Queen of Shadows (18 page)

Forget her. Forget her and move on.

Forgetting was one thing vampires simply couldn’t do. They had extraordinary memories that made their life spans seem interminable; he supposed it was an apt punishment for cheating death.

After the man who attacked Miranda—Elite 70, who had been working for him for three years and had an impeccable service record—was disposed of, his blood-drained corpse dumped in the Shadow District to wait for the sun, the attacks in Austin came to an abrupt halt.

David didn’t trust the tenuous peace. Perhaps being thwarted in their attempt on the human had made them wary, or perhaps they were planning something even bigger. Either way, he concentrated on the citywide sensor network he was creating and kept the doubled patrols active until further notice. He wasn’t about to get sloppy like Arrabicci and Auren had.

There had been absolutely no evidence of perfidy in Elite 70’s quarters. He shared his room with Elite 25, who was as shocked as the rest of them were. David had tracked 70’s movements back six months over the com network and found nothing untoward. Elite 70 hadn’t ever separated from his unit, had never wandered off alone to meet anyone. His com signal had never wavered.

There had been a thorough search and interrogations throughout the Haven, but David still had no idea if 70 had kept in contact with his masters, much less what he had revealed about operations at the Haven. Elite 70 was of low rank compared to Helen and didn’t have access to much sensitive information, but he might have been there as a pair of extra hands for her. Unless they found another traitor in their midst to question, it was too late to find out why 70 had been at the Haven.

David hated being played. That was exactly what these people were doing: making him suspect his allies, baiting him, making him expose his underbelly to their tiny poisoned spears.

He stopped his work long enough to make his journey around the territory, but as soon as he was back in Austin, he threw himself into the sensor network again. More than once Faith had to remind him to feed and sleep.

As a plan, creating the network was doable. As a distraction, it was woefully inadequate.

Every place, every corner of the Haven reminded him of her. Even in town, lying between the thighs of another nameless human woman waiting for her to finish coming while her blood sang through his veins, he thought of Miranda—her lips, the one time he’d tasted them . . . her hair, wound around his fingers . . . her bright laugh, so rare, that brought life into what now felt like a tomb instead of a home.

One night he made the mistake of sitting on the couch and leaning back into a pillow, releasing a wave of her scent. He had buried his face in it for half an hour, then thrown it in the fireplace.

At this rate he should buy stock in Jack Daniels.

He was in his workroom a few nights later, painstakingly wiring a sensor into its weatherproof housing, when his phone rang. His first inclination was to ignore it, but he glanced over to see who it was and decided he had better not.

“Yes?”

The voice wasn’t British, and it wasn’t cheerful like Jonathan’s; it had, in fact, the faint lilt of an Irish accent and was gentle, if grave. But he could feel the same power and energy echoing from it even hundreds of miles away. “David, have I told you lately that you’re an idiot?”

He put down his screwdriver and sat back. “Nice to hear from you, too, Sire. How are things in the Golden State?”

“I have two lectures prepared for you: one on the perils of ignoring your destiny and the other on gluttony, specifically related to drinking your weight in Jim Beam every night.”

“I’m not drinking.”

He could practically hear Deven roll his eyes. “I’m intimately acquainted with your vices, David.”

“It’s Jack, not Jim.”

“Fine. Which lecture do you want first? I have a conference call with Western Europe and North Africa in fifteen minutes, so I’d like to move this along.”

David rubbed his forehead, where a headache was forming—he’d been having a lot of them lately. “Deven, your own Consort told me to send her away or she’d be killed. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Jonathan reacts to these things emotionally. I’m sure if he’d realized you were in love with her, he would have thought differently. Besides, you know as well as I do that the future is malleable. Did you try letting her touch the second Signet?”

“Why would I do that? She’s human!”

“Return to earlier point in conversation regarding you as idiot.”

“You think I should have brought her across,” David said. “After everything she’s been through, and knowing the life she would face, I can’t believe you of all people would say that.”

