Instead of winding our way back through the massive mansion, Rhea flashed up directly into the Council chambers. Since everyone was already on edge, our arrival was greeted with the unholstering of guns and the static of defensive magic. Luckily, the Queen realized it was just us and yelled for everyone to stand down.
We ran over to her makeshift mission control at the front of the room. Aides and Council members rushed around. Vampire and mage guards eyed each other as potential enemies instead of the allies they believed they were just an hour earlier. The faery security watched with intense expressions and weapons at the ready should hostilities break out.
“Any news?” Rhea asked the Queen.
She looked like she’d aged another decade in the last ten minutes. “We tested the goblets. It appears the killer added apple juice and strychnine to the wine.”
“Jesus,” Giguhl breathed. “Just Tanith’s and Orpheus’s?”
“Mine as well.” The Queen shook her head. “But I’m… difficult to kill.”
My eyebrows rose. Supposedly, Orpheus and Tanith were pretty hard to kill, too, but they were dead. What was it about the Queen that made her so invincible? I would have asked but there were bigger mysteries to solve right then.
“I’ve got Pythian Guards and Tanith’s security detail questioning the servants,” Maeve continued.
“Not to be disrespectful,” I began, “but shouldn’t Persephone be involved in running this investigation?”
The Queen’s frosty brow rose. “Persephone has disappeared.”
“What?” Shock sharpened my tone. “How is that possible? Where’s her security detail?”
Luckily for me, being in crisis mode had softened the Queen’s normally tight-assed insistence on protocol. “I can’t get a straight answer from anyone. The vamp guards claim that Persephone became someone named Alexis Vega’s responsibility once Tanith died, since Persephone is now officially the leader of the vampire race. But no one can find this Alexis either.”
My stomach tightened. “Last time I saw Persephone, her other guards were rushing her away. I saw Alexis seconds later running toward the manor.”
“It’s not a stretch that watching Tanith and Orpheus die spooked Persephone,” Rhea offered. “She might have run, thinking her life was in danger, too.”
“At this point, all we have are theories.” The Queen pounded a jeweled fist on the table. Despite her aged appearance, her strength and power were impossible to dismiss. “I need evidence!”
Rhea looked at me, a cue to share my theories about Alexis’s guilt. I took a deep breath. “Your Benevolence, I think I know who did this,” I began.
She gripped her cane harder with a gnarled hand. “Enlighten me.”
I told her everything. How I saw Alexis in Central Park the night the mortal was killed. About how she would have had knowledge of the Dominae’s rituals and would have been capable of posing the murdered mage in the bar. “I should have questioned Tiny’s connection then,” I said. “There’s no way he would have seen that ritual.”
I went on to report that after she’d killed Tiny, Alexis admitted she wanted Slade’s job.
“That’s motive, right there,” Giguhl cut in. “If she wanted that job bad enough, she might have thought killing the human and the mage would be enough to discredit Slade.”
“And,” I said, “once Tiny was dead and she was sure Slade was out of the picture, she stopped killing. That is until she found out tonight that I’d been given the job.”
The Queen pursed her lips. “Why would Alexis kill Tanith instead of you, in that case?”
“Because Tanith promised her the job,” I said. “She clearly felt betrayed by the female she’d pledged to protect.”
“Besides, Alexis was up on that dais,” Rhea said. “It wouldn’t have been difficult to slip the poison into the goblets.”
The Queen rubbed her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she called out, “Pull every guard off whatever they’re doing and tell them to find Alexis Vega. Bring her to me. Now!”
The doors to the chamber burst open like they were kicked in. Everyone was still feeling twitchy, so every weapon in the joint turned on the new arrival. Alexis stood on the threshold, her chest heaving and her cheeks flushed. Her wide stance and raised hands made her look like an avenging angel.
“Who is that?” the Queen demanded.
“Alexis,” I growled, glaring at the vampire.
The Queen’s brows shot up to her crown. “Guards, restrain her!”
Alexis’s expression dropped in shock. “What? No! I’m not the one you want.” She raised a trembling finger in my direction. “The real murderer is Sabina Kane!”
If I wasn’t so pissed that she’d managed to fool me for so long, I might have laughed at her pathetic attempt to frame me for the murders. But as it turned out, Alexis wasn’t the only one with a short fuse.
The sight of her treacherous ass combined with her ridiculous accusation made every drop of rage rise in me like a black wave. She’d killed Orpheus. She’d killed her own Despina, a female she claimed to worship. And for what? Some sort of vendetta over a fucking bureaucratic post? She’d also killed an innocent human male and a mage by means so unnecessarily vile it made me want to vomit. Such a fucking waste.
