Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  “I will fight the Blood Master of Clan Yellowrock and no other,” Dominique said. Her tone and her stance were insolent and there was a trace of something in her light eyes that said she expected to win by cheating. “First blood.”

  “Challenge accepted. One blade each, no longer than fourteen inches. Claws and talons,” I said. And then I smiled, letting my lips expose my teeth slowly in threat. Beast peered through my eyes. “Jewelry is acceptable.”

  Dominique blinked, realizing that I knew about the ruby, knew she was going to cheat with magic against the most important rule in Sangre Duello and dominance fights. And that I didn’t care.

  “Here and now,” Dominique said.

  I gave her a jut of my head and drew on Beast energies. Everyone cleared the floor space and I moved to Eli. My partner and second was holding a Desert Eagle .50- caliber handgun at his thigh. He holstered it with a tiny click. “You sure about this?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I’m sure.” Because I had remembered the thing I had learned when Adan was in a cage, harnessing the timewalking magic of an arcenciel. Stealing her magic. If I could feel the pull of Dominique’s ruby, then I could use its power. And the motes of power in my middle said I could take all its magic for myself. I was becoming the Dark Queen in truth.

  “What blade?” he asked.

  “The Mughal blade.”

  Eli paused in helping me prepare for this fight. “Why?”

  “Because the myth that came with it said that the blade has magic in it. It will deflect or lessen the mortal blow of any enemy. Whoever owns the blade can’t die in battle.”

  Eli shook his head, not happy with my answer. He preferred weapons that blew things up.

  I glanced around, noting where everyone was. Ro Moore was standing in front of a window that had once been a fire escape. Her gaze went from the fighting rings to the roof below and back, watching for anyone who might want to interrupt the proceedings with a hand grenade. I hadn’t even considered that possibility. I was getting lax. Good thing I had trained smart people. I nodded to her. She nodded toward the windows at the back of the room with a faint smile.

  I looked there and saw Brenda Rezk guarding that possible access. Yeah. Smart people. Go, me.

  I was ready. Beast? I thought. I need some claws. Just claws.

  Jane needs killing teeth and power of half-form.

  Not this time. Just claws.

  My fingers went knobby and hard and I gasped. The tips burned as if I’d stuck them into red-hot coals. Beast’s retractile claws re-formed at the tips, ten killing claws. My fingertips oozed blood and I licked it off. Ouch, I thought at her.

  Deep inside, she said, Five and five killing claws. She sniffed at me, and turned away.

  I stepped into the fighting ring and closed my eyes, breathing in Eli’s Zen and my skinwalker meditation. Letting my body relax and tense all at once, just as if I was going to shift into a difficult form. The bell sounded. My eyes opened and Dominique attacked, shouting, “Ralentissez!”

  A thin line of power shot from her necklace. A slowdown spell, hidden in the ruby and released with a wyrd. Time slowed down. The five pointed energies in my middle reached out and wrapped around the line of magic. Altered it. Pulled it in.

  Incorporated the wyrd and the energies into my own.

  A silvered vamp-killer stabbed at me.

  I bent around the blade in a dance move. Stepped into her reach. Clawed her face with one hand, slicing deeply into her waist with the Mughal blade. I yanked on the blade, cutting into her.

  Dominique screamed, that piercing vamp ululation that said she was dying. Her eyes flashed scarlet. Her fangs schnicked down. She ripped away, tearing my blade from her flesh. She disappeared with a tiny pop of sound. Toward the window where Brenda Rezk stood guard. Dominique landed, ripped at Brenda. Tearing out her throat. Dived through the window. Landed on the roof below with a loud, hollow thump. Brenda fell, her blood a pulsing spray, her head at an awful angle. Titus’s second caught Brenda’s body. Eased her to the floor. It was too late. There was not enough left to save.

  Koun leaped after the traitor. Paused in the window. His gaze tracked Dominique, his body and tattoos catching the lights in strange blue and black shadows on pale skin. He watched her run, his head following her progress around and toward the water at the front of the house. A moment later, he tilted his head to me and said, “In spite of the angel of death, all is well, my master.”

  No one else had moved.

