He plugged the drive into his laptop and closed out most of the windows on the screen. A new program started running.
Faith tried to interpret what she was seeing, eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that?”
He smiled grimly. “Have you ever looked at the underside of your com?”
“No . . . it’s blank, just like the front, right?”
“There’s a sensor built into it that tracks the wearer’s personal energy signature. It’s a combination of psychic aura, body temperature, and a tiny sample of DNA from the skin cells that rub onto the band. This database holds the records of everyone who’s ever worked for me and cross-references them with the data from the coms themselves. That’s why the coms are issued to only one person and destroyed upon death. They send in new DNA info every time that person logs on for duty—not a full scan but enough markers to match it to the issued wearer.”
He made a few clicks and the computer ran a search comparing the night’s DNA readings with the database of everyone who had ever worn a com. “The person who made the distress call could get around the voice recognition system and the password database, but this fail-safe is completely unknown to everyone outside this room. In a moment we’ll have the identity of whoever was wearing the com the distress call came from.”
Faith gaped at him. “How in the hell did you do this?”
He looked at her as if she’d asked the dumbest question in history. “I’m brilliant.”
She knew she wasn’t going to get any more of an answer. She mentally added biochemistry and genetics to the list of things he had learned at MIT.
A beep, and the search completed, much faster than Faith would have expected. A name popped up.
“No,” Faith said. “It must be wrong.”
“It’s a perfect match.” David’s eyes were growing pale again. “Have a team ready in five minutes. I’ll meet you there.”
Miranda woke to a feeling of cold anger coupled with dread in the pit of her stomach.
She looked around, trying to figure out what was going on that felt so wrong, but realized it wasn’t coming from her—the dread was, but it was in reaction to the wrath, which emanated from someone else, someone she hadn’t expected to ever see angry.
She got up, pleased that her body felt a lot less weak after her nap, and made her way over to the door, cautiously turning the knob to peek out.
Everything seemed normal.
“Do you need something, Miss Grey?” Helen asked. She and Samuel were at their usual posts, keeping watch.
“No . . . I don’t think so, thanks.”
As she started to shut the door again, Miranda froze.
A group of four Elite walked around the corner into the hallway, deadly purpose in their steps. Faith was leading them, and the Second’s face was set with a gravity that made Miranda’s stomach lurch. Something was very, very wrong.
To her left, Helen tensed.
A few seconds later, the Prime entered the hallway, and again Miranda’s insides flipped around in fear. This Prime was not the same man who had walked with her in the garden. He wasn’t even the same man who had sat opposite her and drilled her in energy work only an hour ago.
This was the most powerful vampire in the southern United States.
Seeing him surrounded by others made it even more obvious, but she would never have mistaken him for any other in a crowd with his aura showing in her mind as a burnished silver, shot through with black and bloody red. His eyes were strange—they looked paler, grayer, as if they’d gone from deep azure to silver. When he was halfway down the hall, she realized that was exactly what had happened.
This was a creature with blood on his mind.
“Elite Twenty-three,” Faith said, coming to stand in front of the door, “stand down.”
Miranda wanted to retreat into the bedroom and hide until it was over, but she couldn’t move.
Helen, on the other hand, could.
The guard threw herself backward, into the doorway, knocking door and Miranda both back into the room. Miranda was so stunned she couldn’t react until Helen had her arm around Miranda’s throat and hauled her upright, using her as a human shield.
“Stay back!” Helen cried.
The rest of the Elite, including Samuel, who had been about to jump at Helen, paused, turning back to their leader.
In a different situation Miranda might have thought the look on David’s face was funny.
“Let her go,” he said very, very calmly. There was a light in his eyes, a killing light, and the stone of his Signet was glowing noticeably brighter. “Don’t make this worse for yourself than it already is.”
“Why not?” Helen hissed. Her voice sounded odd, and Miranda realized her fangs were out. Icy fear gripped Miranda’s entire body.
Not again. Not again. Oh God please . . .
“You’re going to torture and kill me, right? I might as well take out this pretty little meat puppet while I’m at it.”
A guttural male voice echoed in Miranda’s head. “. . . pretty little thing’s awake . . .”
She could hear a zipper sliding down, feel sweaty hands on her breasts. The warm, firelit bedroom and the chaotic scene melted away, and she was back in the alley again, her bare back grinding into the cold concrete.
Not again.
She couldn’t breathe. Helen was choking her.
It didn’t matter.
Miranda reached into herself for the rage that had given her the power to kill the men in the alley, their faces and voices playing over and over again in her mind, amplified by her own screams, until the voices drowned out everything, and all that she could hold on to was feeling.
She struck.
David had had shields standing between him and the wrath of a violated woman; Helen had no such thing. The power that the Prime had deflected so easily roared into the guard before she could even attempt to protect herself.
Helen made a choking, gurgling sound, and her arm fell slack. She threw up both hands to scrabble at her forehead as if she were trying to claw something out and whimpered in childlike terror with her eyes huge and rolling. Helen fisted her hands in her hair, clamping her eyes shut, the whimpers building toward screams until David stepped forward, seized her, and broke her neck with an audible crack.
