Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) (14 page)

There was a long pause before she replied quietly, with sadness and resignation: “You will teach him to hate himself as much as you do…and all so that he may burn at the stake, wasting a powerful gift and a kind heart. He is a beautiful child, Elen, worthy of your love and compassion…if you could see what I do…if only you would let yourself see.”

“I think it’s time you left…”

No…come back. Please take me with you. Don’t leave me here…they’re going to hurt me. Take me with you. I’m scared. Don’t leave me here alone.

Don’t leave me here alone…

“Shhh…it’s okay, baby. It’s just a dream. You’re safe. I’m here with you…no one’s going to hurt you as long as I’m beside you. Go back to sleep.”

Don’t…don’t leave…

“Child.”

It was a voice he knew, and didn’t know. Deven lifted his head, but what he saw wasn’t the alley—it was a forest…a redwood forest…and the night was soft, sweet, tranquil.

He felt a hand on his head—lighter than his father’s, but with that same affection and reassurance.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he whispered.

“As with most of your suffering, you are doing it to yourself.” Her voice was loving, gentle. “I can help you, child, but you must invite Me in.”

He no longer had the strength to fight, nor the desire. He would have given anything in that moment for peace, even happiness; he was tired, so tired, of hurting, of wandering alone in the dark.

“Please make it stop. Just let me have one night where nothing hurts…please.”

A kiss on his forehead, and he looked up into those endless eyes. There was nothing but peace there, peace and love resting quietly in the arms of the darkness between stars.

He waited for Her to deny him, or at least demand something in return, but She didn’t. Instead, She sat down next to him on the ground, the shadows of Her garments flowing out all around them like mist crawling through a valley, and put Her arm around him, drawing his head to Her shoulder.

It occurred to him that in the real world he was sitting in a grimy alley—was She there too? Or was he now leaning sideways looking like a drunk?

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. He had asked for a reprieve, and in a moment, it began: those shadows lapped at his feet, then began to rise, their tide whispering in a million voices. It almost tickled, but was so soothing…he closed his eyes.

She was rocking him back and forth, and singing very softly. He recognized the song…had his grandmother sung it to him? Had his mother, in a weak moment when no one would overhear? He had forgotten it, until now, but the words were clear, as clear as the knowledge that they, too, were not in a human tongue.

“
Eth Luna amasti embra es argena estelli,

Eth es aurum Sola amasti adoro es azur,

Eth Prinaver amastes amoriel es nuve vertis ista di,

O mes cari, ile amast amori, ili’thur.”

Hours later, he woke on his side in the back seat of the Escalade, a very concerned Chris in the driver’s seat speeding through the streets of Austin.

“Where are we?” he asked groggily, sitting up.

“Oh, thank God, my Lord…are you all right? I couldn’t wake you.”

“Wake me? Was I asleep?”

“I have no idea—I got a signal from your com for an urgent pickup, but when I found you, you were unconscious.”

“No, that’s…that’s not right. I was at a bar in the District.”

“You were four miles from the District, my Lord. I assumed you blacked out from too much alcohol, but then I couldn’t rouse you…Mo is standing by at the Hausmann to check you over.”

“I’m fine,” he muttered, but even he couldn’t muster the energy to make a forceful denial; he wasn’t fine, and he knew he wasn’t.

“All right,” he finally said. “The Hausmann…okay.”

Chris seemed even more alarmed that he wasn’t arguing with her, and a look of determination set on her face as she hit the accelerator.

Deven lay back against the seat and closed his eyes, losing awareness of the world for a while longer, wisps of melody and a dark, sweet voice lifted in song that wrapped around his mind like ebony wings, feathery and protective. Sometimes the words were in one language, sometimes another, but they were always full of love and comfort, and he held onto them even after he let go of wakefulness.

“
As the Moon embraces the silver stars,

As the golden Sun adores the color blue,

As the Spring loves the new grass and the rain,

That is how much, my darling, I love you.”

