Twiceborn

by Marina Finlayson

  I strode off into the crowd with a confidence I didn’t feel. Garth thought the plan was dodgy. Hell, I thought the plan was dodgy, but it was the best I could come up with. Letting Leandra out to play was a risk. More than a risk: I felt ill just thinking about it. But Lachie was in danger, and Leandra was my only weapon.

  Garth called that madness; I called it being a mother.

  The crowds packed in tight around the Quay: anywhere with a harbour view pulsed with wall-to-wall people. I saw party hats and feathers, and everything from evening wear to T-shirts and bare feet. I gathered invitations and suggestions from all sides, some ruder than others. Everyone was out for a good time, but there were just so many people. I threaded my way through, past the ferry terminals, the ice cream vendors and the inevitable buskers. Pushing against the human tide, I could see my destination, its steel and glass hulking above the crowds, but couldn’t seem to get any closer, like one of those dreams where you keep running but never move from the spot.

  Overhead a train rattled into Circular Quay station, hardly noticeable above the roar of the crowds and three or four competing sources of music. Barges were moored in the harbour, floating platforms for the fireworks. When the light show started, the massive speakers around the foreshore would pump out a matching soundtrack. I hadn’t been for years; the crowds and the heat always gave me a headache, and Lachie and I liked to curl up on the couch together and watch it all on TV instead. Much more comfortable, and a better view.

  Plus you didn’t get jostled by drunken idiots all the time. I pushed on, fighting my way through the crowd.

  It was nearly 11:45 by the time I made it to the Toaster, and then I had to wait while the building security checked their lists for my name. The concierge looked nervous, as well he might, with hordes of drunken revellers outside his door. I swallowed hard and tried to hide my own nerves.

  The lift pinged and three shifters stepped out, all tall unsmiling men dressed in suits. One was a werewolf and the other two looked like goblins from their auras. Maybe I should have been flattered Nada was being so cautious, but I’d been hoping for a smaller escort. One of the goblins patted me down for hidden weapons, then gestured me into the lift. God knows what the concierge thought of that. None of them spoke.

  The lift was spacious, and they gave me plenty of room. The young werewolf pressed the button for their level and the doors slid shut, reflecting our strained faces back at us in the polished steel surface. The floor beneath my feet began to vibrate as the lift lurched into motion. The werewolf seemed particularly jumpy, so I chose him.

  I felt that weird internal pressure I’d come to associate with Leandra’s attempts to take charge, and for once I didn’t fight it. She couldn’t care less what happened to Lachie; the only person who mattered to Leandra was Leandra. But for now that meant our goals were aligned. She wanted the stone—and I wanted the power to turn this werewolf to my will as she’d done with Micah.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Quiet,” said one of the goblins, but the damage was done. The young wolf automatically looked at me when I spoke, and I caught his gaze.

  He had no chance. The battle for his will was over before he even knew it had begun.

  “Mistress,” he breathed.

  The goblins’ heads twitched round. Too slow.

  “Kill them.”

  He leapt for the throat of the nearest, face lengthening into a snout that sprouted fearsome canines. I turned on the other as he whipped a gun from under his jacket. His first shot went wide as I cannoned into him, grabbing at his arm. It sounded like the end of the world in the confined space. One mirrored wall shattered, and pieces of glass rained down on us.

  The wolf snarled and the other goblin screamed in pure terror as he struggled to hold those jaws away from his throat. They thrashed wildly in the confined space. Ninety kilos of wolf slammed into my legs and I went down, losing my grip on the gunman’s arm.

  The gun blasted again and the wolf yelped and fell still. The first goblin lay under it, struggling for air and trying to hold the pieces of his throat together. Every breath made a nasty burbling sound. The goblin with the gun clambered to his feet and trained it on me with a shaking hand.

  “Get up.” His eyes were wild, his aura roiling like a storm cloud. “And I swear to all the gods if you open your mouth I’ll put a bullet through your brain, whatever Valeria says.”

