Dark Queen

by Faith Hunter

  Titus’s people moved back, human feet sliding on the floor, vamp feet silent. As they shifted position, so did Leo’s people until there was a twenty-foot space between them. Then thirty. The fighting rings were exposed where there had been only people before. Titus sat on a bench, looking regal but stymied. So did Leo, looking ticked off.

  “All combatants in the first three rounds will dress in fighting armor and return,” Sabina said. “I allow you five minutes, no more. Go.”

  People dashed down the stairs or popped out of sight. No one remaining on the third floor moved, the vamps doing that still-as-marble thing, common among the undead. Only the humans and weres and I breathed. I slipped down the stairs last to dress in the white armor. About halfway down the stairs I realized the corset was tied in back. Fortunately, Deon joined me and unlaced the corset top, helping me into my fighting clothes. I turned on Beast-speed and the costume change, as Deon called it, took only two minutes. In a little over four minutes we all began to return to the third floor. I hoped that wearing the girly clothing, and now the white leathers, made people think I had no fighting skills. First impressions and all that.

  At exactly five minutes, Sabina turned her head in one of those bizarre, squicky motions that was more lizard than human and looked around the room. “You,” she said, pointing at Shiloh and drawing a piece of paper from a pocket in her robes. “You will read the order of trials and announce the combatants. The first will begin now.” Sabina sat down on a bench, her skirts scratchy in the quiet.

  Shiloh slid between vamps and humans. Her face was too calm for this summons to be unexpected. Shiloh, part witch, part vamp, had been planning stuff with the vamp priestess. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. The position of outclan priestess had always been held by a witch or shaman turned vamp, and Shiloh fit the bill perfectly if she turned down a place in Clan Yellowrock. Dang. Something else I’d need to address if I lived through this.

  Shiloh took the paper and unfolded it. “First challenge,” she said, “is from Concetta Gallo to Jane Yellowrock. Challenger and challenged, approach the central ring.” I started to walk in, but Gee beat me to it. “I accept the challenge for the Enforcer of Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans.”

  “And by what right do you accept the challenge?” Sabina asked.

  A happy-sly look on his face, Gee DiMercy, the misericord of the New Orleans vamps, said, “I am the Enforcer of Clan Yellowrock.”

  “Clan—” Titus shot to his feet. “This is an outrage! No human can be a Blood Master.”

  Sabina stared at him. For a moment nothing happened. The emperor had been told not to speak by an outclan priestess. Kings were important. If they rallied their people they could kill a priestess true-dead. One-on-one, priestesses were more powerful. Titus went quiet, drawing his dignity around him like a cloak. He bent his head slightly in a royal nod.

  Sabina said, “Do you wish to address a point of order? If so you may speak.”

  “Yes. I contest the concept of a non-Mithran as Blood Master of a clan.”

  Dressed in fighting armor, Edmund stepped next to Gee. To Sabina he said, “Permission to speak to this point of order.”

  Without taking her eyes from Titus, Sabina nodded.

  Edmund said, “I am Edmund Hartley, a master Mithran, formerly Blood Master of Clan Laurent—my clan, given by covenant to Bettina, now master of Clan Laurent.”

  Wait. Covenant? “What covenant?” I demanded.

  Edmund continued speaking. “I am also heir to the Master of the City of New Orleans and heir of Clan Pellissier. I speak as one of power. Only days ago, Jane Yellowrock completed a blood-binding upon me, a master Mithran, making me, according to the Vampira Carta, her primo.”

  Every single vamp on the far side of the room inhaled in shock. Good thing the windows were open or there’d be no air left for the humans. For myself, I’d forgotten to breathe.

  I hadn’t wanted to claim Edmund. It had been the only way to save his life.

  Ed said, “Such a binding gives Yellowrock the right to be appointed as a clan master. Jane Yellowrock is now master of Clan Yellowrock. And I am now her primo.”

  Coldly, Titus said, “A master Mithran, heir of massive territory, in the position of servant? No. This is absurd. I will not allow it.”

  “The outclan priestess allows it,” Sabina said, her words cutting. Titus started to speak again, but Sabina went on. “To the challenged is the choice of weapons.”

  Gee said, “Dual swords. No shields. Smaller blades as desired.”

