Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was a toss-up who would show up to claim the title of queen of the ferals, Lissa or Vanessa, but it was my mother who showed.

I recognized the perpetual scorn in her voice. “Tansy, I’m beginning to lose patience.”

She’d really leaned into the whole queen thing. Vanessa was wearing the skull tiara and a long poufy dress, like she thought she was a fucking prom queen.

Something hit the back of my head, hard. I swayed but didn’t go down. I started to turn to face my attacker, but my vision was going spotty and dark.

I wanted to pass out but forced myself to stay upright. I heard a familiar voice say, “What did I tell you, Travis?”

“Not to trust her,” Travis said sulkily.

And then it was lights out.

When I came to, I was tied up. Awesome.

I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but it was long enough that my mother and her hench vamps had disarmed my friends and tied them up, too.

They put silver handcuffs on the werewolf pack before any of them had time to shift. Rose was stone-faced but leaning against Lucas. Vaughn sent me a smile that was meant to be reassuring but was laced with pain. The bite of the silver cuffs on his skin must be excruciating.

Vanessa held Mr. Sheridan by the throat, one long fingernail against his neck.

“Give me the ruby, Tansy, or I swear I’ll kill him,” Vanessa said. “Tell me where it is. Now.”

“Vanessa, I thought we were going to settle down,” Mr. Sheridan said, sounding hurt. “Reconcile with our children. Maybe have a kid together.”

“First, I need to settle a few things with my daughter.” My mother smirked at me.

“There isn’t going to be a happily ever after for Vanessa,” I told Mr. Sheridan. There was no way I was going to let him stay married to my mom. Having Vaughn as my stepbrother would definitely put an ick factor into our relationship. More importantly, Mr. Sheridan deserved better than Vanessa Mariotti.

I thought that would get to her, but she just smiled. “Like you’re strong enough to stop me. Let’s play Kiss, Marry, or Kill.”

I bared my teeth in a semblance of a smile. “I like a good fight.”

“You won’t win this one,” my mother replied. “Especially since from where I stand, it looks like I’ve already won.”

“I should have staked you when I had the chance,” I said. Killing my mother, even though she was an evil vampire and a horrible mother, was a line I wouldn’t cross. But Vanessa didn’t have to know that.

“But you didn’t,” she said. “Now tell me.” My fangs came down, but I couldn’t exactly gnaw at the ropes holding me tight without anyone noticing. But my fingernails were long and vampire sharp. I started to saw away while I tried to keep her talking.

“I can’t believe you’re still pulling this shit,” I said. Ferals just kept coming, until Mason’s office was full of their decaying unwashed bodies. The smell was making me choke.

My drumstick clattered to the floor, and my eyes focused on it. So close and yet so far away. It no longer seemed impossible to use it to stake my mother.

My mother caught me staring at it and glared before shaking her finger at me like a mother admonishing her child. “No, no. Pick that up,” Vanessa ordered the extremely tall vampire who was her second-in-command. “Get these ferals out of here,” she said. “They stink.”

He nodded. “Anything else?”

“Round everyone left in this hotel up,” Vanessa ordered. “No killing. I’ll decide what to do with them later.”

We waited in silence while the feral vampires went to do her bidding. I continued to work at my bindings whenever my mother wasn’t looking.

Finally, the tall vamp came back. And he wasn’t alone.

“Did you search the hotel?” my mother asked. There were so many ferals, pasty white and barely clothed.

“Empty,” a feral grunted.

“You didn’t find him?”

Now she sounded nervous, and I realized who they were looking for. “Mason got away,” I said. I had no idea where Mason was or if he was even still alive.

“But I did find this,” the vampire said, thrusting Skyler in front of my mother. No. Not after everything we did to save Skyler from Travis.

“Let’s go,” my mother said.

“What about the human girl?” A big glob of drool dripped down the sucker’s lips as he stared at Skyler.

“Let her go,” I said.

My mother smirked at me. “Bring her with us,” Vanessa said. “Unharmed. My daughter may need another incentive.”

“Incentive?” I asked. “You have the ruby. You have what you wanted. You don’t need to hurt anyone.”

“I won’t hurt anyone if you cooperate,” she said. Whatever she had planned made her smile, which made me worried. “The rest of you, keep looking.”

“What about him?” the lead sucker asked, staring at Travis.

“I’m the king’s son,” Travis said, offended.

“Leave him be,” Vanessa said. “For now.”

“What would you like me to do, my queen?” tall vamp said, his eyes fixed on her crown of skulls.

“Take them to our den,” Vanessa said. One of the ferals tried to take a bite of me, and Vaughn headbutted him. “Alive,” my mother added.

We walked out of the hotel and onto the street, my mother not even bothering to hide the feral vampires. If anyone saw the suckers, they would probably assume they were part of a Vegas show or something.

