Amazon Queen a-2

by Лори Девоти

  "A picked pocket never killed anyone."

  "Maybe, maybe not. Do you research your victims? Know that they don't need that last dollar to feed their families? Pay for some medication?" He leaned back against the door, looking superior. "Don't judge me, Zery. In a moral battle, right now you are going to lose."

  He twisted his lips to the side, thinking. "Actually, though, I'm surprised they were still there. That whoever"-he glanced at me-"blew up my cabin didn't take them first."

  "You're insinuating we would take them?" I laughed. "Amazons don't do guns, don't do technology in general."

  "Yeah, I know. Rather stupid of you, actually."

  We passed a sign saying an exit was coming up in one mile. I got into the right-hand lane.

  My passenger had worn out his use. It was time to get rid of him.

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend." His expression said he did, or at least didn't regret doing so.

  "I can see that. What I can't see is how driving you back to my camp will be of any benefit to me."

  He placed a hand on my forearm. Since I was driving, I didn't jerk away, just waited, tense.

  "Sorry. I'm being honest; just maybe not as serious as I need to be. Go ahead. Pull over. Maybe it's time we had a real talk."

  A real talk. . made me wonder what spilling my guts before had been.

  I took the next exit. At a deserted roadside park, I stopped the Jeep, and without speaking we both got out.

  We took up positions on opposite sides of a bird-dropping-adorned picnic table.

  He leaned forward, placing his forearms on the table as he did. The sleeve of his T-shirt pulled up, revealing the bottom half of his wolverine tattoo. I made a concentrated effort not to stare at it. My fingers curved toward my palm; I wanted to lean across the table and touch the animal-see if I could feel the difference between his givnomai and mine, feel why his gave him the power to shift and mine didn't.

  "Maybe you'll feel more comfortable if I tell you a little more about myself. As I said, I'm Jack Parker. I'm one hundred and twenty years old and I've known I was a son since I was twenty-two and shifted for the first time."

  My eyes widened. "But your tattoo-?" I thought the tattoo gave the sons the power to shift, but if the shift came first. .

  He lifted his sleeve, completely revealing the wolverine. It was the first time I'd seen it clearly and up close. It was colored exactly like he was when in the animal's form and looked just as intimidating with its lips curled and its teeth clearly visible. My fingers twitched; I hid them under the table. He gave me an appraising look. I had the uncomfortable feeling he knew of my disturbing need to touch his art.

  "Got it when I was eighteen. I had no idea the guy who volunteered to give me a free tattoo was a son. Didn't know sons existed." He turned to the side and leaned toward me. "Go ahead."

  I looked past him, as if his suggestion was insulting.

  He smiled and pulled down his sleeve. "The offer," he whispered, "is always open."

  I ignored the tingle that went from my fingers down to my toes-at least enough to keep a look of bored impatience on my face.

  He patted his arm where the wolverine was now hidden under his shirt, then continued. "The night I shifted five sons revealed themselves to me-got pretty torn up in the process too." He caught my gaze. "Them, not me, nothing like a frightened wolverine who doesn't have enough sense to know he's a wolverine. Bad news."

  "Why make you one, then? Whoever gave you the art had the choice, right?" I tried not to look too interested, but I couldn't help myself, I was. The sons were little more than myth to us, and a new one at that. To have one sit down and reveal so much. . it was seductive. I stiffened, realizing that sometime during the conversation I'd relaxed, let down my guard.

  Aware now, I looked around and checked to make sure there was no one or thing in sight. A squirrel skittered up a tree; grabbed my attention.

  Jack laughed. "Not one of mine."

  I shot a stare at him. "How do I know? How do you know?"

  He shrugged. "Just do. It's the magic; I can feel it. I'm surprised you can't."

  I paused. "All the time or just when they shift?"

  He studied me for a second. "I think that's something you should figure out on your own."

