by Lori Devoti
Despite the fact we seemed to be working together at the moment, I didn’t appreciate his view that the Amazons could be so easily pegged.
“That told you to catapult around the building?” I asked my voice dry.
He nodded. “There was no obvious reason to set that fire, or to sound the explosion. No real damage was done. No one was hurt. So why do it?”
Mel released a noise from the back of her throat. “To divert our attention.”
Jack and I had already had this conversation. I tapped my toe, impatient for us to move on to something that would bring my mother’s killers into arm’s reach.
Jack touched the tip of his nose. “What was here someone wanted?”
“The baby.” Me this time. “But we’ve been over that. Unless they heard us talking and knew the baby was important to us, there was no real reason to target him.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know your birders would be here. I was just thinking of what wasn’t where we were.”
He looked at Mel. “Do you know how they got the babies? That might tell us something. Would they have been hidden somewhere, or could they have just stumbled over them?”
Mel rolled her lips into her mouth. “Scy, Dana, or Bubbe was with them all the time, but Dana, as I said, was gone, and when she heard the explosion, Bubbe came up to help me.”
Leaving my mother alone. But my mother should have been enough. Two humans shouldn’t have been able to get past her.
Mel continued, “Bubbe said the babies were asleep when she left, alone with Scy in Mother’s workout room.”
“So they got the babies away from my mother somehow.”
Mel nodded, looking unsettled. “Or lured her out and stole them while she was gone.”
I looked at Jack. We had seen the birders. We let them go past us. We could have stopped them, stopped everything.
He moved his head slightly, telling me there was no reason to explain that, that it didn’t change the outcome.
I bit back the confession, but it boiled and churned inside my stomach, mixed with the rest of the guilt stewing there.
“When I came around the corner, my mother was in the stairwell. The birders warned her to stay put, but she didn’t.”
Mel smiled. “She was a warrior.”
“And a mother.” I’d seen Mel when she thought someone had killed her son. I’d thought the crazed emotion that had overtaken her was a Mel thing, but now I realized my mother had felt it too. It made me uncomfortable, wondering if I’d misjudged her all along. I’d never had to balance being on the high council with raising a future queen. Maybe she’d cared for me more than I knew.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe that now that she was gone.
“What happened then? Did you see where the birders went? If there was anyone else with them?” Mel asked.
I shook my head. The dirt had provided a perfect cover for their getaway.
“This was not all some strange coincidence. We have to assume they wanted the babies. That this was all planned.”
My lips thinned as I pondered my next move.
I wanted to revenge my mother’s death, but every moment the high council’s rule to kill infant sons stood, a baby might die. Which would my mother think was more important?
I forced my mind to focus, to push emotion aside. The answer was obvious; my mother had died trying to save two infants. If I let even one die now, it would be an insult to everything she’d been trying to accomplish.
Somehow I had to do what my mother had failed to do. I had to change the high council’s rule.
And then I’d kill the bitches who took her life.
Chapter 16
As soon as the decision firmed in my head, I began moving forward. Mel grabbed me.
“You can’t leave.”
“My mother is dead. There’s no reason for me to stay here.”
“What about your brother?” she asked.
I blinked, confused for a moment. Then realization hit me . . . the baby. My mother had been caring for him. Would that responsibility fall to me now? I stiffened. A child wasn’t in my plans, never had been.
“His father will take him.” Jack watched us, his eyes moving back and forth in his face.
His father . . . I looked at Jack. “The man helping . . . with the concrete.” Jack had told me the bird was the baby’s father, but somehow once I’d put my mother into the picture, I’d forgotten him.
He nodded. “He met Scy a few years ago. She didn’t know he was a son at first.”
“But she did before she got pregnant.” No one had said it, but I knew it was true. My mother had wanted her children to be strong . . . the strongest. She had wanted it for me and she would want it for this child too. What better way than to give him a son as a father?
Jack’s gaze dropped for a second, but then rose. “I don’t know when she found out. Mateo hasn’t told me.”
Mateo. He didn’t like me; it was obvious from how he looked at me. It made me wonder what my mother had told him about me. . . . Then I remembered he knew me not as my mother’s daughter but as the queen who had hunted and, he thought, tried to kill his child.
I stared at Jack, unsure how I felt about turning the baby my mother had been so determined to save over to a son who hated me. I shouldn’t care. If asked, it’s what I would have said was the best solution . . . give our male children to the sons who wanted them . . . but now faced with it . . . it felt wrong.
I pressed the pads of my fingers into the heels of my hands. I couldn’t afford to quibble about it now. Even if I knew word one about caring for an infant, I couldn’t do what I had to do with a baby strapped to my back. Maybe my mother could have, but I wasn’t her.
I accepted Jack’s proposal with silence and looked back at Mel.
“My mother’s position on the high council is open. She couldn’t convince them that things need to change, but maybe someone else can.”
“You would try to get on the council?” There was reservation in Mel’s voice. I knew what she was thinking—the council was the enemy—but according to what my mother had told me, they weren’t.
