Amazon Ink

Chapter Thirteen

The thread whipped around my legs, jerking my entire body off the ground with the intensity of its movements, then slamming me back down as it swerved around again. It took a second for my brain to focus, a second I didn’t have. Mother and Bubbe yelled, Bubbe at the Amazons, warning them to stay back, Mother at me, telling me to use the sword.

The sword. It had been put here for a purpose. I thought it was there to kill Zery, but maybe…I hacked with all the precision and patience of Freddy Krueger-barely considering where my own limbs were before slashing down with the blade. My position was awkward, on my back, the thread halfway up my body now. My arms screamed and my back ached, but I lifted the sword over and over, brought it down again and again.

Then Bubbe was beside me; I could feel her casting as she ran, dropping a spell like a net over me. I tried to lift the sword again, but it had tripled in weight. Tears escaped my eyes. I jerked on the handle-could still feel the spider’s threads sticking to me, had to get them loose, was willing to cut off my own leg to accomplish it.

“Melanippe! Stop.” Mother barked out the command-a tone I recognized, the same tone I’d used on Zery. I looked down. Strands of silver thread still clung to me, but slowly they melted away, turning back into what the caster had used to form them-water, simple, safe water. I brushed the beads from my skin, unable to get them off myself fast enough.

Behind me, Pisto heaved for breath. Two Amazons, the guard who had let us into the gym and another woman I didn’t know, helped her to sit. The lieutenant sucked in noisy gasps. The others turned their heads and tried to pretend they didn’t notice the signs of her weakness.

Then two women approached, and helped her to stand. Both hearth-keepers, I realized-the only Amazons allowed to show concern or weakness.

“Zery?” The guard kneeled next to the queen, murmured some words, then stood and headed toward the sword that had fallen from my fingers.

I reached it before her, grabbed the hilt, and pointed the tip at her breast.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Her expression said she didn’t have to answer. I drove the tip against her shirt, felt the material give and the metal find flesh. My arms were still shrieking, but I’d moved past the pain. Too much adrenaline had surged through my body. If I had managed to cut off my own leg, I doubted I would have felt it.

“Talk,” I ordered. The I’m in charge voice was coming easily to me at this point.

“She deserves better than this. I won’t let her die at the hands of a cowardly killer-one who won’t face us in battle.”

I almost skewered her. The sight of Mother pointing a dagger at her throat stopped me.

“Do what you came for,” Mother said. Her gaze never left the guard, but I knew she was talking to me. Dragging the sword behind me, I stumbled to Zery’s side, then dropped to my knees beside her.

“Never thought I’d want to hear your voice bossing me around again,” I muttered to her.

“You’ll only bring her more pain and humiliation. I tried to touch her. Just a brush of my fingers, and her body jerked beneath my hand,” the guard called.

I didn’t turn, and the guard said no more. I assumed Mother’s dagger did something to silence her; at that moment I didn’t care what.

“Warriors. Such a pain in the ass. Have I said that to you recently? No, guess not. Haven’t been talking a whole lot, have we?” I babbled to Zery, my eyes scanning the ground, looking for the bottle of alcohol. I had more in the shop, but I didn’t dare leave Zery’s side, couldn’t trust that one of her fervent followers wouldn’t impale her with her own sword. And I couldn’t send Mother either. Bubbe had held the group off earlier, but I didn’t know if that had drained her-I didn’t want to find out with Zery’s death, or mine.

Because I knew the Amazons well enough to realize that whatever happened in the next few minutes, somehow in the tribe’s mind the fault would be mine. But the praise, if I saved Zery? That wouldn’t exist.

I didn’t care. I’d face the group later, worry about saving my own skin after I’d saved my friend’s.

My gaze lit on the bottle. I dove for it, praying some liquid remained inside. I held it up, prayed again-but for nothing. The bottle was empty.

I flung the useless plastic trash away from me. A speckle of liquid flew from it, dotting Zery’s shirt. I stared at the spots, wondering if I could have somehow stretched those tiny drops. My hand dropped to my own shirt, not speckled, but drenched.

Stupid. Stupid me.

I knee-walked to Zery’s face, pulled my shirt out, and began to scrub the area around her lips harder than I’d ever scrubbed Harmony-even when she’d coated herself in Sharpie.

Zery flinched when I first touched her, but then relaxed. I watched her shirt for any increase in blood but there wasn’t any. As I’d guessed, she was meant for me-I was the only one who could choose what to do with this gift, the only one who could save her. But I was also the reason she was staked out like a cowboy on an anthill.

I couldn’t congratulate myself for saving my friend, not without accepting that I was the reason she was targeted to start with.

Slowly the ink disappeared. As it did, Zery’s lips began to part. With them still halfway sewn together, she mumbled, “Feet.”

That answered my question about the pain. The drawn-on stakes hurt more than the chains. How much did they hurt? I didn’t want to know or, at least, didn’t want to think about it right now.

“I need you to tell your crazy warriors you’re going to live-not to skewer you like Sunday’s chicken.” I rubbed harder, partially to get the ink off faster, partially to get out my frustration.

“Sunday’s chicken?” she mumbled, and half her mouth, the half I’d freed, lifted in a smile.

I loved her right then. As much as I’d loved her before the whole ugly blowup. And my anger fled. So, she’d chosen Alcippe and the tribe over me. It didn’t matter. I’d never had a friend like Zery, someone who understood me and accepted me as well.

