Shadowflame Part 29

. . . and next thing she knew she was tumbling onto the sidewalk outside the school, forcing herself not to be sick as she scrambled to her feet and drew her sword.

David and Faith both sat in front of the screen while Novotny pulled up the scanned images of the sc.r.a.p of paper Janousek had left.

"I apologize for the delay in getting this finished," the doctor said. "We had a h.e.l.l of a time with it. The paper's so damaged by age and improper preservation it's a miracle there was any ink left at all."

David nodded. "I understand. I wasn't even sure you'd be able to do it."

Novotny chuckled. "Of course we could. It just required some creativity on our part. But that's why you pay us so well, Sire."

"True."

"Now, then." He tapped his touch pad and the image of the paper appeared, exactly as it had been when David brought it in, but laid over a grid of red light. "Here you see both sides in their original state. Upon first glance there are three things visible: the number 4.19, part of a word, and on the other side, a symbol of some kind. We broke the image down into individual pixels, as you see here, and then had the computer match areas of equal pigmentation, rendering each in its own shade."

The first side of the paper, with the number on it, was magnified as Novotny spoke, demonstrating what he was talking about. "We concentrated on the darkest areas and ran them through several filters to sharpen the image."

Rows of pixels changed color, moving from the top of the image to the bottom, and the writing became clearer. It was handwritten, and the number 4.19 was much clearer; beneath it, David could just barely make out a word. "Scarlet," he said.

"Yes. We ran the number 4.19 through our database trying to match it to known organizations, codes, and significant dates, but got nothing. I would a.s.sume that scarlet refers to the Red Shadow."

"What about the other side?"

"That was a lot harder, but we did the same to it, and came up with this."

Novotny spun the image around and flipped it, showing what amounted to half of a symbol on the screen.

David sat forward, his mouth falling open.

Beside him, Faith asked, "Is that what I think it is?"

"Show me the other side again," David commanded.

Novotny shrugged and complied.

"Oh, G.o.d."

Faith stared at the Prime. "What?"

David put his hand over his mouth, his heart frozen in his chest. It was a moment before he could speak. "I know that handwriting."

Just then, his phone tolled out a network alarm, as both his and Faith's coms burst to life and her phone began to ring.

Miranda let her instincts guide her around the side of the building to an unlit entrance that had obviously been jimmied open. Her mind still swimming from the Mist, she slid in the door, all her senses going into predator mode. Her vision morphed into blues and purples in the darkness, showing her details no mortal could see from tiny cracks in the plaster to the footprints of mice on the tile.

It was ten o'clock at night, and the building should have been empty. It was a small charter school that specialized in fine arts and languages, and Drew taught music both during the day and for free in the evenings to underprivileged kids. There were only three cla.s.srooms and a few offices. She'd been there twice before when she was still human.

She listened intently, extending her energy along the hallway to look for life signs. She might be wrong . . . Drew might already have left . . .

She heard a scream.

Miranda broke into a run, following the tortured sound to the last cla.s.sroom branching off the hallway. There was faint light coming from the door; she remembered that the cla.s.srooms had windows along one wall.

She burst into the room snarling.

Desks had been shoved in all directions; in the center of the chaos a figure crouched over another, and the smell of blood hit Miranda's nostrils with the force of a gale wind.

The figure turned and rose, and Miranda heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

"You," Miranda hissed.

The a.s.sa.s.sin smiled nastily but didn't speak. It was, without doubt, the same woman who had shot Miranda-even without her wig or the librarian gla.s.ses, Miranda knew her face.

Behind the woman, a phone began to ring-Miranda's eyes darted to the cell phone on the floor, then to Drew's outstretched hand, and the blood flowing from the wrist that the woman had only partially managed to slice before being interrupted. From the amount of blood he had to have other wounds, and Miranda could tell he'd been beaten-he had tried to put up a fight, but against a vampire with a sword, there was no chance. She saw Drew's agonized face, felt him about to scream again.

Miranda spared a thread of power to take hold of Drew's mind and calm him, to let him know it would be all right, that help was coming-but she didn't have time to speak before the a.s.sa.s.sin took advantage of her distraction and dove in for the attack.

The Queen threw herself into the fight, dodging the woman's sword by a scant half inch and spinning around to counter the stroke.

