Chicks Kick Butt

Though mortal life has ever been cheap.

An assault of screaming and pounding noise met me. It was what they call music nowadays. No doubt there are Preservers who will cherish it as I cherished the liquid streams of beauty from my Virginia’s piano.

But I doubt they will be half as enchanted as I was. And Virginia’s song was gone forever. Even her recordings were lost in last night’s fire.

More smoke, of cigarettes. The taint of burning on my clothes and hair went unnoticed. Fragile warm bodies bumping against me on every side, islands of hard brightness that were Kin, the swelling nasty cacophony pumped through electronic throats buffeting the crowd. The bar was a monstrosity of amber glass, dark iron, and mahogany, the mortals behind it scrambling to slake various thirsts.

And there, across the wide choked space, red velvet ropes holding the crowd back. The baroque horsehair couches arranged in intimate little groups were exactly what they appeared to be—emblems of a king’s receiving room. Leonidas lounged on the largest, draped across it like a boneless toy. White-blond hair, the left half of his face a river of scarring, he watched his little sovereignty avidly. Behind him, a shadow moved.

Sallow, unsmiling Quinn. Tarquin . The only ugly thing Leonidas allows in his presence. The White King does not even allow a mirror in his domicile, lest it somehow show him his own shattered face.

The ropes parted. I do not stand on ceremony, even among Kin. Nevertheless, I inclined my head to Leonidas as I stepped onto the dusty red rug.

“Eleni.” His lips shaped my name, pleated ridges of scar tissue twitching. The noise swallowed us whole, like a whale.

And Leonidas looked surprised . It is not often a Preserver seeks out a Promethean in his place of power.

“I seek vengeance.” My tone cut through the wall of noise. “ You will provide it.”

His fingers flicked a little, dismissing me. “What nonsense are you speaking?”

The noise was overwhelming. It sent glass spikes through my head. The smell of burning hanging on me spurred my fury.

Virginia. Zhen. Peter. And Amelie, my own heart’s child. All mutilated and burned. “My house.” I could barely speak. My fangs were swollen with rage. “My house, burned to the ground last night. My charges murdered. We had a Compact, Leonidas!”

“And we still do,” he murmured. The “music” came to a crashing halt, and static filled the entire building. My rage, Leonidas’s amused bafflement, and Quinn’s unblinking attention.

I should have been pleased that Tarquin paid such attention to me. He must have considered me a threat. Me, a lowly Preserver.

I did not begin as a Preserver. We all begin as something else, each and every one of the Kin.

“Come,” Leonidas said in the almost-silence, before the music started again. “Let us solve this mystery.”

* * *

Upstairs in a private office, he arranged himself behind a mirror-polished desk. I stood before him like a supplicant, but I was past caring.

“They killed Zhen on the stairs.” My throat was full. “My beautiful dancer. And Virginia in the library. She fought back. The young ones were in the cellar. Peter, and Amelie.” I swallowed grief like a stone. “They were burned. And mutilated . Stakes through their hearts.”

“Ah,” Leonidas said, and nothing more.

“What do you intend to do ?” My hands were fists.

He shrugged, a loose inhuman motion. “What can I do? I am no Preserver. And your charges are not the first to fall. The hunters are mortals, and they take only easy prey.”

So he knew of this. Easy prey. I stared at him. What mortals could kill even the youngest and slowest of us? And yet.

Tarquin, at his shoulder, looked steadily back. His shoulders were tense. Another indirect compliment.

“Then I shall trouble you no further.” I turned on my heel. My boots left black streaks on the creamy carpet.

“Eleni.” Tarquin’s voice, flat and heatless. “Try the Hephaestus, downtown.”

I paused. Inclined my head slightly. Leonidas’s anger filled the room, but what was his anger to me?

“I am in your debt, Tarquin,” I said softly, and stalked away.

* * *

I did not venture downtown often. For one thing, it was dangerous. For another, it was … confusing. The bright lights, the crowds, the cars … it was easier and safer to gather what I needed for my little family elsewhere. I am a Preserver, I preserve what would otherwise be lost in the deep waters of time. Each of my charges was a gem, skilled in an art that could reach its highest expression when freed from the chains of mortality.

All that, gone. Lost in a nightmare of fire and screaming. Only I remained. And the thin bright trail of bloodscent—the weakest male attacker had been bleeding as he left my home. Without Tarquin’s hinting, I might have lost his scent.

But no. At the corner of Bride Street I found the golden thread. It turned at corners, flared and faded, drifted with the wind. It is a predator’s instinct, to bring down the weakest in the pack first.

Besides, the weakest break more easily.

The Hephaestus was a slumped brownstone building, weary even though the night was young. It reeked of desperation. I passed through the foyer like a burning dream, the proprietor not even glancing away from his television screen. I expected the smell to take me up into a room, but it did not. A hall on the ground floor led to a fire door that did not make a sound as I pushed it open. I stepped out and halted for a moment. Greasy crud slid under my bootsoles.

The blind alley was old, close, and dank. Refuse filled its corners. At its end, a single door. The blood trail led to it, but there was a heavier reek filling the air.

I approached cautiously. There was no outlet, this was a remnant of an earlier time. I wondered if the bricks underfoot were as old as Amelie.

My heart, that senseless beating thing, wrung in on itself. I ghosted to the door, every sense alert as if I were hunting for my family. My chest ran with pain at the thought.

I laid a hand on the door. It was solid, vibrating slightly as all matter does. It was locked and barred, I sensed the iron of the bar, metallic against my palate.

If I have learned one thing as a Preserver it is this: Strength does not matter. The will matters.

I gathered myself, stepped back, and kicked the door in.

A foul stench roiled out. I plunged into its depths, skipping down a set of sloping concrete stairs—my fist flashed and caught the mortal before he could even lift the gun. He flew back, hitting the wall with a sickening crack.

I hit him too hard. Then the smell hit me in return—I dropped down into a crouch, recognizing it, atavistic shivers running through ageless flesh. The lykanthe hung on the far wall, a writhing mass of fur held fast in silver chains, ivory teeth wired together by a muzzle cruelly spiked on the inside with more silver.

It was no threat, but still. For a moment I hesitated. Then I turned back to the human, who was making a thin high whistling sound. One of his arms hung at an odd angle.

They are so breakable.

My fingers, slim and strong, tangled in the front of the mortal’s black turtleneck. There were leather straps too, holding knives and other implements. He was still trying to gain enough breath to scream.

I selected one knife, slid it free. Broad-bladed, double-edged, it gleamed in the cellar’s gloom. Would anyone hear him? It was not likely; the alley and the blind walls above would mock his cries.

Good, I thought, and rammed the knife through his shoulder. He whisper-screamed again.

I closed off the scream with my free hand, clamping it over his mouth. Hot sweat and saliva greased my cold