come under attack. Use the iron shells and the rowan as well as silver. Vamps and Unseelie could be working as a unit… plus there’s something else out there that I can’t see.”
She didn’t have time to argue with them, it was a direct order. Fall back. “Where’s the grenade launcher?”
Fisher and Woods gave her wide smiles.
“In the van we came in, across the street,” Fisher said, seeming much improved.
Sasha was in and out. The Dumpsters cast a shadow; there was nothing but shadows inside the van. Full metal jacket-she was locked and loaded. So the Vampires wanted to allow their Unseelie buddies to use innocent humans as hostages, huh? She came out of the darkness in front of the baron’s Blood Oasis, aimed, and fired.
“Kill another innocent on my watch and it’s your ass! I, Sasha Trudeau, declare war!”
She slid into another shadow, but not before she saw Shogun in her peripheral vision. He and his men were decimating fleeing Vampires that came out of the inferno like rats jumping off a sinking ship.
Insanity had her in its grip; she walked in the front door of the baron’s casino, a semiautomatic in each hand, hit anything with fangs point-blank, and was out. Wolves came in right behind her, savaging anything that dared to move.
Overturning crypts, she sent a message that the next time it would be daylight. She, Hunter, and Shogun came together at the edge of the swamp with Fae archers. Sir Rodney’s men had captured eight Unseelie and one Vampire.
“Dead or alive?” Sir Rodney asked his men.
“Dead,” his captain of the guards said, taking Sasha’s gun out of her hand and pulling the trigger hard twice toward the Vampire prisoner’s head. His men let go as embers exploded. “In the morning, we torch all their graves.”
“Truce!” a disembodied voice called out. “This is a matter for the courts to decide!”
“Good, you bloody bastards!” Sir Rodney shouted. “Court is in less than an hour!”
This was a very different session than she’d attended before. This time there were no neutral parties. Order of the Dragon security forces were clearly vexed with the Vampires and Unseelie; Fae archers had hair-trigger tempers, having just lost a man. Wolves were united, except for the very small minority faction that still had allegiances to the Buchanan clan. Mythics and Flame of the Phoenix members were so traumatized by the carnage that even they wanted blood. Then there were the Vampires-who were flanked by the Unseelie Fae.
Yeah, this time was wild. Sasha looked around at the tense groups waiting for the UCE’s pillared hall to rise out of the swamp and for the emergency session to be called to order. Everything was out of control. She had no way to know how many innocent human and Fae civilians had been hurt or killed as collateral damage. If something went wrong here, there was no neutral party to intervene and to restore order. It was as though all of the superpowers in the region had their fingers on the nuclear buttons, and everyone was so riled up that they really didn’t give a damn if they left a smoking black hole-even if they’d go up with it. The entire issue of principle seemed to be the core of the debate. Screw the greater good, the helpless, and the meek. The entities coming into this hall wanted a pound of flesh.
The blind, old crone that always presided over the trials came out with her bewitched ledger and pen, which looked more like a wand than a writing instrument. She set the book of records in the air aloft and flung the pen at it so that the pen hovered above the book.
“There is no stenographer, save the book. It records only that which is truth. The normal recorder is too traumatized to attend… She is of the Mer-a Siren crier of the deep-and even she will not be party to this travesty.”
The crone’s voice sounded like fingernails on a blackboard and all the wolves in attendance cringed until she was done speaking. She pointed to the gavel and it immediately stood on its handle and spun around, wildly shrieking.
“All rise… Court is in session! The book shall be the judge, the record cannot be altered!”
The large, dusty tome that appeared as though it were covered with ancient black serpent skin creaked open with a thud in the air, flipped several of its moldy pages to a clean page, and then waited as the pen poised itself above it.
“We have a very serious complaint,” the crone murmured. “A capital offense that could and has caused war to break out even in front of humans.” She turned toward the back of the court and pointed with a gnarled, arthritic finger. “Bring in the prisoner!”
Wolves howled and Shogun and his men escorted the slight figure down the aisle bound in iron and reeking of rowan. Fae drew back and covered their noses and mouths with cloths and forest leaves, but their eyes hardened and their jeers rang out as a sickly-looking Kiagehul passed their grandstands. A growl crawled up Sasha’s and Hunter’s throats; this was the man who had nearly wiped out their entire family. Vampires curled their lips, showing fangs, insulted by the open hostility exhibited by the Seelie in court.
But the aisle suddenly became ice slicked as a frigid blast dropped the temperature by forty degrees and caused frost to cover the boxes and chairs. Sir Rodney turned from where he sat with Sasha and Hunter in the front box on the right and all eyes followed his as Queen Blatand of Hecate strode down the aisle.
This new threat absorbed Sasha’s complete focus for a moment. The queen had the most fragile features she had ever seen. If she weren’t so evil, one might have called her beautiful. She had large, amazingly clear, pale blue eyes. Her eyebrows were a perfect arch of platinum hair that nearly matched her skin as though she were albino. Set against her huge, questioning eyes was a delicate dusting of white lashes. She had a tiny button nose and a cherub’s mouth, interestingly hued a deep blue that caused such a contrast against her skin that Sasha had to stare. Her small breasts were the perfect teacup size, pushed up in an elegant, old-world, beaded gown, her entire tiny torso and wasp waist held firmly by unforgiving corset stays.
Icicle earrings sparkled in her ears; seed pearls, diamonds, and bits of blue ice crusted her ice-blue gown. In her delicate hands she carried an ice wand and a large fan made of packed snow that had a pattern of snowflakes. But it totally blew Sasha’s mind to see her strut down the center aisle in ice stilettos, eyes locked in hatred with Sir Rodney’s.
“Clearly you did not believe that I would allow you to put a member of my court to death without the proper trial and formalities to be sure that action would be sanctioned.” She gave Sir Rodney the evil eye and then promptly slid into the Vampire booth, taking the baron’s arm.
“I might have known that you would be in bed with that cold-blooded Vampire bastard,” Sir Rodney spat. “Ice water also runs in your veins, so I’m not a bit surprised by the alliance.”
The queen fanned herself as the Vampires hissed, remaining cool. “Always hotheaded, my summer prince,” she said in a deceitfully sensual tone. “It is uncomfortably warm in this swamp of a location you’ve exiled yourself to… therefore, I do not take your unchivalrous welcome as an affront. It must be the heat that has you so cross and unmannerly.”
“Welcome to New Orleans, Your Majesty,” the baron crooned, his eyes black with rage as he looked over at the Seelie bench. “Although this has at times devolved into what amounts to a kangaroo court, today our objective is justice for your captured national who is being held hostage-as well as for my wrongfully attacked lair and establishment.”
“Held hostage?” a Fae archer shouted from the back. “The bastard killed me brother!”
“Order, order!” the gavel yelled, whacking itself on the empty judge’s bench.
“My top advisors tell me that when the Seelie Fae archer died, my court member was in iron chains,” the queen said coolly.
“Metaphorically speaking,” Sir Rodney argued. “Your man was in custody at the time, true, but he is at the root of all of this.”
The queen turned to the Vampire box, and looked at them and then the Unseelie who were seated behind them, her gaze falling on her top advisors. “Surely a man shan’t be put to death for meta phors?”
Loud jeers rang out from both sides of the aisle and it took several minutes for the gavel to regain order.
“Let us have the first complaint,” the crone screeched, making the pen above the pages quiver.
