Dark Queen Read online

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  • • •

  Night breezes were blowing in through the open windows, carrying out the stench of paint and floor cleaners and other toxic stuff. I was stretched out on a leather upholstered bench, faceup, staring at the tongue-and-groove ceiling. My arms were out to allow my chest to move more freely as I was trying to remember how to breathe and I tried to suck in air to keep from asphyxiating. The padded wooden practice swords I had used to defend myself were by my sides on the floor. Sweat had pooled under me and ran off the leather seat to puddle beside them.

  There were fifty of the benches, in ten different colors of leather, placed all around the third-floor walls. They had been offloaded from the barge as part of the staging furnishings. They were hard and stiff, but I might have to sleep here because I might never be able to move again. My hands and feet were tingling. I was pretty sure I was dying.

  Eli fell to a bench beside me, stinking of sweat, trying to recover. Bruiser and the B-twins had worked us to exhaustion. My honeybunch moved to stand over us, sweating and blowing, trying to get his breath back. “You’ve improved vastly. And fortunately,” Bruiser said, “as challenged, you get to choose weapons.”

  “Also, your second or your primo or your Enforcer may fight for you, and your primo is in great need of exercise,” a bored voice said. “He also has the ambition, and some say the skill, to best Grégoire as the finest swordsman in the Americas.” Edmund stepped from behind a roof support. “This,” he said with a delighted grin, “will be an epic battle.”

  I managed a grin too, and then concentrated on surviving. Lying there, staring at the ceiling, I decided I wasn’t going to die. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not at this Sangre Duello at all. I had to stay alive. For my friends.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was sitting on the sand as the sun rose, watching clouds roll in, dark and angry and filling up the horizon from the distant water to the vault of the sky. The waves had changed from soft and lapping to a high surf that sprayed me with salt and wet down my clothes and my braid. I was alone, resting, after studying the fight list, looking for weaknesses in the opponents and their fighting styles. It was what Beast called tracking, hunting prey, following spoor, finding tall limb over water. Ambush!

  “It’s Fight Club,” I’d said to them all, “but with swords and knives. And we can cheat. Got it.” Except that, even with discussing the fighting weaknesses of Titus’s strongest vamps, I felt a creeping panic beneath my skin. I knew that people I loved were gonna die. People fighting challenges that were intended for me. And if Leo lost the final battle with Titus, and if I didn’t win my own fights, the witches in the United States would take on the EVs. They might win, but they’d more likely be killed in a massive paranormal genocide. My godchildren would die. At some point the military would take on the vamps, but likely not in time to keep the vamps from coming ashore. I had tried not to think about this. Tried not to emote about this. But the Sangre Duello was dire. This was the final battle against the EVs. The biggest, baddest uglies on the face of the earth, landing to kill us.

  So I’d stomped off, to sit on the sand and stare at the dawn storm rolling in. In twelve hours the vamps would be here. Leo and his people first. Then Titus. And whatever vamps would try to kill us all.

  Maybe at first my Enforcer, Gee DiMercy, or my primo, Edmund Hartley, would take my matches and defeat my enemies. And like the coward I am, I’d let them. And maybe they would win for a match or two or seven. But eventually, at some match with an older, better fighter, they would lose. One, or the other, or both, would be maimed or die. Because I let them fight for me. Eli had tried to explain rank to me. Had tried to tell me I wasn’t a grunt anymore, not frontline troops. The pep talk hadn’t helped.

  Because after the best of the sword fighters were down, Eli would try to fight for me. He was looking forward to it, to facing battle again. So I’d disable him to keep him back. And then, while he cursed me for taking him out, I’d fight. And because we had worked our way up the lists, this would be the best fighter of them all.

  Beast is best hunter. Beast is best ambush hunter.

  I stared at the coming storm as the sky went darker instead of lighter with the dawn. Rain splattered on me and dimpled the sand. And Beast sent me a vision of tall branches and soaring rock faces, wet with rain, trees lashed by wind.

  Beast whispered inside me, Half-form teeth and fangs and claws. And Beast will drink the blood of her enemies and eat their hearts. Beast is big-cat. Beast will rip out throats of her enemies.