“What I’m saying,” Deven told him firmly, “is that I know how you love, how we all love. It’s not just going to go away. The longer you fight it, the more misery you bring down on both of you. Trust me, dear one. What if the vision comes true, and she does die? Every moment you didn’t spend at her side will haunt you forever. We all know how long forever really is.”

David leaned his head in his free hand. “How about the second lecture?”

He could hear Deven rolling his eyes over the phone. “If you’re going to become a drunk, at least spring for the good whiskey. Jack Daniels? Honestly. Have I taught you nothing?”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, one more thing, or rather, an addendum to the first. Consider it the official diplomatic recommendation of your oldest ally.’

“Let’s have it.”

“Quit fucking around and go see her.”

When David hung up, he heard someone clear her throat in the doorway and saw Faith waiting to speak to him, the very picture of professional courtesy.

He shook his head in exasperation. “Thank you, Faith. Now I have
both
of them to contend with. Better yet, they’re giving me conflicting advice when I don’t want any at all.”

Faith shrugged. “I thought you might listen to him.”

He glared at her. “Do you think this is easy for me? Don’t you think I want more than anything to go see her?”

“Then why don’t you?”

“It would make everything so much harder in the long run to drag this out instead of having a clean break. She has a chance to live her life now and be happy. I’m not going to show up and keep reminding her of what happened here.”

“But what if . . . and this is just a thought, obviously . . . what if she feels the same way about you?”

He lowered his eyes and went back to the wires and tiny screws. “Then I pity her.”

Faith made an exasperated noise and stood there for a minute, but he ignored her. Finally she said, “The night’s reports are on your server. I’m off.”

“Fine.”

Alone again, David tried to keep working, but he broke the same wire three times before he gave up. He picked up his phone and scrolled through the contact list: twenty-six Primes, several Queens, one Consort, the White House, the governors of all eight of the territory’s states, Downing Street, the Department of Defense . . . and the mobile number for a human female, Miranda Grey.

He stared at the entry for a long time. All he had to do was hit a button and he’d hear her voice.

Cursing under his breath, he shoved the phone into his pocket and pushed himself back from the table, snatching his coat from the back of the chair and heading to the suite to find the good whiskey.

“I’m in for the morning, Samuel,” he told the door guard. “See to it I’m not disturbed.”

“As you will it, Sire.”

He shut the door and hung his coat on its usual hook, removing his blade to hang beside the door and running his hand along the sheath with a sigh. He’d had many weapons over the years, but this one—a gift from the Pair of California the year he had taken the Southern Signet—was his favorite. It was shorter than those used by the Elite, with a slight curve, exquisitely forged and polished like a diamond. The edge had never once gone dull, and it was perfectly balanced. Over the years it had parted dozens of treacherous heads from shoulders. He didn’t know all that much about metallurgy, but he was aware that it was worth a small fortune.

He glanced over at the fireplace, where another sword, much older, hung, still gleaming even in its retirement. It was about the same size but heavier, made of a lesser grade of steel back in his lieutenant days in California. The last thing he had used it for was to kill Prime Auren.

He remembered that night well, a mere blink of an eye past for his kind. He had taken the Prime by surprise, but that was no guarantee of victory. Auren was a skilled warrior. The fight had gone on for almost an hour, but David had been watching him for months, learning his weaknesses in battle.

The crowd that gathered to see him take the Signet from the body had stared in openmouthed bewilderment. No one had expected Auren to die. His reign was supposed to last for centuries.

David walked over to pour himself a drink, digging out the new bottle of Jack he’d had Esther bring up—to hell with what Deven thought.

As he drained the first glass and started working on a second, he crossed the room to a wood cabinet set back in the corner and unlocked it.

Remnants of his past were kept inside: Lizzie’s wedding ring, stolen from her newly dug grave; a handful of letters; a silk scarf that still smelled softly of jasmine; a few valuable items from his travels that he couldn’t quite give up but didn’t want to look at every day; the first clumsy circuit board he’d ever built.

