“Why?”
“Because she’s going to need you. In some ways she’s as old as I am, but in others still so young . . . she still has ties to the mortal world that she wants to hold on to. Whether that proves possible will depend on the kind of support she gets from that world, namely you.”
“Then you’re saying I’ll help keep her human.”
“No.” He sat forward, holding her gaze. “She isn’t human, Kat. She never will be again. One day she’ll watch you grow old and die, and she’ll stay the same, ageless, eternal, until someone murders us both. What she is, is your friend, and the fact that she wants to stay your friend despite the pain inherent in loving a mortal speaks very highly of you. You should be honored.”
Kat nodded slowly, almost smiling. “So should you.”
“I am.”
She nodded again, and then said, “You’re buying, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then let’s talk about dessert.”
Five minutes before curtain—just as her agent, Denise, was about to have a coronary—Miranda Grey strode into the club with her hair tangled from the wind and her eyes bright with the thrill of the hunt.
She could hear the crowd on the far side of the stage, one low murmur of three hundred voices, their collective expectation a living thing crawling up the walls. She took the flight of metal stairs up to the wings with a grin on her face and drank in their emotions on a single deep breath.
She gave Denise a thumbs-up. Denise made a foreheadwiping motion of exasperated relief in return. Flipping her hair back and shrugging her coat into the tech’s hands, Miranda turned toward the stage manager and nodded.
A hush fell as the house lights lowered and the spotlight trained on the mike and the single object behind it: her guitar, on a stand, gleaming black.
Applause erupted when they saw it.
Miranda smiled and walked out into the light.
There were three things that Miranda wanted after every show: blood, chocolate, and a hot shower.
Before she could have any of those, however, she had to get backstage and run the press gauntlet, then somehow sneak out the back to either drive herself or wait for Harlan to take her somewhere more private to hunt.
There were a great many vehicles at the Signet’s disposal, but the one the Prime favored was the Town Car that Harlan piloted through the city streets; if he and the Queen needed to be in separate places or ran on different schedules, as often happened these days, they had to coordinate Harlan’s trips or, as she preferred, she had to bring her own car into town.
Although David had serious misgivings about her being alone in the city, Miranda loved her car, and she loved taking the winding road that led up to the Haven through the Hill Country. She liked being independent. So most nights after she was finished at her gig and had found herself someone for dinner, she slid behind the wheel of her little silver Toyota and took Loop 360 out of town.
She was almost ready to escape the club’s heat and noise when Denise knocked on the dressing room door and said, “Hey, do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” Miranda called, double-checking that the mirror was still covered with a towel. “What’s up?” she asked, gathering her sweaty hair back out of her face and securing it with a stretchy band.
Denise MacNeil was a strikingly beautiful black woman who radiated competence and confidence, two things that Miranda had discovered were vital for a woman in the music industry. Denise carried herself like a warrior, and in fact she reminded Miranda strongly of Faith, except instead of a sword Denise was armed with a briefcase and BlackBerry and hunted opportunities, not lawbreakers. Miranda would have continued to play the bar circuit without much thought if Denise hadn’t come along, but in the short time she’d been the Queen’s agent she had already set the wheels in motion for a recording contract and doubled her bookings. It would have been easy for someone so ballsy to be a bitch, but Denise still had a warmth to her that seemed to bring her even greater respect.
“There’s a woman here from the Statesman who wants an interview for their weekly entertainment supplement,” Denise was saying. “Nothing drawn-out, just a few questions. Are you up for it?”
Miranda sighed. She had played hard, and worked hard, holding the audience’s attention pretty easily, but it was still draining, and she hadn’t fed tonight. Her teeth were starting to ache and her insides felt like they were drying out. She took a quick internal inventory and judged she had about half an hour before things got unpleasant. “Sure.”
“Great. Also, don’t forget next week we have a meeting with the guys over at the Bat Cave.”
“Got it.”
Denise grinned at her. “And one other thing. They have these weird little devices now that you can talk into so your voice comes out the other end—that way if you’re going to show up, say, two minutes before curtain, you can keep your agent from pissing her designer pants.”
Miranda smiled back. “Not once have I ever been late,” she pointed out. “But I’ll try not to cut it so close next time.”
Denise shook her head and left, saying, “I’ve been in this business fifteen years and I’ve never adjusted my watch to Musician Standard Time.”
Miranda closed her guitar into its case, running her hand along the Martin’s gleaming neck. “That’s Vampire Standard Time,” she said quietly to the instrument, “but we won’t tell her that.”
A moment later, there was another knock, and a woman poked her head into the dressing room. “Ms. Grey?”
Miranda looked up from her phone, where she was checking to ensure there were no texts waiting from the Haven, and gestured for the human to enter.
The reporter was completely average looking, with mousy brown hair in a rather severe cut with bangs and glasses that made her look like a librarian. She was wearing a nondescript suit a year or two out of style and was clearly nervous. “I’m Stacey Burnside with the Austin American-Statesman . Denise said you had a moment for me?”
