Amazon Ink

Chapter Seven

I focused on the branch, then pulled in a breath through rounded lips. The air stirred, leaves rustled.

The noise registered with Zery. Her eyes flickered.

I drew on physical resources I didn’t know I had and shoved harder against the staff. A rough grunt left my lips as I did. The leaves stilled, but Zery refocused-back on me.

She twisted, her staff spinning. I dropped to a squat, let the wooden pole whiz over my head. As I did, I looked back at the branch and blew every liter of air I could spare out of my lungs.

The limb shook, cracked.

Zery didn’t hear the sound, or if she did, she ignored it. She finished her turn, landing in front of me, her staff ready to swing again. Her biceps bulged and her brows lowered. Something close to regret darkened her eyes as she pulled back the staff. This time she meant to kill me. I could read her intent in the tense lines running down her neck and the way her foot dug into the dirt as she braced herself for the impact of her staff colliding with my skull.

The realization comforted me, made what I was about to do easier. I focused on the branch and blew out again. This time Zery couldn’t miss what I was doing. My breath left my body with such force my body shot backward. I fell to the ground. My jeans burning from the friction of being shoved across concrete and packed dirt.

The end of Zery’s staff whizzed through empty space-where I had been seconds earlier. My back collided with the cafeteria’s wall, my head jerking back to smack against the wooden-but plenty solid-wall as well.

And the branch fell, or started to.

There was a crack like lightning as the tree let loose of its damaged limb. Zery stood frozen, staring at me, processing what I had done, what she should do next, and completely missing what was about to happen.

I opened my mouth, a lifelong friendship bringing a warning to my lips, but there was no air left in me, no voice-only a squeak came out.

I tried to stand-couldn’t. Reality, dark and ugly, settled around me.

Zery looked up, saw the branch, and started to move, but I knew she wouldn’t make it, that it would crush her, maim her at least.

There was a whoosh-the branch falling, I thought at first. Then I saw my mother. She leapt from the bathroom window, and kicked the branch as it fell. The limb hit the ground with a crash. I felt the impact through the soles of my boots. Zery stood beside it, untouched.

Then Mother hit, rolling from her shoulder to her opposite hip to her feet. Her gaze zipped to me, pinned me against the wall.

My fingers tightened around her staff, reminding me I still held it. I loosened my grip, let it fall to the ground.

Zery took a step forward, her own staff held low, ready to ram against my throat.

Mother whirled. “You’re not queen here.”

Zery shifted her attention to Mother, shifted her staff too, a casual change in grip, but one that fooled no one. She was ready to fight. “I’m queen everywhere.”

I scrambled to a stand. I’d have liked to have leapt up with the same grace as Zery and Mother, but my back and head ached and I was still struggling not to gasp for breath. As it was, I only managed a half stand, my hands pressed into my thighs and my head hanging between my shoulders. “Don’t let her leave,” I rasped out.

“I’m here on Amazon business. You know that.” Zery glanced at me, then back at Mother.

“Today you were. Not tonight. You didn’t tell me you were coming tonight.” Mother’s stance was casual, her arms loose at her sides, but she moved slightly as she spoke, positioning herself between my old friend and me.

“The council decided the evidence was enough. If not Mel, who?”

At my name I stood. My back and head screamed, but air seemed to be flowing through my lungs again.

Zery took a step around Mother, toward me. Mother sidestepped, blocking her. At the same time I moved too-until Mother was sandwiched between Zery and me.

“Grab her,” I said.

Zery laughed. “Are you planning to kill me too? Next time the entire tribe will show up.” Her weight shifted to the side.

Mother held out a hand.

“You can’t protect her any longer, Cleo. Not this time. Leaving the tribe, taking up residence with humans, that’s one thing, but killing her own? You know what has to be done. You agreed to it.”

A chill passed over me.

“I agreed to bringing her to council and I would have. You agreed to that.”

Zery looked to the side. “The council didn’t.”

