But it was the woman on the floor who’d spoken. The one with the bullet in her head.
“They’re not gone,” she whispered. “Please…”
Deven knelt by her. “What is this?” He slid a finger into the Elf’s mouth and cursed.
“Vampire,” he said, looking up at Miranda. “Bastards must have turned them—it’s lucky Nico had that stake.”
He stared down at the woman who had once been his mother. “What do you mean they aren’t gone?”
“They can…come back.” Her strength was starting to return as her body pushed the bullet out of her skull. “They’ll be trapped…between worlds…for a while, but they can find another way in. And once they’ve been inside you…they can find you…take you. We’ll never be free.”
She reached out and grasped Deven’s arm, her eyes pleading. “Kill me,” she whispered, weeping. “Please…my son…if you ever loved me, if you love the world you know…don’t let her have me again. If you knew…the things she did…I cannot live with that, not in this…this thing…I am now. Please…have mercy on me.”
“Mercy is for the Hallowed,” Deven said coldly. “Not for assassins, and not for your son.”
“Please…and have mercy on him too…kill him now, before it’s too late. Before he comes back, before the one you loved is nothing but a beast. Kill him…kill me…please…”
He stood, and for a second Miranda thought he was going to spare her, but he only wanted enough space to draw Ghostlight.
“Farewell Mother,” he said. “May you rest at peace in Theia’s arms…if She’ll have you.”
He swung the sword, and she plead no more.
Miranda returned her attention to David, and Deven and Nico both joined her, helping ease the Prime toward the edge of the table, pushing as much healing energy into him as they could.
The Elite found two clean blankets, and she and the boys wrapped David in one and then spread out the other under him to use as a litter. As they worked, Miranda caught Nico’s eye and said, “If you so much as hint that we should—”
Nico’s eyes widened, then filled with tears. “No, no…never. I swear to you, Miranda, I will never let that thing near him again…I will keep him safe no matter what it costs. I swear it.”
Miranda gestured for the Elite to come and help get David out to the car; as she straightened, numb inside, she saw his Signet and wedding ring on the lectern where the Prophet’s book had been. The book itself was on the floor where Agdilan had dropped it.
She wanted so badly to fall apart, to go to her knees screaming, but she didn’t. As she had the night of the benefit, she slowly straightened her spine, squared off her shoulders, and reached up to touch her Signet for reassurance.
Her Elite were watching. There was clean-up to do here. The work did not, would not ever stop for them. It was who they were.
It was who she was.
She picked up David’s Signet and ring and tucked them safely in her pocket. “Lieutenant,” she said, “I want this book in containment and delivered to Hunter. Have them put it in the vault for now—no one goes near it until I give the okay. Then have this building processed and burned, standard scene protocol. Contact APD and AFD and ensure they keep the area clear. All data routed through the Prime’s server, copies sent to Hunter for full analysis. Have at least six of the dead humans sent to Hunter for full autopsy.”
“As you will it, my Lady.” He bowed and darted away, already relaying her orders.
“Harlan,” she said into her com, “I need you at the front entrance.”
“Already there, my Lady.”
She gestured for two of the other Elite to come and help them carry the Prime. “No one is to touch him,” she ordered. “For your own safety keep your hands on the blanket. He’s badly injured and may react on instinct at physical contact.”
Both Elite nodded, their faces and actions professional even though she could feel their worry. She knew that by the time any of them had gotten in the room it was difficult to tell exactly what had happened, which would save David that much humiliation later on; word would doubtless get out, but for now at least all anyone knew for sure was that he was hurt and unconscious. That in itself was a rare and frightening event, but at least it wasn’t unheard of.
She held on to her sense of determined purpose long enough to get to the exit. Harlan was in the SUV, and had laid the far back seat down, so Miranda climbed in first and pulled David’s shoulders until she was cross-legged with his head in her lap.
The boys got in the middle seat. Neither seemed able to look at her, or even each other. They were all in shock.
“Back to the Haven, my Lady?” Harlan asked, voice tight.
“Yes. Thank you.”
As the SUV pulled away from the building and sped along the Austin streets toward home, the Queen stroked her husband’s hair, closed her eyes against tears, and began to sing.
*****
“Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I’m still alive underneath this shroud
Rain…”
She sang to him for hours, and then all day, waiting.
As the afternoon waned, and nothing changed, her vigil became a fearful one…they had no way to know how much damage the ritual had done until he woke. Apart from the violation he’d suffered— which was trauma enough—who knew what that spell did to its victim? Did it destroy the soul inside the body? Send it into hiding? Was there anything left of the man they knew?
And if there wasn’t…what then?
And if there was…what then?
The sun had dipped below the horizon, but only her sense of smell told her that—it also told her it was raining. The world outside was near freezing, and the whole city would probably be covered in ice.
It felt the same inside the Haven. Everything was held frozen, suspended between one reality and the next. Across the globe there were two other Havens in the same holding pattern…waiting…
Miranda sang.
