Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  • • •

  At midnight I was standing under an icy shower, trying to let the cold water beat the bruises out of my muscles. Fighting while in Zen meditation was painful. Not letting time slip wasn’t as hard as I expected, but it did require total concentration, concentration that left instinctive fighting moves all to muscle memory and Beast. In some ways that was better than my usual sparring methods; in other ways it was not up to my usual speed and skill level. I had jammed knuckles and purple bruises along my rib cage. My knee was wobbly. I needed to shift to Beast and heal, but there wasn’t time. Time. Ha-ha. If I got the chance to shift I’d take it, but it didn’t look likely. Meantime it was Gatorade, hot tea, ice packs, and the cold water of a bruise-fighting shower.

  I heard banging on my door, and knew the boys wouldn’t bother me unless it was an emergency. I threw on a robe and opened it to see the Kid standing there. He said, “We got a problem. The Stephens family at the B&B? The one Des Citrons drank down? They were the blood-servants of Laurie Caruso.”

  I frowned at him, trying to put that together with logic and sense.

  “The clan didn’t end up there by accident or just because they owned some lemon trees,” he said. “I’m betting they were looking for the bottle of blood the Carusos left behind.”

  “The bottle Leo’s had for long enough to get it reverse engineered,” I breathed. “How many other blood-servants did the Carusos leave?”

  “One family in Marigny, the Chiswells, husband and wife and two kids. House is near the corner of Frenchmen Street and Dauphine. I’ve sent the GPS to our cells.”

  I pushed the door closed and dressed fast in my red leathers, with enough weapons to fight off a platoon of vamps. I opened my door to see Eli racing down the stairs. Followed him into the street and into the SUV. He handed me a comms set and I put it on, fastening my silver-plated titanium gorget around my neck. “Intel on the place? Backup?”

  “Nothing.” He roared the vehicle the wrong way down the street. “The Tequila boys are off doing Leo’s initial security work. No answer on Ayatas’s or Rick’s cell. We could twiddle our thumbs and wait.”

  “No.”

  “Then we’re on our own.”

  I sent a text and got an immediate reply. “No, we aren’t. We have Jodi from NOPD, and SWAT.”

  “Hooahh.”

  It had been a while since Eli had used the old Army term, meaning, “Good,” and “Let’s do this,” and a dozen other things. I figured it was a good omen.

  * * *

  • • •

  Eli slowed and I took video of the place. The Chiswells’ home was a brick Creole town house with arched windows at ground level, rectangular windows on the second floor, and arched windows on the third. Nonfunctional shutters were painted a deep emerald green and the front door was painted a paler shade of the same color. Iron balconies were on both upper floors and an iron gate enclosed the front porch. The roof was steeply pitched, with side gables and multiple dormers. Lots of plants were out front and on every balcony. A wall surrounded a tropical garden in back, though I didn’t smell lemons. I did smell blood, not much, but fresh.

  My cell rang. I accepted the call. “Jodi.”

  “You sure about this?”

  “I smell blood. We don’t have time to negotiate. We need to do this now.”

  “What do you mean you smell—Oh. Right,” she grumbled. “ETA is four. Smell’s not enough to be considered exigent circumstances or threat to public safety. Pull down Dauphine, park, and stay put. We’re waiting on a paper.” She meant a warrant to enter the house. And that might take a long time.

  “Right.” I ended the call.

  Eli pulled over into a parking spot and we got out. “Four minutes is enough time for a recon. Your nose and my infrared and low-light and we’ll know where everyone is,” he said.

  I pulled on Beast’s night vision and the world turned silver-gray tinted with greens and charcoal. “Windows are closed, drapes closed. Let’s do a walk-by. Let me see if I can pinpoint the blood.” Immediately I wrapped one arm around Eli’s waist, as if we were out for a stroll.

  Eli tapped his mic as we came abreast of the front door. “Cameras on front porch.”

  “I’m in the system,” Alex said. “They came in the front. Fast and violent. Four vamps and three humans. System went offline, but again they didn’t wipe the history.”

