The Shadows

THIRTY-SIX

Back in his cell at the palace, iAm was busy wearing a track in the polished marble floor, going back and forth between that new bedding platform and the shelf of books.

The longer he was left by his little lonesome, the more he became convinced that the maichen had made the offer to get him to the healing texts out of an abundance of impotent compassion. But, hell, even if she had been serious and did show up again with some kind of plan, it wasn’t like he was going to accept her help. There were so many people sucked into this mess already, and he wasn’t sure she knew what she was volunteering for: He was a prisoner of the executioner’s, which meant even though many could have access to him, there was only one son of a bitch who had the keys to his escape.

And it was not that lowly female.

If she did spring him? Even if it was not to the great outdoors, but the library? The monitoring systems would surely report them both—and then sudden death would be the best outcome she could hope for.

What was more likely was a long, suffering period of torture during which she would pray to be—

As that panel slid open, he made sure his sex was covered and wheeled around.

It was the maid, and she had bolts of cloth in her hands. As the door slid back into place, she tucked something next to the jamb to prevent it from closing all the way and rushed over to him.

“Put this on. We have no time—”

“Wait, what—”

“Put it on! The security staff is changing shift and they are required to have a mandatory prayer of sorrow and remembrance for the infant. We have to get you down the hallways now—”

“I can’t let you do this—”

“You want help, right. For your brother’s love, right.”

iAm gritted his teeth. Rock, meet hard place. “Fuck!”

“I do not know what that means.”

He grabbed whatever it was out of her hands, but kept up the arguing as he threw the folds over himself. “What about the trip back?”

“I’ll create a diversion. You’re going to need some time in the library—unless you know exactly what you’re looking for?”

The heavy robing rushed down his legs. “What about in here?”

Without warning, the lights went out. “I activated the circadian system.”

Ah, yes, the alternation of light and dark without which you couldn’t sleep.

Click!

A tiny flashlight showed her the way to the bedding platform, and she quickly arranged the pillows and duvets such that it appeared there was someone in there. Then she ran back and put something up to his face.

Spritz!

He coughed as the heavy scent of lavender and something citrus-y shot into his nose. “What the hell—”

More with the spritzing. “That’s a maid’s uniform. No one will question if they happen upon the pair of us together, but your scent is too male. This should cover it up well enough for us to get by. Now crouch down—you’re too tall for the robe. We can’t have your feet showing or they’ll know. Come on.”

He followed her over to the panel, but before she could open things up, he grabbed her arm and spun her around. “You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“We don’t have time—”

“It’s going to get you killed.”

“Your brother needs help. For his mate. Do you have another solution for getting out of here to see those texts?”

When she went to turn away, he pulled her back. “What’s your name?”

“maichen.”

“No, that’s your station. What’s your name?”

“That’s it. Now, come—enough talk,” she said urgently. “And don’t forget to crouch.”

Just like that, he was out of the cell and into the hallway. As he looked left and right, she jabbed him in the side with her elbow.

“Crouch,” she hissed. “This way.”

Bending his knees, he hunched his shoulders and followed in her wake, trying to mimic her spare movements. She was fast and decisive through the corridors, taking lefts and rights in a sequence that rendered him so turned around he was lost in the maze. Incredibly, they ran into no one, but that was the nature of mourning for the s’Hisbe. Lockdown for everybody.

Maybe she could just take him to a rear exit after this?

Yeah, but then what would happen to her?

“The security recording,” he said.

“Shut up.”

“When we’re back, you need to take care of the monitoring video files or they’ll know what you did if they ever review it.”

She didn’t answer him, just pressed on, leading him down the various corridors.

In keeping with the s’Hisbe tradition that simplicity elevated the soul, there was little signage anywhere in the palace, nothing but subtle plates up high on doorjambs to illustrate the covert entrances to various rooms and storage places and exits. Gradually, his years at the palace came back to him, and he was surprised to find he knew where they were: She was taking him the long way to the library, but it was smart. This was the rear of the palace, where if they did run into somebody, it was more likely to be a servant.

