Camera Obscura (A Novel of Shadows Book 1)

by Christina Quinn

  My stitches were intact and healed enough for a good long soak which my muscles so desperately needed. I turned off my mind, I just wanted to be numb to everything for two hours. To stop existing long enough to maybe get a fresh perspective on things. Too much had happened in too short of a time and I was starting to hope that I’d end up hospitalized just so I’d get a break.

  It felt so good to finally have a tub. I could ignore the soft murmur of the television and the sound of Thorn’s footsteps and just let my body rest—until my house guest decided to knock on the door. I groaned and sunk under the water for a few seconds before rising and wiping my hair from my face.

  “Come in.” I tried to keep the annoyance from my voice, but I don’t think I succeeded just judging from the tentative nature of Thorn’s entrance.

  “I wanted you to know I’m okay with earlier and I know why you did it.”

  “What now?”

  “When you threatened to shoot me.”

  “Oh.” I stopped myself from continuing on with the thought, from professing the absolute truth that I was completely prepared to pull the trigger if his mother hadn’t given me an answer. “Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say, that disconnect reared its head again, and I was at a loss of what was expected of a normal human being. What would one of my aliases do? I smiled at him. “It means a lot; I was worried that you wouldn’t catch on to what I was doing.” Now leave so I can finish my fucking bath! Instead, he closed the door and leaned against it, my jaw tensed as I fought the reactionary groan that was stuck in my throat. Maybe I should surround myself with uglier people, that way they wouldn’t assume I’d want them around. Oh, I was still attracted to Thorn and all his scrumptiousness but the reality of his quickness to try and forge a bond with me meant I treated him like what he was a venomous snake. So pretty to look at but if you handled it wrong, you’d end up in a dilly of a pickle—as in poisoned and probably dying with a dead snake on your floor.

  “I really—” he stopped himself this time. Thank fuck he’s learning. “I want to keep things good between us.” I didn’t even know what that meant.

  “Things are good.”

  “Are they? I just feel like since the whole Nate appearance that you’ve been treating me like an inconvenience.” Because you are one!

  “Oh, that was never my intention. Thorn, you want something from me I can’t give you, something I can’t even give Nate.” I took a breath. “Have you seen the Grinch?”

  “Yeah, I love that movie.”

  “I’m like that, only if my heart grows three sizes nothing will change because there’s nothing there and three times zero is still zero.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Mhm, I know you can’t reciprocate how I feel, but there is something I can give you, that I think you’ll want.” He started to unbuckle his belt, and I didn’t stop him.

  “Eh, why the hell n—” Something was knocked over in the kitchen. I jumped out of the tub, pulled on my pants and tank top while still dripping with water. I didn’t even have time to grumble as I quickly armed myself with the Glock 19 I kept under the sink. Chambering a round I cracked the bathroom door open. There were three asshats dressed in all black clearing my apartment. It was tempting just to put a bullet in Thorn’s head and give up. I didn’t, but I kind of wanted to after everything.

  “Stay low. I’ll meet you on the roof.” I whispered to Thorn as I locked the bathroom door and grabbed my other two guns from the back of the toilet. Unfortunately, I only had one clip for each and I also didn’t have shoes, my car keys, or my phone. That meant there was no choice but to try and make my way through my apartment.

  “Bu—”

  “Go! My apartment’s too small for you to hide.”

  “I can—”

  “Help? You helped me once so far. I’m not counting on a repeat performance. I’ll meet you on the roof.”

  He sighed. “Fine.” At least that’s what I heard the beginning of as someone tried the door. I quickly unlocked it just in time for them to open it and step inside. Amateur. I was able to disarm him and snap his neck before he could react. The radio on his body armor crackled with static.

  “Four, status?” Came in over the little plastic device. Thorn crawled out onto the fire escape, and I grabbed the radio.

