Queen of Shadows

by Dianne Sylvan

  Another Elite guard stood outside the metal interrogation room door. He bowed and slid the bolt back.

  The Prime stood in the doorway a moment, allowing his presence to fill the room, knowing that the suspect would feel it. He reached out with his power and swept the chamber, his senses calculating: male, under a hundred years of age, and scared shitless.

  Just like he liked them.

  He walked into the room and towered over the suspect, who flinched as the Prime’s shadow fell over him and tried to edge even closer to the wall. The chains around his wrists and ankles wouldn’t let him go far.

  David gestured for Faith to stay back. He looked down at the suspect.

  “Name?”

  The vampire stammered something unintelligible in Spanish.

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

  This time, in English, “I’m not telling you nothing. You’re gonna kill me anyway.”

  The Prime raised his hand, and the suspect was immediately jerked upward and thrown backward against the wall. The shackles snapped off, allowing him to move, but he was pinned by the Prime’s power, whimpering as he tried to struggle.

  “You’re absolutely right,” David told him, stepping closer. The suspect cringed visibly. “You broke the cardinal law of this territory, and you’re going to die. There are therefore only two questions remaining. One, do you want to die by my Second’s hand, or by mine? And two . . .”

  He reached into the man, seeking out the capillaries of his fingers and toes, and applied pressure, squeezing almost gently. The man’s eyes went wide and he tried again to fight, but couldn’t; as the tiny vessels began to pop, he made terrified animal noises and the drenching sweat of fear broke out over his face. It wasn’t painful, really, though it would be as the burst capillaries became bruises—but the vampire could feel it happening, and knew he couldn’t stop it.

  “How long do you want it to take?” David concluded, doing it again. This time he saw a blood vessel burst in the man’s left eye.

  Barely expending any effort, he lifted his hand again, and the suspect screamed hoarsely as the fingers of his right hand began to crack, one phalanx at a time.

  Faith said from the doorway, “Obviously not a trained warrior.”

  “No,” he replied, watching the man writhe. Little finger; metacarpal. They broke so easily, like snapping twigs. David remembered how it felt to do the same thing with his bare hands; this was much less messy. “If he had any sort of Elite history, he’d have been taught to withstand pain. Was this attack as meticulous as the one at the Greenbelt?”

  “Not this time. It was a straight-up slashing with the Seal of Auren carved into the girl’s arm with a blade.”

  “Hmm.” David moved closer to the man again, abruptly releasing him from the vise. “I would imagine that if he’s familiar with the Seal, he may have one on him somewhere.”

  The man was panting, his eyes rolling wild in his head. “Don’t—don’t—”

  “Shut up.” With a wave of his hand, the Prime forced the man’s mouth closed. “Speak when I ask you to or don’t speak at all.”

  He reached up and unbuttoned the suspect’s shirt, yanking it aside unceremoniously, frowning in distaste at the filthy state of what was underneath. “Your boss isn’t paying you well enough,” he noted. “You smell like the ass end of a dead rodent.”

  Sure enough, just over the prisoner’s left pectoral muscle was a week-old tattoo: the Seal of Auren in black and red.

  “So,” David said, “let me go over this one more time just so we’re on the same page. You’re working for a dead man, or at least for his friends. You’ve committed at least one murder, which you were caught at, so your life is forfeit. Now you can either tell me who you’re working for, and die quickly by decapitation, or you can keep pretending you don’t know anything, and die slowly by decapitation. Slowly, and screaming.”

  To punctuate his words, he reached into the man and broke one of his ribs cleanly in two.

  Predictably, the man shrieked, then hung shaking against the wall, suspended from invisible bonds, head bowed.

  David gave him a moment.

  Finally the man panted, “I’m Rico.”

  David smiled and replied in Spanish for the prisoner’s benefit. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it? A pleasure to meet you, Rico. David Solomon, ninth Prime of the Southern United States.”

  On the next breath Rico snarled, “Fuck you.”

  The Prime sighed, “Language, Rico,” and broke another rib.

  “Fuck you!” This time with a scream. “My master would never have done this to his own kind! You’re a fucking traitor and you’re going down!”

  “Do you really believe that?” he asked. “How do you think Auren took the Signet in the first place, Rico? By sending fruit baskets? He slashed and burned his way through the entire Court and raped and tortured the Queen herself before murdering her. Their Elite, their servants . . . everyone, dead within a week of the Pair’s death. Auren was no God, no hero. He was just like the rest of us: a killer, heartless and merciless. Now tell me who you’re working for, and I may contradict myself and show you mercy.”

  Now Rico began to laugh, the desperate mad laugh of someone with nothing further to lose, who was in enough pain not to care. Then he reared back and spat at the Prime.

  David rolled his eyes and stepped easily out of the way, though the motion would have been a blur to anyone else in the room.

  “This is my second-favorite coat,” he told Rico calmly. “That’s really why I don’t want to bleed you—that, and I’d hate to make the servants clean it up. Too bad, really. Messy deaths are much more satisfying. I suppose I’ll have to settle for this.”

