by Faith Hunter
“I’m armed and armored. Bruiser and Shaddock won. There were humans inside. They’re okay.”
“How many of our enemies are dead?” Koun asked.
I thought back to the bodies as I opened a bottle of water, put it to my mouth and crushed it, the contents shooting into the back of my throat, and swallowed it all down. “Three vamps. One is still alive.”
“And how many humans did they hold captive?”
“I dunno. Maybe forty?”
Koun tilted his head to me and pocketed the tablet. “And My Queen did not find the numbers disproportionate?”
My half-form nose caught a scent. I pulled in air over my tongue and into the scent sacs in the roof of my mouth with a loud sucking breath. Inside me, Beast growled and so did I, smelling vamps approaching in the night. Six? Eight? More? “Vamps.”
Koun’s weapons were instantly in his hands. He leaped to the hood of the SUV and searched the night.
“This was a trap,” I said. “They were waiting for me.”
Koun sniffed the air and scowled, his pupils widening slightly, beginning to bleed black. “You should not have come.”
“Gloat later.”
Koun touched his comms. “Alex. Bring Eli and the others onto this channel.”
“Done.”
Identifying himself, he said, “Koun, speaking to the Consort, Shaddock, and the Youngers. Vampires approach by stealth. Six from upwind. Likely more from downwind. Our people will engage from outside the fence.”
I added to Koun’s summary, “I smell Monique Giovanni, the senza onore. They want Bruiser and me both.”
“Keep Jane safe,” Bruiser ground out.
Koun vamped out, faster than a heartbeat, eyes going from almost human-looking to solid black pupils in rings of scarlet sclera, his jaw unhinging, fangs clicking down in a fraction of a second. “You will wait here,” he demanded of me. He stepped forward.
Beast does not wait, my cat thought. She took over our body and rammed her power into me/us.
I/we raced forward, cat silent, redrawing my weapons, silvered vamp-killer blade in my left hand, Benelli in my right. A vamp in black, his face covered, leaped from behind a tree.
Battlefield awareness kicked in hard. Time slowed, everything around me glowed crystalline green and silver in Beast’s vision. As if I had all the time in the world, I swung the blade back and leaped to the right. Arm out, long and horizontal, swinging low to high, I spun my body. Rotating forward and away from my opponent. Whipping my spine. Putting momentum and weight behind the swing. Aiming midline, transverse cut. The blade sliced through flesh. Starting just below the waist. Hit the vamp’s spine and stuck there. Jarring up my arm. My body continued the spin. Pulling on my shoulder. Pulling the enemy revolving after me. Blood gushed everywhere.
Still in the air, I hit the vamp in the face with my fist, holding the Benelli. His head snapped back and my vamp-killer came free.
The body began to fall.
I landed and danced back on my toes. Still spinning.
Fired the Benelli point-blank into the torso of a vamp racing in to attack.
Danced to the left. Fired the Benelli again. Missed. Whirled and took off a vamp’s arm. She screamed that piercing ululation of a vampire dying.
I was fifteen feet from the fence when Koun hissed a soft sound near me, a sword in each hand. He took off the shot vamp’s head, then the one-armed vamp’s head. Then the head of the one with the navel cut, though I was pretty sure that one was dead anyway.
“You left their heads,” Koun snarled at me.
“I wasn’t finished,” I snarled back.
More gunfire sounded. Flashed bright in the night. Near and distant, upwind and down. Shotguns and small arms fire.
Monique Giovanni was just ahead. I could smell her, could make out her form in the darkness, her honey-colored hair shining in the low lights.
“There. Her,” I said to Koun.
My warrior at my side, I raced toward her. She vanished through a gate I hadn’t seen into the backyard. She was going after Bruiser.
Again, I leaped the fence. Koun said something in a language I didn’t understand and one-handed his body up and over, after me. As I landed, I swung the bloody blade and took down an enemy vamp.
Eli said, “Jane.” Battlefield tone.
I gyrated on my toes and saw him. He was shoving the humans toward the house, toward safety. Several were wounded. Two on the ground. They were in the line of fire. Eli was in the line of fire. He’d never take cover and leave them.