  “To first blood or to the death?” Sabina asked the combatants.

  Someone at the back of the room answered, “Blood.”

  “Blades and first blood. Begin.” Everyone stepped back except Gee, wearing metallic painted plasticized armor, and Concetta Gallo. The tiny woman, shaved headed, olive skinned, looked fourteen, though she was over two hundred. Her armor was silver-green and shiny, and she was a master swordswoman.

  The combatants crossed swords, gave half bows, and from somewhere a single bell-tone sounded, echoing in the ceiling. They attacked. Blades clashing, glinting, flashing, they advanced and withdrew. Danced the Spanish Circle around the octagonal fighting ring. Gee cut, a controlled transfer of weight and balance, so smooth it looked as if nothing had happened. A deep cut sliced the woman’s face, bisecting her cheek from ear to nose. Instantly it bled in a drench, as all head wounds do, the flesh already swelling and drooping, to expose bloody teeth through the wound. They both stepped back, off the ring, but not as if they wanted to, and not as if they trusted the other to abide by rules of first blood. The bout had lasted all of five seconds. Maybe just four.

  One of the film crew cursed softly, presumably at the speed.

  Fast, Beast said, inside me, entranced. Want to fight fast with steel claws.

  Brandon said, “Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios.”

  Sabina said, “Next rounds, apace, now that Pellissier has drawn first blood.” She looked to Shiloh. “Call the next three bouts, which shall take place, as Americans say it, back-to-back.”

  “No,” Titus said, adding what sounded like, “Es una locura.” Then in English he added, “This is mayhem. Unacceptable.”

  We waited while someone explained to Titus that the phrase meant the bouts would follow one after the other, not with the fighters standing back-to-back while battling.

  Titus shook his head and rattled off more foreign words, before adding, “Following this farce, it will be a privilege to teach the Americans their place and restore proper order, decorum, and protocol to these neglected shores.” As insults went that was a good one. I wondered if Titus had crib notes in his hand. Wisely I didn’t ask that question.

  Leo narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t speak either. That might have had something to do with the film crew or with Bruiser’s hand on his shoulder, holding the MOC in his seat. Or playacting. Leo had planned for this night for, maybe, centuries.

  Shiloh said, “Nibolio Mancini challenges Jane Yellowrock. Simon Costa challenges Jane Yellowrock. Lanbros Alafouzos challenges Eli Younger.”

  My heart took a dive. Lanbros was a three-hundred-year-old vamp. He was a killer through and through. Eli was dead. I started forward, but someone held me back. The irony of Leo and me both being held back wasn’t lost on me. I snarled and jerked my arm free, but waited.

  Gee said, “The honor of facing Nibolio Mancini is mine.”

  Sounding like a bored roué, Edmund said, “I shall die of the tedium, but the honor of facing Simon Costa shall be mine.” The way he said honor let me know that Edmund and Simon didn’t like each other much.

  “My name is properly pronounced See-MOH-neh,” the man said to Edmund, “as you are well aware. And though it is a dishonor to fight a former slave, I accept the humiliation of this bout, out of great regard for my master and em
peror.”

  I was watching Edmund’s undead face. Yeah. He’d been a slave. And though his expression gave nothing away, that history was still a hard pill to swallow.

  A voice from the stairs said, “The honor of facing Lanbros Alafouzos is mine.” I spotted Koun ascending to the third floor. He wore no armor and was mostly naked, wearing only a loincloth, his body tattooed with blue and black dye in what was said to be Celtic symbols. “I am the chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock,” he said, as a cameraman stepped around him, getting the full three-sixty, front and back. “No one may gainsay me.”

  Koun stepped up to me and dropped to one knee. So quietly no vamp on the far side of the room could have heard it, Koun said, “I yield unto you all my honor.”

  Faster than my eyes could follow, Koun leaped from his crouch, going high, over the heads of those still standing, to land in front of Sabina, one knee on the floor, both hands touching the floor for balance, his blond head bent. “Mother bless me, for I have sinned.”

  Sabina touched Koun’s head. “You have done well, my son. You are the only warrior to remember the old ways. Not even our once-emperor has been so proper.”

  Titus snarled.

