Miranda started to call David, but even as her finger pulled up his number, Minh said from the front seat, “Rio Verde, my Lady. We’ll be at the address you gave me in five minutes.”
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, then louder, “Thank you.”
It would have to wait a couple of hours. She wasn’t sure which she wanted to deal with less—her sister or Jonathan’s doomsday predictions. Both made her stomach hurt and her heart feel heavy. Neither promised a good day’s sleep nor any sort of satisfaction.
She took another deep breath to try to ground out some of her anxiety. This at least would be over with soon. By morning she’d be home again, in Austin where she belonged.
• • •
Miranda got out of the car and stood in the driveway for a minute, staring at the house, feeling . . . she wasn’t sure what.
The house looked the same, and not. The property was a little shabbier overall, though the lawn was still perfectly manicured. The same black mailbox she had run to every afternoon to grab the bills and circulars for her mother was still on its brick pedestal by the road. Even the house numbers still hung where they always had, though they had rusted: 2219.
Minh and Stuart disembarked behind her and waited for her orders. She gestured for them to follow—she intended to have them wait outside but knew David would have a coronary if she left them in the car altogether. With everything they’d been through, she was a lot less likely to dismiss his concerns for her safety than she would have been in the past.
She had two knives under her coat, just in case. She hadn’t wanted to wear Shadowflame into such close quarters where there would, no doubt, be awkward questions, but hell if she was going anywhere unarmed. If she did, David and Deven would
both
have coronaries.
Rio Verde hadn’t stood the test of time very well. The town was in a slow and steady decline since Paragon Petroleum had closed up shop and withdrawn to Houston. Young people didn’t move here anymore . . . except for her sister.
She rang the bell; no answer. She frowned and tried again. Still no answer. They knew she was coming; she’d gotten an e-mail from Marianne that very morning verifying the time.
Miranda was just about to take out her phone when she heard the deadbolt shoot back and, a second later, a pale face peered out at her.
They stared at each other: the prodigal daughter, the good daughter. Marianne looked like she had aged a hundred years—she was thin and worn-looking, with dark circles under her eyes and a dullness in both her eyes and hair. Marianne hadn’t inherited their mother’s coloring; she had their father’s olive skin, brown eyes, and brown hair. Still, once upon a time Stephen Grey had been a handsome man, and Marianne had a sort of classic beauty Miranda had envied throughout their teenage years. Now, though . . .
“Oh, you’re here,” Marianne said vaguely. “Come in.”
Something in her tone set off warning bells in Miranda’s mind. “Wait . . . are you all right?”
Marianne looked at her again, and for just a second Miranda saw something in her eyes that made the warning bells double in volume and echo throughout her being:
fear
. “Yeah, fine. Come on in. He’s awake.”
Taking a deep breath, Miranda turned back to her bodyguards. “Minh, stay out here and keep watch. Stuart, with me.”
Marianne stepped back to let her into the house, and as she lifted her arm to open the door her sleeve fell back. Miranda didn’t allow her reaction to show, but she knew what she was looking at. Track marks.
Right then Miranda wanted to be anywhere but in that house.
Marianne ushered her into the living room. Miranda looked around, swallowing her unease, trying to digest the strangeness of the sight before her. It felt like she’d stepped back in time. The room was exactly as she remembered it, down to the photographs hanging over the fireplace. She saw her own face, and her mother’s, all around her, frozen at different points in time, the frames filmed with dust.
Behind her Marianne shut the door and locked it, startling Miranda.
“How are George and Jenny?” Miranda asked, unable to stand the weird silence any longer.
“George is in Plano,” Marianne replied. “We’re separated.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be,” Mari said flatly. “He’s an asshole.”
Miranda had to laugh at that. “Well, yeah, but I wasn’t going to say so.”
“Jenny’s . . .” Marianne took a deep breath, and Miranda saw that flicker of fear again. “She’s in second grade now.”
“Is she living with George, or with you?”
“Right now she’s . . .” Marianne shook her head, denying what Miranda couldn’t guess. “She’s fine. Come on, let’s get this over with while he’s still lucid.”
