Shadowflame (7 page)

Kat mustered a smile for her. As weird as Miranda’s psychic fade-out had been, there was still something incredibly comforting about having gotten the truth out—just knowing someone else knew was a load off her shoulders. If it had been a year ago, Miranda’s reassurance wouldn’t have been very reassuring, because she had been batshit insane and teetering on the edge of oblivion, but now . . . Kat might not know much at the moment, but she knew that if Miranda said something would happen, God himself would buy a ticket to watch it go down.

She was the Queen of Shadows, after all.

A woman’s duty was to serve her man. She must be quiet and dutiful, obedient, accommodating. She must defer to him in all things, for he knew best, as was ordained by God Almighty when Adam first bade Eve to lie beneath him in the Garden.

Cora stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling of the Haven while Prime Hart grunted and swore above her, her mind in the soft dark corner she had long ago created for it, a place where she was dimly aware of what her Master was doing, but it was only her body that he was invading, and she, Cora, was safe, watching from far away. There was only so far she could go, but every inch of distance was a treasure to her, and there she waited once again while he shuddered and burst hot and cruel into her body.

Sated, he rolled off her, and the cool air of the room intruded; she felt it most on her damp thighs and the forever-trembling skin of her fingers. All the girls shook. They shook because they were weak . . . because they were women, and women were weak. Cora imagined Eve trembling as Adam ground his hips into hers, wondered if the first woman had felt the shame of it as she gathered her scattered fig leaves and stumbled to the stream to wash that first fallen seed from her. Did she feel dirty afterward, as the earth was dirty, fallen, made of dung and the sticky leavings of men?

There were nine women—girls, he called them, and not ever by name, only as “you” or “girl” or “whore”—in Hart’s harem, and they had been gathered as thoughtfully as a collector might gather works of art; each one was chosen for specific attributes, so that when he wanted a buxom blonde, he had one, and when he wanted an exotic African slave girl, he could dress Naomi in silks and make her dance for him.

Cora had been chosen for her dark hair and her olive skin, neither of which she really had anymore. She remembered, sometimes, the feel of the Italian sun on her arms, the wind lifting her hair as she ran, laughing, through her father’s fields, past the lemon trees, among the twisted olive branches.

So long ago.

Hart pushed himself up off the bed and walked out of the room without a parting word. He had his own room for sleeping and came into the smaller room of the suite only when he wanted a girl. He had brought four this time, and though the servants at his Haven acted like it was some kind of honor, all the girls who got to stay behind were relieved and grateful for a few days’ peace.

Cora wasn’t certain they all understood what they were. They were so young when he brought them in, and he forced his will upon their memories as he forced himself into their bodies. Few of them remembered where they had come from. All they knew was the stabbing pain of penetration, the burn of knees too long on the floor and a jaw cramping from being held open too long. They knew pulled hair and bruises, bite marks, whips, costumes. Hart was creative in his lusts. He’d dressed her as a nun more than once and defiled her while she recited the Hail Mary to him.

She turned onto her side for a moment, eyes closed, listening to the furtive movements of the others where they were all positioned around the room on the floor waiting to join her on the bed they would all share to sleep.

There was a routine to this. Hart came into the room and pointed at one of them. He gave his orders. The girl of choice did as she was told for however long he lasted, and when he was done, he would leave them alone. The others made sure she fed first when the bottle came around. They tended to each other, not out of any particular kindness, but because they were glad it wasn’t them this time.

No one spoke of this. It was possible Cora was the only one who thought of anything more than the gnawing hunger that was as much a part of them as the length and thickness of the Master’s shaft. Perhaps they even enjoyed it; she didn’t know. They didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk much at all.

She was making them uncomfortable lying there, not moving. More than once he had killed a girl and they’d had to wrap her body in the soiled sheets and lay her in the hallway for the servants to burn. But this was not their Haven, and the Master would be more discreet. There was something he wanted here.

Cora slowly, painfully climbed off the bed and drew herself erect, refusing to lurch and hobble. There was so little dignity for them, she clung to whatever shreds she could catch. There, too, she was strange to the others. She walked to the bathroom, coaxing her legs through the steps it took to get there, and closed herself in silently to wash away any trace of her Master.

The new girls usually cried the first few times. Not yet suffering the effects of having too little blood, they still remembered enough about life to know that they were being violated. No one offered them comfort; there was no point. They might as well learn to bear it. It was going to happen again, and again, in a hundred different ways, until they were so used up that they simply lay down and died. Cora had seen it.

