Amazon Ink

Chapter Twenty-three

The lion lunged. All thought of Alcippe fled. I spun, threw the spear without pausing to aim or think about the best target. To my shock, it hit home, embedded into the lion’s head. Like the bull he shimmered, then was gone. The spear fell with a clatter to the floor. I just stared at it. Again my heart pounded. My pulse jumped at my throat. My gaze shot to my grandmother. She was unmoved, unruffled.

I took a step forward. “What the-?” The lion reappeared, but like the bull, frozen. I snapped my mouth closed and searched for my next opponent. The hare, stag, and fish all came to life.

On the surface, none of these animals seemed particularly dangerous-but I knew better than to relax. I didn’t understand this game, but I knew one was under way-and I needed to learn the rules fast.

The three animals wandered around the court, seemingly unaware of my presence. I glanced at Mother, but no weapon was shoved my way. The first two had saved me from being gored or eaten, but they hadn’t won the game. Perhaps that was all she’d been doing, buying me time to figure things out. Or perhaps she was as perplexed as I was. Either way, I was on my own.

The sword was within reach. And with no better idea leaping into my mind, I picked it up and started toward the deer. He didn’t startle, just lowered his head to munch on imaginary grass, then twisted his neck to rub his antlers on the floor. I raised the sword, ready to sever his spinal cord like I’d done to the bull, but as my arm raised, he shifted-grew, until his rack was an impenetrable maze reaching from floor to ceiling. I lowered the sword anyway, felt the impact as it hit bone all through my body, but the stag didn’t disappear, didn’t even move.

I jerked the sword free from the antlers and stared at Bubbe. Like the deer, she seemed unmoved. I thought about tossing the sword to the side then, admitting defeat, but my fingers wouldn’t let go.

Damn it. I wanted to beat her; I was going to deliver everything I had.

I stalked to the fish, grabbing the spear on the way. I stabbed at him. He slithered right, then left, darting as if swimming with the current, as if my spear were inconsequential-of no threat whatsoever. I dropped it, tried to grab him with my hands. I had him or thought I did, but as my fingers closed, he slipped through, slid out of reach.

Trying to hide my growing frustration, I moved toward the hare. He was gray, his eyes like black marbles. I stayed back, waited for him to do something. He sat up on his haunches, rubbed his front paw over his nose, and studied me in return. Then he winked.

Winked. That’s when I got it-a trickster. The hare was a trickster-a lot like my grandmother. She’d set me up, known I would believe the way through this challenge was through direct battle, known Mother would throw things at me and like an idiot I would follow her lead.

I pivoted, strolled to center court, and sat down. I needed to think, not act. My gut always got me moving before my brain had time to weigh things. And Bubbe knew that.

I needed to gain control, needed to think.

Bubbe had called on the telios for a reason. Each had a special gift or message, but I didn’t think that was the point here. Not really. This was my grandmother’s message, and what was her favorite lesson to lecture me on?

Being an Amazon, accepting who I was.

I stood up. Around me all the telioses had come to life. I ignored them, walked past the leopard pacing to my right, stepped over the serpent that threatened to slither over my foot. Went directly to a table where Pisto had kept paper and pens for charting which Amazon was leading in what competition. I jerked the cap off a marker with my teeth, shoved up my sleeve, and started drawing.

To win you had to battle with your own weapons, define the fight for yourself.

I needed to play on my strengths. I was an artisan. This was how I had to battle.

I drew snow and a den. Mountains and trees. A spring-fed stream and a field filled with clover. I drew everything the telios needed to thrive, then one by one I approached them.

I reached for the fish first, felt the cold splash of water as my hand dipped toward him. Wiggled my fingers, let him swim toward me through my splayed digits. I wasn’t there to catch him or destroy him. I was there to free him. As he shot past my hand, for the briefest of seconds the stream I’d drawn on my arm appeared. He lunged forward. His body whipping back and forth, he went with the current until he reached the edge of the court of our defined battle zone, leapt into the air, and disappeared.

The bull let me approach, followed me to the field, put his head down, and charged out of the court. The leopard leapt into a tree, prowled along the branch until the limb misted away above the line of Amazons’ heads. The hawk soared into a mountain sky. The stag trotted into a forest. One by one all the telioses left, and it was just Bubbe and me alone in the center of the court. By her side stood the wolf. She was smiling.

“Only one left. Do you know what this telios wants? How to free him?” she asked.

He was gray and tan, rangy. His eyes were golden. He sat by my grandmother’s side, completely at peace. He was familiar and beautiful. I suddenly realized I had no idea what he wanted, what would make him feel free. I could fool the other telioses, but I couldn’t fool my own. Couldn’t convince him the fake image of trees or hills were real. Couldn’t make him disappear.

I held out my hands, but he didn’t come. Just watched me with an intelligence that made me doubt everything I’d done, everything I’d ever believed.

Finally I dropped my arms to my sides, too tired to keep playing this game. The desire to beat my grandmother wasn’t enough to keep me going. I wanted a truth from Alcippe, not Bubbe. I was done, let her beat me.

“You know I don’t,” I replied.

