“Yes, Sire. I’m sorry.”
He was glowering as the numbers on the display ticked upward, but just as it reached the floor where Hunter was headquartered, he said, “Forgiven, Second.”
“What do we do now?”
“First, we get the results from Novotny’s tests. Then we have him lock the damn thing up for at least a week, preferably with monitoring equipment so he can measure any effects the new moon has on it.”
“And then?”
“Then I drop in on the Pair of the West,” he said darkly. “I think we need to have a little chat.”
She crossed her arms. “Deven thought you would want to study the Stone and that you’d want to see what it does firsthand.”
“That’s because Deven apparently thinks I’m an idiot,” David snapped.
“Jonathan agreed with him about the Stone.”
The look on the Prime’s face changed slightly, from angry to thoughtful. “Did he?”
“Yes. He was definitely shaken up by it—he suggested that if I didn’t want to steal it, I should at least try to distract you from it until after the new moon. He really seems to think something terrible will happen.”
The doors slid open and they headed down the hall. “The important thing is that you told me.”
Faith shook hear head, saying, “I can’t believe they thought I would keep it from you.”
David gave her a piercing look. “You’re assuming that your telling us wasn’t their intention all along.”
“But why …”
“I don’t know. But when was the last time Deven did anything without six ulterior motives? His own plans don’t trust themselves. Why should we believe anything he says?”
“Because Jonathan wouldn’t lie,” Faith pointed out. “That’s why Deven never tells him anything—so he won’t have to choose between loyalty and honesty. Jonathan certainly wouldn’t fake a precognitive insight.”
David strode through the lab’s main door. “I hope he wouldn’t … but I’ll find out for sure after we’re done here.”
Novotny was waiting for them. “Good evening, Sire, Faith. I received the photos you sent earlier—is everything all right in Prague?”
“Yes,” David said. “The human authorities swept both Janousek’s remaining cars for explosives but found none. Do you agree with my initial assessment of the situation?”
“Oh, definitely.” Novotny led them through the lab to the area where evidence was kept locked in vaults in the wall; he kept speaking as he walked over to where he was storing the Stone and began entering the passcodes. “Given the blast pattern in the photos, I would conclude it was the driver himself, not the car, that was rigged to go off. If what the Queen said about her vision is accurate, I would say the same person who killed your shooter Monroe is behind the attempt on the Pair’s life. I can’t be a hundred percent sure until I get samples for toxicology analysis, of course, but I’d wager the driver was either carrying or had ingested a similar explosive.”
“This is looking less and less like Hart,” Faith said. “He’s not Janousek’s biggest fan, but making an outright assassination attempt is another story altogether. He wouldn’t be that obvious—not so soon after the Council meeting.”
“Agreed,” the Prime said. “Which leads us squarely back to Lydia and her Order, assuming Jeremy Hayes hasn’t gone rogue. Neither of those possibilities comforts me.”
Faith started to tell the Prime what else she’d learned from Deven—that Lydia was dead—but Novotny spoke first.
“Well, if you find this Lydia, there are a lot of questions about her object that remain unanswered,” Novotny said, pressing his palm to the scanner; it beeped and Faith heard the lock on the vault disengage. “Either she was greatly exaggerating its importance, or whatever mystical properties it has are completely dormant. As far as any of our tests can tell, it’s just a piece of—”
He pulled the drawer open and lifted the lid … revealing an empty nest of foam.
“Where is it?” David asked.
Novotny had gone ashen white, and to Faith’s bewilderment, he actually stammered his reply: “I … I have no idea.”
Sixteen
Deven had always found David irresistible when angry. Often when they were together, Deven would piss him off just for the makeup sex.
He also knew how to push the Prime’s buttons—he had installed quite a few of them himself—such as allowing David to rage at him without so much as batting an eye.
“Where is it?”
David all but thundered, not bothering with greetings as he and Faith burst into the hotel suite where Deven was going over a transcript of the recording Cora had gotten him during the Queens’ gathering, and Jonathan was again reading his battered autographed copy of
Les Misérables
.
