Jane Yellowrock 14 - True Dead

by Faith Hunter

  “He’s mine!” I shouted.

  The guard looked up at me and took a step back. Moving his weapon to me. I’d been wrong. This human was not mine.

  Two shots sounded. The human fell.

  Quint had taken him down. And missed me. Good shot. Maybe as good as Eli. I leaned across to my brother. Aya’s wings fluttered. One was broken. One eye was gone. His jaw hung open. His chest was scored, but I had no idea how deep. Bloody feathers all across his chest. I holstered my weapon and sheathed the bloody blade. No extra DNA needed to be around him.

  “Cover me,” I instructed Quint. Without looking her way, I slid my hands beneath Aya. His bird weighed about thirty pounds. He had lost a lot of mass transitioning to this condor. He needed to shift before he died in this form, before he lost the ability to remember he was human. I carried him to the busted sidewalk where he had left mass, and placed him on the center of the gelatinous, rocky, hard, rubberlike goo. I waited. He tried to get to his bird feet. His head was wobbly on his neck. Panicked. Dying. He wasn’t going to change in time. I didn’t have my crown. All I had was the Glob. It didn’t give power for workings, it stole power, sucking it away.

  I looked at Quint. “Can you get my crown out of its protective hedge?”

  Quint bent toward me and extended a finger. She wiped the corner of my mouth. Muzzle. I was heavily cat-faced. Her finger came away bloody. I had been injured fighting Ka. “Alex and I can.” Almost vamp-fast, she was gone, through the front door, which was still open.

  I cradled the wounded and dying bird in my knobby hands, crooning to it, stroking it, keeping my own blood away from it.

  Seconds later Quint and Alex were back, kneeling near me but away from the rubbery, rocky mass.

  I accepted my crown from Quint. She wiped her bloody finger off on my clothes, giving me back my unused blood. But I smelled burned flesh. She had injured herself getting my crown. I slapped le breloque onto my head. Instantly it sized to fit me. Went hot enough to blister my flesh. The Glob heated in my pocket.

  I drew on my skinwalker magics. The silver mist of power rose from my half-form. I had healed vampires before. I had healed myself before. I could do this.

  Right. I could also kill Aya trying.

  I didn’t have time for fear.

  I envisioned Aya in his human form. I pushed at the power that was mine. But instead of directing it at the bird, I directed it at Aya’s mass on the ground. Somewhere in that stuff was Aya’s perfect DNA. And maybe most of his skinwalker magics. Crap. Did I leave behind my magic when I lost mass? I didn’t know.

  I closed my eyes. Eased my power into the rubbery mass, feeling/scenting/knowing chemicals I had no names for. Scenting proteins, things that sizzled with power, things that felt inert but were alive. Felt through them until an electric power met mine. Skinwalker power.

  The Glob sought to pull the energies away. I reined the weapon in but kept it ready. I drew on le breloque, directing its might into the skinwalker energies. And shoved it toward the dying bird.

  Aya, I thought. Ayatas Nvgitsvle, named for the Nantahala Panther of the Panther Clan. Come to your true form. Nothing happened. Time passed. Too long. I pushed more skinwalker and le breloque power into him, trying the words in the half-remembered Cherokee of his introduction to me, the first time he appeared at my door. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi, Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi of Ani Gilogi. Seek the form of Aya. Come back to yourself. Your battle is neither won nor lost. You must be human-form. Come back to yourself.

  Inside me, something like longing woke. Something that might have been the memory of abandonment combined with the memory of loss, loss of family. The memory of our father dying. I pushed harder. Do not make me become a beloved woman to fight in my brother’s stead. Alone. I have been alone for too long, without my kin. Without my clan. Come back to me! I lay across the mass of my brother, cradling his bird.

  Come back to me.

  God? You can’t take this away. You can’t take him away. You can’t. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t!

  I was sobbing, shoving my magic into Aya. Tears and snot dripped down my chin. I wiped them on my shoulder to keep from contaminating his mass with my DNA. I hadn’t even let myself get to know him. I hadn’t tried. I had pushed him away like a kid, out of anger and spite. I had been so damn stupid. “Come back,” I demanded. And then it hit me. Rule of Three. My voice hoarse and shaking, I said, “Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Nvdayeli Tlivdatsi. Return to your human form.”

