Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6)

by Dianne Sylvan

  The link Stella had created between them still existed, and it wasn’t blocked, but David had pushed himself back from it once he came to. He could feel Nico’s mind affecting his; every few minutes something would twinge in David’s head and he would crave blood so fiercely his canines extended partway, out of his control.

  The rage was the hardest part to deal with. It was almost primitive, far too strong for David to wall up like he usually did with such emotions. David knew, watching him, that he wasn’t dreaming of his own torture. He was dreaming of killing.

  Stella was with them too, but she had turned away from the window and was crying quietly in the corner.

  “Sire,” came a voice. David looked over at the Elite standing a few meters away.

  David lifted his chin inquisitively.

  “We found this in the building and thought you would want it brought to you right away.” She held up a 12-ounce jar…containing a Signet.

  “Give it to Prime Deven,” he said.

  The Elite offered her cargo with reverence, bowing as she did. Deven stared at it for a moment before taking it. He unscrewed the lid, lifted the Signet out, and handed back the jar.

  She bowed again and disappeared.

  Deven held the Signet up where it caught the light…the stone was dark. That wasn’t unusual, really, as when not around its rightful bearer’s neck a Signet usually went dormant, but seeing it like that, almost the perfect symbol of the despair he knew they were all feeling, was insult to injury.

  Bowing his head for a moment, Deven stowed the Signet in his pocket. David’s gaze followed his hand and ended on Ghostlight, at her place on the Prime’s hip as if she’d never been removed. Should that feel good, or not? David had no idea. He knew one night didn’t automatically make Deven himself again, but it was a dizzying amount of progress. Somehow Miranda and Kai had gotten to him when it mattered most.

  That had to mean Nico could come back. He could entertain no other possibility.

  He hadn’t thought they could all hurt any more than they did already.

  Finally, Deven said, “All right…I’m going in there. He’s going to wake up in a few minutes. I want to see if I can get a better read on his condition.”

  “Are you sure?” Miranda asked. “You’re the one he was angriest at. It might be too soon.”

  Deven looked doubtful, and David said, “I’ll go. I wasn’t there tonight, and the last time he saw me was under positive conditions at the show. If he tries to attack I’ll Mist out.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for it? You still look awfully peaked.” Miranda looked even more doubtful than Deven.

  “I am. It’s fine.” He pulled away from her, squeezing her hand before he completely broke contact, and made his way around the side of the cell to its entrance. He put his hand on the scanner to unlock it.

  The air inside the room stank of dried blood and scorched meat. They’d need to arrange a shower for Nico, and soon; the quicker they got that crusted gore off his body the easier it would be to remind him who he actually was.

  Inspired, David called for water and soap. It appeared outside the door in minutes.

  He carried both over and sat down on the second, empty cot. David knew the others were watching, but he couldn’t think about that—he had to think of what Nico needed right now.

  The water was blessedly warm, just the right temperature to scrub blood from skin without leaving it raw. He lifted one of Nico’s hands and began to wash it, at the same time cataloging everything he saw.

  Morningstar had, at the very least, broken all his fingers, pulled out his fingernails, and let them grow back. Measuring growth rates, perhaps? Comparing the speed of repair for the bones versus the nails? He kept his touch as light as he could, trying to get as much done as he could before Nico woke. Most of the scars were completely gone by the time he had the skin clean, but he had time to note their locations and likely sources.

  How many times will I have to do this for people I love?

  One hand, mostly clean; he switched to the other. On that hand a line from the bottom of the index finger made David think they had simply cut off Nico’s thumb and then let it grow back onto the hand. That’s what they’d done with his ear, and thank God they’d let it reattach; Nico wasn’t vain, but Elven ears were such a fundamental part of their appearance that losing one might prove more than Nico could bear. All that was left of the wound was a ridge of skin that might remain, or not; sometimes scar tissue acted oddly in their bodies if the wound was kept open for a long time.

  Both hands clean. He moved up to Nico’s neck, and his face, washing and rinsing off the remains of over two dozen men.

  The intercom buzzed. “David,” Miranda said, “Kai brought some of his clothes—something simple that won’t be a big tragedy if he ruins it. It’s got to be more comfortable for him than that mess.”

  “Agreed.” He waited until the door beeped, and rose quickly to retrieve the armload of fabric Kai had left for him.

  He continued to work, continued his inventory. Some of the things they’d done made no sense on the surface unless one knew about forensic pathology…there were only a few uses for an incision like the one on…

  David put his head in his hands. He understood.

  “What is it, baby?”

  He looked up at the window, even though he couldn’t see anything in it. “These lines,” he said. “They’re not random, and not just for pain. They’re very precise and follow a standard method.”

  “Method of what?” Miranda asked.

  “Autopsy,” David answered. The word seemed to weigh him down. “On the whole, I…I think they vivisected him.”

  He heart Stella retching.

  David went back to his work, very lightly pressing on different areas of Nico’s body to see if things were still where they went, and to his disgust…they weren’t.

  “Did the Elite destroy all the samples?”

  “Yes,” Miranda said. “Why?”

