Queen of Shadows

by Dianne Sylvan

  Miranda gripped the arm of the couch. “I don’t know.”

  Faith raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What do you mean, you don’t know? I saw that kiss, and I saw the way the two of you looked at each other. Everyone knew, except maybe you two.”

  Frustrated, Miranda found herself blinking back angry tears—damn it, she’d sworn she wasn’t going to cry over this anymore—and stood up, walking over to the window. “What kind of person would I be if I loved someone who kills people?”

  “You’ve killed people.”

  Miranda smiled bitterly. “Exactly.”

  “People love soldiers and police officers. The president has a wife, and he’s given orders that got people killed, all without getting his hands dirty. I guess it’s more civilized if it’s out of sight, out of mind.”

  She sighed. “I have no idea. It doesn’t make any difference now anyway.”

  “It makes all the difference in the world. You could come back.”

  “No, I can’t. I’m stuck here in the human world for the rest of my life, even though I know there’s more out there. What do I do with that, Faith?”

  “The way things are now isn’t how they have to stay.” She faced Faith. “What about you? If I asked you . . . would you turn me?”

  Faith’s eyes went wide. “Turn you into a vampire?”

  “No, turn me into a frog. Could you do it?”

  Faith finished her beer in one long swallow. “I might be able to, physically. But I wouldn’t.”

  Miranda had known she would say that, but still, her heart sank. “Why not?”

  She laughed. “Because my boss would kill me.”

  Miranda turned away again, muttering, “Forget I asked. It was dumb.”

  “Yes, it was, but not for the reason you think. Look, Miranda . . . nobody would like to see you come home as much as I would, but right now you’re not thinking clearly. Remember what you said? That you wouldn’t give up your humanity for a man? Because here’s the thing—just one reason, even love, isn’t enough. Neither is being lonely or depressed about your life. You have to know with every fiber of your being that it’s what you want.”

  Miranda couldn’t look at her; there were tears on her face again. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  Faith stood up and came to stand next to her at the window. “What is it they say about learning to crawl before you can walk?”

  Wiping her eyes, she nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared and confused, and I guess I’m looking for a way out of reality.” She looked at Faith and tried a smile. “I’m glad you came.”

  “So am I. Is there anything you need? Anything I can help you with?” she amended, knowing full well, as Miranda did, that what she needed, she couldn’t have.

  Miranda took a deep breath. “Actually there is something. Do you think . . . could you teach me to fight?”

  She was almost pleased. She’d managed to surprise Faith more than once in one night, a thing unheard of. The Second crossed her arms and considered the question.

  “I don’t think I’ll have time,” Faith replied reluctantly. “I’m on duty most of the week, and on call when I’m not on duty—but I can introduce you to someone who can. A specialist, you might say.”

  “Good. I’d like that.”

  “Why the sudden interest?”

  “I have to learn to take care of myself,” Miranda told her, hearing the hollowness in her own voice. “Nobody else is going to do it for me. I’ve barely left the house in two months. I can’t live like this anymore. Maybe if I know I can defend myself I won’t be so afraid all the time.”

  Faith was looking at her keenly, but nodded. “I think you’re right. I’ll give you her card.”

  “Thanks.” Miranda returned to the couch and sat back down, forcing herself to ask the question she’d had in mind since Faith had knocked on her door. “So . . . how is he?”

  “A miserable bastard,” she answered, “which I’m sure you knew.”

  “This is pathetic, isn’t it? I sound like a moon-eyed teenage girl. I’m not even really sure how I feel about him, and . . . God, it’s even making me sick. Next thing you know I’m going to start writing poetry and wearing too much eyeliner.”

  A laugh. “It’s not so bad. Of the two of you, you’re definitely handling it better.”

  Miranda’s eyes fell on the folder of music she’d thrown to the floor earlier. “Just take care of him for me, would you? You’re the only one we can trust.”

  Faith smiled oddly at the word we. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You have my word.”

  Eleven

  Miranda’s to-do list for the week included finishing her set list, cleaning the bathroom, and murdering Faith.

  She stood in front of the unmarked, unlit door in the side of a warehouse building that had tufts of weeds growing up along its foundation, checking and rechecking the card Faith had given her to be sure this was the right address.

  Unfortunately it was. Faith had sent her to the scariest part of town on a bus after dark for this with the assurance that it would be worth the trip.

  As soon as I learn how to kick ass, hers is first on the list.

  Screwing up her wavering courage, Miranda knocked on the door and waited.

  A minute later, just as she was about to give up and run back to the bus stop as fast as her feet would carry her, a voice demanded, “Password?”

  Miranda took a deep breath. “Dingoes ate my baby.”

  She heard the sounds of several heavy locks shooting back, and the door swung inward to reveal Faith’s “specialist.”

  Miranda blinked.

  To all outward appearances she was looking at a teenage girl with a doll-like face coated liberally with eyeliner and mascara. The girl’s maroon-painted lower lip was pierced three times with silver spikes, and so were her eyebrow and nose. She wore a surfeit of black leather, including enormous boots covered with buckles. She was even shorter than Miranda, and looked like a stiff wind would blow her over.

