Asteria realized the other three continued to watch her, even when the child switched sides, which was also quite painful, his dagger-like teeth sinking in with no regard for her sensitive flesh. “What are you doing?” she barked at them. “Surely, there must be something else you could be spending your time on!”
“Your Majesty, much has happened while you slumbered. Melbourne… we’ve been attacked. But we’ve pushed back the assault, for now. And we have prisoners as well as a Hunter’s demise.” Hines oscillated between an anxious smile and pride.
“Only one?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“Well, they brought hardly any Hunters with them. But five Guardians stand in the cells below Larundel, waiting for my return so that I may end them.”
“Why are we waiting? Have your incompetent assistant do it.” The child adjusted, snarling, as if he didn’t like it when she spoke, and she patted him on the head in an attempt to soothe him.
“Your Majesty, I’d like to take care of that myself. I’m not sure anyone else can do it,” Hines explained.
Asteria’s eyes became slits. “Hines, there is no sense waiting around, giving them an opportunity to escape. It will take you nearly a day to get back there. Half of one anyway. And that’s if you leave now, which you cannot. So…”
“I will discuss it with Joanna,” he said, but Asteria could tell if he had his way, nothing would be done until Hines returned. By then, it would be too late.
“What else?” she demanded, wanting them out of her presence as quickly as possible.
Hines cleared his throat. “The two new associates have agreed to head to Kansas City. Nelo made a recommendation of an escort who can take them there by the name of Fergus. They will join our ranks there and do what they can to infiltrate the headquarters.”
“No, that won’t work. LIGHTS plans to attack too soon. At best, they can serve to hinder their attack on our strongholds. But if that were to be successful, they would’ve had to have been on a plane hours ago.” She dismissed his ridiculous idea before it even had legs.
“But… they have been, Your Majesty,” Hines continued. “They should be arriving in Kansas City within the next few hours. I sent them… some time ago.”
Something about the way he spoke made her wonder if she’d even been unconscious when this task was done or if he’d simply done it behind her back. She decided not to argue with him since she’d never truly wanted the two anyway. At least now they were out of her hair. “What else?”
“We found something. In a book. In the library.” Nelo’s voice was still hoarse, as if her squeezing his neck had done permanent damage.
“Whatever are you talking about?” She had no idea what use a library might be under the current circumstances.
“Daunator said there was a passage for Vampires, yes? Essentially, isn’t that what he said?” Venette asked.
Asteria tried to recall precisely what the old bastard had told her, but the strain of giving birth and nursing her ravenous child was wearing on her mind. “Something like that,” she muttered. “And you think you’ve found another portal?”
“Possibly,” Hines spoke up. “There are a few tales written in ancient Czech that tell of a passage through which Vampires used to travel to another world. What it is, we cannot say. We do not think it was hell because they could come back and forth.”
“It is a land full of danger, even to our kind, Your Majesty, or so the stories told.” Venette was walking across the room as she spoke, and Asteria could no longer see her, until she returned to stand by the others next to the cell door, an old, brown leather book with gold gilding in her hands. “Eventually, traveling there became forbidden by the ancients, and it faded from memory.”
Asteria’s head was beginning to grow fuzzy, and her throat ached. She needed sustenance. The child was draining her dry. “And… what do you think we can do with it?”
An evil smile broke out across Hines’s face. “I have a few ideas. But, the opportunity only presents itself under very specific circumstances, and we will not have an opportunity to try it until later this summer.”
Inhaling sharply through her nose, Asteria held a breath and then let it out slowly. “You expect me to wait months to try some hairbrained scam of yours that likely will not work anyway?”
“Your Majesty, perhaps we should discuss this some other time, when you’re feeling better,” Hines suggested.
“I can make the cell into a nursery, my Queen,” Venette offered. “And find the child some proper clothing.”
“Don’t be daft!” Asteria shrieked back. “My son will not be staying in this prison! He is my child, and he shall come to my room with me, as soon as he is finished nursing.”
“But, Your Majesty, we could hardly control him earlier in order to move him here,” Hines argued. “I don’t think you understand how… powerful he truly is.”
“I understand that he is my baby, and I will not be leaving him here!” she shrieked back. “Now, go, find me something to drink. And get him some proper clothing!”
The three of them jumped and began running into each other in their haste to comply. To Asteria, they looked like three bumbling idiots, and it reminded her of an old television program she’d once seen back in the days when she had time for such frivolities. She cast those thoughts aside and tried to concentrate on her suckling child, though the urge to send a signal to Melbourne, to tell them to get on with it straight away and end those filthy Guardians, was in the back of her mind.
That wasn’t the only thought in her mind, though, and as she rested her head against the wall, a voice came through, sharp and brilliant. “You can’t win, Holland. You may as well give up now. We are far too strong to ever be defeated,” followed by the annoying laughter of an insolent teenage girl.
