Queen's Gambit

by Karen Chance

  Hell, I was a senator now. I didn’t even need my old contacts, although I had them, I had plenty of them! But I could also call on the Hounds the senate employed. Their vamps could track a fly in a hurricane. I didn’t need this—

  Louis-Cesare took my hand. Immediately, I felt calmer, more grounded, more in control. I resented it, because I didn’t want to be calm right now, but I acknowledged that I needed it. Because, yes, I could do all of that. But if Jonathan had taken a portal what good did it do me? He could be anywhere by now, and Hassani’s people were the only ones who might have seen something useful.

  I was going to have to be a freaking diplomat if it killed me.

  I sat back down. “All right.”

  Hassani looked like he was about to say something, then changed his mind and just got on with it. “The gods became aggressive toward each other after a time on Earth,” he said, “unable to decide how to allocate its resources and those of the hell regions beyond. Yet they were too well matched for one group to triumph over another, and thus tried to create themselves armies to tip the scales in their favor. But humans were not strong enough for the purpose, and thus experiments were made to improve them.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out that I knew all this. Some I’d heard from the Irin, and the rest from the countless senate sessions we’d had lately about the war. How all the gods had been vying with each other, trying to come up with some kind of advantage over the rest. Then one, Artemis, realized that she already had it. While everyone else was struggling to build armies, she was building up herself, using her unique ability to traverse the hells to hunt the juiciest prey: age old demon lords with millennia of accumulated power, all of which she’d absorbed after killing them.

  It had made her into an army all on her own, which had eventually allowed her to kick the other gods off Earth and to slam a metaphysical door—in the form of a powerful spell—behind them. But Artemis had since died, and the old gods were now pounding on the door trying to get back in. And to make matters worse, they had supporters on this side of the barrier, including the fey king Aeslinn, who had donated all those warriors last night.

  We were attempting to hunt him down before he succeeded in finding a way to throw open that door, leading to the ass kicking of the century for our side. So far, it had been going better than expected, mainly because we had a demigod in the ranks, the child that Artemis had had before her death. And despite the Pythia’s questionable taste in jewelry, she had been able to pull victory after victory out of her ass.

  Problem was, it only took one defeat, one thing that we didn’t see or account for, for the tide to change. Once the gods were back, they were back, and we had no way to fight them. Aeslinn’s capitol currently lay in ruins, his people scattered, his army decimated. But he was still out there, he had a fighting force, and he was plotting.

  The question was, what was he doing?

  “But this did not work out quite as planned,” Hassani said, watching me. “The gods’ experiments resulted in some of the greatest heroes—and monsters—of our mythological past, but the disciplined armies they hoped for did not materialize.”

  “We don’t know that,” I pointed out tersely.

  “Oh, but we do. Not from records, I grant you. Few have survived from that era, and none from the gods themselves. But we can extrapolate from the changes they made in the prototypes.”

  I frowned. “You mean the dusting away in the sunlight, stake through the heart stuff?”

  He nodded. “And the instability of weres around the time of the full moon. If an army is loyal to you, you have no reason to reduce its effectiveness in such ways.”

  “And an army that goes insane once a month is vulnerable,” Louis-Cesare added. “As is one that burns up when the sun shines.”

  I looked back at him. I had no idea what he thought about what we’d just seen, but he hadn’t pulled away from me, and there was no revulsion on his features. Just concentration, as if he wanted to understand this.

  I just wanted Hassani to get to the point already!

  The consul nodded. “Such a force can still be used against your enemies, who do not know of the safeguards that you have built in. But should your army rise against you, you can easily wipe them out.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But what does any of this have to do with Dorina? She wasn’t tinkered with by the gods; she wasn’t even born then!”

  “No, she was not,” Hassani agreed. “And we also know when your father was born . . .”

  He trailed off, waiting.

  I just looked at him. If he wanted to play little games, he’d picked the wrong woman and definitely the wrong night. He began to look slightly uncomfortable after a moment, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “He is speaking of your mother,” Louis-Cesare finally told me, and I suddenly understood the consul’s silence. He’d wanted my husband to say those words, because if it had been him—

  We’d have had a diplomatic incident on our hands.

  “I’m done here,” I said, and got up.

  But Louis-Cesare obviously wasn’t and he still had hold of my hand.

  “Dory.”

  “This is bullshit. You know it is.”

  “Dory—”

  “First, he insults my sister, comparing her to that evil . . . thing . . . we killed, and now my mother?” I looked at the consul, who was still just sitting there. “You don’t know the first damned thing about my mother!”

  “And neither do you,” Louis-Cesare said, causing me to look down at him, confused and hurt.

  He took my other hand as well. I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be for added comfort, or if he was trying to make certain that I didn’t put a fist through Hassani’s face. But it made me feel trapped and that . . . was a mistake.

  “Let me go.” It was flat and completely uninflected.

  Louis-Cesare let me go.

  I started for the door, got halfway there, then spun around, so angry I could barely see. “My mother was a Romanian peasant girl! She died almost six hundred years ago!”