She didn’t know what else to do.
Deven joined her after dusk. He tried to convince her to sleep.
She shook her head. There would be time for rest. She had a watch to keep.
A little while later, she looked up to see Nico hovering uncertainly at the door. He looked as awful as she felt, and she knew he hadn’t slept either. The sorrow and guilt in his face and in his energy…an aura usually so alive and comforting…made it impossible to be angry at him, even if she’d wanted to be.
But they were in this together. She knew that much. There was no place for blame in this room, not now—they all had to hold onto each other if they were going to make it through.
She held out her hand.
Tears slipped down his face as he came forward and took it. He and Deven sat with her on the bed. Miranda sang, and sometimes Deven added a harmony. Nico stared, and cried.
The Weaver was wearing an elegantly tooled leather cuff that she recognized—the Elite must have found it somewhere in the building. It had a design of Elvish musical notation that she knew was one of Kai’s first official compositions as a Bard. The cuff was a traditional gift for a graduate of the Bardic House.
She had spent all the tears she had for the time being, but sorrow nearly choked out her voice until she let the song she was wandering through turn into the one Nico was wearing.
Finally, perhaps an hour later, she felt something change.
She didn’t let herself react until she finished the verse she was singing, and looked down, almost afraid of what she might see.
Dark eyelashes lifted. Deep blue eyes touched, and held, hers.
She didn’t speak, but stretched out alongside him, gingerly taking his hand. The boys stayed sitting up, keeping their distance.
“Hey,” she said in a whisper, squeezing his fingers. After a pause she asked, “Do you know where you are?”
; He drew a shaky breath, licked lips long dry from sleep and said softly back, “Home.”
She nodded. “Yeah. You’re home. Safe.”
“Safe. With you.”
Miranda touched his face with her free hand, smiled a little. “Yes.”
He shut his eyes tightly for a second, and when they opened again there were tears in them. “Nico?”
The Elf’s breath hitched in surprise. “Yes…I’m here.”
He leaned down where David could see him.
“I’m sorry…about Kai. I tried…I tried to push him out. To fight back. But…”
Nico nodded, his own tears falling on David and Miranda’s joined hands. He leaned down farther until his forehead touched David’s. “I know, my love. I know. But he’s at peace now. Perhaps we will see him in the Forest of Spirits.”
“I tried,” David whispered again, lip trembling. “But it hurt so much. I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
Miranda pulled his face to her shoulder and held onto him as he broke down, still murmuring “I’m sorry” over and over. She held him close and reached for Nico and Deven along the bond, drawing their energy in around her and, by extension, around David, though at first neither touched him directly. The Elves lay down with her, Nico snuggled up against her back, Deven on David’s other side with fingers very lightly touching the Prime’s wrist, but it wasn’t until David himself reached out to them with desperate hands that they gave themselves to him as well…and the Tetrad wept, while the sky above the Haven seemed to do the same.
Chapter Seventeen
“Such a shame we don’t have time for the niceties…I know the Elf enjoyed it much more than you will…”
The abyss crawled over him, eating away every inch of who he was, like acid, burning inside, those sticky, slimy tentacles of black energy twisting and driving deeper, white-hot pain destroying thought and reason, leaving only the emptiness…there was nothing behind that mask of evil, nothing but a void, no soul and no joy and nothing but being torn in two, torn apart, feeling himself devoured one cell at a time. The blackness seeped into his skin like sweat, the way a cool rain should but a chemical burn, lye, as if his brain was bubbling and turning to oh god stop, please, I can’t end this way, make him stop, help me…
“Fight him! We’re here! Fight!”
There was nothing to fight with, but he tried. He reached for everything left of himself, everything that mattered, everything that the acid and the driving, driving, driving agony couldn’t shatter into dust.
Perhaps it made no difference. Perhaps it bought him half a second. But something was enough. Something made the door explode, the stake ram home, that blackness that was a heartbeat from searing the world away miss, by inches, thrown clear, it’s over.
But it wasn’t over. It would never be over. The Elf woman had said as much. And the door had been opened…yes, slammed shut just in time, but still…he had been inside, touched everything, left his stink and his fingerprints. Everything was filthy, bruised…marked.
He woke shaking. Even with the warmth of blankets and bodies around him, the fireplace burning low, he was freezing.
Nausea turned his stomach into a stormy sea. He managed to get free of the others, out of the bed, and into the bathroom before what little blood he’d had came back in a rush.
Cold…the bathroom tiles were cold against his forehead, like the stone had been cold, but everything else had been burning hot, flesh tearing over and over again…
One hand managed to reach up and flush the toilet, but he stayed on the floor for a long time, trembling too hard to concentrate on getting up.
The stone of his Signet clinked faintly against the tile. How was the stone even alight anymore? How could anything fashioned by a loving Creatrix bear to contact his skin?
