Devil's Gate: Elder Races, Book 3 (10 page)

“Interesting,” said Duncan. He had moved so that he was much closer to the Dark Fae. “How did you know Vetta was innocent, and how would you have stopped it?”

“By confessing, if I had no other choice,” said Xanthe Tenanye. “I knew Vetta didn’t kill Cieran Thruvial, because I did.”

“You’re a killer?” Vetta said it with such a squeak of surprise it would have sounded comical in almost any other situation.

“You may call me such, if you must,” said Xanthe.

“What are you still doing here?” Vetta asked. “They will hang you, if they realize you did it.”

“I am well aware of that, but I was not free to leave until you were,” said Xanthe. She looked around. “It is not safe to stay here and have this conversation. You still need to leave immediately.”

Seremela and Duncan looked at each other. He murmured, “Understanding what happened or getting involved is still not our mission.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Seremela said grimly. She remembered where they had parked the SUV and started hauling Vetta in that direction.

That was when Vetta chose to dig in her heels, literally. By simply not moving, she dragged Seremela to a stop. “Why?” Vetta said raggedly to Xanthe. “They held me in a metal building without food or water, and I knew I was going to die. All of that was because you murdered someone, and I need to know why.”

For the first time since she had approached them, Xanthe exposed emotion in her body language as she shifted sharply and rubbed the back of her neck. Then she said abruptly, “I work for the Dark Fae Queen. More accurately, I work for her chief of security. I didn’t just murder Thruvial, I executed him on orders for crimes committed against the crown. I had no idea that you would get blamed for his death. Now will you go?”

As soon as the Dark Fae woman mentioned the Queen, Seremela and Duncan jerked to a halt. They stared at Xanthe.

“Oh hell,” said Duncan. “She’s telling the truth.”

Seremela was beginning to feel dizzy from all the shifts in reality over the last few hours.

Murder. Illegal drugs. A pariah, and now inter-demesne politics. Oh, and she couldn’t forget to add theft of a major item of Power to that list, not when its subtle, fathomless Power was slowly but surely soaking into the bones of her shoulder. It felt good, nourishing and exotic at the same time, and she didn’t trust that feeling one iota.

Vetta had started to speak. Seremela interrupted her. “No more discussion.” She had never used such a harsh tone of voice with her niece before. Vetta looked shocked and her mouth shut with a snap. Seremela steered her niece back around in the direction of their SUV as she said to Xanthe, “Thank you for watching out for my niece. Either come with us now or stay, and goodbye.”

Duncan moved to Seremela’s side with smooth, liquid grace. Xanthe took a few steps backward as she said, “My thanks, but you would be much safer withou—”

A new voice interrupted her. “We could not believe it, Xanthe, when we heard that you defended our lord’s murderer and escorted her from Gehenna. Now we see your betrayal with our very own eyes.”

For the second time that night, Duncan blurred. By the time Seremela had spun around, he already faced the two newcomers with his gun aimed at their heads.

They were Dark Fae, a male and a female, dressed like Xanthe in simple leggings and sleeveless tunics, with swords strapped to their backs. They stared from Xanthe to Vetta and Seremela, their expressions bitter with hate.

“She is innocent,” said Xanthe as she drew her sword. “They will pass from this place unharmed.”

“She’s poison,” spat the male. “She made no secret of how she loathed our lord, and now she has brought another of her kind who is even more poisonous.” He and his companion drew their swords as well, and the sound of the long scrape of metal ran down Seremela’s spine.

“Do they not comprehend that you have a gun trained on them?
” Seremela said incredulously in Duncan’s head.

Xanthe lunged, the others stepped to meet her and the clash of steel rang out.

“I can’t use it and they know it,”
said Duncan.
“The gunshot would draw too much attention. The sound of the swordfight is bad enough.”

He tossed the gun at her. Shocked, she made an incoherent noise and let go of Vetta to stumble forward, just barely managing to catch it.

“I hope you can shoot,” Duncan told her. “Use it as a last resort.”

She stared at him, caught the moonlit edge of his shadowed smile, and then he sprang at the three fighting Dark Fae.

