Lori Devoti - Amazon Ink

After she left, the warrior twins showed me some teeth. It was not in the form of a smile, at least not one seen anywhere except on the face of a hyena before it lunged at your throat. I returned the gesture with a full peep at my own impressively healthy set of choppers. They growled and grunted, but left.

Alone, I pulled out the leather bag and worked the tie open with my teeth. Two totems, some twigs, a handful of acorns and a lighter fell onto the floor. I glanced at the door, afraid the twins might have heard, but after a few seconds turned back to my task.

I swept up a pile of dirt with my hand, then used it to outline a circle. That done, I placed the two totems in the center-a horse for Pisto’s givnomai and a lion for her telios. I paused, my fingers still touching the stone representation of the lion-the same family group as Zery. The groups had developed over the first few hundred years of the Amazons’ existence. It didn’t mean Zery and Pisto were closely related, but it did mean they probably felt some kinship, some loyalty based solely on sharing a telios.

Perhaps I could use that loyalty to make things easier on Dana. A vote from a queen would go a long way toward easing her life if she did choose to mingle with Amazons aside from outcast me and my family. And maybe that tie would make Zery more willing to stand by Dana than our lifetime of friendship had. I swallowed the bubble of hurt and went back to my work, added the twigs and an acorn to the circle’s center.

It took a few tries, but soon I had the twigs smoldering. A tiny wisp of smoke snaked upward. I leaned forward, closed my eyes, and called on Artemis.

This time the vision came hard and fast, almost knocked me back against the wall. Pisto-trapped and angry. I could feel her energy as clearly as if she stood in the room next to me. I sat lost for a while, caught up in the power, forgot that Pisto was dead-that the energy I felt so clearly couldn’t be hers. I had hoped to somehow tap into where her givnomai was now, get some feeling or guidance from Artemis, but this direct link…it was impossible. Pisto was dead, and her givnomai was no longer attached to her body. The emotion radiating from the combined totems could only exist if the combination were still attached to a live form-but they weren’t. Couldn’t be. Before an Amazon was allowed to choose her givnomai, a priestess checked to see if the pairing existed already. If it did, it couldn’t be used-not until that Amazon died, freeing the givnomai for another in her clan. Perhaps there was some slim possibility a priestess had screwed up, reused Pisto’s pair, but…I closed my eyes, let the energy flow through me, red-hot boiling anger…outrage…Pisto. There was no mistaking it.

Somehow the power in Pisto’s givnomai still lived.

But if it wasn’t attached to Pisto, if she didn’t have control over it-who did?

I smothered the remnants of the fire with my hand and sat there staring at the two totems-almost afraid to pick them up. What I suspected wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough that I’d rolled everything around in my mind multiple times, come back to the same well-worn possibility over and over.

The teens being delivered to me-to throw suspicion my way? To force me to face the Amazons?

Zery being staked out in a clear show of priestess and artisan skill. Skills I had, although none had known it, but skills others in the tribe, Alcippe, for example, possessed too.

Alcippe trying to force Dana to abort her baby. Alcippe angry when I got in her way. Alcippe appearing moments after we found Pisto-when she should have been miles away, back at the safe camp.

But why? Why kill the first girls-because they didn’t obey? Had they shown ideas of wanting to be free of the Amazon rules? To leave the safe camp, not just for a night, but forever? But then, why not kill Dana too? Because she knew the girl was pregnant, hoped in the beginning the child would be a girl, would pull Dana back closer to the tribe?

And then, when the baby had been a boy and Dana had come running to me…had the priestess snapped so thoroughly she’d gone so far as killing Pisto, knowing I would be yet again the obvious target of the Amazons’ wrath?

Was staking out Zery also because of me-punishment for her believing me?

Was all of this because Alcippe had lost control of the tribe, saw that mixing with humans was coming, and blamed me? Hated me?

I jumped to my feet and began banging on the door.

I’d started to wonder if the twins had left me when finally the doorknob began to twist. I stepped back, breathless from my whole-bodied attack to get their attention.

Bubbe stepped into the room. In her hands were my favorite hiking boots and the keys to my truck. Behind her the basement was dark and empty-no twins.

“What’s happened?” Bubbe’s face and the missing twins told me it was something bad.

“Zery. The police have her.” She shoved the boots into my hands.

The news set me back, but I took the hikers and put them on. “The police?” I asked.

“She was taking Pisto’s body to the safe camp. They were almost to the beltline. Alcippe was following her in another car. That detective pulled Zery over.”

Boots on and keys in hand, I stood and stared her in the eyes. “He pulled her over?” Could he do that? A Milwaukee detective pull over a car in Madison for no reason?

“There were other cars too. A group of Amazons were driving down. But only Zery was pulled over. Alcippe tried to stop, but Zery waved her on.”

“So, where’s Zery now?”

“They found Pisto’s body in Zery’s car. They took her away in shackles.”

Handcuffs. The police had hauled an Amazon queen off to human jail in handcuffs. This was very bad.

“The warriors?”

“In the gym. Without Zery or Pisto…” Bubbe shook her head. “Cleo is trying to settle them, stop them from their stupidity.”

“They want to attack the jail, don’t they?” Of course they did. Most of them had spent their entire lives dreaming of fighting a real battle with a real cause. Freeing their queen from human clutches? What could be more noble?

“That is the talk now, but there have been other mentions.” Her gaze was sharp.

Me. They wanted me-dead, I was sure. Nothing like facing a mob of Amazon warriors to liven up a dull imprisonment.

“Harmony will be safe.” Bubbe shoved open the door. “We will bring her to you when things have settled.”

I stared at the open door, unable to do much more. She wanted me to run, to leave my daughter. She knew me better than that-surely. My gaze traveled back to my grandmother. She raised her hands, started to mumble.

I strode forward, stepped into her space. “Don’t even think it. I don’t care how strong your powers are. They won’t get me to leave Harmony.”

Her eyes narrowed. Her lips drew together in a pucker. “You will both be safer if you aren’t here.”

“Not if the killer is still out there. I know who it is-who it has to be.”

Bubbe relaxed her lips, moving from a purse to a twist.

“It’s Alcippe. And all of this is about her losing control of the Amazons and her hatred of me. If I leave and she can’t get to me and I leave Harmony behind, she’ll go after her, because Alcippe knows that would hurt me more than anything. Would kill me.”

Bubbe shook her head. “Alcippe lives for the tribe.”

“And that’s why she hates me.” I ran through everything I’d worked out in the last few hours. When I was done, Bubbe looked no more convinced, but she didn’t start chanting either. She moved to the side and stared at the wall-let me walk past her into the basement, her gaze never wandering from whatever spot she’d focused on.