Lark looked like she wanted to be anywhere but in that chair at that exact moment, but she just shook her head. “Then what? Does she need . . . blood? Like, people blood? Would that wake her up?”
Stella bit her lip, then said, “I think it might. That’s one reason I wanted you here. I was kind of scared to give her any without someone else with me, in case . . .”
“In case she tries to suck you dry. Because she’s a good guy.”
“Basically.”
Again, Lark shook her head in disbelief. “You are certifiably nuts. What am I supposed to do? Got any wooden stakes?”
“No—look. I’m going to cut my finger and see if she’ll drink it. If she starts trying to hurt me, you grab that blanket and pull it off the window. I don’t know much about them, but I know they can’t do sunlight.”
Lark got up from the chair and went to the window, obviously not convinced Stella’s plan was anything approaching a good one. Stella took the sword from the coffee table and slid it out of its sheath.
“Holy crap,” Stella murmured, examining the blade. It was beautiful, sort of Japanese looking but shorter than the ones in movies, and had carving along half its length. “I think this is Gaelic. I wonder what it means . . .”
“It means we’re both total morons,” Lark grumbled. “Would you get on with it, please?”
Stella assumed quite rightly that the blade would be sharp; she barely touched it to her finger and berry-bright blood welled up along a cut. The edge was so keen it almost didn’t hurt.
Holding her finger up so it wouldn’t drip, Stella opened Miranda’s mouth again and touched the cut finger to her tongue.
“You washed your hands, right?” Lark asked.
Stella ignored her, watching Miranda’s face for some response as several drops of blood oozed out of the cut. For several minutes there was nothing; then, she thought she saw Miranda’s lower lip tremble the tiniest bit—
It happened so fast Stella couldn’t react. Miranda’s eyes flew open, her irises gone silver and almost glowing in the candlelit darkness; her lips drew back in a hiss, her canines growing long and flashing—
She struck like a cobra. Stella cried out at the pain of teeth in her throat, and she tried feebly to fight the vampire off.
Suddenly light blazed into the room, and Stella heard a faint sizzling sound, then a scream of terror and agony. The body holding her down flung itself backward, scrambling into the corner, and Miranda curled up on herself, arms over her head, her screams splitting the air.
“Cover it! Cover it!” Stella yelled.
Lark, ghostly white with fear, did as she was told, casting the room back into darkness.
The air was hazy with smoke and the stench of burning meat . . . skin. Burning skin. Stella fought not to gag, seizing the blanket from the couch and pressing it to her throat.
“Are you okay?” Lark asked in a tremulous voice.
“I’m fine,” Stella said. “She barely got me. Just stay where you are.”
Stella half crawled to the side of the couch, peering around it into the corner between a bookshelf and the seventies-style storage end table where Stella kept the cat box.
Miranda seemed so small, just then, shrinking into the corner, a child in too-big clothes, shaking violently and hiding her face. She made soft noises that sounded eerily like an animal dying slowly in a trap. It looked like the burns had already healed.
“It’s okay,” Stella said softly. “You’re safe.”
No answer. Stella tried again.
“Um . . . I don’t know if you remember me, but . . . I’m Stella Maguire. Detective Maguire’s daughter? I was at that clinic the other night and you sang for me. This is my apartment. I brought you here . . . you were hurt.”
Miranda lowered one arm, barely exposing her eyes, which lit on Stella without recognition. Stella nearly cried out again—there was so much pain in her eyes, such immense grief, it threatened to swallow everything . . . she was falling . . . the world was burning . . . no, no . . . please . . . make it stop . . .
“Oh, God,” Stella heard Lark whisper, and then she started weeping.
Stella realized what was happening just in time to keep herself from falling over the edge; she shielded as hard as she could, putting up as many mental barriers as she knew how to craft between herself and Miranda. “Lark, shield!” she commanded. “Do it now!”
