Camera Obscura (A Novel of Shadows Book 1)

by Christina Quinn

  “Well, I need to know about her Cult.”

  “There’s not really much to know.” She closed the door behind me and walked to her desk. “I spoke to Jon about it. He says Isis hardly does anything anymore. She completes her cycle and then does nothing for about a hundred years.”

  “Cycle?”

  “Mhm, it’s why she’s choosy with who she helps. Every hundred or so years she grants a handful of couples children. The way Jon describes it, these are supposed to be the ones intended to rise to prominence and control the preternatural world as we know it. In my research, I’ve found that Isis has only been doing this since the Greco-roman period when her Cult flourished.”

  “So, Isis is a kingmaker?”

  “Not quite. She gifts these children to promote peace, they’re a promise of mutually assured destruction.”

  “Why would a faction in the Cult want to stop that from taking place?”

  “I don’t know, outside influence probably. By attacking these children, they’re turning their back on Isis’s wishes. Someone out there doesn’t want everyone to get their nuclear weapon. If you find out who that is, everything else should fall into place. Also, this information is something that was even hard for me to come across. Jon was uncharacteristically tight-lipped about it. Usually, he shares everything with me, and most of this I had to find out on my own. He also wouldn’t tell me if Isis is a sidhe or not.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know?”

  “Oh, he knows! He was in power when she was!”

  I winced, I could tell by her attitude that the questions had caused issues between her and Jon. “I’m sorry if this has stressed your marriage any.”

  “It’s fine, it’s just… sometimes I forget that he’s not human. He’s so normal and then… he rambles for an hour about his Queen not liking it if he told a mortal about Isis. A mortal.” She huffed and kicked the side of her desk.

  “Well, I’ll be there Saturday, and drinks are on me.”

  “Thanks, Rose. Oh, and there was something else.” She furrowed her brows and then snapped her fingers, she clearly forgot whatever it was. “Ah, well it couldn’t have been too important. What’s your new number? I’ll text you if it comes to mind.” I gave her my number and left, feeling a little more informed but still not completely sure what the hell was going on.

  Someone wanted dominance in the area. It made sense to kill the Van Ard kid, and the vampire girl. Vampires were the most populous, but the werewolves had almost the same numbers. I got an idea, so I called Davy.

  “Talk to me, Princess.” It was clearly his voice, but he sounded entirely too happy to hear from me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am better than okay. I am phenomenal! Cis finally admitted that he’s an idiot.”

  “You guys are back together again?”

  “For now, until his raging idiocy rears its ugly head once again.”

  “Well since you’re in a good mood, I need you to do a bunch of massive favors for me. I want everything from the parents’ emails on my cases.”

  “Why? That seems pointless.”

  “I just left Tabs’s, and she told me some things that make me think this might be a little less complicated than I originally thought. Look for things like ransom demands, or something that could be referring to them—even vaguely. Oh! And check to see if any of the others have had contracts on them other than Van Ard and Sterling.”

  “That’s quite the list, anything else while I’m at it? Something less difficult, like finding out the nuclear codes?”

  “Nah. You’re the best, Davy.” I ended the call and slumped in the driver’s seat sipping my coffee.

  ****

  The rest of my day was spent running errands, looking at houses, getting a room at the Cheshire Grand to call home for a while and sending texts to Abby, Nate, and Tabs about jobs for Audrey and Thorn. Tabs had one opening for seasonal work, and Nate had another so I decided Thorn would go to Merlin’s Beard and Audrey would work at the Muffin Man.

  It was nice to have a normal day again. Admittedly, I kind of missed the slew of texts from Thorn, but not enough to power through the awkwardness that went with it, or to string him along. Unlike most people’s normal days, mine included doing surveillance on a nice house in the middle of a new spiffy subdivision about thirty minutes outside of the city.

  They named the place Shady Pines and all I could think of was it sounded like the name of a retirement community, nursing home, or graveyard. Part of me was hoping it had been the last middle finger of a disgruntled employee before quitting. That probably wasn’t the case, but I could dream.

