I sipped the green tea, thinking. The tea was very sweet, with strong notes of ginger, lemon, and mint, soothing my stomach; the mug warmed my cold hands. The chair heated beneath me and micromuscle cramps I hadn’t consciously noticed eased. I fought to keep the relief off my face. My brothers hated it when they saw my pain. “I need to make some calls. May I have my cell?” I asked. I didn’t have the energy to get it off the desk only feet away.
Eli crossed the room and placed it in my hand. “Charged.”
“I’ll be making calls too,” Bruiser said, “to the Master of the City of Asheville and checking on things in New Orleans.” He kissed my forehead and I suddenly wished he wasn’t so . . . solicitous. That was the word. I needed to hit something, not be coddled. “You’d break bones,” Bruiser said, his grin returning. When I scowled at him he chuckled and said, “It was in your eyes. You can spar with all of us when you’re well.”
I grunted. He had a point. And at least he no longer sounded so despondent. We had allies to warn and favors to call in, possibly a trip to New Orleans to plan, and a battle to strategize. Bruiser should be in his element. “Hey,” I said, trying to offer up a positive, “Europe may be going to hell in a handbasket, but we have our allies and our land.”
“Our?” Bruiser asked, a strange sort of triumphant delight on his face. As if he’d jump at the chance to do important primo things again, and hearing me slip in such an obvious way was a happy-happy-joy-joy moment for him.
Glaring at him, I said, “Ed’s. Ed’s allies and Ed’s land.” But it was too late. Everyone had heard my claim and the three guys were grinning, even tightly wired Eli. Fine. Maybe I wasn’t as uninvolved as I had thought. I scrunched up my nose at them and tapped in my cell’s security code. It was old-fashioned security, but facial recognition or other biometric reader methods wouldn’t work on a multiform being.
I scrolled to Soul’s number. Soul was the assistant director of the Psychometric Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security. Also an arcenciel, a rainbow dragon. Also a friend of sorts. For a chick who once had only one friend, I’d managed to make a lot of them. And then seen some die. That had sucked. A lot.
The call went to voice mail. I left a message to call me about the fanghead mess in Europe and heading this way. Then I called my . . . my brother. Ayatas FireWind, senior SAIC, PsyLED, working directly under Soul. I wasn’t calling my brother for help, but to warn him and his PsyLED teams. I left the same message on his cell. Then I called Rick. Ditto on the message. “No one answers calls anymore,” I grouched.
I got through to Sloan Rosen and Jodi Richoux, who were both in the WooWoo room at New Orleans Police Department. I filled them in and told them they were welcome at Chez Jane anytime. They didn’t laugh, which told me things were less than stellar in New Orleans. I didn’t want to go back, even if I managed to get healed. But if my people were in danger . . . And there it was again. A possessive word I shouldn’t be entitled to. Disgusted with myself, I signed off.
I was still holding my cell when it buzzed. With Edmund’s number. I sat up fast, the footrest flapping down with a bang and my stomach twinging with pain. “Alex. Trace the call!” I said, too loudly. The words echoed through the inn.
Alex didn’t bother with questions; he just leaned in to his equipment and went to work. He had an energy drink at his elbow. I had thought he was off those things, but I’d been wrong. That explained the chemical taste in his skin from earlier. Gack. Eli glanced at the screen of my cell phone and moved to check the perimeter through the windows, while staying close enough to hear everything. Bruiser came back into the doorway, ending his call, waiting, watching.
I accepted the call, put it on speaker, and went on the attack. “Edmund,” I said. “I assume you’re in the presence of a kidnapper fanghead.”
“Mistress,” he said. He sounded like crap, but I was so relieved he was still alive—undead—I hardly heard the pain in his voice.
“Jane Yellowrock. Tribal woman of the Americas.” It was still Ed’s voice, but the inflection was odd, the words sounding different. And the tone dripping with distaste.
Fear snaked up my spine like a dozen baby rattlers. “This is the Dark Queen,” I said, all vamp-formal, the blanket sliding to the floor at my feet as I stood. “You will address me by my proper title.”
Ed’s voice said, “You speak with the Flayer of Mithrans, woman. The Son of Shadows, Soul of Darkness. Shall you address me by my titles? They are many and varied.”
“What do you want, bloodsucker?”
The laugh was low, mesmerizing, and demanding, even over the cell connection. Ed’s voice, but not Ed. “I require your presence. We shall meet and parley in New Orleans.”
“No.”
Edmund screamed. My hand clenched on the phone. Bruiser, suddenly at my side, took the phone before I accidently disconnected or dropped it. He held it away, but not far enough away. Edmund screamed again. The sound was full of agony, and the empty place in my soul, where the bond with him had once been, thrummed with his pain. I thought I might throw up at the sound. It was . . . It was my friend being tortured. The Flayer of Mithrans had Edmund. Boneless, I dropped back to the chair.
I gestured for the cell. Started to beg for Ed.
Brute raced into the room, skidded, whirled, and stopped beside me, his head almost in my lap, his nose almost touching the cell. Brute was a huge werewolf, and his face wore a snarl I had never seen before, full of menace and hatred. I shut my mouth. If I begged, Ed was dead. I knew it, somehow, deep inside at a cellular level. It was there in Brute’s eyes. In the emptiness of my soul. I forced myself to breathe. Gripped the arm of the recliner. Steadied my thoughts. Pulled a hard-learned formality around me like an insulated cloak.
Ed’s suffering trailed away, to leave only the sound of my vampire gasping for breath. I knew what kind of punishment it took for a powerful vamp to need to gasp like that. Ed. My Ed. The enemy was hurting my Ed. He would die for that.
CHAPTER 3
Acting Enforcer to the Dark Queen
Brute’s growl was a rumbling vibration of threat. Slowly, I placed a hand on the white werewolf’s head. His fur was cold. He had been outside in the night air and had come running. Brute fell silent, but his eyes never left the phone in Bruiser’s hand, a crystal blue gaze of death. The grindylow crawled up his spine and sat on Brute’s neck, holding on, gripping tufts of white fur. The neon green creature chittered softly, watching me. I was still pretty sure it was Pea, but all the magical critters in the U.S. came from the same litter and were identical. I scratched Brute’s head and behind his ears. He whined softly and pressed against my hand.
When Ed could speak again, his voice was rough but still held the stilted tones of the one who was . . . what? Possessing him? “Your servant means so little to you?” the caller asked, sounding amused.