Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  OIC was “officer in charge.” I started to relax when the cop who had reshot the furball said, “Sorry. Gang Task Force is here. They have jurisdiction.”

  Rick frowned. The cop grinned. He clearly found it amusing that the meddlesome bureaucrat-cop in street clothes was not going to get his way. And then Ayatas walked in with a portly man in a suit, and the cop’s amusement faded away. “LaFleur,” Ayatas said, “this is Gomez, GTF. He’s been tracking the local gangs for two years.” Rick and Gomez shook hands. Ayatas glanced at me and Andromeda but didn’t acknowledge us. His hair was braided back and hung down the center of his spine. “GTF’s had reports of strangers running with the Zips.”

  “Werewolf strangers?” Rick asked.

  Gomez dropped to one knee and studied the downed were, comparing him to photos of men on his phone, one thumb flicking from pic to pic. He stopped on one and held the cell up to Andy and me. “He’s a little too furry right now to be sure, but this him?”

  “No,” we said.

  “This?” Gomez brought up another pic.

  “No.” I realized we were getting a quickie photo lineup, like in the basement of a cop shop.

  “This?” Gomez asked.

  “Yes,” Andy and I said.

  Gomez marked his screen, grunted, and stood. To Andy, Gomez said, “He’s been seen with the Zips and with a guy who goes by the name Marco Agrios, white, just under six feet, brown and brown, sharp dresser. You or your brother know anything about Marco?”

  Andy looked as if she would rather not answer, but she finally said, “I can ask around some. Gimme your card.” Gomez held out a business card and Andy tucked it behind the register.

  Gomez nodded, looked me over, and spoke to Ayatas. “You got a safe place to store him until he heals? We don’t want his kind in with the lockup pop, making furbabies outta the locals.”

  “Yes,” Rick said, when Ayatas glanced at him. “We’ll take care of it.”

  Gomez gave another grunt and left the jewelry shop. Ayatas studied me. I watched him back, wary. “Why would he target you?” he asked.

  “No idea.”

  “If you need protection, I can arrange it.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “Really? For little ol’ me? You want I should curtsy and clasp my hands to my chest? Maybe flutter my eyes and sigh some?”

  “What about me?” Beside me, Andy dropped into a clumsy curtsy and fluttered her eyes at him. “I’ll do a lot more than that to get you for my protection.”

  Ayatas laughed kindly, flashing pearly whites, clearly accustomed to people trying to pick him up. “A war woman can die too. Be careful out there.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “War woman?” She pointed at her right arm above her wrist. “I might have that tattooed right here.” I just smiled.

  Rick pointed a finger at me and said, “We are not done with cat business.”

  Moments later, Andy and I were hauled off to the Eighth Precinct and separated. My last words to her were, “I owe you a lawyer.”

  Her last words to me were, “Make him pretty.”

  We spent time in holding cells until lawyers could arrive and we could be interviewed. Leo had several lawyers on retainer, but Brandon Robere was my lawyer of choice, a graduate of Tulane Law, LLM, back in 1946. I hadn’t seen him in a couple weeks. The Onorio looked good, though his suit hung on his leaner frame, he moved less fluidly, and his eyes were still a little hollow. It took time to get over being tied to a beam, tortured, and drained of blood. Sometimes life just sucked. “Jane,” he said. “I’ve requested an interview room. Are you hurt?”

  “No. I just hate cages.”

  “Yes. I know what you mean.” He followed, silent, as the cops moved me to an interrogation room, stood as they locked the door on us, and leaned with his back against the wall. He asked, “Is it true they targeted you specifically? Not the store owner?”

  “Yes. There’s security video. And one wasn’t a gangbanger. He’s werewolf.”

  “So I hear. Is it true you wish me to offer legal services to Andromeda Preaux?”

  “Yeah. She tried to get me out the back door before the shooting started. Would you check on her?”

  “In a moment. You do seem to attract heroes. How do you know they were targeting you?”

  “Andy said the car had been patrolling the streets in the area for days. They hit on me and rolled past.”

