Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

“Got it. Golden,” Bear, the hairy camera wolf, answered.

“Downstairs,” Sabina said. She popped down, as did a larger number of vamps. Humans raced down the stairs. I leaped out the window, landed on the metal roof. Only to push off and land on the sand below, balanced on the fingers of one hand and my toes. I pulled on Beast’s speed, my heart in my throat. Rushed to the rock-bounded fighting circles.

The bell chimed again. I thought I might vomit.

Edmund and See-MOH-neh both attacked at once. The cage of death that was La Destreza was sketched in the air between them, glistening steel that caught the low lights, cut-cut-cut, too fast to see. Blood splattered. Edmund bleeding from a cut above the eye. Holy crap. To the death. “No,” I whispered, the word drawn out.

Something was wrong with Edmund. He was moving slow. I’d seen him fight and this wasn’t right. He looked almost clumsy. Koun leaned in and murmured to me, “Strategy, my master. Strategy. Do not fear.”

I didn’t look away from the fight. Edmund took another cut, this one to his forearm. Simon laughed, looking like blond boy playing a game, not vamp dueling to the death. Their swords whipped and whirled in a complex cage of death. Moving so quick they were blurs. Cut, cut, lunge, cut, too fast to see, even with Beast-sight.

I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets. My left fist hit something, opened, and encircled it. I had to wonder how the Glob got into my pocket. The Glob was one of my collection of magical trinkets and, its name notwithstanding, it was a powerful objet de magie. It was composed of the small sliver of the Blood Cross that I had ruined for use by anyone but me, part of the iron spike of Golgotha, and the blood diamond, all melded into one. The diamond had started out as an amulet crowded with the power of sacrificed witch children, only a few of whom I had been able to rescue. The Glob was magic that had claimed me. Magic that had been fashioned by and activated by my blood and the energy of a witch’s lightning curse. The Glob heated in my hand, a searing spurt of electric energy, quickly gone. And then I realized that the Glob might have found its way into my pocket without help. Magical objects as powerful as the Glob sometimes had a will of their own.

Ed took another cut. Stumbled. Dropped to one knee. Bent his head. Bowed his back. And sliced with a backhanded cut into the outer side of Simon’s right knee. He followed it up by blocking two strikes and then delivering a backhanded cut to Simon’s side. So hard, so smooth, so perfectly delivered that it appeared to slice through the flesh and stop only when it reached the vamp’s spine. Simon of the funky pronunciation toppled, dropping his swords. Edmund shifted his body to the side, an expression of shock on his face. As if he hadn’t expected to kill his opponent. Playing to the cameras? Or hiding what he could do from the EVs?

Simon landed. He was nearly in two pieces. Blood pulsed everywhere in a wide spray, puddled beneath his body, soaked into the sand, the air redolent with his vamp smell—wild roses and moss. Edmund struggled to his feet. He took the vamp’s head. It took three cuts, wielding the sword like an ax, ungainly, awkward. Not my primo’s usual grace and beauty with a sword, not in any way at all. But the head of the beautiful blond angel rolled to the side. The sand soaked up more blood. The night breeze swept through beneath the house, salty, clean, fresh. The fighting arena was utterly silent for a space of time that lasted for a dozen of my speeding heartbeats.

This was the first death. Sent out on camera to the entire world, those who loved blood sports would be whooping it up at home. Watching instant replays. Our people stood, staring. Titus’s undead and their blood-dinners stood. The smell of uncertainty coiled in the air, a descant of scent beneath the melody of fanghead blood. And the stillness ended. Moving like fish in a school, Titus’s people rushed in, gathering the head and body.

Brandon stepped from the group of Onorios who were acting as judges along with Sabina. Brandon seemed to be the spokesperson. He said, “Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios.”

Sabina said, “Next duel in fifteen minutes.”

I tried to catch Bruiser’s eye, but he didn’t turn my way, bending his head to the B-twins as the three talked. Some vamps left the fighting area, to walk under the stars on the beaches. Ed came to me, limping. “You scared me,” I said.

“My heart is both saddened and full of joy,” he said. “Saddened that I frightened my mistress. Full of joy that my mistress cares.”

“Uh-huh. Keep it up, Eddie Boy.”

I started to turn and caught Titus’s eyes on me. In them, I could read multiple emotions: avarice, curiosity, hatred, a cold fury that let me know how much he had liked the blond angel Simon. And how much he blamed me for the vamp’s death. And the fact that he had seen me leap what amounted to four stories in two bounds. Good. I put my thoughts into my eyes. Chew on that, Your Magisterial Ass. Stuff you saw on the stolen video? It’s all true. And I’m coming for you.

I gave him a toothy grin and put all that into my body language as I strolled into the darkness. The shadow of a camera wolf was beside mine, and I knew my leaps were now part of the permanent record of the Sangre Duello. So was the death of Simon. And the vision of Titus watching me. The camera wolf fell away, finding something better to shoot than me in the dark.

Once I was beyond the house and prying ears, I had myself a silent bout of anger, pounding the sand. My hand—the one that had healed around the magical thingy when it was created—was furiously squeezing the Glob as I hammered it on the earth. For long seconds, I couldn’t force myself to stop or to let go. It hurt my hand. I got sand in my eyes. But I felt better after my temper tantrum.



* * *



? ? ?

    On both floors, the next rounds began.

Leo’s side was winning.

Ro Moore chose wrestling as her weapon and defeated her opponent according to standard wrestling rules. Gee took on two vamps at one time and killed them both on the sand. There was enough blood and gore to make the wolves dance in glee. The pay-per-view numbers had started smaller than anticipated, but they had now outpaced expectations and were growing rapidly.

Brenda Rezk took on a Vespasianus security guy, and the finish was two simultaneous cuts. The cut to her arm was a surface wound, while the other guy was carted away needing major vamp blood to heal. She lost on time, but won on wounds delivered.

After that things went sour.

Maryanne, Edmund’s lover and blood-servant, died at the hand of a woman named Cupid, her head rolling across the sandy rings. Edmund went still as death, except for the human tears that spilled down his face as she fell. His tears tore into me like claws into raw meat.

The bout bell rang upstairs. I hugged him and left him to his grief.

“Results of this duel are acceptable to the Onorios,” Brandon said behind me. And for the first time since I met the Onorio twins, I wanted to slap them, slap all three of them.