Overall they were considered an odd couple. Any married people who wore matching necklaces had to be a little bit batty. But for the most part David was an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a black leather coat…which made his arrival at the police station that much more hilarious, in her mind.
She sat in the cell with her eyes closed, listening to the natural ebb and flow of noise outside Holding, and when she sensed that glowering storm cloud of energy approaching, she smiled.
Apparently he’d decided to hell with anonymity. He walked into the station with four guards, not even attempting to look human or blend in. Much of the conversation in the foyer went silent, so it was even easier to hear his low, dangerous voice directed at the front desk clerk:
“Take. Me. To. My. Wife.”
“Sir, if you’ll—”
“Now.”
“…yes sir. Just, um…Johnson, would you lead Mr…um…to Interview 3? I’ll page Maguire and Myers.”
Someone, Johnson apparently, coughed and said, “I’m afraid you’ll need to leave your…escort? Outside, sir.”
“Fine.”
She knew that he’d have gestured at the guards to take up position on either side of the interrogation room door, and no doubt their obedience would make the whole situation that much stranger to the humans.
A moment later a harried-looking Detective Myers appeared and unlocked the cell.
Wordlessly, Miranda rose and walked past him, following the call of her Prime’s anger to room 3, giving a nod to the guards as she did.
It was a relief to notice that the room didn’t have the two-way mirror one often saw on TV. It was just as bleak, though, with that industrial green paint that seemed to coat the walls of every government building in Austin, one ancient office table, four chairs…and a laptop.
David stood when he saw her. “Are you all right?”
She smiled. It wasn’t something she’d admit often, but she loved it when he was angry. That killing light in his eyes was better than porn. “Yeah, I’m fine. Confused, pissed off, and I smell like a urinal, but fine.”
Maguire and Myers came into the room and closed the door; all four sat down, but Maguire said, “We should wait for the lawyer.”
“She’ll be here in 20 minutes,” David told them coldly. “But don’t worry — I have a law degree. Get on with it.”
Maguire shot him a look of surprise. “You do?”
He shrugged. “I got bored in the 90s.”
Miranda had actually forgotten about that—he had six or seven degrees, though just the one doctorate from MIT. That was the important one, in his mind. In fact the motto inscribed on his version of the Signet Seal was Mens et Manus, the same as the school’s.
“All right,” Myers said. He slid the laptop over and clicked a few things. “This will take a minute to load.”
She held back a giggle as David glanced at the logo on the laptop and made a faint, probably involuntary derisive sound.
Miranda knew she shouldn’t find this whole thing hysterically funny, but she did—a defense mechanism, she supposed. Like her mother had been wont to say, it was either laugh or never stop crying.
It was just so surreal…she’d been arrested. Like a human. For murder. There were paparazzi waiting for her outside the police station, probably already branding her the next crack-addled falling star. They wouldn’t know why she was here yet, and speculation would probably turn first to drugs or a disgruntled ex-employee.
Maguire was fiddling with the recording device, which looked pretty ancient. She knew that APD had some sophisticated tech at its disposal for forensics, but they had to cut corners somewhere.
He got it working, however, and said, “Please state your name for the record.”
“Miranda Grey-Solomon.”
He went through a quick list of mundane questions: birthdate, birthplace, a few basic facts. Then, he produced a photograph and slid it over to her. “Do you recognize this woman?”
She looked down at the picture—a laughing, bright-eyed Hispanic woman in a UT shirt. “No.”
“You might recognize her better here.”
The second picture was dramatically different. It was clearly the same woman, but she was emaciated and had huge dark circles under her dull eyes. She was pretty clearly strung out on something.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know her.”
Maguire nodded. “How about here?”
The third picture made her stomach twist on itself with dread. In this one the woman was dead, lying on top of a body bag, filthy. She had clearly been dead for a while, though Miranda didn’t know enough about decomposition to say how long.
What made her insides lurch, however, was the pair of neat puncture wounds in her throat.
“Annalise Vitera, aged 34, found in a dumpster behind a Korean restaurant downtown. Cause of death was exsanguination, most likely through those two punctures you see in the picture.”
“How exactly is that possible?” she asked. “There’s no blood on the body.”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” Myers said. He turned the laptop around to face her.
Miranda stared at the screen, schooling her expression to a careful neutral, but behind the mask she was shaking. A grainy video, apparently shot from a security camera, showed a woman in black with curly red hair leading the woman from the pictures into the alley, then pinning her against a wall and very obviously biting her throat. About three minutes later the woman slumped down to the ground.
The camera wasn’t stationary, however—it switched to a different angle after a minute, then to another, then two others before returning to the original frame…and by then both redhead and dead woman had vanished.
“You think that’s me, in the video,” she said. “Because there aren’t any other redheads around?”
“Watch it again,” Myers said. “Pay special attention to the 2:52 mark.”
