Of Shadow Born

by Dianne Sylvan

  He reached out and took hold of the human’s mind, pulling him over.

  He was an attractive young man, a musician by the look of it—they had a certain similarity of nonconformity in Austin and were rather thick on the ground. David recognized guitar calluses on his fingers—Miranda had them after a show, though hers faded almost as soon as she was finished playing. The human smelled like clove cigarettes and beer. Not an ideal choice, but David wasn’t in the mood for a serious hunt. He just wanted the headache and the exhaustion to go away.

  “Hey, man,” the human said. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  “No talking,” David replied, teeth already extending like a cat’s claws. “Just hold still.”

  The human’s blood tasted surprisingly healthy considering the marginal lifestyle so many young musicians led, and within a few swallows David felt renewed strength flowing out to every cell of his body, both soothing and enlivening where it touched. It was difficult not to take too much in the state he was in, but this lad had no stains on his soul, unlike . . .

  A man in a suit slid to the ground, face caught in an expression of eternal surprise, a brutal death for a brutal man—

  David lurched backward, pushing the human away. “Oh God.”

  The human was starting to come around. David seized him quickly and blanked the incident from his mind, then all but shoved him back out onto the street and away.

  He remembered the look on Olivia’s face. The satisfaction from the glut of blood as well as from knowing that there was one less predator in the world . . . bold thoughts, coming from the predator that had killed him.

  He had killed a human.

  That in and of itself wasn’t so shocking—he’d killed a lot of them, back in the day, and that one was far more deserving than most—as the idea that he had done it so casually, without a second’s hesitation or remorse. Since taking the Signet he had found it much more difficult to excuse any death, whether among his own people or theirs. If he had been himself, he would have . . .

  . . . wait . . .

  How had he known the human he’d killed was an evildoer? He remembered fixing his attention on the man and knowing, somehow, the black and filthy secrets of his heart . . . normally vampires could scent a lot of qualities in their prey and could sense fear and stress; that, coupled with subtle body language cues, gave them a pretty good idea of who might be walking around with a guilty conscience, but he had known. He hadn’t needed to psychically interrogate the man to know his crimes; he had known specifically what the man had done, and . . .

  “Oh, bloody hell,” David groaned aloud, startling a passerby. “Empathy.”

  Miranda had “caught” telekinesis from him. It stood to reason he could have picked up some of her empathic talent, although that posed a bigger question: How? He and Miranda were sundered. This hadn’t happened before his death, so somehow he had caught her gift after the bond was broken.

  Not to mention, she had felt the stake tonight. Either their bond wasn’t as broken as it seemed, or there was something even stranger and bigger going on here than any of them knew.

  He made his way back to Olivia’s loft, where Harlan would be waiting with the car and the Elite would still be poring over the scene. More than anything, he wanted to talk to Miranda, but a phone call wasn’t going to cut it. He had to tell her everything, and he had to do it face-to-face.

  The leader of the Elite units he’d called in approached him to give a status report, but he waved her away, telling her to send it in to the server later. There were a few curious and concerned looks from the Elite who watched him all but fall into the car.

  “Home, Sire?” Harlan asked.

  “Please. And if you could break a few traffic laws, that would be lovely.”

  Harlan steered the car toward the highway, saying, “I certainly can, Sire.”

  * * *

  “All right,” Miranda said calmly, each phrase sounding progressively more insane to her ears. “You killed a human, you’re mildly empathic, and you’re immune to wood.”

  “There’s more.”

  She held up her hand. “Hang on a minute.” He waited while she poured and knocked back another tequila shot. “Okay. Go.”

  “After I killed the man, I . . . did something with his body.”

  Miranda put her head in her hands. “Baby, I love you, but I’m telling you right now, necrophilia is a deal breaker for me.”

  He stared at her for a minute before laughing. “No, it’s nothing like that. I Misted him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I . . . sent the body away. He didn’t float, or slide—he transported, the way we do. Only I wasn’t touching him.”

