by Thea Devine
Somehow, she managed to tumble off the seat this time, at which point the Master of the Household was called to determine whether she’d injured herself.
“Come, come in.” His tone was not hospitable; he was irritated he had to accommodate a random raggedy stranger and rouse the housekeeper and the cook besides.
The coveted invitation; she grabbed the opportunity.
He left her sitting on a stone bench in a small outer room.
Her ill-conceived scheme couldn’t have gone better, she thought, but now what? The Queen was not in residence yet. Where was Lady Augustine then? Senna had to make a decision quickly.
Leave or transhape and explore?
She had seconds. She closed her eyes, envisioning the fly’s compressed little body. But the child was too big. Maybe . . . she felt raw distaste . . . maybe a bat?
Downward and inward. Contract and pull, the child safely tucked.
The beating of wings, and she was gone.
Impressions of high-ceilinged rooms, glazed in gold, fragile, painted porcelain, cut glass, ivory walls, massive expanses sparsely furnished as she sliced through connecting doors going . . . where, she didn’t know.
The Palace interior. Where she needed to be when the Queen returned.
Or, the thought struck her, when Lady Augustine might take her place. In the wake of the Prince’s death many years before, the Queen had been absent from the Palace and London altogether for extended periods.
However, even though things had changed and she was due in town this very week, Lady Augustine still had a clear path, an empty Palace, and the wherewithal to take the Queen’s place. And no one to stop her.
The audacity of it took Senna’s breath for a moment, and she swooped down to perch on the edge of a sofa.
With only one little accident that disabled the Queen, Lady Augustine could slip into her shoes with impunity and no one would ever know. Another year, declare the Queen dead, and the way was open for vampiric domination.
She’d have to leave the way she came and she barely remembered how she’d gotten where she was.
She pushed her way up high against the ceiling, reversing direction. She was flagging a little as she slipped through one room after another, hoping one door would finally lead to the mews anteroom.
She finally perched in the shadows at the top of a door that had been left ajar where she could hear voices.
The Master of the Household was speaking, his tone grim. “I have no idea where that beggar disappeared to. We’ve searched everywhere. But I’ll tell you this: we are not going to make an incident of this because it will reflect an undue carelessness on our part.”
They would keep searching, he said, and tell no one. Likely, the culprit was hiding in the root cellar. They’d never invite a stranger into the anteroom again when the Queen was not in residence.
They marched into the anteroom, and as the housekeeper closed the door, Senna flew out into the mews and the hot sunlight.
There. She grabbed on to the stables’ roof. A few moments to collect herself, and she’d get herself to Lombard Street and Mirya’s safe haven.
And then the child moved. She tumbled off the roof, and into an unoccupied stall, catching herself just in time so that she didn’t hit the ground. But not in time to prevent the transhaping of her body into her corporeal self.
Time stopped as she fought for control. There was no way out. Her wagon was not in the courtyard. They had parked it where it was barely noticeable and had uncoupled the horse, but Senna was unsure where they’d put it.
She concentrated all her powers on transporting out of there.
She heard a flipping sound, as if the thought had transfigured her body into action, and suddenly she was flying out and over the streets of London.
Senna’s stomach felt as if it had grown even more since this morning. She felt queasy. She lay in Mirya’s bed, exhausted and drained, as Mirya made her own meal and heated some water for tea and stared at her.
“What?”
“The child needs food.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.” Another maddeningly cryptic answer. “So you will begin to nourish the child in that way.”
“The blood is not enough?”
“No. You need to nourish the child,” Mirya said adamantly. She spooned some of the rice and beans she’d prepared into a dish. “Eat.”
There was no use arguing with Mirya. The food tasted like dust.
“Why are you insisting I eat today?”
“You are growing. The child needs nourishment.”
Mirya set out her own plate and began to eat. “You were fortunate today. Another day, there would be no mercy for an intruder.”
No denying that. They could have turned her away, even after her fall. But now she knew how easy it would be for Charles to carry out his plans.
The possibilities were worse than she could have imagined: a Queen immured in a castle several hours of travel beyond London surely was a target, and not only to a tyrannical, self-appointed vampiric overlord.
Senna didn’t know quite what she could do about any of it at this moment. Lady Augustine might be in London, or at Windsor. Senna wondered if Mirya knew.
“Where is Lady Augustine?” she asked suddenly, after pushing down the last spoonful of the rice and beans.
“Not here. Not anywhere.”
“She’s at the town house,” Senna guessed. “In the coffin room.”
“She exists. That’s all you need to know.”
“They’re all there, aren’t they? Dominick, the bitch, Charles.”
“That may be,” Mirya said carefully. “You cannot go. Not now.”
“What can I do?”
“Wait.”
Senna hated that answer.
Another bowl of blood was at her elbow in the morning.
Senna drank. Did it matter where her nourishment came from? Nothing mattered but circumventing Charles’s plans. And that she and the child survived.
Dominick figured nowhere in that equation. She felt such a distance between them. Everything that had gone before seemed as evanescent as dust. The pain, the pleasure, the love-lust, the reality of the child.
