Beyond the Night (12 page)

Simultaneously, several others pulled and shouted at Senna to move.

Lady Augustine flipped and vanished, a slice of shadow, leaving Senna heaving on the prostrate Queen, a cacophony of voices shouting at her.

Even now Lady Augustine must be above them circling, watching, enjoying herself. Thinking that Senna would be arrested for assaulting the Queen.

No, no, my lady. Not I, said the fly.

Senna found herself being lifted upward by a guard.

She looked around the gaping ladies. They'd seen everything, they would gossip about everything.

She took a deep breath and looked at each of them, guards and companions, one by one.

You saw nothing. The Queen did not fall. Lady Clementina did not vanish. Lady Constance did not disappear. You saw nothing. You saw the Queen walk up to the terrace and into the Palace. She did not trip, she was not attacked. All is well.

She turned to the Queen, who stood above her, furious.

Nothing happened, Your Majesty. You are and were perfectly safe. You did not fall. Your ladies followed you up the steps and into the Palace. There was no accident. All is well. You are safe.

Senna needed to escape—fast. With every ounce of energy she could muster, she transhaped into a minuscule fly, leaving the astonished guard with empty hands and the Queen leading her ladies back into the Palace as if nothing had happened.

Senna circled for a moment, to ascertain that the compelling had taken. She felt heavy and nerveless once again, and guilty for subjecting the child to this kind of compression.

But a bat could be spotted and followed just as she was trailing Lady Augustine now. A fly was as good as invisible. A fly could get lost in the clouds, in the rain, in a crowd.

She couldn't go on this way much longer. She was exhausted and weary. Which meant Lady Augustine would win: she'd get away and the threat of a Tepes takeover would not be mitigated.

As enervated as she was, she felt a renewed sense of purpose. She couldn't bring her child into a world dominated by Tepes. As Lady Augustine climbed high above the trees where Senna couldn't follow, Senna realized that she was heading for the town house.

That made sense—at this point, Lady Augustine would need to confer with Charles and Peter. She'd tell them how Senna had spoiled everything. It would be suicidal to put herself at risk of being imprisoned by them. She should go back to Mirya's to feed and to rest.

But a little eavesdropping wouldn't hurt. Just to hear how thoroughly she had thwarted their plans.

Peter was in the throes of his final moments.

It shocked Senna to see him so lifeless in the dirt coffin, blood seeping from his head, his chest, his middle, and soaking into the dirt.

Blood was all over his face too, his chin and neck oozing from a gaping wound on his head. She'd done that, with the rock, after he'd fanged her. After she and the Countess had saved Dominick that ghastly night when Drom had burned.

Senna felt no remorse. Peter had been her adversary, suspicious, baiting, threatening, possibly her sire. He would have killed her as soon as kissed her. She felt nothing for him as he writhed in pain while Charles and Lady Augustine, now transformed into human shape, impassively watched. Lady Augustine sat on the bottom step leading into the dirt coffin, which afforded Senna the perfect platform to set her compressed body down to rest.

“Too bad,” Lady Augustine went on with no sympathy. “I blame Senna for this. For everything. I almost had the Queen in my grasp. She jumped me. She has murdered my son. There is no forgiveness, no matter what the disposition of the child. If he is Tepes, then he's mine.” She slanted a look at Charles as he started to protest. “Ours, then.”

“If he's Iscariot, he's already dead.”

“If he's commingled?”

“I'll play Solomon and slice him in two,” Charles spat. “And then we start again.”

That statement chilled Senna to the bone. They would not rest until they sired an Eternal Ruler.

“And which Iscariot will bear this new incarnation of the Eternal Ruler?”

“Dnitra.”

Senna shivered.
The Other?
It made too much sense She had no allegiances in this world. She was made for procreating. She could conceivably be the mother of a king.

Lady Augustine caught her breath. “She just walked right in the door, didn't she?”

“Dominick doesn't want her. She's ripe for seduction.”

“Isn't she, though?” Lady Augustine said thoughtfully. “That should be quite a challenge for you.”

“She's thoroughly vampire. Her mandate is to breed. But maybe there is a different agenda. Nevertheless, she won't resist me. And it's not even a matter of desire or sex. She will mate with me just to get Dominick's attention, and I will mate with her for another child with commingled blood.”

“Brilliant thinking,” Lady Augustine applauded. “How soon can you arrange to take her?”

“As soon as I can. As soon as Peter dies.” Charles leaned over Peter's body. “Are you dead yet?”

Peter groaned. Then he sighed. “Senna . . . ,” he whispered.

Senna froze.

She flew up the steps just as she heard another sigh. She whipped around midair just in time to see his bloody head fall forward, and then he was gone.

“Dear Peter,” Lady Augustine said. “I take it we're invited for dinner now.”

The bitch. To do that to her son minutes after he died?

“I should think. While the food is still fresh.”

By the damned.
Senna couldn't get out of there fast enough. She heard the gnawing and slurping sounds quite clearly as they began to feed.

She'd never get the sound of their feasting out of her head.

It struck her suddenly that she hadn't blooded up for nearly a day, not since she'd ravaged that guard's earlobes.

