by Faith Hunter
When the waltz was over, the quartet was replaced by a DJ who had every song ever recorded on his music system. And I got to dance.
Yeah. It was perfect.
At dawn, Bruiser and I stripped and fell into bed in Leo’s old room, too tired to make the drive home, so exhausted I was asleep instantly. The crown fell off during the night, but not before I had a bruised noggin. Stupid crown.
At dusk, when we woke, I was still in half-form, which was a pain, but at least I wasn’t needing ten thousand calories for breakfast. We put on regular clothes, (jeans and T-shirts, thanks to Quint) piled our gear and equipment into an SUV, and finally made our way back to the freebie house. We held hands the entire way back, and there was something precious in the touch. Far more intense and important than making love. A quiet something that spoke of a future. A promise.
When we pulled up to the freebie house, a rental car was parked there. A familiar form was sitting in the driver’s seat, watching us. Ayatas FireWind was here.
Bruiser called Eli on his cell. “I assume you know about the car parked out front. Does Jane have company?” Bruiser chuckled and tilted his eyes my way. “Eli wanted to make certain that neither of you would try to kill the other, so he made Ayatas sit in his car until you arrived.”
I nodded and Bruiser disconnected.
Bruiser started to open the door to walk me to the house, but I held up a hand. “I’ll go greet Aya and invite him in. Maybe this time he won’t shoot me.”
“And you won’t coldcock him. I approve of this plan.” Bruiser kissed me on the tip of my nose. “I’ll go back to HQ for a bit.”
I grabbed my gear and clothes and handed it all to Quint, who had followed us back in the security detail, and stood by waiting. When the limo’s rear lights were far down the road, I met Aya at his vehicle. He showed no surprise when I walked up, so I knew he had been completely aware of his surroundings. My brother by blood had been in law enforcement and military for over 150 years, so situational awareness was part of his soul.
He rolled down his window and spoke in English. “My sister.”
“My brother.”
“You have a shadow.” He tilted his head to Quint.
“Yeah. For good reason. HQ was attacked.”
“I read the reports. Your team of international lawyers is excellent.”
That told me he had been keeping up with the attacks both here and in Asheville. “Granny’s involved with the attackers up to her neck. If I’m right, and our Grandmother is u’tlun’ta, then she’s a danger to the Tsalagi in general and to us in particular. I have information that suggests she’s not only u’tlun’ta but is also aligned with vampires, a Firestarter-witch-Onorio named Aurelia Flamma Scintilla, and Ka N’vsita who is Onorio and who was born a skinwalker.” I took a breath. That might have been a lot to hit him with suddenly, so I paused to let it sink in to his cop brain, his Tsalagi brain, and his hind brain. More gently I added, “I’m afraid that Grandmother is your grandmother no more. She’s a danger to the world.”
“Succinct,” he said.
“I got more. And if Grandmother gains three specific magical items that have arcenciel blood and scales woven into their magic, then not only are she and her allies a danger to this world but all the others past and present.”
“The Rule of Three applies to powerful objects too,” he said.
We were on the same page. Good. Remembering the Cherokee part of my protocol, I said, “You are welcome to my home. There’s food on the table, beer in the fridge, and probably football on the TV. Just so you know, Alex reserved a hotel room for you.” As I spoke, Aya stepped from his rental car, and I added, “Really? You’re driving a Fit? How do you even get your legs into it?”
“It has not been a pleasant experience.” He smiled a real smile, showing his beautiful teeth. “And thank you for the room.”
A brilliant light flashed in the night. We ducked. My body went tense as Beast shoved adrenaline into my bloodstream. Quint dropped my gear and pulled weapons, slapping a nine-mil into my palm. Through the windows, I saw Eli giving fast hand signals to the armed guards as he raced through the house. Quint duckwalked, looking at the street both ways. She had a headset and was talking to someone.
“That seems to have come from your rear courtyard,” Aya said, too calmly, his head near mine below the vehicle’s windows. “The Firestarter?” he asked.