So many humans. So much collateral damage. Eli. A vamp raced toward him.
Lincoln Shaddock flew in the air from out of the night and beheaded the vamp. Landed. Whirled to strike another. He was using two dueling swords. A dervish in the dark. Poetry with bloody blades. Racing to another target, Lincoln said to me, “Get to George,” and darted into the dark.
Koun took on more vamps at my side and behind me. With him there, I was safe. Had time to reconnoiter. Eyes darting and scanning. I spotted Kojo, Thema’s mate, and several more of our best warriors. Most injured.
Weapons out, I turned in a circle. Searching.
Koun said, “There.” He slung the blood from his swords, pointing.
Bruiser was in a death stare with the senza onore who once worked with the Flayer of Mithrans.
Koun said, “You were correct. This was a trap, ready to be sprung with or without you.”
“And without us, our people would have lost.”
Koun made a soft sound of agreement.
Gunfire sounded. Comms crackled. “We got encom inside the house,” Eli said, warrior-speak for enemy combatants. “Take out all the staked vamps.”
“Copy that.” “Copy that,” Thema and Lincoln said in concert, accents dueling.
I raced for Giovanni but stopped just short. She and Bruiser were locked in silent combat. Staring at each other. As I watched, her hand lifted and touched Bruiser’s shoulder. Onorio powers worked much better when the aggressor was in contact with the defender. I didn’t know what to do. How to help. If I beheaded her while she was in his mind, would that scramble his mind, like most anamchara when one of them died? Would it kill him?
From the corner of my eye, I saw Thema’s sword rise and descend with finality, beheading a vamp on the ground.
Bruiser was sweating. Monique Giovanni said, “Yes. Tell me about your love.”
I muttered, “Stupid staring contests.” I stabbed my bloody vamp-killer into a true-dead body so I could find it easily and, with my off hand, pulled a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.
I shot her.
CHAPTER 2
I Kinda Suck at Royalty
I took it all in, in an instant as Bruiser fell beside her, shaking, confused, and exhausted. The physical battle behind us seemed to be over. Already. Real battle is seldom as long or picturesque as Hollywood makes it. It’s usually fast, bloody, and over with, too late to change anything.
Lincoln pointed to two of his vamps, saying, “Feed the Consort.” No one addressed Monique’s wounds. Onorios were made of stern stuff, and though she was gasping and bleeding, she wasn’t dead yet. Around us, other vamps were healing themselves by feeding upon healthy humans, others feeding injured humans, including some of Lincoln’s blood-servants.
One injured and dying human was hauled off to the front of the house, a vamp’s fangs in her throat, the forced change to Mithran already beginning. Meaning I had been wrong. Some of Lincoln’s people had died or were nearly dead, and his people were having to save them the only way they could, by turning them into vamps.
“Crap,” I muttered.
I checked on Bruiser, who was feeding from a vamp’s wrist. There was a trickle of blood in his beard, which made Beast perk up. Good mate. Good pelt on face. I kinda liked it too. Especially w
hen—
At my back, the fence crashed to the ground. I felt Koun step between the downed fence and me. His voice fierce, Koun said, “Blood challenge. Here. Now. You will not escape me again.” That sounded personal. He and a female vamp met in the middle of the backyard, swords flashing in the dim light. Battle wasn’t over yet after all; there was a second wave. Or the first wave was just a feint. Whatever was happening, Koun needed to take a head to clear past grievances.
More vamps came through the gap in the fence. Goodie. I needed to hit something.
Into my earbuds, I heard Bruiser gasp something, but his mic cut out. All I heard was, “There’s . . . house . . . -ap.”
Alex chattered, trying to reestablish contact.
Kojo and Thema took out three more ambushing vamps and raced for the house. Moving Beast-fast, I stepped into cover provided by a narrow column, and slid the shotgun into the spine holster. Changed out the left nine-mil’s magazine for a fresh one, color-coded to show it was loaded with silver-lead composite hollowpoint rounds, which would shred inside a vamp’s body and poison them from the inside. The weapons were too small for my big fingers, but I could make do if necessary. I holstered it and removed the vamp-killer from the headless body, cleaned it on the dead vamp’s clothing, and sheathed it.
