by Lori Devoti
I rolled three times before popping back onto my feet squarely in front of Thea.
Her attention was still on whatever was happening behind me. “Kill her!” she yelled.
Focused on my intended target, I didn’t pause to think who she meant or what might be happening behind me. I lifted my staff and prepared to smash it into the side of her skull.
She looked back at me before I had the chance. She lifted her hand and a knife flew from the ground into her palm. My heart skipped, but I pushed my shock aside. She’d revealed a power, one I had never seen before, but she was also armed now, and the blade in her hand was my most immediate threat.
She lunged toward me. I sidestepped, lifting my staff as I did and whipping the far end to strike her across the eyes. As the force sent her backward, I lashed the staff behind me and swung again, this time targeting the back of her knees. She fell and I pounced forward, intending to pin her and end this farce, but her hand lifted and the knife she held flew toward me—not thrown by the strength of her arm. I had her in a position where that was impossible. The blade was sped and guided by something I couldn’t see . . . or perhaps I could . . . Thea’s eyes were focused like lasers and her lips moved in some unending chant. She was calling on some power I had never seen before, doing something I didn’t even realize was possible. She was moving objects with her mind.
I darted to the left, but the blade struck my thigh. It was short, probably only six inches long from tip to guard, but it still hurt . . . more than it should have.
With the knife sticking out of my body, I recognized it: a kitchen knife probably in the items brought back from the market by the hearth-keepers. I grimaced and reached up to grab the handle, to pull it free. Under my hand it began to twist, as if some invisible being held the handle too and was trying to twirl the blade sheathed in my thigh.
Thea stared at the knife, her face dispassionate but her intention clear. With my left hand I lifted my staff and smashed it across her face. Then, my chest heaving, I dropped the staff onto the dirt.
The chanting stopped. The twisting stopped. I jerked the blade free and stood over the high council’s chosen queen. If I plunged the blade into her heart while she was queen, there would be no going back. I would be like Mel, cut off from the tribe forever. Except Mel was happy with her decision; she would never ask to come back.
How would I feel?
The knife’s handle was slippery from my blood or sweat. I wasn’t sure which.
Thea’s head was turned to the side; she didn’t know she was about to die.
I started to squat; my lips were dry and my hand shook, but I knew I could do it. Knew she would continue to fight me, to lie to my own tribe about me. There was no choice. My time with the Amazons was over; my life as I knew it was over. Why not take the person who took it from me out too?
The knife gripped tightly in my hand, I lifted my arm.
A grunting snarl caused my head to raise. Jack in his wolverine form dashed toward me. I barely had time to register what was happening before he struck me in the chest. I fell backward, the knife still in my hand. Around me a full battle erupted.
Bern spun and jabbed with her staff, holding off the warriors who had first rushed me. The hearth-keepers’ truck was parked beside the fracas, the doors open and the engine running. Sare, armed with a short knife she used when carving totems, was fighting with Lao. The hearth-keeper, armed only with the hard plastic lid of a cooler, swung double-handed and smacked the artisan in the side of the head.
When Lao saw me, she motioned to Tess. The younger hearth-keeper jumped behind the wheel and gunned the engine.
I realized then we were leaving, or at least the others were planning to leave.
But leaving meant giving up, deserting the camp that had been my home for over ten years.
I couldn’t do it.
I shoved Jack off of my chest and stood. Immediately the son was beside me, naked and in his human form.
He grabbed me by the arm. “Don’t be an idiot. The battle is bigger than this.” He motioned to the Amazons still fighting. “We need you. Your tribe needs you.”
My tribe. Were they my tribe? They didn’t seem to think so.
I stared at him, denying the angry tears I could feel forming at the back of my eyes. I blinked and shut down the response. I had never cried in my life; I wasn’t going to do so now.
Back under control, I glanced at the two Amazons still fighting with me, for me. Lao, a hearth-keeper well past her prime, and Bern, an outcast warrior. Then there was the wet-behind-the-ears hearth-keeper shaking like a newborn rabbit in the truck.
My own personal army of misfit toys.
Jack leaned close, until his lips were pressed against my ear. “Sheep go to slaughter. Don’t be a goddamn sheep anymore, Zery.”
I jerked my arm free, picked up my staff, and jumped into the fray. Taking unfair advantage of the warriors’ focus on Bern, I smacked one in the back of the head with my staff. As the other stumbled, unsure what to do, I gestured for Tess and the truck. She roared into the middle of the fight. Bern and I jumped into the back, jerking Lao in after us, and Tess hit the gas.
The mother dog had been curled up on an old feed sack in the corner with her two healthy puppies. She belly crawled closer and I stroked her head as Tess wheeled the vehicle in a sharp U-turn.
In seconds we were thundering down the thin drive. Behind us Jack held up one hand, then shifted. In his wolverine form, he gave a last snapping growl at Sare, who still held her blade, and dashed into the woods.
My hand stroking the dog’s head, I stared blindly at the disappearing house.
I had done what I thought I never would. I had left the tribe.
Chapter 13
As the truck turned onto the highway, I think we all realized we had nowhere to go. Tess yelled at us through the open sliding window.
