The officers within the vicinity, as one, froze in the middle of whatever they were doing as someone rolled back the yellow tape to let in the strangest people most of them would ever see in this city—and that was saying something in a place like Austin.
Four black-clad individuals surrounded a central figure, a man in a long black coat, wildly out of place this time of year. They were all pale and sharp-eyed, instantly sizing up every potential threat.
They stuck close to their fifth member, who walked like a man who was used to getting his way; in fact, when one of the officers started to protest their presence, the man fixed her with his deep, shadowed blue eyes, and she went stark white, stammered, and moved out of the way.
Maguire held back a smile.
“Detective.” David Solomon, Prime of the Southern United States, gave him a nod of acknowledgment. “You called?”
Maguire was a decorated military man who had been a beat cop for ten years and a detective for six, and as good as he was at being intimidating, he would never understand what it was about the Prime that commanded attention so completely. Other vampires were plenty scary, but they didn’t make everyone stop and stare like God had just walked into the room.
“I need you to have a look at this,” Maguire said. He gestured at the table where the ME had already arrived and was preparing to take the body back to the morgue.
“Is it an Alpha Seven?” Solomon asked, following him over.
“I don’t think so—it’s a little weird.”
A raised eyebrow. “Coming from you, Detective, that’s disturbing.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
When they reached the table, the Prime drew up short. “Son of a bitch.”
“What is it?” Maguire asked.
Solomon stood over the body, his face unreadable, looking down at the man who had been left there—a white-blond young man in his mid to late twenties. The body was badly beaten, and one wrist looked to have been slashed, but there was no obvious cause of death unless it was exsanguination; odder still, the ME hadn’t been able to estimate a time of death, because it appeared to her that the body had been kept in cold storage that delayed the onset of decay. The wounds suggested a battle or crime of passion, but keeping a corpse in a fridge suggested something else altogether.
But what had caused Maguire to call the Haven, what gave him a feeling of unease he couldn’t shake, was what lay on the man’s chest: a heavy chain, an amulet, set with the shattered remains of some kind of stone.
“This is definitely out of your jurisdiction,” the Prime said.
“I was afraid you’d say that. What do you need me to do?”
Solomon reached down and picked up the broken amulet. The ME and several of the Crime Scene Unit people started to dive toward him, each probably ready to yell something about disturbing the evidence, but Solomon merely held up his other hand, and they all fell silent.
He ignored the police completely and stared at the amulet for a minute, troubled.
Maguire moved closer so they wouldn’t be as easy to overhear. “Is that what I think it is?”
“A Signet, yes.”
Something in his face made Maguire ask, “Did you know this man?”
The Prime looked at Maguire. “He killed me.”
“Holy shit—that’s the guy? Well, do you know who killed him?”
Solomon made a slow circuit around the table, eyes narrowed. “I know exactly who killed him,” he said. “I just don’t know what they gained from it.”
“Is there any point in an autopsy?” Maguire asked quietly.
“Do not let them do an autopsy,” Solomon said firmly, pitching his voice just loudly enough for Maguire to hear. “Do whatever you have to do to make this body disappear—get it out in the sunlight and have the paperwork misplaced. I don’t want the medical examiner running tests. I would take it, but I fear that would create more questions than a clerical error. You should have called me before the rest of them got here.”
“I would have, but I wasn’t the first one on the scene,” Maguire replied. “Somebody called it in to 911. They sent one unit and the officers called the cavalry. Trust me, I would have left it to you.”
“Someone called it in,” the Prime repeated thoughtfully. “Someone made sure the body was found before dawn burned it away.”
“Huh. You’re right. And that means—”
“They wanted me to see it.” Solomon nodded to himself, then said, tucking the Signet in his coat, “This is all I need, Detective. I leave the rest to you.”
“Great. This should be easy.” Maguire gave him a wry grin. “Glad to have you back in the world, Solomon.”
He smiled at Maguire—the sort of smile that made Maguire doubly glad the Prime was on his side. “I am glad to be back. Good night, Detective.”
