Amazon Queen (24 page)

I went to wake Bern.

I slept on the way down, as did Mel. There were two cars’ worth of us. Everyone except Dana, Mateo, and Bubbe came, and the babies . . . we left them at Mel’s.

Leaving Bubbe behind was a tough decision, but we couldn’t trust the babies with just a son and a hearth-keeper, even if that hearth-keeper had a mother lion’s ferociousness when it came to protecting her child. And, to be honest, I had no idea what, besides shifting into a massive bird, Mateo’s skills were.

Weighing everything, it made sense to leave Bubbe with them. Heading back to Illinois, we had three warriors, two hearth-keepers, a son, and Mel, who while classified as an artisan I knew had strong warrior and priestess skills too. It was a strange group, but one I trusted for the job—even Jack.

Oh, and we also brought the dogs. Bubbe had insisted.

We pulled into Jack’s driveway around nine thirty.

There was nothing left of the cabin, at least nothing that could be used as shelter, but with access to the safe camp through the woods, it seemed like a good place to set as our base of operation.

We did, however, need some shelter besides our cars if we were going to stay here for long. And, since we had to assume no one at the safe camp was on our side, we needed a place we could stay hidden as much as possible.

Jack suggested we check his neighbors. Apparently one of the reasons he liked the location was that his closest neighbor, the man we’d seen getting his mail, spent most of the summer in northern Wisconsin and most of the winter in Texas. Remembering the camping trailer I’d seen parked in the drive during my last visit, I sent Lao and Tess to check out the house.

They were back in under ten minutes with good news.

“Looks like they’ve cleared out. Water and electricity are on, but the fridge is empty.” Lao placed her hands on her hips and rocked back on her heels. “There’s phone service too, if we want to use it. Long distance would show on their bill.”

“Is there a computer?” Mel asked.

Lao nodded. “Don’t know much about ’em, but one’s there.”

Happy with the news, we hid our vehicles inside the neighbor’s detached three-car garage and moved ourselves into their house.

It was small, two bedrooms and two baths with a wide back porch that looked out over the woods. The furnishings were nice. There were redwood lawn chairs and two rockers on the back porch—a hot tub too. Seemed like a place you would go on vacation to, not from.

But we weren’t on vacation.

There was a fence also, a partial one that shielded most of the property from anyone who casually approached from the main road and a deep freeze filled with what appeared to be venison in the garage.

After we’d walked around the house and the property one more time to make sure no one was home and there was no sign that anyone had been hired to watch the place, we met in the small living room.

We quickly decided our best course of action. We would send Mel’s mother Cleo to the camp. Between her and Mel, Cleo was less likely to be known to anyone at the house. Also, she would blend in more easily. Besides, I could tell the idea of trying to blend gave my friend twitches, and I didn’t need Mel’s true personality and thoughts on all things Amazon coming out.

So Cleo would arrive in the stolen car, claiming to be arriving early for the fair. Bern, Lao, and Tess would stay hidden for now at the house.

Mel, Jack, and I would approach through the woods.

We had no set goal at the moment, except to see what was going on and to check for some sign my high council contact had been near.

We agreed to meet in three hours at the obelisk. It would be afternoon by then, not a time any Amazons should be worshipping the goddess.

Assuming they still worshipped Artemis.

If they didn’t? Well, I had no idea when, where, or how they might choose to worship. We might be walking into a crowd of goddess worshipers I had no chance of recognizing.

I didn’t dwell on the possibility too much.

I took another nap instead. Bern was on watch, and I needed to be at my best. I knew whatever happened, I wasn’t going to be welcomed back at camp with open arms.

I had to be prepared to fight.

As we walked through the woods, my body tensed. I felt like a stranger here, walking a path I’d traveled daily for over a decade.

I resented the high council and whomever the Amazons were who had drifted for making me an outsider. I even, if I was honest, resented the safe camp members who hadn’t questioned this false high council’s orders. But that was unfair. I had followed their orders blindly too . . . or tried to . . . would have if Jack and Mateo hadn’t jumped in to stop me.

How could I be angry at others for doing what I had done myself?

