The Last Queen Book One Read online

  Though I’ve been hunting pawns for the past year and a half, none have ever followed me home. I’ve always managed to dispatch every single pawn who’s seen me. But now that’s changed. There’s one in my apartment.

  I don’t have the time to appreciate that my ordinary life has ended right here in this moment.

  I hear scattering in my room.

  Footfall. Frantic, quick, coming my way.

  Though I should be the only one who can hear it – and Antonio’s human senses shouldn’t be able to pick it up – his eyes blast wide. “Get out of the way,” he says as he breaks his grip on the pawn’s neck, drops the thing, then shoves into me, pushing me out of the way.

  It’s a foolish move. For as Antonio shoves me out of the way, he pushes me off balance at the last moment. He also brings himself directly in line with the pawn as it springs from my room.

  This one isn’t playing any games. It doesn’t even try to look human. It’s wearing the same uniform as its friend. And though I’ve never seen that particular uniform before, there’s one thing about it that I can appreciate – it’s more ornate than any I have ever seen. These pawns appear to be more powerful, too.

  If I’d had the time to appreciate what was really going on here, I would’ve realized that Antonio wasn’t freaking out. The pawn that had sprung from my room was clearly not a human, and was making no attempt whatsoever to pretend it was. If Antonio was an ordinary man, he’d be freaking out. I’d seen ordinary people witness pawns for the first time, and every damn time, their reactions had always been the same – soul-crushing fear.

  But Antonio doesn’t look surprised. Scared – yes. But even then, I can appreciate he’s not scared for himself – he’s scared for me.

  Though Antonio manages to push me out of the way, the pawn that springs from my bedroom is quick. It’s also armed. It has a sword in its hand – one I’ve never seen. Though usually the weapons of the pawns don’t glow, this one does. It’s got a dull yellow vibrancy about it, almost as if it’s a trapped star being viewed underwater.

  There’s a murky, dirty quality to it, too, one that turns my stomach and for some reason makes me think of poison.

  Antonio pales with surprise, but he doesn’t have time to shift out of the way.

  The pawn brings the sword down toward Antonio’s neck.

  I act.

  I’m close enough to Antonio that I launch a kick at his side, pushing him out of the way. I don’t kick him hard enough to do any internal damage, just to shift him off course before the pawn can slice right through Antonio’s surprised face.

  The pawn gnashes its teeth and screams, the quality of its tone so goddamn brutal, it sounds like the combined rage of an army.

  Antonio strikes the kitchen floor and rolls, coming up hard against my table. As he does, he dislodges Walter’s workbook from on top of it, and it scatters down, landing right in Antonio’s lap.

  Walter’s workbook has his name written across the front. Though there’s a full-on fight going on in my kitchen, Antonio still has time to snap his eyes down and stare at the book. I see a blast of recognition pulse through his gaze.

  He has just enough time to stare at me, his friendly gaze now completely marked with suspicion.

  The pawn Antonio had in a headlock attacks.

  Both of them now focus on Antonio.

  Before the pawn with the sword can slice at Antonio’s throat again, I kick the kitchen chair beside me, sending it clattering into the pawn’s knees. The move is more than hard enough to slam against the pawn’s legs and to force it to lose balance.

  It teeters backward.

  I rush forward. I’m not thinking. Antonio – a real live witness – is right behind me.

  Though part of me appreciates my secret is the most important thing I have, the rest of me is driven by the fact I have to end this. My whole body is pulsing with the knowledge I have to dispatch these creatures. If I let them run riot through my apartment block, God knows how many people they could kill.

  So I don’t even think anymore.

  As the pawn tries to slice at me with its sword, I simply grab the hilt, wrench it free, spin the sword around, and plunge it right into the pawn’s chest.

  The move is blisteringly quick, so quick that even I have trouble keeping up with it.

  So much force and rage and magic pulse through my veins that my body becomes an instrument of my passion, not my mind.

