Queen's Gambit

by Karen Chance

  I’d heard of this place, of course; everyone had. It was almost as famous as the pyramids, with its narrow, cobblestone streets, soaring arches, and limestone walls practically unchanged for seven hundred years. I’d heard tales of towering mosaics, of intricately carved wooden doors, of sagging wooden balconies hanging over shops filled with everything from cheap tourist crap to genuine finds. I’d been planning to visit before we left and maybe pick up some souvenirs for the folks back home.

  But not like this.

  Because our turbo charged ride did not seem to understand the difference between flying unimpeded through the air and flying through a still-crowded marketplace, where colored glass lanterns cast rainbows over what had to be hundreds of people—touts, tourists, locals, guides, and shop owners with their merchandise.

  Especially their merchandise.

  “Ow!” Ray yelled, batting at a hanging garden of copper pots, pitchers and platters that batted us back. And then at some blue beaded chandelier things outside the entrance of another shop, the strands of which hit us in the face like hail. And then through a lamp seller’s inventory, which—gah!

  “Down!” Ray gasped, as glass shattered and sprayed everywhere. “Take us down!”

  We went down, plowing through a shoe vendor’s rack, sending multiple pairs of leather slippers flying like a flock of startled birds. And then through another rack of brightly colored outfits, shimmering with beads and sequins, half of which clung to us. And then behind a local man on a motorcycle, who was staring over his shoulder with the panicked, disbelieving eyes of a guy being chased by a couple of djinn on a flying carpet.

  Which only got worse when an Anubis jumped off a building on top of him.

  The man and his ride went skidding into a café, sending the patrons screaming as we tore past. And then was thrown off altogether when he hit a wall. The crash didn’t seem to faze the ancient god, however, who swiftly righted the bike and used it to come after us.

  “Give me the gun!” I yelled at Ray, who had shoved it in his pocket.

  “What?”

  “The gun!”

  He gave me the gun.

  I sketched something appropriate and pointed it at a wall. But we were going so fast that the pic got a little overstretched. Which resulted in a twelve-foot-long scorpion that . . . yeah. Worked really well, I thought, as I gestured at the god of death coming up fast behind us.

  “Kill it!”

  The scorpion seemed enthusiastic about this idea, leaping off the wall and tackling the motorcycle riding asshole. At least, I assumed so, judging from all the yelling going on behind us. I would have turned around to see, but another huge assailant had just jumped down and caught hold of the back of our ride.

  And Ray—God bless him—made sure that he regretted it.

  Ray had the front of the rug in a death grip, and was using it to steer by tugging this way or that—and he’d gotten pretty good at it. Because we slung around corners, sped down avenues, and zipped across cross-streets. And in the process smashed our would-be assailant into beautiful old geometric wood paneling, into plastic mannequins wearing belly dancing costumes, into glassware, copperware, and shelves of obsidian statues—some, ironically, of Anubis himself. We plowed him through displays of carved wooden boxes and dishes with shimmering mother-of-pearl inlay, and a huge brass hookah taller than he was. We slung him into a couple of massive alabaster vases outside an antique shop and then through a spice seller’s baskets of cinnamon, peppercorns, and cardamom.

  If there was a shop we missed, I’d be surprised. And when we weren’t crashing into something, we were dragging him over rough-edged cobblestones, scattered café chairs, and a fountain of very hard ceramic tiles. Which I guessed wasn’t fun judging by the sounds he was making.

  And all the blood he was shedding.

  Strange that Anubis bled like a human I thought, and reached around to grab hold of the elongated snout, which had yet to move despite all the noise.

  And pulled.

  “Oh, fuck!” Ray said, staring over his shoulder at the long spill of silver hair that flowed out of what was now quite obviously a mask. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Fey,” I agreed, and put a knife in its eye.

  But these weren’t ordinary fey, if there was such a thing. I’d met the silver haired bastards before, and while they were taller, stronger and faster than a normal human by an order of magnitude, they weren’t this strong. Or this fast. Or this numerous, because the marketplace was suddenly crawling.