  “Dead. Come and get me, motherfuckers.” I just needed to get to my closet. The door exploded in splinters as they shot through it. Using the cover of their gunfire, I shot at the wall with the Desert Eagle, guessing where an empty spot in my closet was. Once the clip was empty, I propped the dead body up in the doorway and used it for cover as I widened the hole I made to my closet. Welp, the werewolf blood might have come out, but I’m definitely not getting my security deposit back now. I was just barely able to squeeze through the hole I made.

  “Move in.” Croaked across the radio as I shimmied into my closet. I reached into the bathroom and pulled the dead body to cover the hole as best as I could. Oh, they’d notice it, but it would give me long enough to put my shoes on.

  The closet door was closed, but I was able to feel my way around with the crack of light that made it in from the bathroom. First, I put on my boots because those were a necessity more so than even guns at that point. I felt my way around to where I kept my smoke grenades. I put on the mask from the bottom drawer and left my new gun in its place. I was really going to miss my new friend, but I had preloaded clips for my Glock 19s laying around. I opened my gun safe and took out the three clips, stuffing them into my back pocket. I also screwed a suppressor on one of the guns. The light coming from the bathroom waivered, and I pulled the pin on the smoke grenade and tossed it into the hole.

  The chorus of “Masks! Masks! Masks!” that erupted made me giggle. I was a little offended that they had sent such weak talent after me. A bit of the smoke seeped into the closet, but the mask filtered it out.

  I dropped to the floor and cracked the door a little before tossing out another smoke grenade. After the telltale poof had sounded, I slipped out, keeping myself as close to the floor as I could manage. The room was hazy with smoke, but I knew where I left my jacket which had my phone in the pocket. I crawled along the floor avoiding the feet as they swarmed around in confusion. I pulled it off the bed by the sleeve as I hid under it. Abby was going to get a thank you letter covered in glitter for talking me into buying smoke grenades in the first place.

  The smoke started to dissipate, chances were they weren’t total morons and opened windows. I would have. Unfortunately, I still needed to get my keys. I reached up and snagged a pillow off the bed. I almost felt bad for the guy they left watching my room. I held the pillow with one hand and shot through it with the suppressed Glock. It wasn’t silent, but it was as close as you were going to get. Bedroom guy dropped, and I was able to grab him and lower him down to the ground with the slightest of thuds.

  I threw the last of my smoke grenades into the living area. Fired into it blindly from the hallway with the gun without the silencer, and darted into the bathroom. I tripped over the dead body and fell into one of theirs who was staring out at the fire escape. The guy turned in shock when he heard me fall and I pistol punched him in the face, which is exactly what it sounds like. For me, it was practically a nonviolent resolution.

  I fired through the door again and snuck out onto the fire escape. I jumped from it to the kitchen windowsill. Crawling over the sink—which is a lot more difficult than it sounds, faucets suck—I snatched up my keys and used the brick pattern on the building to free climb my way to the roof.

  When I reached Thorn, my muscles ached, and my fingers were bleeding. And oh yeah, my hair and clothes were still wet. Unfortunately, we weren’t done.

  “Get the car, meet me on the corner of Fairfax and Strathmore.” I tossed Thorn the keys.

  “Okay? What’s—”

  “I’ll tell you later. Just go.”

  He nodded and stepped off the edge of the building, liter
ally walking on air down to the street below. Fucking show off. I rolled my shoulders and looked at the gap between buildings. It was larger than I remembered it being when I rented the place, or maybe I was just overly confident in my parkour skills. I got a running start and took the leap.

  I made it, but miscalculated the difference in height between the buildings. So, I hit the roof hard and was knocked off balance nearly breaking my leg. I rolled a few times before finally coming to a painful stop. I could smell the blood from my shoulder wound reopening. I laid there for a while just staring up at the stars. It was such a nice night, minus the fact that it was cold enough my hair had started to freeze. What troubled me a little was I hadn’t felt the shift in temperature. The human body can only take so much before shock sets in and I was teetering on the edge of it—but I couldn’t stop.

  Peeling myself from the tar roof, I made my way down the fire escape and onto the street below. That was when I noticed the limp. I was going to be in a lot of pain the moment my adrenalin dropped. Coincidently enough, the slow build up of agony was almost unbearable when I reached the car. I whimpered as I sat down in the passenger’s seat.