This time, he put that section of the recording in slow motion. Miranda watched, holding her breath, as the killer in the video turned her face toward the camera for just a second—long enough, though, to capture the image in several frames of the recording. It still wasn’t 100% clear, but it would be hard to argue with anyone who said it was Miranda…especially since when she looked toward the camera, something red could be seen glowing at her neck.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
David spoke up suddenly, and as often happened, he startled both detectives; he’d been playing invisible, basically, so they wouldn’t pay any attention to him. “What led you to this woman’s body, exactly? Was she reported missing?”
“No,” Maguire said. “We received this video anonymously several days ago.”
“If this is all you have, Detective, you’re wasting our time,” David told them.
“As it happens, we were able to get a saliva sample from the wound.” Myers placed a piece of paper in front of her. “This is a court order for your DNA sample.”
She looked at David, close to panicking, but he gave an almost imperceptible nod; he knew way more about the strange quirks of vampire anatomy, and he thought she should go along with it. Fine.
“All right,” she said. “Whatever it takes for you to figure out this is ridiculous — I mean, what’s my motive? I don’t have any connection with this woman. Do you really think I’m walking around the city killing random people by biting them?”
“As a matter of fact I do,” Myers said. “Let’s add it up: you can’t produce a solid alibi for the time of death. You’re famous for people thinking you’re a vampire, and that disease you supposedly have is known to affect people’s mental state. Fame does things to people—everyone knows you have some strange habits. It’s not that hard to imagine you might read all these stories about yourself, go over the edge due to your condition, and start believing it’s all true.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed.
Both detectives looked at her wi
th alarm. She fell silent immediately; so, laughing at a murder accusation wasn’t a good thing. Good to know.
Maguire wouldn’t meet her eyes. She made sure to address Myers — the fewer lies Maguire got caught up in the better. “I’m sorry, I just…you are honestly telling me that I think I’m a vampire, and I’m going around sucking people to death. Do you hear yourselves?”
“We have you on video, Mrs. Solomon. We’re currently combing it, the alley, and Ms. Vitera’s body for any and all trace evidence, and if we get so much as a speck of DNA that looks like yours, you’re done.”
There was a knock, and one of the deputies poked her head in to let them know their lawyer, Grace, was there.
“All right,” Grace said, striding into the room, the force of her presence silencing the detectives. “This interview is over—I spoke with Judge Markdale on the way over here and bail’s been set. If you brought your checkbook, Mr. Solomon, we can get you out of here.”
He took out his phone. “Give me the amount and a routing number and it’s done.”
Miranda barely paid attention to the conversation. She was staring at the pictures, and at the frozen image of herself on screen. She kept trying to think back to that night and remember this woman…why had she picked her? She’d never chosen anyone who qualified as any sort of decent human being; this one had to have been carrying some kind of deep, dark sins.
But she couldn’t remember. In fact when she thought back, it was hard to distinguish any of the people she’d killed from each other. There were a few so reprehensible they stood out, but she should remember all of them, shouldn’t she? Was she really that far gone—had excusing their deaths become the same as dismissing their lives?
If she was going to be brought down by one of the criminals she’d taken off the streets, she wanted to know who it was. She wanted to remember how it had felt, what she’d known that made it okay to sacrifice this specific human to her own bloodlust.
The thought that she could do this, kill without caring, just drop a body in the trash and not even remember why…it made her feel sick.
You don’t have a choice. You pick the worst you can. Most other vampires wouldn’t even bother.
Just keep telling yourself that, Miranda.
She was so caught up in her own mind that she followed David mutely out of one of the side doors—Maguire had led them there, taking pity on her public image, for which she reminded herself to thank him. Did he really think she was a killer? What if he told Stella?
“Miranda.”
She shook her head and ignored him for a minute, head swimming. What were they going to do? If she wasn’t acquitted her career was over. It might be over anyway—or it might get a boost thanks to all the publicity, if it turned out they couldn’t prove it. And what about—
“Queen, ground.”
Her attention snapped back to the present moment, and within three breaths she had regained her mental footing. She’d tipped dangerously off her axis just then; that scared her more than almost anything.
She looked up at David, who was calm as always—and none of the signs of actual distress were in his eyes.
He pulled her close and squeezed her around the middle. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I already have an idea. Three ideas, actually. Well, two ideas and a long shot. But at least two solid ideas.”
“This is so unreal,” she said. She waited until the limo door had shut and they were in a soundproof space to say anything else. “I thought I was being careful. But the truth is I wasn’t—I was being arrogant. I honestly didn’t think anyone would miss the people I killed. I don’t even remember this woman. What if she wasn’t as bad as I thought?”
“Has your empathy ever been wrong?”
“No. But I might have misinterpreted it. Or maybe…I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do with being arrested for a murder I actually committed but don’t remember, for reasons the cops think they know that are almost right. It’s crazy.”
