Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

Beast peeked back out and sent me a vision of sinking our fangs into Kemmie’s back just below his skull, shaking him until his neck broke, before picking him up and carrying him away. Instead I remembered the stench of lemons and the heat of the spell that had set off the fighting. A familiar taste of magic.


Leo gave me an enigmatic look and gestured to his blood-servants. “Take the leopard to the playroom. Our Jane may use the scion lair.”

Playroom. Right. Only a vamp would think of a room full of cages and with a drain in the middle of the floor as a playroom. Leo said, softer, holding my eyes with his dark ones, “I thought I had healed the rift with the werecats. I thought you had tamed the leopard beneath Rick.”

“Magic,” I said just as softly. “Familiar magic. Someone found a way to override the bond, and fast.”

“Ahhh.” Leo knew about the anomaly’s presence in HQ and our inability to see the witch in real time.

I looked back at my people, Eli’s face closed and cold, Alex a little more blanched than I expected of the player of violent video games. But then, he had recently been attacked and left nearly dead. His hand was around his throat, fingering the new scars. I seldom even noticed them these days, but being human, he’d healed far more slowly than I did, even with all the vamp blood in him.

“I’ll handle moving the werecat,” Ed said softly, from beside me. “Rick LaFleur should interrogate him.”

My adrenaline washed away. “Right. Okay. Do it.”

And then I remembered the image of Asad and Nantale licking their lips the first time I saw them in front of the SOD. Had they wanted to drink the ancient vamp blood? Had they been in HQ tonight long enough to actually do so? Had they been in sub-five while the ceremonies were taking place? Had they drunk SOD blood tainted by werewolf bites? I had to wonder what that blood would do to them, if it would make them fall under spells of aggression. “Leo. Take a whiff of the lions.”

Leo looked at me oddly, but he bent over the lions and sniffed.

“They scent of Joses Santana, the Son of Darkness, and of magic.”

I nodded, a scant motion against the migraine. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. I think they’ve been trying to get to the SOD since the first time they came here. And I think they finally got what they wanted. I think—maybe—that they aligned with Dominique and Des Citrons, and at some point before she tossed Callan a sword, Dominique led them to sub-five, beneath a strong obfuscation spell. She had magical help, the spell big enough to hide them on the stairs. And they drank SOD blood, tainted by werewolf saliva. What would it do to them? Would it alone make them crazy enough to attack? Or was that from the witch’s and/or Des Citrons’ magic in the room? Or both, working together?”

Leo shook his head. “This I do not know.”

“Eli, with me. Alex, get to security. Check the footage and find out what happened with the anomaly. Find out when the cats got to sub-five and why we weren’t notified.” I pointed at a security guy. “You. Go with him. No one travels alone in HQ.” Alex sped away, his scent suggesting he was happy to be out of the blood-splattered room, the security guy on his heels. I turned on my paw and padded down the hallway and the stairs to sub-five.

I’d kicked off my shoes when I half-shifted and the floor was cool to the touch on the stairs to the lower basement. I looked around fast, taking in everything: old blood, werewolf-stink, SOD, and mold. The cameras were off. The last time Dominique was here, she had turned them off with a remote device.

There were no uninvited weres present, but the SOD wasn’t alone. A dozen HQ security, armed and twitchy, stood with weapons raised at three women, who were standing in a semicircle studying the human-shaped thing on the wall. They looked almost human, but were all likely arcenciels: not Soul, who I knew best, but Opal and Cerulean and one I hadn’t met. Brute was there too, Brute biting Joses Santana’s foot, drawing watery blood.

The SOD had changed even more, and I guessed that he had been fed, possibily the blood of the vampire and the witch who were hiding in HQ. He was fully human shaped, his face no longer slack jawed. His eyes were open and he was laughing silently at his wolf tormentor. I ignored him and said to the security types, “Stand down. Return to your posts, by order of the Enforcer.”

They didn’t look happy about it, but after a moment they left the basement by way of the elevator. Gee stepped out of the stairwell and bowed to the arcenciels, his face lit with joy. “My goddesses. Greetings.” In unison, they nodded to him and Gee assumed his place beside me, taking in the tableau.

“Brute?” I asked. “We were just attacked in the gym by werelions and Kemnebi, the black wereleopard who was injured here”—I shrugged, not sure of the day—“not long ago. Is it possible that they got a taste of the SOD recently?”

Brute snorted then nodded, his head moving up and down, the gesture un-wolf-like and odd on his huge form.

“Today?”

He nodded.

“Were they with Dominique?”

Brute shook no.

“Were they here with someone who smelled like lemons?”

Brute tensed and nodded.

“Well, crap. They divided up?”

Brute stared hard at me and nodded.

“Would the taste of SOD do anything to werecats? Make them crazy?”

He snorted and vocalized something that sounded like, “Aroouuu.” Maybe it was an answer, but I didn’t speak werewolf.

“You got any idea why no grindylow showed up in the gym?”

He snorted and vocalized again. “Ooommmeee. Ooommmeee.” The tone was different, the length of the snort was shorter, but again, I didn’t speak werewolf and I couldn’t figure out how to ask all my questions in simple yes/no form.

The SOD was looking at me, still cackling, silently. Hard to do with no heart. Hard to be undead with no heart. I figured it had grown back somehow. He lifted his head away from the wall, his long black hair sticking and coming away with a soft squick. His jaw unhinged and his fangs unfolded. His fingers flicked open and I caught a flash of gem and gold. He took a breath that sounded like a coffin opening. Hoarsely he said, “Yellowrock. Ut omnis, mortem.”

I tensed to throw myself behind the doorway. But . . . nothing happened. The SOD had just spoken a wyrd of power and . . . nothing. No magical power swept the room; no magic tore and seared the air. I frowned, trying to figure out what had happened. The SOD rattled his entire body on the wall, the silver chains clattering. “Ut omnis, mortem!” he screeched.

And again, nothing. The arcenciels put their heads together, and I had the distinct impression that they were chattering among themselves, silently. Mind power crap. Ut omnis, mortem? The last word I knew. It meant dead or death. But the first two words were less clear.

“To everyone, death,” Gee translated thoughtfully. “It was a wyrd, and it should have killed us. Well, some of us. The curse failed.” He looked at Brute. Then at me, studying me in my half-form. Without turning his head away from me, Gee asked, “Brute. Did you bite the Son of Darkness to take away his power?”

Brute wagged his tail and sank his teeth into the SOD’s bare foot again. It wasn’t an answer, but the SOD screamed in frustration and banged himself off the wall and back, the chains clinking more loudly.

Gee asked again, his words a little different. “Brute. When you bite the Son of Darkness, do you take away his power?”