Shadow’s Fall

by Dianne Sylvan

  She hurt … God, she hurt … her entire body felt like it was on fire, burning from the inside, and if there had been anything in her stomach, it probably wouldn’t have stayed there … if only she could just go back to sleep …

  Her throat was raw and burning, too, as if she’d been screaming. Vision swimming, she tried to make sense of her surroundings, of anything.

  An empty room, with a bar at one end. Old restaurant? The smell of fried food had seeped into the woodwork, and its undertone, coupled with the nausea she already felt, made her feel like gagging.

  A cup of water was pressed lightly to her lips. She drank all of it greedily, trying to assuage the agonizing itch in her throat, and the cool liquid helped her come back to her senses somewhat.

  “Try not to cough,” came an accented voice. “No sudden moves.”

  She whimpered weakly as she realized whom the voice belonged to.

  Hazel eyes met hers. “I’m sorry, Faith. I wish it could have been anyone but you.”

  She had to drag energy into her body by inches to even speak. “What did you do to me?”

  Jeremy stepped back away from her, and she could see him a little more clearly. He set down the empty cup on the bar, and a few things registered at once: She was bound upright, she couldn’t move her arms or legs, and there was a chemical kind of smell coming from somewhere nearby her that took a minute to place.

  Nail polish remover … acetone … or whatever he had used to kill Monroe.

  Her eyes focused on a pair of objects on the bar. One was a glass bottle of clear liquid with a bright yellow hazardous-materials sticker on the side, the other a syringe.

  Jeremy sensed she was figuring it out, and said, “There are several containers of gasoline behind you. When the charge goes off, it won’t be enough to bring the building down, but the fire will spread quickly and anyone on the ground floor will be killed.”

  He held up a cell phone. “This will tell me if you move. All I have to do is touch the screen, and it sends a signal to the detonator.”

  Faith closed her eyes, fighting helpless tears, thinking about the interrogation room at the Haven, its walls covered in the remains of 8.3 Claret. “I’m the detonator.”

  “You swallowed the charge while you were unconscious, and then I injected you. There’s enough explosive in your body right now that all it will take is a tiny burst of electricity.”

  Jeremy met her eyes, and she saw regret there, and sorrow. “It will be quick,” he said. “You won’t feel anything.”

  Faith couldn’t help it; her body hurt so much from the explosive poisoning her veins, and she had failed so utterly, that the tears fell even against her will. “Why?” she whispered. “Please, just tell me why.”

  He came to her again, this time dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. “Her name is Amelia,” he said softly.

  “Your lover?”

  “My daughter,” he replied. “My lover is long dead … and our child, all I have left in this world, is chained to Hart’s bed. As long as he has her, I am chained to him as well.”

  “He ordered you to do all of this … to start a war.”

  “Not in the beginning. He wanted to get back at Miranda for helping Cora. Cora was … very important to him, and now she is someone else’s Queen … but more importantly, Hart discovered that Miranda and David are the linchpin of a greater plan that threatens everything he stands for. Now there is far more than simple revenge at stake.”

  “You’re using me to lure them here so you can kill them both.”

  Jeremy nodded. “But Hart … there’s something he didn’t count on: Lydia.”

  “You knew Lydia?”

  “Lydia asked Hart to help the Order, but he refused. She needed a Signet, you see, and thought his animosity toward the South would make him want to join her side. But Hart is no fool. He figured out that if the Awakening happened, the entire balance of power in the Council would shift—his enemies would become more powerful than anyone could imagine and the Council as we know it would cease to exist. To stop it from ever coming to pass, he wanted to have the Pair eliminated. When Lydia realized what Hart was planning, she sought me out and offered help. If I performed the Awakening, she would ensure that Amelia was returned to me … and Hart wouldn’t know until it was too late. He would believe he had won.”

  “Then why go through with this? Why not ally with the South and all take on Hart together?”

  “Not part of the deal,” he said. “Lydia would only offer her help if I went through with Hart’s plan to kill the Pair … modified, of course, to suit her own agenda.”

  Faith lowered her eyes, head bowed. “The Stone.”

  Jeremy lifted his hand and touched her face. “I never wanted any of this … you don’t deserve it. Neither does your Pair. But we’ve all made our choices, and here we are.”

  “When you walk into a Haven, offer yourself to a Prime, you seal your own fate,” Faith said, remembering his words to her what seemed like a thousand years ago, in her room.

  “Things might have been very different … I wish they had been. But some fires, once lit, have to burn until they consume everything … and nothing is left of the world but ash.” He leaned in and kissed her softly on the forehead. “I promise you, Faith, when this is over … what rises from the ashes will be worth the burning.”

  Then he closed his eyes and faded from sight.

  David watched the fight unfold for a moment before he made his move; he opted not to Mist until he’d reached the building itself so he could keep an eye on his Elite as long as possible.

  He knew that if she could see her warriors right now, Faith would be proud; even without her there to lead them, they swarmed the building with perfect timing and coordination, all sides attacking at once, the enemy reacting exactly as David had hoped they would. Most of them headed toward the outside walls of the building, either to take on the first wave of Elite or to fire from above. Arrows rained down all around the Elite, but they didn’t falter, and within two minutes three of the enemy were already dead.

