Shadow’s Fall

by Dianne Sylvan

  She needed to rest, to rejuvenate; he remembered Faith’s idea of a vacation, and it was sounding like a better and better idea all the time. If he could get her away from all of this even for a weekend, she might come back with renewed enthusiasm for their life; right now it felt to her like everything was aligning to destroy what she loved, and that she was going to have to choose between one life and another.

  That might be true, but it didn’t have to happen yet. There was still time for her to have what she wanted for a while longer.

  He could make it happen, no matter what Hart’s backstabbing or the media’s hunger for fallen idols dragged them into. They hadn’t even seen the beginning of his resources yet. For Miranda, he would throw all his knowledge, all his experience, into making sure she stayed “human” as long as she wanted to. The rest of the world could wait.

  I will give you the world, my love … and no one will dare try to take it. No one.

  “They’re starting,” Miranda pointed down at the floor. David took her hand, and she leaned into his shoulder, both watching the Japanese referees get everyone organized. “Do you think we’ll win?”

  David smiled. “Probably not, but if ever there was a time, now would be a good one.”

  It was a strange thing, seeing Deven’s Elite go up against David’s own—his Elite, trained mostly by Faith, who had been trained by Deven, as had David and Miranda themselves, Miranda indirectly. But David had seen Deven’s style evolve over the years—it was an organic thing, adapting and changing as it needed to—so what he and Faith had learned at the Alpha’s hand and what Deven’s new Elite would do might be two very different things.

  David had turned his training program over to Faith entirely, and she had revolutionized it; she had taken a mind-body approach, having all the Elite take yoga and meditation classes to teach them concentration methods, and everyone with even an iota of psychic power had been trained and shielded. Faith was determined to make the most of every individual Elite’s abilities, rather than forcing them all to adhere to a single program as many other Signets did; in that way, the Southern Elite was made up of warriors, not soldiers, who were willing to follow orders because they were loyal to the Signet but could also make their own decisions. David had no use for mindless automatons, and Faith had made him proud.

  There was more going on than simply knocking someone down; there was a complex points system at work, kept track of on the scoreboard on the far end of the room.

  “This seat taken?”

  David looked up to see Jonathan and Deven sliding into the bleachers, Jonathan next to Miranda. He kissed her cheek, and she grinned. On the far side of the Western Pair, Janousek and Cora had arrived as well, and Cora’s dog settled with a grunt at her feet.

  David had to smile to himself. There was something rather comforting about having allies around him like this, and he could tell Miranda felt the same way; she perked up a little as the match began, even whooping aloud when the announcer read off the names of their Elite.

  The team competition looked, on the surface, like something of a melee, but both teams were actually highly coordinated, using attack patterns that the Seconds had mostly created. The two teams fought similarly: speed and agility, not hack-and-bash, and most of the team members were built like Faith and Deven, flat-muscled and slender like dancers. Indeed, the whole thing brought to mind a deadly sort of ballet.

  One of the Western Elite spun and kicked his opponent so hard she flew backward and out of the ring; a whistle blew, and that warrior was done, leaving seven against six. Over at the South’s bench, Faith clapped her Elite on the shoulder encouragingly; she’d fought well even if she’d been eliminated, and Faith didn’t believe in the “drop and give me twenty, you maggot” method of leadership.

  Deven’s Second, Thomas, was watching with his arms crossed, like a basketball coach. He frowned, and the crowd groaned, as one of the South sent one of his people rolling with a concussion and a broken leg; two of the Japanese refs came forward to help the Elite get over to the bench, and a servant brought him blood to help him heal faster.

  “Is he okay?” Miranda asked.

  “Just a femur,” Deven replied, eyes on the match.

  “Doesn’t it take an insane amount of force to break a femur?”

  He glanced at the Queen. “Your point being?”

  The fight became more and more fierce the longer it lasted. Two more of the South went down, followed by another of the West: five against four, and the point tally was dead even.

  David found he kept looking over at Hayes, who was watching Faith as much as he was watching the match; his expression was unreadable, but he certainly seemed taken with the Second, who was ignoring him. The more David thought about it, the more he wondered if hooking up with Faith had been part of the larger plan; was there something Hayes was supposed to get out of her? Information, perhaps?

  A cheer jolted him out of his dark thoughts. In the blink of an eye the match was over: The Southern Elite had waited until there were only three of them left against three of the West, then, by some invisible signal, they switched their attack pattern and, each one moving so fast a human eye would barely have caught a blur of motion, spun outward, perfectly choreographed, and disarmed their opponents simultaneously. It was a simple, elegant move, and it left the South surrounding the West, swords held level at their throats.

  The crowd was on its feet applauding. It was the first time in decades any team had beaten the West in group combat.

  David looked over at Deven and gave him a smug smile. “What was that about kicking our asses?”

  Deven, however, didn’t look upset; he looked impressed. “That was fantastic,” he said. “Well done.”

  “Faith deserves the credit,” he replied, catching his Second’s eye and giving her a nod of approval. She smiled slightly and bowed, but her attention was already focused elsewhere; she stepped into the empty circle across from Thomas, and the two saluted each other before the whistle blew.