Chapter Five

By now, the Haven guards were used to their employer striding purposefully down the corridors in moods ranging from preoccupied to homicidal; in recent months they had no doubt grown accustomed to their resident ghost’s comings and goings as well. Still, the guards were somewhat alarmed at the sight of their Prime carrying that ghost in from the cold, rainy night.

Mo and Chris both had called, one from the Hausmann and one from the road, to alert him to what had passed in the city; the urgent pickup call had sent up an alert on David’s phone, so he was already waiting for further information from Chris.

“
Sire…Prime Deven is…hurt…I think. I don’t know what happened—he’s been in and out for an hour. I’m on my way to Mo now.
”

And not long after, Mo: “
Sire, you need not be alarmed—he is in rough shape, but not in any danger. I have fluids running through him now; he was severely dehydrated.
”

Dehydrated. Not the same as starving, an important difference for creatures on a liquid diet. Dehydration in vampires wasn’t usually caused by a lack of blood, or insufficient water intake, but by something actively leaching water from the body. For it to be severe it had to have been happening for a while. Unfortunately David knew exactly what it was.

Vein running, they’d called it in the 40s. The equipment was more advanced now but the principle was the same—hold the vein open to allow for a near-constant stream of drugs. It hit harder than a normal injection, straight for the brain. Deven’s poison of choice, heroin, was especially known for its dehydrating effect on their kind. David was well aware that before they had met Deven had been in the habit of spending days high, only coming out when he had to pay for more…whether that was with money or his body, whichever would get him another hit faster.

There was no reason Dev would be whoring himself now. He was a billionaire, after all, and could afford all the drugs he wanted with barely a blip in his credit line. But the mere thought made David’s stomach clench with impotent anger. No lowlife drug dealer should dare lay a hand on something as exalted as a Prime…even a fallen one.

Exalted.
As David brushed past the door guards at the suite and deposited Deven on the bed, the word was bitter in his mind. Deven was a mess: he was pitifully thin, and worse yet he was dirty; he looked like he’d been rolling around in an alley. The Deven he knew would never have left the house in anything but the finest hand-tailored clothing from studded collar to steel-toed boots. He would be armed to the teeth and look like a creature who could cast a room into terrified silence just by walking in the door…not like this. Aside from the grime his clothes could have come from any average man.

Horrifying.

Without actively making the decision, David picked Deven up again and this time bore him to the bathroom, where he ran hot water in the tub while gingerly picking the clothes from the elder Prime’s thin frame.

He tried to be clinical about it and not notice everything that had changed since the last time he’d seen this much of Deven’s bare skin. Strange how once he had known every centimeter, every line of ink, but in the intervening years he’d added several images—David hadn’t even seen most of them that night five years ago, as they’d been in too much of a hurry to linger. Most of Deven’s tattoos grew out of the stained-glass-patterned sleeves of saint and sinner; their edges twisted into Celtic knotwork, and hidden among the lines were symbolic animals, like the white stag that had been the emblem of Deven’s clan. Dev designed them all himself—just as he did the carvings and ornaments on his weapons. It would surprise most people to know he was such a talented artist.

Deven didn’t stir when David lowered him into the water. He just slept, as he had slept the whole way back from Austin. That was fine; David didn’t especially want him to wake up until he was clean and safe in his own bed. David worked quickly but carefully, scrubbing the smears of mud away.

Another time in another place it would have been unbearably arousing, but all David felt in that moment was a choking vine of sorrow growing up through his chest.

It had come to this. The powerful, beautiful creature he had loved so dearly had become this empty shell he barely recognized.

A memory intruded, one he wasn’t expecting…kneeling beside another tub just like this one, with Faith next to him, silently washing the filth of rape and murder from Miranda’s skin. He had been focused on her hair; it became the symbol of what he was trying desperately to save. He hadn’t even known her last name, but the pain at seeing what had been done to her—not just by those humans, but by months of encroaching insanity and despair—had clawed at him, as it did now. Thinking of her like that, blood on her thighs and vitreous humor under her fingernails, her hair matted and her face gaunt…he nearly dropped the washcloth and dug out his phone to call her, but she would be onstage right now, just about to finish her show.

She’s safe. She’s healthy and strong and she’ll be home soon.