“Don’t think so.” But I wasn’t certain. I shoved off and raced away, calling over my shoulder, “Come.”
Pulling on Beast’s strength, I sped across the front of the house to the far side and leaped. Grabbed the tall gate just to the side of its central decorative fleur-de-lis, avoiding the decorative points on the top; pulled, pushed, lifted my body up and over in a combo track-runner / high-jump move. Landed on the narrow drive and sprinted to the back. Tall gates were built to keep out humans, not skinwalkers and fangheads, and Aya and Kojo, who appeared out of the darkness, followed by the same means. Thema raced in, popping with vamp speed through the new opening in the brick fence. Eli and heavily armed guards appeared from inside. Quint dumped my gear on the sofa in the main room, turned off all the lights inside, and joined us. From Katie’s house, Koun and Tex materialized, Tex with his two guard dogs, both geared up as if the dogs were about to fight bears. Everyone was snarling.
Our guests were not who I expected, not Soul, the big wahoo of the arcenciels. Instead it was the three arcenciels from the wedding: Storm, Opal, and Pearl. In human guise, they were sitting on the shattered rubble left from the boulders I used to change mass.
Overhead, lightning flashed cloud to cloud. Even in the cool of fall, heat lightning was common here, but I had a feeling this particular light show was more, like maybe a gathering of arcenciels. Which meant we were either deeply honored or in deep doo-doo. I swallowed down my adrenaline and controlled my shaking.
Storm was sitting on the topmost stone, posed to show off her legs, which were only marginally swathed by the usual charcoal, lavender, and purple dress. Her hair was long, various shades of purples, all twisted into multicolored waves and thin braids and swoops. The other two rainbow dragons were sitting lower down on the broken pile in some kind of position of power. Opal was trailing her fingers through the fountain water, while Pearl was running her fingers over the stones where I used to hide magical objects and some of the more esoteric bones I had used for shapeshifting. I’d had occasional visits from Storm and from Soul, but this three-arcenciel visit was new.
“Storm, Opal, Pearl,” I said, handing my weapon to Tex. “The Dark Queen welcomes you.”
Storm said, “You have been named the Warrior who Brings Peace, yet you approach us with weapons.”
I lifted a hand, and all the weapons dropped. Everyone, almost in unison, stepped back. As if they had choreographed it. Coolio.
Storm said, “I have been assigned by She Who Seeks Peace, who is also She Who Claims the Rift, as emissary to your court.”
I knew that, so repeating it meant it was important. “My court is honored.”
Storm scowled like the thunderheads she was named for and said, “Indeed you are. She Who Seeks Peace is revered. We have been sent to learn human ways. The human ways of mating and human ceremony. She Who Seeks Peace arranged for us to attend the ceremony of mating. We wish to attend this thing called the honeymoon.”
“No.” When Storm looked perplexed, I said, “Such an invitation is not mine to offer, and the honeymoon is private to the two participants.”
“You are the Dark Queen. All bow to you.”
I couldn’t let them see me as weak. I’d fought one of them before and wasn’t likely to survive another such fight, not now. But I wasn’t quite sure how to keep them away from Wrassler and Jodi.
Eli stepped forward and bowed to me. “My Queen. Perhaps I might be able to explain.”
I wanted to toss him a queenly wave, but I wasn’t sure how to do it without looking stupid. “Please.”
T
o the arcenciels, he said, “I am the queen’s highest servant, called her number one.”
I couldn’t stop my smile at the Star Trek reference, but I lowered my head until I could get my grin under control.
“Such matters as marriage ceremonies are deeply personal and private,” Eli said. “Only the closest of cohorts are allowed to attend the ceremony. Even the queen herself would not have attended unless personally invited. You were honored to receive the invitation. But the honeymoon is not by invitation to anyone.”
All three arcenciels looked at me. I nodded, agreeing with Eli.
“We have watched the Council House Chambers,” Storm said. “We do not understand why the maimed one is the choice of the powerful human witch-born woman called Jodi. The honeymoon will show us this.”
