Of Shadow Born Read Online Free PDF Page A

No mere mortal, or vampire trash, had the right to lay hands on such a thing.
    He called one of the Red Shadow operatives he had in town, 2.2 Alizarin. “I need to divert you from your current objective.”
    “What is your command, my Lord?”
    “Start making inquiries about a stolen sword. It will look very similar to my own, but the grip is larger in diameter, the blade about two inches longer; it’s balanced for a left hand and, last I saw it, was carried in a black scabbard. I doubt anyone in the District will have it, since they’ll know it’s hot, but try pawnshops and dealers in the area. The second you find it, bring it to me.”
    “Yes, my Lord. Consider it done.”
    Deven rose smoothly, straightening his coat. He should get back to the Ambassador and read Monroe’s files on Jeremy Hayes. There were simply too many questions that continued to go unanswered . . . and he made it his business to hunt down answers. He collected knowledge like he collected weapons, and there was no question which was deadlier in the right hands. If they had known what the Awakening ritual was really for . . . if they knew now . . .
    Deep down, however, he had a feeling he did know.
    He took the remains of David’s Signet from his pocket and held it up by the chain, concentrating on it; then he let it go.
    It hung in midair, suspended, the way the entire Shadow World seemed suspended to him right now, between one reality and another, one set of impossibilities and another.
    Lifetimes ago, Eladra had been fond of saying there was meaning in everything. She had seen omens in the stars and heard whispers in the trees. The world, she said, was a holy instant, a thousand thousand possibilities merging into one reality. Every action was fraught with consequence. Nothing happened by chance.
    Meaning . . . meaning in a sudden connection among a handful of Signets when for centuries they had all been sundered. Meaning in David’s death. Meaning in all their lives colliding. Meaning in the slaughter of twenty-eight innocents.
    Meaning in a missing sword.
    Deven sighed. The Signet fell back down into his outstretched hand.
    Eladra would have been amused by his thoughts. Worse yet, she might have found hope in them that he was at long last coming around to her way of thinking. She had tried for so long to help him believe again . . . in God, in miracles, in love.
    She had failed on all counts . . . but a hundred years later, David had made him believe in love, and that, in itself, was a miracle.
    And now David was gone.
    As much as he wished he could find meaning in any of it, Deven knew that there was none. This was how their lives went. Signets died all the time. At least one went down per decade, and he was replaced, and the world carried on without him, uncaring. If there was a god’s hand pulling the strings, he—or she—was a clumsy puppeteer indeed.
    Deven knew that Jonathan was right; they should leave, let nature take its course and go back to the way things had always been. David and Miranda had caused tremors in their world, but in the end, the earth would grow still again, and they would be another Pair of names in a long list, footnotes in vampire history. There was no reason to stay here and prolong the inevitable. It wasn’t Deven and Jonathan’s problem. Perhaps they’d be allies with the new Prime, perhaps not. Same shit, different decade.
    He spoke quietly, wondering if David’s soul—assuming such a thing existed—was anywhere it could hear him, or if the Prime had moved on to whatever torment or oblivion awaited vampires after death.
    “Tell me how to let you go,” he said. “Tell me how, after all this time, I should say good-bye to you.”
    A light wind picked up, catching a handful of litter and scattering it across the rooftop. Deven heard a rustling, fluttering noise and lifted his eyes to a power line about fifty feet from where he stood.
    An enormous raven perched there, watching him,