“Where to?”
The puppy I’d been afraid was dying poked his head over her shoulder. He looked weak, but still alive.
All eyes turned to me.
There was really only one answer. “Madison.”
Tess’s eyes met Lao’s in the rearview mirror, but the older hearth-keeper just nodded her head. “Back to Madison, but I think we may have a stop to make first.” She looked at me. “Is that right?” She tapped on the truck with her palm.
I realized then what she was saying. We couldn’t drive to Madison sitting in a truck bed. We needed a new, bigger vehicle—or at least a second vehicle.
After a brief discussion, we opted for the second.
We pulled into a truck stop and let Lao out. It hadn’t taken much talk to decide Bern and I stood out too much for the job.
But who would suspect a woman who appeared to be in her sixties of boosting a car?
We kept busy by driving down the road a bit and lifting a set of plates off a sedan parked behind a garage. The thing was smashed in completely on the passenger’s side, but the plates were perfectly fine, and since the shop was already closed for the day and would stay closed tomorrow, Sunday, we had until Monday before anyone noticed—if they noticed then.
With the plates dusted off and ready to install, we drove to our meeting place, a country cemetery visited by more cows than people.
Lao drove up in a dark blue two-door. The back was loaded with boxes.
Standing next to the vehicle, Lao said, “Salesman. Looks like a company car.”
I nodded. Jack had been wrong about us . . . at least the Amazons under my command. We did think about how our stealing affected our victims. Didn’t mean we never hurt someone, but we weren’t totally callous about others either. If we could choose between leaving a family stranded at a truck stop and a lone salesman? No contest.
“What’s he selling?” Hopefully it was nothing that would bring too much heat down on us.
Bern reached in the backseat and ripped into a box. “Looks like toys.” She pulled out a squishy frog that lit up when you squeezed his st
omach.
“Oh.” Lao gestured for Bern to grab a plastic bag sitting on the car’s floor. The warrior pulled out a can of evaporated milk and an eyedropper.
“In case the mama won’t feed him,” Lao explained.
Loaded down with the puppy, toy, milk, and eyedropper, Bern went to sit in the shade while Lao changed the vehicle’s plates.
When the plates were changed, we divided up again—Bern and Tess in the truck, Lao and myself with the dogs in the car.
Lao drove. We left the stolen car’s plates behind, but we kept the toys. Eventually we’d sell them.
When you live like we do, you learn to appreciate even the smallest opportunity to make a buck. And today, with our future so unknown, we had to embrace those opportunities even more.
It was late by the time we got off I-90, not dark yet, but getting close. The exit for Mel’s place was about a five-minute drive. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about what I was going to say to her this time.
The parking lot had quite a few cars in it. It was Saturday night, what I guessed was a popular time for humans to get tattoos. Deciding an audience might be just the thing to get Mel to accept my reappearance without reaching for power first thing, I led my ragtag group to the front of the old schoolhouse and up the stairs that led to the shop.
Mel’s office manager, Mandy, met us with a surprised stare.
“You’re the—”
“Self-defense group. That’s right. We’re wondering if Mel would be willing to rent us some space again.” Last fall the tribe had posed as a self-defense group while living in Mel’s gym and hunting the killer who had turned out to be a son.
“I’ll ask . . . ” As the unsure words came out of her mouth, she spotted the puppy poking his head out of Tess’s shirt. Much oohing and aahing ensued, attracting the attention of three college-age girls who had been studying the shop’s flash.
With Mandy busy, I strolled through the door that separated the tattoo area from reception. Mel had three artists who worked for her, four if you counted her mother, Cleo. I didn’t think Mel did, though. Cleo was a warrior and thus not big on sitting in one place and doing intricate work. Her other employees included Janet, a middle-aged lesbian, and Cheryl, divorced mother of three. Her remaining employee was the son, Peter Arpada. Mel had hired him before she knew he was a son, but she hadn’t fired him after. And now apparently they’d been traveling together. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
There were two rooms for tattooing. The biggest, the one I had entered, had three stations. Cheryl and Janet were both busy with clients. The third was empty. I didn’t know if Peter or Cleo normally used the seat. I was hoping Cleo. I trusted her.
She had at many times been more of a mother to me than my own.
From here you could see into the smaller room too. There were two stations there. A client, an older man in his fifties, sat at one, but there was no sign of an artist.
Janet turned from her customer to grab some gauze and spotted me. “Mel’s in back, getting gloves.” She nodded to a door at the back of the connected room, a room I knew from previous visits was used to store its supplies and sterilizing equipment.
“How about Cleo?” I asked, staying casual.
“Basement.”
I turned on my heel and strolled back out the door. In reception, I cocked my head at Bern and Lao. Tess seemed to be paying attention too. As a group we filed back out.
While Lao and Tess went to check on the rest of the dogs, Bern and I returned to the basement. I didn’t realize I was tense until I stepped into the main room and saw it was empty—no babies this evening.
The door to Cleo’s workout room was open. Feeling back in my element for the first time in days, I strode through the door.
And ran smack-dab into my biggest nightmare.
My mother, Scy Kostovska . . . and she was holding a baby.
I suddenly had a very sick feeling.
