“I would hold still if I were you, my Lady,” Jeremy said. He lifted his hand, which held a cell phone. “One touch from me and the charge goes off.”
Miranda froze, wide-eyed. “No.”
“What’s going on?” David demanded.
Miranda was the one who answered. “Faith’s been turned into a detonator, like Monroe,” she said. “She’s strapped to fifty gallons of gasoline on the first floor.”
“Look, this doesn’t have to end badly,” Jeremy said calmly. “If the Queen holds still, I won’t kill Faith. If you hold still, I won’t kill the Queen. Let’s be civilized here.”
David cast his eyes around the roof, looking for a solution—if he Misted to Miranda, Jeremy would set off the charge; if he went after Jeremy, the vampires would stake Miranda. There had to be something else. To buy time, he asked, “If you’re a Prime, where’s your Signet?”
Jeremy sighed. “McMannis is wearing it, of course.”
“Then why is it lit up? If you’re the Prime, it would go dark on him.”
“Technology,” Jeremy replied, shaking his head. “Did you know there have been two recorded instances of someone attempting to fake a Signet? In both, the crime was discovered because the rightful Prime came to claim his place. But if you were to, say, take a Signet from a Prime, and somehow rig it to glow, and then got rid of the true Prime, and had allies ready to swear you were the Signet’s bearer … how would anyone know? It’s not as if the Council works together or is connected in any way. Someone could rule a territory for years before anyone noticed.”
David nodded. “Hart and McMannis deposed you.”
Now, Jeremy smiled regretfully, coming forward once again. “I had the Signet around my neck for all of ten minutes before they made their move. And now Hart has the one thing that matters more to me than any of this … and as long as he has her, I am in his service. Lydia and the Order were going to help me destroy Hart, and McMannis, well … he’s just Hart’s hand puppet. Without Hart to back him, he would be easy to deal with, and I could regain my rightful place.”
“Lydia’s dead,” Miranda ground out.
“I know. But that doesn’t change anything. The help she promised me is waiting for me in New York. As soon as I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain, they’ll fulfill theirs.”
“We can help you,” Miranda said. “You don’t have to do any of this—we can help you take Hart down.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take that chance,” Jeremy replied. “I’ve already risked enough for the two of you.”
“What do you mean?” David asked.
“As far as Hart knows, I’m killing you both right now.”
“But you aren’t.”
“No,” Jeremy answered, coming to stand in front of David again. “You, my Lord, get to live.”
He reached up and took hold of David’s Signet, flipping it over.
Jeremy’s eyebrows shot up. “Or perhaps not.”
“Looking for this?” Miranda asked, lifting her chin so her Signet fell forward slightly. “Lydia gave it to me, not David.”
Hayes actually chuckled. “Poetic,” he said. “I like it.”
“What does the Stone really do?” David asked.
Before Jeremy could answer, a voice erupted from David’s com: “Sire, we’ve breached the building—what are your orders?”
David looked from Jeremy to Miranda, to the altar, back to Miranda. The Queen was too weak to Mist. She was still bleeding. If his Elite tried to free Faith or come to the Pair’s aid, Jeremy would blow the building and anyone caught down there would burn. Whatever happened, David wasn’t going to let anyone else die tonight.
He lifted his arm slowly, making it clear to Jeremy he wasn’t going for a weapon, and said into his com, “Execute General Order Omega-Five,” he said, broadcasting to the entire Elite. “I repeat: General Order Omega-Five. Retreat and abandon the mission. Regroup and await further orders.”
Abruptly, the sounds of fighting down below stopped. “But, Sire—” the lieutenant began.
“That’s an order,” David snapped. “Situation unrecoverable.” Then, with equal care, he pressed his index finger against his com, holding it there until it accepted his fingerprint and beeped. He spoke into it one more time: “Contingency Seven.”
Another beep: command recognized.
Miles and miles away, the servers and network at the Haven would begin to shut down, the server room itself sealing to deny access to any invaders. Every computer, com, and phone connected to the Haven went instantly into lockdown mode—limited communication only on the network, no access to the programming code, no access to the sensor grid. The entire thing would be shut down in five minutes.
David lowered his arm, still staring at Jeremy, who waited patiently until he was done. The building was silent, the battle over. The Elite had run.
“Now,” David said, “let her go, and you and I will discuss this.”
“There’s really nothing to discuss,” Jeremy said. “She wears the Stone; it’s all been decided. Fate’s a strange thing, isn’t it? Even with everyone conspiring to either save or destroy you, things unfolded exactly as they were foretold. I suspect Lydia thought she was saving you by giving the Stone to the Queen—if she had read the ritual, she would have known that whoever wears the Stone is the one who survives.”
David lowered his eyes, afraid to look at Miranda. As soon as he did, she would see what he knew, what he had known, somehow, the minute Jeremy had introduced himself. Queens might have the gift of precognition, but Primes had the gift of knowing when they had been outmaneuvered.
“Let her go,” he said again.