Miranda knew from the beginning that she was outmatched, but she didn't care. All she had to do was keep the woman here until the others arrived, and the building would be surrounded with Elite. David would be there any moment, too, and although Miranda might not be able to take the woman down, he sure as h.e.l.l could.

They fought from one end of the cla.s.sroom to the other, the a.s.sa.s.sin shoving desks at her, Miranda jumping over them and meeting her sword slash for slash.

She could feel Drew weakening. She urged him to take his jacket off and press the fabric against his wrist-he was too far in shock to think of it on his own, but under her influence he did as she commanded, holding the jacket with a shaking hand. Miranda could hear someone speaking . . . the phone? Yes, it was Kat's voice-Drew must have answered it.

The woman made for the door, and Miranda flung herself toward it, reaching out with her mind to try to grab the nearest desk and pull it in the way; she saw it scoot a few inches, but that was all the concentration she could manage in the middle of a fight, and she ran for the doorway on the woman's heels.

The shadows inside the door frame seemed to shift and coalesce.

The Prime walked into the room, sword already drawn, and the woman changed course at the last second to avoid slamming into him; she skidded on the concrete floor and nearly lost her footing but got control back in time to parry the Prime's attack and double back toward Miranda.

For a few seconds the woman was caught between Prime and Queen, but Faith's voice erupted from the coms: "Incoming!"

David grabbed Miranda's arm and hauled her to the floor. They both dropped flat just in time with the sounds of shattering gla.s.s from the wall of windows, the click and whistle of a half-dozen crossbows, and the singing of wood through the air.

Miranda craned her neck to see two of the stakes. .h.i.t the woman-one in her shoulder, one in her chest to the left of her heart. She flew backward, her sword clattering to the ground, the light catching off something shiny at her neck that also fell as she stumbled.

Miranda was sure she would fall, but by some twisted miracle, the woman stayed on her feet, blood streaming down her torso. She looked over and met Miranda's eyes.

"Give my regards to the Alpha," she hissed.

Then she ran forward, throwing herself into the gla.s.s wall and tackling one of the Elite who had fired at her. The two hit the ground hard, but the woman used the Elite's body as a springboard and sprinted past the others, who were immediately after her.

"Tracking!" Faith said. "We've got her on the network, Sire! Four units in pursuit."

Miranda pushed herself up to her hands and knees and got across the floor to Drew. She was about to com out for an ambulance, but she could already hear sirens in the distance; Faith, or David, must have called already.

"Drew," Miranda said. "Drew, can you hear me?"

She knelt next to him, tears already coming to her eyes. There was so much blood. Miranda quickly cataloged the visible injuries: hand severed, stab wounds in his stomach and shoulder . . . there was at least one penetrating wound to his lower back, maybe his kidney, but she didn't want to risk turning him over.

David joined her. His face had that blank expressionless look that Miranda recognized, and her heart sank.

"Keep pressure on the wound," he said quietly.

Their eyes met over Drew's battered body. Miranda knew what he was thinking. There was too much blood, and they had no healer. He'd been lying there bleeding for nearly ten minutes and it would take an ambulance another two to reach them.

"Miranda . . ." Drew whispered raggedly. "Give . . . give me the phone . . . please."

Miranda grabbed the cell and said into it, "Kat? Kat, honey, are you still there?"

Kat practically screamed, "What's happening? Miranda, where is he?"

"Here." Miranda choked on a sob, lowering the phone to Drew's face.

"Hey, baby," he said, coughing. His breath came in shallow gasps.

Miranda could hear Kat talking to him, could hear her crying.

"It's okay," Drew said. "Kat . . . just listen to me."

Miranda could hear the paramedics coming down the hall.

"I love you," Drew told Kat. "Very much. The baby, too. I think . . . you're going to make a great mom. I love you."

Softly, Miranda heard Kat say the same to him.

"Thanks," Drew managed weakly, looking up at Miranda. "Take care of her, okay?"

Miranda nodded. "I promise."

"Good . . . that's good . . ." His fingers barely returned the pressure of Miranda's, then slowly relaxed . . .

. . . and it was over.

The paramedics and two additional units of Elite entered the cla.s.sroom to find the Queen weeping into the Prime's arms, as both knelt in a broad pool of blood, and a woman sobbed quietly over the phone that lay on the floor.

