Queen of Shadows by Sylvan, Dianne
For Laurie and Laura, who told me so
PART ONE
Pomegranate Seeds
One
The guy next to her in the checkout line looked kind of like a vampire.
Miranda didn’t look at people. She kept her eyes averted, even while negotiating the chaos of the Austin city streets. She slipped into the empty spaces between bodies and went unnoticed, a messy ponytail bobbing in and out of focus, a pale, heart-shaped face drawn with years of insomnia. If anyone remarked on her presence, it was probably to say something about her hair; unconfined, her dark red curls spilled haphazardly down over her shoulders, a jeweled tone that caught fire on the rare occasion sunlight touched it. If they thought anything about her at all, it was probably that her hair was fake. They certainly wouldn’t remember her eyes, for no one ever saw them.
She was very careful about that.
A woman walking down Sixth Street carrying a guitar case was hardly news in Austin, which had at some point proclaimed itself the “Live Music Capital of the World.” Musicians here were like actors in Los Angeles, plentiful and mostly working in restaurants.
A woman standing in line at the mini mart with a guitar case was a little more interesting, mostly because she should have been bumping into people, but Miranda knew every inch of space around her, could feel the individual people on all sides, and she knew not to get too close. Don’t look up, don’t touch. They’ll regret it. You’ll regret it.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, shifting the red plastic basket in her hands, looking down, as always, at her purchases. Allergy medicine, hummus, pita, a small block of Cheddar carefully selected from the pile, oranges, six bottles of Shiner. She could have been anyone in Austin.
There were only a handful of people in the store, which was why she was there after midnight. The crowd at the club had been dense and restless from the heat, and she wanted nothing more than to sprint home with her guitar bouncing on her back and gain the safe silence of her tiny apartment off Lamar, scald the night off her body in the shower, wash down a couple of Benadryl with a Shiner, and fall into a short but welcome coma.
But her fridge was empty. She had been eating less and less, drinking more and more. Her hands shook with hunger on the neck of her twelve-string and nearly missed every other chord.
Not that it mattered. She could bang two sticks together, and still they would come.
She twisted one hand free of the basket handles and impatiently shoved a loose curl back behind her ear. She wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. If it started, it wouldn’t stop, and she’d never make it home. There was only one more person in front of her in line, and then it was two blocks from here to the bus stop, ten minutes to the apartment complex. She could make it.
Edging closer to the register, she snatched a pair of Snickers bars from the display and dropped them in the basket.
“I prefer Milky Way, myself,” came a low voice alarmingly close to her left shoulder.
Miranda held back a scream and spun around, for once lifting her head and looking.
A young man had somehow come up right behind her and was standing only a couple of feet away, watching her with detached curiosity. He was oddly pale in the bright fluorescent lights and wore a long black coat that covered him from neck to ankles.
In Texas, in August.
She stared at him, heart pounding in her chest at the shock of being sneaked up on. No one ever came into or out of her presence without her feeling it. She could feel a pigeon blink at fifty paces. She relied on the knowledge even as she hated it.
He seemed unaffected by her reaction and simply stood watching her; that was when she realized how insanely blue his eyes were. They were dark, almost the color of blueberries, an impossible shade she’d never seen before. They had to be contacts—nobody had eyes that color. If she hadn’t been so rattled, she might have smiled to herself; she was thinking the same thing about his eyes most people did about her hair.
“Are you all right?” he asked. There was something musical and compelling in his voice, almost soothing, and it contained an apology for frightening her.
She wanted to sob, No, I’m pretty fucking far from all right, but all that would come out of her mouth was a strangled half whimper. She took a step back involuntarily, and the strap of her guitar case started to slide off her shoulder. She groped after it, but it was either grab the instrument or hold the basket—no contest, really. She started to let go of the handles—
—and a pale, long-fingered hand shot out and took the basket from her smoothly, holding it out in front of her at a careful distance while she got herself back together. It was a strong hand, neatly manicured, and she couldn’t help but compare it to her own, constantly trembling with nails bitten to the quick. Her right hand had decent nails so she could play, but she’d nibbled off the left for years.
Shaking, she took the basket back and mumbled her thanks, returning her eyes to the ground where they belonged.
The cashier was giving her a pointed look, and she realized she was next. She stumbled forward and hoisted the basket onto the conveyor belt, turning to slide through the lane without whacking the guitar on the sides, simultaneously digging her wallet out of the blue embroidered purse she’d bought at a street fair back when . . . back when.
This was not how things were supposed to go. No one was supposed to notice her. The bored-looking blonde ringing up her food wouldn’t even remember she’d been there. The only people who ever paid any attention to her were the ones who paid the fifteen-dollar cover charge and stood before and below her line of sight every Wednesday and Friday night at Mel’s. They saw her, and they listened. Random strangers didn’t do that.
She glanced back behind her, almost sure he would be gone, but he was still waiting patiently, no longer watching her. She dared take a second to size him up, just in case he came after her on the street. Taller than her, which didn’t mean much to a five-four woman. Slender. Pale. Black hair that was shiny in the lights like a raven’s feathers. No visible tattoos or piercings. Coat buttoned all the way up to the neck, almost clerical. She could see black leather boots.
He was holding one item: a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. Something about that struck her as exceptionally weird.
She handed the cashier her debit card and waited, knowing when to take it back without looking up. Two plastic bags, and she all but bolted from the store.
She was sweating bullets as she climbed on the bus, and not from the brief run to catch it before it sped away.
Don’t freak out, girl. Focus. You’re almost home. She brought her mind forcibly back to the present, away from the store, and concentrated. Music. In her head she rehearsed her latest cover song, and her fingers squeezed her thigh lightly, miming the chords. She wasn’t satisfied with the bridge. The minor fall, the major lift . . . the baffled king composing Hallelujah . . . Her own thoughts and Leonard Cohen’s blended together as the bus bounced all over the road.
Hallelujah . . . five more minutes . . . hallelujah . . . three more blocks . . . hallelujah . . .
She gathered up her bags and her guitar and disembarked, ignoring honking horns and shouted insults as she ran across the street against the light to her building, keys already in her hand.