Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

That was interesting, but not surprising. Every law enforcement and government agency from the feds down wanted to talk to Leo ASAP, if not sooner. Plus . . . Leo currently had possession of Adan, a witch-vampire everyone wanted access to. Adan had once kept a skinwalker as personal blood-servant, making him high on my personal chat list. He’d also imprisoned an arcenciel, one of Soul’s species, and forced her to timewalk for him, making him high on Soul’s personal chat list. So personal, business, and legal reasons all at once. Everything Leo did had multilayered reasoning. “Why does PsyLED need to chat with the MOC?” Eli asked.

“Not just PsyLED, but FireWind in particular. Ayatas is more than a special agent at this particular point in time. He is the liaison between PsyLED, CIA, FBI, and ICE for the European/American blood duel.”

Soul had told me nothing useful, except that Ayatas had a lot of pull to have the backing of so many federal agencies. I figured she was giving me bits and pieces in hopes of info on the Sangre Duello. Leo was working hard to keep the government out of the duel. And—Ayatas was here to use me. I had known it. Yet, some small piece of innocence and hope died inside me. The coffin that was my chest ached.

Eli said nothing and Soul continued. “We understand that the Sangre Duello may be held offshore. Normally, of course, no one in a government position would be involved in anything offshore, in foreign countries or international waters.”

I lifted a corner of my eye cover and Eli gave me a wolfish grin. He’d been in combat in places where maybe he shouldn’t have been sent. The government wasn’t always true to international law. I pushed the gel pack away and sat up, ignoring the spears that lanced through my brain and throbbed like a heavy metal band of agony. Eli was watching me. I blinked and forced my eyes to focus together.

“Titus Flavius Vespasianus and Leo Pellissier officially requested permission to have the blood battles to the death in Louisiana,” Soul said, “and, as the challenged party, it was Titus’s right to do so according to Mithran law. Fortunately for the safety of our citizens, it was not his right according to United States law. When the request for the duel to be held on U.S. territory and land was refused by a myriad of government institutions, the Mithrans shut the door to all of us. Now Pellissier is no longer answering our calls. In fact, not one single vampire in the entire United States is returning our calls.”

I knew all this. The number of U.S. legalities involved had been too long to deal with, from duels being illegal in most U.S. states to ICE and the federal government working to ensure that these particular European vampires were never allowed on U.S. soil, even for a visit. As Leo’s Enforcer, a position of power in vamp hierarchy, and as the Dark Queen—a title I was still learning about—I knew most everything going on. And I could tell Soul none of it. I said, “Tell me that doesn’t surprise you. The government flipped off paras and then expected the para leaders to keep in contact with them? You’re a para. You know better.”

Soul sighed over the connection. “We’ve asked the Robere twins and George Dumas to liaise with us on this matter and they refused. We’ve brought in the governor’s office, several maritime organizations, including the Coast Guard, and half a dozen other agencies. Rick LaFleur is traveling internationally more than he’s here, so he’s little help. But Pellissier won’t talk to anyone now.”

One of the Roberes was a lawyer. George, aka Bruiser, my boyfriend, had been Leo’s primo at one time and still had a lot of pull with the MOC. And all three were Onorios, which we needed at the fight with the Europeans. They were the judges and the keepers of the peace. Did the government know that last part? Sure. Why not? This thing had been FUBARed from the beginning. And Rick . . . I hadn’t known that my ex was traveling. That was interesting too, if not pertinent to this convo.

Leo had pulled in his nets and gone back to port, as the fishing metaphor went. He had walked away from the government, a government that refused to recognize his species as equal to humans in protections under the law. So now the government and law enforcement were at my door, claiming a personal relationship to get my help. Ducky. The coffin door in my heart slammed shut.

Soul went on. “Titus and Leo have since requested permission to broadcast the battles, though no traditional broadcast networks have picked up on it. However, no one can stop the broadcast via Internet pay-per-view, despite the violence, and a number of providers are bidding on the rights with Leo. George and the Roberes are also involved in these high-level talks. And they are not calling us back.”

And you can’t make them, because the government in general refused to work with the suckheads and their humans. Yeah. Soul knew a lot more than I expected. I nodded to my partner and he said, “Okay. Still listening.”

“I just discovered that the Europeans are planning to hold offshore gambling on the matches and have agreed that the tax income from the bets won and lost will go to Louisiana, if the state will partner with them.”

My eyebrows went up. That was a surprise.

“This is likely to result in a great deal of money,” Soul said over the cell connection, “and it seems that someone high up in the Louisiana state government is suddenly interested, which means we are scrambling. It’s all tangled up in federal and state law with everyone wanting a piece of the action or to be seen as politically strong, fighting to keep more bloodsuckers out of the U.S.”

“Right,” I said, headache spiking again, feeling tired in every bone of my body. “Everyone’s scrambling for power.”

“My personal concern is that if Leo leaves Louisiana and goes into international waters, aboard a European ship, to fight, who will be in control of his lands while he is away?” Soul asked. “Who will inherit if he loses? What will happen to the humans and the political balance we have established so far? It’s precarious, especially with new laws being proposed in Congress for paranormal citizenship. I want someone with Leo to handle all of that and Ayatas has the experience, the charm, and the diplomatic know-how. But not if he lost control and tried to kill one of you.”

“He says he’s related to Jane,” Eli said.

“I see.” Soul paused, perhaps in thought. “I have been unable to confirm or deny this in any official records. The records of Jane Yellowrock began the day she walked out of the mountains at a supposed age twelve.” She hesitated and then went on again, as if feeling her way through what she wanted to say. “Aya’s records appear when he supposedly entered an orphanage at age four and ended when he ran away at age fourteen. He reappeared at a supposed age twenty, having changed his name, and acquired an education by taking classes in three different universities, two online, graduating with a degree in criminal justice. There are photos of him at only one of those schools,” she added, telling us that his history might have been faked. “And in the one photo we have of him at the orphanage, his ears appear to be shaped differently.”

Children’s faces altered drastically as they grew, but the shape and placement of ears never changed except by surgery. Ears were as individual as fingerprints. What Soul was describing stated that Ayatas had assumed the identity of a dead child, a runaway from the orphanage. It was typical of the way long-lived paranormals maintained a legal position in the world. Ayatas was likely older than his papers claimed. I had guessed that all skinwalkers were long-lived. That my father died only because the white man had shot and killed him before he could shift and heal. And that all skinwalkers were yellow eyed, like me. All assumptions, but with some small amount of evidence to support them. Ayatas could be far older than he looked.

“As to whether he is related,” she said, “no one has done a genetic comparison to determine a relationship. Some creatures recognize one another’s familial scent. That didn’t happen?”

He smelled like skinwalker, not like me. “No.” Though Beast thought so. And genetic comparisons wouldn’t work anyway. I’d seen my DNA. It was a mess.