Great. I didn’t need G to translate that word.
The thrall leered at me. “They’re coming. For you. All of them. You will resurrect her to save them.”
Oh, the irony. The Dauphine’s own goddess had fouled herplan to force me to resurrect her. Though that wouldn’t protect any of my family from her thralls’ attacks.
My grove was already alert and braced for attack. My human family was as safe as I could make them without being physically present. Frank’s security team was well armed with flamethrowers and high-powered rifles. My trees were on high alert. Nightwing Starlight’s murder were on patrol in the woods around the house, along with Penelope and her growing brood.
A light touch on Mayte’s bond confirmed she was safe in her Zaniyah nest. Oblivious to the near constant danger of the outside world, Xochitl played tea party with her dolls and stuffed animals beneath the massive tree Itztli and I had grown inside their nest. Mayte had called two more Blood as well. Combined with Tepeyollotl, her jaguar god, Xochitl was as safe as any young vampire princess could be.
:I’m going to see if I can discover anything new through the Dauphine’s power,:I warned through my bonds before drawing my blood.
Lew and Itztli both tightened their grips on the thrall. As his wolf, Xin crouched between my chair and the thrall, ready to rip his throat out if he somehow managed to escape. To the casual observer, Leviathan might appear to be asleep, but the tip of his tail twitched with heightened awareness.
With a light press of my nail to my wrist, I drew my blood, though I didn’t allow it to escape my body. Still, a frisson quivered through each of my Blood. Nostrils flaring. Eyes darkening. Muscles braced.
The thrall was no different. He smelled blood, queen’s blood, and gnashed his teeth. I focused my power on him, looking for anything that might be a clue or a threat for which we hadn’t already prepared.
Human blood tainted him, spreading like cancer through his body. It'd barely been a full day since I killed his queen, but his Aima cells died, unsustained and contaminated byhuman blood. There was something odd about him. A blankness. An absence, even when I looked at him through my power.
When Thierry had approached me in Kansas City, I’d sensed a wrongness nearby, even though Rik hadn’t been able to detect anything amiss. I hadn’t expected the Dauphine’s former Blood to feel the same since they didn’t carry the tainted leeches.
I asked Sekh,:Do all thralls appear as blank spaces to you?:
I didn’t turn my head to look at him, but I felt him looking through time and space as the All Seeing, Never Sleeping sphinx.:No. Only hers. I can’t see their faces at all, even now. This one, I could blame the mud, but her supposed legion are still invisible.:
He hesitated, not holding anything back from me, but something troubled him.:What?:
:He doesn’t carry any of her blood. So how could he have been hers?:
He would know. He disposed of the Dauphine’s poison-ravaged body for me. If he couldn’t detect even one drop of her blood in her own former Blood…
Surprised, I scanned the thrall again with my power, seeking even a single drop of the Dauphine’s blood. Some echo of her lingering in him. But there was nothing. No leech. No blood. No lingering magic. Yet he could recite her kill switch orders. He’d lain in wait beneath Leonie, using her as bait. He recognized me as the queen who’d killed Jeanne.
So there had to be something. Somewhere. If not magical… perhaps a physical clue?
“I need a bucket of water.”
Immediately, Tlacel trotted toward the house.
Unease flickered over the thrall’s face. He stared at Leonie with narrowed eyes for a few moments, then glanced back at me. Hatred twisted his features. Then he stared back at Leonie. Recognition. Confusion.
“You’re dead,” he whispered, shaking his head. Then heglared at me. “You can’t compel me against my queen. You have no power here.”
I simply stared back evenly, letting my power build, simmering in the air like a thunderstorm on the horizon. Boiling clouds. Oppressive energy. The threat of crashing thunder that never came. Lightning that never sheared the sky. No relief from the coming storm.
His words couldn’t be further from the truth.
I heldallthe power here.
This might have been Leonie’s nest initially, and then the Dauphine’s, but now, it was mine. Leonie’s blood was mine. I could feel the exact outline of her circle. The vibrant crape myrtles and hibiscus she’d planted with her own hand. This mighty oak, where she’d enjoyed taking her morning coffee for decades in the early morning. Watching the sunrise before the heat of the day. Her laughter. Her smile.
She and her mother had lived in this house for more than a century. They’d run a successful voodoo shop in the French Quarter before the Dauphine stole everything. What was it that Rik had said about New Orleans?
:Vampires are good for business.:
:So is voodoo, at least in New Orleans,:Leonie said.:Our own special blend of Vodou and magic.:
Tlacel returned with a large metal bucket brimming with water. “My queen.”
