Authors: MaryJanice Davidson
"I can't believe we're bribing our future queen with designer shoes," Tina muttered.
"
Mirror
!"
"Over there," Sinclair said, and pointed. There was a mirror above the fireplace. I dragged a chair over, plucked the mirror from the wall, hopped down, and leaned it against the far wall. I peered at the reflection of my feet. I felt like Dorothy in the ruby slippers.
"Wonderful! How did you do it?"
"I saw your shoe collection when we were at the house last night, and had my ladyfriends do some shopping while we slept. What a pity you can't keep them." Sinclair sighed theatrically and motioned to Donald, who started putting the lids back on the boxes.
I nearly wept. "What? Why?"
"Well...you're so adamant about not helping us. Not being a kingmaker, as you put it. Very wise and practical, but of course useless for our purposes. Perhaps Nostro will accept these as a token of peace."
Nostro? Nostro putting his nasty clammy fingers all over the buttery soft suede, the delicate embroidery? Giving them to Shanara? Using them for the Fiends to play fetch? Never, never, never!
"Don't touch!" I ordered, and Donald froze in mid-reach. "I'll help you.
And
I get to keep the shoes."
"Done and done," Sinclair said, his lips twitching as he tried not to smirk. I'm sure he thought I was vain and weak-willed and a complete idiot. Who cared? I was a vain weak idiot with the season's coolest shoes. And they hadn't cost me one cent!
I jumped off the chair, flung my arms around Sinclair, and kissed him full on the mouth. He was so surprised I nearly toppled him over. "Do I get a bonus pair if we settle Noseo's hash tonight?" I asked breathlessly, peeking up into his dark, dark eyes.
"Kiss me like that again, and I'll buy you a baker's dozen."
I let go of him like he was hot, and not without regret. Hugging Sinclair was like hugging a rock that smelled great. I was willing to bet even the guy's earlobes were well-defined. "Better not tempt me. Okay, so, let's go get the bad guy."
"It's that simple?" Tina asked. She shook her head at us, grinning as Sinclair touched his mouth with a bemused expression.
"A deal's a deal," I said, admiring my pretty feet. Of course, we all knew it wasn't just about the shoes. But Sinclair was no fool—this was all the excuse I needed to do what seemed more and more like the right thing.
* * * * *
"You're going to help them overthrow Nostro." Donald effortlessly lifted a full case of wine up onto the bar. I'd asked for more plum wine, and Tina and Sinclair were downstairs plotting strategy. I had no interest in the gory details...I suspected they wanted me along more for the power of my psuedo-status ("We've got the queen on our side...surrender!") than any actual fighting or tactical skill I'd bring.
At least I hoped so. "Just like that."
"Sure. Look: it's not that I want Nostro to stay in charge, because I don't. He's a crazy creep and he treats his Fiends badly and all the other vampires are scared shitless of him, except maybe for Sinclair. I mean, when the monsters are scared of somebody, you should probably get rid of him, right?"
"Right..."
"I was just hoping to stay out of vamp politics. But if they can use me to kick him off the mountain..." and if I can increase my shoe collection by eighty percent, "...it seems like the thing to do."
"What if you change your mind?"
I caught on. Donald was leery about my one-eighty. Didn't want me chickening out when it got nasty and leaving his friends high and dry. "Don't worry. I won't. Besides, I owe that creep for siccing Shanara on my friends.
And
for throwing me in the pit with the Fiends. And I'm sick of worrying about running into some of his tribe, sick of being dragged to his various hideouts...yuck! This week would have been hard enough without being caught up in Nostro's war." Reciting his sins against me was getting me worked up. I vibrated with righteous indignation. This was starting to seem like a really good idea, and never mind the shoes.
"So your mind's definitely made up?"
"One...hundred...percent," I said emphatically. "You don't have to worry."
"Actually," he sighed, "now's when I have to
start
worrying."
I had just enough time to wonder why he was swinging a case full of wine bottles at my head when everything went bright white, then dead black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When I woke up I was horribly thirsty. I knew why. That fucking Judas traitor had hit me so hard, if I'd been mortal it would have killed me. At the least, he probably shattered my skull. While I was dead to the world my body healed itself, and now I was unbelievably thirsty. I cursed myself for turning down Sinclair's offer to share dinner. It had seemed so morally upright at the time, and now it was probably going to get me killed.
I opened my eyes. I was in a windowless, cellar-like room. Cement walls and floors. Chilly as hell.
"Asshole," I croaked. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Asshole, you there?"
"Yes," Donald said, with the nerve to sound apologetic. He straightened up from whatever he'd been doing and gave the chains around my ankles an experimental tug. "Sorry about that. For what it's worth, this is really for the best."
"Oh, okay, then I'll just stop worrying. Jackass. Just tell me why, you jerk. Sinclair takes good care of you. He's the good guy. I heard you and Tina have been with him for, like, fifty or sixty years. So why the double cross? Were you always an asshole, or is it a recent development?"
"Nostro is my sire." Donald said that with a simple dignity that made me want to kick him. "Everything I am is because of him. When he asked me, years ago, to go to his enemy, how could I refuse?"
I tugged at my wrists. Nope. Don't know what I was chained up with—titanium? cold silly putty?—but it wasn't budging. Wrists above my head, ankles spread wide...and this slab was really cold. "Let me get this straight, jackass. Nostro ripped you open and drank from you like a fountain while you were alive, and you think you
owe
him?"
"It wasn't like that. He released me. He freed me."
