Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  At my side, Bruiser shifted slightly, not happy with current events, especially the word instructional. Wrassler was a seriously big guy, his nickname derived from the World Wrestling Federation, for which he could have auditioned and become a star if he hadn’t sworn loyalty to Leo. But, instructional? I thought. Instructional for whom? Inside me Beast chuffed. I was not going to ruin these clothes just to put on a show for Leo’s guests. A sparring match would ruin my outfit. I liked these clothes. They were girly enough to be . . . well, not guy clothes. And they hid the weapons. I glared at Wrassler. He looked back at me with complete equanimity, even as he passed out the mini-earbuds and mics that would tie us to the comms system. Ayatas didn’t get one.

  When I didn’t answer, Bruiser answered for all of us, saying, “The Enforcer, her second, the Onorio, and Special Agent FireWind would be happy to observe the activities in the gym.”

  “I’ll sit it out,” Eli said. He tilted his head to the new security room off the entrance.

  Derek met my eyes, his questioning, asking if my guest was a danger to Leo. I shrugged slightly. Derek was Leo’s part-time Enforcer and my immediate subordinate. We both knew my position was short term. Finish with the Sangre Duello and I was done with the vamps, but Derek wanted long-term employment and the blood Leo was feeding his mom to keep her alive. Even part-time Enforcer was way above acting as guide and bodyguard. Yet, he said, “If you’ll follow me?” He touched his earbud and led the way to the elevator. I put on my mini-headset and followed at the back of the pack, ignoring the inscrutable look Ayatas sent my way. Tribal people did inscrutable well. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him, but I sent him a matching look instead.

  * * *

  • • •

  We opened the door to the roar of voices and the clack-clack-clack of multiple wood staves. I took it in with a glance. All of the fighting rings were in use. There were five now, since the new mats had been delivered and installed. In the back of the room, Leo was sparring with Ro Moore, Katie’s Enforcer. Katie was sparring with her sister. And in the ring closest to me, Gee DiMercy, my Enforcer—which still felt weird on my tongue and in my mind—was sparring with a tribal woman, a Canadian vamp.

  The woman Gee fought was as tall as I was but with much stronger bone structure and enviable shoulders, with long hair the color of the night sky. Amusement and interest sparkled in her black eyes. Her name was Namida, which meant Star Dancer in Ojibwe, and my Enforcer had been enamored of her since the first time he laid eyes on the vamp in Canada. Judging from the smell of blood and pain on the air, the Canadians were learning how New Orleans’s vamps fought. In a word, dirty.

  Gee was gifted at personal glamour, and because Namida was so tall, he had made his human-shaped body taller and leaner, and his face more traditionally Anishinaabe than his usual Spanish. Two other Canadian vamps were fighting with local vamps. They were good, their technique different from the La Destreza taught in NOLA.

  All the fighting pairs were using sticks instead of longswords, one in each hand, bruising hardwood. Bone-breaking hardwood. Some sparred with two long sticks, some with one long and one shorter. The longer staves had the length and balance and heft of flat swords. The shorter staves were styled to match the caja corta, loosely translated as “short box” or “short trap.” Both kinds were made for killing Mithrans. And Namida was landing taps on Gee. My Enforcer was one of the best fighters in NOLA, and Namida was laying a hurting on him. She was fast, even for a vamp. But then, Gee might be executing some deceptive courting, letting her beat him up as foreplay.

  I stepped inside and out of the doorway, beneath the camera over my head. The others lined up next to me and the door closed. The gym was old-fashioned, with ancient wood floors, patched in a few places since I joined Leo’s team. (Beast’s claws were hard on floors.) There were cameras everywhere, covering the entire room with its full basketball court, newly painted shuffleboard court, and the padded circular fighting mats.

  Gee danced out of the way and I caught a glimpse of Ro in the back, completing a move I hadn’t seen her use before. She swept across at Leo’s collarbone with her right stick—a decapitation move—and then shoved Leo with the end of the left stick. Had she been wielding swords, she would have taken off his head and pierced his heart, two fatal moves against a vamp at once. As it was, Leo was shoved out of the ring and onto the wood.