Deven looked up from the monitor. “Where is what?”
“The Stone, Deven. Where is the Stone?”
Deven’s eyebrow quirked. He looked at Faith. “Did you get it?”
Faith narrowed her eyes. “I told you I had no intention of stealing the Stone,” she said. “And I didn’t. It must have been you.”
Jonathan’s book slid off his lap toward the floor, and he caught it, saying, “Us? We don’t have it. What’s going on, David?”
“It has to be you,” David growled. His irises were the leaden color of a sky before a blizzard. “It was in the lab last night, and tonight Novotny opened the vault to find it
had vanished. We have security footage of one of the interns opening the vault and taking the Stone out—but the intern has conveniently lost any memory of doing so, and there’s no footage of where he took it.”
Deven closed his laptop and folded his hands on its lid. “If I had known it would be that easy to get my hands on, I would never have asked Faith to take care of it.”
David’s eyes burned into his. “You’re telling me you didn’t steal it.”
“I did not.” Deven leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “But I think we owe a debt of gratitude to whoever did, given what the thing does.”
“Which you had no intention of telling me,” David said. “Because you think I’m incapable of making my own decisions.”
“I understand that you’re angry—”
“No, I don’t believe you do. Or at least I don’t believe you care.”
Deven considered that. “No, I don’t, really. I don’t mind you being angry with me as long as you’re safe from the Stone. Once the thing is useless again and I don’t have to worry about you getting yourself killed, then I can worry about apologizing.”
David bowed his head for a moment, then said quietly, “I don’t think so … not this time.”
“What do you mean?”
Their eyes met again. “Deven … you know how much I care for you. And I value your friendship both personally and politically. But I can’t do this anymore. Either you and I are equals, or we aren’t. I want a friend who is an equal. I don’t want whatever this is you’re trying to be.”
“I am trying,” Deven said just as quietly, “to save your lives.”
“Then tell me why. And how. And everything you know.” When Deven didn’t answer, David nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
David straightened, looking from one vampire to the
other. “You told me I should stop acting like a pawn; well, you were right. I would like for the two of you to leave my territory as soon as possible … and not return.”
Deven started to speak, but David went on: “I would like to continue to honor our alliance in Council, but I have to consider our personal relationship at an end. I won’t have a friendship without trust.”
Their eyes still held. “I understand,” Deven said.
Slowly, David nodded. “Please be gone by the end of the week.”
He turned and walked out of the suite, and Faith—looking utterly amazed by what she’d just witnessed—followed him, closing the door behind her.
Silence, for a moment, while the humming anger of David’s presence faded from the room.
Then Jonathan said, “You have no intention of leaving, do you?”
Deven sighed. “We’ll do as the Prime requested after the new moon has come and gone and we can be sure they’re safe. After that, we go home, and give David another few years to fret and stew before he realizes he needs us.”
Jonathan was looking at the door. “You know, love … I’m not really sure that’s going to happen this time. He may have finally had enough of you.”
“He may have for now. But not forever. I don’t really understand this thing that binds us together that keeps bringing us into each other’s orbit over and over … but I know it can be denied for only so long before it pulls us back together again. Friends, lovers, whatever—there’s some part of each of us that can’t let go. And however much he may wish he could hate me … in time, he’ll see that I was right. That’s the one real advantage of what we are, Jonathan … we have all the time there is, years upon years, decades crumbling into centuries … never ending …”
He trailed off, and it was a moment before he realized Jonathan was staring at him.
“You’re getting lost again,” Jonathan said gently.
“Oh … right.”
Deven rubbed his temples against the headache that had formed there. “Whatever. He’ll get over it. But he’ll still be alive—that’s what matters. I can deal with him pissed off for a while as long as he and Miranda stay alive.”
He heard Jonathan rise and cross the room to where Deven sat, felt him go to his knees in front of Deven’s chair. “Look at me,” Jonathan said.