  Sabina finished, “My blessing upon you, Koun of the Celts and of Clan Yellowrock.”

  And then I remembered a rare codicil of the Vampira Carta that dealt with Sangre Duello. All the fighters were supposed to do homage to the clan Blood Master for whom they fought, and then to any outclan present. No others. No one in their right mind insulted an outclan priestess, yet Titus’s warriors had forgotten. So had Leo’s and mine, thanks most likely to the fact that weapons had been drawn out of order. Points against both sides.

  Quickly Gee and Edmund bowed to me and to Sabina, followed by Titus’s people to their leader and then to the priestess. Sabina pointed to the octagonals inlaid in the floor and directed the three groups to take their places. “Gee DiMercy. Weapons?”

  “Single sword,” Gee said, sounding bored. “Left hand only.” I figured it was the Mithran equivalent of “I’ll beat you with one hand tied behind my back.” Except that cheating was allowed, so hidden weapons might be used too.

  Sabina asked, “Nibolio Mancini. First blood or death?”

  Nibolio was a swarthy, hairy man with a full beard like some Renaissance peddler or fruit seller. “To fight one-handed is cowardly. First blood. This weakling does not deserve to die at my hand.”

  Sabina said, “Edmund Hartley. Weapons?”

  “Two swords,” Ed said. “No shield.”

  Sabina asked, “Simon Costa. First blood or death?”

  Simon was a Renaissance angel with eyes as blue as the sea on a postcard. “Death.”

  My heart stopped beating, but Sabina went on. “Koun. Weapons?”

  “Double-headed axes. Blades of steel.”

  “Lanbros Alafouzos?” Sabina asked. “To death or blood?”

  “I withdraw. I do not fight with the garden tools of the pagan and the barbarian.”

  “Yellowrock and Koun,” Sabina said, “challenge from Alafouzos is withdrawn and his name stricken from the Sangre Duello. Death match is to be held downstairs, on the sand rings. Go now and await me.” Simon and Ed took the stairs silently.

  Koun stepped to me, people making way for his broad nakedness, a glint in his eyes that said he had chosen the weapons knowing that Lanbros would back out. None of the camera crew was nearby, so I murmured to him, “Chief strategist of Clan Yellowrock,” I said. “Nice title.”

  Koun agreed with a tilt of his head and murmured, “Battlefield promotion, my master. Self-awarded.” He took his place behind me, next to Eli. The clean bell-tone sounded, and I caught a glimpse of a female I didn’t know, holding a polished triangle bell and a metal beater. She was strawberry blond and short with cool green eyes. And she was missing three fingers of her left hand in what looked like a permanent injury, perhaps one from before she was turned.

  Behind the bell ringer and to the side were most of our nonfighting humans, lined up on benches. Eating popcorn and drinking beer. Titus looked that way and his lip curled. More Taming of the Shrew. Go, humans. Titus’s nonfighting humans were on the far side of the bell ringer, still dressed in formal wear and looking uncomfortable in the sticky winter ocean breeze.

  Nibolio Mancini and Gee engaged, left-handed, swords clanking in the first clash. In the next second Gee cut off Nibolio’s beard and through his throat. Springy beard hair and blood flew everywhere. Nibolio dropped to his knees. Another vamp dashed in to drag him off the octagonal. For a vamp, it wasn’t a lethal wound, but he wouldn’t be fighting anytime soon. Gee strolled off. This one had been a two-second duel.

  “Did you get the shot?” a tiny British voice asked.

  “Got it. Golden,” Bear, the hairy camera wolf, answered.

  “Downstairs,” Sabina said. She popped down, as did a larger number of vamps. Humans raced down the stairs. I leaped out the window, landed on the metal roof. Only to push off and land on the sand below, balanced on the fingers of one hand and my toes. I pulled on Beast’s speed, my heart in my throat. Rushed to the rock-bounded fighting circles.

  The bell chimed again. I thought I might vomit.

  Edmund and See-MOH-neh both attacked at once. The cage of death that was La Destreza was sketched in the air between them, glistening steel that caught the low lights, cut-cut-cut, too fast to see. Blood splattered. Edmund bleeding from a cut above the eye. Holy crap. To the death. “No,” I whispered, the word drawn out.