“Don’t or won’t?” Bubbe dropped her hand to the wolf’s head, ran her fingers over his fur. At her touch, he looked up. My body tensed, and I knew she was right: I was afraid of facing my own telios, of facing that very important part of who I was.

Her hand dropped to her side, and the wolf disappeared. “You’ve won. Declare your truth,” she said.

I raised my brows. “Me? I didn’t master the telios.”

“No, you didn’t do as I wanted. As I said, you beat me. I give up. I can’t make you accept who you are. You win.”

I grunted. No one could twist words and events like my grandmother. As much as I had wanted to beat her, this wasn’t victory. It was almost like a whole new kind of loss.

“I say you won,” I replied. “Tell me what you want to know.”

Her hand drifted to where her dress closed in the front. She stroked the silk trim. “There is nothing for you to tell me, Melanippe. I know you. I trust you.”

We stared at each other, she with the same relaxed patience she’d shown through the entire ordeal, me without it.

Alcippe stepped forward, raising both hands as she did. “With no clear victory each can demand a truth.” She nodded at Bubbe.

My grandmother studied me for a second, then asked, “Have you ever killed an Amazon?”

The question was direct and one I could answer easily. She could have worded it much more broadly, forced me to admit my connection to the crimes, but she didn’t, and I recognized that, although the Amazons still lining the court didn’t seem to. Every eye was focused on me, every finger tightening around some weapon.

“No.”

The exhale of air was audible, the disappointment and confusion tangible. It startled me, made me realize how thoroughly they had wanted me to be guilty. I was an easy target-no longer one of their own, but not completely foreign either. I was the safe choice, the only one that would mean nothing in their lives would truly change-and with one word, I’d blown that dream to hell and back.

I turned, ready to leave.

“You have a question for me.”

I looked back. Bubbe lifted a brow. “Make me answer it.”

I frowned. What did she want me to ask? What truth did she think needed telling in front of witnesses?

The questions I’d had for Alcippe rushed to my mind. Are you killing the Amazons? Did you kill my son?

Too specific. Yes-and-no answers seldom gave you the full truth.

I licked my lips, concentrated on what I could ask that would tell me something I needed to know and needed to know was true.

“Why did you take this challenge from Alcippe?” It was a simple question, one very likely unrelated to anything, but it was the one that I couldn’t answer alone, couldn’t fathom by myself.

Bubbe smiled; a quick light of victory gleamed in her eyes. “I told you. I’m the one who has the answer to your question.”

I closed my eyes. I’d let her trick me, given her a question she could answer truthfully without revealing anything at all. I didn’t have time for this, had wasted enough as it was. Perhaps now that the Amazons knew I wasn’t the killer, they’d listen to my case against Alcippe.

I turned to face them, but Bubbe wasn’t done.

“Alcippe didn’t kill your son.”

My breath stopped; my eyes focused on nothing.

“He isn’t dead or wasn’t, at least, when I left him at a human hospital.”

There was a whooshing in my ears, a decade of hate rushing up to greet me. I could barely hear the rest of my grandmother’s words-how she’d used magic to make him appear stillborn, taken him from my arms, bundled him up, and delivered him to some human hospital. How no one but she had known. How she’d done it because she loved me, loved Harmony, and hoped with my son out of sight and mind, I’d settle down, get back to who I’d been, accept being an Amazon.

After that it was just static, the annoying buzz of misplaced trust and false love swirling around me. I stumbled from the gym, or felt like I did. I didn’t fall, and no one came after me. I wandered alone to my truck, got in, and drove.

I hadn’t even made it to the first stoplight before flashing lights glared at me from my rearview mirror. Madison cops aren’t big on traffic stops; I was instantly wary. I pulled over anyway.

Reynolds stepped out of the unmarked car. I stayed in the truck, my fingers gripping the steering wheel so tightly I was surprised it didn’t snap from the pressure.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

I stared out my windshield; a new crack was forming where a rock had hit it on my last journey to the safe camp. I should have had it filled. Too late now.

Too late for a lot of things.

“Mel?” He angled his body, looked from me to the car he’d left. I wondered briefly if he was signaling to someone inside, if I was going to be surrounded soon. “Mel.” This time he leaned forward, almost into the truck, inches from my face.

“Nothing. I’m doing nothing,” I replied.

He breathed then, but didn’t back off. “You raced out of your lot pretty fast,” he commented.

“Yeah, well, I needed to get away.” I looked at him. “Still do.”

He cocked a brow. “Not the best thing to say to a police officer.” His lips twisted toward a smile.

I didn’t return the gesture.

He sighed. “Listen, you’re obviously upset. If it has something to do with the case, I need to know.”

The case. Zery and the dead girls. I’d almost forgotten. Turned out my brain could only concentrate on one tragedy at a time.

I pursed my lips-forced my voice to stay calm, to hide the emotion whipping through my body. “It has nothing to do with the case.” Or did it? I’d been so sure I knew what had happened to my son. Knew Alcippe had killed him-and I’d been wrong. What else was I wrong about? Was Alcippe innocent of the girls’ deaths too? If not her, who? Who else had high priestess and artisan skills? Had a reason to target me and motive to kill Amazon teens?

