“No.” I didn’t want Leo dead. I didn’t want anyone else, anywhere, dead.
“Good.” He reached up and traced the central vein of the nearest dead leaf. It was so brittle that it crusted into dust at the touch of his pale fingers, and he caught the dust in his palm. “I do not think even the creator of time, nor his minions, will permit a timeline where I might live afourthtime.” He extended his hand and let the dust float down, as if seeing his next death there, dust to dust.
I said, “This is no longer your city. No longer your fight. I get it. Fine. My people have been expecting Mainet to arrive. But we didn’t know why. And we didn’t know that NOLA was a... a last stand. But you have to know that you being still alive changes everything about the fight to come.”
Mainet had come to the witch prison for more than one reason: two imprisoned witches had been broken out, twou’tlun’tawere gone. Two powerful witches, Tau and Marlene, had been intended for rescue but the attackers had to stop their jailbreak. Timing.
They hadn’t expected us to show up so soon, or maybe at all. We defended the prison, and two of their targets, the two powerful witches, had been abandoned. And they had failed to get into Lachish’s room for the heart. So far as I knew, no one was supposed to know it was here. So how had Mainet known it was being guarded here? Had Leo known as well? Could Mainet read Leo’s thoughts? Had Mainethimselfbeen here, one of the vamps hiding in the night? And if so, how much control did Mainet have over Leo? If he got his claws and fangs into Leo, could he bind Leo and turn him against us?
Inside me, Beast murmured,Leo called vampiremaster. Leo is bound to master. Has been bound for moon times. Can only be more bound.
My cat half was being logical.Crap. Crappity crap crap crap.“So if he gets the Heart of Darkness,” I said to Leo, “finishes bindingyou, kills me, getsle breloque, and all the other magical thingamabobs, he can own the world.”
The former master of the city lowered his head, his black hair falling across his face, hiding either a smile orhis fangs. From the shadows of his darker-than-midnight hair, Leo said quietly, “He is my master. He is the Heir. You carry the Heart of Darkness.
“The oldest tales speak of the ancient seer who once served the Sons. When her prophecies did not please them, they killed her, but before she died, someone wrote them down. It is said that when the last Dark Queen came, she would destroy the sons of the creator of the Mithrans and Naturaleza. They took great labors to prevent such a thing, yet here you are, and you killed them.
“There is power in that box you carry, unimaginable power. You could have destroyed the heart. Instead you saved it. You gave it to the witches to look after.” Gently, he added, “None of the timelines have been stable since that moment.”
My entire body tightened.Timelines... How did Leo know about timelines?
He raised his head, his eyes on the heartbox. “My Jane. Hear me. You must keep the Heart of Darkness safe until you have bound the demon, set the messenger and judge free, and killed the Heir. Only after the Heir is true dead may you destroy it.”
My heart did a little jig at the wordsdemon,messenger, andjudge, which were all terms used for angels, fallen and not, in ancient writings. Reflexively, I tightened my bad arm around the heartbox. Pain shot from my wound to my spine and brain, and down to my fingers. My breath stopped at the shock.
Leo lifted his black eyes to meet mine. “The Heir and the maker of my line has magics and amulets and powerful beings in his thrall—beings that only Sabina knew were his.”
I followed his eyes to the null prison as if seeing theu’tlun’taswho had been set free—theu’tlun’tawho ate and absorbed Sabina (the outclan priestess), and theu’tlun’tawho ate a vamp and the Onorio called the Firestarter. Gramma probably knew all about the powers of the Heir. She and Ka were working with Mainet? Maybe she had been part of his plans, more or less, for centuries, yet with her own agendas, pulling her own strings and hoping to take over. I should have killed her when I had the chance.
“For centuries, when the Sons of Darkness yet ruled, the authority of the Heir was barely seen, little more than threads, delicate, secretive, hidden filaments, glints and glimmers in the darkness, like a spider’s web. His influence was no more than gossamer loops and knots, his power invisible until the light landed upon it, just so, or until one was poisoned and trapped within his snare.
“With the death of Joses Santana, the eldest Son of Darkness, he came into much of his power as the secondo Heir. He could not have known about the heart you saved because he did not come to take it from you. He only knew that he was not as powerful as he had hoped.”
Leo’s wasn’t guessing at all this. His tone said heknewall this. Yeah. Mainet and Leo were connected somehow. Or Leo had a mole in Mainet’s camp. That was possible too. Maybe someone in the Heir’s IT department? Maybe Reach?
“Mainet, while not as strong as he had hoped, stretched out his hand and sowed discord in Europe, his influence and control reaching across the land, from city to farm, from mountain to swamp, across the ocean from shore to shore. I had feared his power would be uncontrolled, uncontained, except that my Jane, my wild card in all the timelines, had brought love to the empty heart of Edmund.” Leo smiled at me, his face too pale, though otherwise looking fully human. “Your Edmund and my Grégoire fought and defeated the followers of the Heir. They broke the back of Mainet’s power in Europe before he could take the reins and force his will upon them all, gather an army, and bring war to these shores.”
“That sounds like a good thing,” I said, my words hesitant as the ambulances left the area, as local cops and city official vehicles changed out shifts. And the coroner’s van pulled in.
“Perhaps. But when my Jane killed the Flayer of Mithrans, his power fell upon Mainet. Yet it still was not the full power that should have been his. When he did not attain his complete power, he searched for the reasons and he discovered the existence of the heart you carry. As long as the Heart of Darkness still survives, he cannot achieve his full power.”
Suddenly I understood. “I can’t beat him if he has his full power, can I? So I have to kill him before I destroy the heart.”
“If he attains his full power, he will have twice the strength of either of his brothers. He will be power incarnate.”
“Well, crap.”
“Indeed. He discovered that the demon and the messenger had been partially bound here, in this city. And so the Heir comes here to take your city and your crown, to fully free the demon and fully bind the messenger. He comes here because here is where his bloodline resides. Already, his power and reach grow at an alarming rate, trapping and using and feeding upon all he has ensnared. When he has the Heart of Darkness, no one will be able to stand against him.”
Leo’s sclera bled to vamp scarlet and his pupils dilated until they were wide and black. In vamps, this was a sign that they were highly emotional or very hungry. He said, “Because I am no longer master of the city, able to protect the beings who reside here, able to draw on their energy, their collective power, he has come to gather the last amulets of power that my uncle brought with him when we came here. Power that my uncle, and then the outclan priestess Sabina, safeguarded for all these years. And your crown. He will have that as well.”
I had Sabina’s amulets. “I—”
Leo interrupted, now speaking fast, as if he had a hot date waiting. “His mastery is draining those of his line. He is choking the un-life and undeath from all of his line and storing our life-forces within himself. When Mainet is ready, he will kill those sworn to you, and he will kill you.”
Everyone wanted to kill me. No surprise there. But that other stuff was problematic, especially since Edmund, the Emperor of Europe, was coming to NOLA for his coronation, bringing the most powerful vamp warriors to witness his crowning. Like Grégoire. And soon. Grégoire was supposed to be the biggest, baddest fighter of all fangheads in the world, and from what Leo was saying, Mainet could soon have the weapons to take both ofthem and the Dark Queen over. And worse, all that magical stuff Mainet wanted? It was stored in NOLA. It was stored at my house.
“Holy moly. But, wait. Draining and storing vamp power? As in siphoning life-force power from you?” I glanced at the dead leaves around us as all sorts of terrible probabilities flittered through my mind like ash on the wind. “He’s using death magic? And storing it, like in a battery?”