  And it’s more than enough to see me win. I defeat the pawn in a single move, and it has just half a second to stare up into my determined gaze before its body jerks and an after image of its light shoots over my left shoulder. The creature scatters into dust.

  I’ve seen Antonio handle himself, and though I’m many things, I can’t be in two positions at once. My intuition tells me he’ll be able to deal with the other pawn, though. My intuition is wrong.

  For, as I turn hard on my foot and launch to my feet, it’s to the sight of the other pawn scattering over my kitchen floor. It's down on both hands and knees now, pushing forward, running, skidding, looking like a dog trying to gain purchase over a slippery surface.

  Antonio’s eyes have just enough time to blast wide, but then the pawn reaches him.

  Though Antonio tries to bring up his hands and fight the pawn off, this time the pawn is ready for him. It latches its clawed, strong, massive hands around Antonio’s neck and starts to pull.

  Antonio’s eyes bulge, a vein appears on his head, and his scream is cut short.

  “Get off him,” I bellow as I round my shoulder, shift forward, and knock into the pawn.

  It tries to loop an arm around my neck, but I just grab its wrist, jerk it to the side, and break that arm in a single snap.

  Though this is no time to appreciate it, again my abilities have increased.

  Last night it took me several punches to down a pawn, but now, in a single snapped second, I can break one’s arm.

  But there’s no damn time to get freaked out by that fact.

  As the pawn screams at having its arm broken and tries to use its free hand to clutch at my throat, I bring around the sword I stole from the other pawn and slash right through its throat.

  No blood scatters out at the move. Just light.

  There’s another shuddering moment, then, a second later, an afterimage of the pawn shoots over my left shoulder and the creature scatters into dust.

  I stare at it, stand there and shiver, then jerk my attention down to Antonio as he lets out a gasp.

  Blood is spilling from his mouth, and I realize as I stare at his throat that the pawn has done considerable damage. Massive dark red and brown marks are spreading over the skin, and as Antonio tries to breathe again, more blood spills over his lips.

  I drop down to one knee beside him. “Shit, you okay?” I try.

  Either he doesn’t want to answer or he can’t. He stares at me, though, with the widest damn gaze I’ve ever seen. He looks terrified.

  And there’s something visceral about that terror. Because even though I’m still pumped full of adrenaline and determination from the fight, it reaches in and shakes my heart.

  My brow slicks with sweat, and I pale. I bring up two hands. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I try as I shift toward him, but he jerks back. This just means his shoulders slam harder into the table, and another item topples off and falls into his lap.

  It’s Walter’s wallet. It’s open, his bankcard half out of one of the plastic pockets.

  If Antonio looked terrified before, now he looks red with rage.

  But he’s also passing out. And that rage can’t last long as his eyes roll into the back of his head. He slumps forward. I shift a hand out, latch it on his shoulder, and stop him from face-planting the floor. Then I... I kind of just kneel there for several seconds, supporting him as my mind whirls.

  What... what the hell do I do now? Antonio didn’t just see me dispatch two pawns, but he saw Walter’s bag, Walter’s wallet, too.

 
There’ll be no hiding from this.

  I... I have no idea what to do as almost a full minute passes. I can hear it marked by the ticking of my clock over the kitchen sink.

  There’s one thing I can be thankful for – despite the loud, violent fight, I don’t hear any screams further into the apartment block. My immediate neighbors must be out, or maybe the pawns somehow managed to magically hide this fight from everybody else. The point is, there’s nobody to disturb me, nobody to hurry me up as I just kneel there, supporting Antonio’s comatose body with one hand.

  The look he shot me before he blacked out is seared into my mind. The hatred, the anger – it’s worlds apart from the friendly, broad smile he offered me after I saved Rowley this morning.

  Which means two things. Walter Shepherd wasn’t just known to John Rowley – but the two must have known each other well enough that Rowley’s head of security could recognize Walter’s wallet.