  I climbed to my feet and picked a sliver of glass out of my forearm. Blood welled slowly in the gash. I clenched my other hand around it, my head throbbing with a fury I dared not give voice to, not with a gun trained on me. Too smart to be caught like his colleague, the gunman watched my face but made sure not to meet my eyes.

  Damn Valeria and her paranoia. Two I could have handled, but three was too much. Why hadn’t I brought my own werewolf to the party to even things up? Just because the stupid human female was worried about her brat. Her love and fear swelled like a tidal wave inside, threatening to overwhelm me. I couldn’t allow myself to be tainted by her human sensibilities. More than likely the child was dead already, and my hopes and my safety had been put at risk for nothing.

  The lift chimed as we reached the highest floor. The goblin stumbled out backwards as the doors opened behind him, never taking his eyes—or his gun—off me. I stepped over the bodies and followed him. The werewolf began morphing back to human form, with the usual disgusting sound effects. With a bit of luck the compulsion might survive the change.

  We entered a marble vestibule which laboured under an abundance of gilt. Gilt on the massive mirror facing the lift, gilt on all the picture frames, even on the edges of a marble hall table that supported an enormous vase of flowers. The mirror caught my expression of distaste as I surveyed it. All it needed was some red velvet and we could have been in a bordello.

  “What the—?”

  Three other shifters came to horrified attention as they took in the scene in the lift, and the vestibule abruptly filled with people.

  Two enormous men who surely had troll blood took my arms and a solid wall of bodies formed up around me. They marched me toward double doors with yet more gilt decorating the panelling. No second prize for guessing who waited on the other side. I lifted my chin.

  Valeria may have won this round, but I wasn’t done yet. My channel stone was so close I could almost smell it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  We entered an enormous room, decorated in a way that screamed I have more money than taste, if the gilt-infested foyer hadn’t already delivered that message loud and clear. Overstuffed white lounges hulked like herds of albino elephants by the floor-to-ceiling windows, and pale marble columns rose from the snow-white carpet. In fact, pretty much everything was white, and preferably with added marble. By day the effect must be blinding, with the sun streaming in those enormous windows. At the moment the view of the sparkling night city outside was spectacular.

  The Harbour Bridge glowed softly, its steel arch flung across the water like some giant Meccano set. A myriad boats bobbed on the water around it, all showing their own lights, while the great white sails of the Opera House bulked in the foreground. Below, people swarmed the horseshoe of Circular Quay, jostling for the best position to see the coming fireworks. From here they looked like a pulsing carpet of ants.

  Valeria lounged on one of the white leather monstrosities. She wore a long strapless evening gown, also white, with her blonde hair cascading over one bare shoulder. It reminded me of the ridiculous Grecian thing she’d worn at the bushfire. That had been white, too. Someone must have once told her it brought out her tan.

  Nada sat opposite Valeria, all in black, her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun. If they had a few more people they could have gotten a job as a chess set.

  “Have a seat,” said Valeria, gesturing me to the place beside Nada. “We’re just waiting for the rest of our happy band to arrive.”

  Lachie? My heart leapt and I shoved Leandra out of the driver�
�s seat with a wave of maternal longing mixed with terror.

  “Drink?” Valeria offered.

  “No thanks.” I wasn’t falling for that one again. The leather squeaked as I shifted as far from Nada as possible.

  “Suit yourself.” She sipped champagne, probably something French and expensive, and watched me with a self-satisfied smile.

  “Something amusing you?” I sat back, feigning relaxation, though I felt wound so tight I might fly apart any second.

  “Several somethings, in fact. Ah, here he is.” She set her glass down with a tiny clink as the door opened. “Jason, so good of you to join us. And look, I’ve invited an old friend.”

  Jason stopped in the doorway, eyes darting between the three of us as if trying to assess the threat. Valeria’s smug smile widened at his obvious discomfort, and Nada looked like a little kid on Christmas morning. Vultures, the pair of them.

