Before the slayer could react, Amy pushed him back with her shoulder.
Which gave me an opening to step forward. “Mother, the...”
Her hand flew up. “As has always been, in these walls, I am Matron first. Now more than ever.”
I swallowed my anger, promising myself to feed from its reserves later. “Fine, Matron. Before the council arrives, I want you to know that this baby is now under my protection.” I took Mina back from Amy’s hold. “Before you and the council go off making plans for her, just remember that nothing is happening to Mina unless I agree to it.”
Bitterness laced into my mother’s tone. “Who died and made you its mother?”
“Her mother did. Before Mina’s birth, before you barged in, silver blazing, and sliced off Inga Rosethorn’s head, Alex asked me to be the baby’s godmother. I accepted.”
“Were there witnesses?”
Anya’s voice was tiny. “I did, I witnessed it.”
Brünhild was unimpressed. Perhaps she sensed the lie. “Let me rephrase that. Did any of the righteous witness this?”
I clutched at my throat. “That’s never been a requirement before. A pact was made between two supes grounded in honor and witnessed by a third. Our laws should allow for that claim to stand on its own.”
Brünhild’s hands became fisted hammers. “When both parties acknowledge such pacts, and are recognized members of their community. This slayer’s word may serve on behalf of her fallen kin, but yours must be likewise validated.”
I took a step forward, my teeth gnashing. “Then rescue Tobias Somfield from the Ravens, and let him give testimony.”
Check. Mate.
Brünhild’s brow furrowed, her chest heaved as she fumed the anger in her heart. “Why would he know anything of this child?”
Cody’s voice, evidence of his weakened resolve, cracked. “Geri had a quickening, Ms. Kline. They’re bonded now, and anything you do to that baby is only going to hurt your daughter even more.”
“Bonded? How would a child of a slayer bond with a werewolf?” My mother’s face went ashen as she leapt to her feet. “Are you saying that child is an illustrian?”
“And by legal rights, your granddaughter!” My father, silent until now, used his words with great economy, dropping the mother of bombshells on the bombshell of all mothers.
I, however, was still caught up in what she’d said before. “What’s an illustrian?”
“An illustrian is a...” Brünhild fell back into her chair, her eyes glossy. “It’s impossible. How would such a thing come to be? The slayers were living in Vlad’s harem, and surely this did not come about by accident. A vampire of his age and status would surely know that bringing an illustrian into the confines of his clutch would be like pouring poison into the well.”
It took my mother stating what should have been the obvious question for me to see the obvious answer.
“He created it to kill Igor.” The words echoed in my ear before I realized I’d been the one to say them. I looked to the others, daring any one of them to correct me.
No one said a word, until my mother spoke, clutching her stomach. “Very well. Until such time as the alpha wolf Tobias Somfield can present testimony, I recognize temporary guardianship of the babe born to Alexandra, a slayer, and an unknown wolf, by Gerwalta Kline. But, daughter,” her eyes pleaded as she looked up at me. “I must point out the obvious: The child is a slayer, a race endangered and in desperate need of every one of its members. Are you sure it’s in the child’s best interest to be raised by a...”
“A hood?” I supplied when Brünhild proved unwilling or unable to give me even that recognition. “Was it in my best interest to be raised by one?”
The blow landed right where it was aimed, my mother’s pride. Brünhild winced. “Are you of the opinion that I did you some disservice by refusing to let Inga Rosethorn kill you all those years ago?”
“No, of course not.” I tried to swallow my fear and almost choked on it. “You did me a disservice by knowing I was different, and refusing to accept me as I was.”
“I was protecting you from a knowledge that would make you a target.”
“The only thing you protected me from was the lies of our ancestors.” I ran a hand over Mina’s soft head as the babe lay peacefully in my arms. Her eyes cracked open, searching. “I will never treat my daughter that way. She will know all that she is, because there’s no shame in any of it.”
“There is no shame, but there is great danger.” My mother looked up. “The child could be weaponized.”
Instinctively, I moved closer to Anya and held Mina tighter. “I’ll kill any who try.”