  With that, the Prime made a slow, twisting gesture, and Rico’s bones started breaking with dull popping sounds. He dropped the man to the floor and let him writhe, the screams building, turning into the panicked, agonized wails of a dying animal.

  Rico was still alive when his skull caved in, but by then he could no longer scream.

  When every bone was crushed, the vampire’s body lying in a crumpled heap, David motioned for Faith to come forward, and she sliced off Rico’s head with one clean swing.

  David looked over at Faith, who nodded. Her eyes were hard and fierce. The guard outside looked like he was about to vomit. That was the difference between a soldier and the second in command.

  “Have him dropped near where the attack occurred,” the Prime said to the guard as he straightened his coat. “I want his friends to see the consequences of their actions.”

  “Yes, Sire,” the guard managed, letting him pass.

  Once out in the free air again, David paused, drinking in the night. Out here the smells were of impending rain and night-blooming jasmine, not stale cigarettes and abject terror.

  It had all been so easy, once. Back before coming here, he had meted out punishment and torture alike at his Prime’s command without a second thought. He had served under two Primes in California, and the first, Arrabicci, had been as ruthless as Auren. Like many Primes he had cared only about vampires and had no qualms about his people killing humans. David had spent his years in Arrabicci’s Elite hunting down vampire hunters, as well as rival gangs after the Signet.

  Then had come Deven, Arrabicci’s Second, who reluctantly took charge after an assassin’s arrow sent all of California’s Shadow World into bloody civil war for months. Deven had not instituted a no-kill law, but he had severely tightened restrictions on human feeding, and his fearsome reputation as a warrior helped him rule over the western states with absolute control. The gangs feared Deven like they feared God, and so there was little need to torture or execute anyone.

  “Are you all right?” he heard Faith ask, and half turned to see her looking concerned.

  “Peachy,” he snapped before he could stop himself. Faith, however, was used to his moods, and didn’t rise to the tone. She simply waited.

  “Something about crushin
g a man’s skull with my brain always aggravates me,” he muttered, starting to walk again. Faith took up her usual place at his right hand. “And what have we learned? Nothing.”

  “Not entirely nothing,” she replied. “We know that there’s some kind of organization behind all of this. We know they’re at least fanatic enough to get a dead Prime’s Seal tattooed on their bodies. Fanatics aren’t usually the smartest of criminals; they’re bound to slip up.”

  “Yes, and how many humans will die before we stop them?” Had he been a more emotional creature he might have kicked something; irritation was prickling through his mind like the thorns of a particularly nasty cactus.

  “Is this anger because of the insurgents, or is it guilt at killing that fool back there?”

  He stopped and shot her an irritable look. “Stop being so goddamned insightful.”

  She shrugged. “That’s what you pay me for. In the absence of a Queen, it’s my job to question as much as support. I learned everything I know watching you in California.”

  In that, she hit the nail squarely on the head: the absence of a Queen. Primes were powerful, yes, and had many arcane abilities the average vampire did not. He was faster, stronger, and had sharper senses, among other things. He had been born telekinetic, a rare gift even among vampires that was extremely useful when it came to, say, interrogation; his telepathy was decent as long as he had some sort of connection to the subject.

  A Queen, however, would have different skills; they were tuned into the heart, and read people as easily as words. A Queen could have opened Rico’s mind and lifted the truth out of him without hurting him at all, and then Rico could have been executed painlessly, instead of slobbering and spasming with his screams still echoing in David’s ears.

  He didn’t have a problem with killing, in theory. He’d been a killer for 340 years. Doing away with his own kind, however, had gotten harder and harder since he’d come here. It was starting to feel like infanticide, no matter how richly deserved.

  “You know,” Faith said, bringing him back to the moment, “Deven once told me years ago that Primes aren’t meant to be alone. Your power becomes debilitating if it’s not shared.”

  “That’s easy for him to say,” David retorted with a shake of his head. “He only ruled alone for six months before Jonathan came along.”

  “Lucky him.”

  David started to respond, but he felt eyes on him, and lifted his gaze up from the gardens to the main building of the Haven itself.

  There, in the second-floor window adjacent to his suite, Miranda stood staring out at the night, or rather, down at him; the firelight from her room caught the loose strands of her jewel-red hair, and in her white T-shirt with her pale skin she looked almost spectral, perhaps even angelic.

  When she saw him, she smiled a little, then looked away as if embarrassed. Even at this distance he could see the faint touch of pink to her cheeks.

  He might have read more into it, except that as long as he was shielding her he could pick up her outermost thoughts, and he knew she hadn’t meant to stare. Movement below her window had captured her attention as she looked out at the forest.

  A second later she glanced down again, probably feeling his eyes on her this time, and he inclined his head toward her in greeting. She gave a small wave and disappeared.

  Faith was holding back a grin. “So, how is our guest?”

  “I plan to start teaching her to shield tomorrow,” he said, though he hadn’t been planning any such thing until now.

  “Is she strong enough already?”

  “No way to tell until she tries.”

  She kept her tone professional, though he could tell she was trying not to laugh as she said, “You’re in need of a Queen yourself . . . perhaps you’ve developed a taste for madwoman redhead?”

  “Don’t be disgusting,” he replied mildly.

