Five minutes before the Europeans landed for the night, I was in my whites again. Edmund had insisted on directing my dressing, and because he was in so much pain that he had woken before sunset, I let him—though I put on my own undies, a white uni, and my boots all by myself. He worked with Deon and Ziggy in the rest of the dressing experiment, including a gold turtleneck under doubled gorgets, Queen Bitch’s makeup (too much and all of it glittery, I was sure, though I hadn’t seen myself yet), and weapons (lots of them). Edmund, working mostly one-handed, had braided my hair into a fighting queue with a crown of stakes. I wore the Mughal blade in its scarlet-velvet-covered scabbard, two long swords, and blades all over me.
“I’ll clank as I walk,” I complained.
Ed gave me a look that disagreed. “You will be perfect.”
“No. You will be magnificent,” Ziggy said earnestly. “And though QB will be dreadfully jealous to have competition, after seeing you, I may create a JY ensemble for the next drag queen competition. I’ll show a lot more breast, of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
“And my pants will be a G-string under leather chaps.”
Ziggy was currently wearing crinkled gray linen pants and a gray hoodie out of some slick slubby material like flax. Unisex clothes. Lots of makeup. Blinged-out flip-flops. I shook my head. He kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll look stunning, Legs. I promise I’ll do you proud.” He held up a mirror to me. I looked like a different woman.
Ziggy had applied golden and sapphire shimmer to my lids, a sparkly gold eyeliner over Cleopatra-style black liner, mascara that made my lashes look a mile long. A dusting of golden shimmery cheek color, red lipstick, and the pièce de résistance, lines back from my eyes and cheeks like whiskers, drawn in shimmery gold. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that none of it would matter when I fought. “Thank you. I look amazing.”
“Of course you do, honey chile. Everything I do is amazing.”
• • •
I didn’t go in for the first two rounds, instead sitting with the Kid and Champ in the production/security room, studying the low-light and infrared cameras for evidence of a witch. The two rubies had been returned by Sabina when she woke, returned without comment. I hadn’t asked if Del lived or died. I was too chicken. But I’d placed the rubies onto the chain at my neck and they had realigned to my magics the moment I held them. Batteries. Maybe boosters too. We didn’t spot a witch under an obfuscation spell, but what we did see was grim.
Katie stood in the center octagonal ring on the sand, her bastard sword held in a backhand stance. She wasn’t the Katherine I met when I first came to New Orleans, a confused, olden-day vamp lost in the modern world, nor was she the Katie who had risen nearly insane from a box of blood. This Katie was vibrant, steady, her power shooting throughout the room, so electric that Titus himself winced in surprise. So strong that I could feel it in the cramped room below.
Katie said, “I accept the challenge of Postumus, who seeks the head of my love and my master, Leo Pellissier.”
“Who is Postumus?” I asked, not remembering the name in the long list of combatants.
In a dead voice, Alex said, “Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus. Founder of the Gaelic Empire in 260 or so.”
He would be old. Skilled. Devious. My heart tightened in my chest.
The bell dinged. A bearded vamp stepped forward, muscular, short, a powerful barrel of a man.
Four seconds later, Katie was down, her foot nearly severed, her throat sliced from ear to ear, and a stake in her chest. Her opponent was dead, both arms severed and his head across the room, but Katie was in bad shape. She was carried up the stairs in a dripping bloody sheet. Leo’s people won the first match, but with Katie down and out, we may have lost the Sangre Duello.
“You okay?” I asked the Kid.
“I’m finer than fine,” Alex answered, eyes on his cameras, his kinky hair sticking to his sweaty face. It was hot in the closet, with all the equipment running and no AC. “Or as good as I can be without energy drinks, mainlining espresso and Clif bars.” I said nothing. As Sabina talked to Titus and Leo, their voices coming through the windows and not the system, Alex said, “You let Eli fight.”
“Your brother didn’t leave me a choice. He said yes.”
“You coulda coldcocked him and carried him from the line of fire.”
I nodded slowly, knowing that Alex could see me from the corner of his eye. “I could have. I didn’t.”
“You wanna tell me why?”
“Eli wanted that fight. He chose a good weapon. Something she wasn’t likely to have fired. I had read the dossier on the woman.”
“Not an acceptable reason.” He turned his head and met my eyes, his brownish ones darker in the night. “You. Let him. Fight.” It was an accusation, the words widely spaced and venomous.
“He misses it, misses the adrenaline rush, the heightened senses. You know it. I know it. I thought this was a good choice. The safest choice.”
“That asshole coulda shot him in the head, not the chest. Eli coulda not worn a vest. My brother could be dead.”
“I know. I screwed up. I’m sorry.”
Alex nodded, a minuscule gesture much like one Eli would make. “Don’t let it happen again, Janie.”