She looked shocked and almost as horrified to see me. “Zery.” She dropped to a squat and quickly tucked the baby into one of those plastic seats. After pulling the seat’s safety bar down over his head and snapping it in place, she stood and faced me, her face morphing into the picture of a warm welcome.
“What kind of shit are you getting ready to dump on me?” I asked.
My mother was not warm. If I wasn’t standing in front of her, obvious evidence that it wasn’t true, I’d say she was the type to eat her own young.
“Who’s the baby?” I asked. There was a ticking noise starting in my head, like a bomb growing closer to explosion. I didn’t want to think what I was thinking, didn’t want to deal with a potentially confusing new discovery.
She glanced at the seat like she’d just noticed it. “Just a baby. I’m watching him for Dana. She does that, you know, watches other people’s children.”
I tried to believe her. I wanted to believe her. But the coincidence was too big—a high council member had given birth to the baby I’d been ordered to find . . . Mel had claimed to know the mother. Now I find a high council member, my mother, who had no reason to be here, in Madison, with a baby in Mel’s basement. The conclusion was obvious.
I stared down at the child. Chubby cheeks, dark hair . . . not enough for me to say yea or nay, but then I saw the cow . . . the flat cow Tess had been holding at camp. I realized then I hadn’t seen the seat or the stuffed cow since. Jack must have sneaked into the yard and stolen them too.
We’d gone to Walmart thinking he’d need supplies without even realizing he’d already done a little shopping in our yard.
Damn him.
And damn my mother.
I turned my attention to her. “He’s yours isn’t he? You’re the council member.”
She looked like she was going to argue for a moment, then seemed to remember herself. She squared her shoulders. “Yes. He’s mine.”
I stared at the seat and the wiggling body inside it. “I have a brother. A brother I’ve been ordered to capture so he can be killed. How nice.”
My mother stood with her hands on her hips—angry but not alarmed. She thought she could beat me. Who was I kidding? She was on the high council. Of course she could beat me.
But then I’d come here to tell Mel I’d defied orders. There was no reason for my mother to beat me, challenge me, even. We were on the same side, or should have been.
The infant made some gurgling noise. Our mother didn’t look down, but I saw her twitch. She noticed; she cared.
For some reason that hurt.
“You defied the council for him,” I stated. She had never defied anything or anyone for me. I had never come first; I’d been an afterthought, someone who followed her around, got in her way.
“I had to,” she replied.
I laughed. “You’ve never done anything because ‘you had to.’ Don’t pull that now.”
Her eyes flared, more emotion than she’d shown me my entire childhood.
“The council wants him killed, you know.”
She tilted her head. “I heard.”
I tapped a finger against my leg. She wasn’t playing the game, not how I wanted her to. Of course, I didn’t even know exactly how that was. Frustrated and pissed off, at her, the Amazons, and myself, I spun and left the room.
She followed me, pulling the door closed behind her.
That at least was somewhat satisfying. That at least said she was a little concerned over what I might do.
“He’s your brother, Zery.”
I looked back. “Half, I’m assuming. Unless there’s something else you need to tell me.” This baby was the son of a son. If he and I shared a father . . .
She shook her head. “No. You’re right half brother.”
I licked my lips. For a second I’d thought . . . I shook my head. I wasn’t the daughter of a son. No reason to think about what that revelation might have meant.
“So, half brother, and the son of a son. Is that part true? Did you sleep with a son,
Mother?”
“I wouldn’t be the first or, I’m sure, the last.” She looked at me strangely then.
For some unknown reason my mind jumped to Jack. I growled. “Was it on purpose? Did you do it to have some kind of superbaby?” A baby who could grow up to be everything she wanted him or her to be?
“Why would I do that?”
It wasn’t an answer, but then again maybe it was.
“What happened at the high council?” I asked. “When they found out.”
She did the damn head-tilt thing again, to one side and then the other, as if deliberating if I could handle her response. “You got your orders. You know.”
Actually, I didn’t. I had been kept in the dark more than anyone, but I didn’t want to admit it to her.
“But you are on the high council. Was there a discussion? Was there a vote?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you care, Zery? Does it matter? Is there anything I can tell you that will make you see my side?”
I’d already seen her side, but I wanted her to explain it to me. Wanted her to try and convince me. I’d say beg me, but that would be like waiting for a hyena to roll over and ask for a belly rub.
“Try me,” I responded.
She sighed, although from her it sounded more like an exasperated huff. “The high council is split, but not evenly. Of the twelve members of the council, three feel strongly that we should return to the old ways, kill our sons. Three feel strongly we shouldn’t and the rest are spineless, indecisive wastes of time.”
Now this was the mother I knew and genetics dictated I love.
I answered drily, “So, you went to great lengths to woo the middle to your side.”
Anger flared in her eyes. “They chose to vote with fear rather than strength. I reminded them we are Amazons. We have nothing to fear. Yes, one son surprised and attacked us when we didn’t know about the threat, but we do now. We are prepared or can be if we get to know the sons better. The more we learn of them, the stronger we will be.”
“And the babies? Where do they fit into this? Are you planning on turning them over to the sons to raise?”