  Sabina said, “Magic was used by Dominique Quessaire. Her penalty is true-death.”

  I stilled. I had used magic too.

  Sabina went on. “Magic was used by Jane Yellowrock, though only in self-defense, and after Dominique’s attack. The outclan priestess rules this an acceptable use. No penalty to Yellowrock.” Part of me wilted, but I didn’t let it show on the outside.

  Softly, Grégoire said to someone, “Bring Dominique back to me. Her true-death is mine.”

  I thought, If he hadn’t brought her back when her throat was ripped out we wouldn’t be in this mess now. Grégoire and Leo had been hunting for the clan who had allied with her. They had taken a gamble that Brenda had paid for with her life.

  Bodies moved; vamps and humans departed. I watched as Brenda was carted down the stairs. Dead. Killed for spite, not as part of the Duello. Killed for not a damn thing. The cleanup crew started on the blood. People went in search of dinner and beer. I dropped to a bench and mourned the blood-servant.

  * * *

  • • •

  We’d made a mistake. We needed more toilets. Even vamps had to pee, it seemed, and either eating corn dogs and drinking beer made them pee more, or they had trouble getting out of their fighting leathers, or they were just being pains in the backside. The lines to the bathrooms were ten people long, ninety percent of them female. Most males were outside finding a likely tree. I chose to do my business outside. At which point I discovered how freaking hard it was to get out of the new leathers. The uniform was comfortable in every way, except for a female needing to answer the call of nature. When I finally got my business done, my leathers in place, and my weapons holstered, sheathed, and hidden, I was frustrated and ready to hit something. I headed to the circle of hedge of thorns, my BFF, and the murderer, Dominique.

  Molly was stretched out on a lounge chair, under a blanket or three to keep out the cold wind, her baby bump hidden by the swathing. Dominique was standing on the sand, in an inverted hedge of thorns, fists bunched, frothing at the mouth, screaming obscenities, I assumed, from her expression, though I couldn’t hear her.

  “How’d you turn down the volume?” I asked.

  Molly laughed, a sad but ladylike laugh I’d never master. “Lachish’s family uses it on the farm to keep the sound of tractors and farm equipment to a minimum. It’s a noise version of a confuto working, and I’m totally stealing it and setting it on myself, so I can sleep in on Saturdays and Big Evan has to get up with the children.”

  I squatted beside her lounge chair. “That’s evil.”

  “I’m a death witch. What did you expect?”

  “Rainbow-colored baby bunnies and lollipops?”

  Molly spluttered with laughter. “People who dye baby bunnies should be shot.”

  “I’ll tweet that to my congressman for inclusion in next year’s bills. Has Grégoire been to see her?”

  “Yes. He condemned her to death by facing the sun. He’ll have her chained in silver at sunrise.” She hesitated. “Are you sure? Burning to death . . . Witches were burned at the stake. I’ve read the accounts. Family accounts. Firsthand . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  I touched her shoulder, not knowing how to comfort her. “She killed Brenda Rezk. She used magic in a dominance duel during the Sangre Duello. She was a traitor. But I’m not sure of anything. Not anymore.”

  “Except th
at we love each other?”

  I nodded slowly, feeling all the tension slide from my shoulders, down my spine, out my feet, and into the sand beneath me. “Except that. And that fangheads are evil, no matter whose side they’re on.”

  “True.” She tilted her head at me, her red curls flying in the wind off the gulf. “I know you stayed in New Orleans to keep us safe.”

  The tension shot back into me.

  Molly held out her little finger. “Friends forever. Pinkie swear?”

  I hooked my little finger into hers. “Best friends forever.”

  Moll pulled her finger from mine and her hand under the blankets. “Quit worrying about me, Big Cat. I’m warm and safe.”

  “Even though Titus did something with magic when he crossed over the hedge and onto the property? I just remembered.”

  Molly frowned. She hadn’t noticed that. Crap.

  “Even though Dominique is wearing a ruby exactly like one I own?” I asked. “And hers might be full of dark magic?”

