by Faith Hunter
“We inquired for an Infermieri. She hopped on the next flight. Edmund and Grégoire vouchsafe for her.”
“Fine.” I met her eyes, deep brown and calm. “I accept the service of the outclan healer, Florence. However, your maker, the Master of the City of Asheville, Lincoln Shaddock, the vamp who turned you, has been looking for an Infermieri. When the war’s over, keep that in mind,” I advised her. “He’s a nice guy.”
Her eyebrows went up, and I realized that suckheads didn’t always think “nice guys” were worth working for or with. Only powerful guys.
I added, “You probably know this, but he’s way more powerful than he acts, and you would be close to Amy Lynn.”
Florence blinked once, as if processing that. For a vamp, she had a very expressive face.
“Last one?” I asked.
“My Queen. This is Quint. She is Quesnel’s niece and an accomplished lady-in-waiting, bodyguard, and secretary.”
Quesnel was Leo’s sommelier. He didn’t like me because I drink beer, not swanky wine, but he was necessary at HQ to satisfy the palettes of the fancy-type vamps who stayed here sometimes. My brain stopped. “What? Lady-in-waiting? Waiting for what?”
Wrassler’s face looked as if he was trying not to grin at me, but not really succeeding. “She is trained in a variety of etiquette proprieties and royal conduct, and has studied for the last year to be your most personal assistant and security. Her areas of expertise include wardrobe selection”—his voice made a very suspicious hiding-laughter hiccup sound before he finished his sentence—“hairstyling, and makeup. She is also proficient in keeping a royal and personal calendar, handling events, taking care of onerous and unnecessary appointments and phone calls, and scheduling the important ones for your convenience.” His voice steadied. “She speaks four languages, is a crack shot, and is a seventh dan black belt in taekwondo. She is a capable cook, has survival skills should you ever be stranded in the wilderness, can fish, hunt, and prepare a variety of wild game over an open fire. She knows of your various forms. She has no sense of fear.”
I looked over the diminutive woman. She was the essence of ordinary. She was a head shorter than me, muscular, wore her hair in a dyed-blond butch cut, and had pretty painted nails. But her eyes were empty. Utterly empty. And she smelled of the absence of emotion.
“How well do you lie?” I asked her.
“I never lie.”
“How often do you speak the truth?” I asked.
“Never.”
“If I walked into the wine cellar and killed Quesnel, what would you do?”
Finally her eyes took on life and honesty. “I would kill you in a heartbeat.”
Wrassler’s entire face changed, and he reached for his weapon under his left arm beneath his suit jacket.
I held up a single finger, stopping him. “If you swear to me, Quint, how many others, beside Quesnel, would come before me?”
“No one.”
I raised both brows at Wrassler and asked, “How many people other than Quesnel are important in her life?”
“No one.” He nearly snarled.
“Good by me. You and the others swear to me. Right here, right now.”
Florence dropped to her knees as graceful as a curtsy. The doc dropped again to his knees slowly, as if they might be achy. Long-Knife didn’t want to kneel and dropped down slowly so I could see his reluctance. Quint went to one knee but offered me her knife. Which Wrassler clearly had no idea she carried. I took the blade. It was a nice, well-balanced, ten-inch vamp-killer, silver-plated, very sharp steel. Quint was sneaky. Probably a sociopath. But she would be my sociopath. Leo would have bound her to him in a heartbeat.
It was a truncated ceremony since I wasn’t a vamp and had no intention of sharing my blood with them. Afterward they filed out, and I was left with Wrassler. I said, “So I have NOLA’s undertaker, a loaner with a bad attitude that Ming probably expects me to fix, a nurse who might be the difference between me living and dying, should I not be able to shift again, and a bat-shit crazy wardrobe consultant. How did these people all happen to turn up here, tonight? That’s mighty suspicious.”
“The Consort was approached by Florence through the intercession of Edmund. He negotiated her potential contract, My Queen. She arrived in New Orleans an hour ago, and just now arrived here. Florence will remain close to you from now on. She will be moved into Katie’s house with your overflow blood-servants and additional security. Long-Knife, once he’s been bled and read, will be moved to another clan home because he’s such a pain in the butt and no one wants to work with him. Quint . . .” He dropped onto the chair opposite me and rubbed his face as if his head, jaw, and teeth ached, leaving his hand over his eyes. “I had no idea about her.”
