Shadowflame Part 26

When they reached the third-eye chakra, which was supposed to govern one's inner sight, Cora heard a gasp.

She opened one eye partway and saw that something odd was happening to the Queen.

Miranda was white as a sheet, and her breathing was shallow. She sat cross-legged as Cora and Lalita did, but her hands were clenched on her knees and her forehead was creased in what looked like pain.

"My Lady?" Cora asked in a whisper.

Lalita's eyes popped open and she, too, looked worried. "Are you . . ."

Before she could finish the question, the Queen's hands flew up to her forehead, covering her already-closed eyes. She moaned and doubled over. "No . . ."

Suddenly things all over the room began to shake.

Lalita put her hands on the Queen's shoulders and tried to rouse her, but the Queen didn't seem to hear; she was lost somewhere, and to Cora's dismay the s.h.i.+eld she was holding up around Cora began to tremble and dissolve and Cora could feel the Queen's power again, this time surging dangerously. Hot, thick fear seized Cora's heart, and she pushed herself away, all but crawling backward to put as much s.p.a.ce between herself and the Queen as she could.

Things began to topple over. Mats fell, the fabric hangings Lalita had draped around the room sagged and then slipped from the walls . . . the very ground felt like it was shaking.

Lalita cried out in alarm, and Cora followed her wide eyes to see that the ceiling fan overhead was coming loose from its wiring.

The Queen screamed.

The fan tore from the ceiling and fell.

Cora flung herself forward, trying to push Lalita out of the way, and the two women tumbled backward in the chaos- -which stopped as quickly as it had started.

Cora, sprawled out over Lalita on the floor, craned her head back to see what had happened, and it was her turn to gasp.

Standing in the center of the room, one hand held up toward the fan that had frozen in midair, the other touching Miranda's forehead, was the Prime.

The Queen's eyes rolled back in her head and she fell sideways onto her mat, unconscious.

The Prime's eyes and hand followed the ceiling fan and it floated over to the corner, where it landed in a heap. He turned, looking around the room, and in seconds everything had righted itself, the scattered pieces of Lalita's altar returning to their places, the tapestries back on the walls.

He didn't ask if Cora and Lalita were all right, but she supposed it was unnecessary. Aside from shock they were both fine, not even a scratch on either. He bent and lifted the Queen into his arms, then gave them a quick nod of acknowledgment and strode out of the studio.

Cora and Lalita were left staring at each other.

Blood . . . so much blood . . .

Someone was dying. She could hear Kat screaming-not in pain, but in panic, in horror, her heart-not her body-rent into tatters. Miranda tried to help her . . . she couldn't move . . . she was an outsider here, trapped behind a gla.s.s wall where all she could do was listen and watch, pounding her fists on an invisible barrier. She tried to scream but her voice died on the wind. She could only watch scattered images of the nightmare unfolding before her, powerless.

So much blood . . .

"I'm done for, Miranda. You have to save yourself."

Who was speaking? She strained to identify the voice but she couldn't reach it, couldn't . . .

She could hear something dripping . . . dripping . . . water, onto a bare floor . . . dripping . . . blood, dripping . . . dripping . . .

Bars. Her hands closed around cold steel bars.

"Please tell me this was all a nightmare, Miranda."

"h.e.l.lo, darling." A man's voice, scornful.

She heard something shatter, saw shards of crystal catching moonlight as they fell . . .

"Miranda, NO!"

She could hear the screaming, she could smell the blood and taste it rusty and hot in the back of her throat, but she couldn't stop any of it.

"Please . . . you have to save him . . . you have to . . . promise me . . . you're the only one strong enough to do it. Promise me . . ."

"How dare you come into our house-"

Red light . . . red light . . . red . . . four, five, six . . . seven . . . eight . . . glowing red in a circle, one by one flas.h.i.+ng, their light falling into sync . . .

"h.e.l.lo, darling." A woman's voice, scornful.

Agony . . . searing, her soul being ripped in half, her screams tearing the silence of the night as she fell . . . and watched herself fall . . . only it wasn't her . . .

Warmth intruded. She felt herself being pulled back from the gla.s.s wall, gentle hands drawing her down, out, back into her body.

She strained to hear the last few words as she began to wake . . . it was almost as if someone were whispering into her ear.

Firstborn . . .

Eleusis . . .

Alpha . . .

Lydia . . .

Trinity . . .

"Miranda."

That last voice, she recognized. She reached toward it, yearning for solid ground, for the waking world, and felt hands taking hers and drawing her down, down . . .

She was sobbing as she woke, relief and fear overcoming her, and she fled into David's arms, shaking.

"It's all right, beloved. I'm here. I've got you. You're safe now."

She was absolutely incoherent for a while but gradually got a toehold of control back, dragging herself toward calm one lurching inch at a time. She could feel a s.h.i.+eld around her, probably as much to protect the rest of the Haven from her as to protect her from it. But the feeling-of being contained and held, safe, surrounded by such warm and loving energy-was grounding, and it helped her wrestle her powers back into her own grasp.

Once she was calm David lowered the s.h.i.+eld around her, though she could still feel him around her, physically and otherwise. She breathed in the warmth of his body and let out a long, shaky breath.

"What did you see?" he asked her softly.

Miranda shut her eyes tightly and buried her face in his shoulder. "Death," she whispered. "I saw death."

"Whose?"

"I don't know," she said, barely holding back more tears. "It was all jumbled together-there were words, and sounds, and images, and smells . . . it was like I was watching five TV shows at once. It didn't make any sense."

He stroked her hair and murmured to her while she shook, but despite the possibility of dire circ.u.mstances rolling toward them he sounded concerned about her, but not about the future. "That's how it started for Jonathan," he said. "Dreams, mostly, so twisted around themselves that he couldn't interpret anything. It took time for him to learn how to see one thing at a time. You should talk to him-he can probably help you."