Mother’s shoulders tensed. “They don’t trust me? When have I not done what they asked? I’ve kept them informed of every move we’ve made. Mel pees-I see it, and they know about it.”

My head lifted. Shock caused me to step backward. Mother had been spying on me for the council? How long? The entire ten years? Zery and Mother’s exchange when I’d still been catching my breath…the visitor this morning-it all clicked now. It had been Zery telling Mother the council wanted me brought back. Had I missed other visits? Or had Mother sneaked off to them…how often?

As if sensing my distress, Mother added, “It beat the alternative, Mel. You locked up, Harmony taken from you. Don’t judge me for saving you both from that.”

I tightened my jaw, fisted my hands. Betrayed again. Would I never learn?

“I have to take her.” Zery had her gaze back on Mother.

Tired of them both talking about me like I had no vote and posed no threat, I stepped around Mother, got into Zery’s face. “Try it.”

She looked at me, surprise lifting one brow, then reached out. Her hand moved toward me. I waited. I was angry. As angry as I’d allowed myself to be since I’d learned to control the dark emotion a decade ago. And a decade ago I didn’t have priestess powers, couldn’t convert that rage into fire or a blue-hot charge.

But now, I could. Fire/electricity wasn’t my preferred element, but I could use it and I did, let it vibrate inside me. Waited for her skin to touch mine, to release the charge, send us both flying.

Mother got in the way-shoved Zery against the shoulder, knocking her to the ground. I started to move, barely a flinch forward, and Mother held out one hand, her back still to me. “Don’t.”

That was it. One word and I froze, the power I’d coiled inside me, unwinding, dissipating like steam in a dry room. Zery’s staff swung toward Mother. Mother grabbed it with both hands, ripped it from Zery’s grip, then slammed the wooden pole into the dirt inches from Zery’s head.

“No one is taking my daughter-not until I believe she’s a killer.”

Zery’s eyes were dark, angry, but her voice was calm. “And if we convince you?”

Mother tensed, paused. I thought for an instant she wouldn’t answer, then, “I’ll bring her in myself.”

On a normal night the words might have hit me, hurt, but in the middle of the insanity unfolding around me, they barely grazed the hard shell quickly forming around my heart.

I cursed, walked over to the staff I’d dropped, smashed it into a trash can, and then let it drop on the ground. They looked at me then.

“You both can go to hell.” I rotated on my heel with every intention of waking my sleeping daughter and leaving. Leaving the shop, Mother, Bubbe, everything. I owed the Amazons nothing, wanted nothing from them or to do with them. How dare Mother pretend to leave them, pretend to support me-and actually be spying on me.

My life here was a lie.

I took four steps down the sidewalk. Overhead the tree rustled; a battery of acorns fell to the ground, peppering the area around me. I glared upward, ready to take my ire out on anyone and anything that dared disagree with my plan.

My gaze landed on my daughter’s window. Fingernail-polish bottles lined the sill. Above them, attached with a suction cup to the glass, hung a unicorn-shaped sun catcher.

She’d gotten the thing at a birthday party four years earlier-had been so proud when she’d finished painting it.

And I’d been proud too, of how secure she was…happy.

How would jerking her out of her bed in the middle of the night affect her? And what would I tell her? The Amazons have found us? Your grandmother is a spy?

How could I explain any of this, and even if I could, how could I yank her from the only world she’d ever known, really remembered? Ask her to leave it all behind again?

My jaw clenched. I turned, crushing an acorn under my heel. I’d run away once. I wouldn’t do it again.

I retrieved the staff. With it held in front of me, I approached the two Amazons-not Mother, not Zery, two Amazons I couldn’t trust.

I expected Mother to tell me to put it down but, her mouth a grim line, she just nodded, muttered, “Should have let me teach you how to use it.”

Zery folded her arms over her chest and angled her body so her back was to me-letting me know she didn’t see me as a threat, the bitch. Addressing Mother, she said, “Bring her to council. We’ll convince you.”

“Of what?” I used the staff to poke Zery in the back-a nice sharp poke. Not hard enough to do her any damage, just tick her off.