  “Even that. Do you want the evil ruby?” At my expression she said, “Sorry. The ruby isn’t technically evil. It doesn’t contain a curse and the working in it was used up and can’t be renewed.” I didn’t tell her that I had absorbed the working. I trusted Molly completely. But . . . maybe not about Dark Queen magics and what my five-pointed-star magics could do. “It won’t hurt you,” she said. “I can freeze her for thirty seconds and open a passageway into the hedge.”

  I watched Dominique from my vantage point, crouching on the sand. I said, “If you can do that, sure.”

  Molly squirmed higher on her lounge chair and pulled a hand from the covers. “You’ll have thirty seconds.” Louder, she called, “Lachish? Jane wants something on Dominique.”

  The older woman appeared from the darkness, looking grumpy. “Of course she does. Jane always wants something.”

  It felt like being slapped in the face. “Have I done something wrong?” I asked.

  “No,” Lachish said. But her tone said otherwise.

  Molly said, “Lachish. Jane’s trying to save us.”

  “We could just incinerate the entire house and be done with it. It might be worth the punishment.”

  Or Molly could just use her death magics and drain the life and undeath of everyone here. The words and the thought sent a cold shock through me. I looked at the house. The most powerful vamps in the world were all in one place. “You do that,” I said, my voice reasonable, unemotional, a false calm, “and there will be a power struggle in the vampire world like nothing we’ve ever seen on the face of the earth.”

  Lachish blew out a breath and turned her Creole-dark eyes to me. “Think I don’t know that? Leo is the lesser of two evils. If Leo loses and Titus wins, all bets are off.”

  I looked at Molly. A death witch. Draining the vamps to death would kill her baby and probably drive her insane and expose what she was to the entire world, but . . . Molly could do it. It was likely that the coven leader of NOLA could do that same thing in a different way. This was why the witches were really here and I didn’t know whether to be happy at the extra layer of protection for the U.S. humans or terrified.

  Lachish stood next to Molly’s chair. They both pointed the fingers of their right hands to the hedge, and Lachish said, “Dominique, confuto. Hedge, concesso.”

  Dominique went utterly still, her mouth open and her face frozen in a mask of vamped-out fury. The hedge of thorns appeared as a thin, uneven film of light, like a layer of plastic.

  “Resigno,” Lachish said. A small thin opening appeared from the top of the hedge to the ground. “Go.”

  I raced to the spell of confining, studying it as I moved. Mentally counting off the thirty seconds, I stopped in front of the hedge and examined the gem. There was no active reason to take it. But my gut, the magics coursing through my middle, said it was mine. I reached into the hedge’s opening and grabbed the moonstone necklace. Gave it a strong yank and the clasp broke. I slid it from Dominique’s neck. Stepped back, the magical gem dangling. And caught a vision of an emblem embroidered into Dominique’s undershirt. A lizard eating its tail. Jack Shoffru’s emblem. I looked around, hoping to see something that might be the anomaly that was Cym’s magic. There was nothing.

  Moments later the hedge of thorns snapped shut, its energies began to move again, visible in Beast-sight, and Dominique started raving. She saw what I had in my hands and fell utterly still for a moment. Then she threw her entire body at the hedge. Again. And again. Not that it did her any good.

  I examined the necklace, its central gem and its energies. The ruby’s magic had changed in the scant moments I’d held it. Instead of zipping all over the place in vaguely round patterns, as they had when resting against Dominique’s undead flesh, the energies had begun to angle in and out. They formed a star pattern, like the pentagram of my energies. The ruby seemed to have the ability to evolve to suit the person who held it or wore it against her skin. It was a battery for power.

  Beast thought at me. Like meat. Dangerous prey meat. Eat meat of stone. Beast can be big, best ambush hunter.

  It was a boost to existing magic, and it made me feel pretty good. Calmer. Stronger. Which meant there would surely be a backlash at some point, that other shoe dropping, because nothing in magic is without cost. It might also be a mood booster, because I felt more hopeful than I had only a moment past, the weight on my shoulders still heavy, but not full of terror.

  Feeling better even though nothing in my life was really improved, I went back to Molly’s chair and knelt on one knee on the sand. Lachish had already moved away, into the dark again. I kissed her cheek and said, “I love you, Molly Meagan Everhart Trueblood.”

