Dark Queen

“Okay.” The mic went silent. Then he said, “Jodi is pissed, but they’re parked three houses down on Frenchmen. They’ll enter in two.”

Eli checked his watch. “Your Beast has senses I don’t. You take point.” Pulling on Beast’s strength, I raced to the fence and leaped. I caught myself with Beast’s grace and peeked over the top before I slipped over, into the leaves of an elephant ear plant. I managed to break several of the huge leaves. Eli landed beside me and broke some more.

There were four cars in the small lot. Eli said, “Dried mud and grass on the bumper. Centipede, just like the Stephens place.” He moved toward the back door and a security light came on. We ducked back into the foliage just as the door opened. A vamp stuck his head out, spotted a cat on a windshield, cursed, and shut the door. We didn’t hear a lock turn. But I did smell a lot of blood.

Kits, Beast growled.

“We’re going in now,” I said into the mic. To Eli I added, “Stay behind me. I heal better than you do.”

Eli said nothing, but he raced up the stairs and turned the knob. The door opened. I rushed in and stopped, my back to the wall. Into his mic Eli muttered, “Back door was unlocked. A child is screaming. Repeat. We have breached the back. Wall directly ahead, stairs to the right.”

The entry was a well-lighted mudroom. The vamp who had stuck his head outside was close. I could smell him. We needed him to be quiet. We needed him out of action. We also needed him alive to question. I pointed to my eyes and then at the doorway to the left, telling Eli I was taking a look. I drew a fourteen-inch vamp-killer and advanced on the opening.

Three feet from me, the vamp walked around the corner. His eyes met mine. Bled black; his fangs snapped down. He vamped out. He started to shout. I raised the vamp-killer and shoved straight forward, my feet automatically moving into La Destreza. The point of the blade entered his throat and cut through. Blood shot over me. The vamp dropped. The blade, hanging in the spinal processes in back, dragged my hand down.

I waggled the blade and pulled it loose, stuck an ash stake into his belly. But I didn’t take his head. If he survived, he might give us intel.

Eli pointed up the narrow stairs, probably servants’ stairs way back when. He raced up. Taking point. Stupid man. I followed. We were on the second-floor landing, staring up the stairs to the third floor, when I heard a squeak on the front porch.

I ran faster, passing Eli. At the top of the stairs I followed the scent of blood and pointed to a room with the door open. Light spilled into the hallway. We raced inside. On the floor just inside the room was an adult male, his throat cut, the blood already stopped. Three people sat on the bed staring at him. Silent. Horrified. The back window was open. I raced to it and looked out.

The front door blew in with a crash. “NOPD! Freeze! Put down your weapons.”

I caught a glimpse of a body clearing the back fence in a single bound. Vamp. I dove out the window. “Jane!” Eli shouted. I dropped and landed on a car, caving in the roof but breaking my fall. I took off after the vamp, over the wall. I was halfway down the street when I heard a car start back at the house. It bashed through the gate and pulled away at speed. In the other direction, the running vamp was gone. “Crap. Crap, crap, crap, damn it, crap.” That wasn’t nearly strong enough. I had to go back inside and deal with a dead father. A traumatized family. I really needed to learn how to cuss properly.

I went in through the back door, noted that the vamp I’d staked was gone, relinquished my weapon to the SWAT OIC, and went on upstairs. The woman was holding her children and weeping; the children were wailing. Jodi was trying to calm them. SWAT officers were everywhere. I stood in the corner and listened until Jodi managed to calm the woman enough to ask questions. Only one answer was important to me.

“They kept asking us for the bottle. But Laurie left it for Leo Pellissier, in a place where his people would find it.”

“Why?” I asked, wondering if she’d give me confirmation about the contents of the letter Leo had received. “Trying to cover their bases?”

“No.” The woman looked up. Despite the blood on her face and the panicked children in her arms, she had dignity and poise that made me embarrassed for what I’d just said. “Laurie hoped Leo would figure it out and then rescue them. They didn’t change sides willingly. The emperor has held her daughter prisoner for decades. She’s on that damned boat in the gulf.” She smelled of the truth.

Beast thought at me, Kits are afraid. Jane should change to Beast so Beast can comfort them.

Not this time. Beast’s killing claws and teeth would frighten them.

Beast has big killing teeth, she agreed.

I turned and went down the stairs. Outside. And away from the fear and horror and the stench of blood and death. Texted Alex what had happened. We had lost our only lead into the lemon clan.

* * *

• • •

We had been home less than an hour when my cell sang out with the ringtone Alex had programmed for Leo, “Night of the Vampire” by Roky Erickson. I turned off the shower water, wrapped in a bath sheet that covered me from neck to knees, as if Leo could see me over the cell (which had never been set up with FaceTime just because of moments like this), and answered the call on the line about slipping in blood. It seemed appropriate. I said, “How may the Enforcer and the mistress of Clan Yellowrock assist the Master of the City?”

“Pack your bag,” Leo ordered. “You and the Youngers are needed at the house on Spitfire Island. All has been done that can be done without you. It is time to finalize security measures.” The call ended. I heard a cell ring upstairs, Leo calling the boys. He left little to chance these days.

I set the cell aside, facedown, and twisted my hair, letting the rinse water drain down the shower. I dressed in jeans and layers—a warm silk-knit tee, a tunic sweater, and a short denim jacket. Wool socks. A pair of iridescent green snakeskin Lucchese boots. It was warm for winter, but it was still winter.

I got out my larger gobag and a pack of plastic zip bags. I tossed in a gallon bag of toiletries, a quart bag full of makeup, mostly different kinds of red lipstick, but mascara and other stuff too. I packed a gallon bag of silver stakes, another gallon bag of ash wood stakes. One pair of dancing shoes. My most comfy combat boots. A hanging bag of dress clothes and the red and white leathers. Since I didn’t know the sleeping arrangements, I rolled up two pairs of sweats and put them in a plastic bag with undies and socks. T-shirts. An extra pair of jeans. Flops. I stood at the foot of the bed and studied the bag. It was nearly full. I had come to New Orleans with less than this.

From the top of the closet I pulled all the magical trinkets and magical weapons and stuffed them into the bag, including the Glob and le breloque, the gold laurel-leaf crown that had probably helped me become the Dark Queen. I added the robe that hung on the back of my bathroom door. I almost never used it, but the sleeping arrangements sounded like summer camp. I added my pillow. I had become addicted to high-quality pillows, mattresses, and linens. My life was out of control.

The gobag was too full of magic and undies for weapons, so I started a pile to the side. When I had stripped my room of everything that went bang, I sat on the gobag and got it zipped shut, but it was a near thing. I nearly stabbed myself with the stakes in a place that was totally inappropriate for traditional staking. I was still sitting on the bag when Eli’s scent swept under the door and he knocked. “Come in.”

He opened the door. “Orders from Leo.”

“I got them too. Ruined the end of a perfectly good shower.”

Eli studied the bag under my backside. “You got weapons in that?”

I could have told him about the magical stuff and the stakes, but when Eli asked that question, he meant things that go bang. “No.”

“Ammo?”

“No.”

“Fighting leathers?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “In the hanging bag.”

He frowned hard. “Do not tell me you packed girly stuff in that.”

“I did. I totally did. And I’m not ashamed.” Much. I let the teasing drift away. “Something I need to say. You are my brother. My second. You are the one I depend on most when my life is on the line.”