A moment later Lark stopped crying, her breath coming in shallow gasps. “What the fuck . . .”
“She’s an empath,” Stella said. “I think she’s projecting.”
Waves of sorrow and pain hit Stella, but she held on, reaching out toward Miranda with careful psychic “hands.” Stella wasn’t a pro at dealing with other people’s gifts, but she took a deep breath and switched to her Sight to try to figure out what Miranda needed.
“Holy mother of shit,” Stella managed, followed by a number of other profanities born out of pure amazement.
The last time she’d seen Miranda, the vampire had been in control of herself, strong, healthy. Stella had been under a haze of drugs, but she’d still been able to sense that Miranda had sophisticated, powerful shields to regulate her gift and make herself appear, at least on the surface, more human.
It looked like those shields had been blasted open. Her aura was raw, full of gaping holes like her shirt had been, especially around her heart center; it was as if something had been torn from her . . . no, not something. Someone.
Stella understood what she was Seeing even before she knew what to call it.
“Oh, Miranda,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Miranda was still staring at her, not seeming to recognize her or even her own name, and Stella could see why; her energy was a tattered wreck, under barely any control. She was a powerful projector, but her sensing ability was way stronger; right now she was probably feeling the emotions of everyone within a mile radius. Add that to the trauma of what Stella sensed had happened . . .
“I’m going to help you,” Stella told her. “I promise. Just . . . close your eyes and relax, okay? I might be able to help you get your shields back up.”
She turned to Lark. “Come here . . . I need all the power I can get.”
Lark didn’t move. “She just tried to eat you, Stella! Not to mention, you’ve never done anything like this before. She might just drag you down with her.”
Even without Miranda’s empathy affecting her, Stella felt tears start to burn her eyes. “We have to help her. Didn’t you feel it? She’s dying on the inside. She’s lost. It might be too late to save her, but . . . if we can help it not hurt so much, we have to, Lark. She just . . . she has to know she’s not alone.”
With a sigh, Lark came over to them, sinking down onto the carpet and holding out her hand to Stella wordlessly. Stella offered her a shaky grin and took it.
“Okay, lady,” Stella said to the broken, immortal woman in front of her. “Let’s see what we can do.”
* * *
The Southern territory is still reeling from the sudden disappearance and presumed death of its Prime and Queen, David and Miranda Solomon.
Sources claim to have witnessed the Prime’s assassination on the roof of a building in downtown Austin, but there is no confirming evidence at this time. The exact fate of the Queen is unknown. At the moment of the Prime’s alleged death, the Texas Geological Survey recorded a tremor of 2.7 on the Richter scale centered in Austin, the first such seismic event in the area since the death of Prime Auren 18 years ago.
Reports of widespread violence in the first night following the assassination have given way two days later to reports of near total shutdown of the entire Austin Shadow District. Even with the Second in Command and most of the Elite unaccounted for, the vampire population of the city is staying off the streets, apparently intimidated by the possibility of a new power rising to take the Signet.
The identity of the assassin is still unknown. SignetPulse will continue to update as new infor
mation is verified.
Jonathan scrolled back up to the website’s header. There had always been newspapers in the Shadow World, but nowadays everything was digital, making their existence even harder to prove; the news blog was password protected, catering primarily to the Courts and the Elite, but it wouldn’t be impossible for a human to get in. It would, however, be damn near impossible to believe anything he or she read.
Jonathan still wasn’t sure he believed it himself.
He glanced over at his Prime, who was sitting cross-legged in one of the hotel chairs, staring with narrowed eyes down at a phone. “Any luck?”
Deven made an irritated noise. “Bastard didn’t keep his passwords anywhere. They were all in his head. So was whatever code he used to lock down the Haven and the network. Even if I could get into his phone, all it would let me do is make calls.”
“What about Eagle Eye? You said she’s the best.”
“Second best. She tried to break in and her system nearly fried.”