  “Hit on you?”

  “Offered me their services?” When he looked confused I said, “Offered to take me to bed, and not to snooze.”

  Brandon shook his head. “Horrors. Go on.”

  “Yeah. Then they came back. They followed me into the shop. They said, ‘Get the woman,’ or something like that. It wasn’t hard to tell I was their target.”

  “They left and they came back,” he clarified. “And they had been patrolling the area around St. Peter Street?”

  Something was wrong here. More carefully, I said, “I hadn’t seen them before. But that’s what Andromeda said.”

  “When they came back, was their demeanor the same or different?”

  “I’m not following you,” I said.

  He spoke slowly, as he might to a small child. Or someone he didn’t want to upset. “I had Alex do a search of traffic cams. This car has been patrolling the area between St. Philip Street and your home. That area also encloses St. Peter Street and the streets between. However, no one knew you would be walking toward St. Peter Street.”

  “Okay.” And then it hit me. Bruiser lived on St. Philip Street. Maybe they hadn’t been searching for me. Maybe they had been after Bruiser. They had said something like, “Give me the woman.” Had I been nothing but a lever to get to Bruiser? “They weren’t after me, exactly?”

  “It’s possible that you were the means to an end, not the end itself.”

  I sat down on the hard chair, going back over everything that had happened. They wanted Bruiser? Not me? Bruiser. Rage flared up in me like a torch. Why Bruiser? And then it occurred to me that Bruiser had been Leo’s flunky for decades. Together they had hunted and killed werewolves; I’d once seen a photo of them standing over a dead werewolf. There had been werewolves in sub-five when the cats tried to steal the SOD. Those wolves had wanted to steal Brute, who had been biting the SOD and who had timewalking abilities. I hadn’t been able to explore that aspect of this puzzle, thanks to Brute’s inability to shift to human and talk to me. Bruiser might have been involved in “questioning” the werewolves who hurt Rick. This could have been a snatch-and-grab attempt. Or it might be a more complicated situation than a simple kidnapping.

  “Right,” Brandon said, seeing my reaction. “I’ll let you think for a bit and see if Andromeda wants my services.” He left and came back moments later. “Are you absolutely certain that you want me to represent her?”

  “Yeah. Why do you ask? Again.”

  “She told me I was pretty. And that she likes to sleep with lawyers. She suggested a list of positions and toys and games we could play.” I tried to hold in a grin. It must not have been successful because Brandon frowned. “I like sex as much as the next guy, but some of the things she said are downright scary.” His eyes narrowed at me when I laughed. “And her tattoos are Razor tats.”

  “Her brother runs with the Raz. Didn’t know about her. Don’t care. This is vamp business. Leo pays her legal fees.”

  Brandon gave me an abbreviated shrug and sat, placing a briefcase on the table between us. He pulled out a pad and pencil. The Roberes were old-school. “Tell me what happened again. Leave nothing out, no matter how seemingly insignificant.” Which was when I remembered the open window and the barrel pointing down at me. I talked through the sequence of events and when I reached the part about the possibility of a shooter, Brandon left the room again and said something to the guard. Moments later, a detective a
ppeared and Brandon invited him into the room. He was dour, tired, and supposed to be off shift two hours before. I think he blamed me for keeping him on the clock, but really, he should be blaming the dead guys and the furry guy.

  “Tell Detective Kerlegan what you told me. Be specific about directions, locations, everything.”

  I did as I was told. Kerlegan took notes, had me draw out the building across the street, and pinpoint the window where I had seen activity. I was specific and detailed, if not artistic. I couldn’t draw a stick figure, but I could count windows. I circled the window where the gun barrel, if it was a gun barrel, had tracked me.

  Kerlegan left and I told Brandon everything else. “What happened to the wolf?” I asked.

  “LaFleur called some people and hauled him off.”

  “And?”

  “PsyLED and weres are not my concern,” he said.

  “They should be. There were three werewolves in sub-five basement less than twenty-four hours ago, and they seemed to be having an argument.”

