Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  “Derek is taking a scouting team,” Ed said. “Jane is too important in the search for Des Citrons to waste her talents watching carpenters ripping into walls and floors.”

  “But if Jane’s there she’ll make sure we have indoor plumbing. And hot showers,” the Kid said.

  “Showers. We don’ need no stinkin’ showers,” Bodat said.

  “Forgive my saying so,” Edmund said, “but that is incorrect. You both need showers, quite desperately. What did Jane used to call you?”

  “Number two? When she called my bro number one?”

  “She called you shit? Dude.”

  “Bodat. Shut up,” Alex said, sounding tired.

  “What? What’d I say?”

  “Stinky,” Eli said, his voice with that Zen modulation it acquired when he was cleaning his weapons. “Which we’ll call you again if you don’t go up right now and shower. Both of you.”

  “Jeez. You people,” Bodat said.

  “Upstairs,” Alex interrupted. “Let’s get cleaned up and you packed. Your bus leaves for the last inhabitable room in the toe of the state in half an hour. If you’re not in place we can’t set up cell or satellite, and Wi-Fi on the island.”

  I stepped back, into my bedroom doorway.

  “But what’d I say?” Bodat complained as they passed me without seeing me in the shadows.

  “Things will be more primitive than usual,” Edmund said. “I’ve seen the house, though that was over sixty years ago. Old-fashioned bathrooms and only two of them. No central heating or air-conditioning. The bedrooms without windows are limited so Mithrans will be sleeping several to a room. Humans will have only three or four rooms to choose from, mostly bunk-bed-style sleeping areas, if I recall. Ancient furniture.”

  Eli said, “George thinks we’ll leave for the island fast and the Duello will start in less than two days.” When Edmund said nothing, Eli asked, too casually, “Have you seen the proposed list of elimination rounds?”

  Edmund didn’t answer.

  “That bad?” he asked.

  “Everyone wants to fight Jane. Every single one of the Europeans,” Edmund said at last. “From Titus’s sous chef to his primo.”

  I heard soft clicks and snaps as Eli worked, growing more noisy than usual. Edmund’s admission had disturbed him. “Show me.”

  I had seen the list. I wanted to blow off steam. I slipped into my room and changed into exercise gear: tight, Lycra-based running pants and a padded sports bra. Bare feet. I walked into the living room and pointed at Eli. “Spar. Now.” Then at Edmund. “And when I wipe the floor with him, it’ll be your turn.”

  Edmund’s lips lifted faintly. “As my mistress desires.”

  I didn’t even bother to fuss about the mistress comment. I turned on my toes and raced up the stairs, across the construction mess, into the bedroom with the sparring mats. And faced away from the door, toward the windows. I let my body loosen. I breathed. Let my mind stop. Relaxed until a white haze filled my brain and body, not silent, but a place, a state of mind, an existence without sight, texture, or sound. An absence of sensation.

  Then I let it bleed back into me. A rubberized mat covered the wood floor. I let my soles feel the mat, the cushioned perception of weight, of gravity. I smelled the chemicals that composed the mat. Heard water come on in the showers. And I heard Eli enter the room, so silent a waking cat wouldn’t have heard him. The air moved. Smelling of Eli.

  I ducked, dropped. Opened my eyes. Captured my balance on one foot and both fists. Swung the other leg out and around. Missed him.

  Took a blow to my rib cage that sent me into the wall. I laughed. It sounded not quite right. I launched myself at him. Took a blow to my abdomen. Block block block. Strike strike. Blow. Block. Pain woke me up. My fists tightened. My crouch deepened a quarter inch. And I attacked. Fastfastfast. Beast chuffed through my throat.

  Eli’s heel came at my throat.

  Killing strike. Knowing I would dodge. Because I was faster than Eli. Always had been.

  Time . . . stopped.

  And then . . .

  I was standing in the room, eyes closed. Back to the door. And I smelled Eli.

  I dropped and rolled, shouting, “Edmund!”