“She smelled wrong.”
Wrassler lifted his hand from his eyes. “Smelled . . . Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
I figured I had surprised Wrassler.
I blew out a sigh, sad that the tea table was set for tea, but the pot was cold and empty. I wasn’t going to get tea. Or food. My stomach growled. I stood, which meant that Wrassler had to get to his feet too. Because I was the queen. Right. I hated protocol. I gestured to the door. Wrassler opened it, allowing me to exit. “You up for a walk?” I asked. “I want to check on the prisoner in the scion lair.”
Wrassler frowned, following me into the hallway. “Why didn’t you take Monique’s head, Janie?”
“I thought about it. But Leo taught me to know my enemies. And . . .” An interesting thought reared its head. If Monique lived, I might be able to use my new lizard amulet icon to force a mental connection, just like Sabina did to me. I might learn who was behind everything.
In the scion lair, the Onorio was chained in the only cage for humans, one without silver plating. Monique wasn’t breathing. Her mouth was open and her eyes were dried. She looked dead. But she didn’t smell as if she was decaying. I needed to talk to some older Onorios and soon. We left the scion lair.
“I need a little privacy,” I said to Wrassler.
He opened a door to a tiny waiting room, sparsely furnished with mismatched older chairs, a tiny table, and a single lamp. “I’ll bring you tea. Sliced beef sandwiches are waiting to be delivered, My Queen.”
I sat on the sofa and said, “I’m teaed out. How about a Coke? And, Wrassler? I’d like to be Janie when it’s just us,” I said. “Or Legs. You can save the queen stuff for when we’re official.”
He gave me the best grin, one I remembered from back before I was politically powerful and scary and all that stuff. “Sure, Janie.”
The door closed, and I was alone in one of the tiny rooms that were scattered all through HQ. Rooms that had probably once been furnished with daybeds or chaise lounges used as private feeding rooms. Ick.
I leaned back and thought through what I wanted to say. Wrassler delivered a tray of food and slipped back out. I popped the top on the Coke, drank, ate, and thought some more. I dialed Brandon Robere.
When he answered, it was with the same title Wrassler used. “My Queen, how may I assist you?”
“Two things. One: I shot a powerful Onorio in the head. She has no heartbeat, isn’t breathing, and she looks dead. But she doesn’t smell dead. And two: I need to know about binding Onorios. Rule of thumb says Onorios can’t be bound. But. Is it possible for a stronger, older Onorio to bind a younger, less powerful one, or maybe multiple Onorios to bind one?”
“I heard about the head shot, My Queen. Nice shooting. And no. If she isn’t decomposing, then she is trying to heal. That may not work at all, or she may come back with a scrambled brain, like a revenant, or she may come back fine. No one knows. If you want her dead, take her head. If you want her alive for some reason, you must guard her well.”
“Okay. And binding Onorios?”
“Yes and no. I have never heard of an Onorio being forcibly bound, but we can be drained, our power and our life force taken by another, leaving us vulnerable to death by normal mortal
violence. I’ve also never heard of multiple Onorios binding any of our kind.”
Never heard of didn’t mean couldn’t happen. “What about voluntarily agreeing to be bound?” I told him about the beings in the bloody hull of Monique’s soul home. When I finished, he was silent for a time.
“I’ve heard about Onorios in the past who agreed to a mutual binding, much like anamchara. That may be what you saw in your vision. But when you shot Monique, the binding was interrupted. If there are other Onorios involved in this mutual binding, then they will be desperate. They will do anything and everything within their power to get her back. Even without her mind intact, she would be useful to them.” He hesitated again before saying, “My Queen. My suggestion is to have your executioner address this situation.”
Kill Monique. Not yet. “I want to use her to draw out the others. I’ll see she’s guarded well and I want you and your brother to take extra precautions too.” Because Monique wasn’t the only Onorio in NOLA. “Now. About the whole crowning of Eddie. Where do we stand?”