  For a moment I thought he was going to do it then, change into his wolverine form, but he just smiled and patted the table with his flattened palm. "In answer to your question, I asked for a wolverine. The artist didn't prompt me or give me choices, just asked of all the animals in the world which one appealed to me, which one I'd want to know better."

  "And you picked a comic-book character. Too bad you weren't a fan of Spider-Man."

  "Think you would have crushed me?"

  "Right under my boot."

  The air between us grew tense; I could feel energy bouncing between us. Anger. Impatience. Then he laughed.

  "Doesn't work that way, and you know it. I didn't pick a wolverine out of a comic; comics didn't exist yet. I simply was meant to be a wolverine or I wouldn't have chosen him."

  I still wished he'd picked a spider, with my feelings for the arachnid, there would have been dual pleasure in stomping him out of existence. But he hadn't and I was stuck with him as he was.

  "So," I prompted, "the sons found you and what? You started working for them?"

  "Not for them. It's not a job."

  "What is it?" They weren't Amazons. They didn't have our history, weren't a tribe with a high council.

  "It's. . " He frowned and shook his head. "It's who I am, my history."

  I snorted. "What history? You said it yourself, you didn't even know you were a son until you were twenty-two. What kind of history is that?"

  He scowled. "You're a snob. Did you know that?"

  A snob? I drove a ten-year-old Jeep I didn't even own and shared a house with, at times, twelve women. I had very little besides my underwear that belonged totally to me. Even it at times got mixed in with others in the wash and wound up on another body.

  Reading my expression, he added, "Or maybe the term is elitist. You think Amazons are the only beings worthy of walking this earth. The rest of us are just annoyances in your oh-so-grand existence."

  He made it sound, well, bad. I narrowed my eyes. "I haven't seen a lot of evidence to the contrary."

  "Of course not. You don't mingle with anyone else, not unless you are setting them up to steal from them."

  "And sons don't steal? What about the car you left behind at the rest stop? I'm thinking if it was yours, you wouldn't have abandoned it so freely."

  He acknowledged my observation with a tilt of his head. "True, but I don't just see humans as something put here to prop up my position in the world." He stopped then and smiled like he'd just made some new discovery. "That's it; that's how you do it. You only allow yourselves to see humans as tools; you don't get to know them, not as people."

  "I did, once."

  "And look how that turned out. . " He laughed. "You, my queen, are a mess."

  Angry, I placed my palms on the lip of the table and straightened my arms. "I'm not your queen."

  "No, you're not."

  The energy was back. . thick, angry, and throbbing.

  Chapter 10

  I stood, my hands fisted. I had my belt buckle knife and the belt itself, but my anger was more basic than that. I needed to pummel something or someone with my bare fists.

  Jack, however, didn't stand. He just sat at the table and glowered.

  I waited, my feet braced.

  He bit the inside of his cheek and stared. "You can't have it both ways. You can't deny the sons and expect us to recognize your authority. You have no authority with us."

  I flexed my hands. His refusal to engage physically was frustrating; it made me feel awkward standing there, waiting to fight an enemy who refused to fight back.

  I spun and paced toward the Jeep.

  "Don't you want to know the rest? Don't you want to know what I know
about the Amazons?"

  I stopped and turned slowly, gravel grinding under my foot. Taking a cue from Jack, I gritted my teeth, tamped down my anger, and sat.

  He stared at me for a moment. I could see I'd misjudged. He was angry also. It simmered in his dark eyes, not just anger but a threat too. Like he was one straw away from losing control and wanted me to know it.

  Squaring my shoulders, I lifted my chin and let him know I met his challenge. "What do you know, or think you know, about the Amazons?"

  He flattened his hands. "More than I want to."

  The anger pulsed between us for another second, then seemed to sputter and die. He huffed out a breath and glanced down. When he looked back up, the darker emotion was gone, replaced by resolve. "As I said, we have sons outside all of the Amazon safe camps. We have sons watching as many Amazons as we can-including the high council."

  Not believing him, I smiled. "Really? The high council? And how exactly are you watching all these other Amazons? You follow them from town to town? You don't think Amazons would notice if the same tattooed guy showed up everywhere they did?"