  The white dot that signified Miranda appeared just inside the first-floor back door, in a short hallway that led to storage rooms and then to the main restaurant area where Faith was being held. There were still four guards, but four was hardly an overwhelming number for the Queen, who was moving toward them slowly.

  She would be fine. He had no doubt of that.

  David spun the display on his phone to show him the roof again. There were only four up there now, the archers, one at each corner. If he Misted right behind any one of them he could kill him in seconds, take his crossbow, and take out the others before they knew what hit them.

  He took a few deep breaths to prepare himself for another Mist … and frowned. What the hell … ?

  One of the green dots kept flickering, as if its life signs were faltering, but suddenly it vanished from the ground floor and reappeared on the roof … it had to be Hayes, Misting up to the top of the building … but …

  No, it couldn’t be. The dot flickered again … and turned white.

  David stared, unbelieving, as he realized what he was seeing.

  But … it couldn’t be. He couldn’t believe it. Even after everything that had happened, it just … it couldn’t be.

  A Signet.

  All right, girl … get ready.

  The first guard was at the end of the hallway, facing away from her. Miranda drew the stake from her belt and moved up behind him, reaching out with her senses to touch his mind.

  You’re sad … so sad. Remember that time … that one … how depressed you were? You feel that way now. You can’t even move, you’re so depressed … You can barely even stand … Maybe the world would be better off if …

  The vampire sagged sideways against the door frame, his hands over his face, his awareness of the room and his job fading into the gray heaviness of pain. The sadness sapped his energy, took him off his guard.

  She clamped
her hand over his mouth and slammed the other into his back, the stake biting through skin and muscle and ripping into his heart.

  He made a gurgling noise and fell back against her. Miranda moved back, dragging him with her, and let him slide to the ground in the hallway where he wouldn’t be seen.

  Carefully, she pulled her stake and moved back to the doorway to get the lay of the land. The back hall where she had materialized led to another corridor of storage rooms, ending in another doorway to the now-defunct kitchen and from there out into the main room of the first floor. She could smell the grease and smoke from years of cooking and the fermented reek of old beer.

  There was another guard at the kitchen entrance, then at least one more between there and the main room. She could hear the rush and shouts of fighting going on distantly, but if her Elite did as they were supposed to, they would keep most of the battle outdoors, drawing the enemy to the front and keeping their attention there.

  The corridor was still too narrow for swords, but she touched the guard’s mind and searched for a chink in his emotional armor as she had the first’s. If she just went up and staked him the other guard might hear, and the commotion could alert whoever was holding Faith; they were probably waiting to kill Faith until they were sure the Prime and Queen were caught in whatever trap Hayes had planned.

  As she moved closer to him, she noticed that the door to her right was a walk-in freezer with an external lock. She pulled on the handle, and it opened—good.

  Miranda reached out to him. Come to me. Come to me … now.

  She ducked into the freezer, which was empty but running. Most likely no one had thought to disconnect it when they got the power turned back on to use the building as their headquarters. They probably weren’t worried about the electric bill.

  Footsteps. The guard leaned cautiously into the freezer, no doubt wondering how it had opened itself.

  She seized him by the throat and hauled him in with her, flinging him hard against the back wall of the freezer. Before he could make a sound, she had drawn Shadowflame, and his neck opened with a spray of blood, his head falling to the left while his body landed in a heap on the floor.

  Miranda closed the freezer quietly behind her. Two down, two to go. She needed to take them out carefully, without alerting anyone else—she had gotten much better at group combat, but the odds were far more in her favor one-on-one. It was too bad she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of using weaponized empathy on more than one person. She could handle a crowd only through music, and then they all felt the same thing. Now wasn’t really the time to burst into song.

  The kitchen wasn’t the ideal setting for a fight, but it was better than the hallway. Her boots weren’t entirely silent on the terra-cotta tiles, but the noise outside was growing louder and louder. A few more minutes and the Elite would break through the lines entirely and pour into the building. She needed to have Faith’s guards dealt with by then.

  Before she could reach out toward the third guard, he must have heard or felt her—he turned toward the kitchen, expression turning from surprise to outrage as he started to shout—

  Miranda threw her stake, aiming for his throat rather than his chest; it took a lot more force to get through the sternum and rib cage, and she couldn’t risk a miss.

  His hands flew up to try to catch or deflect the stake and failed. He gave a strangled cry as blood burst from the wound, but the shock gave her all the advantage she needed, and she crossed the kitchen to him, yanked the stake back, and drove it into his chest.

  By some miracle, the noise from the third guard’s death didn’t bring in any others. Miranda flattened herself against the open door and edged toward the main room an inch at a time so she could see in hopefully without being seen.

  What she saw made her blood turn to ice with fear.

  Oh, God. Oh, no …

  “Faith,” she said softly. “Faith, I’m so sorry.”

  There was no one else guarding the Second. Miranda knew, as soon as she saw what had been done to Faith, that there was no need to guard her.

