Queen of Shadows (31 page)

The air was thick with smoke.

David ran across the street, pushing past the bright yellow barrier and ignoring the officer who tried to call him back. He snaked in between the fire trucks and emerged on the other side, where a blast of heat knocked him back.

It was like staring into hell. The building was an inferno, and several of the others in the complex had already gone up as well.

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to the charring white eaves of the building. Just beneath the roof, painted in dark red that was blackening in the smoke, was the Seal of Auren.

The energy expense of moving himself through such a great distance caught up with him as the shock did, and he felt his knees impacting with the concrete. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the flames licking out of Miranda’s windows—his mind’s eye showed him her furniture cracking and paint blistering, her prized keyboard’s casing melting in the heat.

And all the while, he could hear the past: Lizzie screaming as the bonfire rose up to consume her lily-white skin.

“Sire?”

He didn’t look away from the fire at the patrol leader who had found him.

“Sire, we found Elite Eighty-Six—she was still alive when we got to her, but . . .”

“What else?” he asked. “What have they found?”

“We don’t know. It happened so fast—they’re certain it was arson. They found gas cans in the parking lot. They rescued a few of the residents, but at least half are unaccounted for.”

“And Miss Grey?”

“I don’t know, Sire. All I know is . . .”

“What?”

“Lindsay . . . when we found her, she was saying ‘I failed, I’m sorry’ over and over again. When I asked her what happened, all she said was . . . was . . . ‘She’s gone.’ ”

“No,” he said. “She must have been out. She couldn’t have been in there. Find her.
Now.
”

He tried to think, tried to come up with another explanation. She had been at the club tonight, and he was supposed to meet her at midnight . . . she would have been home, waiting for him, when they came for her. She might even have opened the door thinking he was behind it.

There was no way she could have escaped. A small human woman couldn’t stand up to three vampires, not without months of fight training and a miracle. She had been strong, but not that strong, not yet.

No. No . . . no.

Desperate, he sought out with his power, trying to find the connection they’d had only days ago. He’d let it fade so that she could go back to normal for a little while longer, thinking it was the right thing to do, that she should have more time to think. But she had already known what she wanted. He was the one who was afraid. And now . . .

He searched for her with his mind, but when he found what was left of the link and tried to follow it, he met only cold darkness where her loving warmth should be. Even after a week there should have been a faint trace of it left.

He didn’t know how long he knelt there, staring at the fire, before a voice said, “Excuse me, sir, but I’ve been asked to show you this.”

David rose, absently dusting off his knees and straightening his coat, and faced the paramedic. The young woman was sweaty and dirty, and he could see that she was a seasoned professional who wouldn’t let herself feel the loss of life until after she had saved as many as she could.

He nodded, and she led him around the fire truck, past several humans in various degrees of jeopardy with other EMTs fixing oxygen masks on their faces. Nearby, there were already three bodies covered in sheets, awaiting transport to the morgue.

The Elite patrol leader he’d spoken to before was standing at the edge of the triage area. He was staring down at something.

David had never wanted to run away from anything so badly in his life.

He forced himself to walk up to the man’s side, stand between him and the EMT, and look down.

He was expecting a body. What he saw was a guitar.

“The fire started in unit two twenty-one,” the EMT was saying. “One of the first responders tripped over this and ended up dragging it out with him. The strings got wrapped around his foot. As I understand it, you know the resident here?”

David stared at the remains of the beautiful instrument. There was little more than a scrap of neck and string left, the body so charred it had fallen apart.

He remembered the first time he’d seen her play, that night at the club, when he had no idea how she would throw his world into such welcome turmoil. Then, that night at the Haven, when he’d watched her from the door, his heart so full of love for her that only a liter of Jack could silence it. He saw her slender hands dancing over the strings, the way they had danced over his skin, and her soft mouth forming words, that same mouth that had closed over his.

She was gone. He couldn’t feel her anymore. Ariana had gotten to her before the Elite could reach her. He’d been too late to save her. Jonathan’s vision had come true, and he had been too blind to heed the warning.

She was gone.

He responded numbly to the EMT’s questions, and when she finally left, he turned to the Elite.

“You will stay here until we have a body,” he informed the patrol leader. “Have Lindsay’s body sent back for a memorial and comb the area for any further evidence. I want this Blackthorn bitch brought to me.” He looked back up at the smoking remains of the apartment building, where everything that mattered had gone to ash. “I’m going home.”

Faith was waiting outside the front doors of the Haven when the car pulled up. She’d been standing there for nearly half an hour.

