Faith ran down the hall out of the East Wing, checking as she passed that everyone she saw was at the ready, weapons drawn; they had been trained in how to handle an invasion, even though such a thing hadn’t happened in decades. Few interlopers were ballsy, or stupid, enough to lay siege to the Haven. Almost every assassinated Prime was killed beyond the walls of his home.
“Elite Twelve, is the West Wing secure?” she asked.
“Secure and ready.”
“Sire, what’s your position?”
David’s reply was terse. “I’m in my suite. Tell Samuel I need him back here. I think Paul’s gone rogue on us—he broke into the suite and then abandoned his post.”
She halted. “Samuel’s not there?”
“No—he’s not with you?”
“No.”
Normally she enjoyed hearing David curse, but lately it seemed to be happening with unfortunate frequency. “I’m running a trace on his com,” he said. “He’s in the building, near the front doors. I can’t raise him or Paul. The insurgent signals are converging on the entrance—get everyone there now.”
“Sophie said they had a man inside,” Faith realized, starting to run again. “I’m on my way.” She hit broadcast. “All available Elite to the front doors!”
Faith raced down the hall and around the corner toward the front entrance . . .
. . . just in time to see Samuel swing the double doors open.
Then all hell broke loose.
Twenty
Sophie pulled her little black car up behind the stables and parked; before she even had the key out of the ignition Miranda had leapt out.
The horses were out in the paddock, clearly distressed, whinnying and pawing the dirt the way they did before a storm broke. Miranda climbed up on the fence to get a better look at the Haven.
An animal hiss escaped her lips. She could see dark figures streaming into the Haven like ants and the broad front doors standing open. Even if Faith had believed their warning, it had come too late. The enemy had taken them by surprise and found no resistance at the doors. Miranda could only hope that the Elite were strong enough to drive them back.
“Hurry,” she called to Sophie and hopped down. “We have to get in there.”
“Hang on a minute. Do you have any sort of strategy here, or are we as stupid as I think we are?”
Miranda was staring at the Haven, wishing she could see through the shutters; from out here it looked almost normal, but even at this distance she could hear breaking glass and the clear ring of metal on metal.
“We fight our way in and take out as many as we can.”
Sophie snorted, hard. “Not to be a pain, here, but there are exactly two of us, and you’ve never even been in a real fight, much less as a vampire. You can win one on one, but if we go in the front it’s us against all of them. If we want to help, we need a plan, which is what I told you in the car.”
“Fine, fine. Ideas?”
“We need to go in where we’ll have the greatest advantage and do the most damage.”
“Side entrance,” Miranda said. “There’s one over there—but the doors are electronically locked.”
“Locks are the least of our worries. Come on.”
They slipped past the stables and around to the side of the main building. Miranda was grateful for her borrowed clothes; Sophie had dressed her all in black, and though the T-shirt was tight across her chest, the rest fit well enough. The two of them looked like paramilitary, except that instead of guns, they were armed to the teeth with swords, and Sophie had insisted she also carry a wooden stake in her belt.
Once on the far side, Miranda looked back around the corner at the front entrance—seconds later, something whistled down from the roof, and one of the insurgents fell to the ground with a cry, a crossbow bolt in his chest. There were more whistles as the Elite picked the enemy off from above. The rest of the insurgents—Miranda counted at least thirty still pushing their way in—clogged the doors, trying to shove their cohorts out of the way before they, too, were shot.
They were trying to destroy her home. They were killing her friends. They might already have killed Faith . . . or David . . . They wanted to tear apart everything the Signet stood for. Her vision seemed to turn red, but she kept her anger under control—she had to save it for what was ahead.
Miranda ducked back and joined Sophie at the garden door that she and Faith had walked in and out of a dozen times when Miranda lived here. Sophie was fiddling with the door handle. Miranda was about to remind her that the lock was electronic, when Sophie grabbed her arm and hauled her back, saying, “Move!”
There was a small explosion, a puff of black smoke, and the door swung open.
“Hasn’t been a lock made that I couldn’t get into,” Sophie said. “Some require a little less finesse than others .”
“It’s too bad you didn’t bring anything else that blows up. We could use a nice flamethrower or something.”
Miranda risked one last look at the front. Suddenly the broad double doors slammed shut, crushing at least one invader between them and blocking the others from getting in. The enemy were shouting among themselves, dividing up to find other ways.