  “I’m pretty sure the humans removed one of his kidneys. It would have been a fascinating thing to study if they could preserve it — ours are much larger than a human’s, and more complex. Losing one won’t kill him but it’ll make him…permanently delicate.”

  He peeled off the foul remains of the clothes Nico had found at his escape, and checked for signs of sexual assault. There were indications that the humans had done…things…but he couldn’t be sure if they were of a sexual nature or just exploratory. The abrasions and raw flesh could have come from either, though generally speaking rape required heightened emotion, particularly rage, and the rest of their work was purely clinical, suggesting detachment. Either way it was a violation…all of this was.

  Nico’s chest bore telltale marks besides just the y-incision. He could feel, when he pressed on the bone, that his sternum had been cracked, allowing them access to his chest cavity.

  They’d cut him open, chained to a table, without anesthesia, and put their hands into him, reaching in to play around with whatever interesting toys they found inside.

  Rage, again. This time David knew it was his own.

  He had to fight it down. If it touched Nico, it might wake him, and he needed more time to finish his work. David grounded himself firmly, taking his emotions in hand and shoving them hard behind a shield.

  Kai had brought one of the long tunic/loose pants combinations they favored while relaxing; light, with ease of movement, they were equally perfect for a midnight tryst or a week of convalescence. David was quite intimately familiar with how the sides tied up, and left them fairly loose, not wanting Nico to wake up feeling strangled.

  David took a moment to wash the blood from Nico’s sad mess of hair; they’d have to get in here and cut it when it was safe to have scissors around him. It wasn’t ugly on him; quite the opposite, in fact. But it needed evening out, preferably by professional hands. By the time it was all shaped into something normal-looking i
t would be perhaps two inches long. David imagined that they had cut it off both for convenience and so they could shave it and access the Elf’s skull, but it didn’t look like they’d gotten any farther than the first step.

  Work done, David took a pretty significant risk and leaned over to kiss Nico on the lips. “Rest, my lost one,” he whispered to the Elf, touching his face very lightly. “You’re home now, and we’re here for you. Rest and come back to us.”

  Then he rose, tucking the blanket around Nico’s inert form, and left the cell, dimming the lights and locking the door securely behind him.

  Part Two

  The Wind-Swept Cliff

  Chapter Eleven

  SINGER MIRANDA GREY SUSPECT IN AUSTIN HOMICIDE

  GREY’S ATTY: ALLEGATIONS ARE “LUDICROUS”

  GRAND JURY HEARING SET FOR NOVEMBER 14

  FANS: WE’RE STICKING BY MIRANDA GREY

  GREY’S HUSBAND TO REPORTERS OUTSIDE COURTROOM:

  “STEP BACK OR EAT YOUR OWN PANCREAS”

  David had to admit the last one was fantastic.

  The casual, noisy ebb and flow of humanity in the coffee house was a bit distracting, but it was also far more comforting than being home these days. He’d claimed he wanted to do this in a location completely unconnected to anyone in Miranda’s life, on a disposable computer that could not be linked to the Haven, which was why he’d chosen Houndstooth; and while that was true it was also true that he just needed to get out of the house before he lost his damn mind.

  “Mouse, are you online?”

  A pause, then a voice in his ear: “Yes my Lord. Already in the building, waiting for instructions.”

  “Good lad. All right—remember the number one rule of industrial espionage?”

  “Look like you belong there, walk like you own the place, and no one will blink.”

  “First you’ll come to the fingerprint scanner that lets you into the secure elevator. Right thumb.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Mouse had been working for Hunter Development for a few years, and he had that awkward-teenager vibe that covered up his brilliance; he was a programmer, not a forensic scientist, but what David needed here was someone smart who could follow orders but think on the fly. Mouse was highly plausible as an employee at IntelliGenetic Labs. David had reviewed the files of every employee to build a profile for what he needed, and Mouse was almost a perfect match.

  Getting into APD itself, or their forensic lab, was a bad idea, though it would be child’s play. There were few enough employees that anyone he sent in might stick out. IGL had a staff of nearly 500 and ran 24/7, serving half the state of Texas. It was better to go to the source in this anyway.

  “Sixth floor,” Mouse said. “Lab 42 is to the right. Heading that way.”

  “You’ll see a security panel in front of that door that requires another print and retinal scan. Don’t hesitate.”

  David pulled up the next set of data, Mouse’s retinal information, and slotted it into the gap he’d created in IGL’s records. By the time Mouse reached the scanner, the system thought he’d been working there for 24 months.

  “I’m in.”

  He watched the little dot that represented Mouse on the grid move through the building, approaching their target: Sample Prep and Extractions.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Okay, we’re looking for ATX-APD-MIR-GRE-4095437262-187. The APD samples should all be in the fridges to your left, far end of the room, adjacent to the sink.”

  He waited, glancing at the internal photographs he had of the room. Mouse, clad in a white lab coat with the IGL logo embroidered over the breast pocket and a badge identifying him as Dr. Nick Tesla, would have to locate a single set of samples among thousands. Even a contract lab like IGL had a backlog of weeks, if not months, for the police. The technology had advanced to the point that a test could come back in 90 minutes, but it could still be months before prosecutors and defense attorneys had their data.

