought it up first, but since Padia's the one who went after my mother and Andres, she's my guess."

  "Unless she's just a minion."

  I twisted my lips. I didn't like my theory being batted back at me. "Do you think we should start somewhere else?"

  Her eyes sparked. She was laughing at me. "Would it matter?"

  I ignored her question. "Can you find her?"

  Her mouth opened and snapped closed.

  "Bubbe found Kale."

  This time when her eyes flashed, it wasn't with amusement. "I'm not Bubbe."

  I waited. Mel knew I thought she underestimated herself. I'd always thought that, but in the years we were apart, before being reunited last fall, her talents had grown even more. I wouldn't have been surprised if she could out-priestess her legendary grandmother-not at all.

  "I don't have the tools."

  "What do you need? Totems?" I pulled the stone lion that hung from a leather cord over my head. "We should have, what? Four of them covered." Mel, Lao, Bern, and myself-none of us shared a clan. "We can get your mother to borrow the others from camp."

  Mel stared at the lion, then turned on her heel without taking it. "Give me an hour."

  I spent the hour getting in some fighting practice with Bern and Jack. The son had never used a weapon with me. I'd stupidly thought he couldn't.

  I was wrong.

  He decided to teach me a game he'd watched as a child. He stood fifteen feet away armed with twelve knives. My job was to dodge them as he threw.

  Without warning, he began to throw. . so quickly it seemed as if they were all thrown at once with no more than seconds between each.

  I rolled. Three dug into the dirt where I'd been. I leapt to my feet, jumping in the same motion so my knees reached my chest. Two more zinged beneath me. I landed hard, but on my feet, and threw myself to the side as two more flew toward me. Five remained, and I was winded. I lunged for my staff; two more grazed my skin, one cutting a hole in my shorts.

  Staff in hand, I bounded back to my feet and batted the last three, which were zipping toward my heart out of the air.

  "You cheated," he said.

  "And you didn't give full disclosure," I replied. Sweat dripped down my neck, soaking my workout top. I shifted the staff in front of me, unwilling to put it down. "What exactly is your talent?"

  He walked to where three of the knives lay buried in the dirt and jerked them out. With his eyes on me he began to juggle-faster and faster until the flashing blades were nothing but one solid silver blur.

  "Maybe you should ask what I did as a child. What my father did."

  I moved the staff again, into a pos
ition where I could easily deflect another knife if needed. . or try. "Clown?" I offered.

  "Close. Carny. Worked the sideshows. My mother, my adoptive mother, was the living target."

  "How sweet." I twirled the staff. "Why haven't I seen you use knives before?"

  "Because. . " The spinning blur slowed. He jerked his hands to the side and all three blades sank into the ground. "I didn't need to."

  Bern stood to the side throughout the exchange, her expression unreadable. With his comment, she grunted and began gathering up the rest of the knives.

  I tapped my staff against the side of my foot, unsure how or if to respond.

  Mel stepping around the side of the house saved me from my dilemma.

  "I'm ready." Two words and she was gone, back in the direction she'd come.

  Still holding my staff, I walked past Jack. His voice followed me. "And I did offer to show you my talents. You just haven't taken me up on it." His voice sizzled with promise. My libido sizzled in return but, eyes focused on the corner Mel had disappeared behind, I kept walking.

  Mel was sitting in the dirt between the detached garage and the house. In front of her was a small fire, surrounded by a ring of rocks. Beside her was a stack of papers.

  As I got closer, I could see a telios was drawn on each sheet. She handed them to me. "Do you know Padia's?"

  I stiffened. I didn't, of course. I looked at Mel.

  With a patient sigh, she said, "We can do it by process of elimination, but it will take longer."

  We were able to cross off the four high council telioses I knew were represented by warriors, but that still left eight.

  Mel handed me the stack of papers.

  "Put one under each rock, except the first that we're hoping is Padia's. Hand that one back to me."

  I did as she asked, glancing at the fire as I did.

  She stared at me. "Just because you think I should be able to do something or want me to be able to do something doesn't mean I can. Bubbe doesn't need the fire. I do. . " She shook her head. "Even with the fire, I don't know if I can do what she did. . there might be a delay, or I might get nothing at all."

  I had faith in her. I pulled out the sheet with the hawk on it and handed it to her, then sat down, out of her way.

  Like her grandmother, she chanted. Unlike her grandmother, it was in English, but it didn't matter. I couldn't follow her words. She fed the sheet I'd given her into the fire, and I concentrated on the smoke that streamed from its blaze.

  It took six tries before we got a hit. Even then I wasn't sure at first if the spell was working. The smoke looked like what you'd expect from any fire, drifting with the slight breeze that blew along the alley formed by the house and garage. But the sixth time it began to snake, forming shapes I could almost, but not quite, identify.

  I wanted to reach out and grab the dancing shapes, hold them so I could study them at leisure, but as quickly as one solidified, it would mist away.

  Then the smoke thickened, so solid I swore I could pluck the shape from the fire. I went so far as to hold out my hand and felt the heat on my fingertips before my brain registered what I was seeing-an obelisk, a house, trees. . The shapes continued to morph, but I'd seen enough. .

  I looked at Mel.

  She was staring back at me.

  "She's here."

  While Mel went about extinguishing the fire, I rocked back onto my heels.

  Padia was at the safe camp. How long had she been there? Kale had been at the camp; at least I assumed she had been at the house before going to the obelisk. She should have recognized the other high-council member, but her memory of everything after leaving the Northwest was missing.

