Dark Queen

Ming started to shake. Bruiser looked nonplussed, and then a wide, delighted, surprised smile swept over his face. Ming said, “My master. How? My clan has been disbanded, my scions and properties dispersed.”

“In the last months, you did not rule well, Ming Zoya. Your people were afraid and your clan home was controlled by fear, yet, there are fourteen Mithrans of former Clan Mearkanis who have spoken for you and are willing to return to you. Are there others among my people you would claim for your clan, if they and their Blood Masters are willing?”

“I—” The word broke sharply and Ming stopped, her shoulders going back with almost military posture. When she spoke again it was with the formality of fangheads in ceremony. “I pondered much while buried in water with the dead. I request the time to choose scions and blood-servants who are willing to join Clan Mearkanis. I will do so over the next twenty-four hours and present them to the Master of the City tomorrow night at this same hour.”

“I proclaim it so,” Leo said. “Your former clan home is empty, and the witches, to whom it was offered, have been approached and are willing to accept another property. Mearkanis Clan Home awaits you.” He looked back and forth between the sisters. “You must rule with kindness. With the awareness and understanding of failure and error. With mercy.”

“Forgive me, my master”—Ming Zoya dropped her head in a bow—“but Clan Pellissier has never ruled with mercy.”

“I too have learned much in these last three years.”

Eli slanted his eyes at me and his lips did a little quirky smile. I sat back in my chair. Three years was about how long I’d been in NOLA.

“I now demand all of my sworn Blood Masters follow the new guidelines, amended to the old Vampira Carta. Will you so swear?”

“Without seeing these new ways of thinking and acting?”

“Yes.”

Zoya answered, her reluctance almost imperceptible. “I will trust my master to require only the possible. My sword is yours, my loyalty is yours, my heart is yours, and if I have a soul, it too is yours.”

Leo pricked his thumbs with his blade. Pricked both Mings’ thumbs. They each took the other’s thumb into their mouths and sucked. There was nothing sexual in this blood exchange, though I knew Leo and the Mings had been more than friendly in times past. They all closed their eyes and leaned closer, as if each using the other for balance.

I checked the time. This was all huggy huggy kiss kiss, but boring. I had things to do, werewolves to hunt, and creatures to fight.

Leo and the Mings stopped the blood exchange and swallowed. Leo said, “Ming Zoya, your loyalty is rewarded. Clan Mearkanis is reestablished, with all attendant properties and rights and incomes. Go. Attend to your restored clan. Build it. Protect your people. Ming Zhane, provide petitions for Master of the City status.”

The Mings backed away and bowed so low it looked as if their heads might touch the floor. Vamps are really limber. “I am yours,” both Mings said, mostly in unison. “May my clan and my progeny die forever true-dead should I ever be disloyal.”

The Mings swept out of the Council Chambers.

Just wow. Leo called two other vamps to the front for some small approval, which I ignored. Until he called Callan to the front. Pretty Callan, young vamp with a boxer’s shoulders, cyclist’s thighs, and angel’s face. The vamp who had kidnapped me in the middle of a magical storm and hidden beneath a boat on the Gulf of Mexico, waiting for the sun to set so he could drink me down.

Leo asked, “You are accused of betrayal, conspiracy, and traitorous actions. How do you plead?”

Callan tossed back his beautiful locks and stood straight and tall. “Not guilty, for I serve the master of all Mithrans, Titus Flavius Vespasianus.”

Leo stared at Callan, unmoving in that creepy, vampy, still-as-a-graveyard-statue way. Then he took a fluttering breath and said, “Judgment shall be decreed by the outclan priestess.”

I had pretty much forgotten Sabina and the others on the dais behind the black table, because they didn’t breathe or fidget or blink. Typical undead. Sabina stood, her robes making a starchy shushing sound, and said softly, “For your crimes against the Enforcer and against the rule of Mithran decrees and the law of the Vampira Carta, you will be beheaded.”