  “So I understand,” Hassani said, leaning forward and finally speaking quickly, as if he didn’t know how much time he had. “The question is, when was she born? Was she the last of the godly prototypes, one more powerful than all the rest? Was she the reason Artemis acted when she did, and drained herself so badly fighting an entire pantheon on her own? Would she have preferred to wait, to accumulate even more power, but couldn’t, with a new army on the way that could tip the scales—”

  “This is ridiculous!”

  “It is speculation,” he admitted. “It may have been the fey who engineered your mother instead, using the knowledge they’d gained from the gods. But, either way—”

  “Consul,” that was Louis-Cesare, his voice sharp. “A moment.”

  Hassani stopped talking.

  I stared blindly past his fucking head at the light show outside, which was apparently coming to an end. The colors were rapidly changing and lasers were flinging everywhere, as if the age-old monuments had stumbled into a disco. They strobed the room, bright enough to hurt the eyes, but I stared at them blindly for a moment anyway, before finally looking at Hassani.

  And for once, I didn’t give a shit what was on my face.

  “Then tell me this,” I rasped. “If she was so powerful, how did Vlad the bitch Tepes manage to kill her? He staked her to death, left her writhing on a pole for hours. I thought she’d died when her village burned, but I later found out—”

  I stopped and shuddered all over. Louis-Cesare got up, but I waved him off. I didn’t like to think about what had happened, even after so long, didn’t like to face how she must have suffered.

  But I was going to, because I wanted a goddamned answer!

  “If she was some demigod super soldier, then how in the hell—”

  “She was likely not a demigod,” Hassani said, his voice low, slow and non-threatening. For some reason, that made me e
ven angrier. Louis-Cesare got up and moved between us. I stared at him, and then almost laughed.

  Even for me, the last twenty-four hours had been hell. I was exhausted—mentally, physically, and emotionally. What the fuck did he think I was going to do to a consul?

  And then I realized what he thought.

  I stared at him. “You think I’m a monster.”

  “Dory, no—”

  “You do! You think—you believe him. You believe him! You think I’m like that—that hideous—that—that—” I cut off, not being able to breathe, and a second later, his arms were around me. I was furious, but I didn’t even struggle. It hit me, all at once: losing Dorina, fighting all day, yet not being one step closer to getting her back, Hassani’s lies, my mother—

  I sank to my knees, gasping for air, and suddenly the lights all cut out.

  I thought for a second that I was about to pass out, then I realized—the damned light show had just ended. I faintly heard clapping from somewhere; the party I assumed. Glad someone was having a good time.

  And then Maha was there, kneeling by my other side. Hassani must have summoned her, and was probably regretting it, I thought vaguely, as her eyes flashed at the two men. “What happened?”

  “She became upset,” Louis-Cesare said.

  “And why did she become upset? What did you say to her?”

  “It was more what I said,” Hassani admitted, causing his Child to whirl around. “I am sorry, my dear. It seems I am losing my touch.”

  Maha started to say something, then bit her lip. “Whatever it was, it can wait. She needs sleep—”

  “I slept most of the afternoon,” I said, a little breathlessly. But I was feeling better—a lot better. Her touch was goddamned magic.

  “You were sedated most of the afternoon,” she corrected. “You need natural sleep in order to heal.”

  “I’m well enough,” I said, trying to push her off so I could stand.

  “You are not!” It was snapped and it was loud. All three of us stopped to look at her.

  Maha had struck me as the type who was usually cool, calm, and peaceful. A soothing presence for her patients and an overall kindhearted person. She wasn’t looking so kindhearted right now.

  “You are going to sleep,” she told me furiously. “Right now. As for the two of you—”

  And at least I got this much, I thought, watching two first-level masters, one a consul and one who could have been had he wanted to try and salvage Antony’s wreck of a court, shrink in on themselves, one might almost say cower, before a pissed off woman.

  Maybe we did have power, after all, I thought dizzily. But I never got a chance to find out what she told them. Because her hand slid onto my shoulder again, and this time—

  “Well, crap,” I said, and passed out.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dory, Cairo

  I awoke to sunlight streaming through diaphanous white curtains, which were ruffling in a breeze coming across a balcony. The wind smelled like butterscotch, which confused me. Until I realized who was sprawled across me, like a big, sweaty blanket.

  Well, in fairness, Louis-Cesare didn’t sweat, but he was warm enough to make me do so. Not to mention that Cairo in November still gets into the upper seventies during the day. During the day, I thought, blinking at the sunlight, and wondering why that phrase—

  I sat up. “Damn it!”

  “It’s all right,” Louis-Cesare said.

  “How the hell is it all right? We’ve lost even more time and—what are you doing?” I demanded, as he scooped me up into his arms.

  “Bath time.”

  “Bath time my ass! Put me down!”

  And he did—in the big sandstone pool that was masquerading as a bathtub.

  I got out, of course, for any number of reasons, the first of which was that I was still dressed. Someone—hopefully my husband—had put me into one of the filmy nightgowns I’d brought along because this was supposed to be my honeymoon. But because it was my honeymoon, I hadn’t actually worn any of them for more than five minutes.

  And this proved to be no exception.