  “Remember where Audrey’s is?”

  “You look—”

  “I’m fucking phenomenal. Drive!” I opened the glove compartment and grumbled finding it empty—that meant the first aid kit was in the trunk.

  “Are y—”

  “Watch the road!” I warbled, I was shaking, my body trembling with the pain. I hit that roof harder than I initially thought. Something somewhere was dislocated, but I was in too much pain to tell. “I’m…I think I’m going into shock.” I gasped. “I need you… to… have… Audrey call… Davy.”

  “I’m taking you to a hospital.”

  I drew my gun and pressed it to his temple. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

  “Okay! Okay! Why not a hospital?”

  “I’d be… turned away.”

  “That’s not how hospitals work, Doctors take oaths.”

  “They also perform triage.” I was shivering, my guess was internal bleeding. Something probably ripped, tore, or popped when I hit the roof. “Shadows get… turned away all the time. It’s not supposed to happen… but no one has lost their license for refusing us service.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “What an astute… observation!” I doubled over in pain while shivering almost uncontrollably. The passing streetlights were blinding. Oh, joy, a concussion too. I had hit the injury lottery. I felt myself losing consciousness before I actually did, that far away feeling of being removed from your body snuck up on me. With everything that had happened, I was ready for the sweet release of death. C’mon sweet oblivion!

  Fourteen

  FORTUNATELY, OR UNFORTUNATELY, death had decided it wasn’t ready for me—or I pissed some cosmic something or other off, and they decided I hadn’t suffered enough yet for their amusement. I was betting on the latter, mainly because I was very aware of who I was.

  The ceiling was yellow and splotchy with brown water spots. The taste in my mouth said I had been out in a few days. My teeth were gritty and nasty, and I almost wanted mouthwash and toothpaste as much as I did painkillers. Everything ached and I had an IV in my arm. I knew I was in an abandoned building just by the smell; antiseptic and mold clash with a distinctly biting odor.

  Next to the bed was glass with a bouquet of a single type of flower; I recognized it, Autumn Crocus. They were surprisingly poisonous, and there was no known antidote. I was guessing they were a gift from Ma’am. They weren’t a danger to me, I wasn’t going to eat them or touch them, so it was okay. They were pretty enough, a vivid purple-blue that seemed out of place in the orange cream dinge of the room. I adjusted the cup, the sun refracted off the faucets in the glass casting tiny rainbows on the sad little table it rested on.

  The room was depressing as hell. Everything looked worse than second hand, the books on the shelf in the corner all had their bindings cracked and broken, the titles scarcely legible. Everything seemed so worn and lived in, which I knew was impossible. Then again this was probably something Davy had set up just in case. He had a way of being endlessly prepared like that.

  Thorn entered, and when those silver eyes fell on me, he smiled wide and wonderful, before practically running to my side.

  “How are you feeling? Do you need me to get you some water?”

  “Nah, I’m fine.” I sat up and winced as I took the needle from my arm. “How long have I been out?”

  “A week and a half. You’re in a brownstone on the same block as…the zombie Lady. I feel bad that I don’t know her name. She keeps giving me fresh flowers to put beside your bed every morning.”

  “Fuck! A week and a half,” I groaned crossing my arms. “What happened?”

  “You dislocated your shoulder, your thigh was grazed by a bullet, you ripped most of your stitches, reopened the wound at your shoulder. Oh, you had a concussion too or at least that’s what they told me.”

  “Great.”

  “The Doctor came by last night; said you were healing well. But you should be on bed rest for a while.”

  “Fat fucking chance.” I got out of bed and stood with a grimace.

  “Your stitches are starting to heal.”

  “Well, they can finish healing when I’ve figured out what’s going on.”

  “Davy brought by a bunch of electronics for you. He said this is a safe house.”

  I looked around. “Yeah, that seems about right.” I made my way through the place surveying room to room. There was a tablet, phone, and laptop in their packages in the living room on an end table. I flopped down on the couch and started ripping through boxes like it was Christmas.

