by Faith Hunter
“With the second dawn, when Clan Fonteneau is entirely in power, you will return here. Alesha will remain in Atlanta to rule. Katherine will return with you for a fortnight. Do you understand?”
The Robere twins nodded once, the actions mirror images.
Katie’s mouth popped open and fangs retracted as she laughed. She threw her arms around Leo. “You are allowing me to return for the Sangre Duello?” Leo speared Katie with a look that held centuries of passion and trust and emotions I had no name for. He nodded and she said, “Je t’aime.”
“And I you. For my Katherine I have one last task. To stand by my side as I fight and live, or fight and die.” Leo released Katie.
The two women curtsied, deeply and gracefully, and remained in that position of obeisance for ten Mississippis before the B-twins stepped forward and each took a hand of the Fonteneau women, lifting them to their feet. As a group, they stepped back and swept from the room.
“The long view,” I muttered. Leo had just punished Katie and Alesha by giving Katie the one thing she didn’t want—responsibility—provided a stable rule for Atlanta by making sure Alesha was there to do the political stuff, permitted Katie to return to NOLA so she could participate in combat, and reset a clock that he could twist in many ways. “Wily and devious and scheming.”
“That was freaking cool,” Alex whispered. He was right, it was. Leo was a snake in the grass. I feared it boded badly for me.
CHAPTER 9
Huggy Huggy Kiss Kiss
“Ming Zoya, former Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis, and Ming Zhane of Clan Glass, rise and kneel before me,” Leo said, clasping his hands together behind his back.
This was unexpected. I looked again at the drain in the floor, but Leo had no reason to want the Mings dead. So far as I knew.
The Asian sisters stood and walked down the aisle to the front, where they knelt at Leo’s feet. Ming Zoya was wearing unrelieved black—pants, shoes, and a jacket that was woven to show a large dragon shimmering across the back when the light caught it just right. Her face was made up with rice powder, scarlet lipstick, and strong black eyeliner, her hair piled high on her head in an intricately braided bun. She was a very different woman from the starved, skeletal, raving insane vamp pulled from a watery pit.
Ming Zhane of Glass was wearing scarlet. Their colors clashed and blended, like lava and stone. The Mings were graceful, delicate, and they carried themselves with deadly balance and purpose, even kneeling.
“Ming Zhane of Clan Glass,” Leo said, “I give you leave to petition the Master of the City of New Orleans for position of Master of the City of Knoxville.”
Ming Zhane fell still, the marble statue stillness of the undead. She took a breath needed for speech and bowed her head to the floor. “My master is gracious, wise, and kind to this most unworthy Mithran. I will file all necessary petitions posthaste.” The sisters started to rise, but Leo spoke again.
“Ming Zoya, former Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis,” Leo said, “will you swear to me to protect and guard my city, to guard me, to fight by my side, to avenge my death, should I fall and die true-dead?”
Ming sucked in a shocked breath, as did all the gathered. “Master?”
“I asked you questions, Ming Zoya.”
“I do. I will. Always and forever.”
“You lost your home. Your people. Your scions and your cattle. Your clan. Yet you showed no fear, you refused to relent, you refused to give in to your captors. I would have you back at my side, as Blood Master of Clan Mearkanis. What say you?”
Ming started to shake. Bruiser looked nonplussed, and then a wide, delighted, surprised smile swept over his face. Ming said, “My master. How? My clan has been disbanded, my scions and properties dispersed.”
“In the last months, you did not rule well, Ming Zoya. Your people were afraid and your clan home was controlled by fear, yet, there are fourteen Mithrans of former Clan Mearkanis who have spoken for you and are willing to return to you. Are there others among my people you would claim for your clan, if they and their Blood Masters are willing?”
“I—” The word broke sharply and Ming stopped, her shoulders going back with almost military posture. When she spoke again it was with the formality of fangheads in ceremony. “I pondered much while buried in water with the dead. I request the time to choose scions and blood-servants who are willing to join Clan Mearkanis. I will do so over the next twenty-four hours and present them to the Master of the City tomorrow night at this same hour.”