  “She’s no friend of mine.” Jason strolled over and perched on the arm of the chair next to Valeria’s. “She’d happily kill me if she thought she’d get away with it.”

  Typical Jason dramatics, though it was no overstatement as far as Leandra was concerned. Her anger and hatred at being so close to her murderer nearly unseated me, and a brief battle raged between us for control.

  “So sad how many modern marriages end that way,” Valeria mused, “with love turning to hate. Why does she feel like that, would you say?”

  Jason must know where this was heading, but he played along, choosing his words with care. “She holds me responsible for the death of our child.”

  “But he’s not dead at all, is he?” said Nada, unable to contain her glee a moment longer.

  Valeria shot her a look of pure venom. She’d obviously been enjoying watching Jason squirm on the end of her hook.

  “No, he’s not.” He squared his shoulders and challenged Valeria directly. “What of it?”

  “What of it?” She took another sip of champagne. “It’s a matter of trust, you see. You’ve been with us half a year, and in all that time you never once mentioned the child was not, in fact, dead. You can imagine my distress at having to find out from someone else that my most trusted lieutenant was keeping secrets from me.”

  She didn’t look distressed. She gave every appearance of a woman enjoying herself immensely. But then, she always did enjoy watching other people suffer, even as a child, if the reports were to be believed.

  “I went through your bank records,” Nada said, “and found these regular payments to your herald friend. I knew you weren’t giving him that much work. So I got into his account, too, and lo and behold! the exact same sums were being transferred to a private boys’ school. A very expensive boarding school—and yet the herald has no sons. Who could they possibly be for?”

  She gave him a look of mock confusion. Smug bitch. I’d like to punch her in the face. Judging by Jason’s expression, he felt the same way.

  “I wasn’t hiding him from you,” he said to Valeria. “I was trying to keep him safe from Leandra. I knew leaving her for you would make Lachie a target. She wouldn’t stop trying to kill him unless she thought he was already dead.”

  Valeria pouted. “I’m hurt that you didn’t think you could trust me to keep your little secret.”

  “I didn’t want rumours getting back to Leandra. It was better if no one knew.”

  But someone else must have known—the goblin who’d created the changeling. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what had become of him or her. Nothing good, I bet. Ben was lucky he’d still been useful to Jason, or he might have been in danger himself. Not that I cared what happened to that jerk, of course.

  “And yet Leandra has been dead for days. Did it somehow slip your mind?”

  “I meant to tell you, of course. There just hasn’t been an opportunity. We’ve had more important things going on.”

  “You told her.” Nada indicated me with a contemptuous tilt of her chin. “You sent her running to King’s to try and stop me.”

  “In fact she’s been in on it the whole time, hasn’t she?” Valeria abandoned her languid pose. She set her glass down with a force that threatened to shatter it against the marble tabletop. “First she turns up at Leandra’s place and cuts out her channel stone—funny that, I thought you said you’d poisoned her. She’s there again at Alicia’s, leading Alicia’s troops against me.” That seemed a rather generous interpretation of my role. “And then she scuttles off to King’s to do your bidding.”

  She fixed him with an icy stare. “None of these seem like the acts of a woman who’d like to kill you.”

  Outside thousands of voices roared and a blast of music split the air. Midnight. The night sky lit up with colour as the first of the fireworks exploded. All around the foreshores a thousand tiny white lights flashed as people tried to take photos of the show.

  “She’s a herald,” Jason protested. “It’s sheer coincidence she was at Leandra’s. And then Nada nearly screwed everything up by kidnapping her and dragging her and that spitfire Luce into it.”

  Valeria laughed. Red and orange fireworks exploded behind her head like a fiery crown. “A coincidence? Really, Jason, you’ll have to do better than that. She cut Leandra’s channel stone out. And as a result, unless I’m much mistaken, my dear sister has taken up residence inside her.”

  She turned the glare on me. Damn. I’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice the aura. That was the risk of letting Leandra take charge. That tell-tale glow appeared every time she did. Outside the crowd roared their appreciation as the music switched to a thumping rock beat.

