Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

I was speed-loading an extra mag with silver-lead rounds when the words flaming pink flamingo came over the system and I laughed silently. Eli gave a quirked smile, amusement and pride in his eyes.

“PsyLED is lead on this, not Jane,” Ayatas said, his irritation clear. “You inform my sister that she and her team are to stay off-site until we get there.”

“There are dead humans in the still shot I sent you,” Alex said, his tone inflexible and hard and so very adult, “and this is taking place in Leo’s territory, so forgive me if I correct you. Leo has authorized his Enforcer to proceed with ‘all haste.’ His words. I’ve contacted the state police and passed the information along to the governor’s office. Per the MOC, PsyLED is welcome to take part in the rescue operation, but the Enforcer to the Master of the City of New Orleans will not be waiting to engage the enemy.” And I heard a click.

“Did you just hang up on FireWind?” Eli asked.

“Yeah,” Alex said, the word staticky. “You got a problem with that, my brother?”

“Not at all. Just seeking clarification. Our ETA to the B&B is twelve.” Eli pushed his mic away.

The van swayed and bumped and thumped its way along the road, which hadn’t seen much in the way of repaving since Katrina. The potholes had potholes. Air blew into the cab as we weaponed up and went over the online visuals, which were from older satellite pics. Wrassler had a drone ready to launch overhead to acquire on-site visuals of the house and grounds and provide us with more visuals than the ones currently available to us.

Except for me, the entry party were all former military and were equipped with mechanical breaching tools and devices, prepared with varied and dynamic techniques to be used based on what we found on the grounds and inside the house. They were armed with shotguns loaded with silver fléchette rounds, flashbangs, and vamp-killers, among other, less lethal weapons. Thanks to the fact that the house was a B&B, we had excellent intel from the online photos, including photos of the basement with its high-placed windows. Basements were rare in South Louisiana, rare enough to make Alex take a good look at the existing pics.

A mile out, we pulled over. Into my earbuds, Alex said calmly, “The house was built in the 1880s, about twenty feet higher than most in the southern part of the state. It was built on an old Indian mound.”

“Burial mound?” a voice asked.

“No,” Alex said. “The local tribal peoples from as long as two thousand years ago built mounds to live on. Lots of reasons why, but the likelihood of the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya and other rivers to flood was probably the reason. No ghosts,” he added.

The man who had asked chuckled as if it had been a joke. But he sounded relieved.

I heard the soft whirr of the drone when it took off and checked the video monitor on my helmet. Wrassler said, “Drone visuals on your monitors. Vehicle tracks all through the yard and on the grass. Only one car in the drive. There are no vehicles present with vamp-tinted windows.”

That was bad. It meant the likelihood of vamps being on-site had just dropped drastically.

“Taking a chance and dropping the drone down to get a closer look,” he said.

I had seen sites where vamps had lived and eaten and killed and departed. This had all the markers, from the stuffed mailbox to the tire tracks through the lawn to the unused and dirty children’s swing set out back.

“Move out,” Eli said, his voice grim. We were out of the van and jogging through the underbrush, down the road, moving out in a fan and into our assigned positions. I followed Eli up the mound into the winter-dormant foliage that covered a low wall near the carport. I could still smell jasmine. The team began to call in with their op names and positions acquired. One voice added, “Meyer lemon trees fruit year-round. These should be producing and they’ve been stripped of fruit—all fruit, not just the ripe ones. Recently.”

I took a breath, mouth open, drawing in air over my tongue and through my nose with a soft scree of sound. I covered my mic and said to Eli, “Death. Several days old. Multiple people. I don’t smell . . . I don’t smell, or hear, activity.”

He covered his mic and said, “Copy that. Didn’t know you could smell activity.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t something I could explain. It fell under a category of weird, like people who could walk into a house and tell if anyone had been there recently. Movement of air currents. Presence or absence of faint sounds or echoes. Whatever.

Eli said, “Tracks in the yard are hours old. I think they bugged out.”

“And left the bodies,” I said.



* * *



? ? ?

We were both right. By the time PsyLED got there, we had called the coroner and left the house to the five human corpses and the dead dog. I didn’t want to think about what Des Citrons had done to the people in the B&B. But I knew this. I’d kill them when I found them.

I sent a text to Alex. Make sure this was a random kill site. No attachment to Leo or any clan.

He sent back, Roger that. The kid was growing up.



* * *



? ? ?

Five hours after I leaped out of bed to go to war with Des Citrons, Shemmy dropped me off at home. Eli had reached the house an hour before and I envied him the hot shower he had undoubtedly taken, as I entered the house, hearing the sound of hammers and a skill saw from the third floor, and men talking from the living room. Neither group heard me, so I stopped in the shadows of the door to eavesdrop.

Edmund said, “Titus agreed to the location, and proposed the first-round combatants. His people and Leo’s are close to deciding on a time to begin. Thank you,” he interjected as if he’d been given a glass of wine or a really good cookie. “Leo dispatched Derek Lee and an initial security crew, his entire housekeeping crew, and the combined and motley gangs of tattooed and disreputable-looking carpenters, electricians, and plumbers to the accepted house.”

“Security is Jane’s and Yellowrock Securities’ job,” Alex said. “Why weren’t we sent?”

“Derek is taking a scouting team,” Ed said. “Jane is too important in the search for Des Citrons to waste her talents watching carpenters ripping into walls and floors.”

“But if Jane’s there she’ll make sure we have indoor plumbing. And hot showers,” the Kid said.

“Showers. We don’ need no stinkin’ showers,” Bodat said.

“Forgive my saying so,” Edmund said, “but that is incorrect. You both need showers, quite desperately. What did Jane used to call you?”

“Number two? When she called my bro number one?”

“She called you shit? Dude.”

“Bodat. Shut up,” Alex said, sounding tired.

“What? What’d I say?”

“Stinky,” Eli said, his voice with that Zen modulation it acquired when he was cleaning his weapons. “Which we’ll call you again if you don’t go up right now and shower. Both of you.”

“Jeez. You people,” Bodat said.

“Upstairs,” Alex interrupted. “Let’s get cleaned up and you packed. Your bus leaves for the last inhabitable room in the toe of the state in half an hour. If you’re not in place we can’t set up cell or satellite, and Wi-Fi on the island.”

I stepped back, into my bedroom doorway.

“But what’d I say?” Bodat complained as they passed me without seeing me in the shadows.

“Things will be more primitive than usual,” Edmund said. “I’ve seen the house, though that was over sixty years ago. Old-fashioned bathrooms and only two of them. No central heating or air-conditioning. The bedrooms without windows are limited so Mithrans will be sleeping several to a room. Humans will have only three or four rooms to choose from, mostly bunk-bed-style sleeping areas, if I recall. Ancient furniture.”

Eli said, “George thinks we’ll leave for the island fast and the Duello will start in less than two days.” When Edmund said nothing, Eli asked, too casually, “Have you seen the proposed list of elimination rounds?”

Edmund didn’t answer.

“That bad?” he asked.