In fact, she had seen it two days before they left their Haven. The long-limbed redhead, Shannon, had been there longer even than Cora, surviving continual starvation and abuse until one night when the Master had been dissatisfied with her and beat her until she was still. Cora had tried to feed her, but she refused to drink. Even so, it took two days for her to die, and the last day she was moaning, delirious with fever, her body rotting from within. Their kind could not sicken unless they were so incredibly weak that their healing ability shut down.

Cora cleaned herself up and brushed her once-abundant hair, which had started falling out this past year. She imagined that she had perhaps another decade before she followed Shannon. She could always stop feeding, but he would notice. The ones who died were permitted to do so because he was tired of them. He had yet to tire of Cora. In fact, sometimes it seemed he reserved a special kind of viciousness for her, as if he had noticed her strangeness and wanted to punish her for it.

She left the bathroom and took the garment that had been thoughtfully left for her on the chair by the door. The others had curled up on the bed. The bed here was larger than the one they had at home, with a mattress that was new and soft, comforting to joints that had no layer of fat to protect them. She curled up on her side again, running her hands over her body, cataloging how many ribs she could count, how far her hip bones protruded.

There was a knock at the door, and she watched the Master’s servant, Jones, pass through the room. He was a eunuch, and mute—whether his silence was the result of a natural disability or the Master had cut out his tongue for some perceived offense, Cora would never know.

He opened the suite door and one of the Haven servants, a plump woman in the livery of this territory, smiled generously and said, “Good evening. I’ve brought the blood you requested . . . are you sure it’s enough?”

Jones nodded and took the tray from her; on it were a single plastic bag of blood and four glasses. The servant looked perplexed but didn’t make an issue of it, and left.

Jones was fed on a different schedule, and as a man, he was given more. He set the tray down and poured out their servings, then came around and handed each a glass.

The new girls always guzzled, but then they realized there was no more coming, and Cora watched the hunger drive them slowly mad until it simply ceased to matter. It was one way in which the Master brainwashed them; the haze of starvation was a mind killer. Sometimes if they performed well he would give them extra as a treat. The veterans learned to sip tiny bits over the course of an hour or more, savoring it, making it last.

Cora dipped her finger in her glass and touched the blood to her lips, then licked. It was human, which was nice. They didn’t always get human. If the Master thought they were being too energetic, he switched them to rats for a while.

She looked over at Naomi, whose eyes were huge and white in her dark face. Cora remembered Naomi when she was new, before her eyes had sunken. She had been so beautiful. Stunning, even. Cora had stared at her for hours, just loving the way she moved and the liquid brown of her eyes. Twenty years later it was all gone and there was a skeleton left . . . all that remained after the girl had decayed.

Why am I different?

She’d first started seeing it about five years earlier. She’d begun to have thoughts . . . sinful thoughts, violent thoughts. Once, as the Master shoved his dick into her mouth, she imagined biting down hard enough to sever it. She imagined him screaming in agony, and her stomach clenched with hatred. It had been so long since she had felt anything, she had been sick afterward.

She began to question things. She began to think about Adam and Eve. Had Adam beaten his helpmeet? Used her body whenever he’d liked—whether or not she was a willing participant? That first creation of God . . . the truest example of what a man should be like, fundamentally, before culture and history had even come to be . . . had Eve been free to speak? God had commanded her to lie beneath him. But had he commanded her to let him grind her beneath his heel?

Cora knew another story.

Once, when she was a child, a man came to her father’s house—her father had called him a Jew. He had told fanciful, even blasphemous stories to the children when there were no adults in earshot. The land he had come from was rich in stories, overflowing with stories, and she drank them deeply.

In his land there was another woman, one before Eve. She was flawed, sinful, proud. She refused to lie beneath her husband. She wanted him to lie beneath her. She left the Garden and became a demon, eating the souls of young boys, causing men to think lustful thoughts. The Jews made signs against her, said prayers. She was evil and to be feared.

Cora liked her.

She had forgotten that story, and that wicked woman, for a great many years. But something had made her remember . . . only hours ago. Something had brought that story, the story of the Lilith, back to her.

No, not something.
Someone.

Cora had seen the Lilith. She had beheld that terrifying beauty, mother of serpents. She had seen her walking the halls of this very place. She walked with purposeful steps, clad in black, and the wild snakes of her hair were the color of blood. She did not lower her eyes to men. She was not obedient or quiet. Men followed her, bowed to her.

Here, the Lilith was named Miranda, and she was Queen.

Cora had seen her for only a few seconds, but her image was burned into Cora’s mind, a study in fire and iron.

Queen.