“I proclaim it so,” Leo said. “Your former clan home is empty, and the witches, to whom it was offered, have been approached and are willing to accept another property. Mearkanis Clan Home awaits you.” He looked back and forth between the sisters. “You must rule with kindness. With the awareness and understanding of failure and error. With mercy.”
“Forgive me, my master”—Ming Zoya dropped her head in a bow—“but Clan Pellissier has never ruled with mercy.”
“I too have learned much in these last three years.”
Eli slanted his eyes at me and his lips did a little quirky smile. I sat back in my chair. Three years was about how long I’d been in NOLA.
“I now demand all of my sworn Blood Masters follow the new guidelines, amended to the old Vampira Carta. Will you so swear?”
“Without seeing these new ways of thinking and acting?”
“Yes.”
Zoya answered, her reluctance almost imperceptible. “I will trust my master to require only the possible. My sword is yours, my loyalty is yours, my heart is yours, and if I have a soul, it too is yours.”
Leo pricked his thumbs with his blade. Pricked both Mings’ thumbs. They each took the other’s thumb into their mouths and sucked. There was nothing sexual in this blood exchange, though I knew Leo and the Mings had been more than friendly in times past. They all closed their eyes and leaned closer, as if each using the other for balance.
I checked the time. This was all huggy huggy kiss kiss, but boring. I had things to do, werewolves to hunt, and creatures to fight.
Leo and the Mings stopped the blood exchange and swallowed. Leo said, “Ming Zoya, your loyalty is rewarded. Clan Mearkanis is reestablished, with all attendant properties and rights and incomes. Go. Attend to your restored clan. Build it. Protect your people. Ming Zhane, provide petitions for Master of the City status.”
The Mings backed away and bowed so low it looked as if their heads might touch the floor. Vamps are really limber. “I am yours,” both Mings said, mostly in unison. “May my clan and my progeny die forever true-dead should I ever be disloyal.”
The Mings swept out of the Council Chambers.
Just wow. Leo called two other vamps to the front for some small approval, which I ignored. Until he called Callan to the front. Pretty Callan, young vamp with a boxer’s shoulders, cyclist’s thighs, and angel’s face. The vamp who had kidnapped me in the middle of a magical storm and hidden beneath a boat on the Gulf of Mexico, waiting for the sun to set so he could drink me down.
Leo asked, “You are accused of betrayal, conspiracy, and traitorous actions. How do you plead?”
Callan tossed back his beautiful locks and stood straight and tall. “Not guilty, for I serve the master of all Mithrans, Titus Flavius Vespasianus.”
Leo stared at Callan, unmoving in that creepy, vampy, still-as-a-graveyard-statue way. Then he took a fluttering breath and said, “Judgment shall be decreed by the outclan priestess.”
I had pretty much forgotten Sabina and the others on the dais behind the black table, because they didn’t breathe or fidget or blink. Typical undead. Sabina stood, her robes making a starchy shushing sound, and said softly, “For your crimes against the Enforcer and against the rule of Mithran decrees and the law of the Vampira Carta, you will be beheaded.”
In his Carolina accent, Callan sneered, “Unsurprisin’
judgment by a pickaninny and the coward who owns her”—he threw back his shoulders and finished—“against an unarmed man.”
“Oh, he didn’t,” Alex whispered.
“Or you may test your skills against the Master of the City, here and now,” a woman’s voice said. Vamp-fast, someone behind me tossed Callan a sword. And I caught a whiff of lemon. Everything happened fastfastfast.
The condemned vamp snatched the sword out of the air. Vamped out. Fangs schnicked down. Eyes bled scarlet, centered by widening pupils, blacker than death.
Edmund leaped into the crowd. After the sword-throwing woman.
I was sitting forward, drawing a weapon. I stood.
Before I could blink, Callan whirled the sword and stabbed at Leo. He leaped back. Sabina took the sword thrust. She jerked to the side. Just a fraction. Just enough to miss the center of her throat. The blade struck through the left side of her throat near her collarbone. It exited her nape, bloody. Callan twisted the sword, cutting to the side. Taking out the left carotid, jugular, tendons. Still twisting, he yanked back on the sword. The blade came free.