I rode that rage like a missile aimed at Alexis Vega’s heart. My vampiric speed made me little more than a blur in front of the mages’ eyes. But Alexis saw me coming and crouched into a fighting stance. Her lips curled into an anticipatory smile. She’d been waiting for this confrontation.
I body-slammed her into the hall. We crashed to the floor and rolled, fists and fangs flying. I grabbed her red hair in my clawed hands and banged her head into the ground. Her own nails found my cheek and slashed. My skin ripped and hot blood dripped down my cheeks.
“Bitch!” I backhanded her. Blood bloomed on her lips. She grinned, showing red-tinged fangs.
Like a rabid dog, she found my hand and chomped down. Bones snapped under the pressure. Hot lightning shot through my hand, up my arm. She took advantage of my pain and flipped me over, pinning my hips with her legs.
“Who’s the bitch now, mutt?” Her hands closed around my throat, crushing my windpipe. I choked and clawed and kicked like a wild thing. In her rush to punish me, she neglected to remember the first rule of strangulation: Always tuck your thumbs. I grabbed the offending digits and snapped them like matchsticks. She reared back and screamed, cradling her broken hands to her chest.
I was about to follow up with the heel of my palm to her windpipe when her weight suddenly lifted. She screamed in frustration. Her legs flailed and her fists swatted the air, desperate to get in one more punishing blow. But the vampire guard made quick work of subduing her.
But no one was holding me. I leapt to my feet and rocketed toward Alexis.
It happened fast. One second I was running. Then next, the air sizzled and thunder rolled. The spell slammed into me like a wrecking ball. Knocked me off my feet before my body crashed into the wall. Stomach cramping with nausea and my vision doubled, I slid slowly down the dented drywall to land on my ass.
I shook myself, trying to get my bearings. The figure standing over me was blurry, but there was no mistaking the authority in her posture.
“Enough!” the Queen yelled. She snapped her fingers at a nearby fae knight. “Help her up.”
Hands grabbed me under my arms and jerked me upright. Whatever spell the Queen had used on me, it had cleaned my clock. So much for faeries being the weaker race. I had to lean on my handler until the vertigo passed.
“Now,” the Queen continued, her voice calmer but no less threatening, “we’re going to sit down and get to the bottom of this. Bring them both!”
The room was silent as Alexis and I were led to the front of the chamber. Already, I could feel my cells knitting my wounds back together. I glared over at Alexis. Her lip was still bloody but the cut had sealed into a dark line on her lip.
That’s the problem with fighting vampires: Permanent damage was hard to inflict. A pity. I hadn’t been trying to kill her, exactly. If I’d wanted to do that, I could have used my handy Chthonic trick of lighting her on fire with my eyes. But I wasn’t Alexis’s judge and jury. That was the Queen’s job. However, I wouldn’t have minded giving the bitch a permanent limp.
We were deposited into seats on opposite sides of the aisle bisecting the room. I stared straight ahead. From the corner of my eye, I saw Giguhl standing off to the side with Rhea. The demon gave me two claws-up and mouthed, “Awesome!” Rhea, however, looked unimpressed. Probably disappointed I didn’t use my magic.
The Queen, her color high from anger, leaned heavily on her cane at the front of the room. “It seems we have ourselves a bit of a quandary. Sabina, you claim Alexis was responsible for four murders—”
“What?” Alexis jumped out of her chair, looking like she was ready to rumble again.
The Queen’s head snapped around to glare at her. “Sit down or I will have you thrown in a cell, guilty or no!” Alexis narrowed her eyes and blew out a hard breath. But she dropped back in her chair and settled for shooting me venomous glares.
“As I was saying,” the Queen said in an overly patient tone. “Sabina believes Alexis is the killer. However, other than hearsay, I have seen no physical evidence of her guilt.”
“I—” I began.
Suddenly, I was on the receiving end of the same look she’d given Alexis. “Let me finish!” She slammed her cane against the floor like a gavel. I muttered an apology and slumped down in my chair. “Then Alexis arrives and accuses Sabina of the same murders. Since Sabina was given the chance to share her evidence, I feel it is only fair to allow Miss Vega to present hers.”
Alexis shot me a superior look. Since I wasn’t guilty, I shrugged. “Fine by me.” Then I crossed my arms and settled in for the show.