Miranda followed her through the living room into the hallway, past what had once been their bedrooms, to the extra room that had served as Marilyn’s art studio once upon a time. Miranda could smell antiseptic, and the closer they got the stronger other smells grew: that indefinable odor of old age, and another that she recognized as that hospital smell of sickness and soiled linen. She could hear monitors beeping quietly.
Marianne stood back and let her go in first. Miranda had to force herself; she was beginning to understand what a colossal mistake this was. She shouldn’t have come. What did she have to prove to these people?
“I’m sorry,” Marianne said softly behind her. “I’m sorry.”
Miranda turned back to her. “What?”
Marianne was crying, melting back against the wall. “They have Jenny. They have Jenny. I’m sorry.”
The Queen felt something thud into her back.
She spun around and felt another impact, this one in her shoulder. The pain hit a few seconds behind as a third, then fourth, then fifth shaft struck her torso.
Crossbows. It must be—
She didn’t have time to finish the thought, and she didn’t have time to draw a weapon. Someone moved up behind her, something struck the back of her head, and she knew no more.
• • •
“You are without a doubt one of the oddest men I’ve ever met,” Olivia noted.
David smiled. “Why do you say that?”
“Tell me everything you’re doing right at this moment.”
“Well, I’m talking to you, and I’m creating a comparative data matrix from sensors in Sacramento and those in Austin as well as from observational data from the attack on Varati in Mumbai so we can get a better idea of the physical limits of Morningstar’s thugs—in a few minutes I’ll have the first stab at an upgrade for the sensor network that can register that specific variety of human. I’m also refining the software that runs the camera I used for Miranda’s
Rolling Stone
interview. And I’m reverse-engineering the earpieces to see if any of the technology will be useful for my own communication system.”
“And?”
“And what? Oh, right—I’m also working my way through a pint of Rocky Road.”
Olivia was laughing. “I rest my case.”
“I’m not odd,” David replied. “I’m just busy. Three hundred fifty years is enough time to develop a lot of hobbies. I collected stamps for a while.”
The scanner in front of him beeped, and he set aside the mostly empty pint and returned his attention to the earpiece. He’d examined several of them since all this had started, but most had the same kind of explosive charge hidden inside as the first one he’d opened; he’d finally worked out a way to disable the charge, but the first two times the laser hadn’t been calibrated exactly and he’d destroyed them. This time it seemed to be working—steady as his hands were, he was having much better luck using an automated mechanical arm he’d borrowed from Hunter Development to do the cutting.
He heard someone speak to her, and she sighed and said, “I have to go—we’ve had Elite trials going on all evening and my First Lieutenant has a group of finalists for me to look over.”
“Good luck,” David told her. “Call if you need anything.”
“Will do.”
As he hung up, David paused to check on the computer running the comparison matrix of Morningstar data; it was still happily plugging along. It had taken a couple of hours to write the program itself, but actually running it took no effort on his part except to keep an eye on it for glitches.
He started to return his attention to both the laser and the ice cream—
—and between one breath and another, pain lanced through his body, a dozen burning points of entry he recognized immediately as crossbow bolts at close range. He tried to stand, but the pain was so intense none of his limbs were cooperating, and only through all of his will did he manage to grab the edge of the table and avoid hitting his head.
The room swam in and out of focus. He couldn’t think—he knew that it wasn’t he who was injured, and the intensity of the pain told him he wasn’t catching echoes from New York, Prague, or Sacramento. So far his awareness of the others’ emotions and pain had been minimal—and he was fine with that—but that meant there was only one place it could be coming from. Miranda.
Terror overwhelmed the pain. She was five hours away. By the time he reached Rio Verde, even breaking every speed limit in Texas, it would be too late to stop whatever they had planned for her.
Sinking to his knees, he groped for the phone. Miranda’s phone went straight to voice mail; he changed contacts.
It didn’t even finish the first ring. “What the hell is happening over there?”
David ignored the question. “Tell me you have a Shadow operative closer than five hours to Rio Verde.”
