Shadowflame Part 30

Sixteen.

Miranda stayed behind David as he edged slowly into the room, his eyes riveted on Deven, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

"I see by your faces you've found me out," Deven said calmly over the rim of his gla.s.s. "May I ask how?"

Wordlessly Miranda held up the scan.

Deven made an exasperated noise. "G.o.dd.a.m.n Horak. If I'd known that woman was going to cause all of this, I never would have taken his recommendation." He gestured at the other chairs. "Care to sit?"

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Miranda said. "How dare you come into our house-"

Deven rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, I know. How dare I, murdering monster I am, traitor, et cetera, et cetera. Now, both of you sit down."

Neither of the Pair budged. "I should kill you right here and now," David told him.

Deven sighed, looking down into his gla.s.s, and when he looked up there was something dark and menacing in his eyes that Miranda had never seen before. "Try," he replied. "But then you'll never have the answers you want, will you?"

"He came alone," Miranda observed. "No Elite, no Jonathan."

"Jonathan isn't a part of this," Deven said. "Well, he is, because I am, but I didn't want him involved. So if you kill me, you'll be killing him, too, and he's as close to innocent as any of us are. I doubt you want that on your conscience. So, sit."

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say," David told him coldly. "Our alliance is terminated-consider yourself at-"

"Don't say it," Deven interrupted, eyes flashing. "Don't even think it. You don't want to declare war on me, David. You couldn't win. Don't give me that look, either; you have your technological toys and your psychic parlor tricks, but I have my own ace up my sleeve . . . dozens of aces, all over the world, ready to kill at my command-anyone, anywhere, any time."

"It was you all along," David said, and Miranda could feel the sickness in his heart. "You were the Alpha. You set the a.s.sa.s.sin on Miranda."

Deven's eyes were unyielding, like steel. "I am the Alpha. I have always been the Alpha. Each and every Shadow was trained by my own hand. I recruited them from every Elite, every mercenary guild, every cla.s.s of warriors in six hundred years of history. And I would have done the same with you, darling, except I learned a long time ago not to sleep with my agents."

"What about Sophie?" Miranda asked, stepping forward. "Was she really one of yours?"

His eyes flicked toward her. "Sophia Castellano worked for me for almost one hundred years. She was one of my most talented agents, one of only four to earn the rank of Scarlet."

"Then why did she teach me if all you wanted was to kill me?" the Queen demanded.

"Why would I want to kill you, Miranda? What purpose would that serve?"

"Then what do you want?"

Deven took a long, slow breath, and said, "Marja Ovaska."

"Who?" David asked.

"Marja Ovaska is the woman who is after Miranda. She, and she alone, wants you dead, my Lady. I didn't set her on you. She has been out of the Shadow for two years."

"But no one leaves the Shadow," David said. "You said so yourself."

"No one ever had. I've trained hundreds of agents, and in all that time there has only been one way out-the sword. They die on mission or they die by my blade, but they never leave. It's a lifetime contract. Or it always was."

He set his gla.s.s down and crossed his arms, looking toward the fireplace; David and Miranda both kept their eyes on him, though he didn't seem at all concerned about it. And why should he be? He had gotten into the Haven, into their suite, completely undetected by the Elite, the servants, and the surveillance network.

"I have in the Shadow's entire history released exactly two agents alive," Deven said, his voice tempered with something Miranda realized was regret. "One was Marja Ovaska. The other was her lover . . . Sophia Castellano."

"So Sophie wasn't working for you?"

"Yes, she was."

"But you said-"

"Let him talk," David said quietly.

"Agents of the Shadow do not mingle," Deven went on. "They never see each other's faces. If they speak, it's over the phone. They all have code names. But once in a while a client needs more than one agent to get the job done. Agents 3.17 Scarlet and 4.19 Scarlet-Sophie and Marja-met on a.s.signment, by accident, and as often happens in such tragedies they fell in love, in direct defiance of protocol and knowing that I would kill them both when I found out. I had them brought to me for execution."

Miranda knew what he was going to say next; she could feel it. "You couldn't do it."

"No, d.a.m.n it. I should have. But for once in my life I allowed their sad little story to get to me. I had let myself grow attached to Sophie, fool that I am, and so I gave them a choice. They could die right then at my feet or they could each fulfill one last mission and then disappear. If I ever heard from either of them again, in any context, both of their lives were forfeit. They were to go underground and stay gone forever."

