Kitty in the Underworld by Carrie Vaughn (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

“I took it from him.”

“It means you served him—”

He scowled. “I never served him.” He actually sounded offended.

I took a calming breath and tried again. “How do you know him, then?”

“It’s enough that I know how dangerous he is. We must stop him.”

“I agree,” I said. Kumarbis tilted his head as if startled. He must have thought I just argued on principle. “How are you going to do that?”

“It is not your place to ask, only to join the battle.”

That made me think of Antony, and all the other casualties. Kumarbis wasn’t wrong—this was a war, and maybe he’d been fighting it longer than the rest of us, but that didn’t put him in charge.

“That’s just typical vampire superiority garbage,” I said. “You’re a vampire, I’m a werewolf, so

He stretched his crooked hands and his lips pulled back to show yellowed fangs. He seemed so broken, but ropy muscles flexed under the leathery skin. He was still a vampire, and I couldn’t underestimate his strength. I wondered how hard I’d have to push him before he got physical.

“No one knows Gaius Albinus better than I do.”

I believed him. He’d been around for most of that history. Roman was a bogeyman among vampires, a Machiavellian figure manipulating them and their Families around the world in order to bind them under his own power. The few facts: he was two thousand years old, had been a Roman soldier in Palestine, had traveled across Europe and Asia over the centuries. His followers woreus.macmillanusa.com/piracyse">Chapter 1 the bronze coins, which had some magic that connected them. Defacing the coins broke the spell. I had spent the last several years trying to identify Roman’s followers, and to find others who knew about him and opposed him. I had my own band of allies. But none of them knew about Kumarbis. What did Kumarbis know that we didn’t?

“What can you tell me about him?” I asked.

“Only that we must stop him. Nothing else is important.”

It was like pulling teeth. Sharp, pointy teeth. I said, “Do you know Marid? Ned Alleyn? Alette, Rick—Ricardo? Do you know they’re trying to stop Roman, too? If no one knows him better than you, they could really use your help. That’s the whole point, we’re supposed to be working together.”

He shook his head. “What they think they know doesn’t matter. I am the only one who can stop Gaius Albinus.”

We had a saying around the radio station: the minute you thought no one else could do your job, it was time to give up that job. “You can’t do it alone,” I said. “You need help.”

“I have everything I need here, now that you are with us.”

“You know so much about Dux Bellorum—even what can stop him—why not just tell me?” I paced, just to be moving. I had to burn the anxious energy somehow, either through moving or through howling. The howling might come in a minute.

“You’ll learn what I know—when you are initiated into our mysteries.”

“I don’t want to be initiated into any mysteries. Sorority rush was bad enough.”

He put his hand on his heart—his dead, still heart—in a strange gesture of calm. Like a saint in a medieval painting. Closing his eyes, he said, “Be comforted, wolf. Regina Luporum. You’ll understand everything, in time.” He turned to tap on the door. One of the others must have been on the other side, to unlock it.

“Wait!” I reached for him as the door cracked open.

He turned back to me, waited as I had asked. But I didn’t know what to say that I hadn’t already said.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, after a pause. “Of course you are. I will have Sakhmet bring you food.”

Then he left, and the door shut behind him.

Maybe it was time to figure out a plan C.

*   *   *

I DIDN’T know any stories about Regina Luporum. About the wolf who adopted and cared for Romulus and Remus. Only that she was there, like any number of nameless mother wolves in any number of stories. Although the mother wolf who adopts Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is named Raksha. She gets a name. She is the overlooked power, the unnoticed linchpin. The unspoken prologue to every story. I had to give credit to Kumarbis and the others for acknowledging her and giving her some power. But I didn’t have to trust the stories he told about her.

Mythology was filled with queens. A queen of the wolves would only be one in a long line of them. Like Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddess of sex and war, who was pictured flanked by lions. There’s a story about Inanna traveling to the land of the dead, the underworld, just like most epic heroes seem to do at one time or another. At to make a difference. ins powereach of seven gates she is forced to give up an item of clothing, a jewel from her collection. And she arrives at her destination naked, stripped of all wealth and identity at the darkest part of her journey.

She spent three days underground, then she escaped. She was reborn. She reclaimed all that she’d lost. Like all good heroes do.

*   *   *

TIME PASSED strangely. My eyes were getting tired, even my Wolf’s supernatural night vision straining in the dim lamplight for so long. I paced, just to have something to do, just to keep my blood flowing through tired muscles, so when the chance to run came, I’d be ready. Even though pacing made Wolf anxious. She was so close to the surface all the time now, ready to spring forth, to burst free. To defend us, when the time comes.

I was circling the antechamber for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to think. Sakhmet was my best chance for escape. All she had to do was leave the door unlocked the next time she brought me water. I could get her to convince Enkidu to leave the door unlocked. Escape