Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  There was a dining table that would seat twenty in a pinch, three seating areas, and a library full of moldering books. Except for the kitchen and the big table, all the furniture was old and decrepit, but the staging crew was supposed to bring replacements. The ceilings were a little over standard height and looked like old pressed tin, the ancient Hunter Fan Company fans still worked, and the floors might have been cypress under the layer of construction dirt. The walls were cream or eggshell throughout the lower floor and the wood moldings were stark white.

  “Windows?” I asked Mike, to see how well she communicated. Or how well she read my mind. Either way.

  “All new three years ago. Shutters all new. They look antique, but they’re electronic hurricane shutters and slide into recesses in the walls. Benefit of keeping out hurricane winds is that they’re also lightproof. So vamps are safe by day,” she said casually. When I didn’t reply she added, “Unless someone hits a wrong switch and the shutters open. But there’s a twenty-second delay and an alarm built into the system, so theoretically any light-sensitive person could get to shelter.”

  I made a small sound of doubtful agreement and she went on.

  “Sleeping area is on the second story and there are decorative fire escapes built into the outer walls.” Without waiting for us, Mike headed up the wide stairway, located beside the kitchen, in front of the entry.

  To Alex I said, “Cameras and electronics look possible?”

  “Not a piece of cake, but . . . we can get something.” He needed to get more than something. He needed to get a system set up that would allow for the Sangre Duello to be uploaded to pay-per-view on the Internet.

  I made another small sound as we reached the second floor. It was constructed with a central walled-up, contained area, encircled by a wide hallway, and long narrow bedrooms around the outside. It was set up like insertable boxes, a small central space, a wider open ring, and more box. I figured the central area was for vamp sleeping and the outside rooms were for humans. As I had been informed, there were four bedrooms for humans, two on the front of the house, facing the ocean, and one on each side. Along the back was an even more narrow room, one that appeared to have been a very recently enclosed porch, not much more than eight feet wide along the back wall. In the hallway there was an ice chest, several sawhorse tables, six mesh folding chairs, a fifty-gallon garbage can full of trash and flies, and cola bottles everywhere.

  The walls on this level hadn’t been freshly painted, and the color scheme was less than pleasant with clashing tropical colors and ugly murals. Alex said, “This might have been painted by grade school kids,” and he was right. This floor also stank of mold, even with the windows open to the night air.

  Walls and wallboard were missing between some rooms, temporary studs visible where one bath had been enlarged and added onto. I didn’t ask where the water came from or where the plumbing drained to. I didn’t really want to know. But the baths were mostly raw pipes. Two men came up beside me and one said, “I’m Jake. Master cabinetmaker. Time constraints mean nothing is custom, but ready-made cabinets were delivered today. I’ll get them in and leveled as fast as I can. The wood floor system is uneven and there’s not a single wall or floor or ceiling that’s plumb in this place, but I’ll get them done.” Jake pointed at the African American man beside him. The name stenciled on his shirt was Trevis. “Trevis has the plumbing complete except for tying to faucets and drains. Fixtures are under the first floor on the sand.”

  Trevis nodded at me, silent.

  I remembered the boxes and stacked crates downstairs. “Lot of things a large group of vamps and humans can do without, Trevis. Plumbing isn’t one.”

  Mike said, “Renny suggested we put in fighting mats on the sand under the first floor. We could add a shower outside since drains wouldn’t be needed.”

  They knew the Sangre Duello was going to involve fighting and blood and were thinking ahead. Alex grunted. Eli frowned.

  Trevis added, “They fight down there, the sand makes cleanup easier between bouts. The shower would keep some of the bloody mess out of the house, could be used to wash off blood, sweat, and gore outside rather than track it inside up the stairs.”

  The idea was brilliant. “And?” I asked.

  “And Marco said no,” Jake said.

  “You want the fighting area and shower under the house?” Trevis asked me.

  “I think it’s nifty. Is it possible to get an outdoor shower installed and still hit our timeline?”

  “Can do,” Trevis said and trotted off, calling for Renny.