  And the other thing?

  I’m now screwed.

  I finally shift back, gently guiding Antonio’s body to the ground.

  I put him in the recovery position, shift up, then jerk away.

  My hands are shaking by my sides, slicking my rumpled skirt with sweat.

  I’m breathing so hard that my thick fringe is jerking over my eyes.

  I don’t try to calm myself down.

  I just think.

  Though adrenaline tells me to run away, abandon my apartment, and never look back, I know I can’t just leave Antonio like this. He’s not on death’s door at the moment, but he still needs immediate medical attention.

  So I shift a hand into my pocket, intending to pluck up my phone.

  I stop.

  I jerk down to one knee, rifle quickly through Antonio’s pockets, and pluck out his phone instead.

  I don’t have to unlock it to make an emergency call, and I quickly phone in an ambulance.

  I don’t give them the address of my apartment, though – I give them the street just outside.

  One wall of my apartment block leads down to a cramped, narrow alleyway, and I’m fortunate enough that a fire escape leads from my bedroom window down to that same laneway.

  After I call in the incident, I wrench my window open, easily put Antonio over one shoulder, then move him down into the laneway.

  I am... messing with the crime scene. That should hit me, right? That should make me sick to my stomach. But who am I kidding? I dispatched two pawns in my kitchen. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

  Fortunately night has already descended, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to keep my movements hidden and secret as I carefully, quietly clamber down the fire escape with Antonio over my shoulder.

  Keeping an ear out for traffic or pedestrians, and hugging the side of the building so that no one staring out of their window would be able to see me, I find an alcove sufficiently far enough away from my apartment to stash Antonio.

  Then I stand back and stare at him.

  A part of me knows that there’s no point to the charade. Because as soon as Antonio wakes up, he’s going to tell everyone what happened. But at least that will give me time. If he doesn’t wake up for an hour or two, it will give me an hour or two to get out of town.

  That realization sinks in and feels like I’ve just swallowed a stone.

  Fear and loathing climb my throat as I take another jerked step back from Antonio.

  I want to leave him right now, confident that I gave the ambulance clear enough directions that they’ll be able to find him, even in this out of the way alcove.

  And yet, despite the fact it could cost me my freedom, I don’t leave his side yet. I don’t trust that there aren’t more pawns out there.

  ... They’d been after Walter’s bag, right?

  Somehow they’d managed to track it back to my apartment.

  I rue the fact I ever picked up the kid’s bag last night. I should’ve left it exactly where it was. But what’s done is done, and I have to get out of here.

  I wait until I hear the sirens, until I see paramedics park at the mouth of the laneway and start to peer in.

  Then I disappear. Keeping low against the side of the building, I run back to the fire escape, haul myself up, climb through my bedroom window, close it, and then I just stand there.

  For a full minute. It’s like I’m frozen to the spot. It’s like I’ll never move again. Because... the life I know has just violently ended.

  If I hadn’t been stupid enough to head to Rowley Tower this morning, then none of this would’ve happened. Even if the pawns had still come to my apartment block tonight, I would’ve been able to dispatch them silently without any witnesses. But now I have a witness – Rowley’s own head of security – and there is no going back.

  “No going back,” I whisper bitterly to myself under my breath as I finally push away from my window.

  I begin to madly look through my stuff, making a quick, brutal mental calculation as to what I can keep and what I can afford to leave behind.

  I shift toward my closet, pulling out clothes and dumping them on the floor. I select my sturdiest pair of jeans, warmest top, and, of course, my leather jacket.

  I practically rip my cardigan, skirt, and blouse off me and dump them in a pile on my bed. I dress in my other clothes, and as I pull my leather jacket on, there’s a sense of undeniable finality to the move. As the leather creaks around me and sits flush against my shoulders, it feels like I’m putting on a uniform.

  I indulge in running a hand down the cool leather for half a second, then I whirl hard on my foot.