In his Carolina accent, Callan sneered, “Unsurprisin’ judgment by a pickaninny and the coward who owns her”—he threw back his shoulders and finished—“against an unarmed man.”

“Oh, he didn’t,” Alex whispered.

“Or you may test your skills against the Master of the City, here and now,” a woman’s voice said. Vamp-fast, someone behind me tossed Callan a sword. And I caught a whiff of lemon. Everything happened fastfastfast.

The condemned vamp snatched the sword out of the air. Vamped out. Fangs schnicked down. Eyes bled scarlet, centered by widening pupils, blacker than death.

Edmund leaped into the crowd. After the sword-throwing woman.

I was sitting forward, drawing a weapon. I stood.

Before I could blink, Callan whirled the sword and stabbed at Leo. He leaped back. Sabina took the sword thrust. She jerked to the side. Just a fraction. Just enough to miss the center of her throat. The blade struck through the left side of her throat near her collarbone. It exited her nape, bloody. Callan twisted the sword, cutting to the side. Taking out the left carotid, jugular, tendons. Still twisting, he yanked back on the sword. The blade came free.

Sabina toppled.

Leo leaped over the table to catch her.

I screamed. What came out was, “Mine!” I hurdled between and over the chairs in front of me. Raced to the front. This. This I can do. Vengeance for Sabina.

“Attack most foul. This is the responsibility of the Enforcer Executioner,” Leo said from behind the table where he cradled Sabina.

Callan stepped back, watching the rear of the room, his face frozen, eyes wide. Whatever was happening back there, it wasn’t what he expected. And I smelled lemons on the air. Someone sworn to Clan Des Citrons was here. I never took my eyes from Callan.

Eli stepped close and took my gun, scooping Leo’s longsword from the tabletop and placing it in my right hand. Beast-fast, I drew a vamp-killer for two-handed fighting.

“Prepararse para la muerte,” I said. And I attacked. My swords swirled and circled, steel edges glittering in the lights.

Beast murmured deep inside. Killing claws. I stepped inside Callan’s guard. Beast swept out with a killing claw and cut across Callan’s chest. We stepped back. “First blood,” I said.

“Little bitch. Always in the way. Damn wolf shoulda killed you.”

Wolf . . . The red wolf from Andromeda’s jewelry shop? Or Ziggy’s and Champ’s pack? I cleared my mind, letting the meditation of the skinwalker shape-shift fill me with the emptiness of battle. My blades whirled faster. Meeting and sliding and grazing apart. My feet settled into perfect balance, long and short transverse steps sliding me inside his reach and out. Callan lunged. Again. Again. Our blades clanged and shushed along the length, gently, as I knocked his aside. Trapping his blade with my vamp-killer. Cut at his neck. Shoulder. The wrist of his sword arm. The Zen of battle.

The room around me faded. Disappeared. There was only the single blade before me and the movements of the creature who wielded it.

Cut. Cut. Cut. Blades a percussive steel melody. Edges sliding, shushing, tapping. My body dancing, dancing. Moving through the forms of La Destreza, feet spread, weight balanced. Focused on one thing. This dance.

“Jane Yellowrock. Desist.”

Cut. Cut. Cut.

“Jane Yellowrock,” the words roared. “Desist!” Leo. Commanding.

I laughed, showing teeth.

He said other words, softly, then, “Dalonige’ i Digadoli. Stop now.”

I cut and cut.

“Dalonige’ i Digadoli. Halewisda. Howatsu. Stop. Please.”

I blinked. Stepped away. From Callan. I was blood splattered. Callan was sliced into ribbons. I felt a blinding pain on my right side. Callan fell to his knees on the marble before me. His blood trickled into the drain. Instantly, I understood what I had done. In meditation, I had reverted back to the punishment I’d dealt to the first man I killed. Sickness rose in my throat, but I forced it down.