  Something tingled and quivered beneath my arms. I eased back just a bit. Wiping my face again. Through the trembling sheen of my tears, I watched as Aya’s skinwalker energies lifted out of the pile of my brother’s mass. I eased back farther. The concrete of the sidewalk cracked and broke again, the mortar used in the construction shattering as the magic tightened, the energies growing thicker, black motes whirling like tornadoes in the midst.

  My magic never looked like this.

  The mass on the sidewalk drew together. I pulled away from the shape-change, watching, feeling the energies through le breloque. A human form began to coalesce out of the rubbery pile and the dying bird and the energies. I crab-walked back, bumping into human legs that gave way for me. A palm rested on my shoulder, fingers warm. Eli. Comforting. I lay my cheek on his hand. Alex was on the other side, hand on my shoulder.

  Slowly. Painfully Aya reformed. Solidified out of the boiling energies.

  His body was quaking, shuddering, muscles vibrating, curled in a fetal position. And pale, so very pale. I pulled back all my skinwalker energies, the energies of le breloque, and shoved down hard on the Glob. Locking it down.

  Aya took a breath. I knew that sound. That sound meant his lungs had been in shutdown, and the instinct to breathe had forced his chest to expand.

  I stood, leaning on Eli. “He’ll be hungry.”

  “Oatmeal cooked but in the fridge. Three pounds of sliced beef. Twelve boiled eggs. All cold as sin but calories ready to eat. I’ve lived with you long enough to know what’s needed, Janie.” His voice was kind, telling me he had my back.

  I nodded. “I have to check on Storm.”

  Eli tensed. “It isn’t good.”

  I shook my head, thinking, When is it ever?

  “I’ve called Soul,” he added.

  Without checking for traffic, knowing without looking that my people had blocked off both ends of the block, I walked into the street and across. Opal and Pearl were in human form, holding Storm in their arms. Storm was unmoving, her dragon form coiled and still. Her sisters hissed as I approached. I ignored them and knelt at Storm’s side.

  The one thing I knew for certain about le breloque was that at some point, one of the two rings that make the crown had belonged to the arcenciels. I drew on the crown again and placed a hand on Storm’s frilled face. I had no idea if arcenciels had hearts or pulses or lungs. I moved my hand over her horns and tusks and the delicate skin that frilled out around her head. I moved down her body, touching, shoving with my magic. Nothing was happening. The tears that hadn’t dried were dripping down my cheeks, landing on Storm’s body. I was sobbing. Tears and snot and boohooing like a child who had been kicked as grief wracked through me. I wrapped my arms around her body and hugged her, praying for my god to heal her, praying for her goddess, if she had one in her world, to heal her. Nothing happened. Nothing helped. Her coils were lifeless. The magic I tried to push into her went sluggish just beneath her snake skin. I reached for the horrible wound. The flesh there was blackened and smelled of hot iron. The magic I shoved there swirled into the wound and bounced back. Knocking me off my feet to my butt. My knuckles scraped the pavement. Ripping off skin to the bone. I rolled to my side, ready to try again with Storm.

  And I got a look at the human-shaped body lying nearby. Curled on its side. Burned and blackened where the lightning had struck it. Facing me. Adan’s lightning victim.

  Bloodied and scarred. Vamp fangs had torn through his throat. His eyes were open and c
ooked where the lightning had burned him. Derek.

  Derek. My friend.

  Storm.

  I raised my face into the dawn. I screamed. Grief shriek. Battle cry. The sound of loss and fury echoing off the brick walls and into the sky. My entire body heated and tore. My joints and bones popped. I sucked in a breath of rage and I roared.

  I couldn’t fix Storm. I couldn’t fix Derek.

  I didn’t know what I was doing. I never had.

  Around me, the pavement erupted. Cracking and bubbling and dusting into its component parts. Tarry shards and concrete shot upward. At me. Into me.

  The pavement smashed me in the head.

  * * *

  * * *

  I woke, lying on my side, on Bruiser’s fancy rug beside my bed. My face was on his pillow, my body swaddled in blankets. Bruiser was behind me, cradling me. I had been here long enough for someone to wipe the tears and the snot off my face.

