Queen of Shadows (33 page)

Miranda lifted her mouth and let him go. He slipped silently to the floor at her feet.

She licked her lips, almost drunk with heady satisfaction. Her teeth withdrew to a more manageable length.

Kat had shrunk back against the hallway wall. She was crying.

Miranda stepped around Drew, who was breathing hard and trying to conceal his erection by staying on his knees facing away from Kat.

She left the bathroom but stopped beside her friend, who refused to look her in the eye.

“I have to go,” Miranda said. “I’m putting you in danger if I stay here.”

She walked past Kat and through the house. It seemed so small and confining. She craved the freedom of the night air.

“Wait,” she heard, and paused.

Kat hadn’t left the hall, but said through her tears, “Where are you going?”

“I have work to do.”

“Are you . . . are you ever coming back?”

Miranda smiled. She knew what Kat meant. “No,” she said. “But I will see you again.”

With that, she walked out the duplex door, leaving the mortal world behind her.

Nineteen

It was going to be difficult to mount an assault on the enemy without shoes.

The full moon already hung in the sky, and she knew there was no time to waste, but there were things she needed: one, shoes; two, weapons; and three, some kind of plan.

A slightly less trailer-park outfit might be nice, too.

She tried to remember what part of town she was in. There was a bus route a block away that would take her close to where she needed to go, but she didn’t have any bus fare . . .

She laughed to herself. Money was not going to be a problem.

When the bus pulled over, she stepped up into it, surveying the other passengers and deeming them harmless. The bus driver cleared her throat and nodded at the fare box.

“I have a pass,” Miranda said, and bent her mind toward the driver’s.

It was almost too easy. “Oh, okay,” the driver said. “Sit down.”

Miranda took the only free seat, one in the middle. The minds of the others started to lean on hers, but she added more energy to her shields and it was quiet in her mind again. There had been a time when such a simple act would have exhausted her or at least given her a migraine. Now it was as effortless as breathing.

As the bus bounced and rattled, she looked around at the humans traveling with her and felt the stirrings of pity. They were so sad. Some were homeless, and others were just as lost even though they had someplace to go. Perhaps three were genuinely happy and lived with purpose and passion. She had been one of the others, once. She had been a wanderer with a homeless heart.

Now what was she?

She would know tonight, once and for all.

A couple of the humans were staring at her, and she couldn’t blame them, really. Without knowing it they saw her kind every night, but probably never this close, and probably never someone so new to the shadows, her fledgling power mantling around her like the still-wet wings of an infant butterfly.

She knew that this, too, would change. She was already starting to feel a bit more grounded, her true personality settling back a few thoughts at a time. She reviewed her memory of the last few days and was relieved she hadn’t caused more damage—she could have killed Drew, or Kat, or both. The sheer horror on Kat’s face had been heartbreaking . . . but it could have been worse.

She needed to call Kat as soon as this was over. Kat might never speak to her again, but she owed her friend an explanation, and a long one. To hell with secrecy. Kat had saved her life. She deserved better than an enigmatic farewell and her boyfriend left on the floor with a raging hard-on.

Although that had been kind of funny, now that she thought about it.

Miranda leaned her head forward on the back of the next seat. She was still tired. She felt like she could sleep for a week . . . but not yet. There were miles to go.

“You okay there, young lady?”

She lifted her gaze to the grizzled old man across the aisle. “Yes, sir. I’ve just . . . had a long day.”

“I know what you mean.” He was reading a newspaper, something she’d never been able to do in a moving vehicle, and nodded down at the headline: AUSTIN GANG VIOLENCE ESCALATES. “World’s getting scarier, isn’t it? People burning down buildings, gangs . . . Wasn’t that long ago Austin was a safe place to let your kids play outside.”

“It will be again,” Miranda said, sitting up. “I’ll make sure of it.”

He gave a gap-toothed grin. “That’s right,” he said. “It’s up to you young people now. My generation’s on the front porch these days, and that’s where we should be. You get out there and change the world.”

Miranda smiled at him. “I plan to.”

The bus let her off slightly west of her destination, so she walked along the road, her eyes roaming around the shabby neighborhood of taco stands, run-down warehouses, and public assistance offices. She felt like a visitor from a foreign land, even though only days ago she had walked these same streets with recognition. Her vision, in the blue-grays of night, picked out colors and shapes she couldn’t before. She passed a dog chained in someone’s yard that stared at her, ears up and eyes wide, trying to decide whether to sound the alarm. She met its eyes, and it backed away, tail down.

