Shadowbound (6 page)

“You must have found quite a meal out there,” Harlan said. “You looked like hell, Sire, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

David smiled at him as the driver opened the door of the limo. “I feel much better, Harlan, thank you.”

The initial wave of energy left him giddy as it passed, and he leaned back and closed his eyes as the car pulled away to head for their second rendezvous, cataloging each difference, extrapolating a timeline based on how he felt now compared to how he had felt an hour ago.

It was difficult to know for sure how often this would happen—there was one set of numbers if he went from his own death, another if he went from the onset of his transformation, and another if he went from Miranda’s, which was when his own had finished.

But looking out the tinted window and up at the cloud-smudged sky, it occurred to him the math might not matter so much as the timing. The Awakening had to be performed on the new moon. Tonight was the new moon again. There had been one between those dates, but at that point Miranda hadn’t come across and his own transition hadn’t been complete.

Miranda.

Now, for the first time, he thought about the meaning of his actions from her perspective—he had been so desperate to make the pain stop that he had set all of that aside, telling himself he’d feel guilty later, once he didn’t want to die.

He still didn’t feel guilty. He had removed a predator from the streets who got children hooked on a degrading, disgusting drug and fucked fifteen-year-old girls just because he could. The world would not suffer for his loss . . . and there were plenty more where that came from. Humanity always provided.

Miranda was not going to see it that way.

The rest of their Circle had not shown any signs of Miranda’s gift, but he had a mild case of empathy, and he knew its purpose as much as he knew why they had more fangs. Empathy, just a touch, enabled him to find evildoers and know without a doubt what he was killing. A compassionate concession on Persephone’s part, perhaps, to their modern sensibilities—vampires had been created to control the human population, but the law set down by Primes like David kept them from fulfilling that purpose, whether out of fear of exposure or a sense of morality. By and large the Shadow World lived in denial of the reason it was created.

And thus the Thirdborn took on the sins of the entire vampire race.

He was rehearsing what to tell her in his mind when the car pulled over and, a moment later, Harlan opened the door and Miranda practically fell inside.

Her condition astonished him. He figured she would look tired, but in the few hours since they had gone their own ways, he to Hunter Development and she to a meeting with her management, she looked like she’d lost ten pounds and had the drawn, sallow face of a vampire who hadn’t fed in weeks. Starvation took a long time to kill them, and it was a gruesome way to die.

“Good God, Miranda . . .” He reached over to her and pulled her close. She felt as insubstantial as an autumn leaf. Her skin was far cooler than it should be, and he took her hands and tried to rub life back into them, though he knew it was futile.

Her eyes were red, as from crying, but also dull from overwhelming emotions that had turned into numbness. She looked from her hands up to his face.

“That’s all you had to do?” she asked softly.

He didn’t have to ask what she meant any more than she had to ask what he’d done. “Yes.”

She drew her hands back and put them over her face. “I don’t think I can do it.”

He didn’t want to make it harder, but he knew she would prefer the truth even if it was terrible: “You have to.”

“It’s not fair.” The words could have sounded petulant, but they mostly just sounded resigned.

“It’s perfectly fair,” he replied gently. “We knew there would be consequences. We both accepted them to regain our life together.”

She sat with her face in her hands for another minute, and he could feel her trying to balance two impossible lives, asking herself if the heavier one was worth its weight.

Finally she lifted her head. Her face held sadness, but also the beginnings of determination—she was Queen. She would do what had to be done to fulfill her role in their world. Death had never stopped her before and it wouldn’t now. “Will you come with me? I don’t want to be alone.”

“Of course I will.” He put his hands on her face and looked into her eyes, letting her see how much better he felt, how much better
she
would feel. They had work to do—work that might save far more lives than the two of them could end—and they couldn’t do it if they starved themselves into rabid animals. If it got to that point she would no longer know herself, or him; she would lose everything that made her Miranda and become a twisted thing with only one goal: to kill, over and over, until someone put her down.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He leaned in and kissed her, then reached over to hit the buzzer and ask Harlan to stop the car.