Why were the others there, in the bed—how could they not feel it? How could they stand being bound to something so diseased…so…
Disgusting. You can still feel him, can’t you…that power, and how at the end…you wanted it, didn’t you, that oblivion. You wanted to give up and let him have you. Is that why you didn’t fight harder? It started to feel good, didn’t it, and such an attractive idea, to let it all go, to just…cease.
There was no way to know how long he lay there curled up in a ball on the floor, trapped in the hell of just breathing, remembering…but if the others found him in here they’d see it, they’d know…
Too late.
“David,” came a soft, gentle voice, “Look at me.”
I can’t. I can’t look you in the face. I can’t.
As he had only…God, had it been days? A thousand years? Minutes?…before, Deven knelt beside him. He was wearing the forest green Elven lounging robe Nico had given him for Yule…with his white hair, and his ears, there was no way anyone would think he was anything other than an Elf now. Even his energy had changed subtly in the last few days, and just now it was nothing but loving, wanting only to heal.
David shrank back. “Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t. Not without your permission.”
“Go back to bed…I’m fine.”
A lifted eyebrow. “The hell you are.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Perhaps not. But I know Someone who can. Come with me.”
The thought of walking through the Haven…of the Elite seeing him like this, this…broken thing…no. Never. He’d die here first.
“Oh come on now,” Deven said with a smile. “Since when do you walk anywhere?”
He shut his eyes, and felt the room shifting around them; curious how Deven’s Mist felt completely different from his own, or Miranda’s. There had been a time he might have wanted to learn more, to study the phenomenon and see if it held true across Signets.
The ritual room where the Circle had met on the Solstice, where Stella had died, materialized around them. For a moment he feared there would still be blood everywhere, but of course the Cloister had cleaned and magically cleansed the room. The altar items Stella had left had been polished and arranged just as she’d had them. There was even a seven-day novena candle burning.
They were kneeling in the middle of the diagram that Stella and Nico had so carefully painted on the floor. There was still power there…even in his exhausted, weakened, broken state he could feel it.
“Close your eyes,” Deven told him. “You’re safe here.”
“Everyone keeps saying that,” he muttered.
“And it’s true every time.”
“Not anymore. Nowhere is safe…not even with you.”
“You’re safe here.”
The words came with the light scent of jasmine on a night breeze, and he lifted his head.
Almost instantly he felt something inside his chest unclench. All around them, the Forest of Spirits spread out to the farthest horizons, and he could hear the quiet rustle of movement among the trees, the distant call of an owl.
“I don’t think I can walk,” he whispered.
Deven touched his face…and here, right now, he didn’t shrink back from the touch. “You don’t need to, my darling. Look up.”
Fear returned. What would She say? She had warned him the night of the Solstice that the path he was on was walking straight toward tragedy. She had not given him orders, not forbade him to kill, but She had warned him the consequences would be dire. Surely what he was feeling now was a just reward for his foolishness.
A hand touched the top of his head…larger, longer-fingered than Deven’s. Dev moved back and bowed his head.
“My child,” he heard Her say softly. “I am so sorry.”
How he wanted to hate Her…She had made them, all of them. She had brought the Circle together and set them on their path.
But he had made his own choices. And if not for Her he wouldn’t have any of what had come before…so much love in his life, and so much rightness. He would have died a human in obscurity a
nd never known such happiness was possible…even if it was all over with…She had given him so much.
“Can You help me?” he asked.
She did as Deven had, and knelt beside him. He started to protest at the idea of Her on Her knees in the dirt, but She gave him a look of faint amusement coupled with affection that reminded him so much of Miranda he almost, almost smiled.
She opened Her arms to him, and he fled into them with a cry.
He felt great dark wings encircling him, Her love a fortress, wrapping him in power beyond any he could comprehend. No one here would judge him, no one would see; as Deven had said, he was safe here.
Finally he felt like he could let everything fall, throw down his shield…he wept for what felt like hours, giving Her all the shame and rage and helplessness, the guilt…so many mistakes, and such a high price paid for them.
“I can give you a choice,” She said after a while. “There is only so much even I can do to your part of the Web without completely unmaking you. I can take away the memory of what happened…of Agnilath’s presence in your mind, of his violation of your body. But to do so is to risk taking away part of who you are. You would lose something of yourself forever, be diminished…but your dreams would be peaceful, your memory untroubled by what you have endured.”
He swallowed hard. He wanted that…too much. “Or?”
“Or I can set a seal upon you, one that would block any attempt on his part to enter you again. It is true that they are not gone forever…Agnilath could return, and he would find you no matter where you hid. The vengeance he would exact before consuming you forever would be terrible. But I can place such protection upon you that even he could not breach it…ever. You and you alone would have the power to undo it. You would still remember everything, but you would know you are safe from it happening again.”
He closed his eyes, leaning against Her, feeling so tired…imagining what it would be like to live with this…to live broken, perhaps forever, to force the others to deal with the wreck of who he’d been…
Shadow Rising (The Shadow World Book 7) Page 34