She’d tried to contact him over the coms, but he wasn’t answering; the patrol unit at the scene had no news, only that the building was a total loss and no body had been found. But if anyone would know, David would know. The connection between him and Miranda would surely still be active, and even if it wasn’t he was strong enough to find its echo.

She had to be alive. There was simply no other possibility. After everything that had happened, everything Miranda had been through, it couldn’t end so suddenly. They would find her, and she would be fine, and she would come home.

Harlan got out and held open the car door, and after a moment, David emerged, his face smudged with soot.

When she saw the expression on his face, Faith shook her head violently.

“No,” she charged up to him, standing in front of him, fighting the urge to shake him. “Tell me you found her, Sire. Tell me she’s okay.”

In the decades she’d known him she had seen him angry, seen him hate; she had seen him mourn. But she had never seen what she saw in his eyes at that moment . . . complete desolation.

Faith fell back, her hand to her mouth against the sobs that were trying to batter their way past her rapidly fracturing calm.

The Prime lowered his eyes and walked past her into the Haven, silent, head bowed.

Faith followed, struggling to regain control of herself, but she saw tears on the faces of the servants and Elite that she passed. When they reached the Prime’s wing, and he went quietly into the suite and shut the door without admitting her, Samuel took her arm.

“What’s happening?” he asked. “I just got on duty and everyone’s saying . . . God, Faith, is it true?”

She made herself sound professional even if her heart was screaming. “We don’t have confirmation yet. As soon as there’s news I’ll make sure you know.”

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

She started back down the hall. “We’re going to find Ariana Blackthorn and kill her. And we’re going to kill all of her friends. And anyone else who might need it. But first . . . first we’re going to find Miranda and bring her back here, where she belongs.”

Eighteen

The first breath she took was nothing but water.

She screamed, but no sound would come. It was cold . . . so cold . . . and she couldn’t see. Blackness surrounded her, pulled her feet, dragging her downward . . . and she was so weak, she could barely even move, let alone struggle.

So cold.

This was where she had always been headed. It was the nightmare made real. The darkness had closed around her and there was no escape.

Images floated past her mind as she hung suspended between life and death. She saw her childhood, her mother, back when things were good. She saw Marianne back when she could smile. She saw her mother’s vacant face and lifeless eyes . . . her lonely grave in Austin, unattended for ten years until her prodigal daughter offered her rosemary. There was an empty plot next to her, just the right size for one more grave.

She heard music, her own voice singing. Piano, deep and rich. She felt keys beneath her fingers, then strings, then muscles. She tasted blood.

Faces came to her, some with names, some without. Kat. Faith. Sophie. Terrence. Helen.

David
.

Samuel. Ariana. Traitors. The full moon.

Memory struck, and from somewhere deep within her that was almost dead, she summoned all her strength and
fought
.

She burst through the surface of the water, flailing on all sides, her lungs burning from lack of oxygen. Her hands were nearly unresponsive, but she splashed out until she found something to grab on to and pulled herself sideways.

She crawled onto the bank, vomiting huge gushes of stinking lake water, then sucking in an enormous breath that made her dizzy. She collapsed into the mud, coughing and gasping and sobbing.

Her chest hurt. She put her hands to her heart, felt it beating. It was beating.

She was alive.

As soon as her lungs were empty and her nose was no longer full of the stench of pollution and dirt, she smelled something else . . . something crisp and light . . . something terrifying.

Morning. Morning was coming.

She had to get inside. The sky was starting to lighten in the east.

Inch by inch, she pulled herself all the way out of the water and got to her hands and knees, then her feet. The world spun around her, but she stayed upright through sheer force of will.

She had somehow ended up a long way from the Congress bridge. She was just off the jogging path that wound around Lady Bird Lake. In a few hours there would be people everywhere. She could get help, find a phone, call . . .

Call who, exactly? She had never bothered memorizing numbers because they were all stored in her phone. She was fairly sure she knew Kat’s, but she didn’t have any way to call. Her phone was back at her apartment and there was no way she’d make it there by dawn. She had to find someplace dark and safe, somewhere she could rest. She was so tired.

She almost sank back to the ground, but fear of what would happen if she was caught outside drove her forward. Her body hurt all over, and she felt like her insides were coated with sawdust. She was soaked and filthy and had no money, no identification, not even seventy-five cents for a bus.

Her mind was whirling. She had to think. Where could she go?

She stumbled up the path, arms wrapped around herself in a vain attempt to warm up. She made her way up to the street, trying to make sense of where she was, and her blurry eyes made out a street sign: LAMAR BOULEVARD.