  “Give that back!” I said, and grabbed for the swath of silk that a supercilious bastard had just pulled over my head.

  I missed.

  “After you’ve bathed,” the bastard said, and started the faucets running.

  That wouldn’t have been so bad except that the pool had a rain shower built into the ceiling that wasn’t so much a shower head as a waterfall. It had to be three-foot square and it started bucketing down, resulting in my slipping and falling onto my still bruised ass. It hurt, but when I started to complain about it, all I got was a mouthful of water.

  Louis-Cesare got in beside me, not having had to waste time stripping because he never wore anything to bed anyway, and started soaping up my back. He didn’t use the loofa on a stick, which would have been rough on my still healing skin, but rather his hands. Which somehow managed to be both incredibly strong and completely gentle at the same time. I groaned and leaned my cheek on the cool stone side of the tub, just for a minute.

  “That’s not fair,” I mumbled. “That’s cheating.”

  He didn’t reply. He also didn’t stop. Not until my muscles were putty and my spine was liquid and I was about to slip under the water because I was so relaxed. Which I shouldn’t be; I had things to do, important things, and—

  “The jet is fueling up as we speak.”

  I looked over my shoulder. “The jet?”

  “The senate’s airplane.” An auburn eyebrow went north. “The one we came here in?”

  I tried to think, which wasn’t easy with the rhythmic kneading going on. “Where is it going?”

  “We.”

  “What?”

  “Where are we going,” Louis-Cesare corrected, then got up briefly to drip across the floor and grab something out of his clothes. As usual, he’d flung them down beside the bed, because there was supposed to be a servant to pick them up. There weren’t any; the egalitarianism that was a hallmark of Hassani’s court ensured that the rooms were cleaned, but anything we threw down stayed where we’d dropped it.

  That had left me acting as a substitute valet all week, if I didn’t want people to think we were complete slobs, but I didn’t mind so much at the moment. Didn’t mind at all, I thought, checking out the shift and play of sleek muscles in what had been called the best butt in history. Of course, it had been called that by me, but still. It had been called that.

  The view was impressive, and that was before he turned around to walk back over and hand me something. He got back in the tub while I looked it over. And maybe it was because I had just woken up, but I didn’t get it. “Did I leave this downstairs?”

  It was his turn to look puzzled. “Quoi?”

  “After the fight. I thought Hassani’s people had returned them all, but . . .” I trailed off, frowning. Come to think of it, this didn’t look like one of mine. It was a small golden charm, of the type that looked like a tat on the body, but I couldn’t remember grabbing one depicting a Chinese character from the senate’s armory.

  “Ones like it were found on the body of the thieves,” Louis-Cesare said. “All of them. As far as Hassani’s people can tell, it’s a key—it opens a warded door.”

  “A warded door where?”

  “We don’t know. But the consul has agreed to allow us to take this one.”

  I didn’t ask “take it where.” I already knew. I’d seen a couple of the thieves up close, and with this . . .

  Son of a bitch.

  I started to get up again, but he pulled me back down. “The plane will wait.”

  “For what?”

  “For us. We need to talk.”

  I turned around, because side eye wasn’t going to work for this. “About?”

  Blue eyes met mine unflinchingly. “I think you know.”

  I would have gotten out of the tub again, but he’d just follow me. That look said this was happening
, one way or the other, and I wasn’t a coward. I was a resentful little lump with greasy hair, however—until Louis-Cesare started shampooing it.

  “Stop.” I caught his wrist.

  “Stop what?”

  “It’s not—I mean, I can do that.”

  That won me another look. “But I am already doing it, you see?” He held up soapy hands.

  I went back to resentful lump status, because it was either that or explain that I didn’t want him touching my ugly head. Somebody had removed Maha’s elegant solution, and hopefully put it somewhere safe, so it was just the bumpy skin up there.

  Thanks to her, it was no longer red and there was actual epidermis covering the burn, but it wasn’t back to normal. Like everything lately. Like the whole world, which was suddenly uncomfortable and upsetting and strange.

  “Hassani made a tape for you,” Louis-Cesare said.

  I looked up, and had to blink to keep suds out of my eyes. “What?”

  “A videotape. Well, actually, I think it is a computer file—”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I believe he thought it was the best way to have a conversation. We can pause it when you become—” He saw my expression. “We can pause it when you like.”

  Which, of course, basically ensured that I wouldn’t, which he very well knew. He wanted me to see the damned thing for some reason. I wanted to pull on some jeans, strap on a fuck ton of weapons, and go murder something.

  But then he started it, and I was stuck.

  A T.V. screen that I hadn’t noticed flickered to life on the opposite wall, showing Hassani wearing his serious face. He had on the same outfit as last night, so I assumed this had been made shortly after I left the party. I sighed.

  Louis-Cesare pulled me in front of him and continued shampooing and then massaging my ugly head while I prepared to listen to a load of bull crap. He reached my neck, and the wire tight muscles there, and I leaned into it. But I did it resentfully.

  “My dear Dory,” Hassani said, as if starting a letter. He paused. “I hope I may call you that after everything we have been through together this week. It feels as though we have known each other for far longer, does it not?”