Amazon Queen (36 page)

I smiled. If Lao could do that, why couldn’t I take on an army?

I raised my sword, ready to battle, ready to save Andres and myself.

Something glimmered in the woods. Without shifting my gaze, I willed my brain to see what it was: Mel with a bow and arrow, the Amazons’ most traditional weapon, Artemis’s most treasured tool, was perched in a tree.

Mel was here. She pulled back the string.

A thought . . . a plan coming to me, I shook my head.

Padia expected me to fight and she had the band of Amazons programmed to hold me back. I was making the mistake I’d made before, letting my enemy dictate the rules.

I didn’t want to fight these warriors, didn’t want to see them dead. I only had one enemy here, one heart calling out to be pierced.

I dropped my sword.

A warrior hurtling toward me faltered, tripped, and fell. She’d been told not to kill me. I’d heard Padia myself. I didn’t have to fight these Amazons . . .

Sensing something had changed, Padia turned and stared at me. “Zery?”

I stepped to the side, forcing her to move too if she wanted to see me past the waiting warriors. She did, giving Mel one clean, clear shot.

With a ping, the arrow left the bow.

Padia raised her hand. The arrow shot off course as if swatted away. She smiled. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten your merry band of misfits. I thought I had them all accounted for . . . I didn’t realize one had slipped my trap.”

Another arrow and another flew toward us.

Padia swatted each to the side. “Get her,” she yelled at two of the stupored Amazons.

They left their positions and jogged into the woods.

“Now, back to what I was doing.” She closed her eyes and raised her arm.

I moved to attack her, but something grabbed hold of my feet. They wouldn’t move. I stared up at the tree where my friend had been. She was gone.

Then a few feet away there was a glint, another arrow, this one pointed at me.

My best friend was about to shoot me.

And then she did.

Pain sliced into me. My knees buckled; unsure and confused I stared down at the metal shaft that protruded from my shoulder—an arrow, Artemis’s arrow.

Suddenly, understanding my friend’s plan, I jerked it out of my flesh, turned, and stared at my target . . . at the priestess who was trying to tear my tribe apart. Then I threw it with all the frustration, anger, and faith I could summon from my soul.

The anger alone would have done the job.

The arrow hit, slammed in and through Padia’s throat. Still holding Andres, she turned. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came. The bloody arrow, protruding from her throat, shone in the sun.

She stared down at the child, then up at the knife she held overhead.

My feet free, I lunged to the side, grabbed the sword I had dropped and, swinging it overhead, raced forward.

The blade easily accomplished what the arrow had started.

Blood sprayed, blood beyond anything I had seen before. It seemed to coat Padia before her head had even separated from her body, well before it clunked onto the ground.

A growling snarl sounded from the woods. Jack in his wolverine form shot forward. The air waved and the animal was gone. Jack, the man, naked and covered in Padia’s blood too, grabbed a screaming Andres before the baby’s body could collide with the packed earth.

Somehow Padia still stood; her headless body tottered backward into the obelisk . . . slid down its side and collapsed onto the dirt.

Still holding the sword, I followed my brother’s example, I let go of a scream. This one in victory.

With Padia dead, I turned to face her followers.

The Amazons lowered their swords, dropped their knives, and stared at each other. Then they turned to face the birders who were still lined up and waiting to receive their powers. The T-shirt-wearing women, unaware what had happened, their view blocked by the massive Amazons, moved closer . . . until they saw Padia.

A shudder went through them, like a football-stadium wave. Moving as one unit, they lifted their gazes again . . . to me, blood-coated me.

I picked up the sword from where it had fallen after slicing through the priestess’s neck and held it overhead. “So, you want to become Amazons?”

They ran.

And this time I didn’t think they would be coming back.

Mel walked out of the woods, the bow over her shoulder. She nocked an arrow and let it fly. It hit a tree only feet from the slowest birder. The old woman doubled her stride.

Our attention on the birders, we didn’t notice Tess break into a run. Mel lifted her bow again, but I placed a hand on her arm.

