Shadow’s Fall

by Dianne Sylvan

  She met his eyes. “So do I.”

  Together, with Vràna standing guard, they waited in the frigid night for the cavalry to arrive.

  Stella wished fervently that she had been born with healing talent instead of Sight.

  Sunlight glared through the front windows of Revelry, revealing every speck of dust on the inventory and elevating her headache from vicious-and-pounding to purely murderous.

  She leaned on her elbows on the counter and rubbed her temples. Of all the stupid times to have a day shift.

  “Hey, do you have any more red pillar candles?”

  Stella cracked one eye at the woman with orangey-red dyed hair and a saucer-sized pentagram necklace. “Do you see any on the shelf?”

  The woman made a noise of irritation and turned away, muttering.

  Stella heaved a sigh and reached down into the drawer under the counter, rummaging for the bottle of Advil she was pretty sure Foxglove had stashed there. She groped past an assortment of office supplies and what felt like a bundle of dried sage until her fingers closed around the bottle; meanwhile, her other hand grabbed her coffee cup.

  “Aw, hell,” she said, realizing the cup was empty, just as the bell jangled to announce another customer. The sound sent a snarl of pain through her head.

  “Here.”

  A take-out coffee cup appeared on the counter, and Stella seized it with a groan and popped four pills with a swallow of the blessedly hot liquid. “Perfect timing.”

  Lark looked about how Stella felt. She, too, was clinging to a giant cup as if her life depended on it. “Figured you had a hangover as nasty as mine. How drunk were we?”

  Stella stared at her friend, taking in the dark circles under her eyes and her marginally groomed appearance. “You don’t remember anything?”

  “I remember we went to that fetish club. Where did we go after that?”

  Stella found herself staring at Lark’s neck, where there was a faint gummy-looking residue. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Lark reached up and touched the spot. “I dunno. I found a Band-Aid there, but there’s nothing under it but a bug bite. What do you remember?”

  “About the same.” Stella drank her coffee, looking out over the store at the handful of customers, most of whom were regulars. “Look, Lark … I’m sorry I got us into all that crap. It was stupid.”

  “Wait … you mean you aren’t going to keep looking? I thought you were dying to know … that thing you wanted to know.”

  Stella shook her head. “That was before you got hurt.”

  “I’m not hurt, Stell, I’m hung-the-fuck-over. That happens at least once a week. Come on, there’s got to be more to this—don’t you want to find out?”

  “I’m done, Lark. This whole thing is just insane.”

  Lark stared at her. “You’re serious.”

  “Yeah. I’m serious. I’m done.”

  The look on Lark’s face said she clearly didn’t believe Stella, but she said, “Well … okay, if that’s what you want. But if you change your mind after your hangover goes away, I’m up for another try.”

  Stella managed a smile. “Thanks for sticking with me through this. You’re a good friend.”

  “And you, sweetie, are a certifiable nutbar. But I love you anyway.” Lark leaned over and bestowed a kiss on Stella’s forehead. “I’ve got to split—I’ve got class. I’ll call you later, okay? We can go for falafel.”

  “Sure, sounds good.”

  Despite Lark’s condition, as she left Stella heard her singing softly:

  I have no fear of heights,

  No fear of the deep blue sea …

  Stella didn’t breathe freely again until Lark had gone. She needed time to think, without worrying what her best friend might hare off and do impulsively on her behalf. Stella glanced, for the tenth time that day, at the paper-wrapped volume sitting on the shelf below, and as luck would have it, when she looked back up, the bell was jangling again to announce the arrival of a certain wizard-looking fellow.

  “Young Mistress Maguire,” Gandalf said with a bow as he approached the counter. “I hear that you have another package for me—from Genoa, I believe.”

  Stella nodded and retrieved the book, setting it carefully on the counter between them but leaving her hands on it for a second.

  Gandalf peered at her curiously. “Are you well, Miss Stella? You look rather, as my uncle Larry would have said, ‘rode hard and hung up wet.’”