He nodded to his Elite, who fell back into step on all sides of him, and the five vampires walked away, leaving a scene full of detectives, officers, and medical examiners staring at each other with wide eyes.
• • •
Silence on the other end of the line.
After a moment David asked, “Are you all right?”
He heard her take a deep breath. “Yes. It’s . . . it’s really not a surprise. Now we know for sure.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you cared for him.”
Across the country, in her new Haven in New York, Prime Olivia Daniels laughed a little, and he could practically hear her shaking her head. “Only you would feel bad that the man who murdered you was murdered. Have you told the others?”
“Not yet. I wanted you to know first.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
Now he could hear her smiling. “Not unless you can alter time, speed up the harvest, or teleport me off this rock,” she quoted.
David couldn’t help it—he laughed, surprised. “Did you just
Star Wars
me?”
“You’re not the only nerd in the world, you know.”
Despite the situation, he was grinning as they hung up. He looked across the bedroom to where Miranda sat cross-legged on the bed with her laptop; she was giving him a knowing look.
“What?” he asked.
Now she smiled. “Nothing. I just think it’s cute that the first female Prime in Signet history has a crush on you.”
“Wait . . . what?”
She giggled at the look on his face. “Oh, come on—you really didn’t know?”
David shook his head. “I never thought about it.”
Miranda was still laughing. “Don’t look so panicked, baby. It’s just flirty. Not a big deal.”
He tried to come up with something to say that would assure her she was wrong, but contradicting an empath about emotional matters was like trying to tell him how the Internet worked.
Olivia was a strong and extremely attractive woman, of course—not conventionally beautiful, perhaps, but he really had no use for convention. She had seen him through a violently painful transformation and taken care of him when he had no memory of who he was. He really did enjoy talking to her, but he’d assumed it was because she was a new Prime and he liked helping her get settled. But now that he thought about it . . .
oh hell
.
“I really do think it’s cute,” Miranda told him, this time without laughing. “There’s nothing wrong with you being attracted to somebody. People are going to be hot for you no matter what—I mean, you have
seen
you, right? If I got uppity every time that happened, I’d never have a moment’s peace. And let’s not forget this link we all have as part of Persephone’s Circle; I’m sure that factors in. We’ve all got some weird emotional attachments to each other, but really, all either of you wants is a friend.”
He half smiled. “That’s true. And . . . she reminds me so much of Faith, sometimes, it’s almost uncanny. Except I don’t think Faith would ever have been comfortable as a Prime, constantly in the spotlight—and Olivia is taking to it remarkably, like a cat to a keyboard.”
“You know, if you would work with your empathy a little instead of ignoring it, you would have figured it out yourself.”
David sighed. “I don’t want empathy, Miranda. I saw what it did to you—what it still does to you even now that it’s under control. I prefer to be a coldhearted bastard whenever possible.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes.
“Just do me a favor . . . if at any point you think Olivia is starting to feel like Faith did, or if I start acting that way . . . tell me. I never want a situation like that again.”
She smiled a little sadly. “Would knowing about Faith have changed what happened?”
“Probably not. But at least we could have been honest with each other and gotten everything out in the open. I of all people know what a bad idea it is to repress feelings for someone, especially when jealousy is involved.”
“True.”
She looked tired again, he noticed. They had both been feeling run-down the last couple of days and it was wearing on them emotionally as well as physically; they’d actually had a fight, of sorts, over the thermostat that dusk. He felt feverish and nauseated; she was freezing. They’d both realized how silly the argument was, but it was a sign of a larger problem; neither of them was feeling well, and it was getting worse, and though he kept hoping he was wrong, he had a sinking feeling that—
Just then his phone vibrated in his hand, and he looked down at the text message that had just come in. “Speak of the devil.”
Call me.
He held the phone up where she could see the screen.
Miranda frowned. “That’s the first we’ve heard from him since we got back from New York. Before that I was talking to him almost every day.”