  I put on a pair of old walking shoes, then grab a rucksack from my closet. I start throwing in things that I can’t afford to leave behind. There’s one thing to be said of my life right now – considering the amount I have to spend on food, I don’t have too many possessions anymore. I’ve sold a lot of my stuff that’s worth anything, which means everything that’s left is either necessary or means something to me.

  I dash over to my bedside table, pausing as I pluck up a photo.

  It’s meant to be of my maternal parents, not that I ever met them. I was a foster kid my whole life. Not one of those fortunate foster kids who found a good family, but one who was handed from institution to institution.

  Still, according to the State, this photo is the only evidence of who my family had been.

  Grimacing but realizing I don’t have time to do anything else, I punch a finger against the glass just hard enough to see it shatter. Not worrying that I’ll get cut, considering how tough I am these days, I thumb the glass out of the frame, pluck up the photo, and press it against my chest as a tear trickles down my cheek. I carefully place the photo in a book and shove it into my rucksack.

  The book is the most important thing I own, short of this photograph.

  It’s a family account, if you will. When I was left to the orphanage, though I didn’t have much in the way of possessions, I had my name. And my name led me to this book.

  It took me five years to track this book down, and no matter what happens to me in the future, I will never let it go again.

  It’s an old collector’s item, bound in beaten blue leather with just a smattering of gold leaf left over the spine and cover. You can’t even make out the title anymore. But I always can. All it takes is for me to run a thumb over the indent where the title had once been, and I can feel it.

  The Khan Family Rules.

  It’s meant to be a work of fiction. It isn’t.

  As I carefully shove it into my bag, I grab another single change of clothes, then head into the kitchen.

  I open one of my pantry doors and lean right in, grabbing a jar right at the back. I upend it in the sink, rice scattering everywhere. Right at the bottom is a small pouch. Inside is some jewelry.

  A diamond ring, an expensive watch, and a few gold bracelets.

  No, I’m not a thief. I just found them, that’s all. One of the things about going out every single night to hunt is that I see
more of the darkened city streets and roofs than most people. In the past year and a half, I found these items. And though the good girl in me had wanted to report them to the police, the smart part of me had told me that was stupid. I had to keep my head down, and if I kept finding lost valuables in random parts of the city, the police would start to ask questions.

  I shove the pouch of valuables into my bag, then head to my handbag. I pull out the essentials and pause as I get to my driver’s license. Should I burn it now or wait until later? Won’t I need it to drive?

  “Jesus Christ,” I suddenly spit as I realize how goddamn hard this is going to be. Running across the rooftops at night is one thing – protecting myself from pawns is another. But being on the run when I’m hunted by the police? That’s going to be something completely different. It’s not going to be easy. I can’t just hire a car and hightail it out of the city – they will be able to track me. Nor can I just head into the woods – I need to feed myself.

  My mind starts to whirl again.

  That’s when I hear sirens. Police sirens. Though my back initially twitches in terror, I realize they’re going down the laneway, and as the sirens promptly cut out, I appreciate the paramedics probably called the cops to figure out why Antonio appeared in that laneway.

  It still rattles me, and I move more quickly now.

  I grab what food I can, sticking with nonperishables. Then, finally, I reach the table.

  I stare at the kid’s stuff. A part of me wants to just leave it. This kid’s bag has already given me so much grief. But, then again, I appreciate that the pawns are after it. Desperately after it. Not only did they kill the kid, but they broke into my apartment to get this bag. More than that, the exact pawns who broke into this apartment were from a different army to the ones I fought last night.

  What the hell does that mean? Just how many people are after this bag?

  That makes my decision for me. I jerk forward, shoving the kid’s belongings into my rucksack, pushing them down hard to make space.

  Then, finally, I shift back.

  I take several steps into the middle of the room, close my eyes, and breathe.

  Tears unavoidably trickle down my cheeks. Because this is it. The end of my life is finally here.