Her body stiffened.

I grinned, dropped the end of the pole onto the ground next to my foot, then held onto it with one hand. The other hand I kept at my side, my thumb strumming my fingers.

My poke resulted in the desired results. Zery turned on me. Mother stuck out her arm, blocking Zery with her own staff.

“That you’re a killer.”

“Me?” I started to move forward.

Mother held out a hand to stop me. “Mel, those girls we’ve seen on TV, the dead ones. They’re Amazons.” Her eyes concentrated on my face, steady, trusting. She believed she was telling me something I didn’t know. I dropped my eyelids, just for a second.

“She knows.” Zery rushed forward. Mother held her back, but there was doubt on her face now.

I raised my chin, took a step toward them. “I had nothing to do with those girls’ deaths.” I glanced to the side-couldn’t look at my old friend, couldn’t believe she would think such a thing of me. Yes, I’d thought it of her…but I had reason.

Anger wrapped back around me, I glared back. “Why me?” It was an open question, more so than Mother could guess, but if Zery was the killer, she’d understand.

Zery took a step back, seemed to settle. “Amazons don’t have enemies. No one outside the tribe even knows Amazons are real-except you.”

“And you’re sure the killer does?”

Zery pulled back. “What do you mean? She had to.”

I’d pretty much assumed the same, but hearing the assumptions from Zery’s lips put a new perspective on things-or maybe it was from being accused of the killings myself.

“These girls. Are they both from the Illinois safe camp?” I figured they had to be, or to have spent time there recently, but I wasn’t revealing any of my assumptions to Zery-didn’t want her to think I’d been spending time analyzing the deaths. There was no reason I would have been-if I hadn’t already known they were Amazons.

Zery nodded, but her expression was grim, not giving me an inch.

“They about the same age? Go places together?” Sneaking out with other teens was just as popular an activity for Amazon teens as human. Probably more so. No boys in an Amazon camp. About the time puberty hit and hormones went wild, I’d spent more time out of camp at night than in.

“They wouldn’t go off with a stranger.”

I cocked a brow. Zery and I had hitched plenty of rides into human towns with random truckers and local boys.

She glanced at Mother, then pursed her lips. “It would be easier for someone who knew the camp.”

Mother let out a sigh. “That’s your proof?” She shoved the staff back into Zery’s hand and moved toward the basement stairwell. “Go home.”

Zery hesitated. That’s when I realized she didn’t want me to be the killer-that maybe there was still some of my old friend inside the queen’s body.

But she did want to find the killer, and so did I.

“What can we do?” I asked.

Mother’s feet ground to a halt. Her hand already on the railing, she turned back and stared at me.

“Confess?” Zery asked, but as quickly as the question came, she shook her head, then pinned me with a stare. “Believe it or not, I hope you’re not involved, Mel. But you know that if you are, I’ll kill you myself.”

I shrugged. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Seeing our uneasy truce, Mother crossed back to where we stood, came to a halt beside me, so close her bicep brushed my shoulder. A small show of support, but for Mother, huge.

“What else is being done?” she asked.

With the initial powder keg dampened, Mother and Zery settled into a conversation that I could tell they’d had before. More Zery filling Mother in on recent discussions than delivering plans previously unknown.

I listened, but definitely felt I was missing big chunks of information. I’d corner Mother later, force her to fill me in too. My mind had drifted somewhat, to what Zery’s arrival and the knowledge that Mother and most likely Bubbe still had contact with the Amazons meant, when a turn in the conversation jerked me back.

“There are showers and a kitchen, but you’ll have to clean it. Maybe do some repairs.”

My ears perked and my shoulders pulled back. “Clean what?”

Back in warrior mode, they both ignored me. Together they began striding down the walkway. I expected them to turn toward the front entrance of my shop, but instead they hung a left. Strolled to the old gym door.

My eyes rounded and I quickened my pace-almost to a jog to catch them. Before I reached them, Mother had already opened the doors.