But the juxtaposition of that night with now had done its damage, and he found he could barely breathe.

Too much grief. Too much. He held onto the side of the tub with both hands and leaned his forehead against the cool porcelain, trying to ground.

He heard movement behind him, but immediately knew who it was, and a moment later felt a hand on his head.

He looked up into Nico’s eyes. “I can’t,” he said, voice strange and hollow in the humid little room. He wasn’t even sure what it was he couldn’t do.

Nico didn’t need to know. He nodded, knelt, and slid his arms around the Prime. “You’re not alone,” he said softly. “I will help you.”

David hadn’t considered that Nico would be able to give him energy along their link; he’d just assumed that it would flow one way, since the Elf was the one who needed the help. But Nico sent a wordless pulse of strength and love along the thread, and David took it gratefully. Within minutes he felt like himself again, able to master the assault of emotions.

Nico found another washcloth, and together they finished cleaning Deven up. David dug around in the bathroom drawer until he found a razor, and Nico moved Deven’s head around like a doll’s so that David could—almost gleefully—get rid of that godawful scruff. Dev could be mad about it if he wanted, though chances were he wouldn’t care either way. David knew he hadn’t grown it deliberately; he’d simply not bothered to shave.

Finally, they got the elder vampire washed and dried and dressed and in bed. David watched the Elf surreptitiously off and on, seeing the sadness, but also the love in Nico’s hands, caring for his Prime as if he were a holy relic. A tiny glimpse of how things should be…except that Deven should be awake, smiling that little half-smile that meant he was a combination of amused and contented at being fussed over.

It shouldn’t be like this for any of them.

Neither spoke as they left the suite and walked around the corner and down the hall to Nico’s rooms. David was thankful for the silence. He had no idea what to call what was happening in his heart, but he was pretty sure speaking was a bad idea right now.

Nico closed the door behind them and sighed. When David looked at him, the Elf’s eyes were bright. “That’s the first time I’ve touched him in months,” Nico said.

The servants had been in and gotten the fire going, as well as turning down the bed and straightening up—Nico was generally fastidious, but his pastimes involved large stacks of books and papers that seemed to breed in his room. The Elf was uneasy about having people wait on him; it wasn’t that such a thing was unknown among his people, but that he himself had never been taken care of, Weavers not being the rock stars that, say, Bards were.

Nico had given up protesting after Esther commanded him to stand back and let them do their jobs. Not even powerful sorcerers from idyllic forest worlds argued with Esther.

David shook his head slightly. His mind was trying to latch onto anything to think about but what it needed to think about. He wanted to ponder refinements to the camera system, or sensor performance fluctuations in Dallas, or even trying to figure out what the hell the writers of
Doctor Who
were smoking, but it was all denial.

He felt Nico’s eyes.

“I wish you could have known him like I did,” David said quietly. “Back before everything got so complicated. I’d never seen anything like him before: this intense and commanding warrior who had never been bested, with a presence that swallowed up an entire room when he wanted it to…or disappeared without disturbing the air…I learned so much those first few years about how being powerful really worked—how much of it was glamour, attitude. And even with all the nightmares and shadows and history, he burned like the sun to me. And now…”

Nico heard the catch in his voice and came to him, resting his hands on David’s shoulders. “It’s not too late.”

“Maybe not. But no matter what…he deserves better than this. So do you. And there’s nothing I can do to save him. It’s my job to protect my kind, Nico, and my life’s work to be a force that stands between those I care for and the violence inherent to our existence. I’ve failed miserably.”

“Nonsense,” Nico replied. He took gentle hold of David’s coat and slid it off, draping it over the chair where it usually ended up. Next he reached down and unbuckled The Oncoming Storm, placing her reverently on the bookshelf nearby. “Not even the Thirdborn are strong enough to force someone to want to live.”

The Prime sighed and let Nico steer him over to the other fireplace chair, where the Elf dropped gracefully to his knees to start the laborious task of unlacing David’s boots. First came the buckles and straps that wrapped around, and then his nimble fingers began to unweave the laces themselves.