  And lead me further down the path of blood and death, I thought. Because I can’t figure out how to get off that path or how to change direction.

  Or maybe the angel Hayyel will pop in and save me.

  Right. Sure. Not.

  Beast chuffed with amusement.

  “Jane,” Alex shouted from the house. “See if you have a cell signal. If so, call someone onshore and see if you get through.”

  I rolled over and dialed the number of Gee DiMercy. The call went through. And I gave my Enforcer directions, instructions, and, when he argued, orders. I’d developed the belief that Titus would betray the agreements whether he won or lost. And I had an idea how to defeat that.

  CHAPTER 16

  A Mad Witch Is Never a Good Witch

  The outdoor shower worked, the bathers’ privacy assured by clapboard walls and a twisting cattle-path-style entrance. There were small and medium palm varieties planted around it and around the house as landscaping. Lounge chairs were on the sand at one beach so vamps and humans could watch the moon rise. More chairs at another so humans could watch the sun rise. And chairs at a third for sunset watching. On such a small island, most of the beaches were in line of sight from each other.

  The island looked pretty. More importantly, we now had six fighting rings, three on the third floor and three under the house on the hard-packed sand. These were laid out with river rock, brought in on the tugs and half buried in the sand. Lights had been mounted. Outdoor bouts had sounded like a lark to the vamps who were already on-site, and they did look pretty spiffy, though fighting on sand, even hard sand like that beneath the house, was tricky. The construction types had earned their bonuses.

  The house was staged. The furniture was in place: sofas, chairs, tables, lamps, beds. A lot of beds, mostly bunks, but a few kings, and queen bunk beds for the vamps. A pool table that had to weigh half a ton. Food, wine, and alcohol had been ferried over. There were rugs tastefully placed and art hung on the newly painted walls. Linens had been brought in. The housekeeping staff had made up the beds, put towels and washcloths and soaps and hotel-sized toiletries in the bathrooms. There were even flowers all over, live ferns and leafy things. Plus the cut flowers all over the kitchen in crystal vases.

  The entire island was gorgeous. The house was stunning.

  Since four p.m., the two helos and two chartered boats had been taking the construction types back to shore and bringing in our people. The last helo carrying humans and construction equipment was taking off with a rotor roar and lights flashing against a cerise sky as dusk knocked on the horizon. The next helo would begin the transfer of vamps.

  Soon, the house and the entire island would be packed. Even with the construction crew gone, there would be too many people, creatures, beings, their scents all mingled and mangled and jarring, merging into an overwhelming pong, though the constant breezes and perpetual gulf rains would blow and wash a lot of it away. The noise of helos and voices and stomping feet and complaining already hurt my ears. Everyone was rushing around getting settled, storing gear. It was a morass of conflicting stinks and sounds and color.

  Part of me loved the excitement, looked forward to the fights. I figured that part of me was nutso. The rest of me wanted to hitch a ride back to NOLA. It crossed my mind that I could maybe swim back if I only had a dolphin bone or maybe even a shark t
ooth. But . . .

  We had been given notice of the beginning of the Sangre Duello. Just a few hours away, at ten p.m., Titus, his first round of fighters, his security, and his blood-servants would all be ashore. There would be no preliminaries, as at a parley. No long titles or jibber jabber. No semipolite or stiletto-sharp discussions. There would be two hours for the seconds to approve of the final arrangements of the first bouts, for the weapons of the first round to be chosen and inspected, and for the fighting rings to be assigned. Titus and his minions would be fed a meal and then led up the stairs to the third floor, settled on benches, and given time to armor up and warm up as needed.

  At midnight tonight the first bout would begin.

  I was not ready, but my gear was all here, including the things I’d told Gee DiMercy to pack and ship. Leo had approved my idea to defeat a betrayal by Titus by involving Ayatas and Rick, though not on the island as PsyLED had wanted. Maybe I was learning how to sneak around and strategize in overlapping layers like the vamps. Or like Beast. Thanks to my one phone call, my final plans were in play.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was on my knees beside the bunk bed I’d chosen when I heard a familiar tap-tap-tapping of heels on wood floors, climbing stairs. I dropped to my butt, my back to the door. “No,” I whispered. But the familiar cadence was still climbing, followed by a thump-thump-thumping I couldn’t place. I scooted around to the door and spotted Molly, my BFF, taking the last step to the second floor, her red hair already springing into tight curls with the salty moisture. She was dragging a large bag, what I’d heard her refer to as a portmanteau. The bag opened into two parts, and had been designed half for clothes and half for magical trinkets. By the way it thumped on the steps, I knew she had packed heavy on the magical crap.