Jogging through the trees toward us were Bern and the others. Seeing the fleeing hearth-keeper, my new lieutenant changed direction. She caught up to Tess in two strides, and with one strike of her nunchakus, she took the hearth-keeper out.

With Tess crumpled on the ground, Bern stood over her. “She betrayed you,” she said.

I nodded and turned away. I didn’t look back to see if the warrior took my nod as permission to kill the girl or left her lying there unconscious, but alive.

Tess might have been under Thea and Padia’s spell, but her betrayal had been more complete than the others and longer lasting. I couldn’t believe they had turned her that completely, not without some desire of her own.

The other Amazons stood quiet, waiting. I was within my rights to take their lives too. And they all knew it.

I didn’t, though. They had dropped their weapons once Padia fell, and unlike Tess they hadn’t run in guilt.

I’d take their names, keep track of them somehow, but I wouldn’t order them killed, not today.

Jack, human and naked, walked up with a shirt in his hand. He pressed it to my shoulder. “Sorry we were late. I hate to miss a good party.”

I grunted. “You could have stayed the first time.”

“And taken all this glory away from you?” He shook his head. “Besides, I thought you’d want to share the fun with friends.” His tone turning serious, he added, “They were drugged. I don’t know how. Its effect on me was different, it froze me in my animal form, but the others were unconscious. Mel came out of it first, her body anyway, her priestess skills . . . ” He shook his head. “She insisted on coming ahead anyway, though.”

Hearing her name, Mel approached. She held two arrows in her hand.

“You shot me,” I said.

She smiled. “I’ve wanted to do it many times. Be glad I waited this long.”

“And that your aim is good,” I replied.

“Is it?” she asked.

I ignored the jibe. I knew if she had wanted me dead, I would be.

“It was smart,” I said. “Shooting me.”

She took Jack’s place, lifted the cloth, and studied my wound. “Padia was focused on stopping me from shooting her, but it never occurred to her I’d shoot you.”

“She didn’t know you.”

She pressed the cloth back down, a little harder than necessary, but I ignored the flash of pain. “No, she didn’t know either of us, didn’t know how strong an Amazon you are.”

I grunted. I hardly planned on bragging about the events of the past few days.

She grabbed my arm. “You killed her. You stopped her from whatever the hell she was trying to do.”

Not knowing how to reply, I changed the subject. “Something needs to be done with Athena’s blade.” I nodded to where the stone blade lay, white and sinister, in the grass.

She twisted the cloth around my shoulder and tied it in the back. “That’s a job for the high council.”

“If there is a high council.”

She sighed. “With Padia’s influence gone there should be, but they definitely have a few openings. Seems like the perfect time to get things going.”

“And . . . in what direction?” I asked.

Her face solemn, she met my stare. “Don’t play that with me. We both know this has changed you. You see what has to be done. If you won’t leave the damn tribe, you might as well step up and lead them in the right direction.”

Lead them in the right direction. My friend who hated the Amazons, but hated the high council more, had just suggested I join them.

Denial formed in my brain. I wasn’t ready; I had almost failed here. The council wouldn’t respect me or listen to me.

It would be a wasted effort to even try.

But Mel pressed a finger to my lips and said, “Shut up and just do it.”

And for once I decided to take her advice without arguing.

My decision made, a cloud lifted off of me.

Yes, I had screwed things up here, but I had made them right, and by joining the council I could stop things from getting screwed yet again.

Areto walked up, Bern beside her.

Since the smaller warrior was still breathing, I assumed Bern didn’t think she had betrayed us again. Actually, I knew she hadn’t. Jack had told me she had been unconscious too. Padia had lied about that, to shake me, I guessed.

“They are going to need a new queen,” I said.

“You aren’t coming back?” Areto asked.

Bern stared off to the side.

“I’m going to the Northwest, to find the council.” I didn’t know where they met, but I would place a call. Someone would answer and someone would find me and let me know if they would hear my claim for a position.

They had three vacancies . . . one my mother’s. I’d been queen for sixty years and served well.

