by Faith Hunter
Ed was wearing black from head to toe, the clothes not fitting well, the sleeves and pants legs rolled up. I recognized Eli’s wardrobe. Someone had given my heir and primo some of Eli’s clothes to wear. He did look like crap, his hair lank, his neck a patchwork of scars that looked like a burn victim’s. Edmund moved without that sliding grace of the Mithran as he stopped in front of the TV, his hollow, empty eyes on the screen that was replaying the scene at the Regal.
Before we reached the TV room, Molly said from the kitchen, “Witches don’t need your help. You know that, right? My magics are the certainty of that.”
Gently, Ed said, “If you use all your magics, Witch of Death, you may well kill everyone, human or para, in a twenty-five-mile radius.”
I glanced back. Molly looked as if someone had slapped her, face pale and shocked, bright spots on each cheek. Witch of Death sounded like a very nasty title in my primo’s world. Shimon had been in Ed’s mind when the SOD Two recognized what Molly was. Witch of Death. Dang. I led Ed into the office.
Evan and Molly followed us both and the big guy stood behind his wife, in the doorway. They moved together, like magnets attracting. Evan asked, “How do you know?”
Edmund said, “Any Mithran would know your power, Witch of Death. Even if I had not known before, I felt death at your call in the hotel main room.” He pointed at the screen where the event played over and over. “There and then. When the first two Naturaleza fell as if true-dead. It was not a spell calculated to bring down the Mithrans, but pure, raw death magics.”
“Do you think the FOM knew what they were?” I asked, sitting on my recliner.
“Once I would say yes, absolutely. But he has changed. He has developed a . . .” Ed chuckled, the sound not real laughter, but not fear and death either. “. . . a thick skin.” Ed was talking about the exoskeleton. He was making a joke, even so soon after rescue. “He is darkness and shadow, and nothing but a close-in detonation of a large-scale bomb or being burned in a cremation chamber may take him into true-death now.” Ed slid a glance my way. “Or being eaten by an angel-touched white werewolf. The only good thing about this change and the magics he is now using is that the Flayer of Mithrans has lost the ability to detect some other forms of magic.” His eyes moved to the Everhart-Truebloods on the sofa. “Except for death magics, it seems. I do not know why.”
Before the two witches decided to test out their secret-not-so-secret weapon on Ed, I said, “Why didn’t you take over as emperor? Why didn’t you announce my resignation to the vamp world?”
Ed looked back at the screen, where the two videos were showing in loops. “Grégoire and I discussed it. We called a meeting of the Mithrans who received word of your resignation. We watched all the video footage of the Sangre Duello. We decided that you would make a grand figurehead. That we should both, Grégoire and I, seize territory in your name and hold it, until such time as the Soul of Night, the Son of the Screaming Darkness, the Son of Shadows, the Flayer of Mithrans, should rise from his recent rest and announce he was coming for you. We knew it would not take long for his hubris and narcissism to send him after you.”
“So I was bait.” Again, I thought. And always.
Ed shrugged, not a human movement, but as if his shoulders writhed like snakes. “Shimon was always one to speak loudly, to make grand gestures. When he did so, our plan was to strike, kill him, and bring his body to you to dispose of as you did his brother. Once he was dead, accepting the crown of emperor would be a simple thing for you or for me, should you still wish to retire. But Shimon did not announce. He attacked first. An unexpected new ploy for the eldest among us. I was not prepared for him to act out of character, in opposition to millennia of recorded and witnessed actions and reactions. I was caught unaware.”
Something flashed through my back brain, half-remembered and then gone. Trying to tease it back, I said slowly, “In Shimon’s time, names had meaning. I understand why he’d be called Soul of Night, Flayer of Mithrans, and even Son of the Screaming Darkness. But why Son of Shadows on top of Soul of Night?” I sat a buttock on the table edge. “I mean, he’s old enough to be a daywalker, but there’s no evidence he pops from shadow to shadow or anything.”
I thought about the vision I’d had of the shadow that had been trying to infect Ed’s mind. Of the way Ed’s hands had moved when Shimon had controlled the minds of his scions and humans. “The shadow inside your vision? Did it . . . possess you totally?”