  He was instantly in the doorway, the little pop of sound that announced a vamp moving fast. My eyes were wide. Eli, in attack position, was staring at me. I slammed my spine to the wall and foot-crawled hard, to stand against it.

  “Jane?” Eli said. “What?”

  “Time did something. I already had a fight with you. And now we’re starting over. Something’s wrong.” A spike of pain lanced through my head. And I remembered time doing something weird with Leo recently. Tears welled over and fell from my eyes. Scoured down my cheeks. Though whether from what was happening or from the memories of the tortured bodies of the Stephens family at the B&B I didn’t know. My skull spiked with pain and I wanted to hurl. I put one hand to my head and one to my belly, which felt hard and tight. “Something’s very, very wrong.”

  “I’ll make tea, my mistress,” Edmund said. “Eli. Come with me, please.”

  Eli looked like he didn’t want to go, but he followed Edmund. They left me there, alone in the spare bedroom with the fighting mats. The stench of rubber. And a body that hurt. As if I’d been beaten.

  * * *

  • • •

  In the kitchen Edmund was preparing a fast cuppa chai in the Bunn coffeemaker. Eli was sitting at the table. I pulled an afghan off the couch and wrapped it around me, ignoring that it smelled of Bodat and pizza. I was cold.

  I watched them. They seemed fine.

  I sat at my usual place. No one said anything.

  Upstairs, one shower went off. I hadn’t heard it come on in this timeline.

  Ed placed the mug of spiced tea in front of me. The cup was one with a saying on it. I DON’T NEED ANGER MANAGEMENT. I JUST NEED PEOPLE TO STOP PISSING ME OFF. The tea had a thick layer of frothed cream on top. My tears, which had stopped, gathered again, at the kindness. I wrapped my icy fingers around the mug and lifted it from the table. Sipped. The frothed cream made it perfect. The tea and cream were delicious and quickly helped my belly pain to ease. Ed put two Tylenol on the table and I took them without argument.

  “Jane,” Edmund said, when my mug was half-empty, “tell us what happened.”

  I gave them a blow-by-block-by-blow description of what I had experienced. They said nothing. I sipped. They looked at each other. Something about the exchange hit me as wrong, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Did Beast do the time change?” Edmund asked. “Your eyes were glowing gold when I got to the sparring room.”

  “B—” I turned my thoughts inward. Beast stared at me a moment, turned away, and padded, pawpawpaw, into the darkness of our minds. “Maybe,” I whispered, thinking. Remembering. Especially remembering the last big fight between EuroVamps and our side, in a warehouse where a weather witch had been forced to create storms and to collect arcenciels for their timewalking magic. What if . . . what if it wasn’t just me who had messed up time? What if it had been Beast too? And the witch Adan. And . . . the arcenciel trapped in the anode of crystals that same night.

  That possibility hit me like a Mack truck. What if it had been all of us, in tiny little changes back along our shared timeline? And the pain in my head and belly might be contributing to it too, my messed-up genetics switching on and off and . . . changing things around me. We might all be screwed six ways from Sunday.

  Edmund brought coffee to the table and poured me a second hot cup of tea. I heard the whirring sound of the new stirring device in the background, before he added a froth of cream to my cup. I was a long way from Cool Whip.

  Hammers and buzzes of saws from the third floor grew loud and a sound like a stack of lumber dropped from a height shook the house. Eli’s body twitched and I could
tell he wanted to check on the men upstairs, but he drank his coffee instead, his eyes on me.

  “Remember the fight in the warehouse?” I said after I drank through the cream. “Adan Bouvier was in a magical cage, working storm magic, blood-starved, pretty much insane. There was an arcenciel trapped in the crystal. Cerulean. Adan was using her to alter time. Beast . . . my Beast seems able to twist time too. I wasn’t doing anything with time and yet I kept losing moments. Odd little things that I didn’t notice immediately but that added up to me being uncertain about the sequence of events.”

  “That happens in battle,” Eli said. “Especially after you’ve been in a few firefights. You lose some things. Memories will skip from event to event like a stone on still water. Others are so detailed and brilliant and sharp they play out for you like you’re going through it all over again.”