  “The blood I smell is at the front of the house,” I said as we rounded the corner and slipped down the narrow ease-way between the Chiswells’ and the house next door. From above us, I heard a scream, full of terror. A child’s voice. I remembered the bodies at the bed-and-breakfast. I stopped. Eli stopped, his eyes scanning everywhere. The scream came again, terrified. In pain. “Third floor,” I said, following the sound up. “Back of the house.”

  “Over the fence in back.”

  “Copy that,” I said, and tapped my mic. “Call Jodi. Tell her we have vamps in the house and children in distress on the third floor. We’re considering that exigent circumstances. Going over the wall and in at the back. Tell her to hit the house at the front, ASAP.”

  “Okay.” The mic went silent. Then he said, “Jodi is pissed, but they’re parked three houses down on Frenchmen. They’ll enter in two.”

  Eli checked his watch. “Your Beast has senses I don’t. You take point.” Pulling on Beast’s strength, I raced to the fence and leaped. I caught myself with Beast’s grace and peeked over the top before I slipped over, into the leaves of an elephant ear plant. I managed to break several of the huge leaves. Eli landed beside me and broke some more.

  There were four cars in the small lot. Eli said, “Dried mud and grass on the bumper. Centipede, just like the Stephens place.” He moved toward the back door and a security light came on. We ducked back into the foliage just as the door opened. A vamp stuck his head out, spotted a cat on a windshield, cursed, and shut the door. We didn’t hear a lock turn. But I did smell a lot of blood.

  Kits, Beast growled.

  “We’re going in now,” I said into the mic. To Eli I added, “Stay behind me. I heal better than you do.”

  Eli said nothing, but he raced up the stairs and turned the knob. The door opened. I rushed in and stopped, my back to the wall. Into his mic Eli muttered, “Back door was unlocked. A child is screaming. Repeat. We have breached the back. Wall directly ahead, stairs to the right.”

  The entry was a well-lighted mudroom. The vamp who had stuck his head outside was close. I could smell him. We needed him to be quiet. We needed him out of action. We also needed him alive to question. I pointed to my eyes and then at the doorway to the left, telling Eli I was taking a look. I drew a fourteen-inch vamp-killer and advanced on the opening.

  Three feet from me, the vamp walked around the corner. His eyes met mine. Bled black; his fangs snapped down. He vamped out. He started to shout. I raised the vamp-killer and shoved straight forward, my feet automatically moving into La Destreza. The point of the blade entered his throat and cut through. Blood shot over me. The vamp dropped. The blade, hanging in the spinal processes in back, dragged my hand down.

  I waggled the blade and pulled it loose, stuck an ash stake into his belly. But I didn’t take his head. If he survived, he might give us intel.

  Eli pointed up the narrow stairs, probably servants’ stairs way back when. He raced up. Taking point. Stupid man. I followed. We were on the second-floor landing, staring up the stairs to the third floor, when I heard a squeak on the front porch.

  I ran faster, passing Eli. At the top of the stairs I followed the scent of blood and pointed to a room with the door open. Light spilled into the hallway. We raced inside. On the floor just inside the room was an adult male, his throat cut, the blood already stopped. Three people sat on the bed staring at him. Silent. Horrified. The back window was open. I raced to it and looked out.

  The f
ront door blew in with a crash. “NOPD! Freeze! Put down your weapons.”

  I caught a glimpse of a body clearing the back fence in a single bound. Vamp. I dove out the window. “Jane!” Eli shouted. I dropped and landed on a car, caving in the roof but breaking my fall. I took off after the vamp, over the wall. I was halfway down the street when I heard a car start back at the house. It bashed through the gate and pulled away at speed. In the other direction, the running vamp was gone. “Crap. Crap, crap, crap, damn it, crap.” That wasn’t nearly strong enough. I had to go back inside and deal with a dead father. A traumatized family. I really needed to learn how to cuss properly.

  I went in through the back door, noted that the vamp I’d staked was gone, relinquished my weapon to the SWAT OIC, and went on upstairs. The woman was holding her children and weeping; the children were wailing. Jodi was trying to calm them. SWAT officers were everywhere. I stood in the corner and listened until Jodi managed to calm the woman enough to ask questions. Only one answer was important to me.