 • • • 

Searing pain—a hot iron this time. “Confess!”

He could hear the ragged ruin of his own voice, hoarse from screaming: “I’m not a demon. I never hurt anyone. I’m not a demon . . . please . . .”

As the long hours passed and he still maintained his innocence, they grew impatient. Those hours, and the days and days before of torment and blood, were nothing, nothing, compared to the day they began crushing his hands . . . one finger at a time, then the palm . . . that was what would cause the systemic infection that only becoming a vampire could save him from. It was a kind of pain that would never leave him; seven hundred years later he would still wake screaming from phantom agony in both hands, and they would ache for hours afterward.

“Confess!”

The horrible, dull crunch of bones slowly breaking—

Deven fought his way out of sleep with a cry of terror, striking out with all his strength . . . but the assailants were invisible, made only of memory.

He’d been having nightmares about the past for seven centuries, but over the years they’d become more vague, events blurring into each other as the memories became less distinct. Having the Elf mucking about in his psyche had triggered something, though, and brought those memories roaring back. Usually having Jonathan next to him helped immeasurably; the Consort’s presence soothed him, gave him distance.

Tonight Jonathan wasn’t in bed. That was a bit odd; Jonathan had been very diligent about staying with him as much as possible while he slept after the healing sessions. There must have been some sort of disturbance that called him away.

Sunset had passed an hour ago, leaving the air in the Haven soft and faintly ocean-scented as the wind blew in from the coast. The metal shutters covering all the windows stood open, bathing the bedroom in a gentle blue light. Gradually, the cool air and peaceful silence carried away the nightmare.

Finally, he climbed out of bed and found clothes. Most likely Jonathan had been roused by one of the Elite; he had been running himself ragged managing the territory while Deven slept off repeated Elf hangovers. Luckily Jonathan was an excellent organizer, leader, and strategist. Really, when it came down to the night-to-night work of the Signets, Deven was a bit on the useless side; he had always preferred . . . to . . .

He paused, frowning, shirt halfway on.

Something was different. Something . . .

He held up his hands, rubbing them together—they felt different. They were stiff from clenching them hard in his sleep, and they felt . . . they
felt
.

The fugue state he’d been walking around in had given way to sudden clarity: After weeks of feeling like he was shrouded in fog, growing more and more physically numb and bowing beneath the weight of his history, it felt like the moon had come out and pierced the gloom, throwing everything into sharp relief.

Heart pounding, he reached out along the bond to find Jonathan, but as he’d suspected the Consort was in town. He must have left right at sunset to have arrived in the city already; whatever was up, it was important. Deven grabbed his phone and sent Jonathan a message:
Call me when you can.

For the first time in two weeks the Prime emerged from the suite looking like himself—blades, coat, piercings, and all. He even yanked out a hair to check the dye job and deemed it fit for another week. With Ghostlight returned to her usual place on his hip, he strode down the hall, smiling.

The guards he passed looked genuinely relieved to see him; there was no telling what the rumor mill had been generating to explain why their leader had become a shut-in while the Pair entertained a pointy-eared weirdo.

Curious as to whether there was an energetic connection between himself and Nico, he expanded his awareness to try to find him. Sure enough, the Elf’s presence glowed softly in his mind—not in the rooms they’d given him, but nearby.

He found Nico in a long hallway, staring at the wide array of weaponry on display there. The Elf’s expression was one of apprehension and sadness, but when he sensed Deven approaching, he looked up and smiled.

The world spun off its axis for a moment under the beauty of that smile, but he shrugged off the reaction impatiently.

The Elf was dressed in a more Tolkien-esque robe and cloak this time, the cloak a deep blue with silver embroidery around the edge and a carved silver crescent moon clasp. The Elf’s hair, unbound, fell all the way to his waist, shining like silk. He was wildly out of place before a wall covered in weapons. The outfit would have looked much better in an old-growth forest, or a castle of carved marble . . .