Eli stepped closer, saying, “Physical perfection is of less value than strength of spirit and valor and honor. Do you understand such concepts?”
“They are human concepts. We find them peculiar. But we are here to learn. We have been ordered to learn,” Storm said. She frowned at us and demanded, “You will make attending the honeymoon happen.”
Pearl, whose skin held a nacre-like sheen, said, “Sister. We have not tried the negotiation of the words.”
Storm said, “You are better at the negotiation than am I. I will kill them if need be. You may use the words.”
Pearl stood, her clothing glowing faintly in the dim light, and said to Eli, “We have seen the weakness of the Council Chambers’ defenses. The pitiful thing that throws fire has breached the defenses four times.”
I felt Eli tense. We knew of one time. Not four. How had we missed so many incursions?
“One such time she threw fire,” Pearl said. “There was much damage. We are capable of warding the walls and trapping the fire that she throws. This is child’s play to us. And so we protected the walls during the ceremony of marriage between the strong woman and the maimed man with strength of spirit and valor and honor.”
Crap. The Firestarter had tried to attack during the wedding and no one noticed.
Opal said, “We understood that dresses called ball were required. She Who Guards the Rift provided templates. We did not appear strange or different from humans. We stood and sat together and protected with our magic. We observed only. This information is part of the negotiation of words.”
Pearl said, “We did not change shape or form. We did not attack any guests even if they deserved it. We require to be allowed to attend the honeymoon.”
Storm said, “I agree with all that my sisters have spoken.”
I said, “You observed proper etiquette at the wedding. This will be reported to She Who Guards the Rift. However, if you disrupt the honeymoon for any reason except attack from our enemies, you will be banished from my court. And I’ll call Soul and tell her you were incapable of learning and therefore unworthy.”
The arcenciels didn’t pale at the threat, but Opal’s hands fluttered, and Storm leaned against the stones. They looked back and forth between one another, as if talking mind to mind.
“Eli, can you offer a distraction to our arcenciel guests?”
Eli bowed. “Ladies. Have you ever ridden in an armored SUV?”
“No,” Opal said.
“Have you ever been to the human place called the ‘burger joint’ for the human meal of burgers and fries?” Eli asked. “The burger joint is the cornerstone of human existence.”
“No,” Storm breathed. “Is this more important than the honeymoon?”
“Yes,” Eli said with a straight face. “And if you negotiate with the same honor as Wrassler, and remove the request to attend the honeymoon, I’ll take you to the burger joint right now.”
The arcenciels squealed and raced toward Eli. Moments later they were loaded up in Eli’s personal use vehicle, along with Aya, and were trundling away through the busy streets. I didn’t know why Aya was going but figured that Eli knew what he was doing. The human guards went back to patrolling, leaving me surrounded by vamps, Alex standing at my elbow.
Koun said, “My Queen, I have lived two thousand years and been a member of many courts, both human and Mithran. And I must say that yours is the most entertaining in two millennia.”
“Never a dull moment,” Tex agreed, and clicked his tongue at his dogs. “Come on, let’s get you babies some steak from the queen’s fridge. She always has the best food, and I have it on good authority that Deon sent over some leftover grub.”
Tex, the dogs, and Koun wandered toward the house and whatever little miracles Deon had provided.
Kojo and Thema came closer. Kojo asked softly, “You do not try to capture and ride the arcenciels? Throughout the ages, all Mithrans and Naturaleza have tried to capture them in crystals and ride the past and the future.”
“I don’t believe in slavery. And time travel is dangerous in ways no living being can guess at.” I knew. I’d done it without trapping arcenciels, had gotten cancer from it, and had made some mistakes I couldn’t correct. Ever.
The two looked at each other and back to me. Without another word, they glided into the night with that disconcerting snake-like vamp grace.
Alex and I stood alone, almost eye to eye. He was taller, leaner, more muscular. And he was shaving. He had a moustache and a chin beard. I hadn’t noticed. “Hey, Kid,” I said. “What’s up?”