My eyes narrowed. I kept the gymnasium locked. We didn’t use the place. It was expensive to heat, and I didn’t want news of its unused state to get out to the local beer-drinking teen crowd. I’d found an untapped pony keg hidden in the aspen grove at the far corner of our property last spring. Bad enough my trees were being used as an alcohol hand-off locale-I didn’t want my building to be usurped too.

The gym was only a few feet away from the main building, but the aspens where I’d found the keg hadn’t been that much farther away. Kids.

Point being, Mother had to have had a key on her. And there was no reason for her to-not that I knew of.

I followed her and Zery into the dark gym. None of us reached for the lights. They worked, but I didn’t want the place blazing if Bubbe or Harmony awoke. I figured Mother was thinking the same thing.

Mother bent and pulled a couple of flashlights from behind an overturned table.

Yeah, she’d been planning this.

She handed one to Zery and kept the other. I muttered under my breath.

Zery ran the beam over the interior. Things had been moved since I’d last been in the place. Nothing major, just broken furniture piled to the side, and what appeared to be new cleaning materials leaned against one wall. Based on her mention of showers and the kitchen, I guessed she’d turned the water back on too.

“This would work.” Zery walked to the center of the room and tapped her fingers against her leg.

I stepped forward. “Work for what?”

Two beams of light turned on me, blinding me. I kept my regard steady and didn’t blink.

“The Amazons need to be closer.” Mother’s voice was low, sure-just stating facts, not leaving an opening for input.

“Closer to what?” I did not like where this was headed. When I’d asked what we could do, I’d imagined sending Mother or Bubbe back to the camp for a while. Maybe even me doing some tattoo work to help strengthen those engaged in the hunt.

I did not envision Amazons here. No way.

“The bodies were found forty miles away,” I added.

“How do you know that?” Zery asked.

I huffed out a breath. “The news?”

“Forty miles seems pretty exact.” Suspicion was back in her voice, but Mother stepped in.

“The tribe thinks both girls had made trips to Madison.”

That stopped me. I’d convinced myself the girls were killed in Illinois and just brought to Madison-to me.

Zery lowered her flashlight. I could almost feel the defeat in her voice. “We found coasters from a bar in their stuff-one near campus.” The round circle of light from her flashlight began moving again, dancing over the space. “This will work,” she said.

“No.” I shook my head.

Mother’s beam, which had dropped from my face too, rose again. “The tribe needs our help. This”-she moved her hand, sending the light bouncing up onto the ceiling and back down-“is what we have to offer. You’ve been to the camp. The house only sleeps twelve to fourteen, tops. More Amazons are coming from other states, Canada even. They need somewhere to stay and train. And we’re here-near where the bodies were discovered and the bar.”

I stood firm. “Why? What are they going to do while they are here?” Visions of Amazons canvassing Madison, accosting legislators, college students, and soccer moms ripped through my mind.

Zery clicked off her flashlight. Her voice reached out to me in the dark. “By your choice you aren’t one of us, Mel. Our plans aren’t for you to know.”

“If you want to use my property, they are.” A tense silence followed. I flexed my fingers, wished I still held Mother’s staff.

Zery sighed. “They’re angry, Mel, and they don’t trust you. I won’t tell you what we’re doing; I can’t. But we won’t break any human laws…Not until we find the killer. Then Amazon law will rule. Until then, we’ll play whatever cover story you pick for us, conduct our business in a way that no one, not even you, will know what we’re doing. It’s the best deal you’re going to get. You need to take it. If you refuse, they’ll come anyway, but it will be to pull you back for trial. Work with the tribe, and maybe they’ll be willing to consider that someone else is doing this. Don’t, and they’ll be convinced you’re hiding something.”

Her feet padded across the wood floor, almost too light to hear. When she stood parallel to me, only a few feet away, she continued, “Think of your daughter. You don’t want to introduce her to her tribe like that.”

Then she brushed past-she and I both knowing she’d just said the one thing to sway me to her side.