My place here, however, my goal, was to prove I wasn’t an outsider, that my view of what the Amazons were and should be was the best one. If I had a high-council member by my side who knew the council had split and that some had even left Artemis, I could convince the others at the camp that the high council who had ordered my dismissal wasn’t valid.

From there we could tell others, expose the false Amazons among us and keep them from burrowing deeper into our hearts.

I had brought my staff with me. Shifting it a bit in my hands calmed me. I longed to stretch and run through a few exercises to relieve even more of the built-up tension, but there hadn’t been time. The nap had felt more important.

Jack walked directly behind me wearing only pants—no shirt or shoes. I assumed he wanted to be free to shift without having to worry about escaping his clothes, but I hadn’t asked. Mel was behind him, no weapons, but armed with her magic.

As we approached the obelisk, I heard a voice. It was female and familiar but I couldn’t place it. She seemed to be singing.

Motioning for Jack and Mel to stay hidden, I stepped into the clearing.

A woman stood in front of the obelisk. Her back was to me, but based on her height and impressive physique, it was easy to guess she was an Amazon. The sword shoved into the ground not far away added weight to my guess.

The sun shone down brightly, glistened off her shoulder-length hair. She wore no adornment that I could see except a wide leather wristband. It was only a few shades darker than her skin, which visible in athletic shorts and tank, was tanned. She looked like someone who worked outside during the day . . . like a hearth-keeper . . . or a warrior.

The sword made me guess the latter.

My missing high-council contact was a warrior.

“Kale?” I offered, my voice low so I wouldn’t startle her.

Her shoulders pulled back and her head tilted. She turned slowly. As she did, she dropped something . . . a metal flask. The lid had been off, and clear liquid spilled onto the ground.

She was facing me now. I’d never met Kale, but she was much as I’d imagined her. Fierce, strong, and in control.

She stared at me for a moment, her eyes narrowing. Then she glanced down at her hand and I saw what she held . . . a gun, black, square and ugly, just like the ones the birders had held.

The gun began to rise.

A hand hit me square in the back and I flew forward, just as the bullet zipped through the space where I had stood.

“Shit.” Mel leaped toward me, pulling in a breath as she did.

My staff perpendicular to my body, I log-rolled across the ground out of her reach.

Kale had seen me, shot at me.

I wouldn’t let Mel take a bullet meant for me.

I’d lost my mother. I would not lose Mel.

Three feet and I ran out of cleared space. I folded my body forward and somersaulted to a stand. As my feet hit the ground, I broke into a run. My staff dug into the earth and I vaulted, my feet aimed at Kale’s head.

She turned again and my gaze locked onto the gun—once again pointed at me. Better me than Mel.

A battle cry split from my lungs. I kicked, the sole of my foot jamming into her forehead. The gun fired again.

My mind searched for the pain but came back empty. I landed four feet past where she had stood and spun.

She was lying prone on the ground. Jack in his wolverine form was over her, his jaws around her neck. Her fingers twitched; her lips moved.

“Wait,” I yelled.

Both Kale and Jack froze.

I could see the craziness in Jack’s eyes, the lust for her blood. I didn’t know what happened to the sons when they shifted—how much of the animal they truly became, but I knew as I stared into Jack’s wolverine eyes that he want to kill, wanted to taste blood more than he wanted anything at that moment in time.

I lifted my staff so it was angled across my body and took a step forward.

Mel stood where I’d left her. She blew the breath she’d held into her closed fist. “I’m not sure he can, Zery.” She shook her hand as if something alive was concealed in those closed fingers. And I suspected it was, or close enough . . . a tiny tornado buzzing with whatever energy Mel had blown into it.

“Zery,” Kale muttered. Her eyes shifted in her face. She blinked. “Zery,” she repeated, softer. Then she glanced to the side, toward the woods.

Dread, thick like tar, settled over me. My staff still held ready, I sidestepped across the clearing.

At first, with my eyes not yet adjusted from the bright light of the clearing, I saw nothing, then hidden in the shadows I saw a hump, like a fallen log . . . or . . . I moved closer, close enough I could see the lump wasn’t a tree or anything else that had grown naturally here in Artemis’s woods.

