The Queen of Disks (Villainess Book 5)

by Alana Melos

  “How are we getting to Russia?”

  “You, you mean,” Alistair said. “I need to stay here and help with Rebekah’s hand.”

  She gave him a look, but nodded. I understood her wanting it off. It would be like some poor kid having to carry around a picture of their abuser: a constant outward reminder. “Question stands, tommygun.”

  Thomas gave me another look, but smiled as he did it. “I so love nicknames,” he said. “We can provide you with some transportation, but getting into the country and finding him will be up to you.”

  Of course it would be. “And if we say no?”

  At that, his smile faded and he glanced around the room. “Those two are defectors from the Reich,” he said. “They will be returned, in accordance to the treaty we have with them. You will be returned as well, for being a criminal and enemy of our ally. Alistair would be free to stay or go as he wishes, as he has done us no wrong.”

  My mouth tightened, drawing my lips into a straight line. My temper held, if barely, though red stained my vision. Thomas’ gaze sharpened as if he could sense my thoughts, or simply could see my anger through the tenseness of my body. I relaxed, and put the mask of neutrality more firmly into place.

  “What if there are other difficulties? It can’t be easy, and my medical treatment couldn’t have been that expensive,” I said, keeping my voice even as if I were bored.

  “Treatment, asylum, and transportation,” he replied with a chuckle. “You could not expect much more from us with all the bills you are making, hm?”

  Pushing my plate aside, I looked around at my companions, then focused on Huraiva. She and I would be the ones risking our necks doing this. “I think we need to talk privately,” I said. She inclined her head incrementally, and gave Kiandra and Thomas a wary glance. Even though she was walking around more, I needed to talk to Adira directly and see what she thought.

  “Very well,” Thomas said.

  Kiandra stood, gracing us all again with her wide smile. “Good! You talk and agree! We’ll all be friends here, and being friends with the Caesar is a powerful thing!” She sauntered to the door, blowing us kisses, “Decide, soon! We will have a party, si? Kiss, kiss!” Her partner strolled at his pace towards the exit, inclining his head ever so slightly as he closed the double doors behind him.

  After we were alone, I looked to Alistair. “Are we alone?”

  “I don’t sense anyone else present, but…” He gestured, his eyes glowing that sickly green of his for a heartbeat. “There’s a listening ward up now. Discuss as you will.”

  “Huraiva, give the body to Adira,” I said turning to her. Just after I uttered those words, I saw her eyes glow Adira’s dull red. “Ah, well, good. What do you think?”

  “I do not want to go,” she said, surprising me. I rocked back in my chair as she continued, “We have nothing to gain and everything to lose. The witch is known to be insane and she rules Russia with an iron fist. If she has closed down dimensional travel, it is for her goals… and there’s nothing you will be able to do to convince her to let the spell unravel.”

  “What are we supposed to do then? We can’t get out.”

  “If they’re telling the truth,” Alistair supplied. He leaned back and crossed his long legs, picking at his slacks with fastidious fingers. “Although I believe him. The instant I arrived here, I felt a disturbance. It’s hard to explain, but something along those lines… the power it would take. It could cause that, yes.”

  “Could you know for sure?” I asked, irritated at all this magic shit.

  “If I attempted to leave, certainly,” he said. “Do I want to try? Not especially, not if it can be helped. There could be nasty things woven into such a ward to dissuade others from trying. I can cast a spell to detect that, but it would take a small while to put together.”

  “It sounds like the tech way isn’t working either,” I said, tapping my fingers on the table. “Adira, this might be our only way.”

  She blew out her cheeks in a huff and shook her head. “Russia is dangerous. Those who enter never leave.”

  “Nazferatu is there,” I pointed out, figuring that would entice her. Instead of looking eager to see him again, she wrinkled her nose up in obvious distaste.

  “I do not wish to see him,” she said. I stared at her, my mouth almost dropping open. When she saw my stare, the vampire looked annoyed. “He’s not my master any longer. Why would I?” With that, she crossed her arms and glared at me, daring me to doubt her.