  She looked Miranda up and down with a skeptical eye, clearly unimpressed, and shook her razor-cut black bob. Her voice was an icy soprano with a hard edge. “You better be glad I owe Faith money. Come on.”

  Miranda followed her into the building, down a long dark hall that opened into a huge, mostly unfurnished room. The walls were lined with an astonishing array of edged weapons, and at the far end was a complicated-looking panel of switches and dials. It was the kind of room that Miranda would have expected to see lined with mirrors, but of course there were none, just swords, daggers, scary star-shaped things, and wall sconces.

  “Um . . . you’re Sophie?” Miranda ventured.

  “That’s me.”

  “How old are you?”

  Sophie rolled her wide brown eyes. “A hundred and forty-eight,” she replied. “I got to live back when women couldn’t vote, isn’t that awesome?”

  “How old is . . . I mean . . . how old are you, body-wise?”

  Another eye roll. “I came over at fifteen. Now shut up and let me look at you.”

  Miranda’s mouth, halfway through forming another question, snapped closed, and she stood awkwardly in the middle of the room while Sophie made a slow circle around her with her arms crossed.

  It hadn’t been obvious at first, but watching the vampire move, Miranda could see that her petite build was deceptive, just as Faith’s was; Sophie had real muscle on her compact frame and moved with the same uncanny grace as the Elite, a combination of poetry and precision. She brought to mind a lynx meandering through the forest, tail swaying lazily side to side.

  “So I’m supposed to teach a human how to fight like a vampire,” Sophie said. “Am I wasting my time?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Stand up straight!” Sophie barked. “Only humans slouch.”

  “But I am human,” Miranda pointed out acidly, bristling at the superior tone coming from someone who looked too young to drive . . . but standing up straighter nonetheless.r />
  “Not while you’re here. If you want to fight vampires, you have to be more than human.”

  “I don’t really plan on fighting vampires. I just want to protect myself.”

  Sophie snorted rather indelicately. “What do you think you’re protecting yourself from, girl? You get mixed up with the Signets, they paint a target on your head. Anyone who wants to hurt the Prime will go after his people first. Angry little mortals in dark alleys are the least of your problems now.”

  Miranda felt the familiar sweep of energy that meant Sophie was looking at her with more than just her physical eyes.

  “Your shields are good,” the vampire noted, “but not good enough. I’m guessing you were taught by, what, a telekinetic?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Some people think a shield is a shield. It’s not. Whoever trained you didn’t think you were going to use your gift in combat. All the gifts have their own flavors and need their own fine-tuning. I can tell your teacher was fucking strong, probably a guy, really old; if I had to be specific I’d say it was Solomon. I can see from the structure he’s got you using that he fights a lot, but the way the layers are set up make it easy to reach out to objects, not people. So he throws things.”

  “I’m an empath,” Miranda said defensively. “How am I going to use that in combat?”

  “How did you kill those bastards that raped you? It wasn’t with your hands, was it? Empathy can be even deadlier than telekinesis if it’s strong enough. You can snap a lifeline with it, sure, but you can also cause pain like no other on earth. People can be taught to withstand physical torture, but emotional torture is a whole different critter. Using it won’t replace good fighting skills, but it can make you that much more badass.”

  “And you can teach me that?”

  “Fuck yeah. You’re in pretty sad shape, but give me six months and I’ll have you taking out lower-shelf Elite at least. Give me a year and you’ll be able to give Faith a run for her money. You’re built like me and her, which is good. We rely on speed and agility, not brute strength. Humans think fighting is just hacking at a hunk of meat until it stops moving. Humans are slow and stupid. While you’re here, forget you’re human. It’ll just get in your way.”

  Not knowing what else to say, Miranda nodded.

  “All right. Let’s see how much this is gonna suck.”

  “Could I ask you a question first?”

  Sophie tilted her chin down and looked up at Miranda with barely concealed impatience. “What?”

  “Is it a good idea for you to have all that metal in your face if you’re in a fight?”

  Sophie actually smiled, the sharp points of her canines flashing. “Nobody hits me, baby. Now let’s get started.”

  The woman in the mirror looked calm, capable. Her hair was loose in wild curls and gleamed in the low backstage lights with the aid of the Bed Head product line. She met the green of her own eyes steadily, and if it weren’t for the purple smudge beneath the left, she might have looked confident. She absently reached up to run her finger along the scar below her hairline.

  The club was packed to capacity. She could hear the crowd as if it were a hundred-armed animal waiting for its dinner, and though she had her barriers up as always, she could feel their anticipation all the way backstage.

  She cursed to herself and tried again to cover her black eye with makeup. She was lucky she hadn’t injured one of her hands yesterday—certainly the rest of her body felt the stiff and painful aftermath of three hours of being pummeled by a tiny barracuda pixie. If she’d been smart, she would have scheduled their meeting after her performance, not before. Now she was dreading not just playing in front of people again after so long, but having to stand upright for over an hour without dropping her guitar.

  Now her to-do list was narrowed to cleaning the bathroom and murdering Faith, but “murdering Faith” had several gold stars next to it in her head.