  Molly was not supposed to be here. She was not to have been told the time and date of the Sangre Duello. I’d left orders. Another head appeared over the half wall of the steps as the person attached climbed behind her. This one was familiar as well, with straight long red hair, and pointy nose as seen from the side. Molly’s niece. Shiloh. Technically, as her clan master, my scion.

  “My room is one of the windowless rooms. Yours is there.” Shiloh’s hand pointed toward my room. “And we haven’t told—Oops.”

  “Yeah,” I said, standing in a single twisting motion that unfolded my legs and pushed me upright, hands free. “My scions, who swore to me. You didn’t tell me that either of you would be here. And after I expressly forbade it.”

  Molly’s eyes flashed and I knew I had screwed up. Molly had never liked being told what to do. “Your Enforcer and your primo countermanded your orders,” she said, her words precise. “As did the leader of the witch coven of New Orleans, Lachish Dutillet. Adan Bouvier was not the only witch on that boat with the emperor, not the only one in captivity. You need magical protection from attack from the gulf.”

  I stared at her with horror. I hadn’t told her about Adan, about what had been done to him. I’d tried to protect her from the awful truth of what Titus’s vamps did to witches.

  “Humph,” Molly said, asperity in the tone. “Yes. I heard about him, from Lachish, Adan the vampire weather witch. She heard about him from someone else.” Her tone said she should have heard about Adan Bouvier from me. She was right. I dropped my eyes. “Jane. You need the witches to keep you safe while you fight. We need Leo’s vampires and the rest of Clan Yellowrock to keep the witches safe and alive. Leo dies and we are all royally screwed.”

  My face must have given something away because Molly dragged her portmanteau across the hallway to me, her eyes boring into mine, her voice rising as she continued to speak. “You think the witches don’t know what will happen to us, to our families and our children, if Titus wins this stupid”—she shouted—“foolish”—she shouted louder—“blood challenge?”

  I backed into my room, toward the open window. Toward escape. Molly followed, into the too-small room. The heavy, two-door case had little wheels that squeaked and bumped over every uneven place in the floor. Molly was wearing a deep, dark, bloodred winter dress with a little black jacket and black heels. Red wasn’t usually Moll’s color, but this looked powerful on her. And she was wearing a pearl necklace and carrying, in her other hand, a small rosemary plant. “Look at me,” Molly demanded.

  Molly is predator, Beast thought, admiration in her words.

  Molly is angry, I thought back. And a mad witch is never a good witch.

  “Jane!”

  I looked her in the eyes. “I’m here not because you need me,” she said. “I know you can take care of yourself. I’m here because my people need me.”

  “You’re pregnant,” I blurted out.

  Kits, Beast murmured.

  “I noticed,” she said, pronouncing all the syllables like cutting blades and hissing snakes. “I’ll be behind the scenes, not up front. Not out in the middle of any witch-magic battle that might take place. My job is to monitor for interfering magical activity and warn the others. Lachish and Shiloh and Ailis are here to fight. And Soul is here, somewhere, to help in case they have another timewalker, to spot any interference of that nature and stop it. I’ll be under a hedge of thorns, the newest one B—” She stopped. She had almost said Big Evan, who wasn’t out of the closet yet. “That I could make. Hedge of thorns 3.0. With other modified, portable hedges and inverted hedges available to me, all defensive, as stipulated in the Sangre Duello rules, what precious few that there are. I’ll be the safest person on this island. But you need us all to make sure the EVs don’t cheat and use witch magic to attack.”

