Page 39 of The Bloody Ruin Asylum & Taproom (Sam Quinn #7)

Algar rests a hand on the queen’s shoulder in sympathy and solidarity. “Shall I take them home?”

“Yes.” She stands a moment more, taking in the scene, and then turns those fiery eyes on Algar. “Find out who spelled this palace to keep me out, to keep my people—even in death—trapped in. I want that person brought to me.”

Algar gives Gloriana a deep bow. “Yes, my queen.”

Storming out of the room, she trusts Algar to care for her dead and strides down the hall, back to the fallen portrait. She waves a hand at the door, making it disappear, and then throws another ball of light into the dark, fetid room.

The boarded-up windows are suddenly open to the night air. She walks to the moldering bed and looks down on the monstrosity that is the prince.

Skeletal and scarred, he opens the one eye that remains and gazes at Gloriana, disbelieving. His head is dented in on one side and he’s missing both his arms and legs. Given the large bloodstain on his rotting tunic, I think it’s safe to assume his genitals were removed as well.

He slurs, “What are you doing here?”

She stares down at him with disgust. “Who are you to steal my people?” Her voice is almost a whisper, as though she’s trying hard to control her rage.

“Who are you to take my children, hide them from me, beat and rape them, kill them, and still keep them from returning to their home with me? Why would you believe you have that right?”

He turns his head away from her, casting his one eye toward the large portrait of himself on the wall of his bedchamber.

“They deserved pain and death. Look what they did to me. Your precious females banded together to hack me to pieces,” he sneers.

“And you never found them because you weren’t meant to. ”

It occurs to me that his broken and missing teeth are contributing to his garbled speech.

“No,” she says, “you misunderstand.” Although the queen never moves, his head twists back fiercely. “I rejoice in your current state. I am proud of my children. I only wish they’d separated your head from your neck. Now, I want to know who helped you hide my people from me.”

He scoffs. “Someone you can’t touch.” He lifts his chin in defiance. “He’ll rule while you die slowly in a hidden prison.”

Gloriana glances around the room. “Like this one?” She shakes her head. “I’ll never understand why those like you and the king cannot comprehend that there is no Faerie without me.” She leans in, her eyes swirling with an angry black. “I AM FAERIE!”

She slams her hand down on the prince’s chest. What’s left of him shrivels up, leaving a twisted branch in his place. “You shall not return home, not even in death. You shall remain forever in this prison of your own making.”

She stalks out of the room and the memory goes black.

“Holy shit,” I mumbled, blinking my eyes open.

Clive was sitting beside me in one of the big, soft leather chairs in the plane, my hand in his. Vlad and Cadmael were at the two small tables on either side of the cabin. All three turned toward me.

“Are you all right?” Clive asked.

“Does she drop into visions often?” Vlad watched me closely.

“No. She doesn’t,” I said on an eye roll. I turned in my seat to Clive. “I asked the queen what happened with the prince, but we were pressed for time, so she gifted me with the memory and told me to run. I just watched the memory—lived it? Whatever—while you were all running here.”

I told them everything I could remember about what had happened. They sat silently, absorbing it.

“The queen gave you her memory?” Cadmael asked, his suspicion ripe.

“Not all of them,” I said. “It’s not like we’re besties and paint each other’s nails. She gave me one memory, I think, as a thank you for breaking the spell surrounding the prince’s palace and helping them rescue Cordelia.”

“Is she ever going to kill the king?” Clive asked.

Shrugging, I said, “I don’t know if she can. I mean, I’m sure she could. The question is what else in Faerie gets destroyed if she gets rid of him?”

My jeans were feeling super creepy. I looked down at myself and noticed I was on a towel. Oh! That’s what smelled so horrible. Me.

“Okay, I’m off to shower.” I glanced at Clive and Vlad. “Why aren’t you guys sitting on towels?”