  He laughed. It was a pleased sound, silken, joyful, captivating. I glanced at Ayatas to see him narrow his eyes at the sensation of the laughter dancing along his skin. I couldn’t be mesmerized, but I didn’t know if it was a skinwalker thing or a Beast thing. Ayatas didn’t roll over and pant for attention, but he did seem a little rattled. Leo’s laughter made his people happy, ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. Ro Moore joined in the laughter and Leo said, “You are faster than I expected. The sharing of blood was well worth your healing. I am pleased.” Ro clacked her staves together, crossing them without looking away from Leo. He wasn’t above cheating. This time, he clacked his sticks together and held out a hand for Ro’s staves, before turning to the doorway. “My Enforcer,” he called. “You bring us a guest.”

  I gave him a small nod. Leo was wearing fighting clothes fashioned with a twist all his own. He was shirtless, to show the pure white of his scars, scars from wounds that no human could have survived, and not many vamps. Nudity in the fighting rings was uncommon among the Europeans and there had been a lot of chatter about Leo going naked for the entire Sangre Duello proceedings, just to shake them up. Sadly, that had sorta been my idea, when I suggested they play Petruchio and Kate in Taming of the Shrew to shake up the EuroVamps. I hadn’t meant naked. I really hadn’t meant naked.

  There was also chatter about Leo leaving blood on his body after feedings and fights, and acting the crude, naïve thug, to throw off Titus’s fine-tuned sensibilities. It would make a good show, but Leo was fastidious. No way was he going to be messy, bloody, or dirty or display unsophisticated or bad manners for any length of time. I was pretty sure Derek had a pool going for how long Leo would last unshowered.

  The Sangre Duello was a more violent, less systematic version of Les Duels Sang, the codified legal duels that decided a vamp’s place in clan and city. While it started out polite, Sangre Duello had no matches where the winner moved up in a predetermined order. The Duello meant death at the end as challengers dueled and killed opponents until the only vamps left were the most protected, the very best fighters, and the MOCs. First blood in the battles was meant to maim, and duels to the death were expected. There was no way to think of the contests as games. They required mental stamina, clear thinking, excellent understanding of tactics and strategy, physical endurance, and skill. And in the end, the willingness to kill.

  When the European emperor’s servants came ashore, onto Leo’s territory, and attacked by means both magical and weapons based, Leo’s U.S. vampire scions and human servants started dying in greater numbers, and Leo could see his power base slipping away. To keep his people alive and safe, the MOC felt he had no choice but to demand Sangre Duello. But if Leo lost, his loyal people lost and would likely be killed outright, as would all his blood-servants, blood-slaves, cattle, and every other para as Titus and his victorious fangheads rolled over New Orleans and took over the United States. Hence Leo’s consideration of most anything to throw off the EV emperor’s plans and reasoning.

  Eli had suggested getting together with some former Navy SEALs and swimming out to the emperor’s boat with enough explosives to sink them to the bottom of the gulf, but there were likely prisoners on the boat. Leo had nixed that idea, but it was still floating around the security types as a last-ditch strategy. And likely it was something the U.S. military was keeping on a back burner as a black ops possibility should Titus win.

  Leo popped in front of us, moving with vamp speed and the distinctive sound of displaced air. His black hair had come loose from its fighting queue a
t the back of his neck and the old scars on his torso were bone white against his vamp-pale skin. His fangs were out. His still-human eyes were on Ayatas. “My guest for tea this evening,” he said around his fangs. “My sworn ally Rosanne Romanello, from Sedona, has hinted that you are quite the warrior.” He extended Ro Moore’s staves. “Shall we?” It was more a demand than an invitation.

  I turned to Ayatas. He had visited the Master of the City of Sedona? I knew Rosanne. I had probably helped to save her life. She knew what I was, and would have had no reason to keep any secrets from Ayatas. I gave the special agent a toothy expression that couldn’t really be called amusement. More like gotcha. Holding his eyes, I said, “Have fun, Ayatas. And, Leo, watch out. He’s sneaky as a snake.”

  “The better to spar with.” Leo waggled the staves.