Jeremy looked down at David’s Signet, then held out his hand. “She’ll live. I give you my word.”
“What is he talking about?” Miranda asked. “David, tell me what’s—”
He didn’t answer her but reached up and removed his Signet and handed it to Jeremy.
Jeremy took the Signet to the altar. He caught the eye of one of his guards and nodded.
David made the mistake of looking at the Queen as they started to drag her away. The minute their eyes met, she began to scream.
“No! No! Not without me! Not without me!”
David shut his eyes tightly, wishing he could do the same with his ears. She was still screaming all the way down the stairs and probably would keep right on until she could fight her way free. He knew she would—she would fight like a lion, whether Faith died or not, to save him—but he also knew that by the time she got away from them, as weak as she was, it would be too late.
“You’re quite a remarkable man,” Jeremy was saying. He laid the Signet on the altar and picked up the parchment. “Most Primes would never risk death to rescue a subordinate—not even a Second. They would have let Faith die and considered her a casualty of war. Of course … if it came down to a choice, a Prime would let his own Queen die a thousand times if it meant he could save himself.”
David smiled. “You and I are not most Primes, are we?”
“No.” Jeremy inclined his head toward the door. “She’ll be held nearby until we’re done here.”
“And Faith?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry … it must appear to Hart that both you and your Queen perished in the explosion. That’s a lot harder without a bomb.”
“She’ll come for you,” David said. “You know she will.”
Jeremy bowed his head over the altar and said quietly, “I hope she can.”
As soon as his head was down, David reached out and seized the parchment with his mind; he jerked it off the altar and forced the edges of the paper into the candle flames. The paper was so old that the entire sheaf went up at once.
Jeremy didn’t react quite like David expected him to. He watched the paper burn until it had fallen to ash and fluttered down onto the altar, and sighed.
“Smart move,” Jeremy said. “Without the text, the incantation can’t be performed, and without the inca
ntation performed, the Stone can’t be activated.” He smiled. “Unfortunately for you I did that part already. There’s only one step left to complete the ritual.”
Jeremy picked up the hammer.
Twenty-one
Faith knew there was no time. She knew there was no hope. But she also knew she couldn’t die without trying.
Her body wanted so badly to give out. The pain and exhaustion were killing her—perhaps not literally, not yet, but close enough. It would be so easy just to let it all go, to close her eyes and surrender to her fate, and when the bomb went off, she would never know what had become of those she loved … she wouldn’t know anything, ever again, and at that moment she wanted it so badly … just to let go …
Then she heard Miranda screaming.
The men dragged the Queen into the room from the stairwell, and she was fighting with all the strength she still had in her bleeding body, so hard that one of the crossbow bolts sticking out of her back worked itself free and clattered to the floor.
The wild panic in Miranda’s cries, the fear in her face—Faith took a deep breath around the pain and set her jaw. It wasn’t going to end like this. She wouldn’t let it.
She had to pray that she would have a few seconds, just long enough before Jeremy got the signal to blow the charge, to act. One chance.
They wrestled the Queen toward the front door of the restaurant. If Faith could distract the guards, Miranda could get away. That had to be enough.
Faith drew up what strength she could and threw herself forward in her chains. She felt the canisters behind her shudder and tip slightly—the weight of them falling should be enough to jolt the explosives in her body and set off the whole bomb. She jerked again and again, pulling forward and down as hard as she could, rocking the gas cans back and forth, back and forth. Each time she felt them tip a little farther, fall back a little farther. Each time, she grew weaker and weaker, but she didn’t stop.
The ruckus of the cans rattling caught the attention of the guards as they were halfway over the threshold. She heard one of them shouting, heard Miranda snarl like a wild animal, and saw a blur of movement as the Queen fought her way out of their grasp.
In the half second before she fell, before fire consumed her, before the world exploded into light and then darkness, Faith caught the Queen’s eyes and smiled.
The building shuddered. A blast of heat and fire blew out the windows on all sides of the ground floor, and the entire structure heaved.
David lost his balance briefly, and for one mad moment thought that, just maybe, Jeremy would fall over and he could reach the Signet before—
—the hammer came down.
He heard the stone shatter, saw shards of it flying through the air, catching the candlelight.
He and Jeremy both stared as the light in the Signet flared, sputtered, and went out.
David staggered backward, hands coming to his throat—it felt as if a giant hand had wrapped around him and was crushing his entire body, but from the inside out. He couldn’t breathe—couldn’t see—
But he could feel.
He might have screamed, but he would never know. Agony like nothing he had ever experienced tore every cell in his body apart, and he felt every last iota of energy, every ounce of power he had ever had, pulled from him, ripped from him, drained away, and flowing out—
—and down—
He could hear her screaming. He could feel her terror, her grief, as she felt him dying, felt the connection between them being torn in half, the Stone at her neck burning white-hot as his power funneled through it, through her.
“Please don’t leave me—please don’t go without me—”
He felt his knees hit the ground, then his hands. The floor was shaking. The building was shaking—but not from the fire that raged below. The earth was quaking.