  Faith heard her voice and lifted her head. Her skin was greenish and sweat poured down her face; whatever Jeremy had shot her full of had to be toxic, and her body was trying to burn it off, but without fresh blood she couldn’t heal, not as weak as she was. And even if she did, if Jeremy had done to her what he had to Monroe and force-fed her a charge, even if he didn’t set off the explosive, the damage to her body could be catastrophic.

  Miranda was at her side in seconds. “It’s all right,” she said, putting a reassuring hand on Faith’s face. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  Faith could barely speak. “You … have to get out,” she said in a broken whisper. “He’s going to …”

  “No, he’s not,” Miranda insisted. She started examining the chains that held Faith upright against the containers of gasoline, and the wires threaded through them. Did they connect the detonator to the fuel, or were they just there to send a signal? “Faith, I’m not going to let him kill you. We’re here to save you—do you hear me? Nobody’s dying tonight except Hayes and his buddies.”

  “You don’t … understand …”

  “Save your strength,” Miranda told her. “You’re going to need it once we get you out of here …”

  “You can’t,” Faith said. “If you move me, he’ll know, and he’ll set off the charge. Please … just go, before it’s too late.”

  “I’m not leaving you here, damn it!”

  Faith shook her head weakly. “You have to go. Get the Stone away from here, before …”

  “The Stone doesn’t matter, Faith. They can’t do the ritual—Deven killed them all. The Stone is useless. Now, hold still while I—”

  “Listen to me.”

  Miranda stopped and met her eyes. “Faith …”

  Faith’s eyes were full of tears. “He has the ritual. Lydia gave it to him,” she said. “He’s on the roof. All he needs is the Stone and you brought it right to him.”

  Her gaze lifted for a second, and Miranda saw the horror in her face just before she heard the click.

  A second later, the first crossbow bolt hit Miranda’s back.

  The Queen lurched forward, dazed by the sudden impact, and by the next … and the next …

  She looked into Faith’s eyes again and held them as she sank to her knees. A fourth bolt and a fifth punched into her back, all of them missing her heart, but each one sending pain coursing through her, overwhelming her senses, draining her strength.

  “This isn’t your fault,” Miranda whispered. “It’s not your fault, Faith.”

  The room was fading from her eyes, but Miranda held on to Faith’s gaze as long as she could, trying without words to give the Second what little comfort she could.

  She heard someone behind her say, “Sire, we have her.”

  And that was all.

  David didn’t have time to assess the situation as he Misted onto the roof. The second his feet hit the ground, one of the enemy vampires was already on him; he threw himself into the fight and threw the other vampire to the ground, drawing his sword and spinning to meet the next attacker.

  Within two minutes he had killed all four of them. He shoved the last one’s body aside and turned, blade ready, to meet the only other vampire on the roof … the Signet who had been waiting for him.

  He blinked.

  At the center of the roof, an altar had been erected out of discarded bricks and a piece of flat stone. There were two candles, one black and one red; several sheets of yellowed paper with diagrams and text written on them …

  … and a hammer.

  “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

  David turned his head slightly to look at the fair-haired vampire. “No, we haven’t.”

  He stepped toward David and gave a slight bow. “Jeremy Hayes … Prime of Australia.”

  David nodded. “David Solomon, Prime of the Southern United States.”

 
Jeremy smiled slightly and walked back behind the altar, where he took a silver lighter from his pocket and set about lighting the candles. “I had a devil of a time figuring out where to set this up that the wind wouldn’t blow them out,” he said idly. “The parchment made it clear, however: We had to be outdoors beneath the new moon.”

  David let out his breath slowly, eyes moving down to the texts in front of Jeremy. “The Awakening ritual?”

  A nod. “It has to be performed by a Signet. I think originally the idea was that the chosen Prime would do the ritual and sacrifice himself willingly. It really is a shame … I imagine when your boyfriend finds out he slaughtered the Order for nothing, he’s going to feel terrible. As I understand it, Eladra was very fond of him.”

  “Eladra?”

  “The High Priestess. Ex–High Priestess, now. You know … I’ve been loved, in my life, but I don’t think anyone’s ever been devoted to me enough to kill twenty-eight people. That alone makes me wish that you and I could have been allies.”

  David raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that, given how much you seem to enjoy blowing up my allies.”

  Jeremy smiled. “I had to see for myself if Lydia’s theory about the connection among all of you was true. I had no intention of harming Janousek or his Queen—I merely set up the circumstances and then monitored his phone calls to see how all of you reacted. Knowing Lydia was right made all of this a little easier.”

  David started to move toward him, but just then he felt something—pain, and not his own. Three stories below, he felt Miranda being shot, this time by wooden bolts. He gasped, the world swimming around him, and held on to consciousness by sheer force of will. She was hurt; she was hurt and needed him—

  “Stay where you are,” Jeremy instructed. “She’s alive. And she’ll stay that way if you obey me. Try anything and both of you die.”

  A moment later the door to the stairwell opened, and three of the enemy vampires dragged something heavy out onto the roof.

  One of the men hauled Miranda up at stakepoint. She was half-conscious, blood running down both of her legs from the wooden shafts still sticking out of her back. As they got her to her feet, she woke up enough to struggle and snarled at the men holding her, writhing as hard as she could to win free of them.