Chapter Eleven
Angie
I stomped into the boots. I hadn’t worn the specially designed fighting armor since I beheaded The Bitch Tiffany. That was how I always thought of her. The Bitch Tiffany, like a title or something.
I had always wondered why I didn’t feel anything about having killed the vamp.
I had killed several times to protect myself, back when I was being hunted for the bounty on my head.
I had used my magic then, as much as my blades or semiautomatics.
But no matter how my enemies died, I felt nothing.
It was possible that I was broken, somehow, deep inside, where psychs said trauma hid.
Most warriors I knew felt bad about the things they had to do in the war.
EJ did. Villetti did. Guilt was deep in Leandro’s soul, peering through his eyes like another being, hiding in the shadows.
I turned to the mirror. The armor and boots looked good.
They had been designed by the queen’s lady-in-waiting and Lady Armorer, Quint, in a brown so deep it was nearly black.
Nearly. But not quite. The queen’s personal psychopath had called it “the shade of dried blood on a moonless night.” I liked it for two reasons: the shade set me apart from the queen’s court and the queen’s family, and it made my pale red hair look more vibrant, my might-as-well-be-gray eyes bluer.
My injured hand looked strange. White skin, starting to crack and peel, and where it was sloughing off, the flesh beneath was yellowed and dry. Numb, but it had full mobility and strength. I clenched a fist. Shrugged. It hurt but it worked, and that was all I cared about.
I streaked on vivid red lipstick. The real stuff, not a glamour.
I adjusted one of the straps holding my longsword in place.
Plopped the headset on, the face shield completely clear, shaped to my head on a 3-D printer.
It wasn’t dark or clunky, one size fits all, but fully custom, with multi-tech lenses that could be tapped away with a touch or voice command.
Tech backup for my magic, infrared, and low light.
I had to tell Walter about his brand. He could be a danger to himself and others. But when? And what words to use? And, did I need a stake handy in case he reacted badly when I told him?
I pulled on my precog gift, uncertain. Then calmer, then steady. Everything I had done so far felt right.
I threw the deep neon blue cloak over my shoulders.
Again. Instantly the ache in my bones increased.
I stuffed the pockets with healing amulets and pushed two activated pain relief amulets into my bra.
They worked for only about four hours and were hard as hell to make, but they were better than Tylenol.
In the mirrored wall, I looked pretty badass, with my hair braided tight and twisted into a queue at the back of my head.
No tiara, which made my head ache like I was sitting beneath a ringing bell, clanging in time with my blood.
Reconsidering, I pulled on gloves to hide my damaged hand.
Made a fist. As long as I didn’t have to use the staff anytime soon, my skin, muscles, nerves, and circulation could heal over time.
But I had a bad feeling that I would have to use the staff again, and soon.
I cut a small patch of the glove off over the pad of my left thumb, leaving the skin bare so I could activate the weapon as needed, but provide some protection to the rest of my hand.
I chose my magical weapons carefully. The staff, of course.
A dozen amulets. One was a superstrong blood hedge, my gauntlet hedge that could keep out a being possessed by a demon, or, for a short time, a demon itself.
A reverse hedge of thorns, that was the inverse of a regular hedge, the kind that trapped people and, if I was lucky, slowed down some small sprite energies until I could deal with them.
Three medium-strength blood hedges. Three obfuscation charms, so we could walk in unseen if I decided not to make a spectacle.
With the charms we’d not be invisible, but close enough.
A dozen more healing charms. One to make blood clot like a brick.
One to make it not clot, and flow free. Both could be weapons.
All the healings could be used as weapons.
Each type of amulet went into a specific pocket, and I remembered where each kind went. Muscle memory. Battle memory.
Always before, I had fought for myself. Now, it was also the queen’s business.
It was three a.m. when I left my apartment.
EJ
EJ entered his apartment, George leashed at his side.
He released the dog, added water to one bowl and fresh food to the other.
The Basset Hound slurped water, his ears in the bowl, which then dribbled on the floor.
He chuffed down the food without chewing.
The hound lumbered back to his bed, where he flopped in an ungainly pose and grunted until he got comfortable.