Miranda toppled forward, coughing, gulping air in great lungfuls, her vision swimming. She landed on her hands and knees and let her forehead touch the cool floor, still trying to catch her breath as behind her she heard the Elite coming into the room and surrounding Helen’s body.
“Let’s move,” Faith said. “She’ll be conscious again in an hour. Get her up and to the interrogation room.”
Miranda looked up. How could she not be dead?
“She’s a vampire,” David said from the doorway. “We’re hard to kill.”
The Elite who grabbed Helen’s arms and dragged her out of the room cast Miranda strange, half-fearful looks on their way.
“I’ll get her restrained and ready for you,” Faith told the Prime.
“I’ll be there in a moment.”
Miranda lay shaking on the floor, only barely aware that David knelt beside her.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. “I could have stopped her.”
She shook her head miserably. “All over again . . . I could feel it, it was like . . . like that night, and . . . I couldn’t help it. I wanted to kill her. I tried to kill her.”
She’d thought she was done weeping, but now she wondered if she ever would be. She broke into hoarse sobs, her hands fisting on the floor.
His hand touched her shoulder lightly, asking permission, but she didn’t care what he did. She didn’t struggle as, once again, he lifted her up off the floor and carried her back to the couch; but this time, instead of simply laying her there, he sat down, still holding her, and let her cry.
She would never have expected to be grateful for that, but she clenched her fingers in his shirt and wept into his
shoulder completely unself-consciously.
His chest moved beneath her hand as he sighed.
“This is my fault,” he said. “It was too soon to start our work tonight—you needed more time for the memories to move away from the surface. Exhausting you like this let them take over.”
She took a deep breath and, by some miracle, got herself together enough to try to ground. It wasn’t a terribly successful attempt, energy-wise, but she did feel calmer and asked, “What did she do?”
“She’s a traitor, Miranda. Because of her, four of my Elite were murdered tonight. She’s also been working with those who have killed humans all over the city and want to drive us to war.”
“What are you going to do with her?”
Another sigh, this one full of regret. “She’ll be questioned as to her involvement with the insurgents. It may be that she was coerced into helping them, or maybe not. Either way, her actions have earned a death sentence.”
“Are you . . . Faith said . . . what exactly does ‘questioned’ mean?”
He met her eyes. “Don’t ask what you don’t want answered.”
She sat back, suddenly realizing she was in his lap, and moved away from him, sickness gathering in her stomach where the fear had been before.
He wasn’t human. None of these people were. They drank blood, they were immortal, and . . . he was going to torture Helen. She knew Helen. So did he. To become a guard in this wing she must have been with the Elite a long time, and he was just going to walk in there and . . . and then kill her.
The way Miranda had tried to kill her. The way Miranda had killed those men.
“I think I’m going to throw up,” she groaned.
He didn’t say anything as she stumbled away from the couch, but when she reached the door he said, “To your left,” keeping her from vomiting in his closet.
She fell to her knees painfully in front of the toilet, retching, but nothing came. She closed the lid and leaned her head on the seat, afraid to get up just yet.
If there had ever been a time when life made sense, that time was far fled. She had blundered into the rabbit hole, and there was no going back.
“If I asked, would you kill me?” she whispered to the empty bathroom. “How would I taste? Like a sad little girl? Or am I damaged goods now?”
There was no answer. She forced herself to her feet and over to the sink, where she washed her face with ice-cold water, wishing she could see herself and hoping she never would again.
When she returned to the bedroom, he was gone. The door to her room was standing open, and she could smell food. Her stomach growled even though it had been in a tumult only minutes before.
Numb, too tired to care anymore, she went to her room to eat.
“Goddamn it.”
The Prime stormed out of the interrogation room into the waning night, leaving the corpse of a once-trusted ally in a pool of her own blood.
“I don’t know what happened, Sire,” the Elite who had been watching the cell said, pleading in his voice. “No one went in or out of that room before you arrived.”
David whirled around on him and caught him by the throat, lifting up slightly. “If you’re lying to me,” he hissed, “I will cut out your lungs and feed them to you.”
“I swear . . . I swear, Sire. Question me however you need to.”
He dropped the guard, who looked like he was about to piss himself, and stalked away from the building. He was halfway across the garden by the time Faith caught up with him.
“We searched her while she was unconscious. I don’t know where the stake could have come from, much less how she managed to get it through her own heart.”
He stopped, taking a breath, appalled by his own lack of control. “Have the car brought around. I’m going into town to hunt.”
“It’s getting late—”
“Just do it.”
Faith nodded once and stepped away to call Harlan while David stood brooding beside the driveway.
Helen had deliberately ripped off the sleeve of her uniform to display the Seal of Auren on her shoulder before she’d somehow staked herself, alone, in a locked room with a guard. How long had she been working for the enemy? Almost every attack had occurred somewhere that a patrol unit had conveniently been absent from. She had to have been sending the duty schedule to her masters. But why had they chosen to up the stakes and start killing the Elite now?