  Cheating wasn’t allowed outside of the fighting rings. Cheating with magic was not allowed anywhere near a Sangre Duello except La Danza. Cheating with weapons and tactics inside a ring and within a bout was a different matter entirely. I was betting all I had, and all I was, on an inside weapon cheat. But Moll was right. The Sangre Duello did need magical monitoring. And in case of magical attack, we’d need someone who could deflect a spell of offense until we could deal with it.

  But . . . Molly. There were things I hadn’t told her. Crap.

  My best friend in the world leaned into me and I felt magics on my skin as she initiated a spell of silence to cover up her words. She whispered so softly a fanghead couldn’t have heard it. “And my special magics will save the day if all else is lost.”

  Her special magics. Her death magics. Magics that would drain every bit of death and undeath for miles around. I stepped around her and walked out, past people in the hallway.

  Behind me, Molly claimed the bunk bed beneath mine. “She’ll be okay,” Molly said to someone in the hallway.

  But I wouldn’t. Not if something happened to Moll. What in blue blazes was Big Evan thinking by letting his pregnant wife out of his sight?

  I passed through people and vamps coming up the stairs. Dozens of people. I wanted to head outside, but I had a job to do. This one last job. Keep Leo safe, to keep Molly safe. So instead of running away, I walked around the second level, checking out the arrangements, thinking about cheats for inside the fighting rings.

  Leo and his scions were sharing one of the tiny central rooms. Koun, Gee, Tex, and Edmund—my vamps—were in a second room. The third room had bunks for Dacy Mooney, Ming Zoya of Mearkanis, and Ming Zhane of Glass. In the fourth room was Sabina Delgado y Aguilera and Shiloh Everhart Stone. I had tried to keep Shiloh off island. She was my responsibility, not that Shiloh seemed to think so. The placement of the vamps had been carefully thought out, the weakest vamp under the protection of the outclan priestess.

  In the outer ring of rooms were the humans and Leo’s and my human staff, divided by gender. In one of the larger rooms were Lee, Leo’s assistant Scrappy, and four blood donors: Tia, Ipsita, Christie, and Maryanne, who was Edmund’s human lover and blood-servant. Maryanne hadn’t been around much since Edmund became my primo, but I’d a
lways found her to be a levelheaded and serene woman.

  In the second room set aside for nonvamp females were Lachish Dutillet, the head of the witch coven of NOLA, and Bliss—aka Ailis Rogan, a witch in training. Lachish glared at me when she saw me in the doorway. She didn’t like me much. Didn’t hate me, but didn’t like me, despite the fact that I had killed the vamps that had killed her own daughter. She thought I was a troublemaker and a meddler. Not that I blamed her. I’d been called both since I walked out of the woods at an apparent age twelve, naked, carrying the scars of bullet wounds and a gold nugget. Mostly I deserved the rep. Bunking with the two witches was Soul. The arcenciel was present not in her official PsyLED capacity but as the unofficial leader of the rainbow dragons that Titus’s goons had tried to capture and enslave. Lachish turned her back to me and said to Soul, “It’s a wyrd spell, one that breaks crystals from the inside. But to test it you’d have to be inside a crystal spell.”

  “No,” Soul said. “That will not happen.”

  I didn’t know if Titus’s people and any witches on board could scent or identify what Soul was. I didn’t know how safe she might be. But then, if Leo lost the last bout, none of us were safe.

  Lachish extended a folded paper. “You are a stubborn woman. Here is the spell, the wyrd and the directions to break a crystal. If you get caught, try it. If it needed to be refined and you didn’t let us experiment, then it’s on you.” Lachish was an irritating but succinct woman.

  I slipped away before Soul replied. I’d known I wouldn’t have a room to myself. I’d known I’d be bunking with others, at least with Del, Brenda Rezk, and Ro Moore, Katie’s Enforcer. Brenda was a security specialist assigned to Atlanta and Ro was a cage fighter and mixed martial arts specialist. Ro had nearly died in a recent fight at HQ. No way was she up to full fighting form yet and I resented Leo for bringing them both. Molly would be the fifth roommate. I hoped being pregnant didn’t make her snore or have to pee all day long. I could kick the others into silence; not so much Molly. We were wall-to-wall bunks with one empty. I figured someone would fill the empty bunk bed eventually.