Vetta was whispering, “Oh gods, I just want to wake up and be in my own bed.”

Seremela’s hands shook as she checked the 9 mm. Duncan had put it on safety before he tossed it to her. She clicked it off and stood ready as she watched the fight. While she was by no means an expert, yes, she knew how to shoot.

“Get behind me,” she told Vetta. The girl obeyed and huddled shivering against her back. All of Seremela’s snakes focused on the danger in front of her. Every muscle in her body was pulled as taut as piano wire, and she felt slightly nauseous as she tried to make sense of the melee.

They were so fast, all four of them, faster than she could track, and the Dark Fae were so difficult to tell apart in the silvery shadows. One struck another—oh, it was a bad blow—and that one grunted and went down on both knees, while Duncan engaged the third in a vicious flurry of blows and countermoves, and the fight was horribly, sickeningly unfair because his opponent had a sword while all he had was his knife.

A tic started at her temple, fluttering at a frenetic pace, because it was one thing to know how to shoot but quite another to know who to shoot, and just how was she supposed to tell when the last resort was, anyway? She pushed the heel of one hand against her temple as she tracked Duncan’s opponent with the gun.

Duncan leaped forward, a fast, vicious attack. His opponent fell back and kept falling until he lay prone on the ground. It took a couple of heartbeats for Seremela to comprehend what had happened, because the violence ended as quickly and abruptly as it had started.

Two of the Dark Fae were down. Duncan and the third faced each other but didn’t leap to attack each other. Seremela only recognized Xanthe for certain as the other woman reached over her head to sheathe her sword.

She lowered the gun, slid the safety back on and strode rapidly over to Duncan to fling her arms around him. He clenched her to him, one hand at the back of her neck.

“You’re not hurt?” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back. “I’m all right.”

Oh gods, thank you.
She held onto him with all of her strength.

His lean cheek was cool against hers, the length of his body hard. He said, “Let’s go home now.”

She nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. In that moment, she thought those were the four most wonderful words in the English language.

Let’s go home now.

Chapter Seven

Hearth

After a nerve wracking yet uneventful drive back to the Reno airport, they were airborne a couple of hours later and headed to Chicago where they would stop just long enough to allow Xanthe to disembark before they flew to Miami.

During the car trip Vetta drank three bottles of water, ate a couple of protein bars and had a crying jag against Seremela’s shoulder as relief set in. As soon as they had cell phone reception, they called Seremela’s sister, Camilla, and Vetta cried some more at her mother. Once they boarded the jet and took off, the girl disappeared into the lavatory for a while to emerge some time later, looking pale and exhausted but somewhat cleaner.

After Vetta finished, they all took turns washing up. Seremela sighed with relief as she rinsed the desert dust off her face, arms and neck.

Dawn spilled over the horizon. After shuttering all of the windows to block out the morning sun, the co-pilot served Xanthe, Vetta and Seremela bistro-style breakfast trays with fresh fruit, rolls, cheese, hard boiled eggs and smoked salmon, hot coffee and cream and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Duncan accepted a glass of bloodwine. Seremela frowned. After a sleepless, stressful night she was starving. He must be too. While bloodwine might do in a pinch, it did not have nearly the same nutritive qualities as fresh blood did.

Somewhat haltingly, she asked him, “
Will bloodwine be—sufficient for you, for now? I would be honored to help if you need fresh blood
.”

Duncan smiled at her. He looked inexplicably sweet and roguish, and she thought he even looked somewhat embarrassed. Although she wasn’t sure what prompted his expression, she could not help but smile back.

“
That is very kind of you,
” he said. “
Bloodwine will be sufficient for now, thank you.
”

She felt her cheeks warm and her gaze slid away from his. She had never fed a Vampyre directly from her vein before. Their bites were famous for inducing a sense of euphoria in their donors. Perhaps that was why he looked embarrassed. She glanced at Xanthe and Vetta. It was probably just as well he didn’t need fresh blood at the moment.

Even though tiredness threatened to take her over, she ate quickly and drank several cups of coffee, fueled by a sense of purpose. She was not going to relax while they carried an unexamined item of Power on the plane.

