Queen of Hearts

by Michael-Scott Earle

  Sivaha didn’t bother slowing down so that the man wouldn’t get injured.

  “Where would you like me to go?” she asked as her lips curled into a smile.

  “How about the highway?” I asked, and Buso tried to scream.

  “Sounds good,” she said as she angled the car toward the onramp.

  Buso got one of his heels hooked over the side of the door, but that one slipped off as he kicked up his other leg, both of his knees slammed into the speeding asphalt, and I could feel his frantic screech try and escape up his esophagus.

  “Don’t fucking move or I’ll put you outside again,” I growled to him as I yanked him up and then pulled him into the car so that his upper back rested on my lap. Tears of agony were coming out of his eyes, and he tried to nod.

  We hit the freeway, and Sivaha pushed the convertible up to a hundred and eighty kilometers an hour. We blew past four off ramps, and then I gestured for her to get off at the next one.

  It was the area where I had grown up, and I knew all the nooks and crannies of the buildings. Even if the cops tried to chase us with aerial drones, I knew plenty of places where we could hide.

  “Left up here,” I told her when we hit an avenue lined with shitty apartments and dilapidated factories. “There is an old oil refining plant at the end of this road.”

  “Understood,” she said as she turned, and a minute later we were parked under one of the massive metal tanks that had once held Ganymede’s oil exports.

  I flung Bosu out of the car and then leapt out of my seat to stand next to him while he gasped. The once powerful lord seemed like a terrified child, and I wondered how I had ever respected him.

  “Let’s talk about my mom,” I said as I crouched next to him.

  “Your mom?” he gasped as he tried to massage his throat.

  “Yes,” I said. “You took her so I’d have to do that mission for you.”

  “Bakeneko?” he asked with confusion, and I realized he didn’t know I’d changed from a human into a weretiger. His terror made a bit of sense now since he might only have thought that a giant walking tiger-man had grabbed him.

  “Yes,” I said. “This happened to me when I went to prison. They took me for medical experiments. Now, where is my mother?” I pulled out my pistol and rested the barrel against his chest.

  “You’ll never find her,” he spat, and his eyes were suddenly fierce. I didn’t know if his fear before had been an act, or if he was no longer terrified because he knew who I was.

  Either way, I was tired of fucking around with this asshole, and it was time for blood.

  “Husband,” Sivaha said as she rested a hand on my shoulder. Her touch caused my bloodlust to relax a bit, and I turned up toward her beautiful face.

  “What?” I growled.

  “Will you allow me to use my talents?” she asked with a subservient nod.

  “Yeah, fine.” I rose from my crouch and took a few steps away from them so that I could double check the sky for police drones.

  Sivaha began to whisper to the yakuza boss, but I didn’t pay much attention to the words. My thoughts were filled with the time I had served with them, the tasks I had performed, and the transition into jail.

  In some ways, I was grateful to Bosu-sama. He had given me a high paying job that covered Hanekawa’s medical bills when I couldn’t find employment elsewhere. I knew the work would be unsavory, but they had respected my wishes and only kept me on jobs that I felt were honorable. I didn’t really want to take the fall for Yuri, but they had promised they would always take care of my mother and sister, so I’d signed up.

  This would have ended so much differently for Bosu if he’d just kept his side of the bargain and continued to pay for them to live. It wasn’t like he didn’t have the money to do it, he’d just lost his honor, and that was why the yakuza had started to slip.

  And soon, they would be gone from Ganymede. All because they pissed off the wrong fucking weretiger.

  “Husband,” Sivaha called to me, and I turned to walk back toward them.

  “Is he ready to talk?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said as she stroked the man’s face. “You really want to help me, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Bosu said. “You are so beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. What do I have to do to make you mine?”

  “Where is Bakeneko’s mother?” she asked.

  “She is in a safehouse in the south side of the city,” he answered.

  “What is the address?” Sivaha asked.

  “1768 Florida Road,” he replied.

  “I know where it is,” I said.

  “How many guards will be protecting her?” Sivaha asked.

  “I sent eight men to pick her up,” Bosu said. “Please, can we become lovers? I want nobody else but you. I have plenty of money and a castle.”

  “Do you have your phone on you?” I asked him as I realized that Sivaha’s control over the man was probably powerful enough to get him to have his goons bring her here.

  “No,” he said as he turned his dreamy eyes to me. “We left in a hurry. You were coming to kill me.”

  “We’ll have to go to them,” Sivaha said. “Is there anything else you wanted to ask?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but can you turn off what you are doing to him? I want to ask him while he isn’t obsessed with you.”

  “Understood,” she said, and the drunken expression slid from the man’s face. He blinked a few times as if he had just woken up and then his jaw clenched.

  “Why did you stop paying for my mom and sister?” I growled.

  “We needed the extra money to fight against the Triads and--”

  “Bullshit,” I interrupted him. “Their payments were a drop in the bucket compared to what you make.”