Whatever their game, it was working. They were finding and exploiting holes in his security, and by doing so learned where he was weak. He would be impossible to kill outright, but if they kept poking and prodding, they’d find a place to slip in, as he had done with Auren. If they weren’t eliminated, it was only a matter of time. He’d seen the strategy before.
He paused midstride and narrowed his eyes. Seen it before.
“Star-three,” he said into his com.
Faith popped up at his elbow. “Yes, Sire?”
He turned to her. “While I’m in town, I want you to go into the archives and pull all the files on the Blackthorn syndicate.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You don’t think . . .”
“This is starting to sound too familiar,” he replied. “The feints, the slowly rising body count, starting with humans . . . the Blackthorn took responsibility for Arrabicci’s assassination, and I’m well aware that they hate me.”
“But Prime Deven had them all executed,” Faith insisted. “The entire cult was wiped out. There aren’t any Blackthorn left.”
“Perhaps not. But either a few survived the wars, or someone has been taking a page from their playbook. Regardless, I want to see the files.”
“Yes, Sire. Are you sure you don’t want me to accompany you into the city, things being as they are?”
He shook his head. “Even assuming they can kill me, they’re not going to try yet. They’ll work at chipping away my authority so that when they do take me out—theoretically—there won’t be a huge resistance.”
She didn’t like it, but he didn’t care. He had already fed once tonight, but the energy he’d expended trying to teach Miranda had left him hungry again. He couldn’t think clearly with his veins itching and burning in his throat, and a yawning emptiness in his stomach.
He settled into the car, directing Harlan to one of his usual hunting grounds.
Just before they pulled away from the curb, he signaled for Harlan to wait and rolled the window down, beckoning to Faith.
“Check on Miss Grey when you finish with the files.”
And if there was a knowing little smile on his Second’s face as he rolled up the window, he chose to ignore it, for now.
The myth was that vampires could not catch or carry disease. It was close to truth, but not true.
Their lives depended on speed, ironic considering their lives and physical ages never moved. They could regenerate skin, tissue, even bone within a matter of hours, sometimes minutes, depending on the wound and the strength of the individual. It was that rapid healing that kept them from dying unless their bodies were completely destroyed by fire or sun. Severing the head meant there was no time to heal and no way to focus power enough to recover before death took its toll.
Wood was another matter; something in the cellular structure of wood slowed down the healing process almost to the rate of a human. The heart was the most popular strike because it caused almost instant death, but any major artery pierced by wood could be fatal if the stake wasn’t removed and the bleeding wasn’t stopped fast enough.
By the same token, communicable diseases were killed by their white cells as quickly as they could heal a bullet wound, but if the disease was advanced in the human it came from, it could linger as long as several hours.
Diseased blood tasted bad. That was another way they avoided it. Every human’s blood held layer upon layer of taste and scent, conveying a full profile of the human’s health, living environment, and habits. Many of those same flavors could be scented as well so the predator could avoi
d tainted prey.
He could tell at ten meters if someone had a cold, allergies, or an unusual diet; vegetarians tasted cleaner, but sometimes a greasy burger was exactly what was called for. He could smell drugs, cigarettes, alcohol. He could taste ancestry as easily as he could taste cancer. They all had their preferences, but there was no reason to be indiscriminate.
Drugs and alcohol worked the way diseases did. He’d fed on a lot of hippies in the sixties just for the high. Everything humans did with their bodies and their energy affected how nourishing they were to his kind.
Sex, too, had its own range of tastes. Vampires drank desire, pleasure, and pain in the blood, often with equal abandon.
He didn’t ask her name. She didn’t ask his.
The club crowds were thinning by the time he got to the city, but there were always places to find suitable prey. The mortal population of Austin had no idea how many of its Sixth Street bars and dance clubs were owned by vampires who set up the perfect hunting grounds for their real clientele. The bouncers let in only the healthy and clean. They provided cheap drinks and kept out the scum. Ignoring the fact that entering such an establishment was likely to end in holes in one’s neck, they were safe places for humans to enjoy themselves . . . with a hidden cover charge.
She was in her midtwenties, shorter than him, with small hands and intelligent green eyes. She had been about to leave after a hard night of partying. Her boyfriend had dumped her that very day and she’d come to get wasted with her friends, hoping to hook up with someone to make her forget.
He was well acquainted with the club. He owned it. He had his own booth and his own private room in the back that he had used at least once a week as long as he had lived in Austin.
It was three hours before dawn when he escorted her into the room, and two hours before dawn when he escorted her out.
She had such soft skin, pale and sweet like vanilla ice cream. Her nails dug into his shoulders as he parted her thighs with an expert hand, teasing her. While he stroked her body, his power caressed her mind, and she cried out, her muscles tightening around his fingers.
Queen of Shadows Page 10