I pressed my fingers to my brow, completely blowing my facade of calm.

“Mel.” Reynolds glanced back at the car again. “There’s something you aren’t telling me. I think we need to go back to your shop.”

I dropped my hands, stared him in the eye. “Where’s Zery? How’s she doing?”

His tongue made a bump in his cheek. It was obvious he didn’t want to answer. “She’s in Milwaukee.”

“But you’re here.” Was that good or bad?

“I questioned her earlier. She refused an attorney.”

“She didn’t tell you anything.” I’d be shocked if she’d given him so much as her name.

He cleared his throat. “It would go easier for her if she would.”

I wrapped my hands back around the steering wheel. “She won’t.”

He watched me for a second. I could feel his eyes studying my profile. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for-the killer’s name tattooed on my cheek?

His hand smacked against my truck door. “I’m going to your shop. You can follow or not.”

I watched him walk back to his car, his legs eating up the space with long determined moves. I turned the key in the ignition, determined to keep going. Let him go back to the shop. Let him find the Amazons acting on whatever the hell idiotic plan they had brewed up.

It wasn’t my problem.

His car sped past me, performed an illegal U-turn right before the light changed and released a flood of cars all in a hurry to go Artemis knew where. I started moving, took a right on Glenway, then slammed on my brakes to the annoyance and honks of a VW Bug behind me. I twisted the steering wheel to the left, gunned my way through a tow place’s parking lot, and took another left back onto Monroe.

Damn Reynolds for already knowing me so well.

Reynolds was leaning against his car, which was parked on an angle, taking up two places, when I arrived back at my shop. I hopped out of my truck and slammed the door. It needed the extra force to latch, but it felt good too.

“This is a waste of your time.” I shoved my hands into my front pockets and stared at the detective. I didn’t want to walk down that sidewalk right now, didn’t want to risk seeing Bubbe, or any of the Amazons. The knife that had been shoved in my back was still there, throbbing, making it hard to breathe.

He slowly pushed away from his car and sauntered toward the sidewalk.

After blowing out a breath, I followed, but I didn’t hurry. Just putting one foot in front of the other was hard enough. He’d reached the midway point-at the crosswalks that led to the basement door on the right and the cafeteria door on the left. He paused then, his hands on his hips, and looked up at Harmony’s window and the tree, then over to the roof of the cafeteria/gym. Again I wondered what he was expecting to see, but shrugged the thought aside. Fact was, there was no telling what he might see.

As I came within a few feet of him, he spun toward the cafeteria door and paused again. “Do I have your permission to enter?”

I realized then he needed my permission-at least for anything he saw inside to be usable for his case. I chewed at my lip, struggling with old loyalties and newly discovered deceit.

Up ahead, something moved.

Bubbe stepped out from behind the gym, onto the other end of the sidewalk. Her arms hung at her side, her shoulders rounded. She looked old and tired.

She’d pulled this trick before. She didn’t fool me-not this time.

“Do you allow me a mistake, devochka moya?” she asked.

I shifted my gaze, the lump in my throat making it hard for me to swallow, the sudden pounding in my chest making it hard for me to stand there, not to run away.

Reynolds turned, but slowly, like he was afraid of startling us. I ignored him. Whether he entered the building or not, discovered what we were or not, didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

I turned too, but away. There was nothing for me here now. No trust, no love. The shop I’d built, been so proud of, the mother and grandmother I’d believed in, none of it meant anything. The only thing left was Harmony. I was going to go get her, take her and leave.

Florida. There was a camp there, but it was a big state. We could keep away from it, from Amazons, and Harmony would like it. What teenage girl didn’t dream of living near the beach?

“Some things you can’t run from. Some things follow.”

I came to a stop. Was she saying she’d follow, like she and Mother had the last time? I turned back.

“Don’t. I won’t take you in this time.”

“I did what I thought was right. What was best. Have you never made a mistake? Done something that later you knew hurt others?”

The dead girls. One, then two. Slipping their bodies from my truck, rolling them into the grass. Zery staked out in my yard. Then Pisto taken too…dead. Were my silence, my actions, the cause?

My hands started to shake.

“I can’t take it back. I can’t do it over.” Bubbe didn’t move, and her voice didn’t change, but I could feel her sorrow…her regret.

I stared at the tip of my boot, at a brown scuff on the black rubber.

I didn’t want to understand what she had done. I didn’t want to forgive her.

Reynolds stepped off the sidewalk into the grass, moved toward my grandmother. I didn’t know what he was thinking, why he was approaching her, but suddenly I did know, angry as I was, much as I wanted to hate her with all the abandon I’d hated Alcippe, I couldn’t.

“No,” I said.

Reynolds stopped. His eyebrows rose.

“You don’t have my permission to go inside. There’s nothing in there for you. Nothing that will help you with your case.”

Then I turned to my right and walked down the steps, into my shop’s basement.

I wasn’t ready to forgive Bubbe or even talk with her, but I wasn’t running either. Not this time.