  “Yuri asked me to,” Bosu said with a sigh. “Perhaps I spoiled my son.”

  “Well, he’s fucking dead, so maybe you should have told him that honor was more important than making his spoiled ass happy.”

  “Yes,” he said as he bowed his head. “I have made many mistakes, but can you forgive an old man who once took you under his wing?”

  “No,” I said, and then I raised my pistol and sent a bullet through his heart.

  Sivaha and I stood in silence for fifteen, maybe twenty seconds while I stared at Bosu’s dead body. I half expected her to say something, but she must have felt my conflicting emotions and all she did was nod at me when I turned to face her.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We have eight more fuckers to kill before we can get my mother, and then we are going home.”

  “Home?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Nordar - 13. Where I am king.”

  Chapter 9

  The safehouse was on the other side of town, and that presented us with a problem. It would take us thirty minutes to get there, and there was no way I could hold my shift that long. Even though I wasn’t feeling the beast threatening to take over my mind like I normally did, I could still feel the monster patrolling in my subconscious like a greedy vulture.

  Kuroda had given me some advice about controlling my tiger nature, but I still didn’t feel as if I understood what he wanted me to do. His words seemed to be part Zen philosophy, part violence, and part misogyny. I felt as if I was doing a better job of focusing my aggression, but I was still in the company of one of my women, and I had asked her to help me with this mission. Was asking Sivaha for help making me less powerful?

  I didn’t know the answer, and I kind of wished Kuroda was here so that I could ask him.

  But then again, Sivaha had proved to be an amazing partner for this.

  Before we left, we raised the roof of the convertible so that I’d draw less attention. Then we had checked and evaluated the ammunition for our weapons and driven away. She gave me sideways glances as we drove out of the oil refining plant and took to the freeways, but the beautiful Nordar woman didn’t speak.

  Sivaha didn�
��t need to speak though. I could feel her emotions so I guessed what was on her mind.

  “What’s worrying you?” I asked after we hit the freeway.

  “How long can you stay like that?” she asked.

  “Thirty minutes,” I growled, and I noticed my words were still coming out of my mouth clearly.

  “It must be reaching that time. You feel angrier.”

  “I might have to shift back before we get there,” I said.

  “Doesn’t that make you sleep?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I can kill these men for you while you sleep in the car,” she said.

  “No,” I growled. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “What are the options?” she asked.

  “I will try to hold this form,” I said.

  “But if you can’t?”

  “Then I will shift back into my human shape and then kill these men,” I replied.

  “But what if you have to sleep?”

  “I needed to sleep after my last shift, but instead I commanded Persephone against the Black Heart squadron.”

  “Ahh,” she said with a nod. “That is a fair point.”

  “I feel as if you have another idea,” I growled as I fought against the rise of anger.

  “One idea is that I kill the men while you rest, save your mother, and then drive you both back to the airport.”

  “What is your other idea?” I asked.

  “We get a hotel somewhere,” she purred.

  “It will take too much time,” I said. “It’s fine, I can change back into my human form and still kill these fuckers. When I started on my rite, I killed a few uinu-bairs and then walked for another day before finally sleeping.”

  “Ahh, those are the massive furry creatures on Nordar - 13 - a?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m guessing that you don’t have those in your home system worlds?”

  “No,” she replied. “We have other creatures for the rites of passage. If you are going to fight as a human, perhaps you should change now?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I had thought about holding out for as long as I could in my tiger-man form, but Sivaha was right. It would just make it harder for me to recover.

  I forced myself to relax in the convertible’s chair and turned my mind to the ocean. My human form came to me surprisingly easily, but exhaustion hit me almost immediately afterward.

  “Your fur retreats in through your skin, and your teeth turn into a human’s,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I replied.

  “When you shift into the tiger-man, your human teeth fall out. Does it hurt?”

  “When my teeth fall out?” I asked.

  “When you change from human to tiger,” Sivaha clarified.

  “Yeah, most of the time.”

  “Most of the time? How about when you change back into the human form?”

  “That sometimes hurts, but most of the time it doesn’t.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, and I felt her emotions twist.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You worry about what the scientist said.”

  “How do you know what went on with Yu and me?” I asked, and I finally opened my eyes to look at her.

  “I ferret out secrets,” she admitted. “I might know more of what is happening on your ship than you do.”

  “I doubt that,” I said. “Unless you are using your powers on the other crew members.”

  “I am not,” Sivaha said.

  “Good,” I replied. “Don’t, or I’ll--”

  “Husband, we were getting along so well. Should we pause our conversation until there are more of your enemies to murder? I do not wish to make you angry.”

  “No,” I said. “Sorry. Go ahead. Tell me what you were thinking. I want your opinion.”

  “You worry that you are not human,” she said with a shrug.

  “Yeah. I don’t believe it.”

  “Yet you lose your human teeth, and you never lose your fur.”