  “What?” I blinked a few times, as if that could clear my ears. “But he made you. Why stay with me? There’s no reason.” She’d pined for Nazferatu these months away from him, but now she didn’t want to see him? Our conversation in the old Blackguard hideout came back to me, and she’d been as reticent then as she was now, still refusing to give me a good reason why.

  Adira huffed in irritation. “Because I choose it. After Pangea. Because you rescued Rory.” She paused, the sneer fading as she continued. “You are my friend as well as my lover.”

  I heard a giggle from Rebekah. I gave her a glare. She grinned, then clamped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” came the muffled reply. “That is just wonderful!”

  I rolled my eyes. When I looked to Adira, she uncrossed her arms and shrugged. “You don’t have to,” I said. “I know you promised, Rory too, but this is your home. If you choose to go be with him, that’s fine. No hard feelings.”

  “I do not wish to,” she replied, her voice like iron.

  “Good,” I said. “As your leader, I’m ordering you to go. It’s the only way we’re getting back home, and I want back up.”

  Adira gave me a half a nod and a half a shrug, acquiescing to my demand. “If that’s what you wish, I will… have your back.”

  Smiling at the phrase, I nodded. “Good. Now that’s settled, figure out what you need for it, and we’ll get ready. If we’re going to do this, I want it done soon so we can get back and get moving on important things.”

  “Travel will take days, there and back,” Alistair pointed out. “And who knows how long to convince the witch? There’s no rush, is there?”

  I glanced at him, nodding. “There is,” I said. “This isn’t where I need to be. I have things to do.” Though none of my plans were set in motion yet, they never would be if I didn’t return to Prime. “Sooner the better.”

  “If that’s what you want,” he said as he pushed to his feet. “I’ll see what they have in the library about Baba Yaga. I can tell you tales from Pax, but I doubt it’ll be the same. She was just a myth there, after all.”

  “Never even heard of her on Prime, but if she’s here, got to be there too,” I said.

  “And my hand,” Rebekah said as she stood. “We are going to get this off.” Alistair nodded his agreement and her body relaxed before turning to me. “Otherwise I would go! It’d be fun, a secret mission.”

  “I can’t imagine it’d take much to convince her,” I replied. “She wants something, like everyone else. Just have to figure out what, and then give it to her. It’ll only be a temporary reprieve after all.” My thoughts turned to Nazferatu. If he was there and this witch sealed off Axis, I’m sure she did it at his request. What was he giving her? Or was this some plan between them? What would it take to get him to ask her to take it down or open a door?

  Adira threw a skeptical look my way. It didn’t matter what she thought. We’d just have to, and we would, and that was all there was to it. We all went our separate ways. I headed back to the bedroom in which I’d found myself this morning, but before I reached my destination, Thomas intercepted me.

  “What do you want?” I asked him, scowling with irritation. Crap plan that it was, I still had things to do to get ready for it.

  “What do you want?” he asked as he approached. The older man wasn’t that much taller than me, but his confidence filled the room and gave him height. I drew up and stopped my fast walk, studying him.

  “I want to get home,” I repl
ied, keeping my voice even. “I have things to do.”

  He finished his approach and stopped in front of me, just a hair too close to be polite. “You were the one who assaulted me,” he said smoothly.

  “I kissed you, I didn’t assault you,” I replied, frowning at him. He was complaining about that? Really?

  “I don’t recall asking for it,” he replied. “It was inappropriate.”

  Taking a step back, I scowled. “You kissed me back. What does it matter? It was just an impulse. Try not to take it so seriously.”

  He followed me, pressing into my space. If he was trying to intimidate me, that wasn’t going to cut it. I stopped edging back and held my ground. “Assault is a serious matter here,” he said, his voice calm and even. “While I am not going to pursue this by pressing charges--”

  “Pressing charges?! For a kiss?” He was crazy!

  “--I am going to warn you against such behavior with other citizens, without their permission, of course,” he finished, pausing only the once to let me talk.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, giving him my look of death. “I take what I want.”

