Shadowflame Part 7

"This is an outrage," Hart ground out, towering over David, who merely looked up at him with a completely neutral expression. Hart was a tall man, imposing, used to intimidating people, but he couldn't intimidate David. It simply wasn't possible. "Give her back."

"No."

"This is an act of-"

"Say it, Hart," David hissed, eyes narrowing, their blue going silver at the edges. "Say the word and I'll have you shot before you take another breath. Start a war between us right now and it will be finished right now."

Hart snarled, "You had no right to steal what rightfully belongs to me."

"I stole nothing. Cora came to my Queen and asked for asylum. She has exposed your cruelty and your partic.i.p.ation in illegal slavery-and we'll see what the Council has to say now that we have evidence to back up the rumors."

Hart turned on Miranda. "You did this, then. I should have known. You stupid little wh.o.r.e-no woman takes what's mine. I'll teach you-"

Hart raised his arm to backhand her, and Miranda felt David start toward them, but finally, Miranda's rage and hatred toward this sick excuse for a man had an outlet, and she let it fly, drawing up her power and pus.h.i.+ng- Hart flew backward, thrown hard across the room, and the sound of a body hitting the far wall and the crunch of breaking bones caused the Elite to freeze where they stood, staring with huge eyes at their Queen . . .

. . . their Queen, whose palm was outstretched toward where Hart had been standing.

She was breathing hard, but her body sang with pleasure and satisfaction, and she knew she was smiling.

David crossed the room to stand over Hart, and she heard him say very quietly, "You have exactly one hour to leave my Haven. If you stay one moment longer, you will die. You are to leave the other three women here. Now, go."

He turned his back on Hart and returned to where Miranda stood; the armed Elite converged upon Hart and waited while he got to his feet, one arm sticking out at an unnatural angle, and limped away with the four crossbows still trained on him.

Miranda lowered her hand, grounding herself, letting the excess power drain out of her. When she looked up at David he was staring at her, and to her amazement, he looked completely dumbfounded.

"That was you," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah. I know; I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"No, Miranda-it was you. You threw him."

"So?"

"With your brain."

She frowned for a minute before she understood what he was saying. "Oh."

"How did you do that?"

Miranda's heart was pounding. "I . . . I don't know. Is that . . . not normal?"

"No . . . it's beyond not normal. Pairs share power, but they don't share talents. That's not possible. How could you suddenly be telekinetic?"

David had all the answers. The thought that there was something that baffled him this much, and obviously worried him, worried her even more. "I don't know. But I didn't know I was prescient, either, until that thing with Kat yesterday."

"Every Queen has that talent to some degree. It usually doesn't fully develop until after she takes her Signet." Seeing her distress, and moreover feeling it, David took a deep breath, then came over and put his arms around her. "It's all right, beloved. I'm sorry I overreacted-there must be an explanation. I'll see what I can find out. Maybe it is normal; I've never heard of gift transfer, but I've never had a Queen, either."

She leaned into his shoulder, suddenly exhausted by the whole evening, wanting nothing more than to climb into bed with him and shut the world away. "And you're not angry at me over Cora?"

"No. You did the right thing. I'm proud of you."

"Good," she said. "I was afraid I was going to have to kick your a.s.s."

He sighed. "You don't really think I'm a heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d, do you?"

She chuckled in spite of herself. "I think you know a lot more than I do about all of this, and we're going to b.u.t.t heads a lot until I figure it all out. But if you can be patient with me, I'll be patient with you, and it will all work out."

"I hope so," he said, holding her tightly. "I hope so."

A little over an hour later Faith followed the frantic call of Elite 18 to the guest suites. One of the servants had gone into the rooms that Hart had abandoned to start what would no doubt be an arduous cleanup, and her scream had brought the guards running.

Faith stood in the doorway, gripping the frame with one hand, the other on her sword hilt.

Hart had destroyed his own room, dumping books from shelves and knocking over furniture. He had thrown anything breakable he could get his hands on onto the wall, and there were bits of broken gla.s.s and ceramic all over the wood floor. Nothing appeared to be missing, just smashed and torn.

Faith, however, was in the doorway to the smaller bedroom, which reeked of s.e.x and blood. The only thing in the room that had been broken was a single wooden chair. Three of the legs had been snapped off.

Each leg now protruded from the chest of a naked woman.

Hart had stripped them, murdered them, and then thrown them into a pile, their long bony limbs splayed out on the floor of the bedroom.

