Red Queen

  The community was gated.

  As far as I could see—and I had binoculars with me—the place was roped in with a fence topped with barbed wire. To get inside, I’d have to get past a guardhouse and two guards.

  Two facts inspired me to take a chance. First, the sound of chimes was definitely wafting from a house located at the end of the street where the guardhouse stood. Second, my power had improved even during the short hop from Las Vegas. Now the person who stared back at me from my rearview mirror changed at my command.

  True, I didn’t know many Lapras I could imitate, but who better to get past their security than Dr. Susan Wheeler herself? Even if the guards had seen their boss enter earlier, they weren’t going to stop and argue with the woman. I got the impression that questioning the head of the Order was not a prescription for a long life.

  I put on Susan’s face and body and locked it in place.

  It wasn’t the sort of face I was likely to forget.

  I drove up to the guard tower. The two men were dressed in brown uniforms and carried .45 revolvers. They recognized who I was because they suddenly stood up so straight I thought they’d pop a vertebra. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they saluted.

  The older guard bent near my rolled-down window.

  “How are you today, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “We’d heard you were remaining in town today.”

  “You heard wrong. Let me through.”

  “Of course.” The guard jumped back and signaled to his buddy to raise the blocking bar. It was controlled from inside the shack. A moment later I was driving toward what I hoped was Kari’s house. It occurred to me that if I had the wrong place, I could go back to the guards and ask for directions. They had seemed eager to please.

  I parked in Kari’s driveway and got out of the cool car into the scorching heat. Hard to believe but Henderson was worse than Las Vegas and Apple Valley. Nevertheless, I let the sun beat down on my brow. Inside I could hear my heart pounding. My course of action was unclear. Or was I suffering from a lack of resolve? As the rays of the sun pierced my skin and sweat seeped through my pores, I allowed my face to return to that of Jessica Ralle.

  I walked up to the door and rang the bell.

  Kari answered. Dressed in shorts and a bikini top, she did not look happy to see me. “Jessica. This is a surprise,” she said.

  “I thought I’d check out the neighborhood I’m being asked to join.”

  Kari tried to look past me. “Did someone bring you here?”

  “I didn’t show up by magic. May I come in?”

  Kari hesitated. “Sure.” She opened the door wider. “I wish you’d called ahead of time. The place is sort of a mess.”

  Kari was a slob in both worlds. Clothes and plates littered the living-room floor and table.

  “I apologize. I wasn’t given much warning myself. Hey, do you have something to drink? A Coke?”

  “I’ve got cola. That’s what they drink here.”

  “Great. As long as it’s cold, I can drink it out of the bottle.”

  Kari got us drinks and we sat in a small kitchen nook that overlooked a deliciously blue swimming pool. It was chilly inside with the air conditioner blasting away. I liked it. I gestured with my bottle.

  “Nice place you’ve got here,” I said.

  “Thanks.” Kari studied me, she was no fool. “What brought about the change of heart?” she asked.

  “You mean, why am I considering the Lapras’ offer?”

  “Yeah. That didn’t seem like a possibility the other day.”

  I sipped my drink. “A lot can happen in a short time.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Don’t they keep you in the loop around here?”

  “They tell me what I want to know,” she said.

  “Really? I heard they tell you what they think you should know.”

  Kari acted bored. “If you just came here to insult me . . .”

  “I came here to kill you,” I interrupted.

  Kari froze for an instant. Then she tried to act casual and set her bottle back on the table. But her hand was shaking so badly she missed and the bottle fell to the floor. The kitchen-nook tiles were made of stone. The bottle shattered and cola fizzled. Kari tried to act cool, but we both knew it was way too late for that. She snorted.

  “You’re so full of shit, Jessica,” she said.

  “In a practical sense, you wouldn’t be able to stop me. I can tell by the way you move and carry yourself that you didn’t inherit the strength-and-speed gene. That means you can’t defend yourself and I can get to you before you can dial nine-one-one on your cell. Or is it six-six-six here in witch world?” I paused. “I’m not full of shit, Kari.”