“Good boy,” EJ said. George wriggled just a bit to show unmitigated joy and closed his eyes. He was snoring before EJ turned away.
Tossing the half-dried bloody clothes into a hamper, he unfolded the paper Angie had slipped to him. On it was a note, hastily written, ignoring lines and neatness, and badly smeared. EJ touched a letter and realized it was likely eyebrow pencil or something similar, grabbed in a hurry. It said:
I’m sorry. They said they’d kill the children. They have Ivy with them under stasis. They’ll use her if they have to. When you find them, you’ll find her. I’m praying she’s still alive. They have
The hastily written note ended there.
EJ pulled on a pair of armored pants, buckled his belt, and laced up his combat boots.
These days, the military used SLER sealers on their boots, but he liked the feel of laces.
Mostly he liked these old, perfectly fitting boots.
He didn’t bother with the top half of the armor.
His jacket was better, newer than anything he had left over from the war, made to order by the queen’s armorer.
He assumed—felt—that Angie and Walter would be fully armored.
When they were kids, his and Angie’s magic had been tangled together while she saved their lives.
Every now and then he picked up a few things from her.
Sometimes. Not important things, clearly, but he knew that Walter and Angie would be armored.
And Angie was…Angie was Angie. The sharp, powerful sister he remembered from his toddler years.
She was taking care of this, whatever this turned out to be.
That certainty moved through their connection.
Yeah. The two would be fully armored. Walter would be doing the queen’s business. Angie would be doing…vengeance? Something more? He didn’t know this part of his sister at all. What he did know was that his job would be keeping them safe. Just like in the war.
EJ pocketed three sets of palillos, placing the nearly drained set of castanets on a large, black marble tray on a kitchen shelf.
His Aunt Liz, a stone witch, had made trays for Angie and him.
The stone worked like a battery, and when he didn’t have time to charge his amulets and weapons with energy by playing music, the stone provided backup.
To his pockets, he added some healing and attack weapons, changing out most woodwinds for steel and silver.
He strapped on one vamp-killer, a curved, silvered shortsword designed for taking heads.
He and Angie hadn’t talked much about what they had been through in the war.
Him, because everything he had done was classified.
Her because…Hell. He didn’t know why she hadn’t told him about Karson Marrazzo setting her up to fight a vamp.
Or her having to behead a vamp or die trying.
She’d never talked about why they divorced.
And he hadn’t asked.
Was he being a guy? Not to ask? He’d just been giving her space. Right? Letting her get over it? Or, maybe he thought she had been doing girl stuff while he was gone. Knitting. Making pottery. Playing being a vamp’s wife. Which were guy assumptions. Angie had never been predictable.
He’d been stupid. Even more stupid than the stupid he’d been about Londyn.
He’d been taught better and had trained too hard to still be so stupid.
Marrazzo had allowed one of his people to try to kill Angie. His own wife. It was exactly the same as trying to kill her himself. And she’d had to fight her way out of his clan home, killing more vamps.
The queen probably had some security vids. And no one had ever shared. EJ would be having a few words with the queen’s top security people, Alex and Eli Younger. And if he wasn’t satisfied, he would contact the queen herself.
The queen had sent help, keeping Angie alive after she left Karson. There was that.
EJ stared into the darkness beyond the invisi-windows as shame coiled through him like a vat of snakes. He had felt this shame to his toes, listening in the hallway as Angie told Villetti what had happened. She could have died. And he had never asked.
Guy thing. Yeah. He’d been a guy. Shit. Not said aloud. Not while demons were around.
Satisfied, he left his apartment and headed to Walter’s, two floors up. He had a few questions for their bodyguard.
“So where did you put the elixir?” EJ asked.
Walter looked to the refrigerator.
“You think it’s safe there?”
Walter half smiled and snorted. Like a normal human might. EJ almost gave away his surprise. Walter was the least human-acting fanghead he’d known since the war.
“Evan Junior, my entire being wants to lock it in safely with the banners, but it had been stored in the refrigerator in Londyn’s home, so I deduced it needed to be kept cold.”
“You had it in your poc—”
The smile widened. “And my pocket was as cold as the night air. Corpse cold.”
“Did you just make a joke?”
“I never joke.”
EJ frowned. That sound like humor too.