Shadow Kin

by M. J. Scott

  I tried to look innocent. Hard to do when you’ve recently been discovered somewhere you’re really not supposed to be. “I don’t know.”

  He looked past me to Atherton, who had the air of someone watching a sparring match and enjoying it immensely. “Did she see inside?”

  “No.” Atherton and I spoke together.

  “At least,” Atherton added, after a pause in which we both stayed silent, “she has said nothing about what is beyond the door. I don’t know if she has been in there, of course. Wraiths being what they are, I cannot tell where she had been before she came upon me.”

  Simon frowned. “True. Lily?”

  “I didn’t go inside. I came from the tunnel.” I wanted him to believe me. If he turned against me, then who knew what would happen? Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to come here. Too late to change that decision now.

  “Why are you here at all?”

  “How did you know I was here?” I countered.

  “Atherton triggered an alarm.”

  A ward. Of course. “Yet you came alone?” I wondered if that choice was because he knew he could handle whatever he was likely to find here or because not many people knew the tunnel’s secret.

  “I looked in your room. You weren’t there. I figured you’d either left or you’d caught wind of something in the tunnels.” He shook his head a little. “Should’ve taken you the other way,” he said more to himself than anything. “What was it? Can you sense the wards?”

  “I smelled the iron. I got curious.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Of course. How foolish of me. Unsatisfied curiosity is not to be tolerated.”

  He was angry. Understandably. But he had to start to understand that I did things my way. “I need to know what I’m dealing with. You want me to pick your side, to trust you. To help you. But you’re keeping secrets.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Not the kind you hide underground behind iron and magic,” I retorted. “You would do the same thing in my place. If I’m to choose your side, I need to know what I’m choosing.”

  Though if I could have disguised my secrets so easily, locked them away from him under iron and magic, I would have. “You’ve brought me into your world. You want me to stay here. I’m not going to wander around blinded by ignorance. Whatever is behind that door is important. Important enough to spend a lot of time and effort and money concealing it. Important enough to break the rules perhaps?”

  “Yet you want me to trust you with the knowledge before you agree to help me.”

  “Help you do what?” Atherton interrupted. “What’s going on?”

  “Lucius has crossed a line.” Simon said. “And Lily can provide proof of that. If she chooses.”

  “You want her to turn against Lucius?” Atherton’s head twisted toward me. I could almost hear the thoughts spinning through his mind. Reworking the equations and potential of our earlier conversation. “You didn’t mention this earlier,” he said accusingly.

  “I haven’t agreed to do it yet,” I said.

  “So, why should I show you?” Simon said.

  I crossed my arms. “At this point you can either show me or I can walk through the wall. You can’t call sunlight here, not without hurting Atherton.”

  “Atherton’s fast on his feet. I could light you and not him.” Simon moved forward, putting himself between me and Atherton.

  I folded my arms and lifted my chin. “I’m sure you can. Which would stop me for now, but do you have enough sunlamps to keep me trapped forever? What happened to trust?”

  “I want to trust you,” he said.

  “Then show me what’s behind the doors.”

  “No.”

  I blinked. “No?”

  “No,” he repeated. “Trust goes both ways, Lily. It has to be earned. In this, my duty is to my oaths. So, no.”

  “What if I look anyway?”

  His face was calm. “If you do that, then there is no trust between us. And I would be forced to conclude that I have been wrong about you and the others were right.”

  Bryony, I assumed he meant. And whoever else had been telling him not to trust me. I bit my lip. I wanted to know what was in that room. Instincts screamed that it was important. But if Simon didn’t trust me . . . if he gave up on me, then no one else in the human world would stand up for me. I might as well go back to Lucius.

  Then again, if what lay beyond that door might change my choice, I owed it myself to find out. I needed to use my head, not my heart.

  There was something between Simon and me, yes, but the decisions I had to make were life and death. I couldn’t afford to let emotion sway me.

  It seemed it was time for another of Guy’s choices. “I won’t look,” I said. “But I want you to show me. Show me what you’re protecting.”

  “So you can run back to Lucius and tell him?”

  I met his gaze clearly. “You say you know me,” I said. “That you want me to be more. You want me to help you. So do this. Change my mind. Trust me.” I held my breath, nerves pricking, muscles tensed, waiting for his response.

  His body blocked the light from the lamp, outlining him in gold. It made it hard to read his expression as he stayed silent. Finally, just when I thought my stomach might actually have tied itself in a knot, he blew out a breath. “You’re right. Trust goes both ways. So I’m going to trust you. Don’t make me regret this.”

  Atherton rose to his feet, looking, as far as his face was able, as startled as I felt. “Are you certain about this?” Atherton asked.

  Simon walked over to the inner door. “No. But I’m doing it anyway.” He looked back at me. “If I show you this, and you betray us, then there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to stop them hunting you down.”

  I nodded. “I can live with that.” If I betrayed his trust, it would be because I was running or desperate or crazy enough to choose Lucius. I would expect them to come after me in those circumstances. I wouldn’t blame them.

  Simon watched. “All right, then. Atherton, close the outer door.”

