“For not knowing or thinking about being so freaking... killable,” I said. “For rushing in like a fool. For getting mostly dead and having to be brought back with your blood,” I said to the vamps. “For putting you all in danger, you and all my people and all their families. For being me and not learning a new way to do things. I suck at being a queen.”
Eli barked a laugh and stepped farther from Bruiser.
“But I promise to learn,” I said. “I will never be the proper protocol queen some suckheads and their servants need, but I’ll stop trying to get myself and the people I love killed by not listening.”
Bruiser dropped his stance, bent over, and put his hands on his knees. He was breathing hard. His face was bruised, and his lips were a bloody mess.
Eli looked no better, but he was evaluating us. To Bruiser, he said, “She’s worth the trouble.”
Bruiser nodded his head and managed a deep breath through his damaged throat. He stood upright and shook out his hands. “She is. Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“I’ll live. A little blood might help later. You want to finish this?”
“Proper fisticuffs?”
“Hell no.” Eli raised his fists and danced out the kinks in his legs. “But nothing below the belt, with knees, throats, and temples off-limits.”
“Done.” Bruiser attacked.
I’d be happy to be in the middle of that scuffle, but I had a feeling Bruiser would just walk away. He needed the release.
In the kitchen with a fresh cup of gunpowder green tea on the table beside me, I watched the security video of the attack at HQ. Fireballs in back. Out front, the attackers used bullets. The NOPD SWAT, uniformed members of the eighth district, and three firetrucks blocked the roads. The humans stood behind armored vehicles and barricades, waiting, SWAT team aiming through the open gates. Watching as vamps and humans raced around shooting at each other. The fireballs out back stopped.Something that might have been the Firestarter slithered like melting wax over the wall and into the darkness. Bodies were carted up the front steps, including mine. No one left through the front entrance. The gate remained open. I sped through an hour of nothing, until Jodi walked through the open front gates and up the steps, as if out for stroll.
I knew that I would be insulated from violence from now on, and it was my own dang fault. Beast and I needed to get my body and shifting back under control. I needed to be able to shift the way we used to. I needed to go to my soul home and figure out what was wrong.
Until that happened, I sipped and watched the sun rise out the kitchen window. Later I opened the trunk that Derek and I had brought up from subbasement four. I put the daguerreotype of Leo on the table on Bruiser’s side of the bed and unloaded the record books.
Just as I had asked Derek, some of the journals were in English, and there was a lot of history, personal musings, often drawings and even some old photos, but there was nothing useful to the current situation, except for a small leather-bound text Derek had put in the trunk. It was titledA Brief Treatise on Witchery and Demonic Workings. It was in English, but nearly impossible to read, with print that used caps in weird places and mixed upSandFand other letters. I hunted for and found a heading that read “The Uncommon and Inexplicable Rule of Three.”
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that the Onorio Monique Giovanni, thesenza onoreAurelia Flamma Scintilla, and the other women in the hull soul home could be three Onorio types. But there were three other Onorios in NOLA—Bruiser and the B-twins, Brandon and Brian Robere. Tau, also asenza onoreof some sort, was in the null prison, put there by me. Monique had wanted Bruiser to join her group of three. Why? Add in the Robere twins and Tau in the witch’s null prison, and that made another three. Assuming Monique knew about her.
Then there were Sabina’s incoherent visions and ramblings. Her visions of Ka. What was so important about Ka N’vsita? The memory of Ka, the Firestarter, and Immanuel standing together with the blond man. Shaun MacLaughlinn was blond. Could it have been him? Had Shaun beenpart of Immanuel’s plan to take over from Leo from the very beginning? I tried to recall the fashions they wore, but their clothing faded into mists as I tried to force the memory. Sabina hadn’t noticed the clothes or the time period.
What if... What if Ka was still alive but no longer able to change shapes. What if she was no longer an Onorio.
What if the magic Adan used on Ka had caused her DNA to malfunction as mine had, but with a different outcome? What if that was why they needed more Onorios? That made an awful lot of sense. And if Ka was no longer able to function as a skinwalker, that left Grandmother, who was definitelyu’tlun’ta, and me. And Aya was skinwalker too. We had multiples of threes with extras if needed, plenty of paras to make use of the power of the Rule of Three. With a frisson of fear, I wondered what the Rule of Three squared might accomplish.
Where was Ka’s former master, Adan? Had he known what Ka could become? Would he have cared? Even if he had understood what that meant, Adan was a vamp and a witch. He would have done what he wanted and the consequences be damned.
Fear shivering through me, I asked Alex, sitting at his desk only yards away in the living room, for Adan’s location. Instantly he texted me an address in Alabama. Adan was in Mobile at last sighting. I wasn’t sure what to do about that.
Vamp life was a constant jostling of loyalties and rearranging of plans. Tangled skeins of threads to unravel, broken puzzles without all the pieces needed to put it together. All this was too interconnected to be random, as if all of this was part of a weaving created by someone long ago and managed through the years.
Holy crap.Leo had expected all this.Plannedfor all this.
And that blasted fanghead bloodsucker had dumped it all on me.
CHAPTER 12
Little Brother to the Rescue
I texted Aya to beware of possible attacks and the little I knew about the Rule of Three. He texted back one word: “Acknowledged.” My brother wasn’t the chatty type.
I also texted Brandon and Brian Robere to beware of possible assault and abduction. Brandon replied, “We are in a safe location and are well-guarded, but we will be vigilant.”
I went back to the journals, flipping through one in Spanish and two in French. They were hard to read and impossible for me to translate, but I could pick out names. I saw one area where the names Adan Bouvier and de Allyon were on the same page. De Allyon. Who killed all the skinwalkers and drank their blood. I had killed his sorry butt and taken his head. I took a photo of the untranslated text and sent it to Alex to find someone who spoke the language of the region and the timeline, and get it translated.
As I sent the text, vamp timelines begin to click together, almost audibly, in my mind. It was daylight, and my teapot was empty. I should be in bed after a long andcomplicated night, but my brain was in overdrive. Starting a new pot, with double the gunpower green, I made a strong bitter tea full of caffeine.