“Control of my mouth was not true possession, my mistress. True possession is when there is no longer resistance.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that answer. I wasn’t sure it was a statement of truth either.
Ed opened his mouth as if to speak again. Closed it. Carefully, he turned to Evan and Molly and said, “I pledged my honor to your family.” He swung his eyes to me. “Sabina told me that my life is bound with theirs and with yours. When you accidently claimed me”—he smiled slightly and breathed out like a human, releasing tension—“you put a protection over my soul. The shadow of the Flayer of Mithrans was not able to penetrate that shielding.”
I still didn’t know what the names really meant, but I had a feeling that they were all important. That they all told me something about the creature we fought, if I could only figure out what. I gave a truncated nod. Because what if the FOM told him to say that?
“Sabina told me that there would come a time when warriors would gather against warriors,” he said. “And that I should tell you to remember the Bubo bubo.”
I didn’t tense, but it was a near thing. Conundrums upon enigmas upon dilemmas. Sabina in the longhouse with the warriors and my grandmother. Sabina smelling of owls. Sabina seeing my owl form once and speaking Mithran prophecy.
“Your hair needs braiding.” His fingers twitched as if to reach for me, but he halted, unsure, as if reading my almost-distrust.
I felt like a traitor to suspect him, but . . . “Ummm. I’m good right now,” I said.
His eyes moving back to the witch couple, Edmund said, “Shimon recognized the power of Molly and her husband, Evan. Like his brother, he wants to kill or possess all witches. Your friends, the family to whom I swore fealty, are in grave danger. Keep them close to your breast and beneath your wing.” Which seemed an un-Eddie-like thing to say.
“Go to bed with a few blood-servants and drink,” I said. “We’ll have a plan in place soon.” But we might not tell you what it is.
He turned and left the room. For the first three steps, it was like watching a reptile walk, not Edmund. Then he slid into Ed’s smooth gait. Over his shoulder, he said, “I will bleed and read and partially heal your Mithran prisoner, and turn his loyalty to me. We will know all he knows.”
I hadn’t noted that my detainee was lying in the front entrance where someone had dropped him like the undead body he was. “His name is Klaus,” I said.
“I do not care.” Which, again, was a very non-Ed thing to say, and made me wonder how much of the Flayer’s mind was still part of Ed’s. “Alex,” Edmund said, his voice compulsion and request all at once. “Would you put on ‘Evil Mama’ by Bonamassa.” Alex told Merlin to play the song, and the strains instantly filled the speaker system in the entire main level, a song about knifing a man in the back. I wondered if Edmund felt I had done that to him, or if he was trying to warn me that the Flayer still resided in part of his mind.
My primo picked up Klaus’s arm and dragged him through the house and out the back door, the hard-driving guitar and accusing lyrics hanging between us.
Klaus left a trail of melted snow tinged with blood. His shoes came off, resting a few yards apart in a bloody patch.
The blood reminded me that Ed was a vampire in every way. A hunter. A predator. A killer.
However. Edmund swore fealty to Molly and to Angie Baby. No matter what else, I knew he would protect them all.
Molly, however
, wasn’t so sanguine. She and Evan stepped over the trail and headed to their rooms. Her narrowed eyes followed Ed as he went through the house and out the mudroom door, Klaus’s body banging over the threshold and down the steps. The door closed behind them. Silent, without looking at me, they went to their rooms.
* * *
* * *
I checked in on my clan. Bruiser was busy with the high-level vamps in Shaddock’s cottage, talking about the immediate future battling Shimon, and the more distant future when the Flayer of Mithrans was dead. It was a formal parley, the kind of meetings that Leo Pellissier had reveled in and the kind of meetings that I slept through. In his room, Eli was sleeping off a near-death experience with Thema curled around him. They were both naked and I didn’t want to know what had happened between them. Molly and Evan and the kids were in their rooms with the door shut. Moll’s sisters were closeted with them. Alex wasn’t talking to me, bingeing on energy drinks. I was on my own.
I pulled on a sweatshirt over my comfy clothing, found the arcenciel scale, the eagle feather, and my father’s medicine bag. And my own. I took three throwing knives and a vamp-killer, just in case more vamps found a way onto the property, and walked through the now-swirling snow to the sweathouse.