  The vampire moved easily across the room. Here, in his own little world, he would know every inch of the rooms, every bump in the floor and every piece of furniture. I wondered how he would feel if he suddenly had to move outside the limits of these spaces again.

  The door closed with a soft clanging thud that seemed to vibrate through my bones. Simon took a slow breath, then laid his hand on the inner door. The warded lock started to glow with a cool silvery sheen. The light flared, bright enough to make me throw up a hand to shield my eyes. Then it died to a soft sparkle, as though the metal were new formed from the night sky, spangled with tiny glimmering stars.

  Atherton had come up beside me and he turned his head toward the door as if he could sense the magic at work.

  My stomach grew tight. What were they hiding behind so many wards, so much iron? What was worth so much?

  Would I be able to keep the secret?

  Keep Simon’s trust?

  Keep Atherton’s? He was a secret too. At the moment, he was the more important secret, particularly if he could provide me with knowledge about the need.

  When the last sparking lights faded from the metal, Simon pulled his hand from the door, shook it quickly as if it pained him, then turned the handle.

  The door swung inward, near silent like the other. All I could see beyond was light. Atherton moved after Simon and I followed them slowly across the threshold.

  At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. It looked like any other hospital ward, neat rows of beds, full of people sleeping. More beds than seemed normal perhaps but nothing more unusual than that.

  Above each bed, a lamp burned. The air was faintly hazy with lamp oil and smoke. The smoke mingled with the soap and chemical smell of the rest of the hospital. The lamps shone pools of light down onto each bed, highlighting the sleeping faces.

  This was the big secret?

  I didn’t understand. Atherton and Simon b
egan to move from bed to bed, touching wrists, bending to listen to breathing. The separate rhythms of forty or so hearts beating, like a band of distant, clumsy drummers who couldn’t quite keep time, filled my ears. Likewise, the sounds of slow human breathing.

  I stood and watched, trying to decipher the puzzle.

  Other smells came to me as I watched. Human smells of sweat and bodies. And the faintest hint of blood. So faint I wasn’t sure it was there at all. None of the patients had bandages or bruises to indicate injuries, so where did the blood smell come from?

  I watched a little longer, studying the forms lying still beneath pale gray blankets. Too still, I realized. Only their chests rose and fell. And despite the stillness, they weren’t all asleep. Some had their eyes open, staring blankly up at the ceiling. Staring straight up at the lamps above their beds without blinking or squinting.

  I knew that particular stillness, in humans.

  “Blood-locked,” I breathed. “They’re all blood-locked. But . . . alive? You’re keeping them alive.” I turned to Simon, disbelieving. “You idiot! This is why Lucius wanted to kill you.”

  “Lucius doesn’t know,” Simon said sharply.

  “Then he bloody well suspects,” I replied, shaking my head in disgust. “Why else would he risk killing you?” My mind whirled with it. Blood-locked. He was trying to cure them. Lords of hell. It would change everything. If a cure existed, then the humans wouldn’t be willing to cede the locked to the Blood. They would want to cure them, reclaim them. Which would remove one of the vampires’ primary food sources. The Blood wouldn’t give that up without a fight. This could turn the treaties—and the City—upside down. No wonder Lucius wanted Simon dead.

  And who knew how the other races might react? It could be seen as working against the treaties, and the Fae seldom took that well.

  I walked to the nearest bed, stared down at its occupant. A woman with short dark hair that needed brushing and skin I thought would be olive rather than sallow had she seen daylight recently. Her eyes were, mercifully, closed. She looked young.

  “How?” I asked, that being the simplest of the myriad questions bouncing around my brain. “How are you keeping them alive? And how long have you been doing this?”

  “We’ve been trying to find a cure for the locking for a long time,” Simon said slowly. “But as for this particular line of research, only since Atherton arrived.”

  “I’m keeping them alive,” Atherton said. He straightened from where he had been bent over one of the beds.

  I suddenly put two and two together. “You’re feeding them your blood?”

  “Yes,” Atherton said. “But not very much. Just a few drops now and then. Once they’ve reached this stage, that seems to be enough to stop them getting any worse. That and the care Simon gives them.”

  “No worse but no better?” I said speculatively.

  “There are flashes, we think,” Simon said. “Glimmers of consciousness. But no, we haven’t cured anyone. Yet.”

  I shuddered, looking down at the woman in front of me. This wasn’t a life, lying here, trapped in a body that knew nothing. “Where do they come from?”

  Atherton had been right when he’d said that most of the blood-locked ended up dead at the hands of the Blood. Once the cravings grew too strong, they tended to descend fully into the Night World. And the humans gave them up for dead. Which tended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy of a kind.

  Simon sighed. “Sometimes a family gets someone away. Keep them locked up or restrained. They nearly always end up bringing them here.”

  “And what do you tell them?” What would convince someone to give up their flesh and blood to this living death?

  “That there isn’t any hope,” Simon said. “It would be cruel to let them hope. Cruel and far too risky.”

  “So you steal the bodies away down here in the dead of night?”

  “No. We wait for a suitable moment and tell them that their loved one has succumbed.”