David looked preoccupied—and worried. He hadn’t been concerned with the murder charge, but something was wrong now. “What’s up?” she asked. “You have Serious Prime Face on.”
“I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “Something doesn’t feel right. I mean besides all of this.” He looked at her, and the heightened tension in his eyes made her feel tense too. “Are you getting anything? Precog, empathy, anything that feels wrong?”
Miranda had doubled her shields the second she reached the police station, and after that her emotions and ungrounded state had gotten in the way of her usual external feelers. She started to reach out —
“…Two…Stella Maguire…Miranda, can you hear me?”
Heart thudding to a halt, she hit her com. “Stella, it’s me! What’s going on?”
“I don’t know where I am,” she replied, her voice hoarse and weak. She also sounded like she was trying not to fall into hysterics. “On the street…I can’t see the signs.”
David already had his phone out. “11th…what the hell are you doing there? Chris was supposed to meet you a block from the venue.”
“…someone pretending to be Elite…led us away…she attacked us. I just came to a minute ago…I feel like I’m dying, Miranda. Please…please help us.”
“Us? Nico and Kai are with you, right? Is anyone else?”
David vanished. Miranda was glad — he was practically a virtuoso at Misting. She signaled to Harlan, but he was already turning the car around; David had automatically sent the coordinates from his phone before leaving the car.
“Kai’s here…he’s hurt, too, but mostly just dazed…Miranda…”
Oh God. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
Now her precog was firing on all cylinders, just in time to be good for absolutely nothing.
“I don’t know why, but…they took him. Nico’s gone.”
Chapter Nine
The Elf’s room was utterly silent except for the shallow, uneven breathing of its occupant. A half-dozen Elite had swept into the room, deposited the Bard on his bed, and swept back out to render their other houseguest unto Mo at the infirmary.
When he was sure they were finally gone, Deven moved back around the corner he’d been hiding behind and made his way to the bed to see what was going on. He hadn’t been able to get much out of the Elite except this was almost certainly a Morningstar attack and that Nico had been taken captive while Kai, David, and Stella were out for the count.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and gingerly checked Kai’s neck for wounds. It would take a keen eye to find the single tiny puncture mark, and it did; so they’d been darted with something. The Prime, too, had been brought down, as had Stella, and therein lay a mystery: Stella had been darted but was coming out of it. David hadn’t even been there for the attack but had passed out the second he came out of Mist on the scene.
Nico himself was the obvious answer. When he was hit, anyone with an active energetic connection to him had gone down too, and would be drained very quickly if more harm befell the Weaver. Stella loved Nico, and was his friend, but they weren’t twins, and they didn’t have an energetic lifeline between them. She’d been the one to link him to David, and that might have been enough to pull her in temporarily.
Deven had barely felt anything other than a growing sense of unease until he heard the call for an Alpha-Five go out over the network. In another time he might have been impressed with himself; the barrier he had created against Nico had been even stronger than he’d intended. No wonder Nico had been in such sorry shape all year. If the block was so powerful his own Prime hadn’t felt him attacked…Deven hadn’t meant for it to be that strong. God, how was Nico even sane?
“Are you happy now?”
He’d been so focused on his thoughts that the voice startled him. He looked up at the Queen, who sagged against the side of the doorframe, her face pale but her eyes full of anger.
“I mean this is what you wanted, right?”
she demanded. “What you’ve been hoping for?”
“I don’t understand,” he said faintly, standing up to face her.
“They’re probably going to kill him. He’s one of the Circle, so all they have to do is take him out and we’re done for. He was the weakest link, after all. Not a warrior, only barely able to do magic anymore, a pacifist...and undefended.”
He stared at her, feeling a sick tremor spread from his skin inward toward his heart. “You think I want him to die?” he asked softly.
“Don’t you?” She pushed herself off the frame. “If he dies you get to die, but you don’t have to outright kill yourself, so you don’t get the blame.”
He tried to come up with something to say, but the combined shock of her anger and her statement shattered any resolve he might have had. He just shook his head.
She wasn’t done.
“You made him suffer for two years—and the rest of us suffered too. You couldn’t cope so you got to spend months high out of your mind while people who loved you dealt with the fallout. We tried to be there for you. And now this—tell me something, Deven. Would this have happened if you’d been with us, with Nico, like you were supposed to be?”
They both knew the answer to that, but he had to make some sort of confession, even if it meant nothing to her anymore. “No.”
“I’m the only hope he has now. David can’t rescue him. Stella can probably help but she can’t fight her way through Morningstar. And I have no idea what to do.”
He could see how terrified she was, how lost—it was far worse than taking the brunt of her anger. In that minute the futility of his behavior hit home even harder than before; what was point of any of it? What had he proven? All this time, he could have had as much warmth and love as anyone could ever need.
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