There was no music here accusing an “Evil Mama” of doing bad things. It was silent and cold, even the ashes. I closed the door on the ice and started a fire using matches, a bag of Fritos, and a tiny bottle of vodka I had swiped off the wet-bar shelf. It wasn’t traditional. I didn’t care. The combo of greasy corn and alcohol lit the curls of bark and dry splinters, and the fire spread quickly to the larger pieces. When I had a good blaze going I used the long pole I found in the corner to open the small door in the dormer that would both let out smoke and let in light, so I’d know when it was dawn.
I sat by the fire and took the weapons, pushing them behind the nearest half-log seat. I dug the snowball crystals from the fur between my toes and flicked the melting ice into the dark.
Carefully, I spread my treasures on the dirt floor in front of my bent knee, all but my gold nugget and mountain lion tooth, which I wore around my neck. I had the eagle feather. The arcenciel scale. The medicine bags. The Glob. The crown of my Dark Queen office.
My own medicine bag was dyed a dark green on one side. I opened it and found it wasn’t as empty as I had believed. There were two bits of waxed paper, folded over. Inside one was a pinch of raw native tobacco. In the other waxed envelope was what smelled like white sage. The bag was too small for the golden eagle flight feather, but its contents were a good start on a real medicine bag, which should contain the things the earth gave, the symbols of a life well lived. Eli had chosen well.
My father’s medicine bag was old and faded, the edges soft and powdery. I hadn’t noticed until now, but once there had been something sewn on the bottom. Maybe a beaded fringe. Maybe a bit of woven fabric. The ancient medicine bag was full. I had never gone through it, never searched the contents. It had seemed disrespectful, until now.
Carefully, I opened my father’s bag. It was so old there was only the hint of scent. Rotting deer hide. Tannins. Inside was a small length of jawbone, the teeth attached, a child’s teeth. Mine, if the memory and my brother were right. I didn’t remember and he hadn’t been alive when I was hit by a white man hard enough to break my jaw, to knock the bone chip from my face. Five-year-old me had tried to kill him for raping a Cherokee woman. He had tried to kill me right back and nearly succeeded.
I shivered, my spine frozen, my face and chest and hands warming at the fire. One-handed, I rearranged the rocks ringing the fire. One rock was actually a rounded-out bowl, shaped and smooth. Another rock was long with a rectangular cleft, like a tunnel down the middle. Ceremonial objects. Still one-handed, I set them to the side.
My bone and teeth felt alien and oddly menacing in my other palm.
Slowly the sweathouse warmed and my shivers decreased. Time passed. I sweated. I woke once to find myself lying by the fire and added logs to it.
I dreamed and, in the dreams, I hunted as Beast. Deer, turkey, catfish, alligator, were all my prey. Blood and fury flashed through me as I tore out the throat of a man who was cutting down the trees of the forest and denuding the mountains. I mated with a strong male, the pain intense and tearing, followed by the contentment of knowing I carried kits. I raced along high ridges and leaped down cliffs onto small ledges to climb into a tiny a den. I suckled a litter, hungry, and knowing there was nothing to eat, not anywhere.
Scents changed. I smelled the warmth of spring and fresh blood and the glory of the hunt. I smelled the memory of my first shift, the excitement and the fear sweat. I chased my first rabbit as We-sa. I tasted my first fear-soaked blood and ripped the steaming meat from the carcass.
I dreamed the memory of fighting tlvdatsi. And stealing Beast’s body and her soul.
I heard the door of the sweathouse open and I sat up. Grit from the floor was crushed into my face, along with the teeth of my childhood. My brother stood in the opening. He entered and closed the door on the icy night. The firelight illuminated him. Tall, dressed in jeans, snow boots, a down vest, and a peacoat. The clothing was deeply wrinkled, as if it had been balled up and put away for months. He peeled out of the coat and removed his boots and socks.
I brushed the grit from my face, gripping the teeth and bone in my palm. The dream was lucid, intense, rich with texture, scent, sound, vision. I could even feel the irritation of the sweaty grit beneath my fingers.
Barefooted, Ayatas FireWind, my brother, came to the fire and bowed his head to me. He said, “Nuwhtohiyada gotlvdi.”