“She hacked the Department of Defense database but she can’t get into David’s e-mail?”
Deven shook his head. “If we want to recall the Elite, we’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way, by word of mouth.”
“Dev . . .”
“I’ve got our people out trying to find them, but apparently they had protocols in place for this kind of thing and are all hiding out pending further orders or a new Signet claim. Good policy, since one of the first things new Primes tend to do is kill off the competition.”
“Dev . . .”
“I’ve got eyes on the Haven, but it would be stupid of them to use it as a rendezvous, so right now there’s not a soul there except the humans who come to tend the grounds. Even the horses have vanished. The whole place is powered down. The doors are bolted shut with steel that would take C-4 to open.”
Jonathan started to say his name one more time, but Deven’s head snapped up and he said, “Don’t say it, Jonathan.”
“We can’t stay here forever,” Jonathan told him gently. “We have our own territory to look after.”
“Everything’s fine there. We’re getting reports on the hour.”
“Deven . . . I know you’re upset. We’re both feeling guilty—”
“Are we?” Deven asked harshly. “I’m sorry, did I miss the part where you killed twenty-eight people for nothing? Was it your idea to get Faith to steal the Stone? Or were you the one who wanted us to be honest when it could have made a difference? I don’t need you to shoulder my guilt, Jonathan. I can handle it.”
Jonathan regarded him silently: the way his eyes had gone dark, the way his hands clenched the arms of the chair. There was an edge in his voice Jonathan had never heard before, not in more than sixty years of knowing him. If Jonathan had heard it from anyone else, he would have thought that person was about to break. He wasn’t sure if Deven was capable of breaking . . . and if he was, God help them all.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said softly, “but you can’t have this one, baby. You and I are a team, and we both fucked up utterly. We were arrogant, believing ourselves infallible, and David and Miranda . . . and Faith . . . and Eladra, and the Order . . . paid the price. If it’s your fault, it’s mine, too.”
They were still staring at each other when Deven’s phone chimed. The Prime gave it a look of loathing but tapped the screen anyway. He sighed.
“What is it?”
Deven dropped the phone on the bed. “Incoming data from 8.4 Carmine. Eagle Eye had more luck cracking into Monroe’s files than the South’s network. Monroe had detailed notes from his time undercover in Hart’s Haven. She’s sending everything she found on Jeremy Hayes.”
“What happens now?” Jonathan asked. When Deven’s face foretold an angry retort, the Consort clarified, “I mean . . . in the natural order of things a new Prime would come forth and claim the Signet, the same way it happens every time, everywhere. But the Signet is broken, and no one knows where the Queen’s is. Even if someone strong enough shows up—Hayes, for example—what is there for him to claim?”
Deven sat back in the chair, eyes on the ceiling. “I don’t know. I don’t know if a Signet has ever been destroyed before. It would fall on the Order to make a new one, I suppose.”
“So much for that.”
Deven sighed. “The metalsmiths are still alive, Jonathan. So are the warriors. And there are other branches of the priesthood out there—Cloisters all over the world. They won’t have access to the original books of Mysteries, but they’ll have copies of some of the texts. The Order as a whole isn’t dead.” He lifted his head and met Jonathan’s eyes again. “If two thousand years of persecution couldn’t end the worship of the goddess, I certainly couldn’t. There are even humans who revere Her. Wiccans and the like.” Now he smiled slightly, though there was no real humor in the expression. “In the grand scheme of history, my actions are of little consequence.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What about the Awakening? Do you think it worked?”
“There would have to be something to awaken, love.”
“You really don’t believe in any kind of god—even though Eladra believed you were destined to take her place as High Priest of the Order?”
“Eladra believed a lot of stupid things.” Deven pushed himself up out of the chair, suddenly impatient. “I’m going out. I want to do a round of the District to make sure everyone’s behaving.”
Jonathan didn’t mention the change of subject. He knew when he’d pushed it too far. “What would you like me to do?”