  “I’m only joking,” Faith said, becoming serious. “Besides, after what she’s been through, I doubt she’ll be interested in that sort of thing any time soon, even with somebody like you skulking around.”

  He smiled at the compliment, such as it was. “The best thing we can do for her is get her well enough to go back to her life.”

  A drop fell on his arm; the rain was coming back. He could sense it would settle in for the rest of the night after this brief respite from the downpour.

  As he started to return to the Haven, he looked up at Miranda’s window again; it was empty.

  Yes, she needed to leave as soon as possible . . . for his sake as well as her own.

  Everyone dies alone, right?

  She dragged herself sideways, unable to feel her legs, pain lancing through her upper body from a dozen puncture wounds. One of the crossbow bolts broke off as she tried to move and drove deeper into her gut, and she moaned, then coughed, tasting blood.

  Blood dripped from her face onto the pavement, and from her hands as she tried desperately to stay conscious. Her hands slipped and she fell, chin hitting the ground.

  Behind her she could hear the others dying. Mickey, Jones, Parvati . . . she’d seen Mickey go down first and tried to bark out a warning to the others, but it was too late—they were surrounded and arrows rained down from the roof into the street.

  Jones had screamed. She’d never heard him scream before. She’d known him a long time, slept with him off and on back when they’d both been green recruits still in awe of their own jobs, invincible with youth.

  The Dumpster was only ten feet away. If she could get behind it, they might not see her, and she might be able to call home. She knew she was dying, but she had to warn the Haven. Ten feet . . . nine feet . . .

  It was so cold . . . so much blood . . .

  Eight feet . . .

  They were coming. Footsteps. She heard Parvati’s wailing death shriek as one last arrow was shot into her chest at point-blank range. The click of the crossbow, the scream, the heavy sound of a body hitting the ground . . . seven feet . . .

  “Where’s the other one? There were supposed to be four!”

  Ambush. Her entire patrol unit wiped out in five minutes. How could they have been so stupid? The call had sounded legitimate. The network was infallible. Everyone knew that. There was only one way a fake distress call could have been placed over the coms, and she had to warn the Haven.

  Five feet. They were looking for her, but in the wrong direction. She might have time.

  She heaved herself over the last few feet, collapsing behind the Dumpster and pulling her now-useless right arm up near her head. Her voice was hoarse and she could hear death rattling its way up through her throat . . . not much longer . . .

  “Star-three,” she coughed into the com. “Elite Fourteen . . . Code One emergency channel . . .”

  “Over here! I see something!”

  “This is Faith.”

  “This is Elite Fourteen on behalf of Patrol Two West Austin . . . our unit has been ambushed. We received . . . a false call to these coordinates for backup . . . fired upon from above . . . all Elite down . . . the network has been compromised. I repeat . . . the com network has been . . . compromised . . .”

  She heard Faith swear, then say, distantly, “Hold on, Elite Fourteen. I’m sending rescue.”

  “No need,” she whispered as she heard footsteps behind her. “Just tell the Prime . . .”

  Faith kept talking, telling her to hold on, that help was coming, but she barely heard. Someone seized her by the arm and dragged her backward, away from the shelter of the Dumpster, the Second’s voice fading to a tinny murmur, suddenly silenced.

  Five

  Miranda went into raptures over the library. It was larger than her bedroom, the walls lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, and even had ladders. It reminded her strongly of the library at the university, where she’d spent hours leafing through books, inhaling the musty smell of aged paper, puzzling over indecipherable tomes like Les Miserables in the original French.

  It had been a long ti
me since she’d simply sat down and read a book. Reading relaxed her too much, and relaxing, without a barrier of alcohol between her and the world, spelled trouble.

  Her fingers traced the spines of classics, contemporary novels, and nonfiction in at least eight different languages. She’d thought the Prime’s bedroom had a lot of books, but here were at least ten times that many. Given what he’d told her about the Haven, she wondered how many of these he had brought with him, and how many had been here as long as the building had stood.

  Miranda pulled a yellowed copy of Shakespeare’s comedies from the shelf and sought one of the window seats, grateful just to lose herself for a while in something that had a happy ending.

  She handled the paper carefully, afraid it might crumble, and read aloud to herself, her quiet voice echoing in the silent room, punctuated with the sound of turning pages.

  “ ‘I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

  “‘For them all together, which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?’ ”

  A voice came from the door, and though she wasn’t expecting it, for some reason she didn’t start.

  “ ‘Suffer love!—a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.’ ”

  Miranda looked up and smiled, continuing, “ ‘ In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend hates.’ ”

  David smiled back. “ ‘Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.’ ”

  She closed the book and set it on the cushion, running her hand down the front cover. “This was always my favorite of his plays,” she said. “Melodramatic, full of misunderstandings, but with a hearts-and-flowers finale. I used to pretend I was Beatrice and act out her lines in front of the mirror.”

  The smile widened a hair. “Not Hero?”

  Miranda chuckled and shook her head. “No way. Hero was shallow and not very bright. She and Claudio would have had a bland life with bland children and a bland dog. Beatrice and Benedick, now that was a couple I could get behind. They would have had adventures together.”