"You're not worried about what I saw?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Remember how it was with your empathy? All you could hear were the pain and suffering because they were the loudest. Now that you know how to control it, you feel things differently. It's the same with precognition. Death and misery are the most vivid because they play into your own fears. But that doesn't mean everything in the future is full of peril."

She shook her head, marveling at how calm he was about it. If he had seen . . . if he had heard . . . the screams, the blood . . . She shuddered and returned her head to his shoulder, covering her eyes. "It was awful."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

"No . . . not yet. But . . . I do have one question, maybe you know . . . who's Lydia?"

David went very still. "Lydia?"

"Yes . . . there were words, like someone was whispering to me at the end. The only actual name in it was Lydia."

She looked at him. His eyes were wide.

"You know a Lydia?" Miranda asked.

David took a deep breath. "I've known one."

"Who was she?"

His grip on her arms tightened as if she were a teddy bear and he were afraid of the storm outside. "She was my sire."

Fourteen.

"There's really not much to tell," David said, handing Miranda the c.o.ke he'd climbed out of bed to fetch her from the bar fridge. She was sitting up wrapped in the sheets, listening to him keenly, but practically inhaled the soda-that was another thing David remembered Deven remarking upon when Jonathan was new to the gift; after he had a vision he guzzled caffeine, and it kept him from getting a nasty third-eye migraine.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed in front of her, he went on, "When the Witchfinder came to our town, it didn't take long for Lizzie and me to be hauled in front of the court. She was a strong woman who spoke her mind, and I . . . well, there had been rumors about me since I was a child. You don't just start making things float without people noticing. My mother knew if I was ever found out I'd be hanged as a Witch, so she made me keep it secret, but there was still gossip."

Miranda stared at him over the c.o.ke can. "So they threw you both in jail."

"Yes."

"Why did the Witchfinder come to town in the first place?"

"There were unexplained deaths all over the county. Bodies were found drained of blood in the woods and the fields."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Oh s.h.i.+t."

"Oh s.h.i.+t is right. Half a dozen people were killed-and then the burnings started."

"Wait . . . I thought you said Witches were hanged in that era."

"The most common method was hanging followed by a public burning of the corpse. It was nearly unheard of for someone to be burned alive in England. The panic that swept through places like Germany didn't grip our country; for the most part the judicial system kept things civilized, requiring evidence, a trial. But this Witchfinder preferred a more . . . flamboyant, if you'll forgive the pun, method of execution. He wanted the whole village to turn on each other out of fear. He was paid by the head, after all. The more Witches he found, the richer he became."

"n.o.body suspected his motives? Not anyone?"

"Of course they did. But to speak up would have been an instant confession of collusion with the devil. I remember . . ." He flipped the tab on his own can, this one a Dr Pepper; he'd lived in the South for years before discovering an affection for the regional beverage of choice. "Lizzie was afraid-she knew that what had happened in other places would in ours. She'd heard about the burnings in Germany. She wanted to take Thomas and move away. But back then you couldn't just pick up and leave your home like that. My entire livelihood was there, and it wasn't terribly portable."

She grinned. "One of these days I want to see you bang a hammer on an anvil. It's got to be s.e.xy as h.e.l.l."

He smiled back. "It was the closest thing to engineering they had back then."

"So, you were put in jail . . ." Her smile disappeared. "Were you tortured?"

Now shame gripped him at the memory, and he lowered his eyes. "No. We were threatened with it, and a couple of victims who refused to confess were tortured, but again, it was the Witchfinder's method, not the town's. Still . . . hearing the screams . . . I was terrified. I confessed."

She looked genuinely surprised. "What about Lizzie?"

He had to smile at that. "She went to the stake raging, shrieking like a banshee that G.o.d would judge the town for its crimes and that her conscience was clear. I'm thankful she never knew that I took the coward's way out or she might never have forgiven me. But they didn't torture the women; they simply executed them, five in all over the course of a week. I begged the judge to leave me alive until Lizzie's brother arrived to take Thomas away and I knew he was safe. The judge was an old friend of my father's, so he managed to put the Witchfinder off for a day-because I had confessed I was promised a hanging before my burning. But then that night . . . a woman came to the jail."

"Lydia?"

"Lydia. I had never seen her before, but she knew my name and knew everything about me. She killed the guard, opened the cell, and attacked me."

He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the details. It had been so long ago, and the transformation had a way of scattering memories on the wind; that night and the week that followed were a blur of pain and fear and blood, faded by time. "She was pale," he said. "Her hair was golden, her eyes blue . . . exotic for our drab part of the country. So was the fact that she was fastidiously clean. I knew she had to be wealthy by her clothes and the way she moved. And just being near her . . . she was so powerful. She felt to me the way I imagine I feel to mortals now. She drained me near to death, and I woke in the forest just in time for her to force her blood into my mouth."

"Did she tell you who she was? What she wanted?"

"No. Only her name, and that I had to stay out of the sun. Then she vanished."

Miranda was staring at him, mouth open. "She just left you alone in the woods, not even knowing what you were?"

"I woke just before dawn and dragged myself to a cave I remembered from my childhood. I spent the next few days . . . well, you know."

Miranda nodded slowly, remembering. "G.o.d."

"When it was over I had to figure things out on my own. I nearly roasted in the sun and spent days recovering. I ate just about every small animal in the county trying to a.s.suage my thirst, but in the end . . . there was only one thing to do."

He had slipped through the forest that night, lithe and deadly even in his fledgling power, only two things on his mind: blood and vengeance.

He started with the Witchfinder.