  Assuming tonight went well, it was going to be a busy winter. Sophie wanted to see her twice a week, and had given her a workout regimen as well as several acerbic recommendations about her diet, such as, “If you come in here smelling like pizza next time, I’ll kick you in the stomach.”

  Goddamned vampires.

  “Five minutes, Grey,” Mel called from outside the curtained nook.

  Miranda decided there was nothing more she could do for her eye. She stood up and stretched, grounding quickly before her nerves got the better of her, and took her guitar from its case.

  “Okay,” she said into the mirror. “Let’s do this.”

  Her reflection nodded as she nodded. She told herself there was determination and strength in her eyes.

  She waited in the wings for Mel to announce her, gripping the neck of her guitar tightly. The last time she had stood on this stage had not ended well. She tried to put it out of her mind, but she remembered that one of the men who had attacked her had been in the audience that night.

  So had David.

  As she walked out on the stage to a roar of applause, she swept the room with her senses, just on the off chance that she might feel a familiar dark presence among the teeming mass of humanity, but there was none.

  That was all right. He had promised they’d see each other again, and she knew he wasn’t the kind who made promises lightly. He had his work to do, and she had hers.

  Smiling out at the audience, she lifted her guitar and struck a chord.

  Weeks later the applause and adoration were still ringing in her ears when she left the club after ten o’clock, bag over her shoulder and guitar bumping her butt, and headed for the bus stop.

  She was also smiling—no, a more accurate term would be beaming. She was still so high off the crowd energy that she could barely keep her feet on the sidewalk.

  Yes, yes. Now she remembered why she had started performing in the first place. Those first few long-ago weeks when she had learned what she could do but hadn’t let it consume her yet had been some of the happiest of her life. She had left the stage each night feeling like a goddess, or better yet, an artist. She had taken the dross of human emotion and spun it into the gold of harmony.

  Miranda laughed to herself. She was even starting to sound as pretentious as an artist.

  It wasn’t until she had found a seat and the bus lurched away from the curb that it occurred to her she should be afraid.

  She should be staring at the floor and fighting off the voices in her head. She should be counting the blocks from club to home and repeating them like a mantra.

  Here it was, late December; the weather had finally turned cold, and another hard freeze was forecast for Monday night. She had been back in the city since early October, and back onstage since Thanksgiving. The first few shows had been hard . . . she had trouble balancing the emotional flow of the audience without losing her shields, and the effort had cost her two-day migraines with accompanying hangovers.

  Still, she refused to give up, and after a week, her training started to come back to her. Now she found herself actually excited before a show, and working with real enthusiasm on her original material. She was thinking of debuting the first song at the next gig.

  A few days ago a woman had come up to her after the set and asked about representing her. Her card was still in Miranda’s wallet, the reality of the slip of stiff paper almost too good to be true; she’d Googled the woman and found out she was legit, and was strongly considering accepting her offer. Denise MacNeil had said that she could get Miranda into at least three more venues and, if she could get a demo made, probably land her a recording contract.

  If things kept up, she might end up in the studio by spring. The thought made her beam even wider.

  She looked around at the other people on the bus with her, letting her shields thin out just enough that she could assess whether any of them were a threat, but unless the old woman in the walker was hiding a gun, there was nothing to worry about.

  Reclaiming her own mind, it turn
ed out, was all she needed to start living her own life.

  She looked people in the eye now—sometimes she didn’t want to, but she forced herself, to make sure she didn’t start to slip again. Most of the time people smiled. Some looked away. Those were the ones to keep an eye on. They were hiding something.

  She was grateful to have the rest of the night free. She made it a point never to schedule sessions with Sophie the night after a show; she liked to have some downtime. Plus, whenever she tried to work out after she’d been performing, she was inevitably tired and distracted and Sophie ended up beating the crap out of her. On other nights, she was finally able to hold her own . . . for a few minutes, anyway. She was far from a warrior, but she was making progress.

  Miranda also wanted the night off because there was something she needed to do.

  She let the bus carry her past her stop, down Lamar; past the mammoth Whole Foods flagship store, past Book People, past the University of Texas campus . . . all the way up past Thirty-Eighth Street, with a dozen stops in between.

  Yanking the stop cord, she swung to her feet and bumped her way past the few people still on the bus. Then she stepped out into the frigid night air, pulling her coat tighter around her, and stood in front of the Travis County Psychiatric Hospital for a long minute, just thinking.

  The intake desk was open twenty-four hours. She picked her way along the tall hurricane fence that surrounded the industrial gray buildings, not in any hurry to go inside, but eventually she faced the glass doors of the main lobby and had to make a decision.

  When the doors shut behind her, she stopped and grounded to quell the first stirrings of anxiety in her stomach, and she forced twice as much energy as usual into her shields as soon as the whispers began in her head.

  She could feel them rubbing against her mind—light fingers of ghostly presence, some crawling with madness, some just . . . empty. Hollow people, scarecrow people, full of nothing but screams . . . how the doctors and nurses could bear it, she couldn’t fathom. Maybe they were numb. So many humans were.