  “They kept asking us for the bottle. But Laurie left it for Leo Pellissier, in a place where his people would find it.”

  “Why?” I asked, wondering if she’d give me confirmation about the contents of the letter Leo had received. “Trying to cover their bases?”

  “No.” The woman looked up. Despite the blood on her face and the panicked children in her arms, she had dignity and poise that made me embarrassed for what I’d just said. “Laurie hoped Leo would figure it out and then rescue them. They didn’t change sides willingly. The emperor has held her daughter prisoner for decades. She’s on that damned boat in the gulf.” She smelled of the truth.

  Beast thought at me, Kits are afraid. Jane should change to Beast so Beast can comfort them.

  Not this time. Beast’s killing claws and teeth would frighten them.

  Beast has big killing teeth, she agreed.

  I turned and went down the stairs. Outside. And away from the fear and horror and the stench of blood and death. Texted Alex what had happened. We had lost our only lead into the lemon clan.

  * * *

  • • •

  We had been home less than an hour when my cell sang out with the ringtone Alex had programmed for Leo, “Night of the Vampire” by Roky Erickson. I turned off the shower water, wrapped in a bath sheet that covered me from neck to knees, as if Leo could see me over the cell (which had never been set up with FaceTime just because of moments like this), and answered the call on the line about slipping in blood. It seemed appropriate. I said, “How may the Enforcer and the mistress of Clan Yellowrock assist the Master of the City?”

  “Pack your bag,” Leo ordered. “You and the Youngers are needed at the house on Spitfire Island. All has been done that can be done without you. It is time to finalize security measures.” The call ended. I heard a cell ring upstairs, Leo calling the boys. He left little to chance these days.

  I set the cell aside, facedown, and twisted my hair, letting the rinse water drain down the shower. I dressed in jeans and layers—a warm silk-knit tee, a tunic sweater, and a short denim jacket. Wool socks. A pair of iridescent green snakeskin Lucchese boots. It was warm for winter, but it was still winter.

  I got out my larger gobag and a pack of plastic zip bags. I tossed in a gallon bag of toiletries, a quart bag full of makeup, mostly different kinds of red lipstick, but mascara and other stuff too. I packed a gallon bag of silver stakes, another gallon bag of ash wood stakes. One pair of dancing shoes. My most comfy combat boots. A hanging bag of dress clothes and the red and white leathers. Since I didn’t know the sleeping arrangements, I rolled up two pairs of sweats and put them in a plastic bag with undies and socks. T-shirts. An extra pair of jeans. Flops. I stood at the foot of the bed and studied the bag. It was nearly full. I had come to New Orleans with less than this.

  From the top of the closet I pulled all the magical trinkets and magical weapons and stuffed them into the bag, including the Glob and le breloque, the gold laurel-leaf crown that had probably helped me become the Dark Queen. I added the robe that hung on the back of my bathroom door. I almost never used it, but the sleeping arrangements sounded like summer camp. I added my pillow. I had become addicted to high-quality pillows, mattresses, and linens. My life was out of control.

  The gobag was too full of magic and undies for weapons, so I started a pile to the side. When I had stripped my room of everything that went bang, I sat on the gobag and got it zipped shut, but it was a near thing. I nearly stabbed myself with the stakes in a place that was totally inappropriate for traditional staking. I was still sitting on the bag when Eli’s scent swept under the door and he knocked. “Come in.”

  He opened the door. “Orders from Leo.”

  “I got them too. Ruined the end of a perfectly good shower.”

  Eli studied the bag under my backside. “You got weapons in that?”

  I could have told him about the magical stuff and the stakes, but when Eli asked that question, he meant things that go bang. “No.”

  “Ammo?”

  “No.”

  “Fighting leathers?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “In the hanging bag.”

  He frowned hard. “Do not tell me you packed girly stuff in that.”

  “I did. I totally did. And I’m not ashamed.” Much. I let the teasing drift away. “Something I need to say. You are my brother. My second. You are the one I depend on most when my life is on the line.”