  And they didn’t like that I’d just killed their friend.

  “Go up, go up!” Ray screamed, as half a dozen fake gods leapt for us.

  The rug went up. Unfortunately, our enemies were up there, too. Running across rooftops, jumping from balconies, throwing huge spears like freaking rain and causing our little conveyance to have to dodge here, there, and everywhere along the narrow alley, goddamnit!

  “Need some help?”

  I felt a familiar, cool presence slip inside my skin, or our skin technically, since my alter ego was back. And just in time. “Is that supposed to be funny?” I yelled, as five jackal-headed thugs dove at us like they were trying to set an Olympic record.

  And fell in pieces on the ground a second later, because—

  “Where did you get that?” I demanded, looking at the bloody scimitar in my hand.

  Dorina gestured vaguely behind us, to where I guessed she’d ripped off a vendor as we flew past, or mugged a fey, before I'd even realized she was back. Which she definitely was. Because instead of gripping the little rug with both knees and at least one hand, I was now standing up on the tiny surface like a surfer on a board, and slashing at jumping fey with a bloody sword.

  “Dorina?” Ray guessed, staring up at me.

  “What do you think?” I yelled, trying to focus past the panic and find—

  Him, I thought, half in joy, half in shock, as we slung around a minaret, above a cobblestone courtyard where I finally spotted Louis-Cesare, fighting alone, and surrounded by what had to be three dozen massive, jackal headed assailants.

  My heart seized as Ray circled 'round again, as half a dozen spears flew up at us, and as I scribbled as fast as I could one handed—

  “Got it!” I yelled.

  “Got what?” Ray demanded, looking at me over his shoulder. “What is that thing?”

  “Horus.”

  “What?”

  “The king of the gods!” I yelled, as a huge falcon tore off the side of the minaret, its wingspan big enough to threaten to block out the sky. I don’t know how large it actually was; I was kind of distracted. But I’d poured the rest of our magic into it, and I guess that reservoir had been worth the money. Because in that place and at that moment, it looked like a jumbo jet.

  It soared into the air, then matched speed with us, the mighty wings knocking over a shop stall or two in the process.

  “What the hell?” Ray demanded, staring at it.

  “We just pulled rank!” I pointed at Louis-Cesare, and saw the bird's great head turn with my movement. “Save him!”

  And Horus did.

  Ray and I landed in a nearby alley to watch the show, because our ride was running out of juice. Sort of like the fey, I thought, watching the giant beak savage the no-longer-huge-looking creatures. It was a bloody slaughter, and I had no idea how we were going to explain this to Hassani, assuming he hadn’t engineered the whole thing, not to mention cover it up. But when I saw Louis-Cesare running toward me across the square, slicing and dicing fey as he went, it suddenly didn’t matter anymore.

  Love . . . is a strange emotion, Dorina commented.

  Couldn’t argue with that.

  “You owe me an Omega for this,” Ray piped up, from behind me.

  “What?”

  “You know, the watch? The kind James Bond wears.”

  I glanced back at him. “What about it?”

  “I been thinking, and that’s what I want as a master’s g
ift.”

  “Come again?”

  “Masters always give their Seconds a gift, something to show off, only you haven’t ponied up yet.”

  “I’m not much of a master,” I pointed out, watching Louis-Cesare decapitate two fey at one time without breaking stride.

  “But I’m a great second.”

  Yeah, I thought. He kind of was.

  “What kind of Omega?” I asked, glancing back again—

  In time to see him torn limb from limb by four fey.

  “Ray!” I screamed, while someone else shouted: “Now!”

  The alley lit up with a strange purple light, and something hit me like every freight train on Earth, all at once. I didn’t scream, but only because I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything, including fall, despite the fact that I’d been caught halfway through a leap. Except watch as what looked like a stone hockey puck—one of the captured fey artifacts—sent purple lightning scrawling up the alley walls.