  Sivaha’s words hammered into my chest like a sledgehammer, and I had to force myself to breathe for a few moments. Fuck. She was right. Had the answer been there the whole time? Why would I lose my human teeth? Why would my tiger fangs change into human teeth? Why didn’t I lose my fur when I changed? Maybe the evidence wasn’t conclusive, but she had made an excellent observation.

  “You are shocked by my words,” she said after I was silent for a minute.

  “Yeah,” I said as I turned my head to stare out the passenger window. City Four had some three million people in it, and the endless rows of apartment buildings dotted the landscape like blades of gray grass.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I always thought I was human,” I admitted.

  “Do you want to be human?” she asked.

  “What does that even mean?” I asked as I turned to her. “To be human?”

  “Exactly.” She smirked at me. “In my eyes, you were already more than human.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Do you want to be one of these people?” she asked as she gestured to the endless apartment buildings. “They have no control over their life. They struggle every day for their bread and water. You are king and I am queen. We are better than them.”

  “No, we aren’t,” I said. “I was one of them. We drove by where I used to live. I wasn’t born a princess. I didn’t murder my own siblings and father to become the ruler, I didn’t--”

  “But you killed your wife’s father, and you killed my previous husband. You and I are not so different. You can think you are one of the rabble, but you aren’t. We just killed fifty or so of them without much issue. Now we will kill eight more. Then we will return to your empire, and you will unite the rest of the Nordar clans under you. In the next few months, you will become the most powerful man to have ever existed, just as Odin wants. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t human, you might as well not be for how elevated you are over them.” Sivaha nodded out of the window again.

  “Now you are on that Odin kick too?” I sighed.

  “Yes,” she said. “I knew it when I saw my aegis. You do not need to complete the rite. You are already King of the Nordar, and I apologize for having doubted you.” Sivaha turned away from the road so she could look at me, and I felt a flurry of her emotions slam into me. She was grateful, happy, proud, and most of all, she was in love with me.

  “I don’t have to do the rite? What about your aegis makes you think that?”

  “It is two separate pieces,” she said as she turned her eyes back to the road. “I will discuss more with Madalena when I return, but I believe I am correct. First piece is that my armor has changed to that of the crow.”

  “Is that because you joined our clan? How does the armor know how to do that?”

  “It is because I am submitted to you, yes. However, you have not finished your rite, so your title should only be in name and not actually apply to the magic our people share.”

  “But your armor did change,” I said.

  “Yes, so the aegis recognizes you as the King of the Vaish. The rite will be unnecessary, but the second point is more important.”

  “Go ahead,” I said after she had paused for a few moments.

  “The aegis is changing. My helmet looks like a snow leopard or a tiger.”

  “And that isn’t supposed to happen?” I asked.

  “It happened once when the Nordar split into the clans some thousand years ago. It means Madalena is right, and you were sent by Odin to unite our people against the Draugr. The armor will continue to change and become an image of your soul, and a new clan will evolve.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Yes,” she said with confidence. “As I said, I will discuss with Madalena, but she has been of that mind since I first met you, so she will agree with me.”

  “Well,” I said with a laugh. “I guess it’s good I don’t have to do the rite. Hanging from a tr
ee for nine days doesn’t sound like a good time.”

  “No,” she said. “It would be a waste of your time. I have no doubt in my mind you would survive, but nine days is too long for you to spend on a task that isn’t uniting our people.”

  “Now you sound like Madalena, about the uniting our clans part. She still wants me to do the rite.”

  “She will not after I show her my aegis,” Sivaha said. “Hers might have already changed and she might not have noticed.” The silver-haired woman looked over at me and then down at my armor. “You will need an aegis now. It will be more powerful armor than any man-made suit.”

  “I’ll ask Madalena if she has a spare when we get back.”

  “She is holding her father’s for you,” Sivaha said. “I have already spoken to her about it.”

  “Ahh, okay,” I said. “I’m surprised you two hit it off so well. You didn’t seem to like--”

  “She is the Prime Valkyrie,” Sivaha interrupted me. “The most powerful woman in all of the clans. Kings and queens show her respect. Odin and Frigg bless her life. When we first met, I could not understand why she submitted to you. Sure, you are handsome and muscular, but you were not Nordar. I was wrong, and had I known then what I know now, I would have kneeled before you and submitted immediately.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to her words, but they made me feel better for some reason. There had been a part of me that disliked forcing her to submit to me, but her admission meant that weight was off my shoulders, and I was surprised at how heavy it had weighed on my soul.

  “My words have made you happy.” She could have asked it as a question, but she said it as a statement since she knew my emotions.

  “Why didn’t you try out to be a Valkyrie?” I asked to change the subject. “You’re a hell of a shot, and you move through combat just like I’ve seen Lux, Nikki, and Calisto.”

  “Hmmm,” she purred, and her lips formed the Cheshire Cat smile. “I thought about it, but I love sex too much.”

  I laughed, she joined in with me. The laughter pushed away a bit of my exhaustion, but I still felt like I wanted to sleep.