That was something. Lamar ran all the way through Austin, parallel to the interstate from one end to the other. If she was at the lake, she was west of her apartment and just south of downtown. She could get home in a couple of hours walking once the sun went down. If she continued south a little farther, she’d pass the Zachary Scott Theatre and a variety of restaurants.

She concentrated on moving one foot at a time, watching carefully where she stepped in her bare feet. She was starting to shiver from the cold, and her teeth were chattering, causing her upper jaw to hurt like it was cracked. The pain in her body was growing so intense that she started to cry without realizing it until she felt tears hit her arm.

Around her the night waned, and her skin started to feel wrong, like it was on too tight. She remembered a similar feeling a long time ago when she’d been stung by a bee and found out she was allergic.

She looked around and saw she’d made it as far as the sandwich shop next to the theater. It was closed at this hour, but an idea seized her, and she slipped around the back of the building to the kitchen door.

Taking a deep breath, she threw herself at the door; it shuddered under her weight but didn’t give. She tried again, and again, crying out softly with each hit, and on the fourth, the flimsy wood splintered and fell inward.

She had to take it on faith that there was no alarm. Inside, the air was cool and dark, and she wanted more than anything just to curl up in the corner and sleep, but she’d be found; instead, she looked behind the counter until she found a phone.

It took several tries to get the number right. The last two digits were hazy in her mind, but providence was with her, and after a couple of rings, a sleepy voice answered, “Hello?”

“Kat,” she all but wept, “It’s Miranda. I need your help.”

“Oh my God, Mira! Thank God! I’ve been trying to find you—are you okay? Were you hurt?”

Miranda half laughed, half cried. “Please, Kat . . . I need you to come get me. I’m at the Newman’s Deli on South Lamar, by the Zach. Please hurry—and bring a blanket.”

“But—”

“Please,” she begged. “I’ll explain everything later.”

“I’m on my way,” Kat said breathlessly. “Hang on, honey, I’ll be there in five minutes.”

Miranda was sitting on the curb outside when Kat pulled up in her battered old Corolla. Miranda pushed herself to her feet and all but fell into the car, taking the blanket Kat offered and wrapping it around herself until every inch of her skin was covered.

“Hurry . . . I have to be inside before the sun is up.”

For once Kat didn’t ask any questions. When she saw the state of Miranda’s clothes and hair and the way she was shaking, she simply floored the accelerator and drove them to her place at twice the legal speed limit.

She bundled Miranda into her rented duplex and sat her on the couch. “Okay, start talking.”

“Not yet.” Miranda poked her nose out of the blanket. “Are there any windows in your guest bathroom?”

“No, but . . .”

Miranda shook her head and stood back up; Kat made a noise of impatience but helped her into the bathroom.

There, Miranda stripped off the blanket and heard Kat gasp.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Kat asked. “Your shirt!”

She looked down. There was a hole over her heart, and her T-shirt was stained with the blurry remains of the blood that had gushed from the stab wound. Miranda touched the hole, the memory threatening to engulf her.

“Someone tried to kill me,” she said.

“Jesus, Mira . . . first your apartment, now this—you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”

“My apartment? What do you mean?”

Kat leaned on the bathroom door, looking utterly mystified by the whole situation. “It was all over the news last night. Someone burned down your complex. There are at least ten people dead—weren’t you there?”

Miranda sat down hard on the closed toilet lid, putting her head in her hands. “They burned it. They burned it. All those people . . . everything . . . was anything left?”

“I don’t think so. The fire started in your building.”

Miranda was crying again, out of rage and loss, thinking of all her things—her guitar, her computer . . . her mother’s picture, framed and hanging on the living room wall. She had nothing, not even her wallet left, only the rags she had had on when she crawled from the lake.

“Can I borrow some clothes?” she asked in a small voice.

Kat’s eyes were wet, and she nodded. “You take a shower. I’ll get you something to put on.” She wiped her eyes and said, “It’s going to be okay, Mira. We’ll figure this out.”

Miranda pulled off her T-shirt and the sodden, muddy jeans, added her underwear to the pile, then gathered it all up and shoved it in the trash. She ran the water as hot as she could stand it and stood beneath the spray for a long time, scrubbing at dirt that couldn’t seem to come clean.

By the time she got out, she was on the verge of losing consciousness. She had to sleep. Something was happening to her body, and she was losing what was left of her strength rapidly. Her belly hurt unbearably, as if something were twisting her intestines and squeezing them hard; if there had been anything in her stomach she probably would have lost it. Her head was throbbing, and the roof of her mouth felt like it was on fire.

Her vision was swimming and she fell back against the bathroom wall, sliding down until her butt hit the floor.