  Jonas had pinged there the day Ester Mahauteire went missing. I had promised myself I was just there for surveillance as I parked at the end of the block where he had pinged. I dressed for running, because part of surveillance—if you want to do it during the day in suburbia—is being able to fit in. What don’t people in subdivisions notice? Joggers—even in late November with a light dusting of snow on the ground.

  The sun was setting as I noticed something odd. One house that had a for sale sign out front but lights on and a car parked in the driveway, and a blue star security sign out front—blue star usually meant a camera feed. I paused my jog and bent over like I was catching my breath.

  “Cameo, call Davy,” I whispered into my ear piece.

  “Talk to me, beautiful.”

  “You had sex.”

  “My how perceptive we are today. What do you need?”

  “771236 Sycamore circuit, Middlebrook, it’s a Blue Star home.” I stretched as I listened to a keyboard clack in my ear.

  “Good ol’ Blue Star. I know six-year-olds who could break into their feeds while fiddling with mummy’s e-reader.” He snickered, “And in. We have…four people armed and there’s someone hooked up to an IV in the master bedroom.”

  “Thanks, Davy. Any luck with the other stuff?”

  “Six for Six so far. One parent always says they’ll think about it. Also, the LaFaettes have gone back to Ireland, not even London but all the way home. I’m half way through the list, though. The Saint-Martin’s, and Van Ards said no.”

  “Shit.” I groaned.

  “Oh! I know where they’re holding Logan!” He sounded positively over excited.

  “How?”

  “They sent his parents a picture, and I recognize the background. It’s the old police station, the one we broke into and spray painted all of that crap on the wall about the CU.”

  “Guess I might as well sleep at the manor tonight since I’ll be so close.”

  “I wish I could have seen your face as you said it.”

  “Bye Davy.”

  ****

  Growling, I jogged back to my car and waited for it to get darker. I didn’t play bejeweled like usual. Instead, I used the time to think about my cluster fuck of a nonexistent personal life. Maybe I should have let Thorn try. I sighed and checked the clip I had with me as I watched the lights pop on in the homes on the block. The car started to get cold, but my jacket was warm enough, so I stuck my hands in my pockets.

  The way lights in the houses started to go out one by one was almost mesmerizing in a way. My mind wandered to watching fireworks go off on the Fourth of July with Nate, Davy, and Cis on the top of the old police station. Now, Nate was trying to pretend to be human like he felt there was something wrong with the way he was before.

  If he could just focus on being all business Shadow Nate, I’d let him be something more than an associate. But he was trying too hard to be just like everyone else. It was disappointing. I liked cold, calculating, murder machine Nate, but if I really thought about it, he was probably going to therapy or something. Just the thought of it made me cringe. He was ruining himself under the false pretense that it would make him more appealing to others. I wanted to wring the neck of whoever convinced him that he needed to change.

  Then there was Thorn, the perfect package, and only a little scary. If I could sh
ake him of the whole inability to protect himself thing he could be a powerful asset, and contact—maybe even a regular backscratcher. But he wanted more than I had the ability to give. He wanted a girlfriend, a companion, a lover. I wasn’t that, and I couldn’t be that. Until he understood I had no desire to change myself and dabble in emotions, he was off-limits. It would be cruel if I didn’t, because he would get even more attached than he already was.

  When the lights went out in the house where Ester was imprisoned, I wasn’t entirely certain what I’d do when I got her. I was, however, fairly sure I could deal with the people in the house quietly. More importantly without resorting to firearms. In the suburbs that would mean the police getting involved and I didn’t have time for that. I wasn’t entirely certain that this would be my last stop of the night either.

  I moved the car across the street, making certain to keep the headlights off, and drive slow enough that the noise wouldn’t announce my presence. I slipped on my leather fingerless gloves and pulled the elastic bungee cord from the jogging jacket I wore earlier during my canvassing. Davy said four, and I trusted him, so I was confident enough that I’d probably be in and out in less than an hour. I wrapped the bungee cord around my palm, and got out of the car, briskly jogging for the house.

