Amazon Queen (22 page)

Mel’s revelation should have surprised me, but it didn’t. I’d already accepted that I didn’t know the tribe like I thought I did . . . .

But the tribe was still the tribe, and I still loved them enough I was willing to die to protect them, even from themselves.

*   *   *

The police continued to measure and photograph. Then the media showed up. Shootings weren’t common in Madison. It was a blessing, though. It drew the police’s attention and made it easy for me to step away—even without Bubbe’s help.

Back inside Mel’s shop, we gathered and discussed our plan.

Jack called the bird son, my half brother’s father and my mother’s lover. He was at an art shop owned by Makis, the son confined to a wheelchair, but immediately agreed to return to take charge of the baby. Jack went to get him so he could arrive in his human form, clothed. He left the baby with us. I insisted. I was willing for the bird man to watch him, but I wasn’t handing him over totally. Not yet.

When I made this clear, Mel shook her head.

“He’s his father,” she said. “He would give his life to protect him.”

“And a son,” I replied. This new partnership was too unfamiliar. Besides, my mother had given her life, but that hadn’t been enough to save her son. He’d have been lost if Jack, Mateo, and I hadn’t been there.

“Makis is a son,” she countered. “And I trust him.” She didn’t, I noticed, mention Peter.

“You may. I don’t.” In fact, I trusted Makis least of all.

He was higher ranking and older than the other men. He was also Harmony’s, Mel’s daughter, grandfather—just another of the little surprises we’d discovered last fall. Based on his handicap alone, Makis had more reason than anyone to hate us.

Makis, however, wasn’t in town. He was with Harmony and Peter in Michigan. When Mel returned, she had returned alone.

“You let her stay with just them?” Mel was the definition of protective. I was shocked she would trust anyone, much less two sons, alone with her child.

At my question Bubbe, rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen, grunted.

Mel placed a heavy stare on her grandmother, then answered. “Makis
is
her grandfather.” Despite the strong look she’d shot Bubbe, I could see uncertainty in her eyes. She glanced to the side. “She has relatives.”

“Relatives? Sons?” Amazons didn’t recognize family outside their direct line. We didn’t keep track of things like cousins or aunts. They had no more importance in our lives than any other member of our family clan. I knew there were Amazons in the lion clan who shared a grandmother with me, but I didn’t give them any thought. I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to visit them.

“Harmony’s father had other children—two, both boys. They live in Michigan with an uncle.”

“And you let her stay there with them.” My mind was reeling. “What if they don’t bring her back?”

Bubbe jerked a phone book out of the drawer and slammed it down onto the countertop.

Mel’s eyes flashed. “They will.” Then she relaxed a bit. “She called last night. They went to Mackinac and rented horses. She’s having fun.”

A snort from Bubbe interrupted my response. As Mel narrowed her eyes and glared at her grandmother, I stepped away from the conversation. Harmony was out of the picture, which was good. One less child of a son to worry about.

As much as I didn’t understand Mel’s reasoning for letting her go off with the men, at least we didn’t have to worry about the Amazons deciding Harmony was a threat.

A tiny snort of my own escaped. How things had changed. I was actually glad an Amazon teen was with the sons and afraid my tribe might decide she was a threat that needed to be destroyed.

While I waited for the tension between Mel and her grandmother to settle, I approached the members of my camp, or the few who had thrown their loyalty to me over Thea and the high council.

Lao and Tess sat next to Dana, who was cooing and stroking tiny Pisto’s back. She hadn’t put him down since she and Lao had returned and she’d learned the birders had tried to steal not only my mother’s baby, but her own. Even now Dana’s voice cracked and her eyes when they met mine appeared manic, reconfirming my suspicion that a hearth-keeper could be just as determined and dangerous as a warrior.

Bern stood to one side, not far from my half brother who was asleep in his seat. The warrior was as silent as always. She hadn’t said a word to me since I’d asked her to leave earlier, but she watched all of us with the patience and intensity of a guard dog awaiting an order to attack.

I appreciated her coiled aggression. I felt the same. I couldn’t wait to get on with facing the high council, and after that, my mother’s killers.

Bubbe moved toward the stairs, a disposable wand-type lighter in her hand. “I build the fire to find the council,” she murmured. She scowled at Mel as she passed.

Mel shook her head and stared at the wall.

Content their disagreement wasn’t going to get in the way of finding the council, I pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. Tess poured a cup of coffee and slid it toward me.

I sipped and I waited, as did everyone else. Silence fell around us; even Dana quit her cooing; only the sound of her son sucking on a pacifier offered any disturbance.

In an hour Bubbe was back. And I could tell by the expression on her face, what she had to say wasn’t going to be good.

“The high council is no more.” Bubbe punctuated her words by slamming the end of a short staff onto the wood floor. Then she turned and stalked from the room.

Not knowing what else to do, the rest of us followed her, babies in tow. No one felt safe leaving them behind.

She walked down the front stairs and down the hill that led to Mel’s front lawn.

The schoolhouse was set on an acre of land, most of it in the front of the building. While the area around the school was crowded with the main building, the old gym/cafeteria, and a number of large trees, this area was flat and open with a clear view of Monroe Street.

At four in the morning the street was quiet, but Bubbe went about setting a ward to hide us anyway. Once we had sat in the traditional crescent-moon shape, she circled us, chanting. Back at the moon’s tip, she stopped and took a seat herself.

I glanced around the group, realizing this was most likely the first Amazon circle a male had ever attended. Yes, they were infants and didn’t understand a word that was being said, but it was still huge.

Bubbe held her staff to the side, one hand wrapped around it. “I reached out to the council, felt for their energy.” She dug the end of the staff into the earth. “It was broken . . . fractured.”

