Shadow’s Fall

by Dianne Sylvan

  Not even David knew that Russia and the Western United States had ties. Some things were best left undisclosed.

  Human or monster, Deven would have preferred Russia’s company to the oily presence of the Prime who came to stand next to him.

  “Prime Deven,” Hart said with that slight hint of disdain that was going to get him castrated one day.

  “Hello, James,” Deven replied mildly. “Had any consensual sex lately?”

  “You know, you really ought to mind your manners,” Hart replied, his tone calm, almost friendly.

  Deven gave him a withering look. “Run along. The adults have business to attend to.”

  Hart’s eyes narrowed. “Be careful … your boy over there is treading on thin ice, and you won’t always be around to protect him or his shrew wife. Neither of you has as much influence as you think you do.”

  Deven actually laughed. “Oh, James. Your little grudge is so adorable.” He turned his gaze fully on Hart, who had the good sense to look a little uneasy. “So the South gave Cora asylum, and Miranda threw you at a wall. So David’s affection for humans threatens the status quo you’ve been exploiting to deal heroin and women all over the Northeast—yes, I’m well aware of how you make your money. So you think I’m a deviant: Get over it. You can’t touch me, Hart … And if you try anything against the Southern Signet, you’ll wish to God I had killed you here and now.”

  As he spoke, Deven’s hand moved down to the hilt of his sword in silent reminder of all the heads Ghostlight had parted from traitorous shoulders. “Now go sit down like a good lad, drink your wine, and keep your fool mouth shut.”

  Hart glared at him for a moment before stalking off.

  “That looked fun,” David said, moving up beside Deven a few minutes later. “Everything all right?”

  “He’s feeling bold,” Deven replied. “I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I.”

  They both watched as most of the Primes took their seats; Deven took the lead and started toward his own, David walking with him.

  “Congratulations on making the finals,” Deven noted. “We’re going to beat you into next week, but still, you made a good showing.”

  David smiled. “Don’t be too sure. Faith has been very driven this year—I think we have a good chance of winning.”

  “I hope not. I really don’t want to pay India ten grand. He’d never let me live it down.”

  David checked his phone as they took their seats across from each other. When David was worried, a thin line appeared between his eyebrows; it was practically a canyon tonight. Deven knew why; across the city, Miranda was getting ready to perform in front of fifteen thousand people … onstage, vulnerable, and too far away to reach without a dangerous Mist.

  Meanwhile, there was a gathering of Queens going on in another room of the Haven; most of them didn’t deal in politics, so they had their own reception. Deven liked to imagine it involved doilies and drinking tea with extended pinky fingers, but Jonathan insisted he was wrong. Still, Jonathan had happily given up the doily party to accompany Miranda into the city, and Cora was Deven’s informant tonight.

  Jonathan never complained about being the only male Consort, but Deven was well aware how alienated he often felt from the others of his kind; no matter what, the Consort stuck out like a giraffe among zebras. He got along well with most of the Queens—his personality was the sort that made friends easily and made people feel comfortable despite their prejudices—but it was still a lonely place to stand. One thing Deven appreciated about Miranda was that she and Jonathan had been immediately taken with each other, and finally, finally Jonathan had a true friend among the Council.

  David had felt better about Miranda going once Jonathan was with her. The Prime didn’t doubt his Queen’s strength or courage, but it took only one moment’s lapsed attention, one shot, one unlucky night, to destroy everything.

  One shot.

  “Let us come to order, my Lords,” Tanaka said from his position at the head of the table. “We will begin with the traditional roll call by territory. When I call the name of your region, please respond with your name …”

  Fifteen thousand people, all under the same spell.

  Jonathan had first seen Miranda play in her music room at the Haven. He had been floored by her voice, but of course she hadn’t been working her empathy on him, so he knew the full extent of her abilities only via the sales figures for her first album. He had enjoyed watching her singles climb the charts and the CD go first gold, then platinum.