Faith had seen a great many dead bodies in her life, mostly from violence without warning. So many faces had been marked with horror and fear at the moment of death. Here, on the other hand, she saw girls whose dying expressions had been utter indifference to fate, and one was even smiling.

Elite 18 was kneeling by the bodies and pointed to one of their bare stomachs, where it looked like Hart had slashed her with a knife. "Look," he said.

Faith came closer and squinted. The slashes weren't random. They were letters.

"Clean it off," she said. Elite 18 nodded and grabbed a discarded pillowcase, wiping gently at the dead girl's midsection; a servant brought a cup of water, and they scrubbed at the dried blood until the letters were visible.

Faith's chest tightened as she read it.

SOON, b.i.t.c.h.

"All right," Faith said quietly. "That's enough. Let's take care of these poor girls."

She ordered them separated, cleaned, shrouded, and burned, and everything in both rooms stripped and replaced from the handful of bedrooms toward the back of the Haven that hadn't been used in decades.

Then she shook her head with heavyhearted resignation and went to call the Pair.

Before she could even say "Star-one," however, she heard footsteps behind her and a shakily drawn breath.

Faith turned to the Queen. "My Lady-"

Miranda darted into the bathroom without speaking, and Faith heard her retching.

Several of the st.u.r.dier-stomached servants had converged on the bodies and were gently coaxing the girls apart, laying them out on plastic sheeting. Esther, who normally saw to the Pair's wing, had arrived with cleaning supplies and grim determination and was overseeing the whole operation; the little woman had been on staff longer than Faith had been in Texas, and, having worked for Auren, surely she had seen worse.

By the time Miranda emerged from the bathroom, her composure regained though she was still pale and a little green, David had arrived, and he drew the Queen into his arms and held her, silently, while the bodies were tended to.

"We should never have left him alone with them," Miranda said softly. "We should have had guards on the suite as soon as he walked out . . . why didn't we send guards?"

"It's my fault," David said, sounding as disturbed as Faith had ever heard him. "I was so rattled by you throwing him that I didn't think . . . I just didn't think."

Faith could see the anger in David's silver eyes, and the shock and guilt in Miranda's, and after a few minutes, Miranda visibly steeled herself and stepped away from him to kneel next to the girls.

She gestured to one of the servants, who handed her a wet washcloth, and joined in on the nearest victim, helping to draw the b.l.o.o.d.y stake from her chest and then swab her cold skin clean.

Faith sighed and looked over at David, who through his carefully lidded rage was obviously unsurprised by the violence of Hart's reaction . . . sickened, yes, but not surprised. The Prime took a deep breath, then turned to Elite 18, who couldn't seem to bear looking at the girls but had devoted herself to righting the pieces of furniture that weren't hopelessly damaged. David touched her shoulder and said something to her quietly.

Elite 18, clearly relieved, nodded, bowed, and disappeared.

David took over for the warrior, examining a chair and then moving it to the side of the room where the usable items were being stacked.

Faith nodded to herself and joined the others on the floor, where she lent her hands to help Esther wrap the first girl in a clean white sheet.

They all worked in silence until there was motion at the door, and Elite 18 said in a low voice, "I've brought her, Sire."

Faith looked at David, who inclined his head toward the door; she rose and followed him into the hallway.

Elite 18 had in her company the refugee woman, Cora, who looked positively petrified at being led back to Hart's suite. Seeing her fear, David and Faith both placed themselves between her and the door so she couldn't see inside.

David spoke to Cora in Italian, but Faith knew what he was asking. He wanted to know the names of the other women.

Cora stammered a little, but answered him. He thanked her, then told her, gently, what had happened.

Cora didn't seem to react at first. She looked over Faith's shoulder at the doorway, then down at the floor, and said something; her voice was wooden, but her eyes were full of tears.

"Of course," David said in English. Then to Elite 18: "You can take her back to her room now. Make sure she's comfortable and has fed before you leave her. Then see to the pyre, please."

"As you will it, Sire."

After she left, Faith raised an eyebrow at David. "She didn't seem too upset."

He crossed his arms. "The women in the harem don't interact much. The black girl's name is Naomi, the blonde is Marie, and the Chinese girl is Mei. Cora wasn't sure about the last one-Mei was new and no one else spoke her language."

"At least we know what to call them now . . . they won't have to be burned without ident.i.ties, such as they are."

"True."

They returned to the room, and David joined Faith and the Queen next to the bodies. He lightly touched each of the girls' heads in turn and told everyone their names.