  “Found it,” Mouse murmured. “Removing now.”

  “Double check the Chain of Custody form and make sure you’ve signed it before you swap it for the original. Make sure every vial is positioned exactly as its partner.”

  “What about the cassette? It has custody seals.”

  “The kit you have should have dummy custody seals as well. Replace their cassette with yours and seal it the same way. Don’t try to open the cassette.”

  “Gotcha.”

  It was the nature of their lives that David had vastly over prepared for every emergency he could think of, but it turned out it wasn’t necessary; even the techs bustling around the labs, ducking into Sample Prep and out again, paid absolutely no attention to Mouse. Why should they? He’d passed external and internal security at six checkpoints, had a badge that unlocked the doors, and obviously knew what he was doing. There was not one case on record of DNA evidence being tampered with at the laboratory level in Texas. Most criminals didn’t have the resources, let alone the brains.

  “Replacing the case.”

  The case in question, a flat rectangular box containing vials of DNA separated from APD’s blood sample as well as vials that had already been extracted and prepared for analysis, also had a vial that had been inserted into a plastic carrier cassette that could be plugged into an autosampler—a closed system free of contamination. That would be the first thing they ran; if they got a hit on that, there would of course be additional tests run to verify it. Nobody wanted to put someone in prison based on a single test.

  Mouse reported in frequently as he finished his errand and pushed the case back into its neatly labeled slot in the fridge; he placed the original vials in an empty case from a stack nearby, and slid both the vials and the paperwork into it. He couldn’t exactly shove the bottles in his pocket and walk off; there were cameras on all the labs, though where he was standing would give a limited view. Much less suspicious for him to take the case out of the lab like he did so every day, put it in a transport cooler, and walk out of the building without missing a step.

  “Good work,” David said. “I’m keeping an eye on the security system for a while, but so far you haven’t so much as raised an eyebrow. You know where to go now.”

  “On my way, Sire.”

  Now that Mouse was clear of the building, David pulled up the IGL database and summoned the records for the sample they’d replaced. The police had an extensive list of tests ordered, including phenotyping that was so detailed it could provide hair and eye color of a subject. He accessed the preliminary markers and switched each one for the quantities in their replacement sample, as analyzed by Dr. Novotny’s team. From here, IGL could run whatever test they liked.

  He made sure to follow the data flow both in and out of the system just in case those few markers had been sent anywhere else, but they weren’t considered admissible in court or even definitive, just enough to track the samples as they moved through the lab.

  The chair across from him slid out, and Mouse dropped into it. He’d ditched his coat and was now in a nondescript hoodie and jeans.

  “Twenty-seven minutes from door to door,” David said. “Nice.”

  Mouse grinned and slid his badge across the table. “Dr. Tesla signing off.”

  “Well done, Mouse. I’m glad Novotny suggested you—you are kind of a ninja, especially for a human.”

  Mouse held out a shopping bag from Whole Foods; inside would be ice cream, Stella’s favorite pesto and bread, a case full of vampire blood, some of the chocolate fudge that Miranda had vapors over…and even a package of candied ginger, which had been Nico’s favorite…before. Mouse had also included a smaller bag containing the gloves he’d worn in the lab so they could be destroyed.

  “So you said what they had was going to degrade,” Mouse said, bringing him back to the room. “Degrade how?”

  Glancing around to make sure no one was looking—of course not, everyone
else was either waiting in line for a drink or staring into their phones or both—David opened the case and removed a single vial. Protocol was to keep the samples out of bright light, at temperatures less than 6 degrees Celsius.

  “There’s a reason you can’t DNA test a vampire,” he said quietly, opening the vial and turning it over. Mouse started, jerking his hands back from the spill, but what came out of the vial was thick and gloppy, and as a single drop hit the table and the overhead lights hit it, the blood began to essentially burn, though with only a tiny bit of smoke. It was ash in seconds. “As soon as it leaves the body the proteins begin to clump up. By the time they got to the PCR it was probably already badly coagulated. They’d get the prelim markers and that’s it. It would never make it to the final analysis. The effect you just saw was caused by light. Ultraviolet is the worst, but any light of sufficient brightness causes rapid degradation. Novotny has had a lot of luck prepping the samples in a dark room, but there’s no reason a normal lab would even try that.”

  “I’m guessing what we put in there was human, then.”

  “It was indeed. I ran facial recognition software on as many humans in Austin as I could find, then expanded the search to adjoining states. I looked for someone with the same general appearance as Miranda, then got hold of her DNA.”

  “You’re going to frame somebody?”

  “In theory, perhaps, but in reality this particular redhead was in Oregon at the time of the murder, and there are documents and witnesses of her entire trip. She works for a very prestigious law firm. APD will have the DNA of a woman who looks like Miranda but couldn’t possibly be the killer, and they’ll have DNA from the body that matches neither woman. Not to mention Miranda will have an alibi by then — she said she didn’t remember the night of the murder, but her credit card records will remind her where she was, which was nowhere near that alley. The case will run round in circles and go cold.”