  His face showing nothing, Ayatas slid out of his jacket, then his shoulder holster, and unclipped his badge, handing them to Derek. He pulled an elastic out of a pocket and pulled his hair back, tucking it into his shirt where the long strands couldn’t blind him. The tail could still be used as a weapon, but it would take close contact to get a hand on it. Then he kicked off his dress shoes and peeled off his socks. Even his sweaty feet smelled floral as he accepted the staves and walked across the gym to the empty fighting mat.

  The fighting mats cleared out and the number of spectators along the walls and sitting on the bleachers increased. Someone whispered, “Prepararse para la muerte,” which was Spanish for “Prepare for death.” I said, softly, but loud enough for Leo to hear, “This man is a special agent of PsyLED and under the protection of the Enforcer.” And he may be my brother. Or not. If Ayatas somehow hurt Leo, I might be able to keep him alive long enough to get him outside.

  The men went through the meet-and-greet ceremony, a truncated version that skipped the names and titles and went straight to tapping staves together in a salute. Ayatas moved in and tapped Leo’s staves, then back out, fast. Faster than human. Skinwalker-fast. I knew that speed. Without Beast, it was my own speed. Pulling on Beast’s abilities was like skinwalker on turbo.

  Leo backed away and his staves started circling in La Destreza, the cage of death, the magic circle. So did Ayatas’s. Interesting and interestinger. Ayatas knew La Destreza.

  They engaged slowly as Leo tapped Ayatas’s staves, a two-tap with his long stick. Ayatas tapped back with lunges, feeling out his opponent. His feet were long and slender at the heels, wide at the toes, the shape of the feet of a man who wore moccasins in his youth, not boots or shoes, yet the skin of his feet was smooth—the feet of a man who got regular pedis. Or who shifted shape to an animal and then back into the form of his human DNA, with no calluses or scars. His knees were bent for balance, his quads pushing against the suit pants. He was poised, posture neat, his body stable, rock steady. The taps sped up, becoming clacks, loud enough to echo on the bare walls. No one was taking bets on the winner. Not yet. Ayatas landed three taps on Leo. The Master of the City laughed and tossed his shoulder-length hair. I realized he had left it down to give Ayatas an advantage. Leo’s version of fighting honor.

  The clacks sped. And sped again. I found myself moving closer, watching every move. Beast crouched at the front of my mind, panting, chuffing when one of the men landed what would have been a bloody deadly wound had they fought with steel. Leo’s long stave caught in Ayatas’s hair, ripping out the elastic, sending the hair in a swan-wing arc, free.

  And then, with his hair flying, Ayatas raised the short stave back over his shoulder and threw it. Like a small ax. Like a tomahawk.

  Time seemed to slow down for me. Not the Gray Between of time bending, but the battle time slowing that allowed me to see everything happening. The muscles in Ayatas’s arm flexing and releasing. The spin of the practice sword. The stave hitting Leo in the collarbone, slightly to the left of middle.

  And memory flashed over me.

  The trees had been brilliant with fall colors. The smell of meat in the smokehouse and the wisps of hickory smoke had filled my lungs. The house was part cabin, part white-man house, with long, smooth boards over the outside, painted white, and chinked logs on the inside for warmth. It was Elisi’s house, on land she farmed. But Edoda was the hunter, and he had brought back black bear and two bucks, all three animals scored with claw marks.

  I wanted to hunt with Edoda, not farm like Elisi. Edoda was humoring me. The clan women were butchering the meat, watching while Edoda taught me to fight.

  “Did you see?” he said. “The moment of release?”

  I nodded.

  Edoda placed the smaller ax in my hand. It was a white-man ax, the head made of steel. It was very expensive and Edoda had bought it with the skins of his hunting and the dalonige’ i he had found in the riverbed. White man’s first love—gold—had purchased the ax and the new dress I wore, the spinning wheel, the hoe, and other farming tools for Elisi. Edoda pointed out the parts of the ax: “Head, handle. On the head is the poll, the eye, the cheek, the toe.” He touched different spots on the sharp edge. “The bit or blade.” He slid his long fingers down to where the head joined the handle. “Beard, shoulder, heel.” His hand reached the curved handle. “Belly. This curve is what gives the ax its balance and its strength.” He slid his hands down the handle. “Throat, grip, knob.” He placed my hand on the grip. Adjusted it. Showed me how it felt by swinging his weapon, grip only tight enough to guide, not strangle, the wood. I swung mine.