The Prime pulled on his coat and reached for Ghostlight. “Check on the intel from 8.4 Carmine. See if any of it is useful. At this point Jeremy Hayes can choke on a dick and die, but I still want to know how he got involved in all of this.”
“Deven . . .”
He paused, hand on the door. “Yes?”
“I love you. Remember that, all right?”
Jonathan heard him sigh. “I love you, too. Don’t wait up.” Then he was gone.
* * *
The building was slated to be torn down starting that Thursday. The fire had left it structurally unsound enough that there was no way to renovate it without spending more money than it would cost to raze it and start from scratch. Still, the destruction had been neatly contained to that one building and the area immediately in front of it, and neither the fire nor the tremor that came after had done any serious damage to the neighborhood. One thing was sure: Hayes had known what he was doing with the explosives.
On the roof, the night was strangely quiet; perhaps it was Deven’s imagination, but sound seemed dampened there, as if held still by the city’s restless spirits.
During the day workmen had been here, a few brave souls taking measurements and angles, but once the yellow tape was up and the demolition paperwork on its way for approval by the city council, the place was abandoned again, an empty, burned-out husk with little left behind of all that had died there.
The first night after, Deven and Jonathan had both come back to try to track Miranda, and while poking through the wreckage out front, Deven found what he knew to be the hilt of Faith’s sword. He’d had Volundr craft it for her when she left California, a symbol of the changing of the guard. Faith and David had risen as high as they could in Deven’s Elite, and when David fled Deven’s side to seek out his fate in Texas, Faith had followed him, the way she always followed him, even into death.
“I hope for the devil’s sake he keeps Guinness around, girl,” Deven murmured, “or you might just stage a revolt and take over hell.”
Deven stood on the roof unmoving for a while. His eyes picked out the spot where they had left David’s body, but nothing was there now; whatever ashes had remained had scattered in the three-stories-up wind.
Perhaps the workers who had come up here had walked through the ashes and now the Prime of the Southern United States, the most remarkable being Deven had ever known, was now being tromped all over Austin on th
e soles of their boots.
Slowly, Deven knelt where he had knelt that night, aching in a way he had thought he was no longer capable of aching.
After seven hundred years he should have been immune to this. People died; beloved people died even sooner, most of the time. Everyone he had ever known had left him, one by one, and everyone who was left would, too, except for Jonathan, who was supposed to go when he did . . .
. . . but where, then, was Miranda?
They all knew how it happened. Most of them had seen it once or twice in their tenures: One Signet fell, and moments later the other, sometimes screaming, sometimes in shocked silence as the power imbalance simply burned them out from the inside. That was how their bonding worked: Having a soul mate might not be like the romance novels, but there was one promise they all counted on . . . not having to die alone . . . or outlive their partners. After hundreds of years of existence, there was precious little that could comfort a Prime, but that promise, the knowledge that they didn’t die alone, had been enough.
But now . . .
Whatever had happened here was not how it was supposed to go. Whatever the Awakening ritual entailed, somehow it had bypassed the rules. If Miranda had died when David did, she would have been found by someone; the scene was crawling with police and firefighters for hours, and Deven’s Elite had searched every building in a five-block radius. No footprints, no blood trail, no sign of her.
She couldn’t have gone far in her condition—what reports Deven had claimed she was badly wounded and had been caught partly in the explosion, so she was probably only semiconscious, assuming she could even hold her mind together enough to run. Anyone who knew the Queen would have taken her to the Hausmann, and anyone who didn’t would have taken her to a hospital. There should have been a body . . .
. . . there should have been a Signet left behind.
Deven reached into his coat pocket and closed his fingers around the shattered remains of David’s Signet. In the nights that followed David’s death, he had been back to this roof over and over and had found many of the ruby’s shards; they were all in a box at the hotel. He had no idea what to do with it, but he knew he had to keep it, at least for now.
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