  I could feel Dorina struggling as hard as I was, but we remained suspended in mid-air while the lightning built and built above us, raising the hair on our head and arms and sending painful chills cascading up and down our body. And then it came crashing down, all at once, a searing torrent that felt like it should have incinerated us on the spot, or cooked our bones inside our skin. But it didn’t kill us. I didn’t know what it did, other than make me feel like I was coming apart at the seams.

  And maybe I was.

  A portal opened up in the opposite wall, and from the strength of it, it was headed a long way away. I barely noticed. A horrible ripping, tearing, sundering feeling had hit me, and suddenly, there she was, standing in the alley bedside me: Dorina, but not in the ghostly way she sometimes appeared when we had a chat. But solid. Real.

  She touched my hand, looking as shocked as I was. For a second, we just stared at each other. And then a group of fey tackled her like linebackers, and all of them disappeared through the portal.

  It immediately closed up behind them and I fell to the ground, the strange light dying at the same moment. Louis-Cesare grabbed me a second later, right before I passed out, yelling things that I couldn’t hear over the pounding of my heart. Because I’d just realized something.

  He hadn’t been the target, after all.

  Dorina had.

  And now she was gone.

  Chapter Three

  Dory, Cairo

  I awoke in the dimness of an unfamiliar room. It was lit only by a few low burning oil lamps and the starlight drifting in through some large, floor to ceiling windows. My sleep muddled brain finally recognized it as the suite that Louis-Cesare and I had been assigned at Hassani’s court, all golden stone, cream draperies, and medieval architecture that, in the low light, could have been mistaken for a pharaoh’s palace.

  That was especially true in the lamplight, with the tiny wicks dancing in the soft breeze blowing through the windows, and throwing veil like shadows on the walls. This place had electricity, as well as all the other modern conveniences, or it had for the past week. The fact that it didn’t now informed me that the main wards were online, the big boys that didn’t play well with electrical systems, even before I felt the frisson of their power brush across my skin.

  Hassani wasn’t taking any chances, I thought, and felt a bolt of pure rage shoot through me. No, he wasn’t taking chances now. Now when Dorina was gone and Louis-Cesare had almost died and Ray—

  Ray was in pieces.

  I sat bolt upright in bed, a scream building in my throat as I remembered that scene in the alley. Ray’s face, looking startled and then horrified when he realized what was happening, his eyes going to me for help I couldn’t provide. And the blood, so much of it, like a mist coating everything. I could still taste it on my tongue, smell it in my nose, feel it gunking up my eyelashes. Ray . . .

  I felt Louis-Cesare move behind me. He was naked, with the lamplight sheening all that creamy skin, turning it to gold. He had been draped over me like a weighted blanket, only even more comforting. Now I felt his arms go around me, and his body sit up behind mine, preserving the closeness.

  It didn’t help.

  A strange, hollow feeling lay under my breastbone, like a gaping wound. It was so real that I slid a clumsy hand down there, to see if I had been put to bed half gutted. My hand met only smooth, sleep warm skin, without a cut or flaw. Yet I could still feel it: a deep, echoing nothingness, like my soul had been carved out of my body.

  Or half of it, I thought sickly.

  Dorina . . .

  I could see her in that alley, too, as naked as the day we were born, because whatever had happened to us had not transferred over any clothes. She had looked newborn in other ways, too. Her face had been as soft and vulnerable as a child’s, her eyes huge and dark and startled, her body hunched and small, silhouetted for an instant before the manic green fury of the portal.

  And then she was gone.

  I had lost both of them in one night.

  “Shhh,” Louis-Cesare murmured against my hair, his arms tightening around me. “You’re safe. You’re safe and it’s all right now.”

  I wanted to scream at him that it wasn’t all right, that it would never be all right again. But I couldn’t. If I did, that horrible mewling cry I was barely keeping behind my teeth might escape and I couldn’t risk that. Couldn’t let him know weak I felt, how vulnerable without my other half.

  Sister, I thought, and felt my face crumple.