I frowned. “Perhaps because my mother—”

“No.” She slammed the staff down. “It is more than that. Their power. It is broken.” She held the staff in front of her. There was a crack, and the thing split into two pieces.

Mel’s eyes found mine. Resolve was there. She’d already known this.

I curled my fingers into the grass beneath my thighs and repeated what my mother had told me, how the council had been divided on what to do about the sons, how the other group had managed to pull those in the middle to their side for the vote.

Still holding the two halves of the staff, Bubbe nodded. “It is more than that. I sensed . . . ” She looked up at the moon and murmured something low that I couldn’t hear.

We waited for her to finish her murmuring and go on.

Finally she looked back. “Another goddess. It is not just the sons over which they argue. It is the goddess herself.”

The goddess? “But . . . ” But the goddess was Artemis. I looked up too. The moon was still in the sky and only five days past being full.

“Some have deserted Artemis.” Bubbe dropped the pieces of the staff. They rolled across the ground.

The others stared at them, afraid and uncertain.

While I wouldn’t admit it out loud, I was afraid and uncertain too.

I’d never imagined any of this could happen. The sons, my mother’s death, the council taking my position as queen, but to learn some had left Artemis?

Artemis was everything to us. Our safe camps were built on her places of power. Our ceremonies were held at night under the moon. I bore her crescent on the back of my neck. Everything we held dear, everything that made us Amazons, involved Artemis in some way. How could any desert her?

But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t doubt Bubbe. I trusted her, as a person and a priestess. She had no reason to lie, and she wouldn’t, couldn’t, make a mistake like this.

But what did it mean—to the tribe and me?

I scrambled for a question that would make the answer clear.

“What goddess?” Maybe if I knew this I would understand, but I doubted it. There were many goddesses, but none I could think of who matched the essence of the Amazons like Artemis.

Bubbe pressed her lips together, making her look, despite the difference in years, like her granddaughter Mel. “I don’t know. My tie is to Artemis. I cannot see the other.”

“How . . . ” I struggled, trying to think how this would affect us. “Our talents, they come from the goddess . . . Artemis.” It was a statement, one I thought was true, but I’d thought so many other things were true too. Now I couldn’t take anything for granted.

Bubbe sighed. The corners of her mouth edged down, pulled by disapproval. “We are the daughters of Ares and Otrera, a god and our first queen. Our long life, your strength, they come from them.”

Long life and strength. That wasn’t much, not when compared to all the other talents the Amazons held.

“All of our talents are part of who we are,” she added.

I relaxed, then stiffened. While I found comfort in the idea that our talents were part of us, that no matter what happened we would retain them, it also meant the other Amazons, the ones who had deserted Artemis, would hold those skills too.

“However . . . ” Bubbe ran her fingers down the leather thong that hung from her neck and grasped the tiny stone wolf that dangled from it. “While we are born with our talents, our worship of the goddess enhances them—especially our magical talents.”

I smiled. “So these Amazons who have deserted Artemis, they will have lost some of their skills.” It was good news, the best news.

Bubbe’s hand closed more tightly over the wolf. She held her breath and for a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Then she placed the stone against her lips and kissed it. With it still held in front of her, she replied, “But their new goddess will bring them more.”

“More? More than the Amazons?”

Bubbe’s lips lifted on the sides, a shade of a smile, but still the wire that had started to weave around my heart loosened a tad. She opened her fingers and the wolf thumped into place over her heart. “More, perhaps is wrong . . . different, like the goddess they choose. Each goddess, she has different skills from the next. Artemis strengthens our magic, our use of the wild forces of nature. She looks down on us during childbirth, and helps us to hunt. She attracts us to the woods, and gives us the strength and skills of her chosen animals.” Bubbe’s fingers flitted over the stone wolf. “But another goddess, she would have skills too. If she accepts the worship of these Amazons, she could bestow her skills, like Artemis has bestowed hers upon us.”

“What kind of skills . . . stronger skills?”

Bubbe lifted one shoulder. “I tell you what I know. It depends on the goddess and how she receives these Amazons.”

I clenched my jaw, uncertain again. “What about Artemis? Could they have her talents too?”

Bubbe smiled, a full smile this time. “Artemis, she is a jealous goddess. She would not like to share.”

I sat quiet for a moment, letting this new information sink in. Finally I looked up. “What now? How do we know who is following Artemis?”

How do you identify your enemy when she looks just like you, is you?

We talked another hour
or so but got nowhere. Bubbe had no more idea than I did of what to do next. As the morning sun began to creep up on the horizon, we split up. Mel left to research other goddesses. Lao and Tess went to start breakfast so Dana could get some sleep.

I ordered Bern to take a nap too.

I was sure Bern could survive without sleep, but while things were calm I wanted her to take the opportunity to get some.

Our future was uncertain, and I needed everyone in my circle strong.

We were officially in war mode. We would sleep by rotation and be on constant alert.

I plodded toward the gym/cafeteria building myself, not sure what I planned to do. I was exhausted yet at the same time fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Cleo had already made it clear she and Bubbe would be up for the next few hours, as would Mel. I could take this turn to sleep, or I could sit and stew and hope some solution came to me.

As my feet pulled their way through the long grass that covered the hillside, I knew which one I would do.

I didn’t even bother going all the way to the gym. I lay down in the grass and stared at the sky. The day was going to be warm. At maybe five in the morning it was already approaching seventy degrees. I jerked off my T-shirt, lay back down, and enjoyed the feel of the cool grass against my bare shoulders. The jog bra I wore had a high neck to cover my
givnomai.
So if one of Mel’s customers came by, it was decent while still being cool. The sky was a ruddy pink now, and the birds were in full swing, chirping and fighting for whatever territory they thought of as theirs.