Every time Cora thought of her, she began to shake inside, sometimes so hard it made her head hurt. That thought made Cora remember those long-ago days in the fields, running, laughing, her muscles pumping hard and her cheeks rosy with health. What would this Queen do if the Master commanded her to lie down? Cora knew she would not obey. But how could that be? How could a woman simply . . . say no? Did her Prime let her feed whenever she wanted? How did she not go wild, then, and lose her soul to the devil?

Perhaps she already had. But damnation, Cora realized with a spinning feeling in her mind, would almost certainly be better than this.

She would never know what changed. She would never understand how, in that moment, lying there with her finger in her mouth sucking the last traces of blood from beneath her nail, she would suddenly look around the room at the pathetic bones of what had once been sweet young girls and her heart would throw itself around the inside of her chest with so many emotions she couldn’t breathe. She would never recall precisely what it was, what wanton thought passed through her mind, that pushed her up off the bed, ignoring the screaming pain in her joints and muscles, and to her feet.

The others were staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. In a way that was true. They all so rarely looked at each other; it had taken her a decade to realize that Suzette had blue eyes. But they were looking at her now, frightened that her bizarre behavior would bring the wrath of hell down on them.

Cora didn’t stumble, nor did she hesitate. She went to the door and opened it.

There was a guard outside, a tall man with coloring not dissimilar to her own. He was dressed in the uniform of the Signet warriors of this territory, so different from the see-through wisp of gauze she had worn every day for eighty-one years.

“May I help you, Miss?” the guard asked in English.

She knew little of the language, but she had picked up enough from the other girls that she could say, haltingly, “Please . . . please help me. I . . . please . . . I must see the Queen.”

Four

When ordinary couples fought, they stood face-to-face in kitchens and living rooms. They started out discussing, then moved on to arguing, then shouting. Even in a reasonably healthy relationship sometimes tempers flared and things got broken: A dish might be slammed thoughtlessly on the counter, a pillow thrown into a vase, or, on rare occasions, a fist put into a wall.

When David and Miranda fought, swords were involved.

Faith watched the whole scene with a morbid fascination akin to watching Mt. St. Helens erupt on television in 1980. She was standing at a safe distance on the edge of the practice ring, and thankfully there weren’t any other Elite hanging around this time. Usually at least a few liked to eavesdrop on the Prime and Queen sparring, to see if they were really as good as rumored to be.

They were. Obviously the Prime had at least a hundred years’ practice as a warrior over his mate, but the Queen was no slouch and had already doubled her speed and agility since taking the Signet. It was the Queen, in fact, who had decided they should learn to fight as a team, two coordinated halves of a damned scary whole.

“So what am I supposed to do, then?” Miranda asked, swinging her blade in a smooth arc toward his head.

David parried easily and drove her back. “I told you,” he said calmly. “Stay out of it.”

“I can’t stay out of it,” she snapped. “He’s starving and raping those girls to death.” She leapt out of the way of the sword that barely missed her sleeve and spun sideways, bringing her sword up hard and almost knocking his from his hand with a loud ringing strike. “He’s been here two days—I can’t just look the other way while that’s going on under my own roof!”

“Unless those girls come out and say that they want to be rescued, we can’t assume that they’re unhappy,” David shot back. “Intervening without an accusation of abuse from one of them would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Hart. No doubt he has them too scared to speak up for themselves. Chances are that’s why he brought them in the first place—to try to goad us into acting.”

“Then why all this ‘let’s be allies’ crap?”

David made a disgusted noise and ducked her blade, spinning around to slam his sword back into hers. Sweat was running down Miranda’s face, her hair and T-shirt were soaked, and even David had beads appearing on his forehead—a first, Faith thought, since she’d last seen him fight Deven. Miranda’s fighting style was similar to David’s already, so she knew a lot of his moves, and her only disadvantage other than inexperience was her tendency to let emotions get the better of her. That, too, would take time to overcome.

“That’s exactly what it is—crap,” David said. “As soon as he gets what he wants, he won’t need to kiss ass anymore. But I’ll have the analysis of that earpiece and he’ll have only what information I want to give him. He thinks he used me, I keep the device, everyone wins.”

“Not everyone.” Miranda dropped flat to avoid being cut, then swung her leg around and knocked David backward off his feet; he hit the ground in a roll and was up again in a blur of motion, already driving the Queen toward the edge of the circle. She dove in to counterattack, but all she got was her sword clattering to the ground several feet away, just out of reach.

David paused, glanced at her sword, and the blade rose into the air and zipped over to his outstretched hand. “Now what are you going to do, my Lady?” he asked politely, swinging both in circles.

