The Lost Queen

by Jenn Stark

  “They do.” Lara gestured to the tables to our right, and I turned, only to be drilled practically into the next century with the glares aimed my way.

  “Well, nothing like getting off to a good start,” I muttered.

  “Gail Fredericks and Monica Jones have been friends since they were new initiates. Tammy Butler is younger, greener, and with more of a chip on her shoulder, which would indicate that she’s more a candidate, but she’s nowhere near as strong as the others.”

  I surveyed the women, particularly Tammy, who seemed to have a serious case of resting witch face. “Well, wouldn’t she want to level up, then?”

  “She would, ordinarily. But she’s a descendent of one of the richest bloodlines in the coven and has never been one for subjugation. It’s far more her style to strike a deal to get all the goodies without paying any price she didn’t want to pay.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough. Lead on.”

  As we reached the tables, I realized it wasn’t three witches, but six. Behind each of the woman sat their lesser counterparts—assistants, I had to assume, or initiates. They all looked frightened of their mentors, which raised my hackles. What was it about some groups that instead of nurturing the next generation, they preferred to eat their young?

  “Justice Wilde,” Lara announced. “Please allow me to introduce—”

  “She knows who we are,” snapped Tammy. “Heather spilled the beans.” She shot a dark look at her apprentice, who cowered back. Lara watched Tammy with cold speculation, and I, in turn, watched them both. Tammy had disrespected Lara in front of me. That wouldn’t go well for the young, brash witch.

  Then Tammy addressed me directly. “As we know who you are. You’ve been sent here to take what’s rightfully ours.”

  I lifted my brows. “I have?”

  “Tammy,” clucked Gail Fredericks. Her sleek chignon of ice blonde hair complemented her patrician features beautifully. I found myself wanting to like her, which was a clear indication she was trouble. “Justice Wilde doesn’t go where she’s not summoned. She’s not the one with the agenda.”

  She shifted her cool eyes to me as I caught sight of Nikki moving toward me from across the room. “But there is an agenda, I believe. I’m not sure if you know what you’ve stepped into, Justice Wilde. But it’s about to get—so much worse, I fear.”

  I didn’t have time for a snappy comeback before Nikki reached me. Her face was grim. “We’ve got an almost certain homicide, right in the heart of Beverly Hills.” She flicked her gaze to Lara. “It’s the rapper.”

  Lara’s face was triumphant. “How tragic. But as you can see, we’re all here.”

  “You are,” Armaeus said summarily. “Though, of course, your immediate presence proves nothing. Not when you’re a witch.”

  He reached for my hand, and we disintegrated before their startled faces.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Well, this isn’t what I expected.”

  Armaeus and I crouched down in CSI gear, surveying the crime scene. The room looked like an old-world gentleman’s study that had been converted to a magic romper room. The inlaid wood floors, walls painted the color of deep burgundy, and muted Renaissance master artworks in gilt frames were in stark contrast to the bloody corpse on the floor.

  RZ lay on the ground, his arms and legs outstretched, what was left of his head filling in the top pinnacle of the pentagram that had been painted on the floor. Though Armaeus had more of a grasp on his glamour, I was still working through how mine worked. Accordingly, it was probably better for me to keep my head down and focused on the floor. Armaeus had explained the finer points of the requirements as we’d poofed back into existence in a place I knew I’d never been and suspected he hadn’t as well.

  Which begged the question—how had he gotten us here? Did the Magician not have the same constraint I did—that he needed to physically see a location before he could travel to it? I sighed. Probably.

  “Who are you? I thought Joe was on call tonight.”

  The gruff voice brought Armaeus to his feet, but I remained on my knees, studying the body. When the two of them walked a few steps away, I flicked my third eye open.

  And determined that RZ was well and truly dead.

  I winced as I focused on the rapper, or what was left of him. There wasn’t much. While most magical circuits did not survive the killing blow, there was generally at least a hint of the power that had been there before. I’d studied RZ when he’d been alive, I knew that he had some skills.