  My mind flashed to the flask Kale had been holding when we found her. Maybe she had been drugged. Maybe it had blocked that bit of time from her brain.

  But it hadn't eliminated Padia from Kale's memory completely. Kale still remembered the council member, still knew she was behind all of this. Which meant Kale should still recognize Padia when she saw her.

  I went to look for the other warrior.

  I got as far as the backyard, where Jack seemed to be showing Bern how to juggle the knives, when a body burst through the trees.

  It was Tess, her shirt sticking to her with sweat and her shorts stained with mud and grass. It looked as if she'd fought her way through the forest.

  She came to a halt a few feet away, her body jerking as she searched for breath.

  "Mels. . they're planning an attack."

  I didn't react to her statement, couldn't afford to. "Where's Cleo?" I asked, holding up my hand to keep the questions I could see burning in Jack's and Bern's eyes at bay.

  Tess's eyes grew huge. "A new priestess arrived. She held some kind of ceremony, said there was a spy at camp. Then when she saw Cleo, she recognized her, knew she was related to Mel. They took her. . Cleo, I mean. . and dragged her off. I'm not sure where."

  Padia. Mel was right. She was here. But it didn't sound like she had been here long. I'd been wondering if Thea might be Padia, but Tess's announcement laid that suspicion to rest, at least.

  I glanced at the hearth-keeper. "Cleo's not at camp?"

  Tess hesitated, then shook her head. "I don't think so. I'm not sure."

  "Who? What has happened?" Mel appeared, her knees covered in dust and ash in her hair.

  "They caught your mother. They know she's been spying on them."

  "We have to get her," she replied, her voice matter-of-fact.

  "There's more." I gestured to Tess.

  The girl swallowed and repeated what she'd already said. "I think they may be taking Cleo with them, as some kind of trade or bait."

  I frowned. "So you don't think she's at the camp?"

  She shook her head, hard. "No, sorry. . with the excitement. . I'm getting confused."

  I was too, but there wasn't time for that. Trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible so as not to rattle her more, I asked, "This new priestess. . does she have a name?"

  "Uh. . " She looked around. . looked afraid.

  "Padia?" Kale asked. She'd come around the other corner of the house, having apparently been for a walk. I was glad to see it, glad she was recovering.

  Lao appeared in the open doorway of the house.

  "Yes, Padia. That's her name." Tess nodded and glanced toward Lao. When the older hearth-keeper's gaze fell on her, she looked away.

  Kale hopped from the porch onto the ground. "We need to stop her."

  Her color was stronger and there was a glint in her eyes. She outranked me too, but I didn't let that factor into what I had to do.

  I faced Kale. "We are going to Mel's."

  "Are you sure we shouldn't go after Padia? If we get to her, we can undo everything she's done. I could go alone."

  "No. There are some things that can't be undone." Death being the biggest one. If we went after Padia, and someone, anyone at Mel's paid the price. . I bit down on my cheek. It wasn't an option. For once I was going to think about individuals before the tribe. "We need everyone."

  Kale's jaw tightened. She glanced at Tess as if the hearth-keeper might offer something to strengthen her case, but Tess only stared back. Finally Kale nodded.

  Glad I wasn't going to have to fight a battle here before going to fight whoever awaited us at Mel's, I started yelling orders. We had our weapons packed and were ready to go in ten minutes. We left the dogs behind with food and water. Everyone else piled into the truck. With Cleo missing, the car was missing. The truck was all we had, and we had no time to steal another vehicle. Kale, Lao, and Tess got the cab. Jack, Bern, Mel, and I lay flat in the bed. Only truckers and RVs would be able to see us there. We covered ourselves with an old tarp and hoped no one would notice us, or if they did, wouldn't bother to call in and report us.

  The worry didn't keep me awake. I took advantage of the trip and the dark that had fallen to grab a couple hours of sleep. It would be early when we arrived at Mel's. . barely dawn.


  It seemed a good time for an attack.

  I would be ready.

  Chapter 21

  I saw the birder as soon as we pulled into Mel's lot. Jack saw her too; I felt him stiffen beside me, but I beat him out of the truck. I threw myself over the side and was running toward the building where the older woman stood, a canvas bag over her arm, before Lao had even brought the truck to a stop. The woman saw me coming; her skin paled. I'd grabbed Bern's nunchakus as I'd leapt. They'd been loose on the floor and easy to reach.

  I spun them over my head now but resisted the urge to yell. Just because I could only see the one birder didn't mean there weren't more. I expected there to be more, and I didn't want to alert them.

  Kill this one, then move on to the next. That was my plan.

  The nunchakus were spinning, the whirring noise they made reassuring and restful. Focused and ready, I prepared to strike.

  Something hit me from the back, someone. . big and strong, bigger and possibly stronger than me.

  I tried to twist, to lash at my attacker with the weapon, but a second assailant joined the fight. A staff jabbed me in the trachea, cutting off my breath.

  "Stand down! She's not a birder. Stand down!" Jack's voice, yelling in my ear. Adrenaline rushing through me, I gripped one end of the nunchaku in my closed fist and pummeled it into his skull.

  Then suddenly a weight like a lead blanket dropped on top of me, on top of Jack too. He cursed softly. Only my face was free of the suffocating heaviness. I twisted my neck, searching for whoever had brought this new weapon into the mix.

  Bubbe stood over me, her face upside-down in my view.

  Her lips pursed, she made tching noise. "You kill my clients, it make it very hard for me to keep my business, dorogaya.

  Client. Stand down. The words mixed in my head. Jack's attack and the staff jabbing against my throat. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. With my emotions under control, I opened them. "Let me up."