Amazon Queen (6 page)

With that in mind, I pulled a knife from under the backseat and signaled for Thea to creep toward the house.

The forest closed in on the short gravel drive as we approached, narrowing to nothing but two bare ruts in the grass with trees pressed in so close the branches overhead mingled into one thick canopy. The cabin, tucked in between some massive maples, was small. I guessed nothing more than one main room . . . maybe a small bedroom and bath. There was a carport thing instead of a garage; it, like the cabin, was made of unstripped logs. It looked like the son had built the place himself.

The wolverine had a little Grizzly Adams in him. A bit of old farmer too . . . the place was littered with old pieces of machinery. The kind you normally see rusting in fields as you drive down county highways.

“What now?” Thea stayed partially hidden in the trees.

The property seemed quiet. I was fairly confident our arrival would come as a surprise . . . if anyone was home. There was no vehicle parked under the carport.

Of course the bird son could have taken the car and my fairy godfather could be inside, or he could be sitting in the underbrush in his wolverine form watching us. Or another son in a different animal form could be watching us. I glanced around the clearing; a rabbit paused not far from the carport to nibble at some grass.

I froze . . . over a rabbit. My reaction was unsettling. But it was more unsettling to realize I could be staring right at my enemy and not be able to tell. If I ignored the rabbit, walked toward the cabin, he could shift and I could find an arm wrapped around my throat.

I looked at Thea. “Do you sense magic?” Sometimes priestesses could tell if magic was being worked. Of course, if the rabbit was a son, he might not be using magic right now. Maybe they used it only to shift, not to hold the shape. Not being an expert on Amazon sons or magic, I really didn’t know.

Thea closed her eyes and held out her hands.

Finally she opened her eyes. “Nothing.”

Which told me the same—nothing. Still, it wasn’t her fault I knew so little of our enemy. I hid my annoyance.

I pointed, letting her know I would circle to the back of the cabin; she was to stay where she was, to alert me if anyone approached and to stop anyone besides me from leaving.

Hoping I wasn’t just playing bird dog, that the son would be home and choose to face me, not rush for an escape route, I slipped through the trees lining the clearing.

When I was even with the cabin’s porch, the rabbit heard me and ran. I watched him escape into the trees and prayed I wasn’t making a mistake by assuming he was simply what he appeared to be.

With the horrible rabbit threat gone, I crept toward the cabin. There were two windows each about four feet off the ground. They were easy enough to peer into, but the inside of the cabin was dark. All I could make out past the grime was the rough shadow of some furniture, a couch, and an oversized chair. I moved to the second window. This one looked into the bedroom. The actual room was dark, but a light had been left on in a small attached bathroom making the contents of the space much more visible.

There were two rifles and maybe six rifle-shaped boxes lying on the bed.

Guns. Amazons don’t do guns.

We have never had a reason. We haven’t had a real enemy since before firearms were invented, and certainly haven’t since before they’d become the reliable killing machines they are today.

But now we had an enemy, and he was armed not only with the ability to shift, but also with rifles, maybe more weapons I couldn’t see through this window.

It pissed me off. Not because we couldn’t destroy the sons, we still could, but because the males were an even less worthy adversary than I had thought.

Were they so sure of their weaknesses they were afraid to face us using traditional weapons? I shook my head in disgust.

“What is it?” Thea had crept up behind me.

I stiffened. I had told her to wait.

She cupped her hands and stared through the glass. “Guns.”

I nodded.

“We should take them.”

I didn’t move; I couldn’t. “Take them?”

“They are superior weapons to what we have now.” She glanced at the knife I held.

“So we should take them and use them,” I repeated.

She opened her mouth to reply, but I was already past her, already headed for the back door. I didn’t bother to check the lock. I lifted my foot and kicked in the door.

There was a click. Instinct told me to move a step to the side, but heat smacked me in the face and a force flung me backward. After that all I was aware of was noise . . . an explosion and the sensation of my body flying through the air.

The cabin had blown up.

I was thrown twenty
feet, into the woods. My back hit a tree seconds before my butt hit the ground. I cursed and tried to stand. Pain grabbed me, like someone had slipped my spine into a vice and was twisting down the handle, trying to twist me too. I gritted my teeth and tried to convince my mind it didn’t feel the pain, didn’t feel anything at all.

Doubled over, I staggered forward.

The cabin was an inferno; smoke billowed from the hole that had been the roof. The leaves on the closest trees, curled from the heat.

“Thea?” I called. Amazons were hard to kill, harder than humans anyway, but a fire like this? Nothing could survive it. Still bent at the waist, I jerked off my shirt and wrapped it around my face, then I lurched toward the fire. She hadn’t been in the cabin, hadn’t even been as close as I had been. Surely she had survived.

Heat slammed into me. Fire roared forward like a live beast unleashed and set on destroyting its captors. There was a crash. One of the cabin walls had fallen in; ash and bits of red-hot coals sprinkled the ground and my bare skin.

I brushed them off and circled to the right. Entering the building without knowing the priestess was inside would be suicide—entering it at all would be suicide, but if I could hear her, knew she was there, I’d do it. It wouldn’t even be a choice.

I paced slowly over the area near the back door where I’d last seen her, listening and searching for some sign.

After five minutes I had to stop, had to bend lower to find air not clogged with soot. There was none. Even outside the actual fire, I felt as if I had been dropped down inside a potbelly stove.

I’d decided walking back and forth like a trapped bear was getting me nowhere when two old farmers in a pickup with a water tank in the back arrived. Based on the hoarse yells of the ragtag pair, I gathered they’d had a hard time making it down the drive. I also knew if one of them had called in the fire, I had fifteen, twenty minutes tops to get out before the real fire department arrived.