  Her fear was growing. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “How did you mean it?”

  “I’ve known you for four years. You’re not a killer.”

  “For your sake, I wish that were true. But I killed a guy last night, a friend, and I’m probably going to kill a few more before this day’s over.” I stopped. “But if you help me, maybe you’ll survive.”

  Kari gestured out the window. “This entire area belongs to the Lapras. I’ve made a deal with them. Which means I’m under their protection. If you so much as lay a hand on me, it’s you who will die.”

  I shrugged. “That sounds all good and fine. But you made a mistake when you let the wolf in your door. Me. Because I’m like any other kind of predator whose child is threatened. I don’t care about man-made rules and regulations. I just care about destroying the threat.”

  “I don’t want to hurt Lara. When it comes to our kids, Jessica, we’re on the same side. I tried to tell you that at the Mirage. I’ll do anything to protect Huck. So will James.”

  “You mean Jimmy. James doesn’t know Huck. He only knows Lara.”

  Kari acted offended. “I know all that. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. I really can help you.”

  “Tell me where they keep Lara.”

  Kari hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  I sighed. “You’re lying. A pity.”

  “Hold on a sec,” Kari said as she went to stand. In a move too fast for her to follow, I reached out, grabbed her and shoved her back into her seat. The blinding attack drained all the color from her face.

  “Tell me where they keep Lara,” I repeated calmly.

  Kari swallowed. “In a house near the base of that hill.” She pointed out the window at the house—it was more of a mansion—with the roughly hewed stone crown hovering above it. She added, “I saw them take her inside there yesterday.”

  “Was Susan with them?”

  “I think so. Frank was with her.”

  “Who was holding Lara?”

  “Another woman. I don’t know who.”

  “Tell me what kind of security that house has.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been inside. But I’ve seen guards walking the grounds. There are Lapra guards all over this place.”

  Kari was still trying to warn me how dangerous it would be to kill her. “How often is Susan at the house?” I asked.

  “I hear she’s usually gone.”

  “Are there guards in the hills?” I asked.

  “Someone told me they keep snipers up there. In case of an attack.”

  “Do they anticipate one?”

  “The Lapras I’ve spoken to know the Tar’s upset about something but they don’t know what it is.”

  “The average Lapra doesn’t know about Lara?”

  “No.”

  “Interesting.” I sat, thinking. My silence unnerved Kari.

  “I’ve answered all your questions,” she said.

  I nodded. “You tried your best.”

  “You should go now. Someone will spot you.”

  “Listen and don’t interrupt. You’re a problem, and by that I don’t mean I’m worried Jimmy’s going to run off with you again. He would never have lef
t me if you hadn’t gotten pregnant. He was trying to do the right thing. So don’t think I see you as a threat in the traditional sense.”

  “Bullshit. You’ve always been jealous of me.”

  I raised my hand. “Listen, I have given this a lot of thought. As Huck’s mother, you’re always going to be in Jimmy’s life. But because you’re a Lapra, I can’t allow that. It puts him in danger and it puts Lara and me in danger. For that matter, it’s no good for Huck. The boy can’t grow up surrounded by such evil. He’ll end up like them.” I paused. “You can see my concerns are logical.”

  Kari tensed. I could hear her struggling to breathe. “We can work this out,” she said quietly.

  “I don’t see how. And I’m sorry, really. I don’t like you but I don’t hate you either. If circumstances were different, I’d ignore you. But I can’t. You’re a loose end none of us can afford.”

  “You told me if I helped you that you’d let me go.”

  “I lied.”

  “You’ve just been using me!”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Again, she went to stand. Again, she got nowhere.

  Tears sprang in her eyes and she trembled. “You talk about how evil the Lapras are but look at you. Last week you would never have considered murdering someone. But now, just because you’ve got the power, you’re thinking about it. Don’t you see how you’ve changed?”