I had also just uncovered their biggest failure. If word of the Athena cult growing under their noses got out . . . there would be more than three positions to fill.

“Oh,” Areto studied her hands.

“I was thinking someone familiar with the camp should fill the role, at least until the council is back together and someone can be officially appointed.”

Bern nodded. “Areto will serve well.”

I nodded. “I’m sure she would, but I think there’s someone else who would do better.” I glanced at Areto.

She closed her eyes, agreeing, then walked away.

I stepped into Bern’s space, stared into her eyes. “Anyone ever call you a sheep, Bern?”

Confusion rippled her forehead. “No.”

I smiled. “I didn’t think so.”

A few hours later I’d told a silent Bern I was leaving her in charge of the safe camp, and I’d said my good-byes.

With my staff and a few other belongings stashed into a duffel, I set off through the woods back to Jack’s neighbor’s house. Mel, Cleo, and Bubbe were still there with Lao, cleaning up.

By the time I got there everything was set to rights. Lao swore the place looked better than when we had arrived.

“These people will be leaving all the time, hoping the brownies will come back and fix the place up again,” she declared before taking off through the woods back to camp.

I hadn’t thanked her for anything. She didn’t coldcock Thea or throw out Padia’s tainted food as a favor to me, she’d done it because it was who she was, what she did. To thank her would have cheapened that.

She didn’t thank me either, just shoved a couple paper-wrapped sandwiches into my hands and told me not to bleed to death too soon.

With that heartwarming thought, she was gone.

Mel stood beside me on the porch, watching her disappear.

“There may be more, you know,” she stated.

“Hearth-keepers?” I asked, although I knew that wasn’t what she was talking about.

“Deserters, Amazons trying other goddesses, or at least fighting for the tribe to return to the old ways.”

I nodded. “Discovering the sons shook things up. They are afraid.”

“But you aren’t.” She stated it as fact, but she was wrong. I was afraid, afraid that no matter what I did or what I became, it wouldn’t be enough . . . that I wouldn’t be able to save the tribe I loved.

I didn’t say it to her, though. She’d told me only minutes earlier that she was resuming the search for her son. He was the son of a son. A perfect sacrifice when Panathenaea came around again . . . or whatever other ceremony was important to any other goddess who might think to challenge Artemis’s hold on the Amazons.

Mel didn’t need to know my fear. She needed to believe in my strength.

And, honestly, that’s what I needed to do too.

“I’ll take care of your mother, get her body returned to the tribe,” she said, perhaps realizing I needed to change the topic. “Bubbe will do the rites, if you want.”

I nodded. She knew I did. I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else.

We stood there another five minutes saying nothing, but finally I couldn’t put off my future any longer. I said one last good-bye, picked up my bag, and headed to the highway. Trucks ran down this road at all hours.

I just needed one.

It was getting dark. I walked along the shoulder, lost in my thoughts.

I’d left the tribe and I’d come back. I’d lost my mother and found a brother. The position of queen had been taken from me, and now I was going to force my way onto the high council.

Not one damn thing was like it had been just two weeks earlier.

Behind me a horn sounded, a car . . . a beater covered in dents and rust pulled to the side.

I sighed. Not the best candidate for getting to the West Coast. Still, he could surely at least get me to town.

Before I could lean down to check out the driver, the passenger door flew open.

Cautious, I stared inside.

Jack stared back at me.

“Heard a queen needed a ride.”

“Nope. Wrong Amazon. No queens here.” I placed my hand on the door, ready to slam it shut.

He called out, “Sheep?”

My fingers stilled. “Definitely no sheep.”

“That’s good; wet wool smells.”

I looked up and realized it was raining. Big giant plops of water landed on the hood.

His foot pressed the door open further. “How about a fairy godfather? Could you use one of those?”

Thunder boomed in the distance. Lightning zigzagged across the sky. I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. Staring at the horizon, I said, “You know, I never thought I did, but lately . . . I’ve learned I’ve been wrong . . . a lot.”

I got in the car.