  Exhaustion weighed me down like lead in my veins. Breathing hurt. Bruiser stroked my hair—which felt different, but I couldn’t say why—and down along my shoulder. He knew I was awake. My tears started all over again.

  When I could talk I asked, “Eli? Did he shoot Grandmother?”

  “No, my love. She got away.”

  “Aya?”

  “He is well.” Bruiser kissed my fingertips.

  “Storm? Derek?”

  Gently, he said, “Gone.” When I didn’t open my eyes, he added, “Derek’s body has been taken by honor guard to the funeral home. His men have gone to tell his mother that her son is gone. Storm was collected by Pearl, Opal, and Soul. I understand that they are taking her to the rift and placing her into it so that her energies can return through it.”

  “Adan?”

  “Vanished when Opal and Pearl attacked.”

  “Why?” I meant why did Adan kill Derek, and Bruiser seemed to know that.

  “We think he’s the one who stole Derek from HQ. We think it was a test of the security system, someone to question, and a challenge.”

  Someone to question meant torture. Derek had been tortured. “Find Adan. Find who he’s working with at HQ. Start with Raisin. She smelled wrong.” The next part came out as a growl that vibrated in my chest. “They’re mine.”

  Bruiser breathed a soft laugh. “I never doubted that, My Queen and my love.”

  I was so tired my bones and joints ached. It even hurt to breathe. “Imma take a little nap right here. Wake me when y’all figure out who my enemies are at HQ.”

  Bruiser kissed me on the cheek, and I felt pelt between my skin and his lips, and the soft scrape of beard. He muscled upright to a knee and toes, his arms on either side of me.

  “I failed,” I whispered into the air between us.

  Bruiser rose to his feet. “You did not fail. We did not know the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses and so could not adequately prepare. Now we know, and you will make the Mithran world quake with fear. You are the Dark Queen. Le breloque has chosen you.” With those words, he left the room, shutting the door silently.

  I was left with the reverberation of his words and the memory of Derek. Dead. Storm. Dead. The humans the sniper had killed. Silently I cried myself to sleep.

  * * *

  * * *

  Like a vampire, I woke at dusk. I was pretty sure it was the foundation-rattling snore that woke me. Apparently when I have a muzzle and sleep on my back, I’m noisy. I was utterly certain that the boys would tease me unmercifully, but that thought vanished as the memories washed through me.

  Derek. Derek was dead. Storm was dead. I was going to war, starting in HQ.

  I tossed the blankets and sheets into the corner because they were covered in cat hair and dried filth. I stripped and showered. Only when I was clean and my pelt rubbed half dry did I look at myself in the mirror. I was . . . interesting.

  I had a full golden pelt all over, except from under my chin, my boobs, belly, and along the inside of my thighs. Some parts that had hair as a human were bare. Weird looking. Somehow I had put on thirty pounds of much needed muscle. I was cat-faced, full nose and muzzle, fangs that would do an ancient vampire proud. Claws that terrified even me. I flexed them out. My finger claws were huge and sharp enough to rip armor. I’d have to be careful, or I might hurt myself. I had shoulders like a linebacker. Thighs of solid muscle. Calves that were so well defined it was as if this new body had been chiseled from stone. Or concrete and roadway.

  I had a cat face, cat ears sitting high and taller than usual, with unusual tufts at the end, like a caracal cat. My long hair was gone, a fact I had realized when I showered. That was strange. It was now short and kinda mane-like, almost like an African lion, but running down my back to my waist and black as tar. I reached up and tried to get a claw under le breloque. I cut my forehead. That sucker wasn’t coming off, and my head was bruised from sleeping with it on. Which was a totally unimportant and, considering the loss of two of my friends, irreverent thought. I let my claws resheathe and studied myself again. I was terrifying. In a way that I had never viewed myself, in a way that only another monster would view me, I was dangerous. I was fearsome.

  When my enemies saw me, they’d poo their pants.

  “Okay. Time for war.” I blow-dried my pelt, which took way longer than I liked, and dressed in the scarlet armor. But no boots because my paw-feet and claws were bigger than before. I extruded the claws on my toes. Yeah, they’d eat through the boots, even the specially made expandable combat boots. But the paw pads were tougher than usual, so I’d go barefoot.