Which, considering he was masquerading as one, made the route all the better.

“Up here,” she said, taking one last right and stopping on a black marble tile square, the vein of which ran counter to the prevailing direction of all the others. Putting her palm on the wall, she triggered the door, which slid open readily.

As they stepped into the darkness, motion-sensitive lights came on, illuminating stacks upon stacks of leather-bound volumes. The air was dry and vaguely dusty, but the library was neat as a pin, the floors polished to a mirror shine, the shelving gleaming. There were no chairs and no tables if you wanted to read anything—the expectation was that you’d take whatever you needed to your quarters and sit down with it there.

Shit, how were they going to find anything in here?

“The medical journals have been moved,” she whispered, jogging forward.

He followed her once again, and didn’t bother trying to shrink his stature anymore: No one around to see, and this part of the palace was not monitored.

The cataloging system, such that it was, was noted with black-on-black numerals on the flanks of the stacks. But again, it was vague, and presumed that you already knew where to find what you were looking for.

“Here,” she said. “We go down here.”

Eventually, she stopped and indicated a row of stacks. “This is where they have been relocated.”

Frowning, he stepped in. The numbering system on the spines was no fucking help at all, so he pulled one of the volumes out and cracked the cover. When he finally got to some words in the Shadow dialect of the Old Language, he discovered he was about to read a treatise on setting broken bones.

Going down a row, he took out another random tome. Something on eyesight.

Farther on, he’d made it to pregnancy and childbirth.

“Diseases,” he muttered. “I’m looking for diseases. Or congenital defects. Or . . . recessive genes . . .”

“I shall help.” maichen began pulling out volumes. “What can you tell me about the sickness?”

“It’s called the Arrest. They freeze—they get . . . it’s like bone grows spontaneously . . . it’s supposed to be fatal. . . .”

God, he didn’t know enough about what he was talking about.

As the two of them worked their way down the stack, the categories and organization of the volumes became clearer and clearer. Like all vampires, Shadows didn’t have to deal with human viruses or cancer, but there were plenty of other things that took them down—although not as many as the Homo sapiens had to battle against. With every book he slid out, he was aware that time was passing, and he was more worried about maichen getting caught than anything about himself.

Faster, faster with the reading, the returning, the picking another from the lineup.

There had to be something here, he thought. There just had to be.

Trez’s entire body was rigid as he remained braced against the interior of the Benz. Fritz was still proceeding down the sidewalk—which would have been great if the doggen had been a pedestrian. Squeezing a sedan the size of an ocean-faring yacht into a concrete lane built for holding four or five people at a time?

Not so great—

Selena let out some kind of a yeeeee-haw! as they came up to another corner and sent a second set of Caldwell Courier Journal boxes airborne.

He was honestly glad she was enjoying herself.

He just really fucking wished they were watching this action movie instead of living it.

“Fritz,” he yelled over the roaring engine. “Head down toward the river.”

“As you wish, sire!”

Without warning, Fritz wrenched things left and sent them flying toward a pedestrian mall that skirted another of the skyscrapers. The Benz took to the stairs like a man wearing knee braces, the bumping, jostling, disjointed ascent the kind of thing that left your molars clapping and your kidneys begging for mercy. But then they were on the flat area that gave people all kinds of choices as to which of the four different entrance points to head through.

Fritz, naturally, choose the most direct route.

Through the fucking lobby.

Glass panes exploded as the S600 plowed into a wall of see-through, shards flying forward and to the sides before landing on the slick floor and coasting away like snow across the frozen surface of a lake.

Glancing out the side window, Trez got a good look at the night watchman jumping to his feet behind the bank of desks in the lobby. Seemed impolite not to acknowledge the poor uni’d bastard, so Trez popped a Queen Elizabeth and floated a wave as they roared through the interior and busted out the other side.

Smash!

Round two with the glass was just as trippin’, the Benz’s grille shattering through as they exploded back into the night.