Sabina toppled.
Leo leaped over the table to catch her.
I screamed. What came out was, “Mine!” I hurdled between and over the chairs in front of me. Raced to the front. This. This I can do. Vengeance for Sabina.
“Attack most foul. This is the responsibility of the Enforcer Executioner,” Leo said from behind the table where he cradled Sabina.
Callan stepped back, watching the rear of the room, his face frozen, eyes wide. Whatever was happening back there, it wasn’t what he expected. And I smelled lemons on the air. Someone sworn to Clan Des Citrons was here. I never took my eyes from Callan.
Eli stepped close and took my gun, scooping Leo’s longsword from the tabletop and placing it in my right hand. Beast-fast, I drew a vamp-killer for two-handed fighting.
“Prepararse para la muerte,” I said. And I attacked. My swords swirled and circled, steel edges glittering in the lights.
Beast murmured deep inside. Killing claws. I stepped inside Callan’s guard. Beast swept out with a killing claw and cut across Callan’s chest. We stepped back. “First blood,” I said.
“Little bitch. Always in the way. Damn wolf shoulda killed you.”
Wolf . . . The red wolf from Andromeda’s jewelry shop? Or Ziggy’s and Champ’s pack? I cleared my mind, letting the meditation of the skinwalker shape-shift fill me with the emptiness of battle. My blades whirled faster. Meeting and sliding and grazing apart. My feet settled into perfect balance, long and short transverse steps sliding me inside his reach and out. Callan lunged. Again. Again. Our blades clanged and shushed along the length, gently, as I knocked his aside. Trapping his blade with my vamp-killer. Cut at his neck. Shoulder. The wrist of his sword arm. The Zen of battle.
The room around me faded. Disappeared. There was only the single blade before me and the movements of the creature who wielded it.
Cut. Cut. Cut. Blades a percussive steel melody. Edges sliding, shushing, tapping. My body dancing, dancing. Moving through the forms of La Destreza, feet spread, weight balanced. Focused on one thing. This dance.
“Jane Yellowrock. Desist.”
Cut. Cut. Cut.
“Jane Yellowrock,” the words roared. “Desist!” Leo. Commanding.
I laughed, showing teeth.
He said other words, softly, then, “Dalonige’ i Digadoli. Stop now.”
I cut and cut.
“Dalonige’ i Digadoli. Halewisda. Howatsu. Stop. Please.”
I blinked. Stepped away. From Callan. I was blood splattered. Callan was sliced into ribbons. I felt a blinding pain on my right side. Callan fell to his knees on the marble before me. His blood trickled into the drain. Instantly, I understood what I had done. In meditation, I had reverted back to the punishment I’d dealt to the first man I killed. Sickness rose in my throat, but I forced it down.
I lifted the longsword back, across my body. With all Beast’s strength, I cut.
Callan’s head toppled. Fell. So did Callan’s blood-slick body. His sword hit the black floor. I stood over him, watching as his blood puddled between the marble tiles in geometric patterns, flowing toward the drain.
Alex clicked off his phone, but before he did, I saw Aggie One Feather’s name on the screen. He had called her to get Tsalagi words to make me stop. He had given the words to Leo.
“Bring Edmund to me for healing. Find Dominique, who tossed a sword to the prisoner, and bring her to me,” Leo said. “If she is still in Council Chambers, her true-death is now mine to give.”
Dominique. The traitor brought back from near-true-dead. Dominique and Adrianna—an archenemy I had tried to kill for years—had been lovers. I had recently killed Adrianna and that gave Dominique a big reason to want me dead. And she was here at the same time as the scent of lemons . . . Ahhhh. That was why Leo and Grégoire had brought Dominique back and set her free—to track who she had been working with. Dominique had sworn to Clan Des Citrons. A tiny puzzle piece fell into place. Finally.
“Jane?” Leo was wearing that blank vamp expression. There was a reddish haze around him and I blinked, trying to clear it away. Raised my hand and wiped my eyes. My wrist came away bloody. I realized there was blood in my eyelashes. In my hair. “Eli. Take Jane to heal.”