"And you believed they would?" Miranda asked.

"Of course I did. My agents are trained to go into certain death without hesitation. There's only one thing they are taught to fear: me."

"But Sophie didn't," David concluded. "She broke her end of the deal by telling Faith she was ex-Shadow."

Again, Deven rolled his eyes. "Please. Sophie was no fool. And she was no drunk. She was stone cold sober when she met Faith."

"Then why . . ."

"Why do you think?" Deven snapped. "Put it together, Prime. My Consort has the strongest precognitive gift in the Council. He knew you were going to take the South. Don't you think he knew you would eventually find a Queen?"

"I don't understand," David said.

But Miranda did. "You a.s.signed her to me," she said softly. "Sophie's last work for you was to train me. War was coming . . . Jonathan saw it. And he knew that I had to be ready. If it weren't for Sophie-for you-I wouldn't be here."

Deven met her eyes, and his gaze finally seemed to lose some of its hardness. "Her job was to make sure you were strong enough and had the skills you needed to help put you in the right place at the right time to become Queen. As soon as that happened she could vanish."

"But she died in the battle . . ."

"She should never have been there. She was under orders not to go anywhere near the Haven itself, but to train you, then show you the way home and get the h.e.l.l out." The Prime held her eyes. "She believed in you enough to go off mission . . . and then she died before she and Marja could be free."

"What was Marja's last mission?" Miranda asked, holding back tears.

"Irrelevant. But if Sophie had done as I told her and left you to fight your own way into the Haven that night, Ovaska would never have been heard from again."

Finally, Miranda sat down, head in her hands. "Sophie died . . . and now Marja wants me dead . . . to avenge her lover."

David asked, "How long have you known?"

Miranda looked up to see Deven shrug. "Not as long as I should have. I suspected Marja might be involved as soon as you mentioned a connection to Finland, but I wasn't sure until I hauled in Volundr, interrogated him myself, and then sent him to you."

"You let me torture Volundr even though you knew who we were looking for?"

Deven made an impatient noise. "I didn't think you'd have to torture the old toad. I paid him a ridiculous sum to tell you the truth-both Ovaska's ident.i.ty and what he knew about her location-but apparently his loyalties have shifted. Your people took him back to California and he vanished-along with an entire order of blades I had already paid for, incidentally. You've cost me a f.u.c.kton of money."

Miranda was shaking her head, not sure whether to laugh at the absurdity of it all or scream herself sick. "All those people . . . Jake, Denise, Drew . . . they all died . . . Kat almost died . . . because I got Sophie killed."

"You did nothing of the kind," Deven contradicted her, though his tone wasn't attempting anything like comfort. "Sophie died in battle the way warriors have throughout history, and by her own choice. Ovaska wants someone to blame. She knows she can't kill me, but you are still vulnerable because you're young and rash and have human friends who are easily killed. She sized up your defenses in that first attack and planned out how to destroy you piece by piece. My agents are dangerous sociopaths who will do anything, kill anyone, torture or maim anybody if it means reaching the objective. Even Sophie was willing to paint a giant target on her head by telling Faith who she had worked for-she knew it was the only way Faith would believe that she had the skills necessary for your training."

"Oh, G.o.d," Miranda said, her memory suddenly intruding. She looked up at David helplessly. "The night of the battle, when we were watching you fight, she said she'd only ever seen one other vampire with your combat style. She was talking about Deven."

"That's right," Deven said. "The one who trained both David and Sophie."

David sat down beside Miranda, seeking her hand, but spoke to Deven. "What I don't understand here is why, Deven. Why would you intervene in Miranda's future? Why give Sophie that a.s.signment?"

Deven sighed. "Miranda, if you wouldn't mind?"

Miranda wiped her eyes and said, "Because he loves you, David. And the only way to pay you back for how badly he treated you years ago was to make sure you found your own Consort . . . to make sure you were happy."

"You were never supposed to have any idea I was involved. I had hoped to hunt down Marja and have her eliminated before anything else happened," Deven said, and for a wonder he sounded sincere. "I am sorry for the loss of your friends."

"How exactly were you going to track her down from California?" David demanded coldly. "You don't have that kind of technology."

