“Now,” I said.
She pulled a massive weapon, a GatCrank, forward and aimed it on the gathered. We had planned this on the way over. “Send the announcement. All the fangheads are to gather in the gym.” I swiveled my head around, takingthem in. “All of them. Anyone who refuses togatheris to be staked with wood and brought down anyway.”
The smell of shock and anger began to rise on the air. Not unexpected.
Some of the vamps smelled like fear now too. I snarled, showing my fangs. “I am your queen.” Almost as if I knew what I was doing, using the skill I had learned healing Aya, I drew on the blasted crown, yanking the power into me. Gathering it inside myself. Holding it in a loose fist of my will.
So softly it was only a whisper, I said, “Kneel!” I shoved my power into the group.
All around the foyer, vamps fell to their knees. All except a select few. I memorized their faces and scents.
My personal security popped from the airlock into the foyer, vamp-fast, armed to the teeth. Thema and Kojo raced through the crowd, shoving the resistant vamps facedown to the floor. Staking them. I knew who my people were and who my enemies were.
Through the loudspeaker system, an announcement went out. “All Mithrans are to gather in the gym,” Sarah commanded. “HQ is in full lockdown mode. There is no way out. You have fifteen minutes.”
Satisfied, I turned and walked to my destination, showing them my back.
Leo had taught me well.
Koun was on my tail. He was wearing basic armor in a dull black and carried lots of weapons. And he had both swords out.
I wasn’t sure where Leo was, but in this form, I had a very good nose, and he wasn’t on the premises. I didn’t smell him anywhere. I had thought he might be hiding here and that perhaps I could smell him in this form. I was wrong.
I shoved open the door. It dented the wall where it hit. I was doing that a lot now. I strode into Raisin’s office, silent on my pawed feet, the scarlet armor a declaration of war. Two feet in, I stopped.
The old blood-servant was looking at me. Her eyes wide, her lips pursed into dozens of vertical crevices and wrinkles. One hand was beneath her desk. Before shecould pull out her hand and aim, Quint flew under my arm and up into the room. Her body twisted in midair, somersaulting and uncoiling. Like a ninja in some old movie.
Time deescalated. I crouched.
The petite blonde crashed into Raisin feet first. A gun fired. Small caliber. It blew out a ceiling light as they disappeared behind the desk. Tumbling.
Quint stood, lifting Raisin by the hair and slammed her facedown onto the desk, breaking her nose. Almost as fast as a vamp, Quint yanked Raisin’s arms back and secured them with a supersized zip strip. She smashed Raisin’s face down again, leaving a bloody smear on the formerly pristine desktop. “My Queen,” Quint said. Not even out of breath.
It was pretty amazing.
Koun laughed in appreciation. He scented of sexual interest.
Raisin spit blood at me.
Quint wrapped a gag around her mouth before shoving her head back to the desk, her cheek pressed into her blood.
I meandered closer. I bent and smelled Raisin, soft little fluttering sounds coming from my cat nostrils. Vamps. Several vamps. I dropped my head to two inches from Raisin’s eyes, opened my mouth, curled back my lips, showing her my fangs. I sucked in air through my mouth, over my tongue, across the scent sacs in the roof of my mouth. Raisin was older than a lot of vamps. She would have been around when Ka and Adan were here and when Immanuel becameu’tlun’taso long ago. And she had been drinking of Adan. Adan’s blood smelled of Monique, the not-yet-dead creature in the scion room.
“Ahhh,” I said. Adan had been part of the group I was unable to see while I was in Monique’s soul home. I stepped back and sat in the chair that miraculously appeared there, placed by a human, who whispered, “My Queen,” and darted out of the room. The chair was leather, comfy, and big enough for my new, wider shoulders. I could get used to this kind of service.
“Ernestine,” I said, using Raisin’s real name. “You have been accused of treason.”
Raisin shook her head so hard her hair smeared into the blood.
“Alex, please be so kind as to play the recording in question,” I said into my mic.
Raisin stiffened as if hit with a cattle prod.
“Yeah,” I said. “Your sanctuary, which you make certain is swept for devices every day, has been the subject of an internal probe.”
Adan’s voice came over the speaker system, saying, “There are many of us who will not have a beast as a queen. Many who feel that only a Mithran should have access tola corona. That only a powerful Mithran has the right to rule, not an aberration.”
“Many of us?” Raisin said, her voice tinny from the recording. “It takes only one brave soul to bring death to a fool. Amaury Pellissier drank blood from a whore who ingested colloidal silver and he died. It is not difficult to kill the powerful.”