  I weaponed up. Every weapon I had, including the newer Benelli spine rig and its shotgun, which someone had retrieved from the SUV and put on my bed while I showered. I had put on enough mass that I had to loosen the rigs. I made sure I had my lucky gold nugget in place and put on the titanium gorget, layering the gold and citrine over it. It matched the crown.

  I had never been pretty. But by all that was holy, I was badder than bad.

  I Velcroed the paper bag containing a scrap of the cloth stained with Grandmother’s sweat into a secure pocket. Debated on carrying the locket. I didn’t know what it did or if it might interfere with the crown and the Glob. I decided against it. Same for the winged lizard amulet.

  A soft knock came at the door. I smelled Quint’s scent from beneath. Thema was with her. “Come,” I said. Leo-like.

  They entered. Looked me over. Thema started laughing, approval in the tone. Quint merely nodded and adjusted the position of my weapons for more perfect draws.

  I was starving, especially with the scent of seared red meat coming through the cracked bedroom door. With my newer-better-sniffer nose, I could also smell baked potato slathered in butter, sour cream, and bacon. There was also something vegetably that smelled of alkaloids and chlorophyll, and made me want to gag.

  I glanced in the mirror one last time. Satisfied that I looked like the Dark Queen should, I strode to the partially open door, grabbed the doorknob, and pulled it open. Ripped it from its hinges. Threw it across the room. Quint, battle reflexes always on high, ducked fast.

  The door hit the far wall with a wham that I felt through my paws and resonated through the house. It broke the wallboard. When I looked back out, Eli was standing behind the wall on the other side of the stairs with a weapon pointed at my chest.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  The minigun targeting me pointed to the floor. “Don’t know your own strength, babe?” he asked.

  “Clearly not.” I met his eyes, and his face was drawn with grief. Tears prickled under my cat lids.

  “Food?” he asked.

  “I seem to find the smell of veggies foul. Meat? Yes. And a lot of it. We have a war to plan.”

  “Three pounds of sirloin just for you. Rare enough to still be kicking. Sort of. Nice ears, by the way. I think you put on enough muscle to maybe take me down.”

  I snorted and strode from my bedroom, taking my place at the table, having to half-straddle the chair because of t
he weapons. The steak was tender; the fangs weren’t so big they got in the way of me chewing, which was good, because my throat closed up several times in grief as I ate. I could hardly taste the food. It was sustenance.

  When my plate was empty, I was joined at the table by Aya, Eli, Alex, and Quint. I looked them all over as I sipped my cooling tea. Each face, except maybe Quint’s, was etched with grief. Aya looked pretty good for a guy who had nearly died as a bird only hours ago.

  I set down my mug. “Any news on Leo’s whereabouts?”

  “Nothing,” Alex said. “We sent teams to every known possible lair. No sign of him anywhere.”

  I grunted and asked, “Anything on the newly installed cameras and microphones, and any recent sensor data from HQ?” When Cowbird Protocol went into effect again, Wrassler and his security crew had installed mics and cameras in areas of the Council Chambers that had previously been off-limits, and they were all accessed into Alex’s system.

  There was a peculiar silence after my question. Eli got up and served me dessert, which was a side of bacon.

  “Yeah. We got stuff,” Alex said.

  I shoved three crispy bacon slices into my mouth. “I’m listening.”

  “You’re not gonna like it.”

  “Didn’t expect to.” I chewed.

  Alex talked. The more he talked, the angrier I got. When I saw the video and heard the conversations, that anger went from hot to cold and determined. My nose and the hidden surveillance equipment had finally found our biggest traitor. The lynchpin.

  I was Dark Queen. It was my job to make sure justice was carried out. And for once I’d take pleasure in death.

  * * *

  * * *

  As I walked into the repaired airlock at HQ after dusk, my presence was being announced over the building-wide communication system and into my headset. Humans and vamps came out of the woodwork to get a look at me, watching as I walked through the inner airlock doors, my armed entourage behind me. I stood there waiting, the vamp scents rising, floral, herbal, bloody. Letting them look. Letting the vamps smell me. Predator. Top of the food chain. More vamps and humans arrived in the foyer, stopping; the vamps silent, still as stone; the humans whispering, breathing, shuffling into better positions.