  “I was going to make lunch. Do you want anything?” Thorn walked toward the open kitchen, and I glanced up from the pile of Styrofoam, cardboard, and shiny new electronics.

  “Nope.”

  Once everything was out of the box, I set it up, connected to my server and went through my case files. It was nice to be able to mark the LaFaette case as resolved—even if it wasn’t technically completely done. Davy had gone in and amended some of my files while I was comatose. He had added areas that Jonas went dark near next to each date of disappearance.

  Technically, if they kept the same timeline they did with Van Ard, everyone on my list was dead already, and I was looking for bodies. I sent a text from the new phone to my morgue contact asking if anything had shown up. I received a reply almost immediately, the Saint-Martin girl’s body was found a few days before. Or at least a girl matching her description with vampirism DNA markers. The place Jonas pinged near on the day she went missing was the probably the best place for me to start since I was still healing.

  Thorn placed a plate in front of me with a turkey sandwich on it and—I shit you not—kale chips. I hated both things. I pushed it away and ran my fingers through my hair.

  “Going to head out, I have a lead to follow. Are there clothes?”

  “Yeah, oh and Davy wants you to give him a call.”

  Grumbling, I made my way to the bathroom. I changed into a black tank top and black jeggings. I didn’t like them because they were fashionable as much as I liked that they stretched, which meant they were easier to run and fight in. I put on my boots and holstered my Glock. I had a full clip, I figured if I needed more than that I’d probably end up dead in my current state.

  Sidestepping Thorn’s attempted self-invitation, I left out into the biting, late-autumn afternoon. The car wasn’t out front but in a garage in the back. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it was Davy who told Thorn to put the car out of sight. Frankly, I it impressed me that Thorn could make a sandwich. My phone buzzed.

  - I’m making dinner text me if you’ll be late.

  I rolled my eyes not bothering to reply to the text. I’d have to deal with that at some point in time, or maybe not. With luck, it’d resolve itself, and I’d be free to go back to my life of not having to deal wit
h some idiot trying to insert himself into my life.

  ****

  The location where Jonas was near on the day Libby Saint-Martin went missing was in the very heart of the old Pratt District. Another once thriving neighborhood that turned to garbage once the people who worked in the city moved out to the suburbs. The houses had sat vacant for a while, and then the homeless teens and drugs wormed their way in.

  Now, apparently, secret societies were using them to hide kidnap victims, too. I was starting to feel like maybe the Cult of Isis wasn’t the problem, and maybe the city needed to work a little harder on their poverty level. Even as I had the thought, I realized the absurdity of it. Poverty was part of a big city, especially in the Midwest and East where the cities were older so the poor and disenfranchised were harder to hide.

  On a chain-link fence was a huge, shiny, plastic sign that read LUXURY CONDOS COMING SOON. With an architect’s rendering of an updated townhouse—like any of the residents now could afford to stay once they demolished and rebuilt.

  I parked off to the side when I reached the block of Wilson Avenue that Jonas stopped pinging on. The entire area was fenced off, with big, orange, construction equipment was parked at one end. The site was empty. Chances were they had to stop everything when the body was found. A recent homicide could really put a damper on gentrification.

  It wasn’t hard to slip in, all it took was wriggling through a small hole in the fencing. I could have jumped it if not for my injuries. My goal was to not undo my week and a half coma vacation if at all possible. So, my movements were slow and deliberate as I looked around for where they found the body. The police tape gave it away, bright, yellow, and almost festive. Groaning, like an eighty-year-old in desperate need of hip replacement I ducked under and surveyed the shallow grave.

  “They found her looking for gas lines.” Nate. I spun around with my Glock drawn and stared down the sights at him. He sat there on the stoop with hands empty. Only one of his pinkies was taped, which meant I had only dislocated the other. It was four to six weeks of recovery either way. He wore his glasses and a thick navy wool coat with a green plaid scarf. “Davy wouldn’t tell Cis or me where they’re keeping you.”