  This time, she just drank right out of the bottle, then handed it to him so he could do the same. He took a long swig and capped the bottle, setting it on the side table. They were in the study; he had told her they needed to talk and that she would probably need liquor. He was right.

  He took a deep breath and held his hand over the tequila bottle.

  It vanished.

  Miranda stared, wide-eyed, her heart hammering so hard she could hear it. She felt suddenly cold. She’d seen him move plenty of things with his mind, but they never just . . . disappeared like that, exactly the way a Prime or Consort did when Misting. “Where . . .”

  He let out the breath and gestured toward the other side of the room. Sure enough, the bottle was there, sitting unharmed on its shelf in the liquor cabinet. It had been transported not only across the room, but through the glass doors.

  When he looked back at her, she saw . . . no, it must have been a trick of the light. His eyes were blue as they’d always been.

  “What?” he asked. “Miranda . . . please don’t look at me like that . . . like you’re afraid.”

  She swallowed and shook her head. “No, it’s . . . I’m fine. I’m not afraid, just a little freaked.”

  He accepted that . . . and for the first time, she was glad the bond wasn’t working.

  Before Miranda could summon the wherewithal to ask another question, David’s phone rang—the West’s ring tone. David sighed and took the call. “Yes?” He looked at Miranda and mouthed, Jonathan.

  She knew immediately something was wrong . . . but if either of the Pair had been injured she was fairly sure at this point she’d have felt it. This was something else . . . and the slowly dawning astonishment on David’s face confirmed the stroke of her intuition.

  “How long have you known?” David asked. “Well, of course they’re trying to keep a lid on it, but I assumed Deven had an operative in his Court . . . damn.” The Prime’s expression hardened. “Investigation, my ass. Any idiot would know who’s behind it. Let me know as soon as there’s anything else.”

  He sat for a moment staring at the phone, until Miranda couldn’t take it anymore. “What the hell happened?”

  David didn’t seem to know how to feel about his next words. “Chicago is in chaos—Joseph and Abigail are dead.”

  Miranda’s mouth dropped open. “I knew the Mideast States were contentious, but . . . they’ve held the Signet for ninety years. Has someone claimed it?”

  “No. Whoever did it assassinated Prime Kelley, left his Queen to die, and then burned down the Haven and vanished. Dozens of Kelley’s Elite were trapped inside, including the Red Shadow agent Deven had there.”

  Prime Joseph Kelley had never been an ally of the South, nor was he really an enemy; his territory had been seething with gang warfare for decades, and he and Abigail had sometimes held on to their Signets by the skin of their teeth. Miranda had never even met them—they hadn’t been able to get away for either the Magnificent Bastard Parade or the Council meeting.

  “You said any idiot would know who’s behind it,” Miranda repeated. “You were talking about Jeremy, right?”

  “It had to be.”

  “Why? Why would he go after Kelley?”

  David made an indefinite gesture and said, “I’m no
t sure. I think I remember Kelley having some sort of tie to McMannis, but I’d have to research it. The thing is . . . preliminary reports from the scene indicate liquid explosives.”

  “Oh, hell. Jeremy’s trademark.”

  “So either he killed the Pair, or someone wants it to look like he did.”

  Miranda didn’t like either possibility, but either way, it seemed her vacation from Signet politics was over; now that David was back and things could return to mostly normal, she couldn’t keep ignoring the problem of Hart, McMannis, and Hayes for long. The sticky part was . . . what should they do about it?

  “Maybe we should just sit back and let Jeremy kill them off,” Miranda mused. “Much as I’d like to hang his head from the front gate, if he can take out Hart, it might be worth leaving him alone.”

  The Prime was giving her an odd look. “Would you really kill Jeremy, even knowing what the others did to him, and knowing he was only trying to save his daughter?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Since when are you the compassionate one? He killed you. He killed Faith. He hired thugs to burn and pillage all over the territory. All of those lives seriously outweigh his wife and daughter.”