I love you. I love you, Miranda. I will always l—
And as the world burned away, the Prime fell.
Cora screamed, falling to her knees, her whole body seized with a pain so intense she couldn’t even name what part of her it originated from. She reached out toward Jacob, and their hands caught, but he had been hit, too—they both tumbled to the ground, their Elite clustering around them and calling out for help, as wave after wave of … something … struck the Pair, their Signets burning so brightly anyone looking into them was blinded.
“Hurry,” Deven said. “There’s still time. I’ll head for the roof, you—”
The explosion drowned out whatever he was going to say, but he and Jonathan looked at each other, knowing what had just happened, and both started to Mist to the building, to do something, anything, before—
It hit Deven first. He sucked in a tormented breath and fell against the side of the car, face going ghostly white.
Jonathan felt it a split second later. Pain. He’d never been tortured, but in half a breath he understood why it made so many people confess to crimes they’d never committed. As if he’d been blown back by a blast wave, he crumpled against the car door, falling down beside his Prime, who had already lost consciousness.
Hold on to me, David. Hold on to me. Don’t let go, don’t—
I can’t—no—
No … no … please, God, no …
Please don’t leave me … not now … no …
We have to go together … we were supposed to go together …
The world was burning.
In that space between life and death, between darkness and annihilation, the Queen felt her beloved lose his hold on his body, on life. She felt him slip from her grasp, the warmth of their bond shattered like a brittle stone beneath a hammer stroke, leaving only shards that cut and bled.
What flooded through her was more than her own power, more than his—she felt it flowing into her, through the amulet that hung from her neck, her heart widening, her soul expanding until it tore, until she was beyond pain, beyond grief, beyond anything.
Far away she could sense her body. It was broken. Badly burned, bones cracked from being thrown into something by the explosion … wrung out from pain, so weakened by blood loss that it seemed a pitiful little thing, best left behind. If she went back to it, she knew how much it would hurt. She would have to feel again, have to remember …
“Miranda!”
No.
Someone was calling her name.
“Miranda! We have to get out of here! Miranda!”
A young voice, filled with fear, so fragile yet touched with such power, a voice she recognized.
Pain blossomed all over her body, and she struggled weakly against the hands that had taken her arms and turned her onto her back. Suddenly there was chaos, noise everywhere: fire burning, sirens, screaming. The stench of burning flesh, burning wood, burning … burning …
Nothing … nothing … let the fire take it. Let it burn.
She tried to turn away from the voice, tried to go back into the dark, but something stopped her. Something at once blazing hot and sweetly cooling … a kiss of moonlight on her forehead, softness enveloping her, lifting her up, filling her with light … with peace.
The Queen stared up into the light, but it wasn’t light, not really: it was shadow. She felt a hand take hers … guiding her back to her body, promising her everything would be all right, but she still had work to do and had to be strong. She remembered that feeling, that presence, from a night when she had fought her way free of dark water, of death. Whether it was her own strength, or Someone Else’s, she had believed in it then … she had to believe in it now.
As Miranda came to, Stella Maguire’s pretty young face came into focus, and the Witch dragged the fallen Queen away from the fire, into the night.
The fire had reached the second floor before emergency crews arrived, but it was easily contained; the fuel that had fed it had already burned away, and aside from the remains of the restaurant on the first floor, there was little left inside to burn. The structure itself was mostly built of concrete and steel, and thoug
h it would have to be torn down and demolished, at least it was still standing as the Austin Fire Department finished putting out the blaze.
If there had been any bodies on the first floor, they were completely pulverized by the blast. There was nothing left. Ladder crews had done a quick check of the second floor but had to vacate the structure quickly when the whole thing lurched hazardously to the side. The building was abandoned, and unless there were vagrants living in it at the time of the fire, there were no bodies to find …
… except one.
As the night waned, sunrise only two hours away, the Prime of the Southern United States lay where he had hit the ground, his body waiting for daylight to set one last fire and leave only a scattering of ashes where once had been the most powerful vampire in the South. A casual onlooker unaware of the state of the building might think he was simply asleep, lying on one side, face turned into his shoulder, one hand stretched out on the sooty roof.
A shadow fell.
Hands shaking, Deven turned David onto his back and checked for a pulse, even though he knew … he had felt it. So had Jonathan.
David’s eyes were closed, their deep blue lost to the world forever. He didn’t look as if he’d died in agony, though they knew better.
They knelt on either side of the Prime. It was a while before either could speak.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” Deven finally asked, lifting his eyes to his Consort.
Jonathan was in tears. “No … not this. I was sure that we’d fixed it. I was so sure everything was going to be all right …”
Deven touched David’s face, willing him silently to wake, as he once had with the body of someone else he had loved and lost just as suddenly. That time it had worked … he reached, desperate to find even the faintest trace of life remaining, and if found, draw it back into David’s body … he reached until exhaustion overcame him, until Deven could feel himself trembling violently, and he had to let go.
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