It was a body.

My jaw tight, I started to kneel, then I saw the second one.

*   *   *

“Don’t kill her,” I yelled—an order, one I hoped Jack would respect. I placed my foot on the closest body and pushed. It flopped over. The face of the birder who’d pushed the button and blown up the stairwell stared up at me.

The glassiness of her eyes told me she was dead, almost as much as the round bullet hole in her forehead.

“What is it?” Mel, close behind me now.

I held one hand to the side, blocking her from coming closer.

“The birders. The women who tried to take the babies. They’re dead. Shot.” Mel paused. It was a tangible pause, one I felt as much as saw. She opened her hand and the tiny tornado spun down into the ground. Dead leaves rustled up from the floor of the forest, broke into tiny pieces, and scattered over the dead woman’s face.

Moving past me, Mel pulled the second birder over and onto her back. She was shot too, in the chest. It was bloody and gory and everything I’d dreamed it would be . . . except I’d planned on delivering the blow.

“She shot them,” Mel said.

“Looks that way.” I turned and trudged to the clearing.

Jack still had Kale pinned. Neither had moved. Which was strange. An Amazon warrior didn’t lie in place and wait to be killed . . . and a warrior on the high council? I would expect her to do what I’d never been able to do myself . . . defeat the wolverine son so thoroughly that there would be no denying Amazons were the stronger sex . . . had no need of a fairy godfather.

Disgusted, I kicked the pistol that lay less than a foot away from the fallen high-council member deep into the woods, in the direction of the bodies.

Then I twisted my staff and jammed it into the center of her back. In an advantageous position if the need to battle arose, I gestured for Jack to back off.

His lip curled and the ugly growling bark I’d come to recognize followed, but after only one such complaint, he loosened his jaws and shuffled backward.

The air around him grew fuzzy, like someone had rubbed Vaseline over a camera lens. Knowing what was happening, I waited, and just as quickly as it had begun the spot lengthened, the air cleared, and a naked Jack replaced the wolverine.

His lip raised revealing teeth. “She shot at you.”

I stepped away from the fallen queen and spun my staff so it was directed at the son. “Dead, she can’t tell us anything.”

Kale was my only hope of convincing the Amazons that the basic premise of the high council and the trust we had placed in them had been violated.

He growled again, but turned and stalked to where his pants lay in a pile near the edge of the clearing.

Kale didn’t move. I watched her with one eye as I walked to the sword shoved halfway to its hilt into the earth. I jerked the weapon out; a boar was engraved on its blade, answering any doubts I might have had as to her identity. I walked back and pushed the Amazon over with my foot, just as I’d pushed the dead birder.

Kale’s body moved in the same manner, lifeless, with no fight. She could have been dead, if it weren’t for the up and down movement of her chest and the slight humming noise coming from her throat.

I pressed the tip of the sword against the base of her neck until a bead of blood appeared. When I got no reaction, I pressed harder.

“Where is the rest of the council, Kale?”

She blinked, and the fog lifted. I realized then it wasn’t a hum I heard, but a chant, a low repetition of words I couldn’t make out.

Her lips dry, her voice cracking, she rasped, “What happened? Where is—” She grabbed the sword with her bare hand and pushed it away.

The tip tore at her skin as she did, leaving a long ugly line of blood and ragged tissue. Then she bent her knees, raised her hips, and propelled her body to a stand.

Ready for another attack, I spun.

Except, she didn’t . . . she staggered, backward then sideways like a drunken middle-aged man surprised to find he couldn’t hold his liquor like he had in his youth.

Her hair fell forward over her face. When she looked at me, strands still clung there, half-hiding her features. “What have you done to me?” Then her knees buckled and she fell forward onto the ground.

“Zery . . . ?” Mel behind me, warning in her voice.

Thinking she was afraid I would skewer the fallen council member where she lay, I lowered the sword to my side. “Don’t worry, I won’t—”

“No. Someone’s coming. And not Mother, Bern, or any Amazon I’d guess.”

I listened. There were voices, male, and the sound of bodies thrashing their way through the woods.