  A strong hand cradled my head, and pulled me against a chest that was warm, hard and comforting. I’d always felt safe in Louis-Cesare’s arms, peaceful and calm, like nothing else mattered. But not tonight.

  Tonight, I was about to crawl out of my skin.

  I knew he could feel it, could detect the minute tremble I couldn’t control. Could hear the rapid beat of my pulse, the fight or flight response kicking in with a vengeance. Could smell my emotions on the air: sweat, adrenaline, and all the unnamed chemicals that passed humans by without notice, but to a vamp . . .

  Said more than I wanted them to.

  But he didn’t try to pressure me to talk. Instead, a rhythmic massage of my scalp began, by fingers strong enough to punch through a wall. But with me they were gentle, so gentle, with just enough pressure to ground me and keep me from falling over the edge. I’d always been the excitable one, the fly-off-the-handle one, the impulsive, crazy one.

  Or so everyone had said. Tonight, for the first time, I agreed with them. Tonight, I wanted to scream, to cry, to savage those who had destroyed my family.

  Dorina, my sister, and lately, my friend. Louis-Cesare, my lover, and brand-new husband. And Ray . . .

  Ray hurt worst of all, maybe because he was my direct responsibility. Or because I had seen what happened to him. Dragged through the portal, not by the fey, who had thrown him aside like so much garbage, but by the power of the vortex itself.

  My stalwart defender, he’d had no reason to trust a dhampir of all things, had no reason to trust anyone after the life he’d lived, but he’d pledged himself to me nonetheless. Even without the usual blood bond, which I could not do, he’d been loyal, more loyal than anyone, and I’d lost him. I’d lost both of them. And now I was doing it, I was crying and screaming and clinging to Louis-Cesare, who I vaguely realized was rubbing my back in long strokes up and down the spine that did no more good than anything else. The pain was too great. I couldn’t think past it, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t—

  I couldn’t bear it.

  He held onto me when I tried to get up. I didn’t know where I was going, but the crushing guilt and anger and horror all set in at once, making me need to move. And when I couldn’t, to fight the very man who was trying to help me.

  “Let me go. Let me go!”

  Louis-Cesare did not let me go.

  “I understand,” he said instead, his grip gentle but implacable. “It is the worst feeling in the world, when a master loses a Child. I have seen some go mad with grief, have felt
the red claws of it shred my own soul. I have lost servants, too.”

  “Ray wasn’t a servant,” I said harshly. “He was my friend. And he died because those bastards . . . those bastards . . . and I didn’t . . . I couldn’t—”

  “You did everything you could have done.” He pulled back far enough to look at me, and his face tightened at whatever he saw. “This was not your fault, Dory. It was mine.”

  “Yours?” I stared up at him, his image blurry through my furious tears. “How the hell was it yours?”

  “You would not have been out there except for me. The fey dangled the bait in front of my nose, and I fell for it, utterly and completely—”

  I stared up at him. He wasn’t making sense, or else I couldn’t think straight. Either could have been true right then.

  “What bait? What are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t hear me?” he frowned. “I called back to you, but then, the ballroom was deafening. I should have thought . . .”

  I vaguely remembered seeing Louis-Cesare shout something, just before leaping through Hassani’s shield. I hadn’t been able to hear what it was, but it wouldn’t have mattered. There was nothing he could have said that would have kept me from following him.

  “But I wasn’t thinking,” he continued, his voice ragged. “I was reacting, and stupidly so. I lost your sister, I lost Raymond, and I almost lost you.” His arms tightened, bruisingly hard.

  I pushed at him until he let me go. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jonathan,” he said, uttering the most hated name I knew, and one of the few that could focus even my currently jumbled thoughts.

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  Louis-Cesare shook his head, his jaw tight. “He was there, outside the ballroom, smirking at me. I went for him without hesitation. And in doing so, I endangered all of us.”

  I stared at him, my head spinning. I was still half asleep, and what few faculties I had were stuck on horror—and that name didn’t help. It was even worse than the damned Svarestri, the silver haired bastards in jackal’s clothing that we’d fought tonight.