Miranda was helping Esther wrap Mei, whose skin had been carved with Hart's scathing, vicious message to her, in the sheet that would be her burial shroud. "I'm sorry, Mei," the Queen whispered as she covered the dead girl's face. "I wish we had helped you sooner. This is the best we can do for you now . . . be at peace."

David knew better than to think he'd be able to sleep that morning.

After he was sure that Miranda was out, he carefully untangled himself from her arms and legs and put clothes on, then left their suite for his workroom.

He was not happy. He was grateful that Hart was gone, but the whole situation had left him fighting mad, and the downside was that Hart wasn't there to punch in the face. Now he was left to figure out what steps to take next in the wake of Hart's dramatic exit.

The Council had to be informed, of course. He would notify all his allies that he and Hart had officially severed all relations, and the news would be all over the world inside an hour. Though Hart had friends, n.o.body really liked him; those who sided with him shared his beliefs but would be more than happy to throw him under the bus if it served their interests.

David sank into his chair, leaning forward to put his head in his hands for a moment; he had a mighty headache but he wasn't about to wake Miranda up to heal it. She was going to have trouble sleeping today as it was.

Despite the horror of Hart's aftermath, one question kept returning to David's mind: How had Miranda done it?

David had felt her drawing on their combined strength, but that happened all the time. That was what their connection was for, to make them more powerful as a whole. But he had never heard of anything like one member of a Pair inheriting the psychic abilities of the other. He hadn't developed empathy . . . not yet, anyway, thank G.o.d.

It frustrated him how little was known about the history of the Signets, and how little the others seemed to care. He had proposed a research project more than once and been sneered at. As long as they had power and money, it made no difference to them where it came from. It wasn't as if they could do anything with the knowledge anyway.

Fools. Old, blind fools with their heads planted firmly up their a.s.ses and their hands planted firmly in their pocket-books. Now here David was, with a burning question he had no way to answer.

It was possible that Deven might know-he was one of the oldest Primes in the Council and had been all over the world before settling in California to rule over his territory. He'd never shown any interest in Signet lore, but that didn't mean he had no knowledge of it.

It was, however, the middle of the day, and a quick look at his computer told David that the Prime was not online. It was the pinnacle of bad manners to wake a Prime during daylight. His questions and vague nameless fears would just have to wait until sunset.

To distract himself he decided to try to crack open Hart's little toy. He retrieved it from the locked cabinet where he'd stashed it, as well as a number of tools, a scanning module he'd built, a vise, and a handheld laser-cutting torch.

He placed the earpiece in the vise and hooked up the scanner to his computer, then spent a while running preliminary tests to see if he could learn anything from the piece without breaking into it. There wasn't much to learn; it didn't put out any sort of signal, and even if it had, that signal wouldn't have made it past the Haven without being hopelessly scrambled. Whatever network it had been connected to, it was dead now.

David paused here and there to type up a few quick notes. Casing appears to be a similar t.i.tanium-aluminum alloy to the fourth-generation wrist coms. Seamless except for a single hole approx. 1 mm in diameter. No obvious signs of manufacturer, not recognizable as belonging to any well-known designers in the communications industry. Possible DOD origin?

Unlikely. The Defense Department could scarcely make a move without his knowing it.

He changed the scanner's setup to tell him more about the internal makeup of the piece so at least he'd know how thick the sh.e.l.l was and could calibrate the cutting laser appropriately.

It was unusually thin, barely an eggsh.e.l.l over an interior tightly packed with wiring and what looked like a single tiny chip.

Before he tried opening the thing, he had the scanner take surface images and put all the technical scans into a folder, then moved his laptop away from the table in case of any accidents. He turned the vise and raised it slightly, then switched on the laser, a compact handheld model he'd won in a poker game from the head of research and development at one of the other defense contractors. It was a thing of beauty, precise and lightweight, and could cut through anything at any thickness without damaging whatever was inside.

He could only imagine the mischief it would cause if the outside world got hold of it, which was why, like all his toys, it was locked in this room.

David calibrated the beam and got to work.

Given how small the thing was, it didn't take long to neatly bisect the casing. He set the torch aside and pulled on a pair of gloves to make sure he didn't damage the components or get anything toxic on his skin. He unscrewed the vise and transferred the piece to a tray sized to fit under the microscope.

With a pair of long tweezers and a probe, he peeled one side back from the other, gingerly exposing the perfect twist of wires within. He slid the probe into the wires and teased it apart, exposing the chip like a pearl inside an oyster.

The explosion sent Miranda screaming out of sleep.

Five.