“Come in,” Miranda said with a smile. Her Signet had come with a set of new and strange instincts, one of which was to put humans at ease whenever possible; she felt almost maternal toward them, especially the awkward young women so unsure of their place in the world who could barely make eye contact with the glamorous rising star who seemed to have it all. “Have a seat.”
Stacey almost knocked over the folding chair as she sat down and rummaged for her recorder. Miranda could sense the experience of an educated reporter—and Stacey was no amateur, she could feel that much—warring with awe.
Miranda got that a lot . . . at least, from humans. She was trying to get used to it.
“I won’t keep you long,” Stacey said, fiddling with her digital recorder until a red light came on. “We’re just doing a piece this week on emerging artists who do their recording here in Austin.”
“Well, I’m happy to support the local music scene,” Miranda told her, taking the other folding chair and crossing one leg over the other. She had her coat on, but her Signet peeked out from her collar, and she caught the young woman staring at it for a moment. That also happened a lot. Most of the time people had the same look on their faces: Is that thing glowing?
“Austin has been very good to me since I started performing,” the Queen added. “I’m hoping to work with the guys at the Bat Cave on my upcoming CD.”
Stacey pushed her glasses back on her nose. “That’s the studio founded by Grizzly Behr, the father of Mike Behr of Three Tequila Floor, right?”
“Yes.”
“I hear it’s impossible to get into the Bat Cave these days.”
Miranda smiled. “They were as excited about the prospect as I was.” The music business was all about influence . . . and Miranda had that in spades. There was no door that was closed to her, no velvet rope to keep her out no matter how exclusive the club. The Signet held sway in every level of government and the Prime a hand in every game in town, legal or otherwise. It wouldn’t ta
ke much effort to have her first single on the Billboard charts the day it was released.
She didn’t want that. She had every intention of making it on her talent . . . but she wasn’t so naïve as to think the industry cared about talent as much as it cared about power. She was quite willing to kick down the door to success with one of her brand-new knee-high boots.
“You recently debuted a new song, ‘Bleed,’ ” Stacey said. “Critics are having trouble categorizing it—what influences gave rise to its sound and lyrics?”
Miranda toyed with her com, considering her answer. “It’s a deeply personal song,” she replied. “The lyrics were some of the first I wrote after a particularly difficult time I had last year. I felt that the shift in tone, from pain to triumph, was something that would resonate with audiences. It definitely has the feel of an early Tori Amos track, but the studio version will have more electronic elements. The vision we have for the album as a whole is a lush, dark sound that still leaves room for the rawness of some of the lyrics.”
“You tend to play your personal life close to the vest. Recent rumors have you married—is there any truth to that?”
She smiled. “Yes, actually.” She held up her left hand, showing the platinum band around her finger. “I’ve been married for about two months.”
Stacey’s eyes lit up—a scoop! “Can you tell me anything about your husband?”
“Oh, I could tell you a lot of things, but he’s a very private person, as am I. I will say that meeting him absolutely changed my life, and that we make a perfect pair.”
“Do you live in the Austin area?”
“Yes.”
“In the city itself, or a suburb?”
Miranda chuckled. “In the area.” She checked her watch, rose, and said, “I’m sorry, but I do need to head home.”
“One more question, please, if that’s all right?”
She looked so eager Miranda couldn’t help herself. “Fire away,” she told the woman as she folded her chair and leaned it back against the wall. She tried to leave things tidy for the band that came in after her, though they rarely saw fit to return the favor.
Stacey reached into her bag again and dug around for something. “Um . . . hang on . . .”
Miranda refrained from rolling her eyes, but the gnawing feeling in her stomach was starting to become a serious issue. She was still learning to manage her hunger; unlike skipping a meal back when she was mortal, waiting too long to feed could impair her judgment and lead to unfortunate incidents . . . and had, more than once, the first few weeks. If David hadn’t insisted on hunting with her for a while, she might have killed someone. She had an emergency pack in her car, kept safely on ice in the trunk, but her car was a block away and there were usually people milling around outside so she couldn’t just pop it open and slurp it down.
“Okay,” Stacey said, straightening. Miranda noticed she had something in her hand, something metal with the flash of wood—
“How stupid are you for being caught without a bodyguard?” Stacey asked, and lifted her hand.
Miranda’s body reacted before her brain could register what was happening; she threw herself backward as the gun went off, twisting sideways a split second before the stake bit hard into her shoulder. The impact threw her backward into the wall, and she snarled, springing forward toward the woman, who had already turned on her heel and bolted from the room.
Miranda missed Stacey by mere inches and flung herself after the woman, her vision gone scarlet with rage; Stacey sprinted through the narrow backstage passageway, knocking people over as she ran. Miranda snaked through the crowd, ignoring the pain and the feeling of blood running down her torso. She heard gasps behind her as she closed the space between herself and the would-be assassin, but Stacey reached to the side and hauled a stack of speakers on wheels out behind her to block Miranda’s path.
The Queen kicked them out of the way and resumed her pursuit, but by the time she burst out the backstage door there was no sign of Stacey, no sign of anyone; the alley was empty.