“How can you be such a coldhearted bastard when you know what’s happening to those women?” she demanded, crossing her arms. “After what happened to me?”

He gave her an annoyed look. “Oh, were you turned into a vampire as a teenager against your will and taken to be part of a harem?”

“You know what I mean!” The Queen’s anger flared and she pushed it outward—Faith could feel it starting to boil in her own blood. The nerve of the Prime, refusing to help . . . what kind of man was he, anyway, to . . .

Faith caught herself and bolstered her shields before her thoughts became violent. This was one of Miranda’s weapons; it was hard to defend against and most people would have no idea how. Luckily she did. So did David.

His power-aura expanded, her wave of wrath bouncing off him harmlessly, and he gave her a stern look. “Remember the rules, Miranda. I don’t throw things at you, and you don’t try to heart-spank me.”

“Maybe you deserve it,” Miranda said. Even if her anger wasn’t affecting them anymore, it was still a palpable force in the room, and Faith knew, from seeing this sort of thing before, that if she didn’t ground it out it would make her do something impulsive and foolish—

—like throwing herself to the ground, rolling under the Prime’s spinning blades, and crashing into his feet, which worked well enough at first, sending both swords into the air and the Prime to the floor on his stomach. Miranda got up first and flung herself sideways in time to catch one of the swords, and David rolled right and caught the other.

Then they were back on their feet, Miranda attacking with unrestrained fury, exactly the kind that got rookie Elite killed. For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of blade and blade hitting each other so hard it was a wonder neither broke. Faith watched, smiling, feeling proud of the Queen for having learned so much so quickly. Sophie had been a good teacher . . .

. . . whoever she was.

Faith frowned, her attention momentarily sidetracked by the memory of the night she’d met the diminutive warrior. Sophie had been drunk off her ass and boasted she was ex-Shadow, which Faith had scoffed at until Sophie challenged her to a fight out behind the bar and proceeded to kick Faith’s ass up and down the alley. Faith had asked her for pointers, and they’d met periodically to spar, just for fun, but she’d never really known anything about Sophie beyond that, and Sophie had never mentioned the Shadow again.

Had she really had an ulterior motive? Or was Hart being, as usual, a paranoid shit-stirrer? If someone had hired the Shadow, why would they want to help Miranda become Queen? What other motive could they have, given that Sophie had had plenty of chances to kill Miranda when she was human, but had been, more or less, her friend? Had Sophie gone off mission when Miranda won her over to the Signet cause?

There was no way to know now. A search of Sophie’s old studio had turned up absolutely no personal effects whatsoever, only a cache of weapons that were clean of any kind of fingerprints, even Miranda’s.

Faith came back to reality in a rush as a loud clattering sound startled her. She looked up to see that Miranda was once again disarmed and David was standing over her, sword pointed at her throat. To his credit, at least he wasn’t stepping on her neck.

“Goddamn it!” Miranda snarled. She tried to escape first to one side, then the other, but David was too fast for her and kept her pinned.

He was calm as always—Faith was sure it infuriated Miranda, because it infuriated most people. “Eventually you’re going to have to learn to listen to me,” David told her. “Sometimes life is unfair, beloved. If there were a war between our territories, Hart would hire hunters, send assassins by the dozen, and rally other Signets against us. If you want to do something for those girls, you’re going to have to think of a better idea than charging in there to liberate them like some avenging man-smiting angel.”

They glared at each other for a long moment, and Faith wasn’t sure whether they were going to start fighting again or jump each other and have sex on the training room floor. She was pretty sure both had happened at least once.

“So you don’t care at all what happens to them,” Miranda accused. “You’ll be fine with him taking them back to New York and using them as toys until they die.”

Finally an edge of anger crept into David’s voice. “I never said I was fine with it. But I have considered the consequences, which apparently you have chosen to ignore. In this case the price of their lives doesn’t weigh more than all of those that would be lost in a war. They don’t outweigh the thought of Hart having you killed, or worse, in revenge. This is how it is, Miranda. The decisions we make aren’t pretty, but we have to consider the Shadow World as a whole, not just individual lives.”

Miranda slapped his sword away, and he stepped back to allow her to stand. She ignored his proffered hand up. “Individual lives are what make up our world,” she said. “If we’re not willing to step in and help when someone is suffering, then why are we even here? To maintain some bullshit social order that in the end means nothing without justice and compassion? I tell myself you’re not as heartless as you act, but sometimes I wonder if I’m wrong.”