“I have no doubt.” As Brünhild rose, circling the table, part of me wondered if this was the moment I’d have to fight my mother. Instead, only her gaze touched the babe I held, examining from a few feet away, before turning on my father. “This child is not my grandchild.” Then, softening ever so slightly and bringing her eyes to me, she added, “But it is still an innocent. The council will not be made aware of what she is, but they will sense her wolf nature. How will we explain?”
Was she actually asking me for advice? “Tell them she’s mine and Tobias’s, that the request to have Petunia’s help for one of the slayers was just a cover because I was the one who was pregnant.”
I’d never gotten out of the car the day I tried to convince Chin to let me in, so she wouldn’t have known from seeing me that I wasn’t pregnant.
My mother fanned her fingers through the air. “Petunia attended Alexandra, though.”
“She would say that was a cover, if the Grand Matron ordered her to.”
“You are suggesting we lie, the very sin you just laid at my feet not three minutes ago.”
My mother never spoke just for the sake of talking, and even though she could be cruel, she was seldom spiteful. I sensed that, perhaps, highlighting the conflict was an effort to ask me not to be so hasty of her judgements.
“I realize that,” I admitted. “Maybe if I had more time to think, I’d have a more honorable solution. But as you like to say, honor is a currency bought over years and spent in minutes.”
It was as good as I was going to get: owning up my hypocrisy while not absolving hers.
She bowed her head. “I will speak with Petunia once the council adjourns, then.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Cody stepped forward, keeping his arms as still as possible to avoid the silver slipping onto unmarked flesh. “Geri, think about this for a second. The last time I checked, it would still be a capital offense for Tobias to sleep with a hood. You say Mina is the result of him and you getting together, there’s no point in rescuing him from the Ravens. As soon as he’s free, the council will command his execution.”
We all spun as my mother let out a Disney villain-worthy laugh.
Which, for some reason, pissed me off. “Something funny, mother?”
She buried her smiled into her fist. “How could the council convict Tobias of anything? Geri’s been relinquished for over a year.”
Cody persisted. “Yeah, but she’s a still a hood, so—”
“Not in the way that matters to them.” My words cut off Cody and everything else I had been thinking. “When Tobias and I finally manage to be together, it won’t be a crime.” I spun on my mother. “Did you do this on purpose?”
“What? Disown my only daughter and my sole heir just to keep her from harm?” Though she tried to keep her face flat, I saw the miniscule flicker at the corner of her mouth. “That decision was made for many reasons, but none of them was to appease your heart.”
“I know it wasn’t.” I closed the distance between us in three steps. “It was to appease your own.”
And for the first time in many years, I threw myself into my mother’s arms.
TWENTY
AMY
My mother read Alice in Wonderland to me when I was nine. She was drunk at the time, probably doesn’t remember it, and I’m sure embell
ished it with her interpretation of what the mouse-in-the-teakettle and falling down the rabbit hole were meant to symbolize, but the metaphors didn’t elude me the way sobriety often did Mrs. Popowitz.
Seeing Geri forgive her mother after two-plus years of non-ending under-her-breath instigations about what a sucky mother Brünhild had been ranked up on my “miracles can happen” list with painless dentistry and the legalization of pot. Yeah, none of those things had fully happened either, but they were goals people worked towards that might actually come to be totally true. I just hoped that as Geri fell down the rabbit hole, she didn’t forget what had led her there to begin with.
No sooner had Geri and Brünhild had their Hallmark moment (and yes, I did hear Pietro’s sniffle) and separated than the worst fashion catwalk featuring the least beguiling hooded-cloak models of all time march in. As we collectively fell back, I heard Versace turn over in his grave all the way from Triberg. Each matron wore a different color. I’d known from discussions I’d had with Geri that the other bloodlines existed, I guess I just didn’t realize how many there were: twelve in all, one of them dressed in red like Geri’s mom and another dressed in yellow like her dad would have been if I wasn’t using his cloak as a poncho. I tried not to think about how that meant Geri had grown up in a ketchup and mustard house, but once the thought popped into my head, I laughed out loud.