  As he left, five men and the stocky woman I had seen earlier strode up the stairs. They carried hammers, hefty tape measures, skill saws, and an air of determination. In seconds they were banging permanent studs in place beside the temporary ones, hanging wallboard, and discussing ways to finish the walls without the finishing compound drying, which took three days in dry air. I knew finishing compound. It was the stuff that went under, above, and around wallboard tape to keep the seams from cracking. I’d seen Eli use it on the various house repairs. I’d been rough on the formerly freebie house.

  I looked at Mike and dipped my chin in approval at the crew.

  “Money talks,” she said.

  “I hope so.” Especially since I hadn’t cleared the expense with Leo’s accountant, Raisin. My promise would be a smack to the Mithran coffers. “Let’s see the vamp sleeping quarters.”

  The central area was separated into four tiny, square rooms, all opening into a foyer of sorts. There were two official doors and an escape hatch out through a hidey-hole that led to a long drop to the sand, like a dumbwaiter chute. No windows. Extra-thick walls. I smelled old blood when Mike lifted the escape hatch. Some vamp had dropped through it in the distant past, badly wounded. Two electricians carrying toolboxes and ladders came in behind us and started work.

  “The center rooms were already in place and the walls soundproofed when the full crew got here,” Mike said, “finished some time ago and ready for color. Soon as the last of the new bathroom walls are in place we’ll blow the paint on. We have enough equipment to blow the entire house in about three hours. And if we run out of solar power, we have generators. Paint will dry well enough in eight hours for the electricians to put up the lighting fixtures, and your staging team can work around the wetter spots. You can get the painters to stick around to touch up as needed.”

  Mike was good, answering my questions before I asked. She led us back into the hallway, squatted, and indicated the unpainted wallboard. “Finishing compound won’t cure in time. It’ll look okay for a day or two, but in the wet air, it’ll mold if we don’t come back and strip the tape, recompound the walls, and repaint, but this is the best we can do.” She looked up at me, speculation in her eyes. I couldn’t place her expression. Beast raised her head, sniffed, and sat up, vaguely interested, but not telling me why. When I didn’t say anything, she asked, “You don’t talk much, do you?”

  “Not really.” I pointed at the stairs up. “Let’s see the third floor.”

  The third floor was one huge space, empty of workers, with gigantic wood pillars that held up the roof system and passed straight through the house, deep into the sand below. The room was vaulted with weathered gray-toned tongue-and-groove boards and big, slow-turning, copper fans, green with verdigris. There were hidden lights in the unpainted rafters and beams that cast quirky shadows. The walls were pale, maybe once painted white. The floor was cedar planks inlaid with darker wood in three places, each in the shape of La Destreza fighting rings. Not modern fighting rings, but octagonal fighting rings like I had seen in books. All the windows were open to the night air, and there were a lot of windows. For the first time I considered the kind of views that every window and the wraparound porch would have by day. Spectacular. I wondered how the house had survived hurricanes and floods. It was amazing.

  “I love t
his room,” Mike said, turning in a circle, as if seeing all the views. She was balanced, rooted, her stance bringing Beast to the surface, turning my attention to the woman. Something about her movements. A dancer? Ice skater? “I could live here forever,” she said.

  “I can see why,” Alex said, looking at me. “Dibs?”

  I chuckled and shook my head. “No. You can’t claim this room.”

  “I can imagine painting in this room,” Mike said, her voice almost dreamy. “Canvases there and there”—she pointed—“to take advantage of the light. It’s amazing by day. Soft and ethereal.”

  Despite the claw hammer and oversized tape measure on her belt, Bambi was an artist at heart, and better educated than her rant at the construction workers had indicated. Sadly, the room she was admiring wasn’t for artists or canvases; it was for fighting.

  “Could be used for an artist’s atelier,” she said. “Could be a sleeping loft. There are heavy-duty steel screws in rings in all the supports, for backdrop cloths or to hang hammocks.”

  The breeze shifted. I caught the scent of lemons, coming through the windows. Three stories up.