  “Like you’re experiencing it again?” I asked.

  “In a way. For me it’s always clearly a memory. But it can be intense and comprehensive and meticulous in detail.”

  “Since the warehouse fight, I’ve noticed small bits of time stuttering. Or two events that happened in different ways. But they both feel real.” I sipped some more.

  “I have called Soul, my mistress,” Edmund said, bowing his head. “She and Gee will be here soon.”

  My fingers clenched on the warm mug. “Why?” Though I knew the answer.

  “Because they and Brute are the only other timewalkers we know.”

  As if they knew that Ed had told me they were coming, as if they’d waited for the words to be spoken, a knock sounded on the front door. Ed let them in, murmured words of greeting and explanation. “They don’t know about Beast,” Eli said, his voice so low I could barely hear him. “You want me to stay while you talk? If not, I’ll give you priva—”

  “Stay,” I said. My voice sounded a little pleading, which should have ticked me off, but didn’t.

  He nodded. Looked up as our guests entered the kitchen. Soul sat to my left, her billowy clothing shades of misty gray that darkened into purple near her feet. Gee, looking taller, more muscular, took a seat at the foot of the table, his hair longer and blacker. The changes were an easy adjustment for his glamour. He said, “The little goddess is evolving.”

  “Am I?”

  “We hunted together. You flew in the form of my friend.”

  I had taken the form of Anzu and flown into the far north with Gee DiMercy. We had hunted were-creatures who had killed humans. “Sabina said it would be okay, but . . . skinwalker tradition teaches us that if we take the form of a sentient being, that’s the first step into darkness. Am I evolving into u’tlun’ta? Is that what this time-changing thing is?”

  “U’tlun’ta do not evolve. You did not take the form of a living body. You did not eat the body while it was alive so that you might also take the memories and the dreams and the hopes. That is what u’tlun’ta does to take the path into darkness,” Soul said, which was more than I had ever been told or figured out on my own. “You did not make of her a victim. That is not why time is slipping.”

  Slipping. That, or timewalkers were playing with time all around me. Or . . . using me as a focus to affect their own changes on the future, if that was even possible. “Then why is time slipping?”

  “Some physicists suggest that our universe is one of an ever-growing stack of universes,” Gee said, “a new one created each time we make even the smallest choice.”

  I stared at my cup. “Right. So I’m slipping into a different universe?”

  “I don’t think so,” Gee said. “I think you are reinventing this one in small, personal moments.”

  “Unconsciously,” Soul said. “It can be done by accident. And it is very, very dangerous.”

  By accident. That sucked.

  I thought about that. About all the things that had happened to me since I came to New Orleans and went to work for Leo. I had changed. Maybe too much. Maybe so much that I was trying to undo some of the changes, subconsciously, by accident, or, crap, what if it was happening even in my sleep? No. No way. I slowed my breathing, forced calm into me. Edmund appeared and placed a cup of tea in front of Soul and a cup of spiced coffee at Gee’s elbow. “You’re not their servant,” I snapped. “You’re the heir to the Master of the City.”

  “I am also hospitable to guests, my mistress.” There was censure in his tone. Mild but there.

  I blew out a breath that was too aggravated to be a sigh and drained my mug. “Sorry.” I set the ceramic mug on the table with a small thump. “You’re right.”

  Ed replaced my mug with a fresh one. Chai. Frothed cream on top. I was an ass. “Thank you, Edmund,” I said in my best Bethel Christian Children’s Home manners. “The tea is delicious.” Ed didn’t reply. I said, “Soul, if my DNA started forming new strands, would that make it possible that I’d slip into timewalking without intent, even unconscious intent?”

  The room was very still. Upstairs, two men were arguing over a measurement. One of them called the other a shithead. I’d have to say something. We didn’t cuss in this house. But I didn’t get up. I stared at my mug instead.

  “How has your DNA changed?” Soul whispered.

  “It’s got an extra strand. Maybe two.”

