Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  “If Rick loses control of his leopard, that could make for an awkward international incident.”

  “Cop talking for sure. And I don’t care.”

  Aya sighed. “I don’t know how to blend both the brother and the cop. I feel awkward and foolish and all my words are clumsy.”

  “I noticed.” A small smile accompanied my words.

  “Yes. Well.” He drove in silence for a while before he sighed. “I don’t have time to build a relationship with you before the Sangre Duello.”

  “You may never be able to build a relationship with me.”

  “This is true. But I will try. Until then, I have a job to do too.”

  “Go for it.”

  “As a part of that job, I have to find a way to be at the Sangre Duello.”

  “I’m not in charge of royal vamp protocol.”

  “That’s Leo’s Enforcer talking, not the sister.”

  “Potato, potahto. I have a job too. Talk to Leo’s secundo heir, Grégoire, when he gets in from Atlanta.”

  Blandly, Aya said, “He’s back from Atlanta. And I tried. He asked me to have a three-way with Leo.”

  I snorted. I didn’t mean to. It just blasted out. My laugh felt vastly different in tone from Aya’s. My laugh was stilted, sarcastic, stiff, as if I had never learned to laugh as a child. Or had forgotten how a hundred seventy years ago. Still, the grin I gave him was bright and teasing and at least it felt natural.

  Aya glanced at me and back to the street, his own lips turned up. “According to Adelaide Mooney, Grégoire is totally ‘gaga’ over me, and I should consider myself caught in the crosshairs of an intense and concentrated seduction once the Sangre Duello is over.”

  “You should be scared. Very, very scared.”

  “I am not a homophobe,” he said. His lips curling higher. I knew that smile. It was mine, seen in the mirror. “The Cherokee Nation accepted same-sex marriage back in 2016. Among the speakers of Diné, the Navajo, the two-spirited are referred to as nàdleehé, or the transformed. The Lakota call the two-spirited the winkte. To be two-spirited is a commonly accepted truth among a lot of tribes; the Mojave, Zuni, Omaha, Aleut, Kodiak, Zapotec, and Cheyenne all accept multiple forms of sexuality. But I’m straight. And even if I wasn’t, there is no way in hell I’m doing a three-way with two vamps.”

  “Chicken.”

  He laughed, that amazing, carefree laugh. The laugh I might have had except for two white men who killed my father and raped my pregnant mother and then had the misfortune to fall into the clutches of a war woman skinwalker and her blood-vow-bound grandchild. “Yes,” he said. “I accept that judgment. Back to my job. They call you the Dark Queen. Want to tell me why?”

  “That?” I said. “That was a cop move. And though I might have told my brother all about it, I’m not telling a cop. Figure it out on your own. And by the way, you must suck as an interviewer.” I shook my head, disgusted.

  Rain spattered on the windshield, growing stronger. Lightning flickered in the distance. Silence settled on us, uneasy, though not exactly troubled. We shared genes, no history, no common ground.

  “It seems I have no finesse when it comes to you,” he admitted. “But, I have something for you. It’s in the glove box, in a white bag.”

  I frowned at him. He got me a present?

  As if he read my mind, Aya said, “Uni Lisi—Sixmankiller—overnighted it to me.”

  My frown grew deeper, darker, and I stared at the glove box as if it might hold a water moccasin. When the box door didn’t open all by itself and something venomous didn’t slither out, I pulled the handle and spotted car rental papers and a brown-paper-wrapped package. I studied the return address and the name: Hayalasti Sixmankiller, with a PO box number in Robbinsville, North Carolina. The box was light but not empty. I tore the paper, careful to keep the address whole, and set the paper aside. The tape on the box broke easily with my fingernail and I lifted the top off, shoved aside the cotton padding, and saw a medicine bag. It was old—ancient. It was the bag I wore in my soul home. I knew instantly that it was my father’s.

  Green-dyed leather on one side, rougher rawhide on the other, much like Aya’s, but so old it was dry-rotting. It should have been buried with him. Or given to his eldest child. Me.