  He frowned. “So it’s a zero-sum game.”

  She couldn’t help but stare at him, unable to comprehend his attitude—but then she smiled and said, “Empathy?”

  David frowned, then looked dismayed. “Christ, I hope not.”

  Miranda laughed. “So do I. It’s not fun. So . . . what do you want to do about this whole situation, if you don’t want to pop some popcorn and enjoy it?”

  He smiled at her idea, but said, “We can’t be a hundred percent sure it’s Jeremy yet, and even if we could, we’d still need to know a lot more about what’s going on before we decide how to deal with it. In the meantime we’ve got Morningstar to occupy us, if for no other reason than to get Stella home.”

  “True.”

  “The question, then, is this: Why would Jeremy want to kill Kelley? Did Kelley have a connection to his enemies that put him in the crosshairs? That’s the only reason I can think of.”

  “Unless . . .” Miranda felt dread sneaking into her stomach, the kind of horrible certainty that Queens were cursed with—the kind that never chose a good moment to assert itself. “There’s one other possibility.”

  David lifted his chin, thoughtful, indicating she should go on.

  She met his eyes. “Unless Kelley was just practice . . . and this is only the beginning.”

  Even as she said the words, a horrible but familiar feeling gripped her chest and sent her mind into a whirl. Fear and anger washed over her—not her own—

  The phone began to ring.

  PART TWO

  An Unkindness of Ravens

  Twelve

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Deven asked. “If you need more hands, I can send someone to you from Vienna.”

  Jacob chuckled. “Do I get to know why you have someone in Vienna?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Very well. We’re fine. The crossbow bolt missed Cora by several inches, and my Elite got to him before he could make it out of the square. Cora was shaken, but unhurt.”

  “And the assassin?”

  “Dead, unfortunately,” Jacob said ruefully.

  Deven heard David sigh on the other end of the line. “Tell me he didn’t blow himself up with liquid explosives.”

  “No, actually, it was definitely—what’s the phrase humans use—suicide by cop. He resisted detainment and made sure they had to kill him, thereby keeping him out of interrogation. There is, however, one detail we got that I think you’ll find intriguing . . . or incredibly disturbing, I’m not sure which.”

  “Oh?” David asked.

  “An earpiece,” Jacob told them. “Identical to the images you’ve sent me of the ones used by Morningstar.”

  “I don’t get it,” said David. “Why would they be after you now?”

  “Because he’s an easy target,” Deven said.

  “Thank you,” Jacob replied wryly. “Good to know I have your confidence.”

  “No, listen to me. I know what you’re capable of, and so do David and much of the Council . . . but if you were trying to take out one of us, who would seem the most vulnerable? You, Jacob. Your Elite has fewer than sixty swords, you’re isolated from the rest of us, and your Haven isn’t a technological powerhouse because it’s never needed to be. Your population is lower and both you and your predecessors kept it peaceful, so the likelihood of reprisals is low. From the outside, you make the perfect target.”

  David and Jacob were both silent for a beat while they digested that. Then David said, “I still don’t understand. Jacob is hardly the only Prime with a small Elite and a peaceful territory. There are at least half a dozen others they could have gone after.”

  “Do you really think so?” Deven asked gravely. “Or do you think, perhaps, that this connection among the six of us might not be as much of a secret as we’d like?”

  Another pause, this one longer.

  “First they used Ovaska to go after Miranda, and caught you in the process, intending to kill you but take her alive.” Jacob added it up. “Then they sent someone after Miranda who would probably have killed her mortal friend as well—a mortal friend who could help you get your bond back. Now they’ve come after me. You’re right, Deven . . . it can’t be a coincidence.”

  “But what the hell is so special about us?” David wanted to know, and Deven could practically see him, in his mind, leaning his forehead in one hand, the line between his eyes appearing both from tension and from the inevitable headache.