  "Amazons are like whales, geese. . all migrating animals. You've been doing the same things forever. You travel the same routes. Work the same jobs." He lifted a shoulder with arrogant ease. "You're predictable. We don't have to follow you around. You come to us, over and over."

  I moved my jaw to the side.

  He leaned forward. "You work at carnivals. We work at carnivals. You visit fairs. We set up fairs. Everywhere you are; so are we."

  It was a struggle not to let emotion show. We were watched, everywhere. . for how long? "The farmer's market?" I asked.

  He nodded. "Someone direct you to your spot today? Buy some tomatoes? It's really not that hard."

  My first thought was that I'd have to tell Lao, that we'd have to find some other way to make money. Then I saw how Jack was watching me, the knowing expression on his face.

  There was no other way. There was no avoiding them.

  "What about the high council?" I asked. Honestly, I didn't even know where they met. The group wasn't like a safe camp. They didn't live all together, and the location of their meetings changed from time to time. I assumed they went to various state campgrounds, but honestly didn't know. As far as I knew, only the high-council members themselves did.

  He tapped the pads of each of his fingers against the tabletop, one after the other. Made me wonder what he'd done with his pen-if he was missing it.

  "What if I told you the high council knew about us, was working with us?"

  "I'd say you were a liar."

  "How many Amazons are on the council, Zery?"

  I could see he knew the answer. I didn't bother answering.

  "Twelve, right? And to get on the council you have to be what? Weak? Nonopinionated? Not an Amazon?" One corner of his mouth lifted. "You think they all get along? All agree? You think just because you hear the 'final' decision that there wasn't talk of doing something different before that?"

  To be honest, I hadn't thought about it at all. "The final decision is all that matters," I said, my voice calm, bordering on bored.

  "Really? You think that?"

  I didn't like the way he was watching me, didn't like what his slightly amused expression meant.

  "I do," I replied, keeping my face straight, confident.

  "So the members who disagree with the majority, who think killing that baby is the wrong choice, they don't matter."

  My mind stuttered.

  "Majority wins, might makes right, and the other Amazons, those who didn't win, have no value at all?"

  "I didn't say they didn't have value." Of course they did; they were still Amazons.

  He tapped his fingers again, just the middle ones this time. "You ever been in the minority, Zery?"

  "There is no minority in the tribe. We all believe the same thing; it's what keeps us strong."

  "Not anymore."

  I wasn't sure what he was saying. . believing the same thing didn't keep us strong or that we didn't all believe the same thing. But I had already faced that, realized we were all individuals. I just hadn't worked it out to the next step, that if we disagreed on the little things, we might disagree on the big ones too. The ones that might split not just the council, but the tribe.

  "Maybe all the Amazons don't agree. Maybe some think working with the sons is smarter, better for the tribe, than trying to fight us. You're the Indians, Zery, and we're the white flood. We aren't going away."

  I snorted. "Like working with whites helped the Indians. I'd rather die my way than have everything I stand for and believe in stripped away from me."

  "Yes, you are definitely Geronimo rather than Washakie. Most Amazons are, but what makes you think the enemy is only outside the Amazons? What makes you think the sons are the sole threat? As I said, we've watched you, we know about you-things you don't even know about yourselves."

  "You're saying there are Amazons who want to damage the rest of us? Why?"

  "Not damage. Change."

  "You want us to change."

  "True, but we aren't the only ones. And we don't even want you to change that much. We just want the tribe to acknowledge us, to work with us-to realize they don't need to kill and maim their own children to stay safe."

  A pain began to pound inside my head, right behind my eyes. What he was saying didn't make sense, or maybe it made too much sense.

  I stood. I was done with the conversation. I was ready to go home where things made sense. I'd call the council from there and tell them everything. See what was true.

  And I wasn't taking the son with me.