“We’ve already cleaned up,” Clive said. “I wasn’t sure if it was safe to wake you, so I decided not to attempt bathing you.”

“Fair enough. I’ll be back, cleaner and better smelling.” I stood, picked up the towel, and went to the back of the plane while they discussed their next vampy steps.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I was more than a little horrified.

Things I didn’t want to identify clung to my hair and clothes.

I’d taken an unplanned dip in a thermal bath that a poor mermaid had been dying in for hundreds of years.

I wasn’t ready to consider what I’d been swimming in.

The night had already been too much without that.

On the plus side, though, the queen had healed all my cracks, bumps, and bruises.

Afterward, while they sat in the front of the plane, talking endlessly, I lay down on a couch in the rear of the cabin and promptly fell asleep.

When I woke, Clive was beside me, his arm wrapped around me. I slipped out, hit the restroom, and then went to the front to sit across from Vlad, who was reading.

“You know I own a bookstore, right?” I said.

He looked at me over the top of his book. “Your point?”

I shrugged. “I’m just saying if you’re going to buy books anyway, you might as well buy them from me.”

“Is that so?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Is Clive experiencing some sort of financial crisis that requires you hawking goods?”

“Clive’s money is Clive’s. The Slaughtered Lamb is mine. You don’t want to visit, don’t.” I muttered a few insults as I pulled my e-reader out of my bag, reclined my chair, and opened the mystery I was reading. Stupid vampire.

We read silently for a good while and then he finally said, “It was good, what you did.”

I looked up and found him staring at Cadmael, who was sleeping a few seats away from me. Not knowing if Cadmael was really out, I kept quiet and continued reading.

And then I remembered. “Hey, where’s my axe?”

“You keep forgetting about it. I’m not sure you deserve such a beautiful weapon,” Vlad said.

“It’s not up to you. Give me my axe.”

“I’ve noticed,” he said, getting up and going to a storage closet near the cockpit, “that you haven’t been showing me the proper respect.” He pulled out an axe and swung it menacingly. “I don’t like that.”

I put my book aside and stood. “Are you threatening me?”

He held up the axe, admiring the blade’s edge and then threw it at my head.

It was so fast, but my hand was up to catch it, to yank it out of the air and use it. My hand, though, was empty.

Cadmael’s arm was up, and he was holding the axe handle between his thumb and the one finger that had grown back.

Vlad laughed. “I knew it! You’ve been faking this whole time, pretending to sleep so you wouldn’t have to talk to me.” He shook his head and returned to his chair.

“What the hell, dude?” I took the axe from Cadmael. “So if Cadmael had really been asleep, I’d have an axe in my head?”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “If Cadmael didn’t catch it, Clive would have.”

“Clive is asleep in the back of the plane,” I said, twisting the axe head, looking for Algar’s fingerprint.

“Clive is standing right behind you. Not that you needed him. You’d have caught it if Cadmael hadn’t,” Vlad said.

I turned and, sure enough, there was Clive, eyes vamp black, glaring at Vlad.

“What’s with all the shit disturbing?” I asked Vlad. “And this isn’t my axe.”

“It’s not? How strange,” he murmured, picking up his book. “How can you be so sure?”

I stomped across the cabin to the storage closet.

“Mine is made of fae metal and neither you nor Cadmael have blistered hands.” I opened the cloth he had wrapped the weapons in.

My axe gleamed in the low light. I put his down and picked up my own.

Yes, that felt right. Tipping the blade into the light, I saw the pale outline of Algar’s fingerprint.

“And I know my own weapons, you big jerk. I can’t believe I told Clive we should trust you. ”

I went back to my bag, pulled out the axe sheath and strapped it on, putting the axe back where it belonged, on my back. I glanced up and saw Vlad watching me with a huge grin.

“This little visit to San Francisco should be fun,” Vlad said. “We’ll be staying with you, won’t we?”

Clive snarled a few choice words in response.

Yeah, this should go well.