  Something was wrong with Edmund. He was moving slow. I’d seen him fight and this wasn’t right. He looked almost clumsy. Koun leaned in and murmured to me, “Strategy, my master. Strategy. Do not fear.”

  I didn’t look away from the fight. Edmund took another cut, this one to his forearm. Simon laughed, looking like blond boy playing a game, not vamp dueling to the death. Their swords whipped and whirled in a complex cage of death. Moving so quick they were blurs. Cut, cut, lunge, cut, too fast to see, even with Beast-sight.

  I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets. My left fist hit something, opened, and encircled it. I had to wonder how the Glob got into my pocket. The Glob was one of my collection of magical trinkets and, its name notwithstanding, it was a powerful objet de magie. It was composed of the small sliver of the Blood Cross that I had ruined for use by anyone but me, part of the iron spike of Golgotha, and the blood diamond, all melded into one. The diamond had started out as an amulet crowded with the power of sacrificed witch children, only a few of whom I had been able to rescue. The Glob was magic that had claimed me. Magic that had been fashioned by and activated by my blood and the energy of a witch’s lightning curse. The Glob heated in my hand, a searing spurt of electric energy, quickly gone. And then I realized that the Glob might have found its way into my pocket without help. Magical objects as powerful as the Glob sometimes had a will of their own.

  Ed took another cut. Stumbled. Dropped to one knee. Bent his head. Bowed his back. And sliced with a backhanded cut into the outer side of Simon’s right knee. He followed it up by blocking two strikes and then delivering a backhanded cut to Simon’s side. So hard, so smooth, so perfectly delivered that it appeared to slice through the flesh and stop only when it reached the vamp’s spine. Simon of the funky pronunciation toppled, dropping his swords. Edmund shifted his body to the side, an expression of shock on his face. As if he hadn’t expected to kill his opponent. Playing to the cameras? Or hiding what he could do from the EVs?

  Simon landed. He was nearly in two pieces. Blood pulsed everywhere in a wide spray, puddled beneath his body, soaked into the sand, the air redolent with his vamp smell—wild roses and moss. Edmund struggled to his feet. He took the vamp’s head. It took three cuts, wielding the sword like an ax, ungainly, awkward. Not my primo’s usual grace and beauty with a sword, not in any way at all. But the head of the beautiful blond angel ro
lled to the side. The sand soaked up more blood. The night breeze swept through beneath the house, salty, clean, fresh. The fighting arena was utterly silent for a space of time that lasted for a dozen of my speeding heartbeats.

  This was the first death. Sent out on camera to the entire world, those who loved blood sports would be whooping it up at home. Watching instant replays. Our people stood, staring. Titus’s undead and their blood-dinners stood. The smell of uncertainty coiled in the air, a descant of scent beneath the melody of fanghead blood. And the stillness ended. Moving like fish in a school, Titus’s people rushed in, gathering the head and body.

  Brandon stepped from the group of Onorios who were acting as judges along with Sabina. Brandon seemed to be the spokesperson. He said, “Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios.”

  Sabina said, “Next duel in fifteen minutes.”

  I tried to catch Bruiser’s eye, but he didn’t turn my way, bending his head to the B-twins as the three talked. Some vamps left the fighting area, to walk under the stars on the beaches. Ed came to me, limping. “You scared me,” I said.

  “My heart is both saddened and full of joy,” he said. “Saddened that I frightened my mistress. Full of joy that my mistress cares.”

  “Uh-huh. Keep it up, Eddie Boy.”

  I started to turn and caught Titus’s eyes on me. In them, I could read multiple emotions: avarice, curiosity, hatred, a cold fury that let me know how much he had liked the blond angel Simon. And how much he blamed me for the vamp’s death. And the fact that he had seen me leap what amounted to four stories in two bounds. Good. I put my thoughts into my eyes. Chew on that, Your Magisterial Ass. Stuff you saw on the stolen video? It’s all true. And I’m coming for you.

  I gave him a toothy grin and put all that into my body language as I strolled into the darkness. The shadow of a camera wolf was beside mine, and I knew my leaps were now part of the permanent record of the Sangre Duello. So was the death of Simon. And the vision of Titus watching me. The camera wolf fell away, finding something better to shoot than me in the dark.