Shadowbound (45 page)

“Nico?” David spoke softly and sat down beside him, touching his shoulder. “Are you awake?”

One violet eye opened, then the other. “Yes, my Lord?”

“I brought you this—I heard you might be able to help us translate the rest of it.”

Nico sat up, recognizing the book in his hands, interest sparking in his eyes. David handed it to him and watched as he turned the pages. Nico lamented, “I know a few lines of human Greek from the epic poetry kept in the Avilon library, but this dialect of the Order’s is strange to me.”

“That’s fine—we’ve got translations from Deven for most of that part. What we need help with are the runic symbols, mostly in the second half of the book.”

Nico paged through gingerly, admiring the illuminated text: the intricate border illustrations of pomegranates, ravens, serpents, and dogs shaped remarkably like Cora’s Nighthound, all bound up in what looked like knotwork but, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be interlocking threads of a web that radiated out from the top inside corner of each page.

When he came to the first page covered in the runic symbols, Nico stopped, eyebrows shooting up. He gave a delighted laugh that startled the Prime. “This is what you couldn’t read?”

“Yes. We compared them to a number of runic alphabets from several Norse . . . what’s so funny?”

Nico grinned. “There is nothing Norse about these symbols, my Lord.” He tilted the book toward David. “This is Elvish.”

“What the hell is Elvish doing in a vampire Codex?” David asked.

“Perhaps I’ll find out when I read it.”

David watched him for another moment before asking, “How are you?”

A weary smile. “About the same.” The Elf closed the Codex and held it in his lap. “Thank you for asking.”

Unable to hold back any longer, David reached over and took his hand, squeezing it as he spoke. “I know you feel alone here, Nico . . . but you’re not. We may not be Elves, but we care about you. I care about you.”

Nico looked down at their joined hands, then up at David, searching his eyes. “What . . . what do you mean?”

David chuckled. “Nothing like that. But I would like to know you better, and to help take care of you while you’re here.”

“You do not have to take care of me,” Nico told him, but there was gratitude in the words. “I am not a child.”

“Yes, we do. We all take care of each other. You’re not an exception—you’re one of us now. You’re hurting, and none of us can fix it . . . but we can give you what you need, so that you can give Deven what he needs . . . time. And one day soon, one way or another, you’ll crack that wall he’s got between you.”

Nico lowered his eyes, which were shining with tears. “I wish I could believe that. I wish I had hope.”

“That’s all right,” David told him, drawing the Elf gently into his arms. Nico buried his face in David’s shoulder and wept softly, hands clinging to the lapels of David’s coat, pressing into the Prime as hard as he could, as if wishing he could dissolve into David and leave the world behind. David kept hold of him, kissing him on the forehead and, once or twice, on the lips, giving him something strong to cling to in the storm. “It’s all right,” the Prime repeated, stroking Nico’s hair. “I can hope enough for both of us.”

 • • • 

Almond-scented steam rose from the bubble-laden surface of the water, thickening the air and making everything sleepy and sweet. Her head rested back on a waterproof cushion, her hair held up on top of her head and out of the suds, though a few tendrils insisted on having a soak with the rest of her. She lay back with her eyes closed, smiling slightly, more relaxed than she’d been in weeks.

Earlier that evening she’d finally wrapped her last recording session. In a couple of months she would lead her new album by the hand to the national playground and watch it run off to swing with the other children. For once, her precognitive gift told her something good: Musician Miranda was about to become very busy, and this time Queen Miranda was just going to have to work around it.

Maybe she could even avoid getting shot.

She felt David arrive at the suite. Strange . . . since that night they had been re-bound together, their connection was doing some odd things. She felt hyper-aware of David now at much greater distances and with much greater detail than ever before. She’d always sensed him, felt him in her mind, but now she could feel him inside her, just under her skin, and while it was definitely weird . . . she loved it. It was like he was always holding her, always caressing her from the inside out, so that when they actually touched it felt like they’d been struck by lightning. That was another thing to ask the Elf: whether anything had changed during his work, or if it was just another step in their journey together as a Pair. She didn’t want to lose it, but she was curious why it had appeared.