  He must have sensed it. He didn't follow me. When I reached the Jeep, I looked back. He'd pulled a phone from somewhere and was talking into it. He had a cell. Of course he did. And another son would be here soon, picking him up and most likely dropping him off where he could spy on me again.

  I should have stayed, or left and sneaked back, but I didn't. I got in my vehicle and left.

  I knew it wouldn't be the last I'd see of Jack, knew it wouldn't be the last chance to kill him or for him to kill me.

  I pulled into the safe camp around one. I knew immediately something was wrong-or different, at least.

  Two of the birders were sitting in lawn chairs in the front yard. Squatting beside them was Areto. As I approached, I noticed they were holding a small box, the same type of electronic device the women in the woods had used, and they were showing it to Areto.

  "You just enter the address like this." One of the birders, a middle-aged blonde dressed in denim shorts, white tennis shoes, and a peach tank top punched something into the box. "It's really handy when there is road construction. I used it all the way from Nashville."

  I realized then the woman had a Southern accent. As I walked toward them, she looked up and smiled.

  I didn't return the gesture.

  "What's happening?" I directed the question to Areto, who stood and took a step away from the two humans, but the woman sitting in the second chair, a brunette maybe ten years older than the blonde, answered.

  "We got lost. Thea went inside to get the keys to drive us back to our car."

  Again I looked at Areto. "They couldn't walk?"

  "That wouldn't be very polite, now would it?" Thea stood on the porch, a key chain dangling from one finger. She hadn't changed in the few hours since I'd seen her last night, but knowing there was a possibility she had hidden the council's plans for the baby from me, I looked at her differently.

  "Why would we need to be polite?" Manners were for humans. We treated each other with respect-that was real, manners weren't. Besides, assuming someone needed your help was an insult. I glanced at the two women. They both seemed able-bodied. There was no reason they couldn't go the way they'd come.

  I said as much to Thea.

  The women looked at each other, their shock at my outspoken behavior clear.

  Thea gestured for me to step to the s
ide, out of the two humans' hearing. Tired, confused, and not at all in the mood for a discussion, I considered ignoring her request but grudgingly moved the few feet she'd indicated.

  "They wandered up a few minutes ago. They're connected to the one Bern found." Her voice low, Thea kept her focus on the pair still chatting mindlessly from the lawn chairs. "They said they went on a walk, looking for some bird-"

  "An owl," I interrupted, wondering when she was going to get to the part that explained why we had rolled out the welcome mat.

  "An owl," she repeated. "Apparently this owl was important to the dead woman. They wanted to get pictures of him, prove he nested here in honor of her."

  "So they came on our property and you welcomed them." I didn't put any judgment into the words. I thought they spoke for themselves. My last order had been to run the birders off, not pull out the lawn furniture and brew some ice tea.

  "They got lost and they wound up here." Her eyes flared. "Their friend was found dead. Apparently, the police believe the accident scenario, for now. But if we act unfriendly, that could change."

  "They bought the accident?" This was, at least, good news. "How do you know?"

  Thea slanted a look toward the two women.

  I let air hiss from between my lips. Fine. Maybe chatting with them a bit had its uses, but that use was over. I said as much to Thea.

  She held up a ring of keys in response.

  I started to object. Not being antagonistic didn't mean we had to play chauffeur either, but I thought better of it. If Thea drove them, we'd know they were gone. I did, however, remind her of our original plan, making it clear I didn't want the birders to think they could drop by for coffee and cake. . or traipse around our woods, period.

  The priestess didn't reply, but as she walked off to get the birders packed up and off, I felt she'd gotten the message. I waited, thinking she'd hand off the keys to Areto or call for someone else, but she didn't. Instead she waved the women toward a compact that belonged to Sare and took off.

  Surprised by her choice, I frowned, but quickly decided it fit with my needs better anyway. As my potential lieutenant, I needed to talk to Areto. Thea's news that the police had found the body and considered the death accidental was reassuring, but I still wanted to hear more about what had happened. Lao's comments earlier had made me wonder a few things. I hoped talking to Areto would either reveal more or alleviate my concerns.