Vaughn’s wrists were bleeding from him trying to get out of the cuffs.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my grandmother.

“Granny, run!” I shouted. She did.

“What about the old woman?” the bitey one asked in a rusty voice. It sounded like he hadn’t used it in a long time. It sounded like cobwebs and creaking doors.

Vanessa shrugged. “I don’t need her,” she said. “Just be careful. She’s a witch.”

I knew Granny could take care of herself. With any luck, she had escaped, but I wasn’t sure magic even worked on feral vampires.

Mine certainly had not, but my witch side was currently gasping for breath.

The bitey vampire looked uncertain, so Vanessa spelled it out. “Go after her,” Vanessa commanded. “I don’t care if you bring her back or have a snack.”

Granny was in shape, so it wouldn’t be easy to catch her. At least I hoped not.

The feral vampires marched us to the entrance of an underground tunnel, snapping and growling if we stumbled.

What was it with vampires and cold, dark places? I hated confined spaces, but I didn’t have a choice.

We walked in silence for several minutes, the tunnels twisting and turning until I wasn’t sure where we were.

I caught sight of something ghostly white with red eyes and fangs. There were vampires in the tunnel, but these vampires had gone wild. Slug white, their eyes gleamed red, and they didn’t seem to recognize us as humans at all. Just prey.

While the other vampires I’d met and staked had at least given the appearance of humanity, these vampires walked on all fours easily on spindly legs. Some of them wore tattered clothing, but most were nude or nearly nude. Many had scars, from battle or from the various discarded objects in the tunnel. They were hollow cheeked and thin. They looked like they hadn’t eaten in a long time and wouldn’t be too picky about their next meal.

They were the wildest of the feral creatures, and whatever control Vanessa had over them might not be enough to stop them from ripping us apart.

The tunnels finally came out in the desert, miles from Vegas. There were a few rotting, graffiti-covered walls of what used to be houses and a couple of junker cars. The desert was cold and dark and full of suckers.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“The suckers live in the abandoned mine,” Travis said. The address she sent me, I realized, my stomach sinking.

“I thought you said you didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.

“I don’t,” he said. “But everyone knows about this place. All real vampires, anyhow.”

“Ooh, burn,” I said.

There was a flicker of movement behind Vanessa. I tried not to stare as Mason moved behind a rock spray-painted with graffiti.

“What are you looking at?” Vanessa asked, turning around.

“Nice place you have here,” I said. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked like she was thinking about hitting me. Instead, she motioned to her guards, and two of them escorted her away somewhere.

The other vamps led us to the boarded-up mine shaft. The bigger vamp ripped it away. “Down,” he grunted.

“There’s something down there,” Skyler whispered. “And I think it’s alive.”

Our escorts chuckled. “Don’t stray off the path now.” Then they shoved us one by one into the darkness.

My eyes adjusted to the dimness. There were hundreds of tiny skeletons, which were, judging from the size and shape, the bones of rats, cats, and rabbits. One of the feral vampires was picking his long pointy teeth with a finger bone that looked human. I looked away.

We finally reached a large room. Rusting mining equipment was decorated with bones and bits of material like a macabre Christmas tree.

My mother was standing in the center on a raised dais. “You did very well, my children.”

The roar of the feral vampires was so loud that my ears were ringing. They were shouting something, but it was hard to understand what they were saying. Then I figured it out. They were shouting “Queen Vanessa.” The tiara was starting to make sense.

She raised her hands, and they immediately fell silent.

“Thank you all,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

My mother was making a speech, breaking out the lamest team-building platitudes. If her next words were there’s no I in Team, I was going to lose it.

She was enjoying the hundreds of rapt faces hanging on her every word.

I stared at the hungry faces around me and realized that Vanessa was using something to compel the vampires.

Finally, she motioned to a bodyguard, and he opened one of the casks. I’d thought it was wine, but it was filled with blood.

The smell was strong, but I could tell it wasn’t human. Bovine.

The vampires started to hiss and crowd around, eager to get at the blood. But I already knew there wasn’t nearly enough to satiate them. While her subjects were occupied, Vanessa motioned the guards to bring us over to her. Her second-in-command had my drumstick down the front of his pants. I was going to have to disinfect it before I touched it again.

The handle of my parasol was looped in his elbow.

The ruby was a heavy weight in the handle of my parasol. If Vanessa picked it up instead of letting her hench vamp carry it, she would realize where I’d hidden the ruby.

It was almost worth it, though, to see Vanessa’s face when she searched me, looking for the ruby, only to come up empty-handed.

She turned to the nearest sucker and staked him. But she’d calm down eventually. And then she’d find the ruby.