I tried to swallow but my throat tissues were too dry. I croaked softly, “You asked that once before. I said no. Why ask again?”
“I came to you with an impure heart. I came to you udalvquodi and with kanalvisdi—arrogant and in secret anger. I came with the jealousy of a foolish boy. I deserved no gift of peace from you. No welcome. I carry the shame of my weakness and I beg forgiveness of the elder sister, the beloved woman of my clan.”
Beloved woman. A Cherokee phrase for war woman. I gave him a tribal shrug and a soft grunt. It communicated that I was listening, and that, while I wasn’t accepting all he came to say, I was hearing his words, allowing his presence, and I wasn’t going to try to kill him. Yet.
“May I sit at your fire? I have brought nodatsi aditasdi. It is the recipe made by our mother. It will quench your thirst.”
Nodatsi aditasdi. Spicewood tea. One made strong, of sarsaparilla and other herbs, with notes of vanilla, caramel, wintergreen, and licorice. I remembered. My mouth wanted to water and would have if I hadn’t been sweating for hours. I inclined my head. Ayatas sat across the fire from me and stretched an arm up, removing a pack that had been slung around him on a single short strap, hanging at his back. The bag smelled of leather and steel and herbs and gunpowder. And oddly of jungle cat and the ocean. He pulled out a liter of spring water and reached around the fire to the equipment left by my Cherokee Elder. His hand paused, as if startled, as it passed over the war drum. But he took the mortar and pestle from the center of the pile. Removed a zipped plastic bag from his near-empty gobag and poured some dried herbs into the stone mortar. The intense scent of sassafras filled my nose and I dreamed a dream within a dream, of my mother, sitting on a low stool before the fire, pouring tea for me to drink. Nodatsi aditasdi. Mama’s spicewood tea. This time my mouth did produce a little moisture.
My brother ground the spices and poured them into the bowl I had placed in the fire. The stone was hot and the herbs made little popping sounds as he added water, a little at a time. As he worked, his yellow eyes lifted to me several times. “You came to sweat with no water. Was that intentional?” He added another log. Sparks and smoke rose on the air.
I gave the Tsalagi grunt again. My braid slid over my shoulder. It was gritty and crusted with sweat salt. A messy braid with s
everal duplicated twists and hanging strands. The braid of a Cherokee was an indication of spiritual status and mystical strength. The hair was re-braided only by someone completely trusted. Ayatas’s braid was perfect, a complicated weaving of maybe a half dozen strands. It was neat and economical and beautiful. Angie had braided mine hours ago, and from a style standpoint it was awful. But it was braided with love and that counted for more than style.
I couldn’t decide if I cared.
Ayatas stirred his tea with a long splinter of wood from the fire, adding a smoky, ashy flavor. “Adawehi has folded his wings over you, e-igido.”
Adawehi. Cherokee for angel. My voice sounded as rough as broken stone when I said, “His name is Hayyel. He’s totally untrustworthy. Treacherous. Devious. He claims to be the hand of God, and while he did help us fight a demon, I’d never let him braid my hair.”
Ayatas looked at my messy braid before returning to the preparation of the tea. I got the feeling that time had passed when he lifted the bowl with both hands and poured the tea into two wood cups. He replaced the bowl in the hot ashes and lifted the cups in his hands. This was an odd dream.
“Ugalogv, my sister. Drink.”
Ugalogv. Tea. I took the cup and waited until he lifted his cup to his lips before I sipped. Then drained the cup and wished for more. There was still water in the one-liter bottle. But Ayatas handed me a fresh bottle instead. I wrapped my lips around it and crushed it with one knobby hand as I drank it down.
He was right. I hadn’t brought water. Hadn’t thought about replacing the water bottles I had used during my last sweat. I set the empty aside and accepted the salt tablet Ayatas offered. The door to outside opened. Icy air swept into the room. The fire blazed up high. Faster than I could follow, my brother was holding a semiautomatic, centered on the doorway.
Edmund stood there, outlined by darkness. He looked at my brother, took in the weapon, ignored it, and transferred his gaze to me. “Thema was watching the security cameras. She saw a spotted big-cat race onto the property and shift into a naked man. He disappeared. I came to see that you are safe. Are you well, my mistress, my Dark Queen?”