But I wasn’t a queen. I wasn’t sure where I stood with the Amazons right now. To think of joining the council was ludicrous.
That didn’t mean, however, that I couldn’t try to open their eyes to the fact that the sons weren’t their only enemy. It might be enough to convince them killing infants wouldn’t keep them safe from attack.
I returned my focus to Jack. “Will you help me find the birders?”
Confusion flitted across Mel’s face. “I thought—”
But Jack held my gaze. “I will.”
He knew what I was asking. I didn’t know how he knew when Mel didn’t, but that didn’t matter right now, what did is that he’d agreed to be my ally. He’d agreed to fight my enemy.
The Amazons, some at least, would respect that. Another plus in my case to not demonize the sons.
I shifted my attention back to Mel. “I need Bubbe to tell me where the council meets.” Years ago, years before Mel had left the tribe, Bubbe had been on the high council, and even if they didn’t meet in the same place, I’d never met a priestess more powerful than my friend’s grandmother. She could find the council; if she had to ask Artemis herself, she could find them.
Mel’s face was grim. It was obvious she didn’t agree with what I planned to do. I wasn’t sure why—if it was her general hatred of the council or her lack of faith in me. It didn’t matter. I had already made my decision.
“You won’t get ten feet from where you stand. You move out of this circle and Bubbe’s ward will be broken. It’s anchored to you, but it won’t move with you. The police will remember who you are and why they wanted to talk to you, and they won’t look kindly on you leaving without doing it.”
Behind Jack, two men lifted my mother’s body and placed it in a dark zippered bag. My throat tightened.
“Get Bubbe. She can hurry them on their way.�
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Mel’s lips were pressed into such a flat line now that I could barely see them. Finally she spat out, “They tried to kill her, Mel. Your mother didn’t tell you everything. She didn’t want you to know, she wanted you to keep your love of the damned tribe, but the council tried to kill her. She had to leave, they were going to kill her son and her if she didn’t.”
Mel’s revelation should have surprised me, but it didn’t. I’d already accepted that I didn’t know the tribe like I thought I did . . . .
But the tribe was still the tribe, and I still loved them enough I was willing to die to protect them, even from themselves.
* * *
The police continued to measure and photograph. Then the media showed up. Shootings weren’t common in Madison. It was a blessing, though. It drew the police’s attention and made it easy for me to step away—even without Bubbe’s help.
Back inside Mel’s shop, we gathered and discussed our plan.
Jack called the bird son, my half brother’s father and my mother’s lover. He was at an art shop owned by Makis, the son confined to a wheelchair, but immediately agreed to return to take charge of the baby. Jack went to get him so he could arrive in his human form, clothed. He left the baby with us. I insisted. I was willing for the bird man to watch him, but I wasn’t handing him over totally. Not yet.
When I made this clear, Mel shook her head.
“He’s his father,” she said. “He would give his life to protect him.”
“And a son,” I replied. This new partnership was too unfamiliar. Besides, my mother had given her life, but that hadn’t been enough to save her son. He’d have been lost if Jack, Mateo, and I hadn’t been there.
“Makis is a son,” she countered. “And I trust him.” She didn’t, I noticed, mention Peter.
“You may. I don’t.” In fact, I trusted Makis least of all.
He was higher ranking and older than the other men. He was also Harmony’s, Mel’s daughter, grandfather—just another of the little surprises we’d discovered last fall. Based on his handicap alone, Makis had more reason than anyone to hate us.
Makis, however, wasn’t in town. He was with Harmony and Peter in Michigan. When Mel returned, she had returned alone.
“You let her stay with just them?” Mel was the definition of protective. I was shocked she would trust anyone, much less two sons, alone with her child.
At my question Bubbe, rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen, grunted.
Mel placed a heavy stare on her grandmother, then answered. “Makis is her grandfather.” Despite the strong look she’d shot Bubbe, I could see uncertainty in her eyes. She glanced to the side. “She has relatives.”
“Relatives? Sons?” Amazons didn’t recognize family outside their direct line. We didn’t keep track of things like cousins or aunts. They had no more importance in our lives than any other member of our family clan. I knew there were Amazons in the lion clan who shared a grandmother with me, but I didn’t give them any thought. I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to visit them.
“Harmony’s father had other children—two, both boys. They live in Michigan with an uncle.”
“And you let her stay there with them.” My mind was reeling. “What if they don’t bring her back?”
Bubbe jerked a phone book out of the drawer and slammed it down onto the countertop.
Mel’s eyes flashed. “They will.” Then she relaxed a bit. “She called last night. They went to Mackinac and rented horses. She’s having fun.”
A snort from Bubbe interrupted my response. As Mel narrowed her eyes and glared at her grandmother, I stepped away from the conversation. Harmony was out of the picture, which was good. One less child of a son to worry about.
As much as I didn’t understand Mel’s reasoning for letting her go off with the men, at least we didn’t have to worry about the Amazons deciding Harmony was a threat.
A tiny snort of my own escaped. How things had changed. I was actually glad an Amazon teen was with the sons and afraid my tribe might decide she was a threat that needed to be destroyed.