She didn’t need Dominick. Was she really all that helpless in the face of Charles’s scheming? They’d been sired under the same circumstances, nearly at the same time. Could she not somehow outwit him?
“No, you can’t,” Mirya said, as if she’d read Senna’s mind. Mirya sat down at the table. “He is craftier and more devious; he has no conscience. You do not want to go point to point with him.”
“I have to do something,” Senna murmured, looking into the bowl as if it were a crystal ball.
“What much can you do, carrying a child?”
“Then who? They are making an army of undead under the Keepers of the Night.”
“Dominick will,” Mirya said confidently, getting up to set the teakettle on.
Senna iced up. “Dominick hasn’t.”
“Perhaps, as yet, Dominick can’t.”
“What do you know?”
Mirya shrugged. “I know you can return to the town house this morning.”
“Why is that?”
“Charles is hunting for you. Dominick is . . .”
“Is?” Senna said, her tone skirting the edge of endurance.
“Trailing him,” Mirya said reluctantly, taking two teacups from the fireplace shelf. “And Peter is with the Other.”
“I see.” Interesting.
Senna stood up gingerly. Her legs felt heavy, drained of energy or motive power. The movement in her belly was more frequent now, emphatic kicks and pushes and a sensation of turning and twisting deep inside her.
“They cannot be,” Mirya muttered as she brought the cups and the kettle to
the table. “This is not good.”
“Tell me about the colors.” That at least could be useful. Mirya’s hand-wringing was not. Senna took a sip of tea.
“Tepes,” Mirya whispered. “Green auras. Some can see the danger, most cannot.”
“Can I?”
“Maybe, I don’t know. After the child, maybe . . .”
The familiar frustration welled up in Senna.
“Go now,” Mirya said suddenly. “Go.”
Suddenly, Senna was taken up in a whirlwind and deposited at Lady Augustine’s town house.
Senna grasped the iron balustrade to steady herself. How had that happened? Mirya didn’t have those powers. Nor did Senna remember having had a directional thought toward the town house.
More mysteries. She climbed the steps laboriously, and when she reached the top, the door opened by an unseen hand.
She stepped inside. No Puckett. No life anywhere.
A house of death, really, where the undead now rallied.
She was not surprised to see Lady Augustine floating down the steps.
“Well, well.” Nothing about her had changed. Every wound, scratch, tear, bite, and gouge had magically healed but for the two prominent fang marks on her neck. She was the same short, squat, beautifully dressed, immaculately turned-out aristocrat she had been when she’d taken Senna up as her ward.
But now she radiated a simmering vampiric heat as she hovered over the stairs. She was wholly a creature of blood, and very aware of her powers.
“Lady Augustine.”
“I’ve been expecting you.”
“And I, you.” Senna held Lady Augustine’s eyes, taking her measure as Lady Augustine took hers.
“You can hardly interfere now,” Lady Augustine finally said, motioning to Senna’s enlarged belly. “There would be consequences.”
Senna didn’t think, she leapt, grabbing Lady Augustine’s skirt, pulling her down onto the steps where she could grab and bite.
“You can’t take more blood than you have already,” Lady Augustine grunted, as she gouged and kicked and tried to roll Senna down the steps. “The first lesson of a newly sired vampire. Or didn’t they tell you?”
Senna grabbed for Lady Augustine’s throat. It was almost like choking the Queen, they were so similar.
Her hold loosened as the scrim that settled over Lady Augustine’s features slowly transfigured them into the face of the Queen.
Senna knew in her mind it wasn’t the Queen, but in her heart, she wasn’t that sure.
Her grip tightened again. It was Lady Augustine, who would abet those seeking to impose vampiric rule.
Everything, Senna’s surroundings, suddenly took on a surreal aspect, and every movement seemed to be made in slow motion. Just another squeeze, just until she felt the subtle give of the windpipe.
“Take. Your. Hands. Away.”
The imperious command, even as Senna pressed on the windpipe, came up and around Senna’s compulsion to kill.
“STOP. NOW.”
The voice sounded mechanical. The body was a machine, withstanding even a vampire’s bloodlust.
“I COMMAND YOU.”
Senna was compelled to look at the face. The Queen’s face, swelling red with the pressure of her hands as the Queen grasped Senna’s forearms and pulled with superhuman strength.
“I will kill you,” Senna spat.
But all the determination in the world would not stop Lady Augustine, who had wrested Senna’s arms apart and was now grasping her hands.
They wrestled down the steps, Lady Augustine pulling and loosening Senna’s grip with every movement, and Senna averting her gaze and losing purchase by the second.
The more she tumbled and bruised herself, the worse it was for the child. And Charles wanted, needed, the child. The child was the key.
Because of that, Lady Augustine would not kill her—this time.
Senna landed on her back on the foyer floor, which knocked the breath out of her. She heard a heavy ruffling sound, the weight of Lady Augustine’s body diminished, and Lady Augustine vanished into the air before her eyes.
