Lori Devoti - Amazon Ink

“How are you going to do that?” The Amazons had a complex structure. Each Amazon had loyalty to their family group, identified by their telios, and to the six reigning queens-especially the queen whose safe camp they were visiting. But for the most part, we hadn’t changed a lot from our nomadic past. We had tribe loyalty and were constantly pressured to follow tribe rule, but I’d never heard of an Amazon (outside of the queen and high priestess) being grounded to one safe camp. It went against one of our basic tenets of survival and our history as nomads-keep moving, never settle in one place too long.

“We’ll do it.” Her expression dared me to say otherwise.

“You think that does it? You think the killer was only targeting the girls who went to the bar?” I was truly curious. I wanted to believe rounding up the girls and keeping any others from visiting the bar would stop further killings, but I just didn’t know.

“Pisto’s taking another group to the bar tonight. Dana told her about parties they went to after the bar closed. Next party, we’ll be there.”

And what? Beat each and every person there until they admitted to being the killer?

“The parties are probably on the weekends,” I said for lack of anything else to add.

“Maybe.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you here?”

I ran my finger over the top of a file cabinet that sat by the door. It came back coated in dust. I wiped the dirt on my jeans. “I need to talk to you about something.”

She stood up and walked around to the front of the desk. “Talk.”

“I…” Despite the fact that most of the tribe still despised me, Zery trusted me right now. I didn’t want to say anything to endanger that, but her trust also meant maybe she’d at least listen to me when I suggested it was time to bring the Amazons out into the open.

“Like I said before, the police contacted me. Earlier, before you moved into the gym.”

She tilted her head. “You mentioned that. They thought you might know something about the girls’ tattoos.”

I nodded. “He’d taken them to some Milwaukee shops. Artists told him it looked like my work.”

“And?” She hadn’t moved an eyelash.

“And nothing. I told him I didn’t know anything.”

Her posture softened, but her gaze didn’t. If anything, it became more piercing. “But you didn’t tell me. When you saw those tattoos, you had to know the girls were Amazons. Why didn’t you warn me?”

She knew as well as I did that I had told her-that I had left the stone fetishes at the safe camp. She was giving me a second chance to explain that. I ignored her offer.

“We didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms.”

She started to say something, but I barreled on. “Point is, this cop, I’ve gotten to know him some. He really cares. He really wants to find the killer, and I was thinking that we haven’t been making a lot of headway. Maybe we…you…should talk to him.”

She pulled back like I’d slapped her, or tried to. “Have you been gone that long? We don’t work with humans. And we can certainly police our own problems-we’ve been doing it for millennia.”

“But the Amazons have never had to deal with a problem like this. No one has ever preyed on the Amazons. And you seem dead set on not believing Alcippe could be involved. Who does that leave?” I didn’t wait for her to state the obvious: me. I kept going. “If it isn’t someone in the tribe, it’s someone outside of it. Outside of your reign. You’ll have to deal with humans sooner or later.” If the killer wasn’t Alcippe. But no matter what, I still believed the Amazons opening to the outside world was the right move-that ultimately their insistence on a closed community was what had led to the girls’ deaths. And I didn’t want Amazons to reveal everything about who they were, just be more open, stop looking down on people who weren’t Amazons, be more aware of how the world had changed.

Her lips thinned; the skin surrounding them turned white. “We can take care of our own.”

I took a step forward. “I never thought you’d let arrogance cost Amazons their lives. The police can get information we can’t. Why not use that?”

“You’re pointing fingers at me? What about those fetishes? How did you get them? Maybe Alcippe is right-you too, for that matter. Amazons have never been ‘victims.’ We’ve never had to fear anyone because, loose as our structure is, we respect tradition-know what being an Amazon means, know how important keeping ourselves separate is. But then you leave, mingle with humans, live as a human, raise your daughter as one.

“As your friend, I can’t believe you killed your own kind. I can’t.” Her eyes were huge and her voice rough. “But as queen, I have to consider that you seem to value being human more than you ever valued being an Amazon. Is there a side to you I’m just not seeing? Is our friendship blinding me to your guilt? Did you kill those girls, or know who did?”

Anger swelled to a roar inside me. “We have been over this. If I was the killer, why would I let you stay here? Why would I be encouraging you to talk to the police? Why would I be here at all? Why wouldn’t I have run by now?”

She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the desk. I had the uncomfortable feeling it was to keep from grabbing onto me. “Why indeed? Maybe I’m not the only one who’s arrogant.”

I left without replying.

Zery wouldn’t talk to the police. I couldn’t make her.

I stepped out of the gym and into glaring sunshine. Four Amazons sat on the ground outside, talking. When I walked out, they stopped and followed me with their eyes. Their animosity was tangible-worse than before. I guessed they’d heard of my run-in with Pisto or seen the evidence. I doubted Pisto would have run home and tattled. Not her style.

I felt their gazes like stones attached to my back as I walked away.

Damn them. I was not the enemy. Why couldn’t they see that?

Over dinner I realized a hole in my thinking. I couldn’t make Zery talk to the police, not of her own free will. But I could bring the police to her. I could tell the police about the Amazons without revealing who and what they truly were.

Half truths. A new art I seemed to have mastered.

I went to bed with the knowledge I was going to make use of it tomorrow.

I called Reynolds first thing the next morning and got voice mail offering a cell-phone number. I called it. He was already in his car and on his way over. It would have been flattering if I hadn’t gotten the distinct feeling he was fingering his handcuffs as we chatted-and not in a let’s-have-some-fun way. When I told him I was ready to talk but wanted to do so on neutral ground, he named a coffee shop not far from campus.

“I was a member of a cult.”

Reynolds set his coffee cup down without taking a drink. “A cult?”

“Well…” I twiddled a plastic stir stick between my fingers. “I wouldn’t call it a cult.”

“You just did.”

“I know.” I tapped the stick against the paper cup. “It’s just hard to put a term to it.”

“Closed group with a charismatic leader who keeps the members cut off from outside society?”

I bit into the stick, flattening it with my teeth, then dropped it back into my cup. “The point is-I was part of a group that’s a tad shy.”

“Secretive.” He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a notepad.

“They don’t surround themselves with barbed wire or anything.” Wards were a lot more effective. “And members come and go all the time.”

“So do Hare Krishnas.”

I snorted. “Believe me, none of these women are selling flowers at the airport.”

“They sell fortunes instead?” He looked at me without raising his head from the notepad.