  “Oh,” I breathed. And caught his scent. Tobacco, sweetgrass, cedar. The faint but still present scent of the Nantahala River. Tears raced down my face. I touched the bag, and though the edges were crumbling, the center was still pliable enough to take the slight weight. There were hard things inside. A bone? A quartz crystal?

  “Uni Lisi put something in it for you. For when you’re ready.”

  I nodded. Not ready. Not ready just now. Maybe not ever. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  At the house, I leaped out and raced through a sudden deluge to the door. Soaked to the skin, I worked the lock as my brother drove off into the storm. Lightning cracked down, one of the ubiquitous lightning storms of the Deep South.

  I finally got the lock open and dashed inside, into chaos and screaming and commotion. Edmund—up after dawn, probably only because of the storm and the darkness it gave the day—and Eli were fighting a woman, both men covered in blood, as were the walls and the floor. With the two of them fighting together they should have killed an attacker in the first two seconds and they hadn’t. Yet, this wasn’t a sparring match. It was too bloody for that. Their opponent was a blond vamp, all claws and talons and rage. It was a testament to my exhaustion that I didn’t even blink at the brawl, though did think that it would be a pain in the butt to get the blood off the walls. Again. But I did smell lemons.

  I opened my mouth and let the flavor of her blood flow over my tongue and the roof of my mouth as I slouched in the entry, watching, trying to remember the vamp. And then it hit me. Bruiser’s scion. Nicolle. I frowned, not able to remember her last name, if I’d ever heard it. Bruiser had drained her energies and taken her memories and then gifted her to Ed. I had no idea where Ed had been keeping her, but somewhere not close enough. Someone had gotten to her and claimed her for Clan Des Citrons.

  I parsed the scents, smelling lemons and the sharp, sour, stagnant pond scent of madness. Her wrists and ankles bore ligature scars the way vamps’ skin looked when it had been burned by silver.

  “Where is she?” Nicolle screamed. “I’ll rip her heart out!”

  I figured she meant me. Just a wild guess.

  Ed vaulted across the kitchen table, his talons ripping at her. More blood on the walls. Crap. If the lemon clan set her free and tracked her, then they knew where we lived. If she had gotten away—which her scarring suggested—then if I shifted to blood hound, I could follow her back to them. If I was willing to risk losing myself to the hunt and never finding myself again. Becoming blood hound was dangerous.

  Beast thought at me, Ugly dog. Good nose. Do not want to be ugly dog tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

  I slid my hands into the slits in my clothing and pulled weapons. A wood stake and a semiautomatic nine-mil. It was loaded with regular ammo, but it should slow her down. Nicolle was a young-ish vamp and they tended to be less resistant to weapons of all kinds.

  I hesitated, remembering the path of blood Aggie had shown that I was treading. But. I wasn’t killing. I was swatting down a crazy-assed vamp.

  “Nicolle!” I shouted.

  Everything stopped. And then Nicolle leaped at me, totally vamped out. I raised the gun and fired. Mid-center body mass. She didn’t die but she did scream, that awful ululation of a vamp dying, or thinking they are. She dropped to the ground, landing in a three point balance, a tripod, both feet and one hand. When she thrust herself up, I stabbed low, into her belly, hitting her descending aorta, or whatever passed as such for vamps. She fell. Lay there, paralyzed, leaking onto the wood floors. If our house was ever a crime scene, the cops would think the place had been the
home base of a couple dozen mass murderers.

  Ed and Eli fell back, exhausted. Ed pushed off his perch almost instantly and went to Eli. “Let me heal you.”

  My second set his weapons on the kitchen table for cleaning and pulled off his T-shirt. His dark chest was scored with talon marks and too much blood. Ed sliced his fingers with his blade and went to work healing the bleeding mess. Neither man looked at me.

  “Somebody want to tell me what’s happening?” I asked.

  Edmund huffed softly through his nose. I was pretty sure he was breathing to make up for the battle and his own blood loss. “She came in through the back. Over the brick wall. From Katie’s.” Fear slammed through me. I turned that way and Ed said, “Dion called. Everyone is fine. He locked the girls in the kitchen and threw holy water on Nicolle.”

  I toed her over and spotted a scald on her shoulder and neck. Nicolle glared at me. It was all she could do with the ash wood in her belly. That and leak.