  Edoda nodded. I had done it right. He spun, his arm flashing back, muscles tightening and releasing. His larger ax flew. Bit deeply into the dead tree. I copied his movements. My small blade sank in beside his. Not so deeply. Only the toe of the blade. But it held.

  “Well done, Gvhe.” He patted my head.

  His hand had been warm, smooth. I had been safe.

  I blinked back into the gym, my body bathed in a cold sweat, the memory a fleeting moment, now gone.

  Leo laughed and I focused on the combatants. The battle was over. Leo had a bloody ear and Ayatas had blood on his face and a busted lip. They had played rough. Ayatas shook an injured hand and Leo offered to heal him. Ayatas refused with words that showed he knew vamp politics. “I am honored, Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans. But my kind heal well on our own.”

  The men were bruised and one of the battle-hard staves was broken. That was a first.

  “You’re both stupid,” I muttered. But I must have spoken too loudly as they both shifted to me, bodies bladed, two warriors facing a common foe, though relaxed, the foe not attacking and of no real danger.

  I turned and left the room, walking alone down the empty hallways, leaving behind the echoing voices and the smell of testosterone and blood. Remembering the sound of my father’s voice.

  “Well done, Gvhe.” Gvhe. Wildcat. My name had been Wildcat.

  * * *

  • • •

  I still had a few minutes before tea and wandered to what once had been the conference room but for now was the main security area. The walls of HQ had been newly spelled, top to lowest basement, against flood and rising water table by the local witch coven. There was a hidden weapons storage unit on the back wall behind a new shelving unit, one of four in the complex. There was enough coffee and tea for a platoon to survive a week-long hurricane. HQ was now equipped with three different methods of making power, plus batteries big enough to run all the computer systems and one coffeemaker for that same week. We had guns, computers, and coffee, everything we’d need in case of problems. We might go hungry, but we’d be well caffeinated.

  The big view screens over the table and around the room were all lit, all showing images of different parts of the compound, captured on camera, divided as to location. There were a series of the grounds. Tex (a vamp) and his dog were patrolling. There weren’t a lot of vamps who liked dogs and vice versa. Three humans and two more vamps covered the grounds with him, inside the tall
walls. A loyal sniper provided overwatch on our roof and grounds from his hide across the street. Things were as safe as I could make them.

  There was a series of views of the gym, the area outside Leo’s office, and his new, more secure bedroom. There were two from inside the blood-servant rec room. A series of camera views showed the entrances and the elevators (including the ones that had once been secret) and the various stairwells.

  I looked at the tea room screen. I was late. Pulling on Beast-speed, I took the stairs. At a dead run, pulling on Beast’s power and the application of Newton’s Laws of Motion—inertia and all that stuff—I raced down the halls and spun into the tea room off the gym, using the doorjamb to fling myself inside. The others were there—Leo; his primo, Del; Scrappy; Bruiser; Grégoire; Katie; Eli; and Ayatas. An eclectic bunch and too many people and scents for the small room. The table, laden with food and carafes, had been placed in the center of the small couches, and extra chairs had been shoved in.

  To the guard at the door, I said, “No interruptions,” and I locked the door. Breathing hard, I tapped off my earbud and started the intros, keeping them short and truncated, leaving off all historical titles and lineage, which was usually so boring to humans.

  “Master of the City and the territories of Louisiana, the southeastern states except Florida, and holder of goodwill treaties of loyalty from six other Masters of the City from across America, Leonard Pellissier,” I said.

  “Katherine Fonteneau, formerly the heir to the Master of the City. Current status in flux. Grégoire, Blood Master of Clan Arceneau, and secundo heir to Leonard Pellissier. Also Blood Master of European territory and clans.” Blondie had killed his EV master, but until the threat here was satisfied, he wouldn’t be spending any time overseas.