  It was a beautiful fight. The Seconds were the best of the best, and these two represented the finest warriors in the entire Shadow World. Within ten seconds it was clear why.

  Sword met sword so rapidly that it sounded like Morse code. The entire crowd had hushed, absolutely rapt; enemy and ally, all of them were watching intently, territory disputes and ancient feuds forgotten for a few breathless minutes.

  Miranda had her hand over her mouth, out of sheer nerves, and even Deven was glued to the action.

  The fight was to disarm or disable; while the score was still in the South’s favor, if Faith lost, the West would take the tournament. Neither combatant showed any signs of tiring, or of letting up on the other; they drove each other back and forth through the circle, neither missing a beat, but David knew eventually one of them would slow down just enough, lose a split-second’s rhythm, and then—

  Thomas kicked Faith hard in the shoulder, and she flipped backward, the audience on its feet when she landed scant inches from the boundary line; but she caught her balance just in time and threw herself forward, rolling and then coming up to her knees, her sword flashing—

  Blood. Thomas made a choking sound as his midsection opened, the blade slicing neatly through his diaphragm. He went down on his back, and there was Faith, standing with her boot on his neck.

  The applause was thunderous, deafening. David and Miranda both grinned at each other, then headed down to the floor.

  The Southern Elite had gathered around Faith and were cheering, but she waved them off long enough to kneel next to Thomas and check his wounds; it was serious but not fatal by any stretch. The referees and the Western Elite were already moving, bringing towels to stanch the blood, and blood to heal the wound itself, though they had their work cut out for them; David saw the damage and gestured to Mo, who was on standby near the exit just in case.

  Deven appeared at Thomas’s side, and for a second David thought he might use his power on the fallen Second,
but Deven wouldn’t want anyone to know he had the ability unless absolutely necessary; he was speaking to Thomas, and the warrior nodded, grimacing against the pain. Deven patted him on the arm and moved back out of the way.

  Faith, satisfied that Thomas would be all right, got back up again as well, and the rest of the team surrounded her. Miranda slid through the group and hugged the Second hard. Faith laughed.

  The referees came back onto the floor, this time bearing the tournament trophy, which they handed to Deven.

  The Prime of the West was smiling wryly as he presented the trophy to David, amid another round of applause.

  “I think that’s what they call ‘passing the torch,’” David told his mentor, ex, and friend.

  “Don’t get cocky,” Deven said with a laugh. “You’ll pass it back next time.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night, my Lord,” David replied, but he too was laughing, and for a precious few hours that night, nothing mattered but the heady validation of victory and the pride he felt; he had always believed they were the best, and now everyone knew it. It was more than just a trophy; it was validation, at long last, that after decades of decline under lesser Primes, the South had returned, with a vengeance.

  In all probability, Second Hayes was expecting a different greeting than the one he got.

  Faith opened her door at his knock. When she saw him, she grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall.

  “Congratulations on the tournament,” Jeremy said breathlessly.

  “You son of a bitch,” she snarled. “I should kill you.”

  He shook his head, dazed. “For what?”

  “You know perfectly well for what. You knew what Hart was planning—you had to. You had to know he was going to have my Queen shot last night.”

  “Oh, that.”

  She shoved him again, and this time he looked annoyed. “You have the nerve to show up here after—”

  He kissed her.

  Faith resisted, or almost did, but her blood was already hot from her victory, and from her anger at him for daring to even speak to her … she couldn’t stop herself. She pushed him against the wall one more time, this time forcing her tongue into his mouth as she did so. Jeremy fought back, flipping her onto the floor, and they wrestled each other to the ground over and over, stripping off clothing, tearing at each other as if they were in the fighting ring again.

  She pinned him on his back, her legs clamped on either side of him, her nails drawing blood from his shoulders as she rocked her hips forward and back. Neither of them had anything to say to the other, and words would only destroy everything. She didn’t care. She didn’t care who he was working for or what he had known; right now she only wanted one thing from him, and it had nothing to do with Signets or politics or loyalty. She wanted driving heat and sweat and screaming loud enough to peel the paint off the walls.

  She wanted to forget.

  It wasn’t until she fell back on the rug, panting, her entire body pulsating with aftershocks, that reality tried to reassert itself.

  For a while she pushed it away, reveling for a moment in the way their breath rose and fell in tandem, the waves of pleasure that were rocking them both.

  Finally, she said, still out of breath, “Still … going … to kill you.”

  “Oh, shut up.” He was actually smiling when he spoke, and it occurred to her he had a lovely smile—like hers, it was rare, and it had a pale shade of some kind of pain beneath it. “The world won’t end because you took an hour for yourself, Faith.”

  “No life advice from you,” she retorted, twisting onto her side to look at him. “You’re the bad guy, remember?”

  “Right.” He sat up, groaning slightly, his hair falling haphazardly into his eyes. “It must be rather boring living in a black-and-white world.”