“I know. Whatever’s going on over there . . . I’m almost afraid to find out.” He stared at the phone for a moment longer before hitting call.
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Deven lied. David hated how flat and worn down he sounded. “Everything’s fine.”
“Then why did you text? I haven’t heard from you in days.”
“I don’t know . . . I guess I just wanted to hear your voice . . . to hear something normal.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing, nothing. How are you?”
“Actually, I was going to call you anyway. Detective Maguire called me to a crime scene earlier—someone left a message for me in a public park.”
“What kind of message?”
David took a deep breath. “Jeremy Hayes. Dead. With his Signet shattered.”
“Well, that’s one way to get your attention. Have you told Olivia?”
“Yes. I called her first. She’s all right—a little rattled, but like she said, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. If the artifact Hayes stole from Hart was exactly like the Stone of Awakening, it stands to reason it had a similar ritual attached to it. Hayes would have been far too convenient a target for Morningstar to resist—he had a Signet, he was badly injured, and he delivered the artifact right to them.”
“The question being, of course, assuming the ritual accomplished the same thing as the Awakening, draining all the power from Jeremy, what did they do with that power? The Awakening used your life force to bust the lock off Persephone’s cage, but what was Morningstar trying to open? And why were they so keen for you to know it?”
“I don’t know. But they didn’t leave him in Olivia’s territory, where I presume he was killed, and they didn’t return him to Australia. They brought him here to my backyard.”
“Which would indicate they know you’re supposed to be the general of our little army. Lucky you.”
“I don’t like any of this. I don’t like being the one in the dark.” David didn’t add that was exactly what Deven was doing to him, but he was pretty sure the sentence’s double meaning was clear.
“Trust me . . . there are some things you’re better off not knowing.”
Finally David couldn’t stand it anymore. “What the hell is going on over there, Deven? Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
A pause. Then, “Would you believe me if I told you I was dying of ennui?”
David rolled his eyes. “Very funny.”
“Yes, it’s hysterical. I have to go . . . kiss Miranda for me.”
“Deven, wait—”
“Good-bye.”
David had to resist the childish urge to throw the phone. He dropped it on the sofa cushion and put his head in his hands.
He could hear amusement in Miranda’s voice. “So . . . tell me again: Which one of you is the unstoppable force and which is the immovable object?”
“I’ve never known anyone so frustrating in my entire life.” He ran his hand back through his hair. “Have I ever thanked you for not pissing me off every time we’re in the same room?”
“You two must have been very entertaining as a couple.”
“Mostly when we weren’t having sex, we were killing people or beating each other up.”
“Oh, now, I know that’s not a hundred percent true. It might make you feel better to think of it that way, but he left you way too screwed up for it to have been that simple.”
“I suppose you’re right. But still, we did spend an awful lot of time angry. That’s one of the many, many things that sets you apart—you and I have fought, but usually over things that matter, not just because you’re a contrary little dick.”
Miranda chuckled, closed her computer, and walked across the room to sit down next to him. “I’m worried about him, too, but . . . you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped,” she said, pulling his head to her shoulder and leaning back into the cushions. He sighed and lay against her chest, listening to her heartbeat for a moment with his eyes closed.
“This is what I’m supposed to lead,” he said tiredly. “You and I, who don’t even know what can kill us anymore. Jacob and Cora, who don’t have a single outstanding psychic ability between them. Olivia, who doesn’t have a Consort and therefore leaves an empty space in the Circle for however long she’s on her own. Jonathan, a precognitive who keeps everything he sees secret. And Deven, an assassin in desperate need of Prozac. We’re doomed.”
Miranda chuckled. Her fingers wound through his hair, rubbing gently, energy moving through her to help soothe the headache she knew he had. “Don’t be such a drama Prime, baby. You know this whole mess has barely even started. We’ll get there.”
“I hope so.” He surrendered to her talented hands, saying quietly, “I just wish I knew what we’re supposed to do, or when, or why . . . or anything.”