  I nodded solemnly. “I can’t argue with you. Sometimes I look at myself in amazement. I ask myself, is it the influence of this world? It’s definitely got a cruder morality than our normal world. But then I look deeper and I see I’m just being pragmatic. You’re dangerous, Kari. As long as you’re alive, I’ll never be able to relax.”

  Kari leaped up and pointed toward the door. “Get out of my house!” she cried.

  I stood and approached her slowly. “If there were any other way to make you vanish, I’d take it. But there isn’t. If I leave you here alive, the second I walk out that door you’ll sound the alarm.”

  “No! I swear I won’t tell anyone you were here!”

  “You will, you’ll have to, and I can’t allow that.”

  Kari shook her head. “No! Wait! You can’t do this!”

  I didn’t want her to suffer anymore.

  Reaching forward, I grabbed her by the base of her skull and went to break her neck. But at the last instant I realized she was right. I wasn’t a killer. I couldn’t do it. To just snap her spine, to change her into a rag doll, it made me feel sick just thinking about it. I realized then how quickly my feeling of power had corrupted me.

  Yet I still had a problem with the Lapras’ security. Kari would alert them the instant I left and I would be captured, probably killed. The only solution was to take Kari with me. Later, I could figure out what to do with her. I still wanted her away from Jimmy and Huck.

  Spinning Kari a hundred and eighty degrees, I wrapped my arm around and applied the well-known choke hold. How did I know it? I didn’t; it came to me by instinct. But it was simple enough. I put pressure on Kari’s carotid, the artery that carried blood to her brain. She struggled perhaps five seconds before slumping unconscious in my arms. I held her neck an extra ten seconds to make sure she stayed out.

  I opened the garage door and drove my car inside, briefly parking beside her vehicle. I dumped Kari in my trunk and two minutes later I was on my way past security, once more in the form of Susan Wheeler. They waved me through, no questions asked.

  Soon I was out in the open desert. I took an obscure side street, a narrow road made of crumbling asphalt that probably wasn’t even on the map. I wasn’t headed toward Las Vegas. I needed time to think and driving helped me. I had gone to Kari’s house to kill her but had lost my nerve. That was okay—I was glad I had let her live. But impulsive decisions often lead to complex consequences. It wasn’t like I could store the girl in the meat locker where I’d been thrown, although the idea was appealing.

  Suddenly I heard a loud noise coming from the trunk.

  Kari was awake and in a bad mood.

  No need to panic. I wasn’t surprised she was awake. The effect from the choke hold wasn’t supposed to last more than ten or fifteen minutes. I remembered that from my witch-world life. But it was a little unnerving how vigorously Kari was kicking.

  The backseat burst free and Kari’s head poked out.

  “I’m not good enough to ride up front with you?” she said.

  Her tone of voice, the ease with which she had broken free—these points made me realize I had seriously underestimated Kari. Hell, I had been duped! Fifteen minutes ago the girl had been weeping with fear and now she sounded happy as a lark.

  In my rearview mirror, I watched as she climbed into the backseat area. I slammed on the brakes. I had my seat belt on, I always wore it. Kari went flying, passing through the gap between the front seats, striking the windshield. That should have been enough to knock her out cold. She barely blinked.

  “You know, Jessica, your driving sucks,” she said, just before she kicked me in the jaw. I saw stars, the whole world tilted at an awkward angle. Fortunately the car had stopped and I had enough sense left to get out before she kicked me again.

  I leaped out the door without unfastening my seat belt. I just broke it. The change from the cool air inside to the blistering sun outside didn’t help the ringing in my head. I sagged against the side of the car, trying to catch my breath. But I exaggerated the gesture so Kari would come straight at me. That was a mistake on her part.

  I kicked the car door shut in her face. Her head went through the driver’s-side window. Jagged glass cut her scalp and blood flowed over her blond hair. Again, the blow should have knocked her out. It should have killed her. But she pulled her head free and smiled at me.

  “Not the weak witch you thought I was, am I?” she said.