  “What kind of argument? Bighorn Wolf Pack or the new Montana Red Pack?”

  “I got no idea,” I said. “One wolf drew a gun on two others, but I can’t tell one pack from the other. They came in with Dominique and a witch under an obfuscation spell, a good one. The lasers detected it, but not in time to catch the witch.”

  “Leo parleyed an agreement with the Bighorns but Montana recently split off from them. It’s possible that Montana came here with the intent of helping the Europeans.”

  “I overheard the wolves say they were there to rescue Brute, who wasn’t pleased at the statement, by the way.”

  Brandon frowned, his brow crinkling, confused.

  “They were on sub-five,” I said, “with the werecat delegation from PAW and the IAW, who were there because of the SOD. You didn’t know? About an attack by the werecats?”

  He cursed succinctly. “No. I’ve been working on legal briefs for two days. Debrief me.”

  I did, and ended with, “Asad may have wanted to start a cat-wolf war, or a vamp-were war, or the kitties and pups might have joined forces temporarily to steal the SOD and Brute. Or something open-ended or more twisted. I don’t know and I have no idea how we can find out.” Brandon used his cell phone to call vamp HQ and knocked on the door as if alerting someone on the outside, like a prearranged signal. Detective Kerlegan reentered about the time that Brandon finished his conversation with HQ, and we three sat at the table. Upon advice from counsel I answered all the detective’s questions, at length. Three times.

  After the third time through the events, I said, “I’m done.” I stood up and looked down at my lawyer. “Get me out of here.”

  “Charge my client with a crime or let her go.”

  Kerlegan sounded tired and jaded when he said, “She’s both a person of interest and a possible suspect in the deaths of two humans and the injury of a werewolf.”

  “You have video of the shooting,” Brandon said. “You have police corroboration of the threat of the gang members. She has been totally cooperative. Jane Yellowrock is not a flight risk and she hasn’t eaten in hours. You have a mountain of evidence saying that the deaths were self-defense. And she told the senior officer on scene that there was a werewolf on-site, one who was shifting and could have posed a danger to the officers and to the public. She was helpful in keeping local law enforcement safe.”

  The detective placed his open hands on the table. “We can keep her for seventy-two hours.”

  I shot him a look that said, No you can’t!

  “All that will get you is her clamming up and refusing to help NOPD ever again.” Brandon leaned in, over the table. “That would create a danger to the city and you know that. She’s helped officers in the past. She saved the life of the chief of police. She helped those officers today. Don’t screw up a system that works.”

  Kerlegan stood and knocked on the door, which opened immediately. “Make sure she doesn’t leave town,” he said as he left the room.

  “I have to go see Andromeda,” Brandon said. “God help me.”

  I just smiled and let him lead me out of the interrogation room. I accepted my weapons and put them into the tote bag that Kerlegan magically produced for me. Checked my cell to discover Alex had sent a dozen texts while I didn’t have access to my phone. The only one that mattered was the one that said T. Antifreeze and the guards who had been injured when the weres went to sub-five were okay, healed by vamp blood and downtime. That put me in a better mood.

  I left the Eighth, exited into the chill and the early dusk, and told Shemmy to take me back to Andromeda Preaux’s jewelry shop. Traffic was horrid and after I texted Bruiser to meet me there, I took a speed nap in the backseat.

  Bruiser and I went into the building across the street from Andromeda’s and up to the unoccupied second floor to inspect the hide used by the possible shooter. The building had been cleared by the cops, and as we searched I told him my concerns about the gangbangers and the wolf with the gun, and the were-creatures in sub-five, also one with a gun. And how the wolves seemed to be at odds. We talked over other possibilities, some far-fetched, some downright scary. Together we concluded that there was nothing we could do and no way to discern the truth for now.

  Bruiser ended the discussion by calling Leo. I wandered around alone for a while.

  There was no electricity in the untenanted building. The room where the round thing had appeared in the open window was empty except for a metal folding chair. The chair and the window sash had been dusted for fingerprints, the powder easy to spot in the olive green room, dusty in Beast’s sharp vision.

