“The scourge of the ancient world. Plaguebringer. City Eater. My aunt.” Roland’s older sister.
Erra raised her cup. “Shall we celebrate our family reunion?”
I raised my spoon and twirled it in the air a couple of times. “Whooptidoo.”
She smiled. “You’re too funny to be his. His children tend to take themselves absurdly seriously.”
I sipped my tea. The longer we chatted, the more I rested. “You don’t say.”
“You’re much more like my brood, but I only woke up six years ago so you can’t be mine. Too bad. Another time, another place, I could possibly make you into something suitable.”
I couldn’t resist. “What were your children like?”
“Impulsive. And violent. I mostly made boys, and they tended toward the simple pleasures in life: drinking, whoring, and fighting, preferably all three at once.” She waved her fingers. “Im’s offspring stare at stars and make clocks that calculate useless happenings like the angle of a hawk’s claws as it strikes its prey. They demonstrate their contraptions and everyone marvels. My children get drunk, confuse a herd of cows with an enemy regiment, and slaughter the lot, screaming like lunatics until the entire army panics.”
That sounded like big Ajax, one of the Greeks who besieged Troy. Must’ve been during her “Greek” period.
Erra took a drink. “One dimwit dragged the city gates up a mountain. I asked him why he did that. He said, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ ”
I blinked. “Did he also refuse to cut his hair?”
Erra grimaced. “He was balding. That was his master plan: grow out a mane so nobody would notice. His father was gorgeous. Dumb as a pigeon but gorgeous. I thought my blood would compensate for his lack of brains.”
“How did that turn out for you?”
My aunt grimaced. “He was the dumbest child I ever produced. Killing him was like curing a headache.”
I sipped my tea. “You killed your own son?”
“He was a mistake, and when you make a mistake, it must be corrected.”
“I thought he committed suicide.” At least according to the Bible.
“He did. I just helped him along the way.”
“Ajax killed himself, too.”
She sipped her tea in a gesture so similar to mine, I had to fight not to stare. “You don’t say.”
That’s my family for you. Oh, so pleasant.
I refilled my cup.
My aunt glanced at me. “Do you know what your father does when his kids disappoint him?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“He calls me. Im’s too sentimental to remedy his mistakes. He’s done it a few times, but they have to do something truly asinine for him to kill them personally.”
“I’m excellent at asinine.”
She smiled, sharp enough to cut. Like a sword coming out of a scabbard. “That I can believe.”
We looked at each other.
“Why the Pack?” I asked.
“Five half-breeds are easy to dispatch. Throw enough troops at them and they will be overwhelmed. Fifty half-breeds will slice through five times their number. They’re fast and those they don’t kill, they panic. Five hundred half-breeds can take on an army ten times their size and triumph.” She sipped her tea. Her face turned cold. “I saw it happen thousands of years ago. This new kingdom of the half-breeds is in its infancy. It must be crushed before they learn to walk.”
I looked into her eyes. A ruthless intelligence looked back.
“Why call them half-breeds?”
“It’s a convenient term. It drips with contempt. You’re a soldier who faces a monstrosity. It’s stronger and faster than you, it looks like a nightmare, and when it takes a wound that would kill a normal man, its fellows push you back and fifteen minutes later the creature you wounded is back on its feet. Where will your courage come from?”
I leaned toward her. “But if you think the creature is an abomination, a half-breed, who is less than you, you might reach deep inside and find a pair.”
Erra nodded. “Exactly.”
“Why not just declare them unclean and turn it into a crusade, then?”
She pointed her spoon at me. “You want to stay away from religion. Once you bring prayers and worship into it, your troops start thinking you’re a god. Faith has power during magic. You begin getting urges that aren’t your own. That’s why I warned Babylon that if they ever built a shrine to me, I’d raze the city down to a nub and salt the ground it stood on. In any case, the half-breeds must be scattered. They’re too organized and they have a First.”
I toyed with my cup. “What’s a First?”
“The First were there first. They have more power, better control, and the rest of the half-breeds flock to them.”
Curran.
Erra’s eyes narrowed. “You like him.”
I arched my eyebrows.
“You like the lion.”
“I can’t stand him. He’s an arrogant ass.”
“Your bed is rumpled and there are claw marks on your windowsill and the inside door frame. Are you rutting with him?”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “What’s it to you?”
“Are you a slut?”
I stared at her.
“Not a slut, then. Good.” Erra nodded. “Our blood’s too precious to rut with every pretty man you see. Besides, that’s just asking for heartbreak. You have to guard yourself or you will never survive your first century. The pain other people cause you will tear you apart.”
“Thanks for the lecture.”
“About your half-breed. They are great fun in bed, little squirrel, but they always want children and family. Family is not for you.”
I arched my eyebrows. Decided for me, did she? “How do you know what’s for me?”
She laughed. “You know what you are? You’re a pale imitation of me. Weaker, slower, smaller. You dress like me, you talk like me, and you think like me. I saw you fight. You love to kill. Just like me. You attack when you’re scared, and right now you wonder if you could’ve shattered the ward on your door the way I did. I know you, because I know myself. And I am a terrible mother.”
I petted Slayer on my lap. “I’m not you.”
“Yes. And that will be your undoing. The key to survival is moderation. You haven’t learned that and now you never will.”
Getting a lecture on restraint from the woman who threw a hissy fit and blew up Babylon. That’s rich. “Speaking of moderation, the Casino belongs to the People. Does my father know you attacked one of his bases?”
Erra shrugged. “Im would approve. It’s so . . .” She frowned, obviously searching for a word. “Gaudy. It’s everything I dislike about this age: too loud, too bright, too flashy. Nobody even notices the beauty of the building behind all the colored light and banners. The music sounds like there is a band of monkeys inside beating on cooking pots.”
“They reported it to the authorities.”
Erra’s eyes widened. “They did? Pussies.”
Ghastek didn’t know what she was but Nataraja might have been close enough to Roland to have met her and know she was erratic enough to reduce the Casino to dust on a whim. He didn’t want to take any chances.
Erra erratic. God, maybe the word was invented to describe my aunt. That would be crazy. “What did the Guild do to offend you?”
Erra rolled her eyes. “Is this my day to give lessons?”
“How often do you get to teach?”
She chuckled again. “Very well. When you want to take over an army, you walk up to them and say, ‘Send your strongest man.’ They do, and you kill him while they watch. You make it fast and brutal, preferably by hand. And while they’re reeling from it, you shoot the small guy with a big mouth who heckled you when you first approached. That shows that you could’ve shot the big man, but you chose not to.”
I nodded. Sounded reasonable.
“When you want to take over a city, you have to destroy the illusion of safety it provides. You have to hit the large well-protected establishments, find the powerful people who run them and are viewed as invincible, and kill them. You want to destroy the morale first. Once the people’s resolve is gone and everyone is scared for their own skin, the city is yours. The Guild is full of little people who think they’re strong. I could’ve killed their leader in his rooms, but instead I dragged him down and murdered him before their eyes. Not only will they not oppose me now, but they’ll spread panic every time they open their mouths. And then, of course, the First wandered into the place as I was pulling my boys out. It was too tempting not to take a shot.”
So Solomon’s shapeshifter status was a coincidence. She’d targeted him because he was the head of the Guild, not because he turned furry. “But then you made Tremor look like Solomon. Why?”