“I believe we shall go airborne,” Fritz called out. “Do secure yourselves.”

Roger that, big guy.

Trez went rigid as they approached the lip of the set of stairs, and then—

Zero gravity, or as close as you could get to it without doing a U-ie at thirty thousand feet, happened as they soared, the ride getting super-smooth and relatively quiet, nothing but the throaty engine hitting the ear.

All that changed as they skipped over the sidewalk and landed on the paved road. The suspension absorbed as much of the impact as it could, but sparks flew out behind as some portion of the undercarriage got a dental file.

“Please forgive me,” Fritz said, looking up in the rearview.

“The terrain is hardly your fault,” Trez hollered back. “But not sure about all that glass.”

He glanced over to make sure Selena was still whoopin’ it up across the way. Yup. She was smiling and laughing, eyes bright as Christmas lights.

When Trez glanced up front again, the butler was still looking into the rearview mirror and talking to him. “Sire, I’m terribly sorry, but I must needs return home—”

“Fritz! Focus on the road, buddy!”

“Oh, yes, sire—”

Screeeeeeeeeeech as the butler course-corrected and narrowly avoided weed-whacking a lineup of parallel-parked cars.

“As I was saying, sire, I must needs return home,” the butler continued without losing a beat. “Last Meal preparations have to be supervised.”

Like this was just a video game you could put on pause? “Ah, Fritz—”

All at once the Mercedes went black inside and out, the lights extinguished. And at that very moment, from high up in the sky, a blaring light pierced down to the road, flashing over them for a split second.

“Helicopter,” Trez muttered. “Fantastic.”

Twisting around, he checked out the rear window. Blue and white flashing lights were speeding along, but the cops were cutting across their path instead of following—which would give them a pass for only a block or two before the CPD pulled a recalibration of their own.

Shit, how were they going to get out of this?

Before he knew it, Fritz had them down by the river, but not on a road. Instead of taking one of the legal routes, he popped yet another curb and began to fly directly under the raised highway. Pylons the size of redwoods passed by the windows, the doggen playing dodge-’em car, jogging left and right like a runner in an obstacle course.

No one was behind them, but they could hardly keep this up indefinitely. The Northway, which was what was overhead, was going to rejoin the earth—

Sure enough, the descent from up above started to happen, and at such a velocity, Trez became convinced they were going to mash-potato themselves into the coming horizontal asphalt merger.

Except, no. Fritz jerked out from underneath, riding a ridge of pavement around to the roads that ran parallel to the Hudson. Somehow, he managed to get them in between a break in the guardrails and then, justlikethat, they were on an exit ramp that would take them onto the highway in the right direction.

Heading away from town.

Trez waited for a lineup of CPD units with their lights going all Fourth of July to fall in behind them.

Instead, he saw a fleet of those boys in blue tearing it up on the other side of the Northway, heading to the site of all the fun and games.

Fritz slowed down and put his lights back on. Pulled into the stream of traffic. Floated away at a modest seventy miles an hour.

“How the hell did you do that?” Trez said with H2G respect.

“Humans are rather easy to lose. They tend to track lights, rather like cats with a laser pointer. Without the illumination? It gives one a serious advantage—well, that and possessing twice their horsepower.”

Trez turned to his queen. “You okay—”

Selena reached over and pulled his mouth in for a kiss. And another. “What a night! That was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me!”

Adrenaline quickly transferred into lust as he kissed her back and pressed her into her seat. Licking his way into her mouth, he found one of her breasts with his hand.

“Should I tell him to gas it again?” Trez growled against her mouth. “’Cuz I don’t think I can wait. . . .”

“We’ll be home soon,” she murmured, smiling. “And I like anticipation. I’ve been hungry for you since the ride in.”

Trez groaned deep in his throat as he reached for the button to raise the partition. “Fritz?”

“Yes, master?”

“A little faster, if you don’t mind.”

“My pleasure, sire!”