CHAPTER 19
Yada Yada Blah Blah
Thanks to the drones and the spotters, we had plenty of warning, and I even had time to brush my fangs before the action began. Shaun MacLaughlinn’s people came racing through the city in Jeeps with no doors, all heavily armed. The police had reports of “armed gang activity” from the time the vamps left Marigny and hit the streets, heading uptown. Thanks to the lines of communication between local and state officials, roadblocks were ready and went up everywhere to keep the city’s usual revelers from danger. Cops gave chase from a safe distance, SWAT was already in position in the outer perimeter around the clan home, and Bruiser joined Aya on conference calls to the chief of police—Chief Walker, who owed his life to me—to coordinate the defense of the public.
By the time Shaun reached the Garden District, the invading vamps and their toy soldiers were locked down from a military standpoint, and by the time they pulled up in front of the clan home, they were surrounded, laser targeting sights on all of them. Comms was a screaming chaos, SWAT and Eli’s teams were everywhere, workingtogether because they had to. There was more than the number of attackers we had planned on, far more than the additional twelve vamps Shaun had agreed to. He had brought a ragtag army of humans and forty vampires. Not that the vamps fully understood what the targeting lasers meant. Powerful vamps always had blind spots where modern machinery, electronics, and military equipment were concerned.
But the humans with the invading vamps were a different matter. Mercenaries, accustomed to attacking unarmed foes for pay and walking away unharmed, knew what the tiny targeting lights meant. They simply put down their weapons, locked their hands behind their necks, and sat on the street as cops surrounded them at close range, weapons trained on them. I hoped the mercenary group had already cashed their check, because replacing the weapons was going to be pretty pricy. NOLA law enforcement would surely confiscate the high-powered weapons.
That left the vamps who had broken parley and then shown up with armed soldiers to break it again. None of the vamps put up a fight either. Within sixty seconds of the mercenaries quitting, most of them voluntarily disarmed and were lying on the ground under Eli’s guard. That was the thing about making a clan out of the remains of disbanded clans and rogue vamps. No loyalty. It wasn’t lost on me that I had done exactly the same thing.
When the scene was secured, local cops were allowed to take the mercenaries away, and Bruiser had his team bring all the vamps to the porte cochere, where drones couldn’t hover overhead and watch him work. He and his crew went through the vamps, staking the ones not on the invitation list. We couldn’t simply behead them in sight of the cops and the neighbors. The uninvited extras would be moved off site, read and bled, and either claimed by a stronger vamp or... dispatched. For now, we had a row of staked vamps on the property, which no one liked, because a staked vamp could be unstaked and put back to fight quickly, but it was the best we could do.
Quint laughed at the sight of staked vamps on my computer screen. It was a weird sound, a kind of laughter I both liked and hated at the same time. My feelings about Quintwere all over the place. I hoped they settled into something stable soon.
The cameras shifted to inside as Shaun MacLaughlinn and his allowable additional twelve vamps were permitted to enter the house. Following them, I switched the security view to the inside cams.
Even with Shaun wearing his Snake of Snakes armband over a silk shirt the color of fresh blood, it was an ignominious entrance, and the vamps who had been waiting inside looked frustrated and angry, possibly because they had seen their army taken down without a shot fired or a single instance of personal combat. The big ugly video screen had carried it all live. I guessed they would move to plan C now, because no way did they have only one plan for tonight. But until they started something our people could kill them for, everything rested on the outcome of the duel. The futures of the entire city, and probably the entire U.S. Mithran organization, rested on Koun and Dovic. Except... They had broken parley. I opened the parley agreement and saw that one type of ammo wasn’t among the list of proscribed weapons, an omission—probably accidental—which gave us an advantage.
A smile stretched my face. Quint watched me the way a mouser cat watched a mouse.
I asked Eli over comms, “Were our enemies carrying silver-lead hollowpoint shredders?”
“No My Queen,” he said.
Into my mic and to Quint I said, “They broke parley multiple times. If everything goes to crap, silver-lead hollowpoint shredder rounds are not proscribed. No mercy.”
“Yes, my lady,” Quint said, her eyes lighting with glee.
“On it,” Eli said. “I’m also having your Infermieri, Florence, brought here. Things could go bad in a heartbeat.”
I could hear Quint changing out mags. Snap, slap, click. Four times. Eli was giving orders. On the laptop, I studied each face as my enemies entered the main room, watched the body language, and concentrated on Shaun as he walked up the few steps to the landing on the staircase. He started an irate monologue about the rights of vamps to command, hunt, and own humans. About how no Mithran or Naturaleza should ever allow afoul creatureto rulethem and how the only way that anyone would pledge loyalty tothat beastwas if they were weak or if some great magic was forcing them. Yada yada blah blah.
Except the great magic he was talking about was the Glob andle breloque. The old stories suggested that the corona gave the wearer the ability to force vamps to comply. The stories were right, but only for a limited time and to a very limited extent, at least for this Dark Queen. Those same stories said that the vamps had risen up against the last Dark Queen and killed her, probably because she tried to rule with an iron fist and could only control a few of them at a time. Me running amok and treating them like puppets was not a happy-happy-joy-joy thought being planted in my loyal vamps’ heads. By their expressions, it wasn’t taking, at least not for now.
When Shaun wound down, Bruiser let a silence build before he walked the four steps up to the small landing to stand beside Shaun. He introduced himself, beginning with his previous title as primo and ending with “and I am now honored to be the Consort of the Dark Queen of all Mithrans.” My heart melted.
Shaun sneered.
Politely, Bruiser suggested that Shaun’s herald provide the introductions and announcements of titles, but he didn’t cede the dais to the herald, which left the enemy’s ceremonial vamp standing on the first step, his back to Bruiser, which I could tell Shaun hated. The herald had an amazing voice, deep and sonorous, but since Shaun had no land and no city—which had been turned over to Grégoire when Shaun’sanamcharaDominique was executed—the intro didn’t take long. The herald had little to work with.
Dovic’s intro took quite a bit longer, as his intro included all the vamps he had beheaded in battle, personal combat, and duello. It was an impressive list, except it was clear at the end that he had avoided a duel with Edmund and Grégoire, which meant he had been in hiding during the takeover of Europe. The entire time the herald called out his kills, Dovic stared at Koun. His body was positioned so that I couldn’t see his face from any camera, but his hatred of Koun was evident in every line of his body.
Koun, on the other hand, looked bored. When the longlist of kills was done, the herald turned back to Bruiser and said, “And your warrior?”
Koun raised his eyebrows, stared at his rival, and said matter-of-factly, “I am Koun. No past kills have value tonight, only the kill I shall register moments from now. This night, I shall be known as the executioner of Dovic, the Arrogant Fool.”
Dovic didn’t like that. His head came up, and he vamped out, fast.
Koun still looked bored.
“And that’s your cue,” Quint said.
I slapped the crown on my head, and it tightened painfully. Standing, I walked out of my bedroom, down the hallway, and stopped at the top of the stairs.
Bruiser called out, “The Dark Queen of the Mithrans.”
Every head turned to me. I exhaled a long slow breath, letting my scent fill the room. I had never smelled like a typical skinwalker, all flowery with spring blooms. I had always smelled like what I was. A predator.