  Eli’s eyes didn’t move from me, but I knew he had spotted the printed papers on my bedside table. “You’ve been studying the Vampira Carta and the Sangre Duello.”

  “Not as much as I should have. But there’s this thing called La Danza de los Maestros de Sangre.”

  “Dance of the Blood Masters.” A grin split Eli’s face. Not a happy grin. A bloodthirsty grin. The grin of a man who had just seen a move on the vamp chessboard that he had missed until now. “Babe.” His grin went wider. “Leo’s a sneaky bastard.”

  “He assures me he was conceived on the legal side of the sheets. That was an important thing back then. But yeah. Loopholes are a good thing. And Leo was thinking ahead. Way ahead.”

  “He couldn’t blood-bind you, and you could use witch amulets like a pro, so he promoted you.”

  I gave a minuscule nod.

  “And because he promoted you to Blood Master of your own clan, and to Dark Queen status, you can claim the dance.”

  La Danza de los Maestros de Sangre was a specific way of fighting between Blood Masters. It was magic and weapons and no-holds-barred fighting—claws and teeth, guns and blades, silver stakes—like mixed martial arts and sword fighting and magic all at once. All together. I nodded.

  “But you still packed like a girl?”

  “I did. Makeup and a scrap of lace formal and everything. So he won’t expect La Danza de los Maestros de Sangre from me.”

  Eli’s face went stiff and unyielding. “You’ll mess with time in La Danza.”

  I nodded.

  “You’ll get a headache. Stomachache.”

  “That just means I’ll have to kill him and get back in time fast.”

  Eli’s scowl went deeper, drawing down the lines on his mouth. I had won. And we now had four secret weapons in the Sangre Duello. Me in half-form, me as Clan Yellowrock Blood Master, me as Dark Queen, and La Danza.

  “Eli,” I said softly. “Having the Sangre Duello on an island no one knows about means that any vamps who want to chase us down and interfere will have a harder time. And Uncle Sam’s ICE and other enforcement agencies will also have a harder time. Win-win.”

  “Still doesn’t outweigh the dangers of you timewalking.” He walked away.

  He had a point.

  A moment later he reappeared in my doorway with his weapons gobag that was already half-full. “Don’t forget extra ammo for the Benelli.”
>
  CHAPTER 14

  Then You Date Her

  The Gulf of Mexico raced beneath us, black water and whitecaps and the occasional boat lights below, stars and a clouded moon above. Wind and prop noise were muffled through the earphones as Grégoire’s Vietnam-era Bell Huey blasted through the night, the pilot making excellent time.

  Hate flying, Beast thought at me. Hate helo-copters. Hate bird wings. Will bite Leo for making Beast go on helo-copter.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give me warning. I want to enjoy that.

  Will tell Jane. But will bite Leo. Hate earthquake.

  I thought about that one and realized she was referring to the intense vibration of the helo. It was pretty awful. Okay by me, but wait until after the Sangre Duello. I need Leo alive. Or undead. Whatever.

  Beast is best ambush hunter. Best ambush fighter. Beast is best at everything. Why does Jane want Leo alive? To mate?

  No. Leo is like a big-cat on the African plains, I thought as the helo rumbled into my veins and nerves, making my body quiver. He has smarts and claws and big teeth. He’s a good fighter. A really good leader. He’s a good ambush hunter. We need him.

  Like male African lion in pride? Big-cat to fight off other cats? Big-cat to keep kits alive?

  Yes.

  Ambush hunter. Leo caught Jane and drank from her. Leo won. Leo beat Jane.

  The memory of Leo trying to bind me slammed through me. I gripped the safety handle by my head. My mouth went dry. Yes.

  Leo is good ambush hunter. Leo beat Jane. Beast beat Leo. Leo will keep kits of Asad and Nantale alive?

  I had forgotten about that, about the kits. Leo and I will.

  Leo and we will keep kits alive. Many more than five fights. We will kill many more than five vampires and their humans to save kits. And Beast will drink the blood of her enemies.

  Five was as high as Beast could count. Beast. No drinking blood.

  Beast didn’t reply.

  Beast. No drinking blood, vampire or human.