Kat opened the door. “Here,” she said. “This should fit—it’s just sweats but I thought you’d want something warm.”

“Thank you,” Miranda managed, struggling into the unfamiliar garments. The legs and arms were too long, but they were dry, and soft, and smelled like fabric softener.

“What else do you need?”

Miranda stared at her hard, her eyes traveling over her friend’s face and down to her neck. She could see the tributaries of Kat’s veins flowing into the greater river, and how it pulsed.

“Oh, God,” Miranda moaned, doubling over. Realization hit her as the pieces flew together.

I died. Ariana killed me. And then I woke . . . and now I’m . . . changing . . . it’s not over yet. It’s only just beginning.

“I need someplace to stay for a few days,” she whispered. “Someplace dark. Does your guest room have windows?”

“Yeah, it does—and I’m asking again, what the fuck is going on? Why do you need dark? Miranda, we have to call the cops. Somebody tried to kill you. You just said so.”

She smiled sadly. “The police can’t help me now.”

“You said you were going to explain, Miranda. Don’t I deserve that much?”

“I’m not sure you’ll believe me,” Miranda told her. “I’m going to have to stay here . . . do you have spare blankets? Maybe a pillow?”

“You’re going to sleep in the bathroom?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. The bathroom might be the best place.” She grabbed the blanket she’d arrived in and folded it, laying it out on the floor as a pad. “Kat . . . whatever happens . . . thank you. I couldn’t ask for a better friend than you.”

“Just tell me, damn it—”

“Okay.” She tried to find words, but her head was hurting so much she could barely think; she lay down on her side on the folded blanket, not caring that the floor was hard and her hair was wet. “I’m sick, Kat. I’m going to be sick for a few days. The sun will kill me. I just need to be in the dark and safe until it passes. Then everything will be fine.”

Kat was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind, and really, she wasn’t far off. “Miranda, tell me right now. Are you back on drugs?”

Miranda laughed out loud at that. “No. I promise you it’s not drugs. It was never drugs. I want to tell you . . . you don’t know how much. I’ve wanted to tell you since you came to see me play last summer. I just don’t know how.”

“Let me take you to the hospital, then.”

“No hospitals. No police. Please, Kat . . . if you want to help me, bring me some more blankets, then shut the door and stay away until I come out. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Kat stormed off and returned a moment later, practically throwing an armload of linens at her. “You know, you are really stretching the whole ‘above and beyond the call of friendship’ thing. You call me at five in the morning asking for help, and I come and pick you up looking like you’ve been dropped in the lake, and now you say you need to sleep something off in my bathroom—I ought to throw you out on your ass!”

Miranda tried to organize the blankets into something like a bed, but her arms weren’t cooperating. She couldn’t seem to get up, though she tried and nearly cracked her head open on the clean white tile. Tired . . . so tired . . .

Kat saw her struggling and, with a sigh, knelt and started tucking and arranging things around Miranda’s body. “You owe me big-time,” she muttered.

“Turn the light off and lock the door on your way out, please,” Miranda said, closing her eyes.

When he returned to the Haven, he shut the world out of his suite. He went into the bathroom and showered, washing the soot and smoke away, and put on clean clothes. He added another log to the fire.

Then he lay down on the still-made bed, curled into a ball, and closed his eyes.

He didn’t move again for three days.

He was aware, from a great distance, of movement around him. Esther came in and tended the fire; Faith tried to talk to him. He heard voices from his com and he heard his phone ringing, but he didn’t stir, didn’t even bother silencing the noise.

Outside the sun rose and set, rose and set. A rain shower passed during the afternoon. The gardeners came and trimmed the hedges. None of it mattered.

He was so cold. There was nothing but cold, ice forming inside him, the fire dying in the room beyond. With a thought he could have made himself warm again, but he didn’t. There was no reason to.

The city might have fallen apart. It might all be burning. Every human in the territory might have had their throats torn out by now. The world might have come to an end.

Let it.

He might have slept, or not; he didn’t notice. His body might be craving blood. It might already have died of starvation.

If only. If only he could let go, break free of his flesh, and with it shed the weight he had taken on his shoulders. He had been fool enough to want it, for a while. For a while, there had been the possibility that he might not have to bear it alone.

But the vast emptiness in his heart was proof against even the most mindless optimism. Whatever had been there, whatever tenuous bond had been forming, it was no more. He hadn’t even realized it was there until too late, when the soft kiss of her presence was abruptly torn from him. How long had it existed? Much, much longer than a week. It had perhaps formed the night he laid eyes on her. Some part of him had always known.