Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) (22 page)

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.

He could have had Nico. And now…

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

Miranda either didn’t hear the genuine entreaty in his tone, or didn’t care anymore. She took a step back and shook her head.

“I want you to go to hell,” she said, and walked away.

*****

When the drug finally loosened its grip enough that he could fight his way awake, and he could at last open his eyes, Nico immediately wished he were still unconscious.

He didn’t have words for most of what he was looking at. The only term he could think of for the kind of room he was in was clinical; it bore some resemblance to the infirmary at the Haven. He was in its center, on his back, but had enough freedom of movement to look from side to side.

Freedom of…

That was when he realized he was tied down. He pulled upward against the restraints on his wrists — surely even a vampire at half strength could undo most human engineering—but he was held down tightly at wrist, ankle, and neck…by steel.

He didn’t remember anything after feeling the affects of the dart crawl through him. It could only have been Morningstar’s doing…but what about Stella and Kai? Were they here too? Had they been killed? The idea made him nauseated.

“Good evening, pretty one,” came a voice. “It’s nice to have you with us.”

He jerked his head upward to look, but couldn’t. Obligingly, the speaker moved around to the side until he was in Nico’s line of sight.

It was a human…probably. Male, relatively young, at least on first glance. Looking more closely Nico could see his skin was a strange, sick greyish tone, and was wrinkled…no, not wrinkled. Cracked. Long seams ran up his bare forearms and over his face, following the contours of the bones, the skin so thin and dry it was splitting bloodlessly from what was either old age or magic.

He couldn’t be that old. That meant something very powerful was keeping that body together…or something very powerful was attempting to rip it apart.

“Who are you?” Nico asked, keeping his voice calm. “What did you do with my companions?”

“Oh, Good, you do speak English,” the man said, nodding with approval. “This would have been so much more difficult if you didn’t. As to your friends….I assume they’re back at the Night-walkers’ home. Putting them out was really just for convenience; you were the only one I needed.”

“And why do you need me?”

“My associates and I have questions which you are uniquely qualified to answer.”

Nico’s blood went cold. He knew what that meant. He’d heard David tell enemy captives
I have questions for you
and it always ended in screaming. “I won’t tell you anything,” he said in what he hoped was a brave-sounding tone.

“Oh, I don’t expect you to—not with your voice. But perhaps introductions are in order — I know you’re called Nico, and that you used to be an Elf. We certainly were surprised to find out you all still existed! You were supposed to have been wiped out centuries ago.”

The man was cheerful, friendly. It was a contrast both to his somewhat ghoulish appearance and the way he was looking at Nico, slowly from head to foot and back again, evaluating something, coldly, calculating. It was a look Nico might have called lustful, but there was nothing sensual in it—
covetous
was a better word.

“Here among my people I’m known as the Prophet,” he said. “And you see…I need to know more about you, Nico. There’s no data on your people anywhere anymore. I know what I can expect from a human, and I have no use for vampires, but Elves…you might be the answer I need.”

“I don’t understand,” Nico said. “What could you possibly need from me?”

“As I said…data. Obviously you’re of no use to me in and of yourself—you’re a halfbreed, the worst of both worlds. But there aren’t just a whole lot of real Elves running around, and before I go trying to find one, I need to know if I’m wasting my time. You might be an abomination to your own people, but there is something you have that makes you unique, and ideally suited to my…explorations, let’s call them.”

“What do I have?”

The Prophet made a gesture, and two other humans appeared. They began bustling around, opening drawers and tearing open packages. Nico could just barely see what they were doing, but one was filling a row of at least a dozen syringes from at least that many vials. The other produced an ordinary pair of scissors, and, with a nod from the Prophet, began cutting through Nico’s shirt.

“You can’t possibly be comfortable in that costume,” the Prophet said reasonably. “As to what it is you have that I need…why, you have vampiric healing ability. It gives me free rein to learn what I need to without fear of killing you, at least, at the outset.”

“Why not just kill me?” Nico demanded. “Kill one of us and we’re beaten, remember? Your whole war would be over with in minutes.”

The Prophet made a dismissive noise. “There are ways the survivors could still be a threat. In the time before, there were only four of them left when we were defeated. It’s just a matter of what they’re willing to sacrifice. But you…” He helped the other human peel back Nico’s shirt, cutting through the sleeves entirely to take it off in pieces before moving on to the rest of his clothes. The air in the room was freezing, and Nico’s heart was pounding in his throat. “I’ll need what I learn from you regardless. Your sacrifice will help the righteous once again take control of the Earth. We were so very, very long asleep.”