“Shit, they’re coming this way!” Miranda exclaimed. “Get in!”
They both ran through the door side by side and Sophie flung it shut, while Miranda dragged the nearest table in front of it to at least buy time. She shoved the table sideways up beneath the door handle while Sophie took a wad of some kind of gray chewing gum and stuffed it into the lock.
“Pressure-sensitive explosive,” Sophie explained. “When they try to open it, boom! It won’t do that much damage but it’ll make them shit their pants. Let’s move.”
There was no guard at the door, which told Miranda that everyone who was able had been diverted to the front entrance. It seemed like a bad idea—how could David know that all the insurgents were there, not trying to come around like she and Sophie had?
Her answer came seconds later when four Elite came pounding down the hallway straight toward them. Miranda recognized one as Theo, who had served as an East Wing guard a few nights during her stay.
“Stay where you are, hands in the air!” Theo yelled. “Show your coms!”
“We don’t have coms!” Miranda yelled back. “We’re friends of the Haven, we came to help. There are Blackthorn coming through this door.”
“We’re aware of that, we’re tracking them,” Theo snapped. “Who are you?”
“Sophia Castellano,” Sophie said, steel in her words. “Formerly of the Red Shadow and an ally of this Signet. I am also the bodyguard to your Prime’s lover. We need to find the Prime immediately.”
Miranda blinked at Sophie. “What’s a Red Shadow?”
“Better that you don’t know.”
Theo gaped at Miranda for a few seconds, finally recognizing her, then deferred to Sophie without question. “Our Lord Prime is with the rest of the Elite fighting in the Great Hall. We’ve already lost warriors, and they outnumber us three to one. The more swords the better—come with us. Eighty-Three, Forty-Four, stay here and keep that door shut.”
They all headed down the hallway at a graceful trot, and Miranda asked, “How bad is it?”
“Bad, my Lady. Samuel and Paul were both in collusion with the enemy and let them in through security after Ariana Blackthorn planted a GPS to trace the Haven’s location. Near as we can figure, they were communicating the one way we don’t check on.”
“Radio?” Sophie ventured.
“No, the mail. Postal mail has never been inspected piece by piece except in suspicious cases. Samuel was sending regular one-stamp letters to Ariana at a post office box. It never raised a single eyebrow.”
They took the hall that led out of the Prime’s wing, and Miranda stuck her head in the suite to see if David was there, by some miracle, but he wasn’t. In fact it looked like a tornado had blown through the room. There were no suite guards—Samuel and this Paul had already abandoned their posts and all pretense of loyalty.
She hoped they both died nasty.
They passed the music room, and again Miranda paused—the door was locked tight, but she felt a moment’s fear. “I will protect you,” she promised the B?sendorfer inside. “I won’t let you down.”
Sophie gave her a quizzical look.
“Bastards better not hurt my piano,” Miranda replied.
“That’s what you’re worried about right now? What about your boyfriend?”
“He can take care of himself. I know he’s a good fighter. I’ve just never seen him do it.”
“Get ready,” Theo said at her side, urging them all to the left. “We’re almost there.”
The sounds of the battle reached them first—screams, shouts, cries of agony, the solid thump of fists on flesh, the clash of blade on blade. Something fell and broke all over the tile floor, probably some statuary or another. The sounds of nearly a hundred people bottlenecked into the Great Hall were deafening.
The Elite defended both staircases and thus far the invaders had fought them halfway to the second floor, but they held their ground.
Miranda ran up to the railing, searching for familiar faces in the din. An Elite screamed in pain as he was run through with a wooden sword, and blood pooled all around his body, blood that another vampire slipped in; Miranda searched their faces, and the faces of the dead, for those she knew.
There was Samuel, decapitated and dismembered. Another Elite lay nearby, and she was pretty sure it was Paul.
Finally she caught sight of Faith in the center of the fight, exactly where Miranda expected her to be. The Second was a blur of motion, her two swords whirling all around her, and attacker after attacker dove in for the kill and never emerged. She wasted no time with banter—Faith had one objective, to put down the insurgents, and she would do exactly that.
Where was David? And where was Ariana? She had to be here. She would have come.
“Draw!” Sophie shouted. Two insurgents had broken through the wall of Elite at the head of the stairs and were making a break deeper into the building.
Miranda joined her, and they outran the enemy and faced them in the hallway, swords at the ready.