Queen of Shadows by Dianne Sylvan Page A

was coming back. He could sense it would settle in for the rest of the night after this brief respite from the downpour.
    As he started to return to the Haven, he looked up at Miranda’s window again; it was empty.
    Yes, she needed to leave as soon as possible . . . for his sake as well as her own.

    Everyone dies alone, right?
    She dragged herself sideways, unable to feel her legs, pain lancing through her upper body from a dozen puncture wounds. One of the crossbow bolts broke off as she tried to move and drove deeper into her gut, and she moaned, then coughed, tasting blood.
    Blood dripped from her face onto the pavement, and from her hands as she tried desperately to stay conscious. Her hands slipped and she fell, chin hitting the ground.
    Behind her she could hear the others dying. Mickey, Jones, Parvati . . . she’d seen Mickey go down first and tried to bark out a warning to the others, but it was too late—they were surrounded and arrows rained down from the roof into the street.
    Jones had screamed. She’d never heard him scream before. She’d known him a long time, slept with him off and on back when they’d both been green recruits still in awe of their own jobs, invincible with youth.
    The Dumpster was only ten feet away. If she could get behind it, they might not see her, and she might be able to call home. She knew she was dying, but she had to warn the Haven. Ten feet . . . nine feet . . .
    It was so cold . . . so much blood . . .
    Eight feet . . .
    They were coming. Footsteps. She heard Parvati’s wailing death shriek as one last arrow was shot into her chest at point-blank range. The click of the crossbow, the scream, the heavy sound of a body hitting the ground . . . seven feet . . .
    “Where’s the other one? There were supposed to be four!”
    Ambush. Her entire patrol unit wiped out in five minutes. How could they have been so stupid? The call had sounded legitimate. The network was infallible. Everyone knew that. There was only one way a fake distress call could have been placed over the coms, and she had to warn the Haven.
    Five feet. They were looking for her, but in the wrong direction. She might have time.
    She heaved herself over the last few feet, collapsing behind the Dumpster and pulling her now-useless right arm up near her head. Her voice was hoarse and she could hear death rattling its way up through her throat . . . not much longer . . .
    “Star-three,” she coughed into the com. “Elite Fourteen . . . Code One emergency channel . . .”
    “Over here! I see something!”
    “This is Faith.”
    “This is Elite Fourteen on behalf of Patrol Two West Austin . . . our unit has been ambushed. We received . . . a false call to these coordinates for backup . . . fired upon from above . . . all Elite down . . . the network has been compromised. I repeat . . . the com network has been . . . compromised . . .”
    She heard Faith swear, then say, distantly, “Hold on, Elite Fourteen. I’m sending rescue.”
    “No need,” she whispered as she heard footsteps behind her. “Just tell the Prime . . .”
    Faith kept talking, telling her to hold on, that help was coming, but she barely heard. Someone seized her by the arm and dragged her backward, away from the shelter of the Dumpster, the Second’s voice fading to a tinny murmur, suddenly silenced.

Five
    Miranda went into raptures over the library. It was larger than her bedroom, the walls lined with shelves from floor to ceiling, and even had ladders. It reminded her strongly of the library at the university, where she’d spent hours leafing through books, inhaling the musty smell of aged paper, puzzling over indecipherable tomes like Les Miserables in the original French.
    It had been a long time since she’d simply sat down and read a book. Reading relaxed her too much, and relaxing, without a barrier of alcohol between her and the world, spelled trouble.
    Her fingers traced the spines of classics, contemporary novels, and nonfiction