As she ate, she listened to Duncan and Xanthe talk. Duncan asked, “Why kill Thruvial instead of taking him back to face trial?”

“He was the last nobleman involved in the conspiracy that killed the Queen’s family,” Xanthe said. “The problem with putting him on trial was that the evidence we managed to gather might not have been enough to convict him. Lord Black Eagle made the decision on the kill order.”

The unfamiliar name caused Seremela to pause, until she realized that Xanthe referred to Tiago, the Wyr warlord who had mated with Niniane. She had met Tiago when she had been a medical examiner in Chicago, and she shuddered as she recalled Tiago’s edgy demeanor. He had terrified her—she had no problem whatsoever imagining him taking responsibility for ordering someone’s execution.

The Dark Fae woman was continuing. “It took me the better part of the year to work my way into Thruvial’s household. He fled Adriyel as soon as the borders opened. The trials of his fellow conspirators had shaken him considerably, but it didn’t stop him from committing other distasteful crimes at Devil’s Gate—including sex trafficking, protection and blackmail.”

“He was a horrible man,” Vetta whispered, her head bent.

Seremela murmured gently, “Did he hurt you in any way?”

Vetta looked at her sidelong, and she could tell her niece knew what she was really asking. Vetta shook her head and told her telepathically, “
He thought I was disgusting, but he wanted to put me out to customers who were interested in exotic experiences. The last time we talked—fought, actually—he threatened to scar my face if I didn’t do as he said. I’m glad he’s dead.”

Seremela breathed evenly, struggling to contain her rage as she listened. “
I’m glad he’s dead too,”
she said.

She finished her breakfast, swallowed her last cup of coffee, set the breakfast tray aside and reached for Vetta’s backpack. “Don’t relax too much yet,” she said to her niece who was drooping sideways in her seat. “You need to tell me about this Tarot deck from hell. Who did you steal it from?”

“I don’t know,” Vetta said. “She was just some woman at a rest stop. I lifted it from the back of her car when she went inside the gas station. I could tell it had a tingle of Power. At first I thought it was cool. Then every time I started to lay out a spread for myself, Death kept showing up. Every time, Aunt Serrie. It got so that I couldn’t sleep. I kept checking the cards. Then I started to pray. I was so sure I was going to die.” Her voice broke at the end.

Seremela touched the back of Vetta’s hand in silent sympathy. Vetta watched miserably as Seremela searched through the pack, and Duncan and Xanthe grew quiet to watch too.

The pack didn’t hold anything of much value. A couple packs of Marlboro Reds, a cigarette lighter, a scarf that smelled like patchouli and smoke, some cosmetics, a wallet with Vetta’s I.D. and some cash. It was unusual that nobody had taken the cash or the Tarot cards themselves, but she suspected that employees who worked for Malphas were scrupulously careful about their conduct.

A wooden box lay at the bottom of the pack. She pulled it out and set it on the table. It was clearly the source of the glow of Power. The box’s lid had a hand-painted, stylized face. One side of the face was male, the other side female. It was Taliesin, the god of the Dance.

She opened the box, pulled out the deck of cards and turned over the top one, a Major Arcana card. A picture of a golden woman, in a chariot with seven lions, smiled up at her. Inanna, the goddess of Love. She turned over a few of other cards, and each one was exquisite.

Aside from being an item of Power, the deck was a work of art.
Oh, Vetta.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead while she studied the deck.

Her initial impression remained the same. Underneath the veneer of quiet Power, the cards held a subtle but remarkable depth. Finally she sat back and shook her head, her mouth tight.

“I have no idea whose magic created this,” she said. “It’s not Light or Dark Fae, Elven, Wyr, Demonkind, human—or anything else I’ve encountered. It’s more Powerful than it looks on the surface, and I’m not even sure what the Power does. Perhaps it’s just meant to be a tool for divination. I don’t know.” She met Duncan’s gaze as she said, “I don’t sense anything overtly offensive in the magic, but I don’t like magic I don’t understand, and I don’t trust it.”