I felt the world shift and I realized I was in Eli’s arms. He carried me from the room, moving fast through a dizzying maze of hallways, into the locker room across from the gym. He placed me on a bench and a woman knelt at my feet, removing my shoes and cutting off my clothes, wrapping me in white sheets that quickly turned scarlet. I watched for a while until the pain and the stench of my own blood brought me around. I looked at my stomach. There was a deep cut there. Callan had been a mediocre swordsman. I was actually better. But just there at the end, when I stepped away and before I positioned for the final cut, he had lunged. I hadn’t blocked or parried. Callan’s sword had run me through.
Jane used killing claws. Jane is good hunter. Trespasser in hunting territory is dead. But Jane is stupid kit. Should have used ambush and taken head first.
“Can I be both?” I asked aloud. “Good hunter and stupid kit?”
“Don’t know. But you are for sure bleeding to death,” the woman said.
I knew her. She had helped me dress the first time I put on the proper fighting clothes for blood duels. I couldn’t remember her name.
“I’ll take it from here,” Eli said. The woman didn’t move and his voice took on a tone I wasn’t accustomed to hearing from him. Command voice. “Get out.”
The woman rose and left the room.
“Jane. Shift. I’ll bring Beast a plate of steaks.”
“Oatmeal for after. With sugar and milk.”
I could hear the amusement in his voice when he said, “I remember how you like it.”
“Today has sucked,” I said.
I fell forward and let the Gray Between take me.
* * *
• • •
Beast kicked out of bloody cloth. Stretched through hips, front legs out, chest and belly. Shook pelt. Stretched again. Looked over parts of body. Looked in mirror. Liked mirror. Was better than water in lake. But lake had beaver dam. Remembered beaver dam. And beavers. Hard to catch but fun to chase in water.
Looked for Eli. Looked for cow meat. No cow. Chuffed. Eli did not appear. Went to door and chuffed again. Was hungry. Made kit-sound, peep and mewling.
Door opened. Eli looked down at Beast, laughing. “Poor hungry kitty cat.”
Beast snarled, showing killing teeth.
“Be nice. I have a roast fresh from butchering.”
Beast backed away from door, sniffing, nostrils opening and closing. Sat and waited. Eli entered and placed big metal bowl on floor, full of blood and meat. Not watery blood. Real cow blood
. Beast licked and slurped and tore into meat. Was good.
“Don’t laze over your food too long,” Eli said. “Leo has plans.”
Beast looked up from blood and licked jaw, raspy tongue cleaning lips and muzzle. Like Leo. Have seen Leo fight in drops of water. Leo is like kit. Must be protected. Will give drop of time water to Jane and see what Leo does.
Finished dead cow. Was good dead cow. Belly full, Beast lay down on cool floor and woke Jane. Gave body over to Jane.
* * *
• • •
I came to lying on the floor. “Dang cat,” I grumbled. I stood and went to my locker. I hadn’t checked it in a while and I had no idea if it still had clean clothes in it or not. I found a dark gold sweater and black slacks. A pair of dancing shoes. Undies, thankfully. I wasn’t in the mood for commando. I dressed and braided my hair in a sloppy single braid, hearing a knock at the door. “I’m decent.”
When I turned around, Eli stood in the doorway holding a bowl of oatmeal. He came in, placed the bowl on a small shelving unit, and pulled a long bench up to it. I sat and scarfed down the oatmeal. Heaven in a bowl. I used a lot of calories shifting into any form, so no matter how well I ate in one form, I needed to eat again when I shifted back.
“Update,” I said around a mouthful of oats and sugar and milk.
“Dominique tossed Callan a sword. You sliced Callan to pieces and beheaded him. He got in one good stab and nearly killed you. Edmund attacked Dominique bare-handed and took a dozen stakes to the belly and heart. Dominique got away, up through a ceiling tile and a tunnel we didn’t know was there. Leo healed Sabina. Dacy Mooney healed Ed. You shifted.”