  “And she wanted . . .”

  “To kill you,” Eli said. “Natch.”

  Natch was my word and I shook my head at him.

  “She was dropped off at Katie’s by a dark SUV,” Alex said. “Plates reported stolen an hour ago.”

  I shifted my body forward to see him and Bodat coming out of the laundry room where they had taken shelter. The Kid was armed with a handgun. Bodat was carrying a broom and was more pasty than usual. He also stank of fear.

  “No way to track her back to the enemy,” Alex said.

  “Is there always this much blood?” Bodat asked, his voice shaky.

  “This is nothing,” Alex said, his voice light but his eyes hard, maybe remembering his own near-death.

  “Alex, please call for the Council House’s cleanup crew.” Ed bent and lifted Nicolle into his arms, which must have shifted the position of the stake in her belly because she swiveled her head to me in one of those not-human moves that’s a lot more like a lizard or a bird than a mammal.

  “George is mine,” she whispered, the smell of the lie on her breath, leaking from her with her blood and the scent of lemons. “We love each other. We have been lovers for weeks.” When I didn’t react she shouted, “He’s mine!”

  “She’s been turned by Des Citrons,” I said. “We need to know where they are. How many they are. What their plans are.”

  Edmund hesitated as if weighing my unspoken command to drink her down. “I will discover all that she knows, my mistress, assuming that she knows anything at all.” That sounded as if he agreed with my unspoken request, so that was good. “Rosanne Romanello has decided not to participate in the Sangre Duello. Therefore, I will have Nicolle shipped to Sedona at sunset.”

  Nicolle screamed, “Nooooo!”

  Ed carried her deeper into the living room, where he opened the hidden door into his sun-protected hidey-hole and slipped inside. The shelving unit closed behind him, cutting off her scream.

  “Eli?” I asked.

  “I’m good. Coulda used a few more minutes with the fanged healer, but it’s after sunrise.” He looked out the window at the drenching rain before he started up the stairs. I followed, taking in his back. In the human world he would have needed stitches. Maybe a lot of stitches. In the ranger world and the world of vamps, not so much. “What?” he said to me, as if he could tell I was staring at his wounds.

  “Ed missed some. You need an urgent care center.”

  “Whyn’t you just put pressure on it all and tape me up. Ed can heal me tonight. It’ll be more expedient than a trip to urgent care.”

  Expedient was Eli’s word, used whenever I wanted him to get medical care. Home remedies were more expedient than drugs. Pressure and butterfly bandages were more expedient than stitches. “Dumb man,” I said.

  Eli shrugged, which made him bleed faster, and led the way to his bathroom.

  * * *

  • • •

  I pulled the covers over my head, hearing rain scudding against the windows. Not thinking. Not feeling. But I rolled back and lifted the boxing gloves off the bedpost, snuggling with them under the covers. Breathing deeply of Onorio scent. Wishing I could tell Bruiser about the sweat house and the revelations of my past. Wishing he was here with me, holding me.

  Dreams dragged me under.

  * * *

  • • •

  Bruiser texted me after one p.m. with the words, Lunch? My place? Not cooking but got goodies. Will send a car. Subtext: he’ll send a car instead of worrying that I’d walk and confront a killer again. The shooter (if there had been one aiming for him, or me, or both of us, the last time I took a walk) was still missing. The lemon-smelling one. Right.

  I texted back, Send car in 15. I’d had nowhere near enough sleep, but the five-plus hours would have to do. Besides, I needed to tell him about Nicolle’s attack and see what Alex had on Clan Des Citrons. I hung the boxing gloves back on the bedpost and crawled out of bed.

  I threw on jeans and boots and a leather jacket. It was almost cool enough in NOLA for my traditional winter wear. I kept weapons to a minimum—a couple of stakes, a short-bladed silver-plated knife in my boot, and a single-holster shoulder harness with an old but trusty H&K. Left my hair down. I was ready ten minutes before the car was due and so I woke up Alex, who was asleep on the couch. “Update.”