  The place had been filled with too many cops and crime scene techs for me to get a specific scent, but I caught a whiff of lemon on the chair when I bent over it. The scent seemed familiar, but the memory wouldn’t come. Other than that, there was nothing.

  From the doorway, Bruiser said, “NOPD thinks the person who was in this room had been here for days. A squatter, most likely. Kerlegan said that CSI hauled off several dozen sealed pee bottles and one sealed five-gallon container of feces.” He sounded aggrieved at having to say the words and I let my mouth curl up at the tone. “This entire building is empty and there are signs the person or persons have been in every room.”

  I wondered how many other buildings had squatters in them and how many of the squatters were actually shooters. How widespread was the search for Bruiser or me and why? We wandered the second floor and I caught the fading scent in several places. “I know it’s stupid, but I smell lemons. Real lemons, not synthetic like in dish soap.”

  Bruiser stopped, thinking, head tilted, his skin and eyes silvered in Beast’s vision. Mate, Beast thought happily.

  He said, “There is a Mithran clan that scents of lemons, but there are no indications that Clan Des Citrons has left France to join with Titus in the Sangre Duello. If this shooter is one of their humans, then that opens up a number of possibilities, none of them good.”

  “Vamps are ready to jump into the fray at any point where they can benefit,” I said. “Or at the end of the blood duel when they could declare war against the winner and take over.” And then I remembered. “I smelled this scent before.”

  Bruiser’s eyes moved to me, waiting.

  “This person has either been in my house or was standing on thin air outside Eli’s bathroom.” The window had been open. The entire house had been breezy. “Or maybe they followed me home and were standing on the brick wall outside the house, listening. Watching. Also I caught a faint whiff of lemons in HQ. On sub-five.”

  Bruiser shook his head. “Someone is watching all of us?”

  “And that someone had access to HQ. I’ll put Alex on it,” I said. “We’ll find them.”

  “Derek can dedicate a few security personnel to your neighborhood.” He shrugged, looking relaxed, but I had a feeling he was
a lot more concerned than he pretended. Casually, he added, “Dinner, then. And we’ll keep an eye out for trolling gangbangers and errant shooters.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The Creole platter at the Gumbo Shop consisted of a large platter of shrimp Creole, jambalaya, and crawfish étouffée. I had two platters, inhaling the first one so fast I only noted it as a blistered sensation on the back of my throat. Bruiser had the red beans and rice with a lovely smoked sausage and the chicken espagnole with extra sides and a half bottle of wine. That was a total of four entrées between us and a mountain of dirty dishes when we were done. The waitress stared accusingly at my skinny frame. I had spent the last few weeks shifting too many times and not eating enough calories to replace the energy usage. I often wondered what might happen if I had to shift many times with no food in between. Would I shrink to nothing? Find myself stuck in one form until I found food? Was that what had happened when I first stole Beast’s body and shifted to human only now and then to heal? Beast called it the hunger times.

  When we were done with the food, I accepted a half glass of wine and sniffed and tasted. It was okay. Bruiser was trying to educate me about the finer things in life and he described it as I sipped, saying, “This Cabernet blend has a healthy level of tannins, is full-bodied, with a medium level of acidity.” He twirled the wine and it ran down the glass in skinny trails. “It has good legs. It’s good with food. The oak has brought out the flavor of”—he paused and sipped noisily—“currants, a little black pepper, and tobacco.”

  I sipped, watching him over the rim of the glass, holding it in front of me as I spoke. “Still. Nothing can beat the Boone’s Farm Fuzzy Navel, served in your best crystal. In your bed.”

  Bruiser’s glass halted halfway to the table. The pulse in his throat sped; his breathing deepened; his face took on color. His brown eyes lost focus for a moment before they snapped to mine, his pupils expanding. His Onorio scent reached my nose, warmer than only a moment past.

  I smiled, letting my lips widen slowly. Took another sip. “Not bad. But not as . . . good.”