“Goddamn it!” Miranda snapped to the empty air.
Immediately, the alert on her com went off. “Emergency team to Mel’s Bar and Grill, code Alpha One!” she heard Faith’s voice command in broadsend-mode, then, “Star-two, Star-two, Miranda, are you all right?”
Miranda took a deep breath. “Star-three, this is Star-two, and I’m fine. I’m injured but not severely. A woman posing as a reporter staked me in the shoulder. She had some kind of spear gun. I lost her but I’m heading out to track her now—”
“Like hell you are,” came a voice.
Miranda turned in time to see the shadows beyond the edge of the building grow dense and coalesce, the substance of the night twisting on itself, resolving into the shape of a man in black with a glowing stone at his throat.
The Prime was at her side in seconds, and the look on his face, though extremely attractive to her, would have made a human’s blood run cold. “What happened?” he asked, taking hold of her shoulders.
When he saw the stake he hissed and his eyes went silver.
“It’s not bad,” she insisted. “If we hurry, we can still—”
“You’re hurt,” he replied tersely. “That takes priority. Now, hold still, and brace yourself . . . take a deep breath in . . . now breathe out slowly . . .”
She did as he said, and on the out breath, he took hold of the stake and pulled it.
Miranda cried out; she felt the wood sliding through her muscles as if every splinter of the stake were jagged and tore the flesh around it. It was as if the wood left behind something oily and poisonous that seeped into her body and stole her strength away.
Her vision swam, and she sagged into the Prime. “Oh, God . . .”
“Easy, beloved,” he said, considerably more gently. “Easy. Close your eyes . . . breathe.”
Miranda clamped her eyes shut and dragged her awareness to the feel of his hands on her arms, the sound of him breathing, the rhythm of his pulse that she could feel, always, beating in her own veins. She felt him drawing power up out of himself and feeding it along the connection between them, and her shoulder grew unbearably hot for a moment, then itched horribly before fading into numbness.
When she opened her eyes the wound was gone, though there was a gaping hole in her coat.
“Shit,” she murmured. “I love this coat.”
With that, she passed out, thankful he was there to catch her.
Faith managed, somehow, to keep David from tearing the building apart in search of the attacker, but it wasn’t easy. The half-dozen Elite who reported to the scene were obviously frightened by his anger. Who wouldn’t be? A black cloud of seething energy surrounded him as he stood cross-armed and watched the team sweep the club for evidence and another team followed the fading traces of the assassin’s flight. The few humans who were aware of the situation had no idea what they were really dealing with, but they knew Miranda had been attacked and that her security personnel were handling it. The look on her husband’s face was enough to keep everyone, human or otherwise, at a distance.
She joined the Prime once the team had things in hand and took her usual place at his side—his left, as the Queen’s place was his right. The Queen herself was unconscious in the car.
“This is unacceptable,” David said darkly. “She is not to go anywhere without a bodyguard. Understood?”
“Fine by me, Sire, but you’ll have a hard time convincing her of that.”
“I’ll have her followed if I have to.”
Faith merely nodded. She had already learned not to take sides. “Aside from the stake itself, which we’ll bring in for analysis, there’s nothing,” the Second said. “No one has any recollection of what this woman looked like, except of course for the Queen. Somehow the bitch managed to convince Miranda she was human, and that’s . . . disturbing.”
“Agreed.”
“Best guess, she was a vampire with a hell of a shield, but there’s n
o way to know for sure.”
“Here’s a better question,” David said. “Forget what she was and let’s ask ourselves who.”
“Obviously it was a planned hit. She had fake press credentials and even a dummy phone number. I’ll put out feelers for anyone buying an ID by that name, but I doubt we’ll get anything.” Faith nodded to Elite 33, who was carrying Miranda’s bag and guitar out of the club to the car, and asked the Prime, “Didn’t the network register something was wrong?”
David’s expression went from dark to hellfire. “Interestingly enough, no. There wasn’t even a blip.”
“How did you know to call us here, then?”
“I felt the stake.” His eyes were fixed on the car at the end of the alley. “Either the attacker was human and faster on her feet than a Queen, or she was a vampire who somehow doesn’t show up on the network. I don’t like either of those possibilities, Faith. I’m counting on you to find this person and bring her to me.”
Faith didn’t mention how difficult, if not impossible, that would be. The Elite had expert trackers, but so far the team had come up empty-handed; this woman had vanished into the crowded city without leaving a single footprint or energy trace. Even the strongest psychic they had—Miranda—had lost her, though if she hadn’t been injured chances were the Queen could have hunted the woman down in minutes.
A planned attack. Specific, focused . . . which led Faith to believe that this Stacey had known exactly who and what she was trying to kill. The Shadow World was aptly named; very few humans knew of its existence, and few vampires would associate with the human world enough to connect Miranda Grey the singer with Miranda the Queen. Even fewer vampires would be stupid enough to go up against the Signet after the example that had been made of the Blackthorn. Someone had known that Miranda would be alone—if she’d had even a standard Elite security detail, the guards would have been right outside the door to block the assassin’s escape.
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