Deven smiled. "What do you think we did before computers? Good old-fashioned detective work. I happen to have many highly trained detectives at my disposal."

"You have an agent here in Austin?"

The smile turned wicked. "I have an agent in your house."

David blinked. "Bulls.h.i.t."

Deven removed his cell phone from his coat pocket, giving Miranda a glimpse of the array of weaponry he wore. He touched the phone's screen several times, saying, "Before you ask-Hart's troubles have nothing to do with me. My people don't use earpieces; like I said, they're impractical. I would like to know who's hara.s.sing him, though. It tickles me."

A moment later there was a knock at the door. "Come in," David called without his eyes leaving Deven's face. Miranda could feel the tumble of anger, shock, and pain from her Prime, making her own confusion that much worse. She wanted to put her arms around him, but she was frozen in place, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And drop it did.

Deven spoke again. "Allow me to introduce 5.23 Claret," he said.

The door opened.

"Oh my G.o.d," Miranda said. "Lali?"

The bodyguard bowed to the Pair, then again to Deven.

"Don't be angry at her," Deven said, gesturing for Lali to come stand beside his chair. "Everything about her, as your bodyguard, is true. She would die to defend you. She is in fact very fond of you. You seem to inspire that kind of devotion, my Lady."

"You've been working for me for ten years," David said to the Elite, completely thunderstruck by the revelation.

Lalita nodded. "Yes, Sire. But I have been working for the Alpha for two hundred. My loyalty to you is superseded only by my loyalty to him."

"There's no way you could have known," Deven told David. "Her history, her qualifications, all of it was authentic . . . just incomplete."

"How in h.e.l.l do you communicate?"

Lali smiled. "Mostly via encoded pictures of cute animals."

"Now, then," Deven said, "enough chatter. Let's get to why I'm here."

"Not to tell us the truth?" David asked.

"Of course not. If I had been successful in taking out Ovaska myself, I would never have let on I was involved. In six centuries exactly three people besides the agents themselves have known who I was-Jonathan, and now you two."

"I could expose you," David said in a low voice, the anger making its way out past his defenses.

Deven sat forward, hands clasped, and glared into David's eyes. "Again . . . try it."

Miranda looked from one Prime to the other, took a deep breath, and asked, "How is Ovaska getting past our sensor network?"

Deven didn't avert his eyes from David's until David lowered his. "Magic," he replied. "Volundr made something for her. He wouldn't tell me how it worked, but he said he'd given her a set of seven amulets that would shield her from any form of detection except plain sight. The spell had a limited life span; each disc would last only a few days once activated."

David and Miranda exchanged a look. "She's used up most of them already," Miranda said, "unless she has another supplier."

"That is ridiculous," David responded. "Amulets, spells-there's no such thing."

Deven chuckled. "Darling, sometimes I think it's a good thing you're so pretty."

David looked like he was about to leap up and throttle Deven, but he didn't. "Tell us what you came to tell us, then, and get the h.e.l.l out of my house."

Deven sat back, retrieving his whiskey. "You're angry."

"d.a.m.n right I am! I've known you almost a hundred years, and you never told me you were running the most notorious network of a.s.sa.s.sins in the world. You had a spy in my Haven all this time, and you've had your dirty little hands in every aspect of our lives. For all I know everything you're telling me now is a lie. You even broke into this house and got past my guards-"

"I Misted," Deven said simply. "This isn't exactly Hogwarts, you know. You might want to adjust your sensors in some way to account for the abilities of a Prime, although I doubt you have to worry about anyone else sneaking in here solo."

Then he rose, taking out his phone. "As to why I'm here . . . I brought you this."

He held up the phone so the Pair could see the screen: a map with a single red dot in its center.

"This is where you'll find Marja Ovaska," Deven told them. "Thanks to Volundr's information and Lalita's excellent investigative work, I finally managed to pin down her location yesterday. I didn't want to trust this information to e-mail, so as soon as I could, I flew in. I want to be there when you find her. At sunset I'll take you there, and a.s.suming she isn't on to us, you can kill her yourself."

"Why should we trust you?" David wanted to know.

"Trust me, don't trust me, whatever suits you. But if you don't act on this information, more people will die, up to and including both of you. Help me to help you, David. I made this mess. Help me clean it up."