As I worked, Lincoln’s vamps took out several more attackers. Again it looked as if the attackers were finished, but Bruiser had said something about the house.
I wrenched a sword from a dead vamp’s hand and tested it. “Not bad,” I muttered. My sword skills sucked, but I could stab a vamp in the back with the best of them. Blades instead of bullets meant that there would be no collateral damage. As Koun finished and beheaded his enemy, I slipped quietly toward the house and took down two vamps from behind, first with the vamp-killer, then with the sword: stab, behead, stab, behead. It was messy and bloody but efficient. It also ruined the wallpaper and the rugs.
I raced indoors. Ducked behind the counter and pulled the nine-mil. Shot a human who came around the corner, raising a weapon at me. Another. I was hyperventilating, hiding behind the counter, under halfway poor cover. I slowed and sucked in breaths. Stood and dashed through the house. Shot two vamps, young ones, based on the way they fell with the silver shot, and beheaded them. Whirled. Sought the corners. Listened. Sniffed the scents on the air. Everyone was down. I was alone.
The light seemed too bright, too sharp. Everything had taken on a strange, muted silence—muffled moans and gasps, barely heard, distant conversation. For my human form, I had micro-gated headphones that kicked in at the first soundwave to preserve my hearing, but since my ears were all over the place in half-form, they didn’t fit my various ear positions. I was deaf from the firefight, short as it had been. I took a slow breath of the stench of open wounds and death. Was it really over?
In my earbud, Alex’s tinny voice was demanding that all our people check in.
“Yellowrock here. Inside. Safe,” I said.
Eli and a human woman were kneeling over a downed man, an injured human. Eli, who had somehow beat me inside, shoved a tampon into a gunshot wound. That meant he was out of XStat syringes to stop bleeding.
“You okay?” I asked him.
“Younger. Clear. In kitchen with injured humans. Call medic,” he said, though I was halfway reading his lips. To me, he added, “We got DBs everywhere, twelve more freed injured humans, none of whom signed papers to be blood-servants, and, if I understand Bruiser right, we also have four vamps in a hidden room in the basement with more human hostages.” He indicated a door a few feet away. “Down there. We need some vamps alive to find out who and where the clan Blood Master is. And we need someone up here who can cover me while I stabilize the injured.”
“Okay. Got it. You keep the humans safe. And you stay safe. Liz will kill me if you get scratched.” Liz Everhart and Eli had hooked up and somehow stayed hooked up for months. They were officially an item.
Eli chuckled, snapped off his gloves, and pulled on a fresh pair, applying pressure to a different human’s wound. “She won’t kill you, but she might turn you into a toad. My girl is freaky powerful, and she thinks I’m adorable.”
I raised my voice. “Shaddock? Tex? Eli needs backup at my location! Koun? Kojo? Thema? To me!” With little puffs of air displacement, my vamps were instantly at my side. I told them what needed doing, and before they could bubble-wrap me and make me stay safe upstairs, I kicked open the basement door. I could have turned the knob, the door wasn’t locked, but kicking it felt so good.
Inside me, Beast screamed with joy. She shoved her gifts into me, and I/we leaped out in a controlled fall down into the dark. Cat leap. I/we landed at the bottom of the stairs on a small concrete pad. Took it all in. The basement was finished with a low, dropped ceiling. Carpeted floor. Once white walls with rust-colored swirls.
I took a breath. The air reeked of blood. Blood on the walls. Blood on the carpet. Beast-fast, I changed weapons again, holstering the smaller handgun, pulling the Benelli. Nothing attacked. Kojo and Thema dropped to my sides. Somehow Koun ended up in front. Dang vamp. “We need them alive,” I growled.
Koun grunted in disagreement. He wanted to fight to kill. With him in front, we moved slowly through the darkness.
* * *
* * *
The attacks came from all sides.
Silvers and grays and brilliant shades of greens. I whirled to the rear and fired the shotgun point-blank. The attacking vamp fell, the silver fléchette rounds ripping through her.