  Stella grinned. “I’m hungover, Master Gandalf. Majorly. But I’ll be okay. Actually … there’s something I want to ask you.”

  He frowned. “You’re not still poking about in places angels like you should know better than to tread, are you?”

  She held his eyes for a minute, then wordlessly reached up to her shirt collar and pulled it aside, showing him the very, very faint pink marks on her neck. At the rate they were healing, they’d be gone by nightfall, but she knew he could see them, because his eyes widened and his face paled a shade.

  “Gandalf,” she said softly, “I need you to tell me what you know about the Signets.”

  Faith did not like the way her boss was looking at her.

  In fact, if they hadn’t been in an elevator with nowhere to run, she probably would have backed away slowly.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?” he asked, with that calmness in his voice that she had learned, after years of serving him, placed her on dangerous ground.

  “I was going to,” she insisted. “I was. But the incident with Maguire’s girl distracted me, and there were the bodies to deal with afterward, and then this evening we were waiting for news from Janousek—”

  “You should have come to me the minute you left the hotel,” David cut her off. “What if we had already gone to pick up the Stone from the lab and one of us put it on? You could have put us both in danger, Faith.”

  “Yes, Sire. I’m sorry.”

  He was glowering as the numbers on the display ticked upward, but just as it reached the floor where Hunter was headquartered, he said, “Forgiven, Second.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “First, we get the results from Novotny’s tests. Then we have him lock the damn thing up for at least a week, preferably with monitoring equipment so he can measure any effects the new moon has on it.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I drop in on the Pair of the West,” he said darkly. “I think we need to have a little chat.”

  She crossed her arms. “Deven thought you would want to study the Stone and that you’d want to see what it does firsthand.”

  “That’s because Deven apparently thinks I’m an idiot,” David snapped.

  “Jonathan agreed with him about the Stone.”

  The look on the Prime’s face changed slightly, from angry to thoughtful. “Did he?”

  “Yes. He was definitely shaken up by it—he suggested that if I didn’t want to steal it, I should at least try to distract you from it until after the new moon. He really seems to think something terrible will happen.”

  The doors slid open and they headed down the hall. “The important thing is that you told me.”

  Faith shook hear head, saying, “I can’t believe they thought I would keep it from you.”

  David gave her a piercing look. “You’re assuming that your telling us wasn’t their intention all along.”

  “But why …”

  “I don’t know. But when was the last time Deven did anything without six ulterior motives? His own plans don’t trust themselves. Why should we believe anything he says?”

  “Because Jonathan wouldn’t lie,” Faith pointed out. “That’s why Deven never tells him anything—so he won’t have to choose between loyalty and honesty. Jonathan certainly wouldn’t fake a precognitive insight.”

  David strode through the lab’s main door. “I hope he wouldn’t … but I’ll find out for sure after we’re done here.”

  Novotny was waiting for them. “Good evening, Sire
, Faith. I received the photos you sent earlier—is everything all right in Prague?”

  “Yes,” David said. “The human authorities swept both Janousek’s remaining cars for explosives but found none. Do you agree with my initial assessment of the situation?”

  “Oh, definitely.” Novotny led them through the lab to the area where evidence was kept locked in vaults in the wall; he kept speaking as he walked over to where he was storing the Stone and began entering the passcodes. “Given the blast pattern in the photos, I would conclude it was the driver himself, not the car, that was rigged to go off. If what the Queen said about her vision is accurate, I would say the same person who killed your shooter Monroe is behind the attempt on the Pair’s life. I can’t be a hundred percent sure until I get samples for toxicology analysis, of course, but I’d wager the driver was either carrying or had ingested a similar explosive.”

  “This is looking less and less like Hart,” Faith said. “He’s not Janousek’s biggest fan, but making an outright assassination attempt is another story altogether. He wouldn’t be that obvious—not so soon after the Council meeting.”