  It was easy enough to break into most homes. People were stupid and tended to take their safety for granted. Most did things like leave windows and doors unlocked on the second floor. It almost always crosses their minds to close the ones on the first, but the second is often neglected. That poor line of reasoning that no one is going to be able to reach the second story bedroom window because there’s nothing near it is a fallacy. It required a bit of climbing and maneuvering of my body, but I was able to get inside with little difficulty, but most importantly I didn’t make a sound.

  Crouching low, I went from room to room until I found my first victim. He looked so cozy in bed, sleeping with his gun on the nightstand while the Mautriere girl was comatose a room over. I crawled to the bed. After slipping the bungee cord around his neck with relative ease, I pulled as hard as I could. Contrary to popular belief, if you choke someone properly they hardly make a sound—aside from their flailing—because it takes air to make noise.

  They thrashed quite a bit, but I put them out of their misery without arousing suspicions. A brilliant thought crossed my mind as I unwound the cord from around the corpse’s throat—I could use the drugs they gave Ester against them. The irony delighted me. A smile parted my lips, flashing teeth as I snuck into the room they were keeping the girl sedated.

  I searched the drawers until I found vials of Pentobarbital. In small doses, it would keep the patient in a coma, but in high doses, it could kill. It was also one of the drugs used throughout the country for physician-assisted suicide, as well as, being part of many states death penalty cocktails. In the drawer near the vials of drugs, were the syringes that they used for spiking the girl’s IV. I filled three and snuck my way through the house.

  With the syringes, their deaths came swiftly, but after I had dosed the last one, his head rolled to the side—exposing the tattoo on the back of his neck that marked him as a Shadow. Fuck. I ran back through the house and checked the other three bodies. Every one of them was a Shadow.

  My stomach twisted as unhooked Ester Mauteire’s IV. I couldn’t do anything about the dead Shadows, pushing forward was the only option. The Camera Umbra would be able to trace my location to theirs at time of death. It could have been a setup. I had heard of other shadows having escape plans—setting up places and ways to hide in case they broke our most sacred of rules.

  As I carried Ester over my shoulder through the house, my thoughts wandered to all the times someone offered me a go bag that I didn’t take—regret filled every facet of my being as I came to terms with what was going to happen. Sometime in the next five hours other Executioners would come for me and drag me before the Camera Umbra. Then they’d decide whether or not to put me down like a rabid animal within the next twelve hours. My body count alone made me think they’d lean towards ignoring whatever reason I gave and just put a bullet between my eyes.

  My encroaching doom aside, I was determined to get Ester Mahautiere back to Ma’am in the Collins District. I’d worry about everything else later.

  Sixteen

  I WAS ABLE to drop Ester at Ma’am’s, but the moment I stepped outside I could feel that I was being watched. There was no doubt in my mind that it was the other Shadows. Sighing, I dropped to my knees on the rough sandstone walk, put my gun on the ground in front of me, and placed my hands on top of my head. So, this is how it ends.

  Other Shadows stepped out from bushes, I could tell just from the way they moved and dressed that they were Executioners like myself. I didn’t put up a fight as they zip tied my wrists together behind my back, and led me to a van around the corner. While in the back of the vehicle, I was free to wonder how they got so many to my location so quickly.

  It seemed like we were instantly at the manor, and I was being paraded through the halls as countless members of the Order of Shadows lined the walls—Sybils and Executioners alike. Everyone wore so much black it was like being at an Industrial Rock concert. The floor was what got me. The black and white tile was the same as it had always been, glossy with a pristine, mirror-like shine. The doors at the end of the hall were just doors until you got up close, but that floor was unnerving with its precise pattern of alternating blocks.