Chin slithered into her chair at the council table. “Silence, huey interloper!”
“Matron Chin!” Brünhild’s voice lacked any of the softness it had had just moments before. How could she so easily flip from secretly-protective mother to badass mutha in a blink? I wanted to be this woman’s acolyte.
The Grand Matron’s acidic stare corroded the white hood seated to her right. “Surely you did not mean to insult the slayer’s castellan and our guest.”
“The slayer’s....” Chin’s throat bobbed as she swallowed down her shock. “I did not realize the slayers had a castellan. My apologies, Miss...?”
“Popowitz,” I said. And though I had no freaking clue what a castellan was (seriously, did she tell me off?) or what my role was supposed to be as one, I wasn’t about to let a shame door go unused. “Matron Chin, as the kaz-ellen, speaking for the slayers, and given what went down yesterday, I wonder if we can review the terms of the contract you have in place with my peeps right now.”
Brünhild blinked. “Your peeps?”
“Yeah, you know...” I pointed vaguely behind me. “My peeps. My tribe. My slay-yahs.”
The Grand Matron cleared her throat. “Mr. Helsing, does Miss Popowitz have the permission of the community to speak on its behalf?”
Which, of course, everyone knew was a resounding, ‘no the hell I did not.’ I’d just been annexed into their community not ten minutes ago – when would they have had time to do a welcome-and-please-take-a-seat-as-our-representive-on-the-student-council mixer?
Even Geri was giving me the wide-eyed treatment, but what were this bunch of silver-sycophants going to do, kill me? Come on, I had an American passport and an American Express Black card. Both had been left behind in Istanbul, but still... Since Geri had made me call my parents and tell them where I was at during the long wait at the hospital, I at least had contacts on the outside who knew where I was and how to raise a diplomatic crisis.
I didn’t wait for Caleb to answer. “I’m new at supernatural negotiations, so I have to ask what might be obvious to other people. Is it customary to offer refugees aid only on a quid-pro-quo basis in this neck of the woods? Because where I’m from, that’s called exploitation.”
Chin sneered. “You’ll find our customs do not often align with what the huey world...”
But Brünhild put her big ol’ bitch shoes down on that squawk. “Matron Chin, is this true?”
The Asian matron guffawed. “Grand Matron, you yourself have discussed with the council many times the danger posed to the wolves by the clutch of vampires that calls itself the Ravens. Is it not our duty, therefore, to seize an opportunity to eliminate them when it presents itself? They are slayers, after all. That is their reason for existing, to destroy those vampires who would throw the supernatural world out of balance.”
Geri stepped forward at that. “The supernatural world is out of balance! And don’t try to act like you’re suddenly so concerned with the wolves’ wellbeing, either. Matron Smyth: I’ve heard some very interesting stories from one of your former lupines about the way the House of Green treats its subjects in England, which makes me think that the biggest threat to them isn’t vampires, but hoods.”
Chin found Markus and focused on him. “Mr. Kline, did you not report Vlad Tepeş’s own claim that his intent was to dismantle the foundation of lupine society by undermining their ability to bond? How is that not a threat, then? One we must bar against by any means possible. The slayers came to us looking for help, and we’ve offered it, though it is not our place to do so. Did they not receive food? Shelter? Weapons? Even a physician for the delivery of that...” Chin motioned at Mina “...thing.”
When Brünhild got herself a fist full of white cloak and pulled Chin’s face to her own, even I could tell the shit was about the hit the fan.
“It is a baby, not a thing,” she hissed. “A very special baby, as the case may be. Do you even know who the mother of this child is, Matron Chin?”
Obvs quaking in her leather boots, Chin shook her head. “No, Grand Matron.”
Brünhild’s eyes dashed to Geri. “My own daughter.”
“Impossible.” The Green Matron clicked her tongue. “The child is wolf. We all can sense it. Unless... Unless your daughter has lived up to the name.” With that, Matron Smyth rose to her feet. “I call for a vote of confidence in the leadership of Grand Matron Brünhild Kline. How can she lead us with such obvious conflicts of interest?”