  A setup. Her meek behavior had been a charade. Now she had me alone in the middle of nowhere, which had probably been her intention from the start. She had the strength gene. Hell, she appeared to be stronger than me, probably because she had been a witch longer. I needed to use my wits, I needed an advantage.

  Kari put one leg out of the car and I kicked at the door again, the metal cutting into her calf. Swearing, she toppled back inside the vehicle and I circled around to the trunk. I yanked it open, breaking the lock, and pulled away the carpet floor that covered the spare tire. A hasty scan revealed a steel jack that a driver could use to change a tire. Just as useful was the roadside kit. Inside it were a couple of flares and a long screwdriver.

  Grabbing the tools, I hurried to the passenger side. Kari had recovered and was standing casually beside the driver’s door, the blood still streaming from her hair. She was in no hurry to catch me. I think she wanted to toy with me first. We stood on opposite sides of the car.

  “Oh my, scary. You’ve got weapons,” she mocked me. “I suppose you expect me to surrender and beg for mercy.”

  “I could have killed you back at the house,” I said, stabbing the side of the hidden gas tank with the screwdriver. Gasoline began to pour onto the asphalt around the rear wheel, but not fast enough for my taste. Twisting the screwdriver back and forth, I widened the hole, and a flood of fuel splashed at my feet.

  Kari didn’t seem to notice. She couldn’t see what I was doing, and besides, she had always been so full of herself that she seldom stopped to consider what other people were up to. The fact that she was now a witch had not taken the spoiled cheerleader out of her.

  “You couldn’t kill someone if your life depended on it,” Kari said, slowly making her way toward the trunk. “You’re too sweet, too concerned about being good. I can’t imagine what a guy like James saw in you.”

  I backed toward the front of the car. “I don’t know, some guys are weird that way. They like a girl who has integrity, and who isn’t a slut.”

  Kari rounded the rear, approaching the dripping gasoline. She saw it, she had to see it, but she didn’t seem to care. She threw her head b
ack and laughed.

  “If I cheated on Jimmy he never knew. Or, I should say, he never asked. He’s a nice guy but he’s too naive for this world.”

  “So all that song and dance about him being the father of your child was bullshit?” I asked, sliding a flare from my back pocket but keeping it out of her view.

  Kari stopped and hardened her tone. “The bullshit was the way you justified stealing him away from me. You acted like the two of you were soul mates and that gave you the right to just walk over me. You made a big mistake when you made me your enemy, Jessica.”

  “Now I suppose you’re going to make me pay?”

  Kari pulled a switchblade from her pocket. Damn, I had missed that. She touched a button on the side and out popped a knife. The steel shone in the blazing sunlight, razor sharp.

  Kari gloated. “Sister. I’m going to make you bleed.”

  She pounced, but not before I knelt and broke the cap on the flare and scraped it across the asphalt. It took only a flick of my wrist to toss it in the pool of gasoline. Knowing what would happen next, I leaped away from the front of the car.

  The rear of the vehicle exploded in a fireball.

  Kari was briefly engulfed in flames, but it was the shock wave that did her the most damage. The car’s tank was practically full, and bathed in flames it made an effective bomb. The blast threw Kari off the road. Her hair caught fire and the switchblade was blown from her hand. She landed in a smoking pile.

  Raising the car jack, I was on her in an instant. I had to strike while I had the chance, I told myself. I couldn’t show mercy.

  I struck as she tried to stand. She didn’t see me coming. She was too busy trying to smother her burning hair. The jack caught her in the temple, the thinnest part of the skull. I heard a faint crack and swung at her from the other side. She was tough, she kept climbing. Then I wound up and struck as hard as I could at her left kneecap. I didn’t need a witch’s subtle senses to hear a mass of bone and cartilage fracture.

  Howling in pain, she fell on her back. I leaped onto her chest, pinning her arms with my knees, and pressed the jack to her throat. “Who’s bleeding now?” I sneered.