  As they led me to the Chambers of the Camera Umbra, I recalled walking the seemingly endless length of hallway for the first time as a child. I didn’t remember my parents, I hadn’t seen them since they handed me over for training. But I could recall the feel of my mother’s hands on my shoulders as she pushed me forward, urging me down to those tall, polished, dark, wood doors.

  The ebony was carved with an image of a blindfolded skeleton in flowing robes holding a scale—as a child, I had found the doors almost terrifying. It didn’t help things that above them was a silver plaque with the words ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE, embossed in stark relief. I hadn’t been beyond the doors since I was eight, and brought in for my first assessment.

  The doors opened on darkness and an indecipherable beyond. The lights flickered on and standing there in the archway was a man in an all-black three-piece suit, with a black shirt, and a tie with a blood-red on black design. His face was lined, his hair was near shaved, and his eyes as dark as the room beyond the circle of light.

  When he saw me, he let out a soft noise of disapproval. Our gazes caught and I instantly remembered him. He was the Anubis, essentially a cross between a concierge and consigliere to the Camera Umbra. I didn’t know his name beyond the title.

  He waved off everyone, and the halls cleared leaving the six who brought me in, the Anubis and me. Without a word, he started deeper into the darkness and I was pushed forward. I could feel the spell around us that lit the Anubis’s way deeper into the chambers.

  “You’re early.” His voice was deep and gravelly. A sound of nightmares to most—but not me. No, my nightmares were full of clingy attractive men who wanted relationships. I wasn’t even afraid of the judgment that might be passed. Death didn’t frighten me. Admittedly, my being executed because of a simple fuck up did disappoint me, but fear didn’t factor into it.

  They led me down a hall to a part of the Manor I had never been to before. The walls were ebony panels with black lacquer trim. Mixed with the black marble floor, it was in a word intimidating. There were two doors on a far wall, and two rows of dark padded chairs facing them. The Executioners pushed me down into a chair and then left out of one of the doors, leaving the Anubis and me alone.

  “When I first became a Shadow I was tapped to be an executioner. There was a girl who went through training with me—I think her name was Ingrid. She had come in late, so she had issues giving up her identity. She was a Cavendish and would go on and on about her family even though she hadn’t seen them in years. Not a ye
ar after finishing was she brought before the Camera Umbra, Ingrid and her Sybil—another Cavendish—had been tipping family members off about pending inquiries.” I yawned, he paused and looked at me. “Not interested in what happened to Ingrid?”

  “Nope.”

  “What happened to Ingrid wasn’t interesting, but the Judgement passed on that branch of the Cavendish family, however, all snuffed out—even the children. Could you do that?”

  “Kill a child?”

  “Mhm. If the Camera Umbra requested it of you, could you end the only life that one could possibly argue as innocent.” We stared at each other for a while. “You should answer you know.”

  “I could, but would I? Honestly, probably not.”

  His lips twitched into a smile. “Good. The Executioners who caught the contracts didn’t think about what they were told to do. Like good little soldiers, they took their marching orders, and carried them out without stopping to even contemplate that maybe, just maybe, something might be wrong when the Camera Umbra, who is supposed to stand for justice, orders the murders of three children under the age of four. The contracts were fake, then our Sybils didn’t work like they do now, but one with ties to House Sterling planted false judgments. When I put two and two together, I put a screwdriver through the man’s eye.”

  “Are you saying I’m not going to be judged?”

  He laughed. “Oh, god no. You’re going to be seen by the Camera Umbra and judgment will be passed. I’m just saying that there’s a chance you won’t meet your end tonight.” He tilted his head to the side and looked me over for a moment, pursing his lips. “You minus nulls are intriguing creatures. I’ve stood here countless times with others, and you seem completely unfazed by what brings others into sniveling, pathetic, balls of snot.”

  “I try.”

  A few minutes later, he ushered me into that other door, the room was round with that same overly polished checked tile pattern from the hall. A chandelier dangled low and cast an ominous circle of light in the center of the room.