“The papers are all drawn up, My Queen. We are prepared.”
* * *
* * *
I worked until close to dawn, making sure that Monique was well-guarded and securely locked down. With Cowbird Protocol in place, Monique should be fine. But I wasn’t taking chances. Eli and I also spent time with the security teams, going over wedding protocols. Busy work, but urgent and necessary busy work.
I was still in half-form, and the nice soft lining of the fancy outfit kept catching on my pelt and pulling it. The pants rode up, the back got stuck, and I looked ridiculous. When things seemed in place and going smoothly, I made a trip to Leo’s room—my room—and left the outfit on the floor. I was sure someone would pick up after me, because the bloody sheets were all gone, the bed was made up neatly, and the shower and bath had been cleaned into shiny spotlessness.
There were no jeans or tees in the closet. The only thing that looked comfortable was a sweat suit, and it was an ugly shade of white-people flesh, sort of like mayo with a hint of peach. Not that I’d ever say that to them. I pulled it on, and it was just as uncomfortable on my pelt.
Beast thought at me, Ugly human clothes. Jane has pelt. Should not cover up beautiful pelt.
I pulled out the neckline of the top and looked down at my hairless boobs. Nope. Not happening.
Beast chuffed with laughter.
I checked to see if Quint’s number had been added to my cell, and it had. That meant that Alex had access to my cell and all its settings. I thought about lodging a complaint, but I could also just buy a burner phone most anytime. With the danger we were all facing, Alex’s access allowed him to track and find me if I went missing. Frowning, I texted Quint my clothing request. Her first job would be to change out my wardrobe.
I texted Bruiser that I was ready to go home. He met me in the downstairs entrance. The doorway still smelled of fire and burned chemicals but looked better than I expected, except for the charred cement and the burned hulk of a car. We crawled into the back seat of an SUV. It had a limo-worthy privacy panel in place, and so I laid my head on my honeybunch’s shoulder. As we pulled out of the back gate, Beast shoved her claws into my brain. I/we saw a form out the side window. We sat up fast.
“What?” Bruiser asked. He was already holding a nine-mil.
“Something. Don’t know. A shadow?” I pointed. “Another one.” They were shadowing the SUV. I couldn’t make them out, but I did see crotch-rocket motorcycles on side streets. I looked at my honeybunch. “You put people watching my every move.”
He holstered his weapon. “Guilty, my love.”
“Mmmm.” I snuggled back onto his shoulder. “So when I got shot, how did you get to me so fast?” I smelled his reaction as fresh adrenaline shot through him, the scent of distress.
“I was close,” he said carefully. “Alex told me the front gate had been breached.”
“So you knew the front was being attacked, and you ran outside without backup. You got pinned down first. In a firefight. Then I ran outside and got pinned down too.” I was half irritated at both of us, and he had to hear that in my tone.
“I was never in imminent danger,” he said, the beginning of anger tinting his tone. “But you had to lead your people into battle, still thinking you are immortal. As we know now, you are not.” He pulled me close, intense emotions making his English accent stronger. “You were not supposed to be there. You were supposed to be safe in the security room. Please do not rush in where angels fear to tread when you have been told to stay put.”
Beast does not need help. Beast does not stay put, she thought at me. Into our shared head space, she sent images of hunting, killing, attacking a massive boar. Beast is best hunter.
I thought about the terror that was pumping through Bruiser’s blood. Thought about what it meant to be the Dark Queen. Very softly, enunciating each word, I said, “You ran outside. You. In the face of enemies.”
“This is not about me. You nearly died.”
“Because you did not tell me. Without communication, I will do as I think best.”
“Tell you? You did not ask.” His scent was morphing sharply from fear into anger.
“That’s a sucky excuse,” I said, putting distance between us, sliding across the seat. “This is my HQ. My job. Mine. You will let me do it.”
An inarticulate sound emerged from his throat and rose to a shout. “You could have died!” he shouted, fury in his eyes. Bruiser’s fists balled, and the stink of his emotions grew. “Died! I could have lost you!”
