Part 32 (2/2)
Faith. Mo. Jackie.
Clinic.
Poison.
Miranda.
”Where is she?” he demanded, his voice thin and raspy as if he'd been screaming-which, given the aftershocks still rolling through his body, was a distinct possibility. ”d.a.m.n it, what happened?”
He tried to sit up again, and again they held him down. ”Sire . . .” Faith's eyes were worried, but her voice was steady. ”Tell me your name.”
He shook his head. ”Let me up.”
”Not until I know you don't have brain damage. Name.”
Rolling his eyes-which hurt like h.e.l.l-he said, ”David Solomon, Prime of the Southern United States. You're Faith, my Second in Command. This is the Anna Hausmann Memorial Clinic. Now tell me what the f.u.c.k happened!”
”We don't know,” Faith replied as Mo moved over and fussed with a monitor. ”We got you out of the debris and pulled you off the rebar, and you were in the middle of giving orders when someone darted you-Ovaska, I a.s.sume. You went down bleeding. She must have gotten all three of you within seconds of each other.”
”All three . . . oh, G.o.d.” David sought inside himself, trying to sense Miranda through the energy that linked them, but though he sensed she was alive, he had no sense of where she was or if she was hurt. He could always find her-he could be at her side in seconds, anywhere-but now something was blocking that knowledge, something that felt almost like . . .
”A s.h.i.+eld,” he murmured. ”She's under some kind of s.h.i.+eld . . . a powerful one. If she were at full strength, she might be able to break it, but if she was poisoned, too, she's weak.”
”You can't find her,” Faith said quietly, realizing what he meant. ”Not psychically.”
The fear was so thick in his mind he could barely think. ”Did any of you see anything?”
Anguished, Faith shook her head. ”I had just sent Aaron and two others to find them and bring them back when you were hit-by the time we realized you weren't the only one, they were gone.”
”They . . . she got Deven, too?”
Faith nodded. ”No trace of either of them at the scene. She moves fast.”
Now David sat up slowly, and the others allowed him. He leaned his head in his hands, trying to force himself into some kind of mental clarity around the lingering pain from the poison, the ant.i.toxins, and the underlying terror of being so far from his Queen, unable to sense her the way he should. In four months he had already grown to depend on their bond; it was a constant low hum in his mind and heart, like the white noise of a nearby but unseen ocean. That tide of energy sustained them both . . . with it blocked, and the two of them separated, it would be only a matter of days before they both went insane . . . if they even had that long.
”Faith,” David said softly.
”Yes, Sire?”
He looked up into her eyes. ”I don't know what to do.”
A flash of fear-as uncharacteristic as his helplessness-crossed her face. Before she could speak again, one of the Elite standing guard at the door said, ”Sire, you have a visitor.”
Not really caring, David waved a hand, and the clinic door swung open.
A tall, broad figure ducked through the doorway, his dark gray trench coat swirling rather theatrically as a blast of cold wind accompanied him in from the streets. The light caught the glowing emerald at his throat.
Jonathan strode up to the gurney where David had been treated and crossed his arms, regarding the Prime gravely. ”Now would be a really good time for one of your brilliant ideas,” the Consort said.
”Thank G.o.d you're here,” Faith told him, squeezing his arm. ”We need all hands on deck.”
Jonathan gave her a smile that was both genuine and distracted by his own worries. ”They've been s.h.i.+elded from us,” the Consort confirmed. ”I can feel Deven . . . somewhere, but I can't tell where, or what shape he's in. Except . . . I know he's in pain. I felt it the minute he was poisoned.” Jonathan moved to the side to let Mo come in to remove David's IV. ”What will happen to them without the ant.i.toxins?”
It was Mo who answered. ”They will recover, but they will suffer first,” he said. ”Probably for much longer than the Prime has . . . although, Sire, I suspect this killer has adjusted her dosage, because it affected you for only about twenty minutes once we got the kit into your IV. Last time it took over an hour. I would venture to guess that they'll have two full hours of pain before the poison runs its course.”
”That gives us two hours to find them,” Jonathan said. ”She won't kill them until then-otherwise she would have already. She wants them alert, so they'll know it's her.”
”That first attack on me was a trial run,” David realized. ”I thought it was a self-contained attempt to knock me down so she could get to Miranda through me, and I was wrong. The first time she shot me was to see how the compound would affect a Signet-she just wanted to test it on me before the big show.”
”All right,” Jonathan said. ”We need a plan. List the pertinents, please, Faith.”
Faith glanced at David, who merely nodded; Jonathan could take charge if he felt up to it. David certainly didn't, not while he was still so foggy from the drugs. Jonathan and Deven had been Paired much longer than David and Miranda, and so they knew how to manage the separation better; Jonathan certainly seemed calm and rational for the moment.
”Last night we acted on Deven's intel and invaded the suspect's lair. Said lair was in fact wired to explode via a remote signal, which Prime David detected on the network just before it went off, giving him time to duck and cover. Queen Miranda and Prime Deven were thrown across the street underneath a segment of wall. We freed David from his entanglement and started to find the others, but Ovaska shot all three with toxin-loaded darts-seeing the Prime go down distracted the rest of us enough that she was able to make off with Miranda and Deven unseen.”
”How did you get to Texas so fast?” David asked Jonathan.
The Consort gave him a You really aren't that stupid, are you? look. ”I was here the whole time,” he replied. ”I checked into the Driskill while Deven came to the Haven to see you. I also brought twelve of my Elite-they're outside ready to a.s.sist.”
”How many casualties were there from the explosion?” David asked Faith.
”Two Elite dead, five wounded; the wounded are all here at the Hausmann and have already healed, except Elite Seventy-three, who lost an arm.”
”And the dead?”
Faith took a deep breath. ”Aaron and Lali.”
David looked over at Jonathan, who was clearly stricken by the news. ”So you know all the agents, too?”
Jonathan shot David a warning look. ”Mind how loudly you speak,” he snapped. ”And no, I don't know them all, but I did know Lalita.”
”I'll talk about whatever I d.a.m.n well please in my own territory,” David returned coldly. ”If it weren't for your Prime's lies and secrecy, we wouldn't be in this mess.”
”That's beside the point-lives depend on our secrecy. Whatever regard you lack for us, have a care for them, and for Lalita, who died in the service of your Queen.”
”And if both of you don't shut up and put this aside for now, Miranda and Deven are going to die,” Faith interjected with surprising anger, given her usual reserve.
David and Jonathan both looked at her, then each other, and nodded. ”You're right,” Jonathan said. ”Let's concentrate on finding them. David . . . David?”
The Prime blinked and refocused his gaze on Jonathan. ”Sorry.”
Jonathan nodded grimly. ”You're already losing it. We don't have much time. If Miranda and Deven are s.h.i.+elded, we have to find a way to track Ovaska down.”
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