Soul ground out, “My people are trapped here. Jane. Don’t play stupid games that could get people killed, yours or mine. You know where a rift is?”
“Yes. There’s a new rift. Or it looks new. And it’s definitely an interdimensional opening.”
Soul hesitated. I had learned to bargain and she had figured that out. As if saying the words hurt her, she asked, “If I try to get you military help, you’ll take me there?”
“No. Not just try. I need guaranteed help fighting theFlayer and help finding the witch time circle so we can shut it down. This is to be under the command, or with shared command, of the Dark Queen. Quid pro quo. And I also want clarification and info.”
I could almost feel Soul grinding her teeth. Her dragon-of-rainbows teeth—big pearly fangs. The tension on the cell connection ached with potential violence. “Clarification on what?” she nearly whispered, as if to keep from shouting. And I knew I had won.
“Back last fall, I freed an arcenciel and destroyed the geode she was trapped in. In return, you and the other arcenciels pledged to help Leo and the city against the Europeans.” I stopped. Soul said nothing. “In the Sangre Duello, your people waited to help until Leo was dead. Even after I gave you a spell to keep your people from slavery, forever.” Carefully, I added, “I want to know why the arcenciels didn’t help keep Leo alive.”
Soul laughed, bitter humor. Arcenciel laughter was usually like bells and gongs and woodwinds playing, but not this time. Now there was nothing but discordant notes. “I’ll play your little game. I fought my own people to keep the vampires alive, you stupid cat. I’m still fighting them to keep them from going back and destroying the Sons of Darkness before any vampires were ever made. It’s battle in the skies, three of us and the little bird against all the others.”
I remembered the arcenciel war I had glimpsed in the water droplets in my soul home, and fought to keep goose bumps from rising along my neck. Was I on the cusp of everything deadly I had seen in the future? “Because the human timeline would alter drastically if the first vampires are destroyed before they can achieve undeath,” I stated, seeking the clarification I needed.
“Yes. I fought them into stalemate. In return for them allowingyouthetimeto destroy the Sons of Darkness, I had to let Leo die. I had no choice. I did the best I could to honor both commitments.”
She had changed history just enough for Leo’s head to not fly off into the distance, as I had seen in one timeline, but to be still attached by a remnant of flesh in the currenttimeline. Dead, in a mausoleum in the fanghead cemetery. I had hoped that thread of flesh was also a thread of hope, but Leo hadn’t risen. He never would. I had gone to the graveyard and caught the stench of rot from his tomb.
Carefully, I said, “Your best? No. You were foresworn. Foresworn to the Dark Queen of the Mithrans.” I had just accused Soul of breaking an oath brokered in an interspecies parley, a deadly insult if she disagreed.
“Son of a bitch,” she spat. “I’ll see what I can do to get you help and information.” She ended the call.
I set my cell on the table beside me, beginning to feel the tiredness in my muscles and my gut. I’d been human too long. But Soul still owed me. I wondered when she would figure that out.
***
Alex stumbled into the TV room, where I sat, alone, staring out at the snowy world. He carried a tall, canned energy drink and took his seat at his empty desk chair. He smelled horrible and he looked worse. “Too many energy drinks?” I asked.
“Go away, Janie.” He looked my way and did a double take. “You’re human-shaped.”
I chortled. “Yeah. For a little while. I found a way to slow the progression of the cancer. Temporarily.”
“Everything in life is temporary. Even life itself.”
“That sounds very fatalistic.”
He said something under his breath and punched keys. Opened a laser-light keyboard on the desk. Tapped the desk there too. He was using multiple keyboards at once. Screens came to life everywhere.
I moved up behind him, my eyes taking in the screens. Nothing looked out of place. Nothing looked unexpected. No invaders. No big-cats. “Alex?” I asked softly. “What’s wrong?”
He stopped, his fingers clenching under the laser light. “My brother nearly died. Again. It’s hard.”
Softly I said, “If you can get him to sign the proper papers, and if he dies, and if I can get him to a fanghead in time, I’ll make them turn him.”
“Lot ofifsin there. What if it’s an enemy fanghead?”
I laughed, and it was a nasty, awful sound. I remembered Klaus, the vampire I had claimed and bled to save Eli in the snow. Claiming was evil. Was a type of slavery. I had set him free, but it had been an afterthought, not something I planned, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. “I’ll force any fanghead I can find to turn him. And then, if necessary, I’ll kill the vamp to keep him from claiming Eli. And I’ll bargain with my own life to get Amy Lynn Brown to feed him, exclusively, for a year.”
Amy Lynn had special blood that helped vamps through the devoveo—the ten years of madness after being turned—in record time. Her blood, exclusively, would mean a clean, fast, sane transition. Hopefully. And as the DQ, I could make it happen. “And that goes for you too, now that you signed the papers. We’re family.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky swear.” I held out my pinky finger. He reached back without looking and stuck his pinky finger in the air. I hooked mine through his and we squeezed. Pact made.
“Ant Jane! Ant Jane! Ant Jane!” EJ hurtled from the kitchen into the TV room. “You gots Jane face!”
I lifted him up into the air and tossed him high. When he landed in my hands, a twinge of pain slanted through me. I’d already been Jane too long. “Not for long, though. I’m about to put on my Beast face.”