He reached up to the top shelf and removed a black metal lockbox; inside that was another box, about six inches square, hand carved from ebony with the Seal of the Southern Prime worked into it. Each Prime had his own Seal, but it was a variation of this one, a stamp of his identity as well as his territory.

Carefully, he opened the wooden box, revealing a large red stone set into silver and hung on a heavy chain. It was almost identical to the one he wore, though just a shade smaller; and where his stone glowed faintly from the touch of his power, this one was dark, the mystical force inside it asleep as it had been for many years.

David put the outer box back in the cabinet and locked the doors, taking the Signet with him to the sofa, where he sank down into the cushions, staring at the dormant bloodred stone.

No one alive knew for certain where the Signets had come from or who had made them. He had asked, in the beginning, but was met only with silence as his answer. Somehow over the centuries that knowledge had been lost, and as far as he could tell no one cared all that much what the truth was. Only David seemed to understand that any force powerful enough to create the Signets had to be stronger than a Prime, and that meant they weren’t at the top of the food chain the way they believed themselves to be. Somewhere, at some time in history, there had been a greater power at work among vampire kind. It may even still exist.

He had seen a Signet choose its bearer at least twice before his own. He thought back to the last night of warfare in Sacramento, when they had taken over the base of operations where the Blackthorn were hiding out, recovering Arrabicci’s stolen Signet and returning it to the Haven where it belonged. He had handed the Signet to Deven for safekeeping, and the stone inside it had blazed to life, the light flashing like an alarm until it was around his neck. He could still remember the stunned look on Deven’s face when he realized he had been chosen, and he remembered the enormous surge of power that had swept through the whole building, wrapping itself around the new Prime.

Only a few months after that, a chance meeting in a bar had led the Prime to his Consort. As soon as the Signet recognized Jonathan it began to pulse again, and later they found the second one doing the same safe in its box at the Haven. The two vampires had known each other for all of ten minutes, but the second the Signet flashed, they both smiled like the moon coming out from the clouds. They could feel the connection between them instantly, and it was, as were all Signets, a perfect match.

David had spent his remaining years in California happy for his friend and yet insanely, poisonously jealous. Leaving had been a relief.

He touched the sleeping stone with one finger, and a drowsy flicker of light appeared in acknowledgment. It knew him, of course. The stones weren’t exactly sentient, but they definitely had a will. He could feel his like a quiet murmur of energy in the back of his mind, never invasive, but always with him. Again, he wondered who could have created such a thing.

Only a vampire could wake the Signet, but it was possible, however unlikely, that contact with someone who could
potentially
bear it might do . . . something.

And if he had shown it to Miranda, then what? What if he took the leap of faith and changed her, and the Signet didn’t respond? Was she supposed to live in the mistress suite for all time on condition that he never found his true Queen? He knew she would never be content with that, and he wouldn’t ask her to become a vampire unless he knew for sure he was hers.

What were the chances of that? There were a million vampires at last census, and of those only one could possibly be his match, assuming she was even born yet. Assuming circumstance ever led them to each other, it could be a hundred years from now.

He slammed the box lid shut and put it on the coffee table. This was stupid. He was torturing himself, and for what? Let the others go on about destiny all they liked. Destiny was just a way of denying responsibility for one’s own actions. People lived and died by their choices, regardless of what a blinking rock had to say about it.

There was no time to wallow in self-pity, not with so much at stake. People could be dying in the city while he sat here moping over things that would never be.

She wasn’t coming back. She had her own life to live, and he had his.

Enough was enough. He had work to do.

There was no way around it. Her keyboard was simply not a Bösendorfer.

Compared to the grand old dame in the Haven, her digital instrument sounded small and tinny. She could have hooked it up to the world’s biggest amplifier and it still would have sounded like a toy xylophone after she’d had a chance to play the Imperial Grand.