Queen of The Hill (Knight Games) (13 page)

Gary groaned and plopped down on his bed. “There’s this guy,” he whispered. I leaned in so I could hear. “A vampire called Kace, one of Bathory’s. Rumor has it the guy was a serial killer Bathory saved from the chair. He’s a badass, Grateful, and he has not been happy feeding on animal blood and willing humans. This guy likes to be a predator, you get me?”

I straightened and nodded. “You think he will be a challenger?”

“He’s already talking about it. No one is going to want to fight Kace, especially since the ring itself is so deadly.”

“What’s deadly about the ring?”

He opened the book again. “The challengers shall be confined to ‘the ring.’ The place where the challenge shall take place shall be no more than twenty-five feet in diameter with posts to the north, south, east, and west. The north post shall be covered with silver spikes soaked in holy water, the south, a chained werewolf, the bite of which is deadly. The east post shall be the site of a Vladimir’s guillotine—that’s a machine designed to cut off your head if you get too close—and the west post will be a coffin.”

“A coffin?”

“The competitors are bound to the ring by magic. They cannot leave unless a winner is proclaimed. The challenge continues until there is one survivor or the sun comes up. Only one coffin means only one vampire can survive the sunrise in the ring. It’s a fail-safe.”

“Nice.”

“Two go in but only one comes out,” Gary said. He slammed the book shut and got up to return it to the shelf. “Or at least that’s how it usually plays out. You can see why I’m not interested in being a challenger, with or without your help.” He ran his fingers through his chestnut brown hair. “I’m a lover, not a fighter, Grateful. It’s not going to happen.”

“Answer me this.” I clasped my hands behind my back and rocked back on my heels. “What happens if Bathory returns and becomes a challenger? What if she wins and is your coven leader?”

“She can’t.” Gary shook his head.

“Why? Julius can’t stop her anymore, and we think she’s behind his disappearance. All she needs is a coven large enough to protect her and she’s back in the game.”

“If she comes out of hiding, you will sentence her to the hellmouth.”

I shook my head. “Even if you share the location of the challenge with us, would we be able to get close enough? Or would her supporters protect her?”

Gary frowned.

“Whether it’s Kace who takes over or Bathory, do you think the new king is going to allow Julius’s vamps to live? After your attack on their coven during the solstice, do you honestly believe you are safe once Bathory’s supporters are in charge?”

His green eyes narrowed, and his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s the middle of the day. I need sleep, and you need to go.”

I was in serious danger of pushing too hard. I gave him a curt nod and turned for the door. As I left, I said, “Let me know when you come to your senses.”

I
flopped into bed in the wee hours of the morning, my limbs bouncing on the mattress from the intensity of the collision. What a night. Two demon possessions, a vampire rapist, and a twelve-year-old girl attempting to open a portal to hell with a book she picked up at a yard sale. Malice mitigated. The baddies were snuggled in their hellmouth beds, and the book was burned in a cauldron of spirit-infestation-sanitizing herbs.

“The house is going to smell like Thanksgiving dinner for weeks,” Poe said, sniffing at the burnt sage in the air.

“Better than the alternative. You’d think a kid these days would have seen enough horror movies not to reenact a scribbled ritual in a garage sale novel about necromancy of all things.”

“Is the girl going to be okay?” Poe asked. He’d waited outside during the entire confrontation.

“Yeah, Rick hoodwinked her brain.” I yawned. “She’ll stay away from the occult from now on.”

“Where is the caretaker, anyway? Don’t you too usually, er …”

“Engage in post-patrol coupling? Not tonight. I gotta get some sleep.” It wasn’t just the night’s work. I’d practiced levitation every day this week and was semi-successful in drawing my cemetery’s power a time or two. But between our training sessions, managing our ward all night, and my nursing job, I was licked.

The problem was we couldn’t take our foot off the accelerator. Tabetha could strike at any moment, and the vampire challenge for Julius’s position was just around the corner. As a newbie witch, I was still waking up to my power. I needed to ready myself. I needed to evolve.

“G’night, then,” Poe said, nesting in a discarded shirt on my dresser.

“Goodnight, Poe.”