“Shit, David, I don’t even know where Rio Verde
is
. Give me a minute.”
He closed his eyes, trying to breathe, trying desperately not to panic. She was alive; she must be. The pain from the bolts was still screaming at him, but it hadn’t gotten worse. They most likely had shot her down and then dragged her into captivity.
“The closest I have is Houston,” Deven said. “That’s still three hours out.”
“That’s two hours closer than I am. Send them—please. I don’t know what else to do.”
“I already gave the order. What could have happened to her in that crappy little town?”
“It has to be Morningstar.” David grabbed the table again and dragged himself to his feet. He picked up the phone with one hand while calling Harlan on his com. “Elite Five.”
“Yes, Sire?”
“This is an emergency,” he said. “Have the second Escalade out front in five minutes.”
“As you will it, Sire.”
The guards outside the workroom gave him looks that were both quizzical and worried as he half-staggered past them. The only thought in his mind,
Get to Miranda
, played on repeat so loudly in his head it crowded out the pain.
He had no doubt that Deven could feel his rising panic. “Keep breathing,” Deven said. “She’ll be fine—she can take care of herself.”
“It’s going to be too late,” David panted. He reached the front doors of the Haven, where Harlan already had the vehicle waiting. There was so much they could do to Miranda in five hours . . . assuming they didn’t just kill her . . . she was in pain . . . He had to have faith that whichever Shadow operative Deven had sent could save her.
“Just get on the road,” Deven commanded. “I have an idea . . . let me call you back.”
“But what—”
Deven hung up before David could finish the question, and David climbed into the SUV, saying, “We’re going to Rio Verde. I want you to get there as fast as possible.”
“Yes, Sire. On our way.”
Harlan had the car on the highway in less than ten minutes. By then the pain from the crossbow bolts had become a continuous low-level ache, but he knew better than to think Miranda was safe—most likely she was unconscious. It gave him the clarity of mind to call the Houston satellite garrison and order a team of Elite to head for Rio Verde as well. He didn’t know what they would be driving into, but he had to assume he’d need reinforcements.
After that there was nothing he could do but wait and send as much reassurance down the bond as he could, trying to reach her even if she couldn’t reply, just to let her know help was coming, and no matter what darkness her attackers had dreamed up for her, she wasn’t alone.
Six
The Queen woke alone.
At first, nothing made sense. Her body hurt; she had felt that variety of pain before, and knew it for what it was, but when she focused on one of the wounds, she couldn’t heal it. When she tried to move her arm, agony stabbed through her wrist, forcing her to lie still and bite down on her tongue to stop a scream. And though she could smell the metal-and-petrochemicals reek of a warehouse of some sort around her, directly above the night sky was exposed.
Think, Queen. Think. How long have I been out? What happened?
Marianne. Marianne had sold her out to Morningstar—Miranda had figured out that much before she lost consciousness. The Order had Jenny and threatened to harm the child if Marianne didn’t lure Miranda into the ambush.
The room began to solidify around her. She tried to focus on the details to help her ignore the pain. It wasn’t a warehouse—not big enough, and the floor was dirt, not concrete. It smelled like it had once held large machinery. But why she’d be able to see the sky, she didn’t . . . know . . .
Oh God.
She was in a cage, or rather, a pen with eight-foot sides, open at the top. The ceiling of the building had been partially removed in a square about the size of the pen. She was on the ground, on her back, directly beneath the hole . . . staked to the ground. Up above her, the night was beginning to pale.
They were going to burn her alive.
A deep, instinctive fear shuddered through her, and before she could stop herself she tried to jerk her arms free, but the wood shafts nailed through them holding her on the ground sent such pain through her body that she cried out. She felt the wood penetrating her arm, separating tendon and bone, injuries that would cripple a human at the very least. She moaned softly and tried to hold still.
The sound seemed to summon whoever was guarding her. She heard bootsteps approaching the cage. She finally turned her attention to the rest of the room and counted at least ten others by sound and scent. She didn’t look at them; she didn’t want them to see her afraid.