If anyone else had tried to bait the Prime, Faith would have run for cover. David, however, simply took a deep breath, retrieved both swords, and handed Miranda hers. He took his own and wiped the blade down, then sheathed it.

He addressed Faith. “I’ll be in my workroom for the remainder of the evening.”

Without looking at or speaking to Miranda, he walked away.

Miranda’s anger seemed to deflate once he was gone, and she shook her head and went over to a bench to examine her sword.

Faith sat down next to her. Miranda still had no idea that Sophie’s motives were in question. As far as she knew, the warrior had been her teacher and friend and had died helping her. Miranda treated Sophie’s sword with reverence, even though it wasn’t the ideal weapon for her—she needed something balanced a little differently, and a little shorter. They’d tried her out on other blades, including some from Sophie’s collection, but so far nothing had been perfect enough to persuade Miranda to give up the one she had.

Miranda obviously didn’t want to talk, and that was fine, although Faith knew in a few minutes she’d probably change her mind and get angry all over again.

Before Faith could offer any sort of conciliatory advice, however, her com chimed.

“Star-three here,” Faith said.

“This is Elite Sixty-two, door guard at the guest suites. I have a situation here that needs your urgent attention.”

Miranda sat forward, listening keenly, though the guard probably had no idea she was there.

“Go ahead, Elite Sixty-two,” Faith said.

“I have a woman here from Prime Hart’s . . . entourage . . . asking to see the Queen.”

Faith and Miranda exchanged a look of shock, and Faith raised an eyebrow at her; Miranda nodded once.

“Request forwarded,” Faith replied. “Stand by for further orders.”

Miranda lifted her wrist and said, “Elite Sixty-two.”

“This is Elite Sixty-two, my Lady.”

“Bring the woman to the first-floor audience room. Keep her under heavy guard. I’ll be waiting.”

“As you will it, my Lady.”

Miranda hit the door running with Faith one step behind her.

The audience chamber was one of the most pretentious things in the Haven, but under certain circumstances it was extremely useful. It was about the size of the other meeting rooms and studies where the Pair conducted receptions and business with the visiting Primes, but it was not set up to create comfort and camaraderie; it was a royal chamber whose entire design was meant to intimidate visitors and remind them who was in control.

Primes were occasionally called upon to settle disputes among the more powerful vampires of their territory, known as the Court—those who weren’t warriors, but who were allies of the Signet, were considered noblemen and assisted the Signet in various ways. In return they were protected from gangs, hunters, and human interference in their affairs; smarter Primes like David kept up good relations with human institutions as well, particularly state and local governments, so if someone from the Court had, say, an issue with zoning laws or trade regulations, the Prime could use his influence—and occasionally his cash—to smooth things over. David had lent Elite to some of the higher-ranking vampires to help train their own personal security forces or run investigations into various forms of unrest, especially in other cities in the South where he couldn’t be a constant presence as he was in Austin.

Some of the Court were entrepreneurs, and some came from old money. David’s Court was made up of a combination of the two, weighted toward the former, as most of his friends were involved somehow in security, technology, or finance.

Vampires learned quickly that they could easily outlast their own money, and living in poverty wasn’t exactly a fun way to pass the centuries, so those who were remotely intelligent found ways to save and invest. That was part of how David had become so wealthy even before taking the Signet. He knew a good thing when he saw one and had invested in little-known start-up companies like Apple and Intel. He still had a large sum in the market, but most of it was socked away in accounts all over the world, and he could live on the interest alone for another five centuries. Miranda was entitled to half of the Signet account, but she had her own separate account for her musical earnings as well, and with David’s shrewd advice it had already grown by leaps and bounds.

Miranda and Faith made it to the audience room in less than a minute, and the Queen took her chair, to the right of the Prime’s at the far end of the room facing the doors. Aside from those two chairs the only other furniture was long benches lining the sides of the room, so that whoever came before the Pair had to stand. Their seats were elevated, as they would be in any throne room.

She really hated the place, but it seemed appropriate for the situation; there was no way to know what this woman wanted, whose side she might be on, or what her true intentions might be. David had said Hart had brought his “girls” here to taunt the Pair, and if he knew they would oppose his perversions, he might have sent her as bait. David might not think much of Miranda’s diplomatic abilities, but she wasn’t a complete idiot.

They waited a few minutes, long enough that Miranda started to wonder if the whole thing was Hart’s idea of a joke, but then there was a chime, and Faith had a brief conversation on her com.

“They’re here,” Faith said. “It took a minute because they had to find someone who speaks Italian—the girl’s English is rudimentary at best.”