And one more thing . . . a few nights ago, in the city, she’d been leaving a show and heard something pitiful in the alley . . . it turned out to be a kitten, or at least most of one. The poor creature had one leg mangled, her ears chewed off, her tail broken . . . but she had come to Miranda without hesitation. Miranda carefully got her into the car, though she knew it was futile . . . but then . . . something in the Queen, something hovering deep in her belly, raised its head and demanded a chance to help. Shaking her head with disbelief at her own temerity, Miranda held her hands over the kitten . . .

. . . and healed her.

Deven had claimed that his healing talent was not a vampire one, so it couldn’t spread throughout the Circle . . . but now she had a gray and black meowing refutation of that claim. Miranda had pushed energy inelegantly into the cat’s body, but that had done the trick, and her leg was sound, her ears were healed, her tail straightened.

Now that kitten had happily claimed a corner of the royal bed, kneading the sheets with her little pine-needle claws and emitting a purr way louder than a body her size should have been capable of. David wasn’t all that keen on the idea at first, but he didn’t have any real objections either, so the Queen now had a cat. Some nights when Miranda took long soaking baths, the cat would perch on the side of the tub watching her human do such a bizarre and senseless ritual. Tonight, however, Miranda’s bath was feline free.

That brief, nightmarish time bound as a Trinity had mutated their powers even further. She wasn’t even sure what to call half of it. She wanted to know if Deven felt the changes as well, but there wasn’t much point to asking, even if she could find him. He’d just vanish without speaking to her.

She missed her friend. She wanted him back . . . she wanted both of them back, but only one could ever return. And though her empathy and her instincts begged her to do something, anything, she knew the only medicine for Deven was time.

After another hour, when she was nice and pruny, she pulled the drain stopper with her toes and stretched languidly, enjoying how the heat had made her muscles let go of the tension that had become habitual over the last few months.

Pulling on her robe without tying it, she returned to the bedroom. Esther had been there; the fire was roaring against the winter cold that had already made its way into the Haven days ago despite the single night of temporary warmth outside, and the bed had been turned down to reveal the thicker comforter and extra blanket Esther knew they would want.

She smiled. A pair of socked feet were sticking off the arm of the couch. There were black boots on the floor beneath.

A welcome, and reassuring sight: her husband sprawled on the couch asleep, laptop still open on the coffee table, an empty wineglass that still smelled faintly of blood next to that. Three and a half centuries old, a rebel Prime who had broken with the Council and now ruled all but one territory in the United States, one of only two of his kind and sired by the Goddess of Death . . . napping in a vintage-style college T-shirt that said
University of Gallifrey
.

And right there in the middle of his chest, a sleeping kitten.

She couldn’t have loved him more in that moment if she’d tried.

Miranda reached up and took the clip out of her hair, letting it fall down around her shoulders. She grinned to herself and sat on the edge of the couch, pushing her robe off. She nudged the cat onto the floor with one hand. The kitten gave her an indignant look and turned away to lick herself. Then Miranda leaned down and kissed her Prime awake.

He made a half-growling noise and opened his eyes a slit. “I’m asleep,” he said drowsily. “And I’m dreaming there’s a beautiful naked woman within easy pouncing distance. I can’t possibly be that lucky.”

She flicked her tongue against his earlobe. “How lucky would you like to be?”

Now his eyes opened all the way. “Wait . . . didn’t I marry you?”

“As a matter of fact, you did.” Miranda took one of his hands and placed it on her thigh, where it began to wander of its own accord, his nimble fingers tracing spirals over her skin. “It’s late,” she said. “Are you done with whatever it was you were sleeping through?”

“Done enough. Besides . . . I don’t think I could concentrate on code right now.”

She smiled, then leaned close and said very softly into his ear, “Take me to bed or lose me forever.”