Deven sighed and obeyed.
“I’ve heard that the oldest vampires don’t end up being killed by outside forces,” Jonathan said, brushing stray hair from Deven’s eyes. “They kill themselves slowly … they lose their will to go on. Immortality consumes them, and they just sort of fade away.”
“It happens,” Deven replied. “That’s why Primes have Consorts … to make eternity less of a burden.”
“Then I’m not doing my job,” Jonathan said with regret. “I want to help you. I want to be what you need. But you won’t let me.”
“Do you want to know the truth?”
“Please.”
Deven laid his hands on Jonathan’s head, twining his fingers through his Consort’s blond hair. “A part of me was ready to die before I met David. I had been alive too long, seen too much. He woke me from a living death—and in doing so, made me ready to find you. And you do make me want to live, my love … but nothing can take away the past. You can give me new life every day, but you can’t heal me. No one can.”
There were tears in Jonathan’s eyes. “I hate it when you talk like that,” he said.
“And that’s why I don’t.”
“That’s what I get for falling for an older man,” he muttered.
Deven leaned back again, still stroking Jonathan’s hair, and said, “None of them understand … they can’t see the enormity of time the way I can, the way it swallows all our striving … they want to live solely in the moment, not
realizing that for our kind the moment never ends. Empires have come and gone, continents have been discovered and populated from shore to shore, men have walked on the moon, wars have consumed the planet … everything dies, but we remain. We are witnesses to the endless decay of the world. No matter how high we rise, eventually … ashes to ashes, we all fall down.”
Miranda finished pulling her comb through the tangle of her damp curls, then plaited the whole mass into a messy braid to keep it out of her face.
She’d spent as much of the night as she could working out to try to alleviate some of the tension that seemed to have taken up permanent residency in her body, and once she was good and worn out, she took a steamy hot shower and scrubbed herself raw.
It didn’t really help. Once she was done, she was again at loose ends, with too many hours left in the night and too little to do.
She had to be careful about leaving the Haven for a while yet, though she was making sure that the public knew her recovery from the shooting was proceeding beautifully with no complications. That afternoon, lying awake with David after she had woken practically screaming with fear for Jacob and Cora, they’d discussed her “recovery” and decided she should stay home for a full month, going into town no more than once a week to hunt fresh blood and stave off cabin fever. If she didn’t feel satisfied with donated bag blood brought from town, they could figure out a way to bring in live humans a few nights a week. But she had to stay out of sight.
But if she was being honest with herself … that wasn’t the real problem right now.
She was so restless she was practically throwing off sparks. She needed to either get drunk or go pound out her frustrations on the piano. At least the piano would offer an opportunity to work on the new album.
There was also …
Miranda sighed heavily and left the suite barefoot in her pajamas, all but running down the hall to the music room; she unlocked it with her com and slipped into its welcome silence, heart pounding as if she’d broken out of prison.
Instead of hitting the overhead lights, she walked around the room lighting the candle sconces—well, technically they weren’t real candles, but they flickered and gave the same soft illumination as a real candle without risking an accident should she forget to put one out. She tended to fall asleep in here a lot, or to wander in and out in a daze after working deeply with her gift, so it was best if they avoided real fire in a room with so much valuable wood and paper.
She sank down at the Bösendorfer and laid her head on its lid for a while. Anxiety drained out of her, through the piano, and into the floor, where she imagined it being transformed into something useful; she had learned from David how to ground and center, but the piano offered her an even more solid ground to stand on, one she needed more and more often these days.
She looked up at Queen Bess. “Things are getting very weird around here,” she said.
Again, as she often did in this room, she thought of Kat. The blonde would have known what to do; she always knew. She had the right words, the right ideas, the ability to look at a situation with equanimity and make decisions rationally. Miranda had always jumped into things, unthinking, and trusted—God? Herself? She had no idea anymore—that there would be water to meet her, not rocks, when she tumbled down.
“Wish you were here, Katmandoo,” she whispered. “Maybe you could tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do.”