  Those skills hadn’t been merely shut off, I realized. They’d been stripped away.

  “Who got to you, RZ?”

  Despite my distaste for the rapper and nascent necromancer, I hadn’t wanted to see him dead. At least not like this. I suspected he hadn’t seen his end coming either. His end, or his executioner, or both. I leaned forward and sniffed, and smelled a mixture of frankincense and eucalyptus oil, his body still glistening from his preparations to subjugate his target.

  But why tonight? RZ more than most knew the players in the LA coven, knew where they would be. His minions would have kept track of them for him, if nothing else. Why would he make his play now?

  Had we been misled entirely?

  “Tell me what I need to know, RZ,” I muttered. RZ, unfortunately, was not very forthcoming.

  “Did he die immediately? Please tell me he died immediately. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

  The voice came from somewhere above my head, and I leaned back to see a tall, slender man wringing his hands and looking positively gray. “Um, this is a crime scene,” I said, trying to sound official. “I don’t think you should—”

  “Oh, they can’t see me.” The man waved me off, and I blinked at him, staring a little harder. He gazed back, looking yet more gray. My tattoo of the Eye of Horus flared on my left bicep, practically glowing through my glamour.

  A tattoo I’d gotten from…

  No. Just, no.

  “You’re not a dead guy,” I said flatly. “I can’t see dead people.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you can too,” the dead guy said. “I’ve lived in this house for two years since RZ raised me from the dead, and that was before he really knew what he was doing, God love him.” He sighed as he looked at the body on the floor. “But I was halfway across the city at a spa when he decided to go full frontal today. I got back as fast as I could.”

  “I…” I shut my mouth, then opened it again, doing my best impression of a guppy on a pier. So many parts of what the gray man had said hurt my brain. “You live here?” I finally managed. “You know how he died? And—he really could raise the dead? That wasn’t merely schtick?”

  “Well, how he died is kind of obvious, don’t you think?” The gray man flapped a hand at what was left of RZ’s skull. “And of course he could raise the dead. Not very well, all the time, but—he tried. What I want to know is if he suffered. He didn’t deserve that, for all his tendency to swing his dick around.”

  “Ahh—sure. Well…” I looked down at RZ. He looked back at me, his expression more surprised than anything else. “I really don’t think he did. But wouldn’t you know better?”

  “No, no, it doesn’t work that way.” The gray man sighed irritably. “You’d think Death would at least have given you the basics if she was going to slap the Eye of Horus on you.”

  “I’m right there with you. So tell me how you knew RZ, then.”

  “Well, it was hard not to. He moved into this place three years ago, fully knowing that the prophecy was going to be fulfilled. He had an entire map upstairs dedicated to it.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said, peering up. “Does he still have it?”

  “No, no. He didn’t want anyone to know how much work he put into the process, preferring to make everyone believe that it was all, you know, divine inspiration. And it wasn’t the only prophecy he was following. You know necromancers and their ridiculous ways.”

&n
bsp; “Uh, yeah. They sure are a crazy bunch.”

  The gray man nodded in contented agreement. “Richard more than most. He was convinced that he needed the blood of a true witch to reach his goals. He wanted the virgin that Myanya had targeted for her blood even more than he wanted to subjugate her—he thought she might have known that too, but then he decided she couldn’t. She was only a woman desperate for his touch and all that. He was a little sexist, you ask me.”

  “A man who wanted to drain the blood of a virgin witch in the middle of a magical ritual to fulfill a prophecy that enabled him to subjugate said witch,” I said drily. “I can’t imagine where you got the idea he was sexist.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve been around awhile. I’ve seen a lot of that sort of thing. But he wasn’t as bad as some of them who’ve moved through this place.” The gray man glanced up. “Oh!” He shuddered, then poofed out of existence.

  “Miss Wilde.” I turned and squinted as Armaeus approached, the police officer apparently satisfied for the moment with our credentials. The Magician dropped to one knee, giving RZ’s body only the most casual of glances. “What have you found?”