  “I love you too, Jane Doe Yellowrock. Now go kill bad things.” She shooed me away.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Standing, I walked toward the house, shoving aside the small niggling thought that Molly could be passively drinking down all the death on Spitfire Island, just like a moon witch in full-moonlight absorbing lunar magic power. Could be growing stronger and more deadly death by death. No. Not Molly. Not pregnant with a witch child that might die from the death.

  Enough of this crap. I can’t suspect everyone I love.

  I strode back into the beach mansion and into my shared room. I knelt, pulled my luggage out from under the bunk bed, and rattled around in the bags and suitcases until I found the box of magical trinkets. I left a mess of unfolded clothes, dirty clothes, and toiletries on the floor and I didn’t care.

  The ruby was in the box, and I lifted it out, a smoothed crystal of stone, smaller than my distant memory, smaller than the ruby that Dominique had worn. This stone was zipping with scarlet motes of magical power too, racing in a round pattern. I yanked the clasp off the new ruby and let the moonstones clatter from the wire into the bottom of the box, catching the ruby in my other palm. I scrounged around some more and found the necklace I had bought when I first came to New Orleans, one I had worn dancing, and bent the focal stone free from its wire wrapping. Pressed the wires around the rubies to hold them in place on the chain so they were encased together. I hooked it around my neck, centered them close to the gold nugget I always wore, and made sure it all could be seen easily. I made my way to the third floor, straightening my back, firming my face and my steps.

  I was partway up when I heard Sabina speak. “Emperor Vespasianus’s weapons master, Salvatrice Bianchi, challenges Pellissier’s Adelaide Mooney to a death match. Are both present?”

  I raced the rest of the way to the third floor.

  Sal and Del stepped forward. Sal was a behemoth of a woman, broad and tall and muscular, her two feet of hair braided into a long column and wrapped in leather at her back, the hair-sheath reminiscent of a binding on a horse’s tail. Her fighting leathers were old and scored and torn. Del was dressed in golden leathers smeared with the blood of previous opponents, matches I
hadn’t witnessed. I’d seen Del in a skirmish and sparring, but never in combat.

  The bell chimed. My heart lurched.

  Del dashed forward, her swords circling, cut, cut, cut, cut. Blood flowed, steel clashed. Del’s opponent dropped to one knee, bleeding from two head wounds, a hank of scalp and hair on the floor. I started to shout encouragement. But Salvatrice dropped her left sword. Before it landed, she pulled a small blade. Stabbed up. Into Del’s body. Catching her at the unprotected spot where thigh armor met abdominal armor plate. Sal’s sword clanged to the floor.

  Del made a small sound of surprise, like, “Oh.” She stumbled.

  Salvatrice rose to her feet, stepping closer to Del. Drawing the blade up Del’s side, along the protective plate, through her body. Scarlet pumped over Salvatrice’s hand, to her elbow. Splatted hard on the wood outside of the octagonal. Salvatrice twisted the blade to the side and across, a move that cut through bowel, kidneys, liver. And descending aorta.

  I could hear the sound of things inside of Del tearing, separating. “Oh,” she said again. Del fell, her knees and hips going limp. She landed on the wood floor, Salvatrice falling with her, in a languid motion. Removing the blade with an upward twist.

  Sal stood, her blade dripping.

  Brian said, “Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios.”

  How could they be acceptable?

  “This round to Titus Flavius Vespasianus,” Sabina said, as if unperturbed at the death. “Has Leo’s primo signed papers to be turned?”

  Dacy raced forward, her face blanched whiter than the moon through the windows. “I will not lose my daughter. I decide for her.” Dacy dropped to the floor, an ungainly motion for a vamp, and ripped her own lower arms lengthwise, to increase bleeding. Placed one wrist to her daughter’s mouth, the other deep inside Del’s body. But Del didn’t drink. Didn’t swallow. After two long minutes, Dacy rose to her feet and turned her back on Del, bloody tears streaking her face. She said, “Take Adelaide to my bed.” And the heir of Clan Shaddock walked down the stairs as her people rushed to wrap Del’s body in bloody sheets and carry her down.