Part 11 (2/2)
”Yes.”
”Worse than Anna?”
David shut his eyes against the memory, stacking the pain of that loss against the pain of losing Deven . . . ”Yes. You put me back together after Anna, but would you care to guess who put me back together after you?”
Deven sighed. ”No one did. You were alone.”
”Exactly. All those years on my own, living with your ghost, knowing you were happy with your new Consort and I had suddenly become useless to you, and you really wonder why I didn't want to tell Miranda about it?”
Deven looked like he wanted to say something, but paused, then told David, ”You don't need to protect her from me. She's a strong, capable woman who can fend for herself.”
”I know that.”
”But she is young and needs to learn to pick her battles. She could have found a less combative way to help that girl, and you could have had time to find out what Hart was really doing here.”
”I did, actually, or at least part of it. He's having a little a.s.sa.s.sination problem-he claims the Red Shadow is behind the deaths of several of his Elite.”
Deven's brows knitted in surprise. ”Based on what?”
”He found something-a silver earpiece. I tried to a.n.a.lyze it but it had a self-destruct mechanism and nearly put my eye out last night. Hart claims it's Shadow technology, but he has only hunches and hearsay to back it up. He also thought I had something to do with it because of my predilection for gadgetry and because Miranda learned to fight from a vampire claiming to have been a former member of the Shadow.”
Deven looked even more dubious. ”They don't have former members, do they? I thought joining the Shadow was a lifelong commitment.”
”Faith said she met Sophie in a bar, and they hit it off and got drunk together. In the course of the night Sophie told her she was ex-Shadow.”
”I find that unlikely,” said Deven. ”The girl may have been a h.e.l.l of a warrior, but if you were the Alpha, how would you react knowing one of your employees was spilling her guts in public?”
”There is that. I'm guessing that the Alpha would have killed her-but Sophie died in the battle here, months after she told Faith who she was.”
”Not terribly efficient for an organization that's supposed to be untraceable,” Deven pointed out.
”How much do you know about them, then?”
The Prime circled his gla.s.s around in his hand, the ice clinking. ”I've heard all the usual rumors. All that can really be verified is that they're a network of operatives who hire out to human clients for insane amounts of money. They answer to a single individual called the Alpha. They always work alone, and I've heard none of them even know each other. Code names, that kind of thing, all very cloakand-dagger. I can't imagine why they would start picking off Hart's Elite, unless a human has a grudge against him and hired them, which I admit isn't impossible.”
”Do you think that an earpiece like that is something they'd use?”
”If the stories are true and they're all solo, with whom would they be communicating?”
”The Alpha?”
”Maybe. But it seems like it would be more efficient to use phones or, perhaps, something like your coms. An earpiece is too easily lost.”
”That's what I thought. Plus, they're supposed to be the ultra-Elite; one of them just dropping evidence like that is pretty sloppy.”
”And completely out of line with their MO,” Deven added. ”As I understand it, most of their work is totally covert, but sometimes people hire them not just to kill someone but to send a message. In that case they always leave something behind, a calling card of sorts.”
”Which is?”
Deven knocked back the rest of his whiskey and reached for the bottle. ”The victim's left hand.”
David dropped his gla.s.s.
Seven.
For the first time in her memory, Cora was alone.
She sprawled on her back on the huge soft bed that was miraculously all hers-not only did she not have to share it, she could sleep there as much as she wanted, roll around and disrupt the covers, even jump up and down if she liked. It had thick blankets and velvety sheets that kept her warm all day long, and it was about the most wondrous thing she had ever seen.
She could sleep all day without the fear that sweaty hands would seize her and drag her across the room. She didn't have to listen to the other girls wheezing and whimpering. There was no screaming, no cursing, only the sound of the fire crackling.
Wonders were hardly scarce here, though. She had an entire room to herself! There was a guard outside, but he didn't bother her except to knock on the door and bring her blood.
All the blood she wanted!
She drank so much the first time, just because she could, that she was sick to her stomach, but after that she took things slowly and carefully and managed to keep down more and more each time she fed. She kept the leftovers in a small refrigerator in the room, and warmed them in the microwave as the servants had shown her, but if she had wanted, she could have requested a brand-new bag every day. Every day! Just for her!
Even that next night she felt stronger. Her limbs no longer shook. She wasn't freezing all the time. Her skin felt less stretched over her bones.
She spent hours in the large bathtub, just soaking and splas.h.i.+ng like a child, or standing under the scalding hot shower spray and scrubbing herself over and over with lavender-scented soap. Then she dressed herself in the nondescript but comfortable clothes the Elite had brought her: black cotton pants and a short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt which were apparently standard issue for sleeping and working out at the Haven. She had never worn pants before, but she loved them. She had plush socks on her feet and a hairbrush all her own.
It was an unbelievable amount of luxury for a woman who had spent so many years sharing a room with eight other women.
Those few people she had encountered so far seemed taken aback by her naive appreciation for such commonalities, but for her they weren't common.
She had not yet seen the Queen again, which was fine by her; in person, the Queen had been terrifying, though she had swept in like an avenging angel-or G.o.ddess-and taken Cora in like her own fledgling. The Prime, too, had been frightening, but he had given her a rea.s.suring smile and spoken to her in her own language, a courtesy she would never have expected for a nothing like her.
Cora had been spared a last meeting with the Master, but she knew he was gone, just as she had known there would be consequences even before she found out what had happened to the other girls. He might come back for her, or kill her. He might simply abandon her and find another slave. But for now, at least, she was at peace.
Finally she began to get a little bored, or at least a little interested in what lay beyond her door. She didn't want to interact with anyone if she could help it, but she was curious about this huge place that was, for the moment, her home.
She poked her head out and saw that her guard had gone; it was s.h.i.+ft change, so another would be along in a few minutes. She knew they would be unhappy if she wandered too far afield. But surely it wouldn't hurt just to walk down the hall and back again? She wasn't strong enough to get much farther than that anyway.
Cora took the hooded jacket that had been given to her and put it on to keep the late autumn chill off her skinny arms. She had no shoes, but she didn't intend to go outside, and the floors here were so immaculate she could have eaten off them. Certainly the Haven she had lived in was never this clean. Here there was no dust, no underlying reek of unwashed bodies and s.e.x. She smelled furniture polish, fireplace smoke, and candle wax.
She still had to move slowly. Years of starvation and abuse had left her weaker than a newborn barn cat, and sometimes her legs simply gave out beneath her and she toppled to the floor, bruised and embarra.s.sed.
The hallway turned out not to be terribly interesting. It was lined with closed doors, but she spent some time looking at the artwork and decorative objects as she made her way along the corridor. She peeked into a few open doors, finding a few unused bedrooms, a chamber full of antique weapons, and a study of some sort.
Finally she took a left-hand turn down a hallway that had far more light than hers. She realized what it was: windows.
Almost giddy with excitement, Cora made her way toward them, and her breath caught when she looked out. She hadn't seen the outside world in so long . . . she had had glimpses when the van carrying her and the other three girls arrived here, but before that, it had been years. There were no windows in the harem room. The Master hated natural light, even from the moon, and didn't want to give them any ideas about escape or suicide, not that they could have if they had been so inclined.
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