I needed to accept her too. She’d made her choice. It was part of who she was. She wouldn’t be Zery if she hadn’t.

Her mouth clean of ink, I knee-walked to her feet, rubbed the heel of my hand over my eyes as I did. Then, while she barked out orders like the queen she was, I scrubbed away the killer’s marks and planned how I’d scrub him or her away too.

I tried to stay with Zery after that, but the Amazons moved in, and the looks they shot me were far from thankful or trusting. I could have stayed anyway, had enough rage simmering inside me to challenge the lot of them, but Zery was tired. I could see it in the dark circles that had formed under her eyes and the way her lower lip seemed to pull downward when she spoke.

She was using every ounce of her reserves to reassure her troops she was the titanium-clad superwoman they’d always known. She didn’t need me mucking everything up by acting all concerned and caring-or by letting my pent-up aggression run free. So, I finished my job, clamped my mouth shut, and pointed my body toward my shop.

Tonight I’d go back to bed, stare at the ceiling, and think about how I was going to find the bastard who was doing all this. I already knew what I’d do to him when I did.

The next morning my resolve was just as strong, but the strain of balancing my Amazon espionage with regular life was taking its toll too. My soul was ablaze, but my body and mind were tired. Two pieces of pumpkin pie helped perk up the body, and knowing Harmony would be starting art class that afternoon eased some tension in my overtaxed brain.

I’d sorted out the details of Harmony’s enrollment last night before all the excitement. I had talked with Makis on the phone after discovering he had no Web site or email address, was apparently as much of a Luddite as my grandmother. Harmony was a little distressed that Rachel’s parents hadn’t yet agreed for her to attend too-they valued things like time for homework on school nights. But in ever-confident teenage fashion, my daughter and her friend had worked out a plan to wear them down.

As long as Harmony was accounted for, I didn’t care. Rachel’s parents could worry about battling their own determined teen. May Artemis bless them all.

With Harmony off to school and my belly full of starch and sugar, I headed to the gym. I needed to hear Zery’s version of her attack. I hoped the warriors were giving her some distance today.

The day was colder-one of the freaky pleasures of living in southern Wisconsin. Day-to-day temperature ranges of thirty degrees were not unheard of. I wrapped a ratty hoodie around my body and bulldozed my way through the wind.

Zery was in the gym, pummeling a weight bag with her staff. When I entered, the temperature in the room dropped another thirty degrees, at least. And I had thought it was an outdoors thing.

Shrugging off the warriors’ icy stares, I pulled back my hood and strutted across the battered wood floor.

“I could never decide if you were the bravest person I know or the dumbest.” Zery spun and whacked the bag with her foot.

I waited for it to slow its erratic jumping, then grabbed hold. “Cliché,” I said, trying to look nonchalant, like seeing her there so healthy and strong didn’t affect me, didn’t make me want to pull her in for a hug.

She stopped, her chest moving up and down from her exertion. “Don’t you mean touché?”

“Nope.” I grinned at her, my way of apologizing for the horrible things I’d thought of her in the past.

She grunted. But the corner of her lip edged up a little.

She dropped the staff and slammed a fist into the bag. I held on.

“So, you going to tell me what happened?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing. I’ve heard some pretty crazy allegations already. And I haven’t seen Pisto yet. She went on a run, but I hear she’s pissed.”

“Pisto pissed? I can’t imagine.”

Zery slammed the bag with another kick, knocking me back a few steps. I tightened my grip and grounded my stance.

“You’re a smart-ass too. I’d forgotten that.” Another kick, then a laugh. She shook her head. “I take that back. I hadn’t. How could I?”

“Someone had to keep your big old ‘I am queen’ head in line.”

She took a step back and folded her arms over her chest. The laughter left her face. “But then you left, and I had to fend for myself.”

“Yeah. Bad times.” I patted the bag, pretended to take extra time slowing it to a complete stop.

She heaved out a breath and stared at me like she could see inside me. Which wasn’t far-fetched. There had been a time I’d thought Zery knew what I was thinking before I did. “Okay, Mel. Let’s talk. I’ll tell you what happened to me, but you have to give something too. I need to know what you’re hiding-all of it.”

I curled my fingers against the bag and scratched the surface of the ancient leather.

Tell Zery what I am hiding. I wished I could-I did. But if I told her I’d known about the girls for weeks, had hauled both of them off without coming to the tribe…She was queen. I’d gotten angry at her before for being who and what she was. I wouldn’t again, but just like I wouldn’t blame a bull for goring me, I wouldn’t stand in front of it with a red cape either. Not unless I had a pretty fancy dance worked out, which I didn’t, not yet.

I stared at my hand. Tiny flecks of red were embedded under my short-cropped nails.

I met her gaze. “I’ll tell you what I did last night.”

“That’s not what I asked for.”

I shrugged. “It’s all I’ve got.”

She dropped to a squat, picked up her staff, and swung it toward my feet, all in one graceful motion. Without thinking, I somersaulted forward in a tiny leap that propelled my body over the staff and back on my feet.

Also on her feet, Zery placed the end of her staff on the floor. “It’s not all you’ve got-not by a long shot, but it’s all you’ll give me. Fair enough-for now.”