  “Not here, you don’t,” he said, faint amusement crinkled around his eyes, coloring his expression a few shades of patronizing. “I sense this about you, and so, I give you this warning not to, to play nice and by the rules.”

  “You assholes are the ones blackmailing me,” I pointed out, not wanting to give an inch. This was ridiculous!

  “That may be so, but for foreigners, it can be expensive for medical, magical treatment,” he said. “Perhaps your world has many telepaths at your disposal, but we do not. The debt needs to be repaid, somehow.”

  “You’re no better than the Reich,” I said.

  That got his ire up. His face darkened, tightening as he looked down at me. “They oppress their people. We inspire ours.” His voice shifted with the next segment, a note of pride creeping into it. “We are beginning a second Renaissance, an era of learning and development rivalled only once before, starting here, in the heart of the world.”

  I opened my mouth to refute him just because I wanted to, then closed it. “Why are your rules so strict? You have to admit, a kiss isn’t like a sexual assault.”

  “But it is,” he said. “Without someone’s permission, it is.”

  “Not to the same degree,” I protested, wanting to know the answer to the question. “What is the penalty, anyway?”

  “Ten years for the first offense,” he replied. “Twenty-five for the second. If there is a third, death.”

  I blinked, but rather than taking offense, I nodded. “Strict rules, but it’s for people’s protection. You don’t have anyone protesting this?”

  “We can prove these crimes without any doubt,” he said, his expression turning thoughtful. “Sentencing is always certain, so no, no one protests. Not any longer.”

  My mind turned back to the conversation I’d had with Septimus about the benevolent dictatorship. This appeared to be the exact system I’d been touting and, though it wasn’t fun to be threatened with charges for something so stupid, I thought about how it had been implemented. If Thomas spoke the truth--and he didn’t have any reason to lie--this wouldn’t be a bad system.

  “So how did your criminal system develop? Under Mussolini, that is. I mean, he was a dictator.”

  He shook his head. “This is not what I came to talk to you about. The warning was delivered, and I think you understand now, sí? Now, the next matter.”

  “Get on with it,” I snapped, waving a hand for him to continue.

  “This drug you had on you, that you took,” Thomas said. I got the impression he chose his words with great care here. “It damaged your mind. Kiandra said there was a blockage. This blockage was designed by someone to dissolve, a little bit at a time.” He stopped and waited for me to acknowledge him, but I’d frozen at the mention of the block. My mother had put that in my head when I was younger. I’d had thoughts that it contained the bulk of my power, that she shunted me away from my potential. After the flood of stimuli that had come after taking Clarity that last time, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  “Does she know what’s there?” I asked, forcing the words out as I stepped back. I crossed my arms. I knew it was an obvious defensive gesture, but I couldn’t help it. Vulnerability crested through me and the thought of someone else poking through my head without me knowing about it shook me, even as it aroused my curiosity. What had she seen?

  Thomas made a dismissive gesture. “If she knows, she did not say.” He continued to stare at me, taking obvious note of my posture. “It is fixed, but any great shock could undo the work she did. She wished you to know this, and advise against taking the drug.” His tone implied ‘especially on this mission’.

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice stiff. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some planning to do.”

  He nodded his head in a familiar way, and breezed past me. Standing there in the sunshine filled hall, I shivered with a cold which sprang from within. If I pressed, it’d break again. That had been what I wanted my whole life. Had my subconscious denied me my telepathy to prevent the block breaking? I turned inward, looking at the block in my mind. It looked the same slick red it did before, but when I looked closer, it seemed… thinner. Things moved on the other side of it, distorted and surreal. The vague memory of those sensations flowing through me stopped me from poking it.

  The wise move would have been to let it go. When had I ever been wise, though? At the moment, I couldn’t do anything about it, but when I returned… when I returned, one way or another, I was going to break it for good.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The planning took much less time than you’d expect. The biggest worry we had was feeding Adira, but they had lined up some volunteers to donate blood, though not directly from the fount, much to her disappointment. Even so, Huraiva would be in control for much of the journey, but Adira would be lurking, waiting.