  CHAPTER 15

  Jane Was Sick from Walking through Time

  Beast moved. Fastfastfast. Grabbed Alex left-handed and spun-tossed him out of harm’s way. He was still in the air when an object flew through the window. I/we leaped. Beast and Jane in perfect concert. Caught it. Let it swing me around and in the same motion, threw it out a different window. Heard odd popping sounds. Identified the device only after it left my/our hand. Hand grenade. Just outside the window, it exploded. Debris peppered inside the room.

  My hand went numb. Spelled? I thought. Alex landed, rolled down the stairs. Shouting. More popping. Gunfire. Bambi/Mike dropped to the floor for cover.

  I/we rushed window the grenade came through. Soared out the opening, into the night. And saw Marco dropping toward the roof of the porch below.

  Beast is fast. She took over. Twisted in the air, away from the light in the window.

  Marco landed on the tin roof. Turned, fast as a blood-servant. A blur in the darkness. He raised a weapon. Fired at the window we’d just left.

  Beast landed beside him. Fisted hand. Hit Marco on jaw. Uppercut. All weight and might behind single blow.

  Marco snapped back. Fell from roof. To land on sand below. Beast is best hunter!

  I/we whipped back. Caught edge of porch roofing. Metal and wood. Extended claws. Caught weight. Swung inside to porch, landing on railing. Man standing there squeaked. Everyone was down on floor. Taking cover.

  Thanks, I thought to Beast as she gave me back my body.

  I jumped the final distance to the sand and knelt beside the limp form of Marco. He was breathing. I grabbed his arm and rolled him over. Knee at his back. I tried to trap his arms, but my hand didn’t work.

  I heard the individual, particular percussion of Eli’s feet on the steps, flat-out run, three stairs at a time. Smelled Eli. A nine-mil and handful of zip strips entered my field of vision.

  “Can’t,” I breathed. Holding up my hand and arm.

  Marco came back to consciousness and shook himself like a dog. Started fighting again, or trying to. Eli took over and strapped Marco’s wrists together. Not as easy to do as it sounded, with a screaming, punching, crazy blood-servant, one with broken legs from his fall, beneath him. One-handed, I banged his head on the ground, maybe harder than was necessary, to subdue him. Eli strapped his ankles together above his boots with heavy-duty zip strips.

  When he was restrained, I removed Marco’s weapons. Everything. Down to the silver stake strapped to his calf.

  I sat on Marco, breathing hard. Lip dripping. Blood all over my casual clothes, dang it. “How did he get free? How did he get up to the third floor?”

  “My fault,” Derek said, stumbling out of the darkness, the stink of his blood on the air. “I thought we had him contained at the LZ. Son of a bitch got free. Pulled a move I haven’t seen since the military, and faster than shit. Hit me over the head. My guys are down too. Alive, but out.” He sat down hard on the sand, as if he was dizzy. Blood dripped from his nose and the back of his head, and curdled into his collar. With my good hand, I pulled him forward and inspected the wound. “Ow,” he said, jerking away, only to grab his head again, the stink of his nausea acrid on the air.

  “Concussion,” I said. A human would have needed stitches and a dark room and concussion protocol. Derek had been drinking powerful vamp blood. He’d likely be fine.

  He said, “There are fire escape ladders built in beneath some of the windows. He must have used those. I’ll make sure they come out first thing in the morning.” He cursed, held his head a moment, and lifted a hand to the house and the workers congregated on the porch. “We need lights in the LZ, now!”

  In the distance, the sound of rotor blades cut the air. The helicopter was closing in on the unlit landing site. I felt more than saw people rushing out to the landing area. Lights came on. A generator roared, concealing the sound of the helo. Bright lights sliced the night, illuminating the landing site. LZ. Landing zone. Right.

  “Alex. You okay?” Eli called.

  “Jane broke my tablets,” Alex said from the front door. “And maybe my nose.”

  Eli glanced up at his brother. “No, she didn’t.”

  “No. But she could have,” he said sulkily as he clunked down the stairs to us. “Jane wasn’t playing nice when she threw me down the steps.”

