Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

I stepped into the man’s reach and, still using the blade, lifted his notched lapel to reveal a pocket beneath, heavy with a case about the size of a pack of playing cards. Without touching his body, I pulled out the case and opened it to reveal a badge.

“Well. That figures,” I muttered, maybe talking to God, maybe talking to whatever evil spirit had cursed me. “Like I needed the candy sprinkles of a gun-happy cop dumped over my blood duel ice-cream cone.” The badge was a PsyLED shield, issued to the Psychometric Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security, the cops that police paranormals. Like me. But I’d think not even PsyLED would send someone to kill me at my own front door. In the middle of the day. With tourists walking across the street. Maybe the badge was a fake? I looked at the guy. He didn’t look like a killer. There was nothing forgettable about him and most assassins worked to be average and unmemorable. His clothing was well-tailored but more Brooks Brothers and Men’s Wearhouse than Armani. His eyes were wide. Terrified. And he was firing one-handed, his left still rising for a standard two-hand grip. Panic-shot.

Not good ambush hunter, Beast said.

Right. This had been surprised, messy, not well planned. I went back over what had just happened. An assassin or a PsyLED cop came to my door. A Cherokee, one with yellow eyes, who spoke at least some Tsalagi, knew my full Cherokee name, and asked me to make peace. Then freaked out over my scent, called me a nasty name, and shot me. Yeah, that covered it. I leaned in closer and searched his irises for the telltale shimmer of amber contact lenses. There was nothing. A frisson of shock lanced through me and I shoved down on it.

Yellow eyes. Floral scent. Beast calling him littermate. What did Beast mean? My breath was still coming fast. Getting shot at will do that to a girl. I shoved down on my reaction and slipped out of the assassin’s reach without touching him. Last thing I needed was to drag a killer inside a time bubble with me.

Beast said nothing, but I felt faint tremors running through her.

My belly wrenched, a sick, snaking pain, as if my guts were knotting, a reaction to bubbling time.

I stood barefooted in the entry and studied him. The man was handsome. Golden skinned, lightly tanned even in winter. Fine lines at the corners of his eyes. Maybe twenty-five, showing age from spending time in the sun. Or older if he had a good beauty regimen. I sniffed again. Definitely floral, very delicate and faint. Aftershave? Traces of a woman’s perfume? I studied his jaw. Not shaved. But the clean, hairless jaw of some tribal males. The electric shock trying to flood me intensified. My whole body was aching.

I looked up the stairs. Eli, wearing only damp workout shorts, had a steady aim on the man, just over where my shoulder would have been. He had already fired, the round in midair. My bro had fast reflexes after drinking vamp blood for healing. His round would enter the man’s right eye, killing him instantly.

A man had come to my door and tried to kill me. I should let Eli do his job. Except . . . A cop, maybe even a real cop with real badge. Yellow eyes. Floral scent.

Skinwalker, Beast thought at me again. Demanding.

My shock settled. Just having the word spoken between us helped. “Yeah.”

I climbed the stairs to Eli. I needed to talk to him before I did anything. I needed my partner’s tactical and strategic experience. Mostly I just needed Eli Younger to help me get . . . steady. To help me think. My belly seemed a bit better, but the headache was getting worse and rational thinking wasn’t easy. I knocked Eli’s round down too, until it now aimed at the floor. I stood in front of Eli, not certain what to do. Eli would say I should pull him into the time bubble with me. It was the most satisfactory tactic in this battle situation. But spending time in no-time did bad things to genetic structures.

My own was a scrambled mess that might lead to death someday from a brain tumor, a brain aneurysm, a stroke, or maybe bleeding out through my damaged digestive tract. The nausea and headaches were getting much worse much faster, and after today, I had no doubt that they were part of bending/bubbling time. Not that a doctor could tell me what might happen to a skinwalker with damaged genes. Until this minute I’d thought I was the only skinwalker alive. I’d killed the only other one I had met in the last hundred seventy years. He had been u’tlun’ta, killing and eating and replacing people with his own shape-shifting abilities. Black magic even worse than what I had done when I killed Beast and pulled her soul inside with me.

Beast thought, Prey is at watering hole. Attack or hide.

It was the thought concept of a predator cat, a Puma concolor, making me decide.

Bad use of Jane’s minutes, she added, though Beast had little concept of time except now, soon, later, before, hungry, seasons, and moon cycles. Animals didn’t follow time as humans did.

Choose, she demanded. Head hurts.

I gripped Eli’s right arm, pulling him into the time bubble. He stumbled and I caught him, shoving his weapon up and away. “Jane?” he said, almost startled at the time change. Almost but not quite. It was hard to startle one of Uncle Sam’s best, especially as he had been in the Gray Between with me before. He looked at the unwelcome visitor. “Who?”

“Don’t know. Wearing a PsyLED badge.” I held up the badge as proof. “Using the new Glock issued to PsyLED. He speaks some of the language of The People. He called me by my Cherokee name. And then called me u’tlun’ta.”

“He smell like you?”

“No. Floral.” My own scent was a challenge to most vampires, until the team leader accepted me. Then that one’s underlings fell into line and accepted me too. But oral history, things people had told me about a skinwalker who had lived in New Orleans a century and more ago, hinted that at least one other skinwalker had smelled like flowers. At some point soon, I had to track down the vamp who had owned her and ask questions. In my copious free time. Right.

Eli frowned. He checked the altered trajectory of his round, patted my hand, telling me to not let go, which would drop him into normal time. He lifted a thigh rig from the floor and strapped it onto his shower-damp body and seated his weapon in its Kydex holster. He looked me over, seeing too much. “Your head?”

“Bearable.”

Eli grunted. With one free hand, he gripped my arm, making sure we didn’t separate. Together we pattered down the steps, back to the killer. “We still don’t know if all skinwalkers can bubble time or if it’s unique,” he said, “part of you and Beast. We need to make sure he doesn’t learn that you have that skill.”

“It’s on video footage at HQ,” I said.

“Yeah. But that’s in a time and place where witch magic could be playing tricks. Discussing that with cops is a battle for tomorrow. We play it by ear, wronged, in danger, and innocent.” Eli looked the visitor over as if he was a piece of terrain to be taken from the enemy, staring into the yellow eyes, as if looking for contacts. Eli frowned. “Too bad I can’t get his weapon away without pulling him into time with us. Let me get to the left side of the doorframe, weapon drawn, ready to fire. You get into your previous position, and let me go. Then you take the guy out. I’ll take care that the weapon doesn’t fire again.”

“Okay. Modified kata guruma?” Kata guruma was a dramatic, vicious martial takedown.

“Okay by me. Use his hair. Grab his dumplings and give ’em a twist as you slam him down, but toss him inside. We got gawkers.” He meant the tourists on the sidewalk across the street. “I’ll have his weapon long before he hits.”