  The Austin Live Music Festival main stage was outdoors in the middle of a public park, and the sheer size of the crowd should have generated an insane amount of noise, but just now they all seemed caught in silence, swaying silently back and forth while the muted strains of a piano melody floated out over them through a network of amps and speakers.

  Miranda sang with her eyes closed and her hair down. Her fingers moved like a dreamer’s over the keys, and her voice was almost a whisper, catching the lyrics of the song and spinning them into a spiderweb of wistful longing:

  There’s a crack in the mirror and a bloodstain on my bed

  Oh, you were a vampire and baby I’m the walking dead …

  The most amazing thing was that she held the entire audience rapt in the palm of her hand … and she wasn’t using her empathy at all. It was her voice, her music, doing the weaving.

  She transitioned from the cover song to an original piece seamlessly, without the pause to banter with the audience that most musicians would take. She tended to talk only when she switched from piano to guitar or while she was changing the settings on the digital keyboard behind her.

  There was a hypnotic, drowning quality to her piano playing that was distinctly different from her guitar-based songs; the latter tended to be more fiery and sparked at the edges with emotional urgency. She seemed more at home behind the Bösendorfer than the Martin, but her skill was remarkable either way.

  He was watching from the wings, not out in the audience where he’d be jostled and sweated upon by the teeming mass of humanity. There were Elite everywhere in addition to the Festival’s considerable security staff. David had made sure to send as many warriors as he could spare, though that meant stretching them thin tonight as so many were required at the Haven. There was little chance of an incident requiring Elite intervention at the Council meeting, but while a handful were taking part in the tournament, the rest were on duty as a show of strength.

  Miranda finished the song to deafening cheers. She rose from her piano bench and bowed, smiling broadly, face flushed with pleasure, hair soaked with sweat from the glaring stage lights.

  A tech emerged from offstage and handed her her guitar. She stepped up to the microphone at center stage.

  “Thank you,” she said, quieting the applause. “I’d like to thank the Austin Live Music Festival for having me here tonight and all of you for your support … And speaking of support, as we mentioned on the website last week, we’re now featuring a new T-shirt, designed by local artist Simone Veracruz, and one hundred percent of the proceeds will go directly to the Miranda Grey Porphyria Research Foundation.”

  Another wave of applause, along with a few shouts of “We love you, Miranda!”

  “I have one more song for you tonight,” Miranda went on, “but I’m going to need your help singing the chorus.”

  Her hand slid along the guitar’s neck to find the opening chord, and she favored the audience with a mischievous smile.

  Just as her pick hit the strings, Jonathan heard something strange: a faint pop and a whistle, then another.

  The beginning of the final song screeched into discord as Miranda jerked backward. The microphone caught her gasp as she looked down.

  Blood, berry-bright against her pale skin, blossomed from two round holes in her chest and in seconds had flooded down over her breasts and dripped onto the guitar’s glossy wood.

  For a few seconds, the entire crowd of fifteen t
housand went deathly silent … but that silence turned to screams of horror as Miranda Grey crumpled and fell.

  Five

  Don’t move. Don’t move …

  Pain engulfed her, but she fought to keep her mind moving: Fall down. Don’t move.

  The cacophony came to her distantly. Someone yelled to call 911; footsteps rushed all around her; thousands of people roared in fear and outrage.

  Part of her was tempted to stay on her feet and reassure the humans. It’s just a flesh wound! But she knew that if she were mortal, these wounds would probably kill her. She had to fall. She could only hope that her guitar wasn’t damaged by the impact with the stage.

  The fear around her was overwhelming. She bolstered her shields as best she could around the burning pain in her chest, giving her enough space in her mind to think semilucidly.

  Bullets. Not wood. Can’t heal them until they’re out, can’t dig them out with everyone watching. She could feel herself weakening from the blood loss, though it wouldn’t kill her. The worst that would happen was she would lose consciousness while her body forced the bullets up to the surface and out of her body. She could feel them lodged in her muscles, each less than two inches from her heart.