Despite the night’s excitement, I drifted into a deep sleep almost instantly, my body’s desperate need for rejuvenation trumping the ceaseless race of thoughts through my mind. The “should haves” and “could haves” were swept away by the “must have” of physical exhaustion. The luxury of guilt and anger was not one I could afford.

The dream started well into my rest, near the coming of dawn. How I knew this, I can’t say; I had no way to measure except for circadian intuition. I experienced the dream lucidly, aware I was dreaming but vividly entrenched as if I were awake. My mental world turned green. Plush grass tickled the sides of my bare feet, and the sun glinted through a rich tapestry of forest canopy. A bird called overhead and the colorful curved beak of a toucan soared past me.

“A banana would totes rock right now,” I said. “Or a bowl of fruity rings.” I followed the flight of the toucan. The bird landed on a bunch of bananas hanging from a tree. “Ask for a banana. Get a banana. I love this dream.”

I stepped forward, plucking the fruit from beneath the bird’s talons and opening it under its watchful eye. The fruit tasted sweet and perfectly ripe. As I swallowed, a stone wall appeared behind the tree. The wall didn’t erupt from the ground or shimmer into existence. One moment it wasn’t there and the next it was.

The wall was made of stone and mortar with an open metal door just a few feet from me. Two torches on either side of the doorway blazed to life. I stepped back to get a better view.

A dark and dangerous woman stepped over the threshold. Something was seriously wrong with my vision. For a moment, it appeared she had three heads—one streaked with gray, one with ebony waves, and one plaited down her back. I blinked rapidly against the triple vision, and the faces blended into one.

The power of her presence was overwhelming. It filled the garden with a soupy humidity that weighed on my skin like a cloak. I recognized her. I’d met her once before, when I’d conjured my familiar. This was Hecate, my mother. Well, my first mother; the mother who’d made me a witch. My physical presence came about via human mothers, but the feminine power coursing toward me now was the source of my wild and eternal soul within.

“Mother?” It was the only word my lips would produce.

Her toga shifted unnaturally as she approached, defying gravity, while her black silky hair contrasted her full ruby lips. The intensity in her eyes made me look away. A snake dripped down from the tree beside her, and she offered it her arm to wrap around with a warm smile, as if the thing was a long-lost pet.

“Do not be afraid. I have not come to hurt you,” she said to me. Her voice echoed as if three women were speaking at once. Only the echo wasn’t of the same voice. I heard the thready, deep tones of an old woman, the heady confidence that matched the middle-aged woman before me, and the high-pitched clarity of a young innocent. “We must speak, daughter.”

“Okay,” I said tentatively. It wasn’t every day that a goddess asked to have a chat. I could guess this was about Tabetha, but I wasn’t presumptuous enough to speculate on her opinion on the matter. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“Your sister Tabetha displeases me,” she began. Her black eyes blazed, and her lips moved in an exaggerated fashion reminiscent of silent movies. I resisted the urge to cover my ears against the intensity of her voice.

“Funny, I feel the same way.”

Hecate’s dark eyes drilled into me, and a sensation of being squeezed by a massive hand left me breathless. She did not say a word, but I got the sense this was meant to be a one-sided conversation. I buttoned my lip.

“Tabetha is attempting to obtain the five elements. I cannot impart to you strongly enough how vital it is we thwart her efforts. She has asked you to renounce your throne. I will not allow you to do so. You are the Monk’s Hill Witch, the ruler of your realm. If you allow Tabetha to have the air, the elemental source of your power, she will become too mighty, a monster. Already, absorbing Polina’s territory has left her mind unstable and withered her soul.”

A monkey cried, leaping between two trees in Hecate’s garden, and the weight of an expected response settled upon my shoulders. I could feel her staring at me, like a hot ray of sun on my face. Apparently, she wanted an answer.

“I won’t let her have my territory, but I need help. She has my friend Logan, and she says she will kill him if I don’t turn over my ward.”

“And so he must die,” she said coolly. “Tabetha is owed blood. Your friend will fulfill the debt against your caretaker.” A butterfly landed in her palm and she whispered to it in another language as it opened and closed its wings. An uninvited tension gripped me wondering if the snake coiled around her opposite forearm would make a snack of it, but the reptile didn’t move.

