Dark Queen

I laid an arm over my eyes, and a moment later Alex murmured, “Lift your arm. I have a cold compress for your head.”

I dropped my arm and something cool and gel-like settled in its place. No one said anything else about my little problem. My headaches were scary to the boys, since they might mean the genetic damage that had resulted from playing around in time had given me some kind of brain trauma. Or not. Maybe I was just getting migraines. Timewalking and headaches didn’t have to be cause and effect.

Eli’s cell rang. “It’s Soul. Okay if I do the talking?”

“Knock yourself out,” I said.

“Eli Younger here. Thank you for calling us back. We have a visitor, a man who claims to be PsyLED.” He didn’t mention that Alex had already been inside PsyLED’s databases and confirmed Ayatas’s identity and employment records and the claims about his personnel folder. “Claims he’s Rick LaFleur’s boss and your direct underling. Ayatas FireWind.”

“That is correct.” Soul’s voice came over the speaker. We heard clicking as she tapped on a keyboard. “He was originally in charge of five western states, but last year he requested a move to the eastern seaboard. The transfer was granted only a few weeks ago. I see from an e-mail earlier today that he was going to request assistance in meeting Leo Pellissier from Jane.” There was an odd tone in her voice, an eagerness I hadn’t expected. “Is that why you’re calling?”

“Not exactly. He tried to kill Jane.”

There was silence after his words, and if silence had a sharp edge, this one would have cut the air. “An officer of PsyLED tried to kill the Enforcer of the Master of the City of New Orleans?” Soul was carefully using titles now. I had to wonder why. “He was unsuccessful? How?”

“Yes and yes. With his service weapon.”

“Why?”

“Said her scent triggered something in him. Couldn’t really say.”

“I see. Jane’s scent is . . . unusual and—” Her voice cut off abruptly. “FireWind is dead?”

“No. Jane dodged the bullet.”

“Dodged a bullet. I see.” There was another silence as Soul put things together. She knew I could timewalk. That was the name she had given to what some species could do, including her species, the arcenciels, or rainbow dragons. We had chatted a week ago, getting me up to speed on what was happening to me, though I hadn’t told her about the headaches. Soul wasn’t part of Yellowrock Securities, so that was still under wraps.

“He can’t dodge bullets?” Eli said, asking if Ayatas could step outside of time.

She didn’t answer the question, saying instead, “Ayatas had hoped that his possible relationship with Jane would speed a meeting with Leo. Time is short.”

“You know Leo. Rick LaFleur knows Leo. Why does PsyLED need Jane?”

“PsyLED has tried three times in the last week to arrange a meeting with the Master of the City of New Orleans, through formal channels, and we’ve been shut down.”

That was interesting, but not surprising. Every law enforcement and government agency from the feds down wanted to talk to Leo ASAP, if not sooner. Plus . . . Leo currently had possession of Adan, a witch-vampire everyone wanted access to. Adan had once kept a skinwalker as personal blood-servant, making him high on my personal chat list. He’d also imprisoned an arcenciel, one of Soul’s species, and forced her to timewalk for him, making him high on Soul’s personal chat list. So personal, business, and legal reasons all at once. Everything Leo did had multilayered reasoning. “Why does PsyLED need to chat with the MOC?” Eli asked.

“Not just PsyLED, but FireWind in particular. Ayatas is more than a special agent at this particular point in time. He is the liaison between PsyLED, CIA, FBI, and ICE for the European/American blood duel.”

Soul had told me nothing useful, except that Ayatas had a lot of pull to have the backing of so many federal agencies. I figured she was giving me bits and pieces in hopes of info on the Sangre Duello. Leo was working hard to keep the government out of the duel. And—Ayatas was here to use me. I had known it. Yet, some small piece of innocence and hope died inside me. The coffin that was my chest ached.

Eli said nothing and Soul continued. “We understand that the Sangre Duello may be held offshore. Normally, of course, no one in a government position would be involved in anything offshore, in foreign countries or international waters.”

I lifted a corner of my eye cover and Eli gave me a wolfish grin. He’d been in combat in places where maybe he shouldn’t have been sent. The government wasn’t always true to international law. I pushed the gel pack away and sat up, ignoring the spears that lanced through my brain and throbbed like a heavy metal band of agony. Eli was watching me. I blinked and forced my eyes to focus together.

“Titus Flavius Vespasianus and Leo Pellissier officially requested permission to have the blood battles to the death in Louisiana,” Soul said, “and, as the challenged party, it was Titus’s right to do so according to Mithran law. Fortunately for the safety of our citizens, it was not his right according to United States law. When the request for the duel to be held on U.S. territory and land was refused by a myriad of government institutions, the Mithrans shut the door to all of us. Now Pellissier is no longer answering our calls. In fact, not one single vampire in the entire United States is returning our calls.”

I knew all this. The number of U.S. legalities involved had been too long to deal with, from duels being illegal in most U.S. states to ICE and the federal government working to ensure that these particular European vampires were never allowed on U.S. soil, even for a visit. As Leo’s Enforcer, a position of power in vamp hierarchy, and as the Dark Queen—a title I was still learning about—I knew most everything going on. And I could tell Soul none of it. I said, “Tell me that doesn’t surprise you. The government flipped off paras and then expected the para leaders to keep in contact with them? You’re a para. You know better.”

Soul sighed over the connection. “We’ve asked the Robere twins and George Dumas to liaise with us on this matter and they refused. We’ve brought in the governor’s office, several maritime organizations, including the Coast Guard, and half a dozen other agencies. Rick LaFleur is traveling internationally more than he’s here, so he’s little help. But Pellissier won’t talk to anyone now.”

One of the Roberes was a lawyer. George, aka Bruiser, my boyfriend, had been Leo’s primo at one time and still had a lot of pull with the MOC. And all three were Onorios, which we needed at the fight with the Europeans. They were the judges and the keepers of the peace. Did the government know that last part? Sure. Why not? This thing had been FUBARed from the beginning. And Rick . . . I hadn’t known that my ex was traveling. That was interesting too, if not pertinent to this convo.

Leo had pulled in his nets and gone back to port, as the fishing metaphor went. He had walked away from the government, a government that refused to recognize his species as equal to humans in protections under the law. So now the government and law enforcement were at my door, claiming a personal relationship to get my help. Ducky. The coffin door in my heart slammed shut.

Soul went on. “Titus and Leo have since requested permission to broadcast the battles, though no traditional broadcast networks have picked up on it. However, no one can stop the broadcast via Internet pay-per-view, despite the violence, and a number of providers are bidding on the rights with Leo. George and the Roberes are also involved in these high-level talks. And they are not calling us back.”

And you can’t make them, because the government in general refused to work with the suckheads and their humans. Yeah. Soul knew a lot more than I expected. I nodded to my partner and he said, “Okay. Still listening.”

“I just discovered that the Europeans are planning to hold offshore gambling on the matches and have agreed that the tax income from the bets won and lost will go to Louisiana, if the state will partner with them.”

My eyebrows went up. That was a surprise.

“This is likely to result in a great deal of money,” Soul said over the cell connection, “and it seems that someone high up in the Louisiana state government is suddenly interested, which means we are scrambling. It’s all tangled up in federal and state law with everyone wanting a piece of the action or to be seen as politically strong, fighting to keep more bloodsuckers out of the U.S.”