  “Agreed,” the Prime said. “Which leads us squarely back to Lydia and her Order, assuming Jeremy Hayes hasn’t gone rogue. Neither of those possibilities comforts me.”

  Faith started to tell the Prime what else she’d learned from Deven—that Lydia was dead—but Novotny spoke first.

  “Well, if you find this Lydia, there are a lot of questions about her object that remain unanswered,” Novotny said, pressing his palm to the scanner; it beeped and Faith heard the lock on the vault disengage. “Either she was greatly exaggerating its importance, or whatever mystical properties it has are completely dormant. As far as any of our tests can tell, it’s just a piece of—”

  He pulled the drawer open and lifted the lid … revealing an empty nest of foam.

  “Where is it?” David asked.

  Novotny had gone ashen white, and to Faith’s bewilderment, he actually stammered his reply: “I … I have no idea.”

  Sixteen

  Deven had always found David irresistible when angry. Often when they were together, Deven would piss him off just for the makeup sex.

  He also knew how to push the Prime’s buttons—he had installed quite a few of them himself—such as allowing David to rage at him without so much as batting an eye.

  “Where is it?” David all but thundered, not bothering with greetings as he and Faith burst into the hotel suite where Deven was going over a transcript of the recording Cora had gotten him during the Queens’ gathering, and Jonathan was again reading his battered autographed copy of Les Misérables.

  Deven looked up from the monitor. “Where is what?”

  “The Stone, Deven. Where is the Stone?”

  Deven’s eyebrow quirked. He looked at Faith. “Did you get it?”

  Faith narrowed her eyes. “I told you I had no intention of stealing the Stone,” she said. “And I didn’t. It must have been you.”

  Jonathan’s book slid off his lap toward the floor, and he caught it, saying, “Us? We don’t have it. What’s going on, David?”

  “It has to be you,” David growled. His irises were the leaden color of a sky before a blizzard. “It was in the lab last night, and tonight Novotny opened the vault to find it had vanished. We have security footage of one of the interns opening the vault and taking the Stone out—but the intern has conveniently lost any memory of doing so, and there’s no footage of where he took it.”

  Deven closed his laptop and folded his hands on its lid. “If I had known it would be that easy to get my hands on, I would never have asked Faith to take care of it.”

  David’s eyes burned into his. “You’re telling me you didn’t steal it.”

  “I did not.” Deven leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “But I think we owe a debt of gratitude to whoever did, given what the thing does.”

  “Which you had no intention of telling me,” David said. “Because you think I’m incapable of making my own decisions.”

  “I understand that you’re angry—”

  “No, I don’t believe you do. Or at least I don’t believe you care.”

  Deven considered that. “No, I don’t, really. I don’t mind you being angry with me as long as you’re safe from the Stone. Once the thing is useless again and I don’t have to worry about you getting yourself killed, then I can worry about apologizing.”

  David bowed his head for a moment, then said quietly, “I don’t think so … not this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Their eyes met again. “Deven … you know how much I care for you. And I value your friendship both personally and politically. But I can’t do this anymore. Either you and I are equals, or we aren’t. I want a friend who is an equal. I don’t want whatever this is you’re trying to be.”

  “I am trying,” Deven said just as quietly, “to save your lives.”

  “Then tell me why. And how. And everything you know.” When Deven didn’t answer, David nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  David straightened, looking from one vampire to the other. “You told me I should stop acting like a pawn; well, you were right. I would like for the two of you to leave my territory as soon as possible … and not return.”

  Deven started to speak, but David went on: “I would like to continue to honor our alliance in Council, but I have to consider our personal relationship at an end. I won’t have a friendship without trust.”

  Their eyes still held. “I understand,” Deven said.

  Slowly, David nodded. “Please be gone by the end of the week.”

  He turned and walked out of the suite, and Faith—looking utterly amazed by what she’d just witnessed—followed him, closing the door behind her.