“I know you have it,” she said. She yanked off my charm necklace. Vanessa hissed when her skin touched my charm necklace and then jerked away. She grabbed it again, swearing as the magic bit into her skin. She sorted through the charms and then swore again. “It’s not here.” She glared at me.

I smirked. “Looking for something?”

“Where’s the ruby?” she asked.

“You’ll kill us if I tell you,” I said.

“I’ll kill you all if you don’t,” she said. She was going to kill us all anyway.

My mother shoved Mr. Sheridan at her second-in-command.

“You are a terrible mother,” I said. The venom in my veins urged me to kill her now, but the rest of me couldn’t do it.

“What are you going to do with the ruby, anyway?” I asked her. I felt the rope binding my wrists finally give but kept my expression blank.

She grinned, and her smile sent a chill through me. “You’ll see. Give it to me now or I’ll kill my beloved husband.”

That snapped Mr. Sheridan out of his daze. “Vanessa!”

“Don’t you dare touch him,” I said. “Why are the vampires listening to you?”

My father stepped into view. “I hear you were looking for me,” How had he arrived without anyone seeing him? He’d probably slithered in.

Now my fucked-up family reunion was complete.

At least Vanessa’s attention was on Mason, who could take care of himself, instead of Mr. Sheridan who could not.

Mason gave my mother a long look. “Vanessa, you heard your queen. She will be extremely upset if anything should happen to Mr. Sheridan.” He was calling me her queen just to mess with her.

A flash of anger in her eyes confirmed that my mother hated that, that her daughter was a vampire queen. Because she loved power more than anything.

“Tansy is not my queen,” my mother said. “I’m the only queen here.”

“Queen of the ferals?” He smirked at Vanessa. “Tansy’s more of a queen than you’ll ever be,” he said.

She sucked in a breath.

“She won’t be a queen if she’s dead,” Vanessa said. “And she’ll do whatever I tell her to protect her friends.” She was right, but I was shocked that my mother knew me that well. Or more accurately, that she had been paying attention during the short, regrettable time that I’d believed what my mother had told me. That she had wanted a second chance, an opportunity to be a real family.

The shame of being that gullible sometimes threatened to overwhelm me, but Granny had told me that Vanessa’s actions were on her, not on me. Still, here we were, in the middle of a drama that my mother had orchestrated.

Mason stood, his hands at his side as the ferals grabbed him and hauled him in front of Vanessa.

Then another figure stepped into view.

“Lissa,” I cried out. “Lissa LaStrange. Please help us.”

Mason stared at Lissa like he’d seen a ghost. “Annalise?”

“I told you she was involved,” I said.

“It is you, Annalise,” Mason murmured, but she ignored him.

“Sometimes you have to make your own miracles, Tansy,” she replied.

“You can’t trust Vanessa,” I said.

“She said she’d give me the Blood of Life ruby,” Lissa said.

It was all starting to make terrible sense. “She’s lying to you, Lissa.”

For the first time, a flicker of uncertainty crossed her face. “How do you know?”

“Because she doesn’t have the ruby,” I said. “I do.”

She snarled at my mother. “You promised me the ruby,” Lissa said. “Where is it?”

The vindictive gleam in her eyes told me what she was going to do before she did it. She doubled up her fist and then punched me in the stomach.

Then my mother smoothed down her gown. “Oh, she’ll give it to me,” she said. “Or her friends will suffer until she does.”

Not only did she want the ruby, but she also wanted to kill me to take my place, to become the vampire queen of California. I couldn’t let that happen.

She’d been using the tiara to control the ferals, but I wasn’t sure anyone else had figured that out.

Vanessa wanted that tiara for a reason. No time like the present to test my theory. I lunged and knocked the tiara off her head. That’s when all hell broke loose.

It released the ferals from whatever spell they’d been under. They surged forward. “Back!” My mother screeched, but they ignored her, pressing closer, reaching for her.

Her loyal guards were drooling. She was no longer their queen; she was a food source.

I tried to scoop up the crown, but it was lost in the mass of feral feet as they charged.

But then Lissa grabbed the tiara and plunked it on her own head. “Stop,” she told the feral vampires. They stopped moving, and she smiled at me.

“Tansy, I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t give me the ruby,” she said.

I would try to reason with her. Lissa was my father’s sister. I tried to remember what the twins had told me about her, but I came up mostly empty. “Lissa, you don’t want to do this.”

Lissa opened her mouth to say something, maybe to give an order to her feral subjects, but before she could, Vanessa knocked the crown off Lissa’s head.

“I think I’ll be breaking that promise.” Vanessa moved so quickly she was a blur. She snatched the tiara and then staked Lissa. And she used my drumstick to do it.

Before this was over, I was going to kill my mother. If I survived.