They started spraying the trees closest to the cabin. I’m sure the structure itself appeared to be a lost cause.

I marched forward, doing the best job I could to hide my still-throbbing back and held out my hand for the hose. The man stared at me as if I’d stepped out of the fire with the complete intention of pulling him back in with me. Frustrated, I grabbed the hose and soaked myself down, shorts, hair, and the shirt tied over my face.

Then I dropped the still-flowing hose onto the ground and headed back to the fire.

The other man found his voice. “You can’t go in there.”

I ignored him, made it all of three steps before it began to rain, soft, almost a mist. It felt insulting, like a god was laughing at me, teasing me. I turned to stare at the cabin. It was already consumed by the fire.

I had to face that even an Amazon couldn’t have survived that.

And the fire truck couldn’t be far away.

I wasn’t too worried about the farmers being able to identify me with my face covered by my shirt and my body by soot or that they would have paid much attention to the Jeep, but the firefighters were a different matter. I would have to move the Jeep before they came down the narrow road and spotted it. I was a witness, chances were they’d at least want to hear my version of events.

Without looking at the self-appointed heroes again, I pointed my body toward the main road. Somewhere in the short trip back to the Jeep, my back pain changed from a steady throb to intermittent shrieks—shorter and more spaced out, but breathtakingly severe.

At least this new pain made me forget my leg completely. It didn’t, however, make me forget Thea or stop thinking about what I would do after hiding the Jeep.

Not that I needed to worry about hiding the Jeep.

When I returned to where I had left it, it was gone.

I’d disappeared into the woods just as the fire truck rumbled down the road. The pothole had slowed the massive vehicle some. I figured by the time they got to the son’s house, it would be nothing but ash.

Which suited me fine. I didn’t know what the story on the guns was, but I wanted the sons for myself. I didn’t want them being locked up in some human prison before I could get to them.

It took me an hour to get back to camp on foot. If I’d been whole, I could have made it in a quarter of the time. I guessed it took the son in his wolverine form even less than that.

I approached from behind the barn; the horses were out, but there was no sign of any Amazons. I was glad for the quiet, glad I didn’t have to face any of them just yet. The past twenty-four hours had taken a toll on me. I needed to at least look strong when I gathered them together and announced Thea was missing. I hadn’t worked out yet what had happened to the Jeep. My guess was the sons had seen us arrive and stolen it.

A mare approached and nuzzled my neck. I wrapped my fingers in her mane and used her for support.

My face against hers, I inhaled. The sun-heated scent of her skin was calming. Closing my eyes, I pulled on her strength, pulled on the strength of my
givnomai
too. Then I straightened my back, swallowed my physical pain, and strode out of the paddock.

The gravel crunched as my feet came to a halt.

Sitting in a line next to the five or so other Amazon vehicles was the Jeep.

It hadn’t driven here on its own. And I didn’t think the sons had delivered it to us.

Our new high priestess had deserted me, left me wounded and alone at the cabin.

My temper soared. All thoughts of avoiding a confrontation with her fled.

I tromped toward the house, not sure what I was going to say or do once I reached it, once I reached Thea.

But the building was empty. The grounds were empty.

I walked back through the house, this time armed with my staff. I checked each room carefully, looking for some sign there had been a battle, but everything looked to be in place.

Back in the yard, I considered my options. The Amazons had to be near. All the vehicles were present, and all the horses were too.

A houseful of Amazons didn’t just disappear, not without a struggle, one that would be impossible to hide. Which meant they were nearby, just not within sight.

I entered the woods.

It was early evening now. The sun wasn’t as strong as it had been during my last trip to the clearing, but the air felt thicker, humid and cloying.

Ignoring the sweat that instantly beaded on my upper lip, I positioned my staff as I had the last time, perpendicular, so I could walk the path more easily. The late afternoon rain had softened the ground; it gave under my feet, cushioned each step, and made the pain in my back less obvious. I murmured a thanks to Artemis for blessing me with the small gift.

As I approached the obelisk, I heard voices. Hidden behind a tree, I paused and listened. I recognized Thea’s voice first, then humming or chanting. With a frown, I peered out. The occupants of the camp were seated in a full circle, not the traditional partial circle or crescent we normally used when worshipping.

Thea stood near the obelisk; in her hands was another bowl. She crushed some kind of leaf over it, letting the crushed pieces fall in, then passed it around. As each Amazon took the vessel, she mimed with her hand for them to dip their fingers into the mixture and dot the oil onto their foreheads. First in line were Tess and another hearth-keeper, both young and used to being told what to do.

Lao sat five Amazons to the right of the two hearth-keepers. As the second girl smeared oil on her forehead, Lao stood and folded her arms under her well-endowed chest.

Her back stiff, she addressed Thea, “I’ve worshipped under a number of priestesses and I’ve never seen a one waste good olive oil by daubing it between their eyes.” She lowered her chin.

Thea straightened. “Have you ever lost a queen?”

Areto stood then. “If Zery is lost, we should be looking for her. Artemis blesses those who take action.” At Areto’s words the other warriors rose too. The hearth-keeper who held the bowl set it onto the ground. Her eyes shifted back and forth between Thea and the Amazons who had stood.

Thea sighed. “Once we have . . . the goddess’s blessing, we will search for Zery.”

“How exactly did you
lose
her?” Lao again. I was beginning to think the older Amazon had a lot more warrior in her than I had suspected.