Miranda stared dumbly at the printout David had given her, trying to understand what she was seeing. Her wornout, bewildered mind simply refused to accept it.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"I don't know," the Prime replied. He looked as exhausted and heartsick as she felt. "I honestly don't know."

Outside the car windows' heavy tint, the countryside scrolled by. Miranda wanted nothing more than to fall asleep and not wake up until the world made sense again. She was completely drained, both from the fight with the a.s.sa.s.sin and from her first real Mist-it was remarkable she hadn't ended up scattered across Austin. Between that and the weight of sorrow and guilt from Drew's death, she was perilously close to losing it.

It was only an hour before sunrise, and Harlan was breaking several traffic laws to get them home before it began to get light out. Dealing with the police had taken a lot longer than Miranda expected-the first responders had not been the people the Haven normally dealt with, and they wanted to take a lot of pictures and ask a lot of questions that were unnecessary and tedious. Finally David had simply called the chief of police and cut through all the red tape.

Kat had been taken to the Hausmann for observation in case the trauma had affected the baby, but so far all she'd done was sit and stare off into s.p.a.ce, barely rousing enough to answer when the paramedics asked her for details that she hadn't been able to give. She had, as Miranda had asked, stayed in the car until the Queen came to her and led her over to the gurney to provide a positive ID on Drew's body. She had nodded at the police and then gone essentially unresponsive.

Miranda had directed the Elite to make sure Kat was brought to the Haven as soon as the doctors deemed her fit, probably the next evening.

Finally, the Pair had headed home. They had changed into the spare set of clothes that they kept in the trunk, so at least Miranda didn't have to spend the whole drive back to the Haven soaked in Drew's blood, but she could still smell it, though she'd washed her hands and face and everything she could in the school's restroom.

"This is how it goes, isn't it?" Miranda said softly, staring out the car window. "One by one we lose everyone we knew."

David looked at her, and she could tell he wanted to be rea.s.suring but couldn't lie to her. "That's what we are, beloved. We stand outside time and watch it slowly consume everything. My son died, his children died, their children died . . . the line continues, spread throughout the gene pool, but everything that made me human has long since faded."

She half smiled. "You're still more human than most of the men I've ever known."

"Thank you."

"I don't know if I can do this," she said.

"You can. You are Queen, Miranda. The strength you need is part of who you are."

"Sophie told me once that this life was a gift, and that I had to think long and hard about whether I was worthy, because there was no giving it back."

She looked down at the sword that lay across her lap, and the one lying on the floorboard wrapped in fabric-the a.s.sa.s.sin's blade. "I wasn't fast enough to kill her," Miranda lamented. "I wish I could have. I wish I had seen her bleed to death instead of Drew."

"So do I."

"What did Faith say?"

David sighed. "They lost her trail. She dropped off the network again about two miles into the pursuit, then detoured and disappeared into the city. After that it was so close to dawn I had to call them back. By dusk whatever trail is left will be cold."

"But she showed up on the sensors for a few minutes . . . why?"

"I think this has something to do with it." He held up the thing that had fallen from the woman's neck: a silver disk on a chain with some kind of script carved into it. "Whatever it is, I think it disrupts the network signal. After she dropped it, we could track her, but somehow she got her hands on another one, or had a spare she activated. I sent images of it to Novotny, and I'm going to run the symbols through my database before I hand it over to him."

"Why bother?" she asked. "We already know who's behind it, David."

He met her eyes. "We might be wrong."

The car slowed, then stopped, and a moment later the door opened. Lali stood by while they disembarked, then shut the doors and went ahead of them into the Haven with Aaron to clock off duty for the night.

"I thought you said you were sure," Miranda said, falling into step beside David as they walked down the hall to their suite.

David's face and voice both were bleak. "I'm sure. G.o.d help us, but I'm sure. The symbol, the handwriting . . . I've seen both a thousand times."

As David nodded to their door guards and opened the door into their suite, Miranda looked down at the page still in her hand, an image of the back side of Janousek's sc.r.a.p of paper, which had been digitally restored by Novotny's people. She had never seen the symbol before, but she had heard of it: A waning crescent moon and the Greek symbol of infinity.

David froze midstride and made a feline hissing noise. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Miranda nearly ran into him but stopped in time to look over his shoulder into their suite.

There, sitting calmly in one of the chairs by the fire, sipping a gla.s.s of whiskey, was the Alpha.

"h.e.l.lo, darling," Deven said.