. . . or on my bedroom floor.

Damn it.

“Good evening, my Lord,” Nico said, bowing. “You seem to be feeling better.”

“I am,” he replied, returning the smile. “I feel like myself again.”

Nico’s gaze swept from Deven’s head down to his feet, then back up; the way his eyes lingered was just a little longer than a cursory examination called for. Was that appreciation in his gaze, or just analysis? The Elf was maddeningly difficult to read.

“You must be cautious,” Nico advised him. “I know you feel well, but you are still fragile—try not to exert yourself too much either physically or psychically until after I have finished my work. I would hate to see you fall back into that darkness again.”

“So would I.” Deven gestured at the wall and said, “I wouldn’t have expected to see you in here.”

“I have wandered around most of the buildings and the grounds in the two weeks I have been here—trying not to frighten anyone,” he added a bit wryly. “I saw these . . . implements . . . and wanted a closer look, although . . .”

“Jonathan calls this the Gallery of Pointy Things,” Deven said. “The previous Prime hung all these disgusting old animal heads on the walls—no one would walk down here in the dark because of all the beady glass eyes staring at them.”

Nico approached a pair of Damascus steel swords that Deven had picked up in India and lifted a hand as if to touch one, but then thought better of it. “You are . . . very creative when you wish to deal death.”

Deven almost laughed at the disturbed expression on his face, but said only, “I take it you don’t have warriors where you come from.”

“No. Elves are a pacifist people; we live our lives so as to cause the least harm possible. We seek out peace and cooperation, not destruction.” He lowered his gaze to the sword Deven wore.

Dev drew the blade and held her out in both hands for him to look at; Nico actually touched the hilt, lightly, then ran his fingers along the sword’s spine, and that touch made Deven feel like his own spine was melting.
What the hell is wrong with me?

“This carving is lovely,” Nico said. “Gaelic, is it not?”

“Yes. It’s her name: Ghostlight.”

Their eyes met, the Elf’s gaze penetrating. “It suits you.”

Unsure whether that was a compliment, Deven resheathed the sword.

Nico looked at Deven, eyes troubled. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Reconcile who you are with what you do.”

“I don’t,” he replied. “I think of my healing ability as just another attribute, not a sign that I’m part of anything bigger.”

Nico lowered his voice to where the nearest guards wouldn’t overhear. “And the Red Shadow? How do you reconcile contract killing with being a healer?”

“How did you—”

“I have spent three nights inside your mind, my Lord,” Nico said. “I know a lot more about you than you probably want me to.”

Deven turned away, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. “I was born with this blood, and I suffered for it. Your people fled the human world; I was left here alone to fend for myself, and I chose to become powerful enough that no one else could hurt me. Once you’ve lived the life I have, in the world I’ve had to live in, then you can judge my decisions.”

“I meant no offense,” the Elf said, taken aback by the coldness in his words. “I only want to understand. This world is . . . I was unprepared for what I would see here.”

“It’s easy to see nothing but ugliness.” Deven took hold of the Elf’s arm and drew him along by the wrist, down the hall to one of the back doors of the Haven. “Let me show you something.”

The Haven was situated to the west of Sacramento proper, and its primary residence was designed to mimic a Mediterranean villa; it had courtyards and fountains that flooded in moonlight, all of which closed up tight at dawn. His favorite feature, however, was a wraparound terrace that stretched along the entire back length of the building, allowing access from any adjacent room. The terrace looked out over a wildlife refuge where the trees seemed to go on forever.

He led the Elf out onto the balcony, up to the wall that surrounded it where the view was finest.

Nico smiled, eyes sweeping out over the valley. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Deven had done the same thing many times over the years; something about looking out over the forest and breathing its air felt like sustenance, assuaging a different hunger than did blood.