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 jewelryshop? 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.
I lifted the longsword back, across my body. With all Beast’s strength, I cut.
Callan’s head toppled. Fell. So did Callan’s blood-slick body. His sword hit the black floor. I stood over him, watching as his blood puddled between the marble tiles in geometric patterns, flowing toward the drain.
Alex clicked off his phone, but before he did, I saw Aggie One Feather’s name on the screen. He had called her to get Tsalagi words to make me stop. He had given the words to Leo.
“Bring Edmund to me for healing. Find Dominique, who tossed a sword to the prisoner, and bring her to me,” Leo said. “If she is still in Council Chambers, her true-death is now mine to give.”
Dominique. The traitor brought back from near-true-dead. Dominique and Adrianna—an archenemy I had tried to kill for years—had been lovers. I had recently killed Adrianna and that gave Dominique a big reason to want me dead. And she was here at the same time as the scent of lemons... Ahhhh. That was why Leo and Grégoire had brought Dominique back and set her free—to track who she had been working with. Dominique had sworn to Clan Des Citrons. A tiny puzzle piece fell into place. Finally.
“Jane?” Leo was wearing that blank vamp expression. There was a reddish haze around him and I blinked, trying to clear it away. Raised my hand and wiped my eyes. My wrist came away bloody. I realized there was blood in my eyelashes. In my hair. “Eli. Take Jane to heal.”
I felt the world shift and I realized I was in Eli’s arms. He carried me from the room, moving fast through a dizzying maze of hallways, into the locker room across from the gym. He placed me on a bench and a woman knelt at my feet, removing my shoes and cutting off my clothes, wrapping me in white sheets that quickly turned scarlet. I watched for a while until the pain and the stench of my own blood brought me around. I looked at my stomach. There was a deep cut there. Callan had been a mediocre swordsman. I was actually better. But just there at the end, when I stepped away and before I positioned for the final cut, he had lunged. I hadn’t blocked or parried. Callan’s sword had run me through.
Jane used killing claws. Jane is good hunter. Trespasser in hunting territory is dead. But Jane is stupid kit. Should have used ambush and taken head first.
“Can I be both?” I asked aloud. “Good hunter and stupid kit?”
“Don’t know. But you are for sure bleeding to death,” the woman said.