  Almost equally spaced. Perfectly placed shots. Not in the heart.

  Sniper.

  Faces moved in and out of her vision. The first she recognized was Jonathan’s; he’d been close by so he’d reached her first. “Darts?” he asked.

  She managed to shake her head. She was having trouble maintaining her shields; she had no energy left for conversation. “Bullets,” she croaked.

  Jonathan looked completely baffled. “Who the hell would shoot you with bullets?”

  The Elite clustered around her, blocking the view from the stage as well as keeping the human security officers away. “We’ve got this,” she heard one of the Elite bark at the police. “Paramedics are on the way.”

  “Miranda! What happened? Talk to me, beloved …”

  David’s voice from her com was a thousand miles away, but she heard Jonathan responding to it: “She’s all right, David. Someone shot her. Stand by.”

  Something made the world go partly dark. Most of the stage lights had been doused. The sound of metal wheels on the backstage ramp was like nails on a chalkboard.

  The Elite parted to let the stretcher through, and Miranda half screamed in pain as they hoisted her up onto it. “Get these fucking things out of me!”

  To her surprise, the uniformed paramedic who peered down at her was a familiar, heavily bearded face with sympathetic brown eyes. “Let us get you into the ambulance first,” Mo said. “Best not to have onlookers.”

  “What are you … doing … here?” she panted. There was so much noise … it was getting harder to concentrate … one of the EMTs fitted an oxygen mask over her face, and though it might have been for appearance’s sake, she was grateful for the blast of air that shoved its way into her lungs.

  “Our Lord Prime was concerned that something might happen tonight,” the Elite medic replied, staying at her side as the “EMTs” rushed her off the stage and around to a waiting emergency vehicle. “He assigned me and several of the Hausmann staff to be nearby just in case.”

  There was another series of violent jolts as they loaded her into the ambulance and slammed the doors. The rest of the staff peeled away, leaving only Mo and Jonathan with her.

  Miranda had never been shot before. She had been staked more than once. Lead bullets weren’t as painful or as deadly, but the wounds were still agonizing. Now that she was safe from prying eyes, she dredged up as much energy as she could and fed it into the wounds. Her muscles ejected the bullets much too slowly for her liking—she could feel them moving toward the surface, red-hot, until with one last push she forced them out. She screamed in pain and then heard the plink-plink of the slugs falling off to the side and onto the ambulance floor.

  Mo had taken her arm and already had a needle in her vein; he hooked up a bag of blood and switched on the pump. “Five minutes and you’ll be good as new,” he assured her. “It’s a nice fresh O neg.”

  He was, as always, very calm, even cheerful. From most people it would be aggravating in this situation, but from Mo it was incredibly comforting. Just as he had taken David’s poisoning three years ago in stride, he didn’t seem at all alarmed at the fact that someone had shot his Queen in full view of the entire Austin Live Music Festival.

  “Someone shot me,” Miranda said.

  Mo lifted the oxygen mask. “Come again, my Lady?”

  “Someone shot me!”

  “The Elite are tearing through the place,” Jonathan told her. He had one hand on her arm, squeezing almost too hard, but she was grateful for his presence. “They’ve already got a basic trajectory analysis based on how you recoiled when you were hit, so they know the shots came from somewhere up the hill and off to stage right. They’re combing the grounds for shell casings.”

  “Someone in the audience?” she asked. The blood flowing into her arm was bathing the still-burning wounds in warmth, renewing the flesh and returning it to health. She tried to keep her breathing steady and let her vampire power and the blood do their work.

  “Only if they somehow got past the police with a gun,” Jonathan replied.

  “This is Texas,” Miranda reminded him. “It could have been anyone.”

  Mo was busy gathering up the slugs and slipping them into plastic bags. “We will know more once we have these analyzed,” he said. “They appear to be from a handgun, not from a sniper rifle, but I admit my experience with human bullets was long ago and far away.”