  “Big-cats do not play nice,” Beast said through my mouth, her voice growly.

  Both Youngers went still as stone.

  I swallowed Beast back. “Sorry. But my arm is broken. I grabbed the grenade he threw in the window and then I hit Marco with the same arm. I think the grenade was spelled.” I held up my arm. My lower arm bent to one side then the other.

  Eli looked it over. “Dang, Janie. Now, that’s a broken arm. Comminuted fracture of both bones. Hey, you”—he pointed to a man on the porch—“go get my gobag.” The guy took off. “I’ll splint it,” Eli said.

  “As happy as I am to provide a medical lesson in orthopedics,” I whispered beneath the sound of the helo and generator, breathless, “I’m about to pass out from the pain. I have to shift. I need privacy and I also need to check on Bambi/Mike.”

  “Soon as we stabilize that arm we can get you back to the third floor to shift, killing two birds. Broken hand too,” he continued as he tucked my fingers into the waistband of my jeans to give it some support. “Stay put.” Eli bowled Marco up into his arms and over his shoulder in a rolling/rising, all-in-one move I’d seen him do before. He pointed to my swollen hand. “I’ll be right back to splint that. I mean it, Janie. Stay put.” Eli carried the attacker toward the landing zone, Alex on his heels, carrying one of Eli’s nine-mils.

  “Stay put? I’m not your puppy dog.” Eli was too far away to hear me.

  Derek chuckled and then retched, throwing up onto the packed sand.

  The smell nearly did me in. No way could I stay put. I jutted my chin to the retching Derek and said to a passing carpenter, “Bring him in. Put some ice on his head.”

  I cradled my arm and hand and crawled to my feet. I climbed the stairs to the porch, breathless, aching, passing the workers, trying not to hurl or pass out, as that would ruin my badass image. Right. I made my pained way up to the third floor, ready to shift into Beast and heal my broken arm, the big room last seen as I leaped out the window. Halfway up the last steps, the smell of blood met me.

  “Eli!” I screamed. “To me!”

  Bambi/Mike was on the floor, her blood in a wide pool. I knelt at her side. She was still breathing, but there couldn’t be enough blood left in her to keep her alive for long.

  Eli tore up the stairs, took in the scene at a glance, and began shouting orders. “Hold the helo. Get Leo on the helo’s comms system. I need a med kit, now
!” He went to work trying to stabilize Bambi/Mike with nothing except his bare hands, the stuff in his pockets, and pressure.

  Alex repeated the orders, shouting. People boiled into the third-floor space.

  A man landed beside Eli, placing an oversized red case on the floor and opening the latches with sharp snaps of metal and plastic. It was the T-shirted potbellied man from earlier, and he had a massive emergency kit. “I’m an EMT,” he said, already tearing packages. “Cut her clothes open. Tampons.” He handed Eli a handful of packages. “Leave the tail hanging out. Then Gelfoam. Don’t put the foam inside. There may be intravascular compartments. We don’t want to risk embolism.”

  Eli didn’t bother to tell the guy he had field medical training and had used the products before to stop bleeding on the battlefield. He just ripped Bambi’s clothes and found three entrance holes, on her torso, lower abdomen, and left arm. He stuck a tampon in each. Rolled her over and shoved three tampons in each exit hole on the back. Pulled open the Gelfoam pads and placed them over the wounds. Sanitary napkins followed. He wrapped them in place with heavy sticky tape. The other guy tied a tourniquet on her arm and started an IV. Fast. I had EMT training too and recognized Ringer’s lactate, a plasma expander. It wouldn’t replace blood, but it would slow shock. Outside, the helo landed.

  I settled to the floor. My pain unnoticed. Watching.

  “Call for a medical chopper?” the potbellied guy asked. “They carry blood.”

  “No time. Let’s get her to the helo. You can call it in on the way. You’re going with her.”

  Two workers placed a door on the floor as backboard and they loaded Bambi/Mike onto it. Someone tossed a sleeping bag at them and they tucked it around the pale-as-death woman. And then I realized she was awake. Silent. Her eyes on Eli.