She'd ducked into a basement delivery area as she felt her body force itself back to human form, then collapsed on the steps to recuperate.

The child objected to the change with kicks and pushes and turns. And she hadn't fed it the food Mirya insisted it needed either.

Things couldn't be worse. Lady Augustine had nearly overtaken the Queen. Charles was thinking about using Dnitra as the next Iscariot vessel to carry and possibly bear the Eternal Ruler. Peter was dead. Dominick was nowhere to be found.

And now Senna wasn't sure if she could even make it back to Mirya's hovel. She could die on the street, her life energy sapped from the burden of carrying this child.

Her legs and her belly felt as if they were filled with lead. Wearily, she heaved herself to her feet. If she held on to lampposts and fences, she might make it. Step by step.

Mirya paced, stopped, and cocked her head at Dominick.

“Devil's bones,” he muttered. “Are you a witch?”

“Find her. Somewhere near the town house.”

He didn't need to be told twice. He ripped out into the alley, transhaping as he ran, and lofted up into the air with one leap.

He caught a current and glided his way toward the town house. Damned old witch. As if he hadn't been searching the whole of London for her. The only place he hadn't been able to search was the Palace, the one place he should have been, given his suspicions about Senna's amorphous plan to compel her way into the Queen's retinue.

Something had gone wrong. Senna was nowhere near the Palace. He didn't know if she was carrying the sun stone or if the child was safe. If anyone was following Senna or if she was exhausted for blood. The unknowns intensified his urgency into finding her.

She could be anywhere, even with Mirya having pinpointed her general whereabouts. And why was she in the vicinity of Lady Augustine's town house? Had she gone there looking for him?

Had something happened? Peter had been too near death to factor. And Charles would not give up. Dominick knew Charles's ultimate goal was to be the puppet master behind the Eternal Ruler. There would be no attempt to unite the clans. Only to divide and enslave.

Which clarified Iosefescu's desire for Dominick's return. The old man needed soldiers to populate the Iscariot army. He saw Dominick as new blood, a new leader with new ideas. Iosefescu saw an end to the eternal atoning for Judas's betrayal. If the clan stayed in Stigira. If they didn't succumb to the lure of the old legends.

If the child Senna was carrying bore both clan marks, Iosefescu would have no choice: both sides would claim the child, and there would be war.

But if there was but one clan mark on the child, then what?

In the myth, an innocent girl was seduced by a warrior from each tribe and subsequently carried a child of commingled blood, who, when grown, merged the clans and became the Eternal Ruler.

The story didn't quite fit together here. Senna was no victim of seduction. She'd wanted him. She was bound to him. The child was Dominick's, and short of kidnapping and murder, nothing Charles did would change that.

A thought struck Dominick that made him tumble downward, on the verge of transforming, just as he spotted a woman slumped against a gate near the town house.

Devil's bones.

He landed by her side in an instant, pulling her against his body with not a thought for the prickly sparkles that immediately flared up and down her body.

He tried to support her under her shoulders and midriff, but the sparkles flared up again.

“Devil's bones—I can't. Senna, you have to help.”

“Slowly,” she whispered.

“We'll go slowly,” Dominick assured her, and they inched their way across streets and avenues. He couldn't touch her but he could walk behind her, make her feel safe, sheltered.

She felt as if she would fall to her knees with each step. She desperately wanted Dominick to hold her. Just for a minute. Even with the sparkles.

She felt herself sagging, she felt him catching her, and the sparkles flared up.

“I don't care,” she whispered. “Just hold me.”

He held her, the sparkles dancing up and down both their arms until he reached the alleyway.

Mirya was waiting for them with food, her brows pulled in worry.

“She is done in,” Dominick said, handing Senna a bowl of blood.

She gulped it down, then grabbed her stomach. “The child is moving.”

“The child is hungry,” Mirya said, handing her another bowl.

Senna waved it off. “I have so much to tell.”

Mirya shoved the bowl back at her. “Eat first.”

Senna took a spoonful of the beans and rice. “Peter is dead.”

Dominick nodded, which surprised her.

“He bled all over the place and they made no move to stop it or to help him . . .” Senna's voice wavered. “And he died. They ate him.”

She pushed the bowl aside. “There's more. Lady Augustine tried to take the Queen this afternoon. She had the same idea as I: to compel a lady-in-waiting to get close to the Queen. During her usual postluncheon stroll this afternoon, the Queen tripped, and Lady Augustine decided to take advantage—even with the guards and the other ladies watching. And so I had to stop her.”

Senna knew Dominick immediately saw the whole picture.

“I made certain that no one would remember the incident,” Senna said. “I'm certain they easily found my lady-in-waiting unconscious in her dressing room. I can't speak for the Lady of the Bedchamber's whereabouts after Lady Augustine got hold of her.”

Senna blew out a deep breath. “I had no clue that Lady Augustine would seek to replace someone of that high a position that close to the Queen.”

“So she was not successful. What happened then?” Dominick prodded gently.

“She disappeared, and I thought my only option was to go to the town house on the chance that you”—Senna nodded at Dominick—“had come. Instead, I found Peter dying and Charles and Lady Augustine concocting yet another plan.”

“Dnitra,” Dominick said quietly.