A block later she felt a stabbing pain in the bottom of her left foot.

She stopped and lifted her ankle. Her foot was already black from the pavement, but there was a rather large shard of glass sticking out of the middle, oozing blood. She yanked it out and watched, fascinated, as the cut began to close, and within ten seconds it was gone.

She put her foot back down, testing it for soreness, but it was healed. “Wow,” she said out loud.

Suddenly dizzy with the reality of it, she sought out a nearby tree and leaned on it for a minute.
Oh Jesus. I’m . . .

I’m a vampire.

She would never see the sun again unless she wanted to die. She’d never see her own reflection again. No children, no pigging out on pizza, no tanning by the lake, no matinees, no Fourth of July barbecues. It was one thing to give those things up in theory, but now . . . now it was done, and there was no undoing. Everything was different now.

She wasn’t human anymore.

She rapped her forehead lightly against the bark. “Later . . . later. Think about it later,” she told herself. “You’ve got to hurry.”

She pushed herself away from the tree and broke into a jog, then into a run.

The movement woke her entire body up and energy surged through her muscles, propelling her faster and faster. The freedom of it, knowing she wasn’t going to get a stitch in her side, made her laugh as she ran, no doubt giving any passersby something to talk about in her wake.

She stumbled to a halt outside the warehouse building and pounded on the door.

This time she could hear the footsteps approaching all the way from the inside. “Password?”

Miranda pushed her hair back from her eyes. “I mock you with my monkey pants.”

She heard a bitten-off curse, and the door opened.

Sophie stared at her, something utterly unexpected and, Miranda had thought, impossible on her face: shock.

“I need weapons,” Miranda said. “And your help.”

Wordlessly, Sophie let her into the hall, barring the door behind her with a quick, hunted glance out onto the street.

Miranda strode into the studio and studied the wall of weapons. She heard Sophie walk up behind her, then do her usual circle around her student, but this time instead of detached speculation, there was something akin to wonder in the vampire’s face.

“This is new,” Sophie said.

Miranda turned to look at her. “Are you surprised?”

“A little. The word is that you’re dead. Burned up, left as a warning. The Signet declared blood feud on the Blackthorns and it’s been holy war for a week. Where have you been hiding?”

“With a friend,” she answered. “I have to call the Haven. Do you have Faith’s number?”

“No. I have her e-mail.”

“That’s not going to be fast enough. Ariana and her followers are going to attack the Haven tonight.”

“How are they going to get past security?”

“They have a man inside. He’s one of the Prime’s bodyguards—he’s worked there for years. They’ll never see it coming. We have to warn them.” Miranda walked over to the wall and pulled down the sword she’d been working with. “Can you get me to the Haven?”

“I can draw you a map.”

Miranda turned to her, frowning. “You have to come with me. I need you.”

Sophie laughed. “Are you kidding? I told you, I’m not getting involved in Signet bullshit. I’m going to do what I always do, keep my head down and wait it out.”

“No,” Miranda replied. “You’re going to help me. You don’t want Faith to die and you don’t want some holy rolling crazy bitch to take control of this city.”

“I’ve done my part. I’m finished with this. If you want directions, I can give them to you. You want weapons, I’m your girl. But this is not my fight.”

Miranda’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose this is the part where I give you an inspirational speech about what’s right, and the value of freedom, and persuade you to risk your life for the greater good.”

She spun around, swinging her arm up, and stopped short with the blade hovering a millimeter from Sophie’s throat.

“I don’t have time for that crap,” Miranda said. “I’m not asking you to fight. All I need is a ride. Then you can crawl back under your rock and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist all you like. But first, get your keys, little girl. We’re leaving.”

Sophie, unfazed by either the sword so close to her jugular or Miranda’s imperious tone, just stared at her for a minute . . . then burst out laughing.

Miranda lowered the sword. Sophie shook her head and went to the weapons wall, then started removing blades, still laughing as she said, “You, my Lady, are pure fucking awesome. I’m going to get a finder’s fee for you, right?”

Miranda smiled back at her and caught the knife Sophie tossed her way. “I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“Just one problem,” Sophie pointed out.

“What?”