  Silence, for a moment, while the humming anger of David’s presence faded from the room.

  Then Jonathan said, “You have no intention of leaving, do you?”

  Deven sighed. “We’ll do as the Prime requested after the new moon has come and gone and we can be sure they’re safe. After that, we go home, and give David another few years to fret and stew before he realizes he needs us.”

  Jonathan was looking at the door. “You know, love … I’m not really sure that’s going to happen this time. He may have finally had enough of you.”

  “He may have for now. But not forever. I don’t really understand this thing that binds us together that keeps bringing us into each other’s orbit over and over … but I know it can be denied for only so long before it pulls us back together again. Friends, lovers, whatever—there’s some part of each of us that can’t let go. And however much he may wish he could hate me … in time, he’ll see that I was right. That’s the one real advantage of what we are, Jonathan … we have all the time there is, years upon years, decades crumbling into centuries … never ending …”

  He trailed off, and it was a moment before he realized Jonathan was staring at him.

  “You’re getting lost again,” Jonathan said gently.

  “Oh … right.” Deven rubbed his temples against the headache that had formed there. “Whatever. He’ll get over it. But he’ll still be alive—that’s what matters. I can deal with him pissed off for a while as long as he and Miranda stay alive.”

  He heard Jonathan rise and cross the room to where Deven sat, felt him go to his knees in front of Deven’s chair. “Look at me,” Jonathan said.

  Deven sighed and obeyed.

  “I’ve heard that the oldest vampires don’t end up being killed by outside forces,” Jonathan said, brushing stray hair from Deven’s eyes. “They kill themselves slowly … they lose their will to go on. Immortality consumes them, and they just sort of fade away.”

  “It happens,” Deven replied. “That’s why Primes have Consorts … to make eternity less of a burden.”

  “Then I’m not doing my job,” Jonathan said with regret. “I want to help you. I want to be what you need. But you
won’t let me.”

  “Do you want to know the truth?”

  “Please.”

  Deven laid his hands on Jonathan’s head, twining his fingers through his Consort’s blond hair. “A part of me was ready to die before I met David. I had been alive too long, seen too much. He woke me from a living death—and in doing so, made me ready to find you. And you do make me want to live, my love … but nothing can take away the past. You can give me new life every day, but you can’t heal me. No one can.”

  There were tears in Jonathan’s eyes. “I hate it when you talk like that,” he said.

  “And that’s why I don’t.”

  “That’s what I get for falling for an older man,” he muttered.

  Deven leaned back again, still stroking Jonathan’s hair, and said, “None of them understand … they can’t see the enormity of time the way I can, the way it swallows all our striving … they want to live solely in the moment, not realizing that for our kind the moment never ends. Empires have come and gone, continents have been discovered and populated from shore to shore, men have walked on the moon, wars have consumed the planet … everything dies, but we remain. We are witnesses to the endless decay of the world. No matter how high we rise, eventually … ashes to ashes, we all fall down.”

  Miranda finished pulling her comb through the tangle of her damp curls, then plaited the whole mass into a messy braid to keep it out of her face.

  She’d spent as much of the night as she could working out to try to alleviate some of the tension that seemed to have taken up permanent residency in her body, and once she was good and worn out, she took a steamy hot shower and scrubbed herself raw.

  It didn’t really help. Once she was done, she was again at loose ends, with too many hours left in the night and too little to do.

  She had to be careful about leaving the Haven for a while yet, though she was making sure that the public knew her recovery from the shooting was proceeding beautifully with no complications. That afternoon, lying awake with David after she had woken practically screaming with fear for Jacob and Cora, they’d discussed her “recovery” and decided she should stay home for a full month, going into town no more than once a week to hunt fresh blood and stave off cabin fever. If she didn’t feel satisfied with donated bag blood brought from town, they could figure out a way to bring in live humans a few nights a week. But she had to stay out of sight.