  She watched him silently for a moment as he groped for his pants and pulled them back on. “What does Hart have over you?” she asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He looked around for his shirt, and wordlessly she handed it to him. “The path’s already chosen, isn’t it? You walk into a Haven, give yourself to a Signet, and your fate is sealed. Good Prime, evil Prime, in the end it’s all the same.”

  She was still sitting on the floor as he stood up and finished dressing; there was something different in his movements, almost furtive, like he was fighting himself over something. She had her ideas as to what. “I could help you,” she said.

  Jeremy looked at her sharply. “No.”

  Faith frowned. “Do you want me to be your enemy?”

  “Ideally, yes, for your own sake. You’re loyal, Faith … too much so, perhaps. Being so devoted to someone is only going to cause you pain. But still … I envy you. You’ll get to die believing in something. If I’m lucky at all, I’ll get back what Hart took from me, and die knowing it’s free.”

  “I have no intention of dying at all.”

  He smiled again, pausing on the last button of his shirt. “I’ll hold you to that one day.”

  “Jeremy …”

  But he was already leaving and stopped only long enough to look back over his shoulder and say, “Good-bye, Faith. It’s been an honor.”

  Alone again, she sat back against the side of the bed, grabbing one of the blankets down to pull over herself, suddenly cold. The storm outside continued unabated, and it had brought a chill to the Haven.

  Sighing, Faith ran her hand through the tangle of her hair, contemplating a hot shower and an early bed; it was still an hour or so until dawn, and she was off duty, though she knew the rest of the Elite were still celebrating their victory with a lot of carousing out in the training buildings. Tomorrow night work would resume; she was to help the Prime interrogate the shooting suspect, and there was the last half of the Council meeting to contend with …

  Bed it was, then.

  She started to push herself up to her feet, but something caught her eye, and she reached over to pick up a tiny golden object: one of Jeremy’s cuff links. The crest embossed on it was unfamiliar—it wasn’t Hart’s, and in fact she wasn’t sure it was a Signet crest at all; his family, perhaps? Was that what Hart had taken from him?

  She would probably never know. And she could find him and give the cuff link back, but what would they say to each other?

  “Maybe in ten years,” she said to herself, her voice sounding strange in the empty room, “if we haven’t killed each other by then.” She dropped the cuff link on her bedside table and went to take a shower.

  Seven

  “Well now,” the Prime said to the man hanging by his wrists from the cinder-block wall. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Monroe raised his head; he’d been beaten pretty severely and not fed, so his face was a mess of bruises and a few nasty lacerations. “I was thinking perhaps a bonus, my Lord.”

  A sigh. “You should be grateful I’m not abandoning you completely. Solomon is itching to feed you your own entrails, and it would be much easier for me to let him.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a hospital bag of blood with a length of tubing still attached; he fed the end into Monroe’s mouth and squeezed gently to start the flow. Monroe sucked as slowly as he could given how hungry he had to be, and neither spoke again until the bag was empty.

  “You are a great many things, my Lord, but cruel isn’t one of them,” Monroe panted.

  He laughed coldly. “You think you know me? Foolish boy. It wouldn’t be a matter of cruelty, but one of efficiency, and you know I’m efficient.”

  The wreck of Monroe’s face began to smooth out as the blood worked its way through his parched system. Soon he was more dirty than injured. Clearly the Elite had taken out their anger on him.

  “How much truth am I to give Solomon?” Monroe asked.

  “You remember what we discussed in the pre-mission briefing.”

  “Enough to indict on the shooting,” the prisoner said with a nod. “What of my other mission?�
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  A smile. “What other mission?”

  Monroe nodded again. “Understood.”

  A moment later the door to the interrogation room swung open, and David Solomon and his Second entered … then drew up short.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” David asked, at the same time Faith said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Deven smiled. “Allow me to introduce 8.3 Claret,” he said, gesturing at the chained vampire. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t kill him.”

  David leaned tiredly against the edge of the table that held the implements he usually employed for interrogations, rubbing his forehead, exasperated. “Tell me again why I don’t hate you?”

  The Prime of the West considered the question as he helped his agent down from the wall, then said, “Because I’m really, really good in bed.”

  David rolled his eyes. “Just tell me that the shooting was Hart’s idea, not yours, and I might not kill you this time.”

  “Of course it was Hart’s idea, darling. I told you he’s been up to something. You’re lucky that I had Claret in his Elite already, or whomever Hart had pull the trigger would have shot Miranda in the head, and that would be the end of her career. This way she can ‘recover’ and stage a comeback, and you have a solid case against Hart.”

  “So your objective was to shoot her in the chest,” David said to Monroe, who had straightened and was now standing at attention awaiting further orders, “and then to get caught so Hart’s plot would be revealed.”

  Monroe—Claret—shot a glance at Deven, who nodded permission for him to speak. “Precisely, Sire,” Monroe said.

  “And everyone’s just going to take the word of a turncoat Elite over a Prime?” Faith wanted to know.

  Now it was Deven’s turn to roll his eyes. “Have you got ballistics back on the gun?”