  I decided against telling Armaeus about the dead guy, since the Magician hadn’t told me anything about Death’s little gift with purchase, and I really thought he should have. Instead, I transferred my attention to RZ.

  “He’s about as dead as a Connected can get,” I said. “His magic wasn’t neutralized. From the looks of it, it was velcroed off him. It wouldn’t surprise me if whoever nailed him now has a taste for hip hop.”

  “As always, colorful, if not particularly useful,” Armaeus said. “He made the attempt to connect with Myanya’s proxy?”

  “Definitely.” I crouched back on my heels. Setting aside the intel I’d gotten from the gray man, there were all the classic signs of a man who’d read the fine print of the prophecy, as shared by the brothers Jones as part of their agreement to avoid Judgment’s grasp for the time being. “He’s wearing the symbols of a high priest, so he was definitely bringing his big guns to the party. But there’s nothing on his body that explains what happens next.”

  “His head exploded—without signs of an entry wound.”

  “Yeah.” I shivered. “It’s all exit.” I pointed to the top of the pentagram, where bits of gore and bone lay piled up as if there’d been a wall there. Several more inches along the circle, the fragments burst out in a splatter of gore outside the circle. “Circle broke there. Don’t know if it was from the force of the internal blast, a weakness in his design, or sabotage. But I don’t think the break in the circle had anything to do with his death.”

  “Agreed,” Armaeus said, regarding the circle thoughtfully. “I don’t believe there was anything wrong with RZ’s magic. He was, perhaps more than most of her challengers, one of the best candidates to ensure that Myanya achieved her prophecy. Because of his unique vices, he also is someone she could have controlled. His failure in his attempt to trigger the prophecy is…interesting.”

  “Because you’re thinking that she would’ve gone for this guy?”

  “He fits all the requirements. He’s strong, extremely vital, he has a background in the appropriate practices to satisfy the ancient requirements of the prophecy. He’s brash enough to give it a try. And he’s weak enough that the period of Myanya’s subjugation would likely not have lasted all that long.”

  “I don’t know, he seemed like kind of an asshole to me.”

  “An ass, yes, but once again, one who was beholden to his own vices. Sooner or later, that was going to prove his undoing.”

  I glanced at Armaeus, noting that his eyes had turned a curious milky black. He was invoking deep magic, but with a twist I hadn’t seen before. He was viewing the future, I knew without a doubt, though how I could know such a thing was beyond me. Was this the benefit of his new DayGlo-pink circuitry?

  “What are you seeing?” I asked quietly, not wanting to disrupt his flow. Would my eyes start to look like that if I focused on my magic more? I didn’t think that would be an awesome look on me.

  “There were many likely futures for Richard Zachariah,” Armaeus said. “He could have grown in power and strength in his chosen field of necromancy. He could’ve become a sorcerer of legitimate renown. One path had him walking in step with Kreios, sweeping his way through a world gone mad with chaos and pain.”

  I made a face. “That doesn’t seem like a future we wanted to support.”

  “Not at all, but it was one that was viably open to him. What was not open to him was a sudden and violent death before he had reached the next level of his development.”

  I frowned at the dead body on the ground. “I think you may need to adjust your settings.”

  “No,” Armaeus said thoughtfully. “It’s not me that’s turned the channels of the world to a new frequency. The witch that Myanya has chosen as her vessel has changed the game. Now, combined with Myanya’s growing power, she has become chaos and rage, and can no longer be contained.”

  “What are you saying?” I looked at him, confused. “We’ve got to be able to rein her in, Armaeus. We can’t just have her go all Hulk Smash on the entire witch community, not to mention random people she’s decided have misbehaved and so she’s going to enact her own kind of vigilante justice on them. That’s not her job, it’s mine.”

  “Agreed, and I am not saying there’s nothing to be done. I’m saying that…this bears serious study.” The Magician’s eyes were even darker now, the milkiness completely gone, replaced with a deep black almost liquid in appearance. Staring at him was like staring into the primordial goop that had formed a world. He looked altogether distracted, like he was fading from existence in the mortal realm.