David wound his fingers through hers, all the worry and sadness they’d been carrying around for months falling away, for a while, leaving just the two of them, one heart beating in two places. He smiled and replied, “Show me the way home.”

 • • • 

“Hey, Lark. I’m just checking in . . . I really miss you. Maybe I can sneak off into town one night this week and we can do a movie or something. I’m just craving actual human company. Give me a call, or e-mail.”

Stella stuffed her phone back in her pants pocket with a sigh. She didn’t know if Lark was avoiding her calls or they just had bad timing; at this point either was equally likely. She’d barely spoken to her best friend since she’d come back to the Haven—her life had been sucked into a vortex of weirdness and she felt like she was living outside time, in another dimension.

She went back to what she’d been doing when the impulse to talk to Lark struck: dusting and rearranging the altar in the ritual room. It hadn’t been used since that night she had watched Nico work; he hadn’t had a chance to make good on his offer to teach her. She didn’t blame him. He did have a lot on his mind.

She was just so lonely. Everyone made it clear she was wanted here, and that they cared about her, but with so much going on, there was no time to eat ice cream with Miranda or learn Weaving with Nico. The closest she got to either was eating ice cream while entertaining extremely vivid fantasies of licking it off the Elf’s neck. She had seen him only a couple of times since he’d taken his Signet, and she wanted very badly to seek the Elf out, to offer . . . well, whatever comfort a silly young human could give an immortal . . . whatever he needed that she could find a way to give.

Most of the items that had been on the altar were back in her room already, since they were from her personal shrine; there were two large pillar candles, a bowl of salt and one of water, and a slowly desiccating pomegranate remaining.

The thought occurred: She might not be able to do much Weaving, but she could go in and look, have a peek at the Circle and see how things were shaping up. She was curious what all the bonds looked like now, especially the one between Nico and Deven. It couldn’t hurt to do that, could it, as long as she didn’t touch anything or dig around? They’d trusted her with far more than that, and if she wanted to learn that kind of magic, she needed to spend more time studying.

Excited at the prospect of having something new to do, Stella grabbed a big cushion and dropped it on the floor, then dropped herself onto it cross-legged. She took a moment to ground and center, a bit annoyed with herself; she’d been neglecting her meditation practice lately, and that almost certainly had something to do with how unhappy she’d been. With all these supernatural beings around her, staying grounded was even more important.

“Bad Stella,” she muttered. “Bad Witch, no broomstick.”

Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and started to reach inward to draw up the Web . . .

. . . but something . . .

Her eyes popped open. Something wasn’t right.

The energy in the room felt strange all of a sudden, charged with static electricity that made her arm hairs leap up on end. She shifted into her usual Sight, the less sophisticated vision she’d always relied on before.

What she saw . . . what the hell?

Stella was on her feet, pushed by a swell of power in the center of the Circle that felt unlike anything she’d ever experienced. The way it was swirling slowly around the room, gathering in front of her, made no sense to her eyes or her Sight. The air in the room grew hotter, each breath feeling sharp in her lungs.

She would have run, but the energy was between her and the door. She had nowhere to go, and she was about to lift her com to her lips and yell for help, when . . .

The power condensed into a single point, then blew outward with a nearly audible snap like a flag unfurling. Energy rushed out from the center, the force of it nearly knocking her on her ass. The single point grew until it was a circle of light, and another blast hit her, this one of wind.

The door was closed. There were no windows. Wind? From where?

Stella stood transfixed, too petrified to move, as the light became brighter and brighter, ultimately flashing bright enough to send stars dancing through her brain.

A moment of intense heat—

—and it was gone.

Stella had her hands over her face and took them away slowly, her heart racing so fast she couldn’t even feel individual beats.

Oh . . . my . . .

A face she knew, but without its warmth—staring at her with cold eyes, seeming made out of shadow and fire—jet-black hair, shining like a raven’s feathers, falling down like a cloak over black robes that reached the floor.

Those eyes burned into hers . . . filled with wrath and power that had no interest in discretion or diplomacy . . .