Senna took a deep, shuddering breath of relief. What had just happened? She’d been but a squeeze away from choking Lady Augustine. Murdering her. Ridding the world of a vampiric impersonator who might change the course of history.
But Lady Augustine came closer to killing her first, Senna thought uneasily, and at that moment the child seemed not to be a consideration.
And Lady Augustine had easily assumed the insolence and presumption of the Queen. From afar, Lady Augustine as Queen would probably do quite well for Charles’s purposes.
Peter was negligible. Dominick was the unknown in the equation. And, Senna thought, her role was questionable altogether.
She didn’t move, she couldn’t. She was scared to death the fight had injured the baby.
The house was eerily still and silent. Not a sound. Not a breath.
She didn’t care who found her there. There was no one she could trust.
Could she trust Mirya? Was it enough that Mirya had hidden her, fed her, counseled her, even though she feared Senna’s blood needs would drown out her gratitude?
Nothing made sense anymore. She desperately wished she could go back, to before Drom burned. Back to when Dominick was her most wonderful dream and the best lover. Back when she’d first been transported to London into the care of Lady Augustine. When he’d been an ineffable figure of elusive mystery. When she’d fallen in love with him and would have done anything for him. She’d even considered seeking the eternal bite for him, to be with him forever.
She didn’t know how long she lay on the floor. Her thoughts swirled, her body ached, her heart felt frozen.
What if she had damaged the baby irreparably?
She rolled on her side and cupped her rounded belly.
I want this baby. I love this baby.
She felt a furling sensation, and then movement, like a fist sliding against a balloon.
Love. No doubt, no hesitation, no ifs or buts.
The life-affirming realization: she loved.
And others were after her child.
She jolted into a sitting position as footfalls sounded up the steps.
She didn’t think twice about the child as she transhaped her body into a graceful bat and sliced through the air.
Dominick skittered to a landing on the roof of the town house.
Yet another fruitless flight around London, desperately looking for Senna and the child. Watching from above the faint aura of green, which signified the Keepers on the march. An army of Keepers, a siring upon siring of Tepes, protecting their own interests and killing at random to feed.
And Senna somewhere out there, innocent and alone. Maybe not alone, if that little gnome Mirya was with her.
Regrets were futile. The hand of Iosefescu and the Countess still moved the pieces on the chessboard. Dnitra still followed him, flitting lightly around his head as he contemplated the night.
“Come home, Dominick.” Her words droned in his ear. “There is nothing for you here.” The buzz annoyed him as she flitted from one ear to the other.
He could swat her out of existence right now. Just lift his hand and that would be the end. But there was that itchy question of his humanity. And the blood already shed in the name of his survival. And whether that was even enough of a rationale.
The faint green glow in alleys, along the waterfront, up and down residential streets—the Keepers patrolled, and London was safe for another night—as long as its inhabitants remained indoors.
Now and again, an unexpected scream exploded into the night, signifying a Keeper had fanged a victim and another life was lost—or turned.
Devil’s bones, where was Senna? And Mirya? One thing he knew—he could not go to the
hovel, he couldn’t lead them there. If Senna was anywhere, she was there.
Dnitra transhaped beside him. “They hunt. They kill. They cannot be stopped. Come home, Dominick.”
He ignored her. She rubbed his arm. “I will not go back to Biru without you.”
“Then you’ll be here forever.”
“Not if the Tepes take the Palace.”
Nor if Charles got custody of the child. If the child’s blood was commingled. If he bore the fang marks of the Tepes and the sign of the Iscariot simultaneously, the power that would confer . . .
It would be war. Otherwise, the first objective would be to destroy the hydra-head: the army of Keepers led by his homicidal bloodborn half brother.
“Not if they find you,” Dnitra added.
His heart constricted. He’d never considered any danger to himself. It was all about Senna and his child. Iscariot or Tepes, it was his. Charles would never get his hands on his child.
Nor would Iosefescu. Or Dnitra.
The glow of green kept weaving through the city.
He felt old in his bones. As if it were time to let go, to give up. Let happen whatever would happen. His human feelings for Senna seemed like a fairy tale he’d read long ago. And the knowledge that the future was forever was damning and daunting.
If he was realistic, he’d hope that his child, conceived before Senna’s siring, would bear no mark of the vampire; that his child would be human and live a life absent the black abyss of forever he could never escape.
Where was Senna? She could be in their hands. Or in Charles’s clutches.
No, she was with Mirya, who was wise in the streets, and loyal to Senna. She would know all the places where no one would look.
“Peter will kill her when he finds her,” Dnitra whispered.
“Is he looking?” Dominick asked indifferently, but inside, he felt a swelling urgency to find Senna.
“As he can. He’s still weak, but he heals. He doesn’t forgive.”
I will kill him, Dominick thought. Without hesitation. With great pleasure. As soon as ever he found the opportunity. Without a second thought.
Death had always been his companion. That was the reality, and yet he’d been granted something more: a child. Love. Just for a golden moment, something pure and beyond the rot and desiccation of a vampire’s bottomless life.