My new sword swung as if self-guided. Buried itself in a vamp’s shoulder. Cutting deep and down, at an angle toward the center, slicing arteries. Blood spewed. He fell. All the attackers were down. Once again, combat was over.
“I have two alive-ish here,” I said. “Make sure they survive.” I wiped my sword clean of blood on the clothing of a dead vamp. The blade came away just as bloody. I shook my head and sheathed the Benelli. “Save the humans,” I said.
Into my comms, I said, “Eli, Alex. Premises are secured.” I turned on a toe and raced back up the stairs.
In my comms, I heard Eli say, “Alex. I just found another batch of injured humans. We’re overwhelmed. We need medic.”
“Roger that, already called,” Alex said through the comms.
Medic meant human ambulances and human law enforcement. And since we hadn’t been invited here and had killed lots of people, that meant legal trouble, a weeks-long investigation. I initiated a conference call with Alex and Brandon Robere, in France. Brandon led my legal team. Holy crap. I had a legal team. I walked outside for privacy as the conference call initiated. As it went through, I watched the mess in the backyard. Lincoln called Kojo over for something, and the vamp turned his back. It was a vamp snub, one that said Kojo did not answer to Lincoln and that Lincoln wasn’t strong enough to make him do so. Something had happened between Shaddock and his guest, but that was something to deal with later.
When I had Alex and Brandon on the connection, I said, “Alex, will you provide my current location to Brandon Robere?”
“Got it. Done,” Alex said.
I never felt like talking all vamp-proper, but I sucked it up and did my job, recollecting and using some of the formality I had learned working for the Master of the City of NOLA. I said, “This is an official announcement from the Dark Queen of the Mithrans. This property, its dead and wounded, are hereby claimed as property of the Dark Queen, whose people suffered an attack while rescuing humans kidnapped by a group of rogue Naturaleza. Brandon, feel free to put in all the legalese and send it to me for my e-siggie if needed. Then you can put it under whatever pending, potential, or otherwise legal mumbo-jumbo wrangling you can cobble together. I’ll reimburse the owners for the loss of the property and provide a settlement for their heirs if they died here.”
“Yes, My Queen,” Brandon said. “I’ll contact the State Department
and get our emissary on-site as quickly as possible.”
“I’m calling local law enforcement,” Alex said. “Tell everyone to put down their weapons.”
Brandon said, “If Koun is with you, get him to put your banner in the front yard. Brian and I will be home tomorrow, in New Orleans, for the wedding and to correlate the Mithran legalities for the coronation, so we will both be on hand to assist with any fallout.”
“And I’ll trace the financial trail and confiscate all monies used to finance whatever this was.”
I looked around at the dead in the backyard. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You two chat. I’m out.” I removed myself from the call. My ears were getting better. I heard sirens in the far distance.
Koun appeared at my side, having heard the conversation. Vamp hearing was even better than my half-form’s. “You should leave the premises before the humans arrive, My Queen.”
I made a noncommittal sound.
“I have placed your banner in the front yard.” Before the call. I got that. I hadn’t had to tell him. Koun was good at his job. “The media will arrive the moment word goes out that you are here and you have fought another battle. Your Consort should speak with the press and deal with the officials. And you should not be seen, My Queen. You are bloody and . . . not human.”
I tested my snout with big knobby fingers. Still mostly cat-faced. “Yeah. I might scare the babies. I’ll slip out in a bit.”
Koun followed me to the woman on the ground. Monique Giovanni was being held in the arms of one of our female vamps, was being fed and healed. I couldn’t remember the vamp’s name, but I said to her, “Stop feeding and healing this woman. She’s my enemy.”
The vamp didn’t stop. She didn’t even look up.
“Monique, if you take over the will or loyalty of my faithful servant, or try to take her from me, you’re dead meat.” I grinned and showed my fangs, which were really impressive, even by vamp standards. “You be a good little girl, and I’ll let someone heal you.”
She raised a hand as if to claw me or try to take me over. I snatched her hand and broke her wrist. That pain and the not-quite-healed gunshot wound should keep her busy and unable to concentrate enough to use her powers. Koun pulled the lethargic vamp away from Monique, lifted her into his arms, and carried her into the darkness.