  I stared at him. “And that’s not cruel?” Faked deaths and stealing bodies or no, not bodies, though I didn’t know what else you called these unmoving people. It seemed ridiculous that Simon would be involved in such things.

  My throat tightened. Had I been so wrong about Simon? But he was trying to help.. . .

  “It’s no different from what they would have to hear if they hadn’t come to the hospital,” Atherton interjected. “These people would be dead for sure then.”

  “Yes,” Simon agreed. “Once someone is locked, the best the family can hope for is to know whether they’re alive or dead. Sooner or later it will be dead. It would be better to stop people going down this path in the first place, but there will always be those who choose badly. Those who are too weak to resist.” He sounded bitter. As if his words came from personal experience. “God knows why anyone would choose to drink a vampire’s blood. Nothing good can come from such a thing. Look how they end their days.”

  The cold anger in his voice made me shiver. What would he do if he knew that I was not so far different from those lying in the beds around us? Any warmth he felt for me wouldn’t survive that icy fury.

  Which meant I needed to make sure he never found out. I moved toward another of the beds where an older man lay. The wrinkles in his face creased slackly in the still skin. “What about the bodies? How do you produce a dead body if no one has died?”

  Simon’s tone was matter-of-fact. “The bodies of the blood-locked are customarily burned.”

  Then usually the ashes scattered over water, to take no chance they might rise as Blood. Not that there was really a chance. Turning was a very different process from locking. “No one asks to see the body first?”

  Simon looked away. “Bryony takes care of that.”

  Glamoured the families, he meant. Made them forget or believe they had had that last moment with the dead. And lords of hell, if the Fae were in on this also . . . the Blood would be outraged. This had to be why Lucius had wanted me to kill Simon. The question was, how had he found out?

  “All this risk, so you can keep them alive down here?”

  Atherton shook his head, the white tail of his hair snaking behind him. “So we can find a cure.”

  “Why would you be interested in finding a cure?” I said. “The Blood don’t care about humans.”

  He shrugged fluidly. “Don’t judge all of us by what you have seen.”

  “I’ve seen many Blood over the years. None of you seemed overly concerned about protecting the humans in the Courts.” My voice was sharper than I intended. After all, on the face of it, I had no more reason than Atherton to care about the fate of humans foolish enough to become locked.

  “It makes no sense to have a percentage of your food source die and become unavailable to you,” Atherton said. “Or to put your race at risk by angering the other races.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure of the correct response to this. It was all so . . . clinical. Both of them. Working away down here, gambling so much on the off chance there might be a cure. All hell poised to break loose if something went wrong.

  I moved restlessly between the beds, looking down into one too-still face after another. The ones with open eyes were the worst. “What happens when the Blood who don’t share your views find out you’re trying to find a cure?”

  “I’d imagine there might be some trouble,” Simon said calmly.

  A pale phrase for possible war between the races. The thought made me shiver. “You said Bryony knows about this?” Bryony, if her ring were anything to go by, came from one of the high Families in the Veiled Court. The Lady in her title was more than Guy being respectful, it was her true rank. So, did her participation mean that the Fae knew and approved of Simon’s work? Or was she keeping secrets too?

  I pressed the heel of my hand into my forehead. Too many secrets. I suddenly understood why they claimed curiosity killed the cat. I wished I’d stayed put in the Brother House.

  Except then I wouldn’t have fo
und Atherton.

  Simon continued his rounds of the beds, pausing by each one. I stayed where I was staring down at the girl in the bed before me, thinking hard. A cure for the blood-locked. Perhaps a cure for the need. For my need. No matter what I thought of their methods, their desired outcome was mine too.

  When Atherton suddenly appeared by my side, I jumped, rattling the nearest bed frame as I stumbled. The fact that it provoked no reaction in the occupant only sharpened the discomfort.

  “How does it work?” I asked, looking away from the bed. “How do you feed them?”

  “The usual way. A few drops on their tongues. Usually every two weeks.”

  “But you’re not the one who locked them.”

  “No. But it seems to be enough. Maybe because I’m from the same Court.”

  That was no surprise. Lucius presided over the only remaining Court in the city. I had killed more than a few Blood for Lucius and I wasn’t his sole assassin. He didn’t suffer rivals to live.

  “All of us owe what we are to Lucius.” There was an edge to Atherton’s voice.

  “And where did Lucius come from?”

  “I do believe all the elders in his line are now dead,” Atherton said softly. “He isn’t the type to let anyone have power over him.”

  Fought his way to the top and killed to make sure he stayed there. Yes, that was the Lucius I knew.

  “Which is why you should do as Simon asks,” Atherton continued in that soft implacable tone. “Lucius needs to be curbed.”

  I waited for him to add “or killed,” but perhaps he knew that was pushing things too far just now. He’d always been far too empathetic for a Blood.

  “You of all people know what he does to those who betray him.”

  “Yes. Which is why I know that it’s the right thing to do. Someone has to stand against him. The humans are trying, but the Fae won’t help them if the treaty isn’t broken.”

  “Why should it be me?”

  A fluid shrug. “Why not? You know him as well as anybody might. You are well placed to judge him. Do you think he deserves to win? To rule the City? To have thousands and thousands at his mercy?”