your rabble!” I called. “How many more must die before you come out from behind them, Duchess? I am come to kill you and claim my child! Stand forth, or I swear to you, upon the power in my body and mind, that I will lay waste to your strong place. Before I die, I will make you pay the price for every drop of blood—and when I die, my death curse will scatter the power of this place to the winds!
“Arianna!” I bellowed, and I could not stop the hatred from making my voice sharply edged with scorn and spite. “How many loyal servants of the Red King must die tonight? How many Lords of Outer Night will taste mortality before the sun rises? You have only begun to know the power I bring with me this night. For though I die, I swear to you this: I will not fall alone.”
I indulged in a little bit of melodrama at that point: I brought forth soulfire—enough to sheath my body in silver light—as my oath rolled out over the land, through the ruins, and bounced from tree to tree. It cast a harsh light that the nearest surviving vampires cringed away from.
For a long moment, there was no sound.
Then the drums and the occasional clash of the gong stopped.
A conch shell horn, the sound unmistakable, blew three high, sweet notes.
The effect was immediate. The vampires surrounding us all retreated until they were out of sight. Then a drumbeat began again, this time from a single drummer.
“What’s happening?” Thomas asked.
“The Red King’s agents spent the past couple of days trying to kill me or make sure I showed up here only as a vampire,” I said quietly. “I’m pretty sure it’s because the king didn’t want the duchess pulling off her bloodline curse against me. Which means that there’s a power play going on inside the Red Court.”
“Your explanation isn’t one,” Thomas replied.
“Now that I am here,” I said, “I’m betting that the Red King is going to be willing to attempt other means of undercutting the duchess.”
“You don’t even know he’s here.”
“Of course he is,” I said. “There’s a sizable force here, as large as any we’ve ever seen take the field during the war.”
“What if it isn’t his army? What if he’s not here to run it?” Thomas asked.
“History suggests that kings who don’t exercise direct control over their armies don’t tend to remain kings for very long. Which must be, ultimately, what this is all about—diminishing Arianna’s power.”
“And talking to you does that how?”
“The Code Duello,” I said. “The Red Court signed the Accords. For what Arianna has done, I have the right to challenge her. If I kill her, I get rid of the Red King’s problem for him.”
“Suppose he isn’t interested in chatting?” Thomas said. “Suppose they’re pulling back because he just convinced someone to drop a cruise missile on top of us?”
“Then we’ll get blown up,” I said. “Which is better than we’d get if we had to tangle with them here and now, I expect.”
“Okay,” Thomas said. “Just so we have that clear.”
“Pansy,” Murphy sneered.
Thomas leered at her. “You make my stamen tingle when you talk like that, Sergeant.”
“Quiet,” Sanya murmured. “Something is coming.”
A soft lamp carried by a slender figure in a white garment came toward us down the long row of columns.
It proved to be a woman dressed in an outfit almost exactly like Susan’s. She was tall, young, and lovely, with the dark red-brown skin of the native Maya, with their long features and dark eyes. Three others accompanied her—men, and obviously warriors all, wearing the skins of jaguars over their shoulders and otherwise clad only in loincloths and heavy tattoos. Two of them carried swords made of wood and sharpened chips of obsidian. The other carried a drum that rolled off a steady beat.
I thought there was something familiar about the features of the three men, but then I realized that they weren’t personally familiar to me. It was the subtle tension of their bodies, the hints of power that hung about them like a very faint perfume.
They reminded me quite strongly of Susan and Martin. Half vampires. Presumably just as dangerous as Susan and Martin, if not more so.
The jaguar warriors all came to a halt about twenty feet away, but the drum kept rolling and the girl kept walking, one step for each beat. When she reached me, she unfastened her feathered cloak and let it fall