“The better to eat you with,” Angie Baby said from the doorway opening. Her face was set in disapproving lines. Or—
“Jane?” Alex said. “We got problems.”
I had wandered toward Angie and I returned to Alex, EJ over my shoulder, me leaning over Alex’s shoulder, looking at the screen that held his attention. Instantly I whirled back to the doorway and picked up Angie Baby. I shielded her from the view of the screen and carried her back to Molly. Angie was shouting, “No fair, no fair, no fair, no fair!” as I carried her and her brother back to the kitchen.
My BFF took one look at my face and shushed her child. “You need doors on the office,” was all she said.
“Yeah. I’ll put it on the list.” Back in the office, I gestured for Alex to put the camera feed on the main screen.
“It’s the feed from inside... maybe a church or a fancy spa,” he said, “and it’s being sent to me. I can’t track it. Not yet.” There was a lot of wood and stone and the vision of a trickle of water falling softly, like an ornamental fountain in the corner of the screen.
Center screen, the Flayer of Mithrans was killing his interpreter. There was no sound. Only the awful footage. The female vampire was clothed only in blood. There was no flesh left on her arms, hands, calves, feet, neck, or face. She was a limp and empty vision of dripping crimson, held upright, clasped close to the chest of Shimon Bar-Judas, one arm around her waist. Her eyes were open, staring, blank, human, human as she likely hadn’t been in... decades? Centuries? I had no idea of her hair color. Her head was scalped. She was a broken, skinned doll. And the Flayer was facing her at the camera, chatting to it through her mouth as if there was volume.
“What’s he saying?” I managed, sounding calmish.
Alex’s fingers flew over his keyboards. “I’m sending the feed to a deaf chick I know for a lipreading interpretation, but with the fangs I doubt she can tell me anything. I’m trying to find a cell I can hack—Hang on. Got something.”
I studied the face of Shimon. He was vamped out and so was his mouthpiece. She had upper and lower fangs, top and bottom. I had no idea what she might be saying until the audio suddenly came through Alex’s speakers.
Then the woman’s voice came over the sound system. “—kill every human for ten miles. Claim every Naturaleza and every Mithran for twenty miles. Tribal woman and her pitiful followers, you will be mine or you will be true-dead. I am king. I am the god of the blood-drinkers. I am all there is for life and death and for any future that defeats the dragons. You will kneel to me. I will drink your blood and eat your flesh. Your witches will enter my circle and give metime. All time. I will rule from the beginning to the end, the alpha and the omega...”
I made a slashing motion to Alex and he cut the volume. “He knew we would find him and hear this.”
“He spent a lot of time in Ed’s head,” Alex said. “He may know us better than we want him to.”
“Oh goody.” I sighed. “I get the megalomania,” I said. “I get the belief that, because he’s lived so long, he thinks he deserves something. Even worship. But something feels off.” I walked closer to the screen with the fanghead and the bleeding woman. Her fingers were working, twisting and bending and—“Alex. Get your deaf friend to read the fingers. She’s using the... whatchu call it... the deaf alphabet.”
Alex cursed under his breath. “American Sign Language hand alphabet. Yeah. Got it. I have a feeling that whatever she’s signing, it isn’t what the fanghead wants her to say.”
We fell silent. In the background I heard Angie and EJ screaming in laughter. I also heard Big Evan’s woodwind pipes and felt distant magic glance across my skin. Cia and Liz were at work in the parking lot. Something about their magic felt odd, felt shadowy and smoky, as if the world had burned from within their workings. It was a trace of dark magic or demon taint, and either one terrified me, but there was nothing I could do about that. Not now.
“Humans in danger,” Alex said. “Cantrell, my deaf friend, says the bloody woman is saying that over and over. ‘Humans in danger. Send DQ. Help.’”
DQ. Dark Queen.Asking me for help. An act of compassion or a trap?
“I don’t believe that one of the Flayer’s vamps would care about humans,” Alex said, echoing my thoughts.
I said nothing, but my entire body tightened. Silently I walked away, up the stairs, and changed into my half-form shape. Lying on the floor, panting, in pain, I thought about the message. It was probably a trap. Fangheads were good ambush hunters. But... I was the Dark Queen. This was my job, or would be once I figured out where my enemy was. I weaponed up. Thinking about my clan, my people who would be on the firing line with me and in danger if I failed. I hadn’t heard back from Soul about help. Ayatas was useless. Rick LaFleur was not answering. The LEOs were trapped in an avalanche.
My people and I were alone. I needed to be ready when the opportunity came.
My mind on autopilot, I dressed and braided my hair, repainted my claws with the last of the scarlet polish. I looked in the full-length mirror. My hair was in a fighting queue, with multiple silver stakes in it like a crown. Six throwing knives. I didn’t put on boots, but I did secure a tactical pocketknife in the deep boot sheath and a tactical fixed blade over it. Someone searched me once I put on the boots? They’d find the fixed blade easy peasy, but chances were good that they wouldn’t stick their fingers into the space below and find the folded knife. My dual shoulder holster and matching nine-mils. I slid my lucky vamp-killer into its sheath. This blade had been made for me by Evan to replace the one lost when I killed Molly’s sister for calling a demon. The vamp-killer had taken many enemies since then. It was mostly superstition, but I felt safer with it on me.
I heard Molly’s fast steps up the stairs. My half-form ears were better than my human ears. She was calling out before she reached my doorway. “Someone’s coming up the road. I can feel it through thehedgeand Alex says two monitoring devices indicate something passed through.” She swung in the doorway, arms holding the doorjamb to either side, bouncing on her toes.
I gave a slight smile. “You could have texted.”
“I need the exercise. I need to get away from the kids. You coming or you just gonna stand there looking all badass?”
My cell dinged and I tapped on the speaker. Alex said, “You and Molly get back here. The car’s now being chased at five miles an hour through the snow, by two more cars. Eli and Bruiser are on the way there but it’s slow going in the drifts. Witches are in place. Need you here.”
Molly turned and raced back downstairs. She was wearing running shoes, doing cardio. “Move it, Big-Cat!”
I followed and entered the office, where Alex had the main TV screen partitioned off into twelve screens, each with a different view, none of them showing dying bloody vamps. The kids were putting a puzzle together on a big coffee table that hadn’t been there earlier, juice boxes with tiny straws and a bowl of grapes between them. They were under a personalhedge, big enough to cover the kidsand the table. Neither child looked up when I entered, seemingly focused on the shaped pieces before them.Uh-huh. Sure.But, Molly’s problem, not mine.
“With one of the outer-perimeter cameras, I spotted Soul inside the lead car. She’s being chased by the other cars, driven by blood-servants of the Flayer,” Alex said. “But an arcenciel doesn’t have to let herself be chased.”
“Right,” I muttered, taking in the different screens. I had seen Soul shift to her rainbow dragon form. And to a tiger. She could be anything she wanted. So why stay human-shaped, trapped in a slow-moving car, one that was having trouble staying on the narrow drive, swerving and sliding across the ice? The car revolved slowly left and began a slow spin as it approached a raised curve, the road higher than the woods around it. The car behind her was wearing chains. It revved up, throwing snow from all tires. Its bumper nudged Soul’s car. Just hard enough.