  “You always did like to experiment, didn’t you, Leandra?”

  “My name’s Kate.”

  “I don’t quite understand how you did it, but I gather it’s something to do with this.” She opened one hand and showed me the channel stone. My pulse started to race. “Ah. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I wonder what happens if I destroy it? Shall we find out?”

  A timid knock interrupted her. The young werewolf from the lift entered, hunched over submissively. He’d obviously changed clothes. Apart from a certain wildness to the eyes, nothing suggested how badly he’d been hurt just a short time before. The same probably couldn’t be said for the unfortunate goblin he’d attacked.

  “I thought I said we were not to be interrupted,” Valeria snapped. “What do you want?”

  He bowed deeply, bent almost double in his efforts to placate her. “A herald, mistress, with an urgent message.”

  She waved impatiently. “Give it to me, then.”

  “From royalty, my lady.”

  Which meant it had to be delivered by the herald’s own hand. Must be from Elizabeth. I’d long suspected her of actively aiding Valeria in the proving. Probably not good news for me.

  The herald entered, an older man with an unflattering grey moustache. Why did men insist on growing facial hair as soon as it started thinning on top? To prove they still could? He was rather stooped now but he must have been about Ben’s height in his youth.

  Hang on … I looked closer. It was Ben. He bowed to Valeria and showed his Hermes charm, as protocol required. Then he gave her an envelope sealed with red wax. As soon as she took it he bowed again and withdrew. He didn’t look at me, and I made sure not to look at him again either. I might be mad at him but that didn’t mean I wanted to see him cut down in front of me. What the hell was he doing? It couldn’t possibly be a genuine message, could it? Coming here was a terrible risk. Valeria would be within her rights to destroy any herald found to be tampering with—or, God forbid, making up—messages.

  But apparently the message was genuine. Valeria slit the envelope and pulled out a single dragon scale, gleaming silver. No mistaking one of those. And it was snapped clean in half.

  Well, well, well. Alicia must have found her courage after all.

  Valeria leapt to her feet, face livid. A broken scale was a death threat. Guess she didn’t like being on the receiving end for a change. Lord knows she�
��d dished plenty of them out. Even I’d received one, though it had taken Jason six months to catch me off-guard enough to make good on it.

  “Alicia is alive?” she roared, and flung the pieces of scale to the floor, where they winked with reflected light from the fireworks.

  Outside the music thundered to a crescendo and the night exploded with light in all the colours of the rainbow. Rivers of white light began to pour from the deck of the Harbour Bridge, a foaming waterfall of fire.

  Things were heating up in here, too. Valeria hurled her champagne at a marble pillar. The shattering of glass brought the timid werewolf bobbing back into the room, but when he saw his mistress’s face he decided the clean-up could wait till later.

  She whirled on Jason. “This is all your fault! They’d both be dead by now, and I’d be heir, if it weren’t for your meddling.”

  Jason wiped a drop of her spit from his face. She might be a queen’s daughter, but he was old and not easily cowed. “You’ve been listening to Nada’s poison too long. I’ve been nothing but loyal to you since I left Leandra.”

  She laughed, a brittle sound nearly lost in the noise of cheering from outside as the last of the fireworks exploded like gunfire across the sky.

  “You’re such a bad liar. You could at least come up with something convincing instead of bleating about loyalty. You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  That was rich. Pot, meet kettle. I glanced around, trying to be discreet about it. How fast could I make it to the door? They were all distracted. Even Nada seemed to have forgotten me. Her face was alight with the excitement of seeing her arch-enemy taken down.

  Maybe I could lock them in and compel the young werewolf to help me. I only needed a few moments to find Lachie and make a break for it. We could easily lose ourselves in the crowds outside.

  Valeria was right up in his face, spitting her words at him. “What was the plan, Jason? Did you think you could set yourself up as a king with this abomination? You’re mad. No one would accept this half-human thing as their queen, especially not with you behind the throne pulling the puppet strings.”