“No way in hell I’m going anywhere with you in that outfit.”

“Sire.”

He didn’t answer.

“Sire, you need to sleep.”

Since the night of the fire there had been three attacks on humans in the city, but none had resulted in fatalities. Thanks to the network, the Elite were there in time to apprehend the fugitives.

Speed was still with them, but the insurgents were on to them and knew to expect a counterattack. They traveled in larger numbers now and were better armed. Each time an Elite unit descended upon them, the battle was bloody and ended in casualties on both sides. By Thursday, four Elite were dead, but they had taken out twice as many of the enemy, and five humans walked away without a scratch.

Well, they would probably need some therapy. But at least they were alive.

The city was crawling with vampires. Most were his. The Prime had them triple-teaming their patrol areas and checking in every twenty minutes instead of on the hour.

“I can’t, not yet,” he finally said to his Second. “I have to debug this search routine.”

“Which means?”

“I’m close,” he muttered, his eyes full of code. “Another hour and I’ll have it.”

“And you’re sure it’s going to work?”

“Positive . . . but it’s a very detailed routine.”

“And you’ve been in that chair for two days. Your ass is growing into the seat. You’ve only fed because I brought it to you, but I can’t bring you sleep unless I hit you over the head with a chair.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m done, Faith.”

She waved her hand between his face and the monitor. “Could you at least pretend to listen to me? Do I have to call California again?”

He didn’t stop typing, but shot her a poisonous look. “I’d really rather you didn’t. Is there any news from APD?”

Faith sighed. “Nothing we haven’t already heard. They’re still going through what’s left of the building. They’ve found eleven bodies so far and identified six. Three additional people are still missing. I told Sergeant Winters to have any personal effects sent here.”

“Good.”

She sat on the edge of the table, crossing her arms, saying hesitantly, “You don’t suppose there’s any chance . . .”

“No,” he cut her off. “If Miranda were alive, she would have found a way to contact us by now. It’s been almost a week, Faith.”

He heard the hardness in his voice, hardness she didn’t deserve. He should let her have her hope. He had abandoned any such thing and accepted the truth, and if his heart was still howling in pain, he could ignore it. He had to. He had lost three days wallowing in self-pity and people had died.

He raised his eyes to her. “As soon as we have this under control, you can have some time off. I’m sorry you’ve been running nonstop since the fire.”

“So have you . . . and I’m in much better shape than you are. I lost a friend, yes, but not a Queen.”

“She wasn’t my Queen,” he said shortly and went back to the simple, heart-numbing task of proofreading lines of characters and symbols. That black-and-white place of numbers and letters, if and then, had been his escape, letting him focus on something that didn’t make him break things and scare the servants.

“There.” He sat back and rubbed his neck.

“You’re done?”

“No. I’ve got a check running. It’ll be done in a few minutes.”

He watched the progress bar on the screen inch its way from left to right. Thankfully he’d upgraded the server’s processors two weeks ago, otherwise there was no way he’d have the computing power for what he was doing. As it was, he’d had to do a lot of the work by hand instead of letting the network run it for him.

The sensors were programmed to take readings of body temperature, body mass, and speed of movement, then weed out anything above or below average human parameters; what fell into a certain range was most likely a vampire. So far he’d had a 98 percent accuracy rate with a couple of glitches involving large dogs and an immortal midget. He knew that Ariana Blackthorn fit perfectly in the range, so all he needed to do was isolate her specific set of readings from every other vampire in Austin.

He’d gone back over the grid from the night of the raid, when her hench-vamps had all been taken outside and the only vampires in the house had been him, her, and the Elite. Everyone who was in the building that night had a com except Ariana, so he could eliminate anyone whose signal corresponded to one of the Elite. The remaining readings he was currently running against those of every vampire that had entered or left the city limits Friday night.

He’d found four likely candidates and was now letting the computer do the rest. Once he had a profile for her he could track her down within the grid.

It wasn’t a perfect plan—far from it, with so many variables—but it was the best thing he’d come up with since returning to his duties on Tuesday. They could continue to catch the attackers, slapping bandages over the city’s wounds until it bled to death by inches, or they could go to the source.

He wanted Ariana Blackthorn’s blood to spill over his hands. He wanted to see her head fall to the ground and her skull crack on the concrete. He wanted to see her body twitch and spasm into stillness.