"He turned you into a Happy Meal, and you were dumb enough to think it was a favor."
Donald slammed the knife I hadn't noticed he was holding into my upper thigh. There was a 'chunk!' as the tip imbedded itself in the slab of stone I was chained to. It stung like crazy, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
"I've been stabbed before," I sneered. "Barely a week ago, in fact.
And
I've been audited...you don't scare me." I wriggled again...no go. In addition to the indignity of being clobbered with a case of plum wine, dragged to the bad guy's hideout, and chained to a stone altar (did Nostro keep a hack scriptwriter on the payroll to feed him clichés?), my clothes were in tatters. Donald had been busy with the knife before I woke up. "You'll have to do better than that."
Donald bent close to me, so close I could see the candlelight gleaming off the gel he used in his hair. It occurred to me for the first time that he looked like an egret. "I threw all your new shoes into the fire," he whispered in my ear.
I howled in agony and thrashed ineffectually. "Bastard!" I wept. "You'll pay for that."
He straightened up, lips tightening with disgust. "You make my gorge rise."
"I bet you say that to all the girls, you overly-moussed nancy boy."
"You care more about your pretty fripperies than anything else.
You
, the queen? Never. Not while I'm around to serve my master."
"Hey, I never asked to be the queen, jerkweed. It wasn't exactly on my Top Ten List Of Things I'd Like To Do After I Die. I'll renounce the throne, okay? I never wanted it anyway."
"It won't work. They'll never let you alone." He sighed. We both knew 'they' meant Sinclair. "It doesn't matter now. You'll die. You'll never rule."
"Let me get this straight. You believe I'm the queen, even though your master doesn't. And the book of the dead was right, you just don't like it?" I tried to ignore the image of lavender Blahniks roasting in the fire, turning black, the room filling with the stench of burning leather...
"Exactly so. I tolerated your presence when you had no intention of helping Eric Sinclair. When you were a cute young vamp for him to coax to his bed. But the moment you changed your mind—"
"It was clobberin' time. Yeah, I got that part. Listen, answer a question—how the hell do you kill a vampire? Specifically, how will you kill
me
? You can't toss me into the pit this time, because the Fiends are scared of me. And you can't lock me in a room facing east and wait for the sun to do your dirty work. A holy water facial won't do it, either."
Donald looked worried for a brief moment, then shrugged. He gestured to his left, and I looked where he was pointing. There were several swords propped in the corner. "You'll be a bit tricky, but cutting off your pretty little head should do the job nicely."
I grimaced. Yeah, I didn't really see any way around that one. "You know something, Don-Don? I'm actually kind of glad it's come to this. Me or Nostro. Because I am sick to death of this shit—the kidnappings and the treachery and who's side are you on...it's so fucking childish. How can any of you stand it?"
"We know our place." He jerked the knife out of my thigh. "A pity you never did."
Hey, maybe I was the queen! At the least, I wasn't in a hurry to get on my knees for Nostro
or
Sinclair. Bully for me. "Well, chatting's been fun, but we should probably get to it, right?"
"You
want
to have your head cut off?"
"Anything's better than lying here, freezing my ass off and smelling your mousse. Suave is all wrong for your hair type, by the way. So where
is
your psycho boss, anyway? I would've expected him to be in here with forty or fifty of his closest underlings."
Donald smiled. "He's killing Eric and Tina. But he'll be right along."
I quit smirking. Part of the reason I'd been so flip—other than the complete absurdity of my situation—I mean, come on, half naked and chained to an altar?!?—was because I'd been expecting Sinclair and Tina to rescue me.
"The day Nostro gets the drop on Eric Sinclair is the day I..." I couldn't think of anything absurd enough.
"...get your head cut off," Donald finished helpfully. "I signaled my tribemates, of course, as soon as I had you. Some of us brought you here, and the rest set fire to Sinclair's mansion. We had the place surrounded, and anyone who made it out got a holy water shower. Not that anyone will. Vampires are incredibly flammable."
I thrashed ineffectually. That gorgeous Victorian, crammed with priceless antiques. And my new shoes! And Sinclair and Tina, and their ladyfriends, and the guys who were in Donald's harem!
And my new shoes!
And it was all my fault. Sinclair and Nostro had been at war for years and years, but it was my presence that escalated the situation. They might have stayed at an impasse for another hundred years. But for me.
"You fucker," I said helplessly.
"All's fair in love and etcetera," he said lightly. "Also—aaagggkkkkkkk!"
I stared. There was a long metal blade sticking out of the side of his neck. Just as my eyes had adjusted to what they were seeing, Tina wrenched the sword out of Donald's neck and swung again. He ducked away from her. She instantly turned and smashed the sword down on the chains between my ankles. And again. And—
"Watch it!"
She spun and ducked, and Donald's blade went whistling over her head. I kicked and wrenched as hard as I could. She'd weakened the chains, and if I could just—
I kicked free of the chains and flipped my feet over my head, quickly, to gain momentum. Now I was standing behind where my head and shoulders had just been. The chains were biting into my wrists but I ignored the pain; instead I braced my weight against the altar and pulled as hard as I could. There was a tearing—both of my flesh and the chains—and then I was free.
"Oh you fucker," I said breathlessly, turning. I felt as mean as Ant on her worst day. Mighty would be my wrath! "Now you're gonna get—yuck!"
Tina was kneeling before me, holding Donald's head by the hair and very plainly trying to hand it to me. "Majesty, I beg your forgiveness for the indignity you suffered and offer you the head of our enemy as—"