  “Report!”

  Both Miranda and Mo’s coms blared out with David’s voice this time, and she could hear the note of restrained terror in the words. She lifted her arm weakly and said into the com, “I’m okay, baby. I’m in the ambulance with Mo and Jonathan. The bullets are out and I’m healing.”

  “I’ve called an emergency recess. I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” he said.

  “No—I’m fine, I promise. Stay there and do what you have to do. We’ve got Elite searching for the shooter and I’m out of danger. I’ll be home soon.” She dropped her arm with a grunt and shut her eyes for a moment.

  “I’m headed to the server room,” David said. “I’ll know in five minutes whether the shooter was a vampire.”

  Someone knocked on the ambulance door, and Miranda nodded; Mo opened it, revealing a human in a suit with an APD shield hanging from his neck.

  “Detective Maguire,” Miranda said. “Nice to see you again. Did Stella like the autograph?”

  “She’s here tonight,” Maguire replied. “I’d bring her to meet you, but I think now’s probably a bad time. What can you tell me?”

  “Got shot,” Miranda told him. God, she was so tired. Such a large audience had taken more out of her than she thought; even before the shot, before their terror, they had been draining her. “It really hurt.”

  The detective actually smiled, though he was clearly focused on the matter at hand. “I’ve got uniforms all over the place and more on the way,” he said. “The audience nearly rioted, but between APD and ALMF security we got things calmed down. There were at least a dozen people with cell phones recording the concert. We’re rounding them up now to go over their footage—someone might have caught the shooter on camera.”

  Miranda’s com went off, and David returned to the conversation. “All right … I’m going back through the sensor data, and there were about thirty vampires in the audience, mostly in pairs and a few small groups. All of them arrived at least an hour ago, except … there’s one signal that shows up midway through your set, working his or her way up toward stage right. The shot goes off, you fall …”

  “I’m okay,” Miranda said again. “I really am.”

  David took a deep breath and went on, voice a little roughened with tension. “Got him! Tracking northwest—he’s in a cluster of humans who are walking toward the parki
ng lot. He’s blending in, not in a hurry. Detective, have uniforms in place for crowd control at the corner of Zilker Park Drive and the entrance to the botanical gardens. Try to clear the humans from the area. I’m sending all available Elite. Stand by.”

  Maguire ducked out of the ambulance, and Miranda heard him yelling into his walkie-talkie.

  Miranda found she was shaking—a delayed reaction, perhaps, but suddenly she was freezing and had the urge to curl up on herself and cry.

  “Hey,” Jonathan said gently, taking her hand. “You’re all right. We’ll catch the bastard and figure this out.”

  “My big night,” Miranda said around the knot in her stomach. “Guess it’s one they’ll remember.”

  “Are you kidding?” He gave her a slightly uncertain grin. “You’ll be a legend.”

  “If I live,” Miranda said. “If I were human … wait …”

  “What is it?”

  No one in the Shadow World would shoot a Queen with bullets. They’d use a crossbow or stake launcher. And what human would want to kill her, assuming she was human? A deranged fan? The shots had been awfully well-placed … but if a human was going to shoot her in the middle of a concert, why not aim directly for her heart or head? A vampire wouldn’t bother, but a vampire would know that bullets wouldn’t kill her … but it would look like she was mortally wounded.

  “Whoever did this knew what I am,” she said. “A human couldn’t survive a shot like that.”

  Mo looked thoughtful. “If one had adequate and immediate medical attention, one could survive. These particular shots missed your organs entirely. It would be a grave wound regardless due to the blood loss.”

  Jonathan, with a stricken nod, said, “They wanted to end your career.”

  “Suspect apprehended,” came a voice over the network. It was one of the Elite who had been assigned to the concert. “There was a fight but no casualties.”

  “Do you have an ID?” Miranda asked.

  A pause, then: “Partial, my Lady. The suspect is identified as Monroe … he’s not talking.”