Geri’s mom... was piiisssseed. But, like, in a quiet way that made her more terrifying than before. It was like Hannibal Lecter had become a fairy tale character. I’ll eat your liver with some magic beans and a nice chianti.
Yan coughed a laugh. “What conflict? Their interest is highly compatible. It is merely your ingrained biases and animal natures which sets you at such odds. Your common humanity should bring you together, not enable you to destroy each other.”
Meanwhile, a woman with drop dead brown eyes and sandalwood skin, wearing a black cloak, spoke up. “We are not the animals, Mr. Sousa, they are. Quite literally.”
“Are you not?” The vampire motioned to Cody. “Look how the blood weeps from his wrists where the silver burns. And for what? Has he committed some crime? Demonstrated some behavior which marks him as dangerous in your eyes? No, you bind him in poison merely because he dares to be in your presence.”
A guttural sound ripped from Chin’s throat. “It is not your place to speak on hood-wolf relations. Hold your tongue, leech.”
“Leech?” The normally sedate vampire who’d even managed to make me think he was a pushover spoke in a hissy voice. Oh, fur was about to fly. Or fang. Or... whatever. Metaphors are too cerebrally challenging around supes.
“You spiteful, power-hungry wench. I am four hundred and fifty years your senior. How dare you address me that way?”
Brünhild drew to her feet, pulling silver out of her ass for all I could tell. All I knew was that her hand went up empty, and by the time she slammed it down on the table, she had a freaking mallet formed on the end of her fist. The ricochet of its ramming brought all tongues to a sudden standstill.
Except for Mina, who chose this moment to work a gentle whimper into a full-blown howl.
“Enough!” the Grand Matron bellowed. “This bickering achieves nothing. Let me confirm that any contract made with the slayers was done without my knowledge or consent. Miss Popowitz, tell your people that I absolve them of any expectations and that our assistance comes without strings.”
I felt everyone’s eyes on me. And, honestly, if I could turn my eyes clear around in my head, I’d be lookin
g at me, too. “Um, will do?”
Brünhild bobbed her head. “Now, Matron Chin, a motion has been made for a vote of confidence. As the vice-matron, it is up to you to recognize the motion or not. What say you?”
Chin made an attempt at a backbone, straightening in her chair and turning hungry eyes on the gaggle of matrons. One by one, they turned their eyes. With each tick of her head, the ego so big she must have built up some hefty calves touting it around deflated a bit. I saw the moment she realized it was a no-go; all the features in her face melted like that horrific scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, only less liquid-y. “I do not recognize the motion.”
“Good, now that that is out of the way...” Brünhild resumed her seat. “Inga Rosethorn is dead.”
Exclamations went up around the table, before a hood wearing a brown robe asked, “How?”
The Grand Matron exchanged one look with us watching in the peanut gallery and said, “Beheading.”
“Good,” Smyth said. “The slayers have only been back a month now, and they are already bringing balance.”
“No, I am the one who killed her,” Brünhild corrected.
Even the easy-going Black Matron recoiled at that. “But she has been our ally for decades!”
“No more,” Brünhild said. “I have spent the last few weeks ferreting out her activities. I believe she was attempting to find a way to reconcile herself to her brothers, and rejoin their cause. She would have betrayed the slayers under our protection given the slightest chance, as she was attempting to steal the baby when I killed her.”
I was so not up on the Dracule family drama, but even I knew that was bad. Looking to Geri and Caleb, I found two people who defined the expression “shell-shocked.”
A matron wrapped in pink, but dressed in something that looked more like a floor-length head dress then the other’s riding cloaks, leaned forward. “Markus has briefed us on his findings in Istanbul, that the Ravens seek to undo lupine social structures in some sort of ill-conceived form of revenge,” she said, sounding like that Bollywood movie that one boyfriend made me watch. “But I am confused. How is it that this involves us? Other than our protection of the slayers, and that conflict could be remedied by negotiation, why are they our concern?”
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