  “I see,” Soul said. “Timewalkers from this world often have peculiar genetics. Some have fallen into time-slipping.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I’ve known only a few. Two vanished. One died of very fast-acting malignancies. The others lived long lives and died happy, surrounded by friends and family.”

  The last part sounded like a lie, but it also sounded good, so I let it stand. “How did they survive?”

  “They learned self-control. They learned to be happy in spite of illness, pain, war, pestilence, and death.”

  “Drink your tea, my mistress,” Ed said softly.

  I drank my tea. Self-control. That was something my housemothers had tried to pound into me, growing up. “Is there a class I can take?” I asked, a small smile trying to find my lips. “Maybe an online course? I’m kinda busy right now, but I’m highly motivated and ready to learn.”

  Soul smiled with me. “This has happened only when you are fighting? In danger? When others you love are in danger?”

  “This time, Eli kicked just as I stood. His foot was coming for my throat. Killing strike. He hadn’t pulled the kick yet and it was about to impact.” Eli’s eyes tightened, a minuscule move as if a single nerve twitched. To him I said, “Yes. I was going to avoid the kick. But my brain said otherwise.” To Soul, I said, “So far as I’ve noticed, it’s battle, when I think I’m about to be injured. Muscle memory takes over. I’m fighting. Then things are different. Little things, but—” I stopped again, remembering when Ayatas shot me. Beast had stopped time then. I frowned, wondering how much she contributed to time-slippage. Could anything be considered insignificant when it came to stopping time?

  “You must not lose focus,” Soul said. “When fighting, you must remain rooted to the Earth, your center of gravity aligned with the Earth’s. You must fight with the concentration of meditation.”

  “Zen,” Eli said. “The Zen of warfare. The knowledge that battle is taking place around you. That you are in the middle of it. But without leaving the inviolability of your own concentration.” Eli read books on war and fighting. Strategy and tactics. The mind-set of the warrior.

  “You think that’ll work?”

  “I’ve known a few guys in my life who could do that. They’re all dead.”

  “Did they live a long life and die happy, surrounded by friends and family?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  A lie. Lots of lies floating in the air. “Thank you for coming,” I said to Soul and Gee. “I appreciate the effort, the time, and the wisdom you shared with me.” And that was pure Tsalagi. Way better than the housem
others’ prattle.

  They said their good-byes and left, Edmund letting them into the night and shutting the door.

  “Let’s spar,” Eli said. “You can practice meditating and I’ll practice hurting you.”

  “That sounds like a good idea, except that I’m so full of tea I’d slosh.” But I was thinking that I didn’t have time to learn a whole new way to fight in time for the bloody battles.

  “Go pee and meet me in the workout room. And this time you’ll know I don’t mean to hurt you. You’ll keep that uppermost in your mind. You have to be able to control this before the firefight.” He meant the Sangre Duello. Eli got up and left, his feet silent on the stairs.

  Edmund came to the table. He stood beside me, placing his hand on my shoulder.

  “The Sangre Duello will soon be over. For good or ill, all our lives will change. And you can rest. Take a . . . What is the American word? Retreat? A strategic withdrawal? You can ride Bitsa into your mountains and heal.”

  “That’s a good idea.” I had taken a break once, when Bitsa was being built. I’d nearly been beheaded and was so close to death that it took a long time to get well. I’d hunted and slept and eaten a lot of game. Shifted as often as I needed to continue healing.

  “You haven’t ridden Bitsa since you came back with her,” Edmund said. “Why?”

  “Bitsa is for freedom,” I said before I thought. “I’m tied here, until the Sangre Duello is done. It’s the only way I can protect the people I love.”

  “Your little witches. Your godchildren. Children who would be killed or taken and turned by Titus Flavius Vespasianus, Emperor of the Mithrans and renowned hater of homosexuals, Jews, people of color, and witches.”

  “Well. That’s great to know. Yeah. So, thank you for that insight. A retreat is a great idea. After I spill some blood and kill some people. But for now, I’ll go spar with Eli and find my center. My Zen moment.” If I sounded a little sarcastic, really, who could blame me?

  * * *