  “How would you like that list? Over e-mail, or verbally?” Deven asked archly. “I think the fact that we all keep having the same premonitions and feeling each other’s pain would be enough to make us pretty damned special.”

  “But that’s just it. Why is it happening to us? Why now? And what the hell does Morningstar have to do with it?”

  “Good questions, all,” Jacob noted. “None of which we have the answers to.”

  There really wasn’t much more to say. A few minutes later, when the call ended, Deven looked over to where Jonathan sat listening. “What do you think?” the Prime asked.

  Jonathan interlaced his fingers and sat back, considering. “Well, I think . . . no, I’ve got nothing.”

  Deven had no intention of leaving the situation alone. He switched over to the Red Shadow network and sent out a divert command. “I don’t care what Jacob says. 7.4 Carmine concluded his op two hours ago and didn’t have a new contract yet. I’m sending him to Prague.”

  “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

  “You’re sure you haven’t had any sort of premonition or even an inkling as to what’s going on here?”

  “I wish I had, Deven. Things are getting a little out of hand.”

  “Understatement, love. You were right about one thing: Lydia set the dominoes falling. But we thought the last one was David . . . Now I think we might have underestimated the scope of her plan.” He pulled up a global map of the Signet territories with each Haven location marked, linked to information about whoever held it. One of them was vacant. “Kelley is dead . . . but that was almost certainly Hayes.”

  “Did you figure out why?”

  He touched the screen and brought up another image, enlarging it so Jonathan could see. “Credit card statements,” he said. “They put McMannis and Hart in Chicago a week before the Council meeting. That’s a long way to travel from Australia just for a pub crawl—Kelley was up to his ass in the plot to overthrow Hayes. I don’t know exactly what he did to earn a fiery death, but I’m one hundred percent certain he had it coming.”

  Jonathan looked like he was trying to decide whether to say something.

  “Out with it,” Deven told him.

  The Consort smiled slightly. “Do you really want to stop Hayes?”

  Deven held his eyes for a moment, and Jonathan added, “I me
an, this is Hart and McMannis we’re talking about. If Jeremy can kill them, why not let him?”

  Suddenly, uninvited, images flashed in Deven’s mind: terrified faces, blood flowing . . . the sound of screams . . . Eladra’s agonized, but accepting, eyes. Smoke in black, choking clouds . . . the lick of flames . . . and a whisper over and over again: Nothing. We died for nothing. By the time he managed to shove the memories out of his mind, his hands were shaking.

  He put his hands over his face for a few seconds before saying, almost too quietly for Jonathan to hear, “Kelley had eighty-seven Elite, twenty-two servants. There were twelve Elite out on patrol, and they all came home to the Haven on fire—the security systems overridden, window shutters locked, bolts on the doors. Do you think they could hear their comrades screaming inside as they burned to death? We can’t die by smoke inhalation, after all. They would all have been conscious for every second until their flesh was burned past the point of no return. No matter who they worked for, they didn’t deserve to die that way, and neither do McMannis’s or Hart’s Elite.”

  When he lifted his eyes back to Jonathan, the Consort was staring at him as if his Prime had morphed into a new creature, one Jonathan had never seen before . . . and then his expression changed slightly, to something Deven recognized, that look Jonathan got just before sweeping him up in a breathless kiss.

  But Jonathan merely nodded, gave him a soft smile, and said, “All right . . . what are we going to do?”

  * * *

  Fire—

  Miranda woke with a start, eyes on the fireplace and heart pounding. She looked around in confusion.

  What she’d been dreaming faded into a much less dire reality: She had dozed off on the couch. Her guitar sat leaning on the coffee table near a scattering of notebook paper covered in her scribbles. Right, she’d been working on another new song, taken a break, and fallen asleep.

  She frowned, trying to make sense of the dream. It was painful, laden with crushing guilt. An old stone building somewhere in a forest . . . populated entirely by vampires, but not a Haven . . . burning from the inside, destroying the corpses of the inhabitants who were already . . . dead . . .