  Wait a minute…

  “Hey!” I leapt to my feet, making a dash toward him, but I was left grabbing open space. I pivoted around, feeling totally exposed.

  “Look, can we have—” The cop who was standing at the other end of the pentagram turned and squinted at me.

  “Who the hell are you? Can we not go one day without us running through another rotation of scene techs, for chrissakes? I can’t keep track of you people as it is.”

  I didn’t wait for him to finish his tirade. I couldn’t poof as neatly as Armaeus could, but I did have a certain set of skills, and I was getting better and better at them. They merely involved slightly more fireworks.

  “What in the hell!”

  I caught the cop’s gaze as he scrambled back and gave him a cheery wave, barely avoiding setting him on fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I poofed back into the same space I’d left at Lure, only there was no one at the collection of tables but Tammy’s admin, bawling her eyes out. The other witches and their sidekicks had left.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded, and the weepy Heather looked up at me, her eyes red, her hands folding and unfolding in exactly the same manner as the gray man.

  “T-they killed Tammy,” she gasped, then burst into another round of sobs. Even from five paces, I could feel the power wafting off Heather like a protective net. The girl was legit scared.

  “What?” I looked around as if there would be another body under one of the chairs, but not only were there no dead witches, the party at Lure was going full tilt. Surely they’d have taken a bio break to move the gurney out if Tammy had bought it at the club. I hadn’t been gone that long!

  “Dollface.” Nikki pushed her way through the crowd, the relief on her face evident. “Armaeus let Kreios know where you guys went to, then he went radio silent. The police scanners have blown up with the RZ death, and the paparazzi are all over it.”

  “And here?” I asked, pointing at Heather.

  “That.” Nikki grimaced. “About two seconds after you left, Tammy started showing signs of distress. The others swept her up and bundled her off to the bathroom, ordering the admins to stay behind in case you came back. They got her about halfway, and it was clea
r she wasn’t just suffering from a spiked mojito. Kreios got them out of the club and into the limos without anyone batting an eye, then everyone was ordered to hit Witch HQ. Tammy died before they reached it.”

  “They killed her,” Heather cried.

  Nikki shrugged. “The only people in the limo with her were Gail, Monica, and the driver, who reported that Tammy was screaming in pain, grabbing her stomach tight, looking very credibly sick. When she died, it was…messy.”

  I winced. I’d seen how RZ’s life had ended. “Well, she was one of our top suspects, so that whittles down the list a bit.

  “They killed her,” Heather moaned again, hugging herself.

  “The admins headed out, but Heather here stayed put, insisting that you would return and that she wanted to talk to you when you did. The cops are now crawling all over the limo, but they won’t hit Lara and the witches until tomorrow. The crime scene, such as it is, is already contaminated as shit, since the witches of Eastwick were in no mood to remain covered in gore. They bailed almost immediately.”

  I nodded. “You said Kreios arranged transportation?”

  Nikki nodded, clearly appreciating my leap of logic. If Kreios had set up the transpo, there would be video and audio of the drive. We’d see most of what we needed in that. “The Council was happy to help the coven in their time of need, though no one could have predicted the cleanup required.”

  “You have to stop them,” sniffled Heather.

  I motioned Nikki to move off for a moment, then sat down next to the weeping admin. She was only an initiate, but she was a high-level Connected in her own right. With her so obviously on her guard, Nikki wouldn’t be able to get anything out of her memories, and I couldn’t read minds. That left me with old-fashioned interrogation.

  “What do you think happened to Tammy, specifically?” I asked her, as gently as I could.

  Heather’s face seemed to crumple, and I thought she was going to burst into another round of tears. Then she rallied. “She wasn’t the best mentor, but she did try. She wanted the coven to be strong. She was ready to sacrifice herself to be Myanya’s vessel. And they knew it.”