I cleared my throat. “Uh, I can’t let Logan die. Like I said, he’s my friend. A close friend. Well, he was until Tabetha poisoned his mind.”

Her eyes narrowed in my direction. “He is human, yes? Resurrect him if you must, once his blood has fulfilled the contract.”

“Resurrect him?” I shook my head. “I’m not going to turn Logan into some sort of zombie. I got him into this. Tabetha knew we cared for each other and is using him to blackmail me. I won’t let her get away with it.”

Thunder cracked above us, and the sky darkened. Mother was angry. The butterfly in her hand fluttered away to safer ground. “Your human feelings impair your immortal judgment.”

I bit my lip, thinking fast. How could I put this in a way even a self-absorbed deity might understand? “Logan is a medium who helped me keep
The Book of Flesh and Bone
out of vampire hands. I need his alliance to protect my territory.” It was true to an extent. I’d left out a few details like he’d actually only channeled his mother and his power didn’t seem to be working anymore.

Her eyes narrowed. “A medium? A human who communicates with souls who have crossed over? Yes, his talents could be useful. Souls on the other side are beyond even my reach.” She played with the snake between her hands, allowing it to crawl and twist around her wrists and between her fingers. Her jaw hardened. “There is only one alternative.”

“Yes.”

“You must challenge her for her territory and kill her before she kills you. I give you permission to kill Tabetha.”

I widened my eyes in shock. “Um, she’s immortal!” I shook my head. “I’m … not. How do you suggest I do that?”

“An immortal cannot die, but can be permanently incapacitated. To destroy her, you must turn the source of her power against her. Remember Kronos?”

No, I didn’t have a clue about Kronos, but I nodded my head anyway. I was still reeling that she’d just given me permission to kill my sibling, her daughter. I had no love for Tabetha, but I was not a murderer. It was one thing to kill a few vampires and nekomata in self-defense, but quite another to hunt down a witch and kill her in cold blood because “mummy said so.” All I wanted was Logan’s safety and Rick’s freedom, without having to give up my world to have it.

“How do I turn her power against her?” I shook my head.

Hecate sighed. “Tabetha is not like you. The source of her power is not her own anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

Brow furrowed, her black eyes fixated at something over my right shoulder. “You are required by your familiar.” Focusing again on my face, she raised one hand in a silent blessing. “I give you permission.”

Pressure on my belly button drew me back into my sleeping body. “Wait? How do I protect Logan? How do I destroy Tabetha?”

Too late. I awoke with a jolt to talons digging into my chest. Poe dropped my ringing phone onto my neck. “What the hell, Poe?”

“She keeps calling back. I fear it is important,” he said.

I grabbed the ringing phone from the sheets above my shoulder and answered it.

“Grateful, you’ve got to come to the hospital right away,” Michelle said into my ear.

“Michelle? What’s going on? Why?”

“It’s your father.” A beat of silence passed, long enough for me to pray he was her patient in the ICU and not a resident of the morgue. Her answer came whispered into my ear. “He’s been bitten.”

N
othing prepares you for seeing your parent in a hospital bed. As a nurse, I’d been on the other side of this coin, but I never really understood. Parents are with you from the day you are born—protecting, teaching, and guiding you. Seeing my father clinging to life in the ICU was knowing that someone I loved unconditionally and who reciprocated that love, a rare guardian angel of a man, could be taken from me in an instant. He was a constant in my life, and I’d failed him.

Dad’s eyes were closed, and he was on a vent. His chest rose and fell rhythmically with the machine. Propofol dripped creamy white into his IV, a sedative meant to keep him from fighting the vent while his body healed. A bandage covered most of one side of his neck.

“Dr. Hastings was able to fix his larynx and close the wound. He’s going to have a scar though. The flesh was torn from his neck. They gave him ten units of blood.” Michelle stared at her tangled fingers.

“Ten. My God, he’s lucky to be alive.”

“Understatement. If he hadn’t been brought in as quickly as he was, I’m not sure they could’ve saved him.” Michelle cleared her throat. “Grateful, I’ve got to ask … Is he going to turn?” She inflected her voice on the word “turn.”