“We got the DNA results back from Dr. Northern at the lab. Can we talk? Privately? Just us two?”
Something odd tickled at the back of my heart, as if something had wrapped around it. “Sure. My rooms?”
“No. Let’s go for a ride around the block. No vamp ears to listen in.”
CHAPTER 15
Kickstart the Old Bastardized Panhead Harley
Alex led the way through the house and to an SUV that was idling at the curb. He got in the driver’s seat, which felt all kinds of odd, accepted the fob from the human standing there, and waited for me to get into the passenger seat. He pulled into traffic. An SUV was already in front and another eased in behind us. Security for the queen.
I hated it.
Alex drove with excellent precision and confidence, which meant he had likely taken lessons in defensive and offensive driving. But he looked pensive.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”
He stared into the night, following the security SUV in front, being followed by the SUV in back. Brake lights lit his face through the tinted windshield. “I wasn’t sure what the results meant, even with Dr. Northern’s interpretation, and Eli and I didn’t want them sent out for interpretation or second opinion. We got the doctors Paquet—Solange and Pierre—to look over them. You know. The ones who took over the fanghead funeral home. They’ve lived long enough to have studied a lot of everything, and they explained it to me.”
“Okay.”
“Your DNA and the DNA on your grandmother’s robes is human, but both contain some genetic errors that appear and are reproduced on one or both of the X chromosomes. You might remember that the witch trait passes on genes linked to the X chromosome. Skinwalker genes pass through in the same manner. Aya got his Y chromosome from your father. Aya got his X chromosome from your mother, and it had a genetic abnormality.”
“My mother couldn’t shift.”
“No. Something about her recessive genes, though she was from a skinwalker bloodline. Anyway, your mother married your dad, a man with an X chromosome that had abnormalities too, though different abnormalities from her own. Through marriage to your mother, your father became a part of the Panther Clan.”
“But they weren’t of the same exact bloodline or clan.”
“Correct. I posit that the woman you know as grandmother has tracked the bloodlines and made sure that people with the proper traits married out of clan, and then their children, later on in the line, married back into the Panther Clan or were adopted into the clan.
“You got your skinwalker X chromosome from your father and it was in bad shape; you got your mothe
r’s normal-ish X. Ayatas got your mother’s abnormal X, with different replications. So you and Ayatas started out with very different replications. Your original DNA, tested from before the rift and the cancer, has more replications than Aya’s does. Four times the number.”
“Is that bad?”
He made a turn and skirted Bourbon Street, where the night’s activities were already in full swing. “The abnormality is actually a doubling or tripling of specific genes, and is passed down from generation to generation, but it’s exclusive to one bloodline. So, as I understand it, it’s like this. Two sisters receive their genetic makeup and X chromosomes from the same parents, but the sisters’ X genes might combine differently. One sister might have nearly the same genetic reproductions as the gene donors, while the other might have multiplied reproductions, say two or four or eight times as many, as the gene sequence”—he waved his right-hand fingers in the air—“mutates isn’t exactly the right word because all the genes are the same, just way more of them, but it will do. These particular sets of genes don’t transfer like normal genes on the X chromosome, but more like a human mutation called Fragile X. Basically, this means that all skinwalkers are likely to have different powers and different power levels, even within one family, and the way the replicated sequence is passed on is different for each family member.”
My first Tsalagi Elder, Aggie OneFeather, had raised the question of clan and my father, so she had known something about genetic lines. “Tangled X chromosomes. Fine. I get that. So why do you look all intense and upset? Wait. You said my DNA from before. Then I went into the rift. Is mine the same before and after?”
“No. You have fewer replications than you did.”
I wondered if the extra replications had been responsible for my ability to timewalk. And the magical cancer. And if the current replications were making my shifting unreliable.
He made a left turn and checked his rearview. “The DNA also suggests that aging occurs faster in some lines than others. And aging is the prime cause for becoming u’tlun’ta.”