“Yeah. That sucks. And now we know I’m mortal, unlike Leo, who was immortal and yet who is dead.” And that was the problem, right there. Leo dead. His coffin empty. Bruiser facing the possibility of another loss. Me.
The car had come to a stop. We were at the freebie house, and I hadn’t noticed.
“I keep trying to protect you the way I protected Leo.” He forced his hands to open and placed them on his thighs, breathing through the rage and terror. “But you are not Leo. You cannot fight your enemies as Leo fought his.” Bruiser twisted in the seat, opened the door, and stepped out to the sidewalk. “I could not bear to lose you,” he said. He slammed the door. The armored vehicle actually shook. Bruiser stalked inside the house, rage vibrating through him.
Oddly, seeing him like that made me happy. It was like a normal human man storming into the house. Yet . . . To myself, I said, “He’s protecting me like he had to protect Leo. This sucks.”
The privacy panel came down. “We’re all protecting you like we protected Leo,” the driver said. “It’s our job. If a vamp comes in and kills you, who do you think suffers? Us humans and our families, who might be put to death by a conqueror just for the hell of it.”
I looked up and saw Shemmy in the rearview. I looked at the control panel and saw that Bruiser hadn’t turned off the speakers. Shemmy had heard the entire thing. “Your families?”
“You’re the only thing standing between us and total annihilation. If an asshole takes over from you, kills you? Bruiser and Eli and Alex will be the first to go. Then all your loyal security people. Your witch friends and allies? Gone in the first tier. Wrassler and his human wife, Jodi? Somewhere at about the second layer of cleansing. You had to know all this. You saw the house that later became your clan home. You know how many died, and that was simply a clan battle. This will be immeasurably worse. This will be like Europe.”
Where a war had raged and the death toll was over a thousand.
Shock rushed through me like an icy wind. Leo had told me that he stood between chaos and anarchy and the safety of his people. My job was even bigger than his had been. The moment I became the Dark Queen, my power placed all of my people in danger. Every single one of them. And it was my job to protect them. I had known that I needed an army and I had worked to create one. But I needed a bigger freaking army.
“And hey, Legs? You wrote our job descriptions. Dumas is just doing his job,
and you’re not helping him.”
It was true. I had written the job descriptions, including my own. But when I wrote them, I hadn’t considered that I might not shift if I died. I hadn’t considered that Sabina would be burned and Leo’s body stolen. I had never fully wrapped my head around the knowledge that a conquering vamp would kill my people just for funzies. That sort of head-lopping housecleaning was way beyond my understanding. A very few enemies had been dispatched when I became the Dark Queen, but wholesale killing was a baffling concept. Worse, my muscle memory always said to run toward the fight, no matter what, and Beast . . . Beast wanted to fight. She lived for it. She goaded me into the fray every single time. I had put everyone in danger trying to do things the old way, not reining in Beast, not thinking first, not staying safe.
“So I’m an ass.”
“Not my words. Your words, My Queen,” Shemmy said.
Okay. Lesson learned. I needed to tell them I had learned it. Show them I had learned it. And I had to apologize to my honeybunch, big time. I blew out a sigh. “Thanks, Shemmy. I needed to hear all that.”
And . . . Bruiser and I might have just had an actual fight. In front of the chauffeur. In the midst of feeling like an idiot, this made me oddly, weirdly happy, and it took a moment to realize that people who are bound don’t argue. This argument had just proved to me that we were normal. Just a normal couple. Laying out boundaries and figuring out how to make a relationship work, like humans, instead of typical fanghead life.
Well, aside from all the “Kill Jane” and the “Jane is stupid” stuff.
* * *
* * *
The boys were sparring on the third floor. Grunts, thumps, gasps, tiny squeals. It was noisy. I climbed the flights to the attic space, which had been converted into a gym / fighting ring / training room, two vamp sleeping closets, and a tiny bathroom. Along the walls, Koun and Tex stood, arms crossed over their chests, scrutinizing the action. Brute was sitting in the corner, watching avidly, panting with what looked like delight, his tongue lolling. Tex’s dogs were snoozing in the corner.