  Alex made a noise that could have come from a seventy-year-old woman as he sat up and woke his electronics. “I got more vid of the car that picked up Dominique at HQ. One was a security cam shot of the car.”

  I felt something settle heavily in my midsection, right above my vaunted gut.

  “And?” I asked softly.

  “Brive-la-Gaillarde, France, is the hunting territory of the Blood Master of Clan Des Citrons. Her name is Julietta Tempeste. And she came to the U.S. on a tourist visa two months ago. She was sucking face with Dominique in the getaway car.”

  “Last known address?” I asked.

  “Charleston, South Carolina. But I tracked one of her credit cards to a Hampton Inn off I-10, four days ago. She checked out. Probably in town now.”

  “Probably sent people ahead to gather up any dissatisfied local fangheads.”

  “I’ve put a ping on her credit card use. If she shows up I’ll let you know and get as much of the video of her entourage as possible, with IDs and dossiers. But I got more.”

  “Go on.”

  “There was another face in the SUV.”

  “Crowded.”

  “Right. And the face was someone you fought before. Bancym M’lareil.”

  I’d staked Cym, but she had gotten away. I should have found her again and taken her head. Hindsight and all that. Regret was a bitch. “I’m betting Dominique took her off the battlefield when I killed Shoffru and healed her. Then they swore to the lemon heads.”

  “Probably working with the enemy from the very beginning,” Alex said.

  “Thanks, Kid. Bodat?” I nudged him awake where he snored in a chair. “Either shower or you can move the desk to the back porch.”

  “I bathed yesterday!”

  “Day before, dude,” Alex said.

  Bodat sighed and headed for the stairs.

  “Hey, Kid,” I said. Alex turned his head to me again. “You done good.” Alex grinned with pride and tilted his head at me in a gesture that was pure Eli.

  * * *

  • • •

  It was still raining when I got to Bruiser’s third-floor apartment. I knocked before opening the door and toeing out of the Lucchese boots I had pulled on against the rain. The music was turned down low, something bluesy and jazzy all at once and the place smelled heavenly. Bruiser smelled even better when he opened his arms and I exhaled against his chest, sorta melting into him. I was tall, too skinny, but solid muscle and stronger than most men, thanks to my skinwalker abilities. But Bruiser was bigger and taller and though
I was capable of taking care of myself, he always made me feel safer. And there was something about a man in a soft flannel shirt and worn-out jeans that hyped up the comfort level for me.

  “Are you well, love?”

  “I’m just ducky. And you smell fabulous.”

  I felt his mouth curl up against the side of my head. “I have smoked salmon, butternut squash soup made with white wine, three flavors of goat cheese, and bruschetta.”

  “Sorry. What? I zoned out after smoked salmon.”

  He chuckled and took my hand, leading me to the kitchen and the tall white leather stools that fronted the island. It was cool today and Bruiser had kept the tall French doors closed on the temps and the rain so it was cozy in the apartment. He poured me a glass of white wine, ladled steaming butternut squash soup into big soup bowls, and set one in front of me. He was doing the three-course-meal thing. Probably as the only way to get me to eat anything more than the meat.

  Tears filled my eyes. I blinked them away, but not before he saw them, or smelled them.

  “Jane?” Alarm in his tone.

  But I held up my hand and shook my head. “I’m good. Just sleep deprived and tired and . . . and I feel so . . . grateful? Happy?” I reached over and took his hands, squeezing them as I bowed my head, saying a silent thanks. Wordlessly, I listed the ways my life was better, richer, happier. Tears scalded down my face as I silently prayed.

  When I stopped, he said softly, “And I am eternally thankful for Jane Yellowrock in my life. Amen.”

  I lifted my eyes to his and was startled to see tears pooled there, mirroring my own. Except I was all salty and snotty and splotched, I was sure, and he was still gorgeous.

  “There was a time when I believed that I was nothing in life without the Mithrans, without my position with Leo. That without his blood I’d be useless and lacking in value of any sort. And then I met you, a woman with enough power to stand against him, tall and strong and vibrant. Without being dependent on drinking blood.” He kissed my knuckles, released one hand, and lifted his glass in a toast. “You give me courage to be Onorio. To Jane Yellowrock.”