  We dressed warmly as the Russian spring was known to be chilly. Alistair hadn’t dug up much information on the witch, only that she was powerful and controlled Russia. She never made public appearances. The only independent country in this world, it was hailed as a free space, someplace to run to. Nazferatu had thought that amusing as the witch had been more vicious than he. Not much came out of the country by the way of news.

  Traveling by ship, we spent most of our time trying to learn Russian as best we could. Neither one of us knew the language at all. The only word I knew from somewhere was spasibo, which meant thanks. I didn’t hang out with what remained of the Russian mob in Imperial City. I’d always meant to; I’d just never gotten around to it. Those fuckers were crazy. Adira had never bothered learning more than German from her native Farsi. When she and the rest of the pack had escaped to Prime, Gerard and I had telepathically taught them English in a matter of seconds. Learning a language the hard way took so much longer, and was so much more difficult. Impatient, I wished I had someone to teach me Russian like Ger had taught me German. I’d raised such a stink about being mentally altered before, but now it would be useful. Maybe the hard ways weren’t always best. Ç'est la vie.

  Between the language book and having nothing else to do on the ship, we got to passable for tourists. Maybe. The problem was Russia didn’t have any tourists. For the last leg of the journey, we were forced into a large crate and nailed in. When I say “large”, what I mean was barely big enough to contain us. I had to crane my neck to the side even when sitting down. We spent the last couple hours like that, penned in together like animals. This was the only real shipping lane they had from Italy to Russia, bringing specialty supplies and goods to sell.

  The ship stopped, though it rolled from side to side with the motion of the water. We waited, hushed. Noises drifted through the cargo hold of the ship. It sounded like we were in an abandoned building and ghosts walked around us, but the thudding feet soon became louder. Metal screeched, then wood creaked as the ghost workers
moved the crates around us, spiraling ever closer. When our crate jerked, I bit the inside of my lip and swore softly. Huraiva hushed me with a hand on my arm, giving me a frown and shaking her head side to side. After that, I breathed in deep, even breaths, keeping things steady as the crate which held us wobbled and moved, and finally lifted.

  Once we were settled in place from the move, presumably in a warehouse, noises continued to flow around us, though they grew dimmer as they unpacked more of the cargo. The hilt of my sword poked painfully into my thigh as I rearranged myself, crouching instead of sitting as I readied to free us. When the captain had nailed us in, his crew had driven the nails in at an angle so I could see them to tap them out with my teke. As the sounds diminished, I pulled out my phone and used the flashlight app to give me some light. I worked carefully, driving out the nails to the point where they barely held onto the wood.

  That done, we waited until silence fell. We had come into the port in the middle of the night. I knew about where we were, and Adira had confirmed with her vampiric senses that Nazferatu was somewhere to the north, much closer than he had been before. He had to have felt the both of us coming to him, tracked psychically through his bite. I had hoped when he felt us moving, he’d come to meet us. Her best guess was that he was in or near Moscow, but it wasn’t like it was a precise measurement. We’d head the direction she felt and work our way along until we found him.

  When the warehouse became still, I grabbed the side of the crate and pushed gently with my teke. We’d been loaded on the ground floor, not high up in the stacks like I’d feared, and our side faced towards one of the aisles. After setting the crate wall aside, we snuck out into the darkened warehouse, looking for an ambush. None came. Our infiltration into Russia was complete.

  Most warehouses were set up similarly. Once we found a wall, it was just a matter of following the wall to a door. From that door, we snuck through the docks, keeping to the shadows. A brisk wind blew in from the water, sending a ripple of cold through me. I wore my leather trench as normal, but underneath I had on a thick sweater, and a thinner button up under that. Huraiva wore a similar get up, complete with the same long coat she’d brought with her from Prime and a scarf which she wound tightly around her hair. It almost wasn’t enough. Snow still littered the ground in places, caught in that dirty stage between ice and flakes as it melted during the day and froze again at night. The cold ocean breeze from the water didn’t help either.