While I waited for the tension between Mel and her grandmother to settle, I approached the members of my camp, or the few who had thrown their loyalty to me over Thea and the high council.
Lao and Tess sat next to Dana, who was cooing and stroking tiny Pisto’s back. She hadn’t put him down since she and Lao had returned and she’d learned the birders had tried to steal not only my mother’s baby, but her own. Even now Dana’s voice cracked and her eyes when they met mine appeared manic, reconfirming my suspicion that a hearth-keeper could be just as determined and dangerous as a warrior.
Bern stood to one side, not far from my half brother who was asleep in his seat. The warrior was as silent as always. She hadn’t said a word to me since I’d asked her to leave earlier, but she watched all of us with the patience and intensity of a guard dog awaiting an order to attack.
I appreciated her coiled aggression. I felt the same. I couldn’t wait to get on with facing the high council, and after that, my mother’s killers.
Bubbe moved toward the stairs, a disposable wand-type lighter in her hand. “I build the fire to find the council,” she murmured. She scowled at Mel as she passed.
Mel shook her head and stared at the wall.
Content their disagreement wasn’t going to get in the way of finding the council, I pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. Tess poured a cup of coffee and slid it toward me.
I sipped and I waited, as did everyone else. Silence fell around us; even Dana quit her cooing; only the sound of her son sucking on a pacifier offered any disturbance.
In an hour Bubbe was back. And I could tell by the expression on her face, what she had to say wasn’t going to be good.
“The high council is no more.” Bubbe punctuated her words by slamming the end of a short staff onto the wood floor. Then she turned and stalked from the room.
Not knowing what else to do, the rest of us followed her, babies in tow. No one felt safe leaving them behind.
She walked down the front stairs and down the hill that led to Mel’s front lawn.
The schoolhouse was set on an acre of land, most of it in the front of the building. While the area around the school was crowded with the main building, the old gym/cafeteria, and a number of large trees, this area was flat and open with a clear view of Monroe Street.
At four in the morning the street was quiet, but Bubbe went about setting a ward to hide us anyway. Once we had sat in the traditional crescent-moon shape, she circled us, chanting. Back at the moon’s tip, she stopped and took a seat herself.
I glanced around the group, realizing this was most likely the first Amazon circle a male had ever attended. Yes, they were infants and didn’t understand a word that was being said, but it was still huge.
Bubbe held her staff to the side, one hand wrapped around it. “I reached out to the council, felt for their energy.” She dug the end of the staff into the earth. “It was broken . . . fractured.”
I frowned. “Perhaps because my mother—”
“No.” She slammed the staff down. “It is more than that. Their power. It is broken.” She held the staff in front of her. There was a crack, and the thing split into two pieces.
Mel’s eyes found mine. Resolve was there. She’d already known this.
I curled my fingers into the grass beneath my thighs and repeated what my mother had told me, how the council had been divided on what to do about the sons, how the other group had managed to pull those in the middle to their side for the vote.
Still holding the two halves of the staff, Bubbe nodded. “It is more than that. I sensed . . . ” She looked up at the moon and murmured something low that I couldn’t hear.
We waited for her to finish her murmuring and go on.
Finally she looked back. “Another goddess. It is not just the sons over which they argue. It is the goddess herself.”
The goddess? “But . . . ” Bu
t the goddess was Artemis. I looked up too. The moon was still in the sky and only five days past being full.
“Some have deserted Artemis.” Bubbe dropped the pieces of the staff. They rolled across the ground.
The others stared at them, afraid and uncertain.
While I wouldn’t admit it out loud, I was afraid and uncertain too.
I’d never imagined any of this could happen. The sons, my mother’s death, the council taking my position as queen, but to learn some had left Artemis?
Artemis was everything to us. Our safe camps were built on her places of power. Our ceremonies were held at night under the moon. I bore her crescent on the back of my neck. Everything we held dear, everything that made us Amazons, involved Artemis in some way. How could any desert her?
But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t doubt Bubbe. I trusted her, as a person and a priestess. She had no reason to lie, and she wouldn’t, couldn’t, make a mistake like this.
But what did it mean—to the tribe and me?
I scrambled for a question that would make the answer clear.
“What goddess?” Maybe if I knew this I would understand, but I doubted it. There were many goddesses, but none I could think of who matched the essence of the Amazons like Artemis.
Bubbe pressed her lips together, making her look, despite the difference in years, like her granddaughter Mel. “I don’t know. My tie is to Artemis. I cannot see the other.”
“How . . . ” I struggled, trying to think how this would affect us. “Our talents, they come from the goddess . . . Artemis.” It was a statement, one I thought was true, but I’d thought so many other things were true too. Now I couldn’t take anything for granted.
Bubbe sighed. The corners of her mouth edged down, pulled by disapproval. “We are the daughters of Ares and Otrera, a god and our first queen. Our long life, your strength, they come from them.”
Long life and strength. That wasn’t much, not when compared to all the other talents the Amazons held.
“All of our talents are part of who we are,” she added.