"Sonia was not mistaken," I said. "A nightwalker has been here."
Talia wiped her palms on the skirt of her short, burgundy dress and craned her head to peer through the tinted window, crystal chandelier earrings twinkling in the twilight. "How many?" Her voice strained with nerves and she clutched her wristlet purse tighter. It carried her phone, ID, and a mahogany stake.
"Can't say for sure, but it's strong and it's recent," I said. The large vein on the side of her neck—the carotid artery—throbbed as her heart rate kicked up. "You don't have to do this."
"You'll be fine," Maeve said, exasperated, from the front seat. "No one's died at these parties yet."
"That we know about," Talia corrected.
I stayed silent. The set to her jaw, the determined creases around her eyes, the subtle forward cant of her body toward the house—she wasn't talking herself out of this. She was talking herself into it. She believed in what she needed to do, she just had to work up the nerve to take that first step, to push past the initial reticence and move forward. Once she had some inertia behind her, there'd be no stopping her. Adelia had been lucky indeed, to have hired brave souls like Talia and Seamus on before everything went to hell.
Maybe she'd known. Maybe she'd seen something in them both that told her that, when the time came, they'd stick their necks out. Probably she did. Adelia had been a born leader, her instincts finely tuned to protecting her order. Emeline carried that blood, displayed the same verve. She only needed the time to develop it further. I hoped she'd get it.
"Okay," Talia said breathily. "Okay." She gripped the door handle with the same severity I use to grip my blade and pushed the door open, heels clicking on the sidewalk, her curled hair bouncing around her ears to hide the earpiece she wore. She didn't look back once.
"Pick your portal," Maeve said.
I shifted across the bench seat to get a better look at the building. The front doors opened as Talia approached, manned by a dapper fellow in a sleek black tuxedo who extended his arm to escort her the rest of the way inside. Not the front door for me; that was watched too closely.
The house connected to the townhouses next to it on either side, making ingress through a side window impossible. That left only the back, or one of the many windows and balconies piercing the front of the building.
The sun was well on its way to its rest, dipping into the west, which was the direction the house faced. Pink and yellow light painted the building's white facing, and I longed to wrap what remained of that light around my shoulders and climb up the front of the building in a cloak of light, but time was not on my side. These parties, as Talia had discovered after scrolling back through reams of invitations she had ignored until this mission, always began as the sun went down.
If the world were a balanced place, we sunstriders would do our job in the light. It was what we were made to do—hunting down crèches and hives while the nightwalkers were at their weakest, vulnerable and dazed by the light and our power. We were never meant to work at night.
But the overrun of ghouls had changed things. Forced us into the streets to hold the line, to put ourselves—tired and vulnerable as we were—between mortals and ghouls when they were at their most active.
"The back," I said, resigning myself to skulking through the shadows.
A narrow access road wrapped around the row of townhouses, and although the walks were tastefully appointed by close-cut hedgerows, it was clear that this was the path meant for staff and deliveries. A white van clogged the lane, ELEGANT AFFAIRS written across it in bold black paint, the letters so cluttered with filigree it was difficult to make out the words.
Workmen had loaded round, white tables and gold-backed chairs into the postage-stamp garden behind the house. Two men stood outside the van, one making notes on a clipboard while the other secured the back doors. My stomach clenched as the doors slammed shut, the sound an echo of the day I'd interrupted the abduction of sunstriders, and failed to keep them safe.
"Are you all right, Mags?" Maeve asked.
"Thinking," I said, truthfully. She did not need to know what I was thinking about.
"I'm no sorceress," she said and paused, as if expecting me to challenge her. I did not. "But I can cast a small glamour on you that will make you unremarkable, your eyes a blur uncomfortable to look at. If anyone sees you, they will pass over you as if they had caught a glint of light in the corner of their eye. If you make noise, or speak, the illusion will be shattered." She pursed her lips and pinned me with a dissecting gaze. "So don't mess it up. I spent all day working on this. These sorts of things aren't easy, you know. Just look at how pale all that work has made me."
She swept her hair back from her forehead so I could see the strain. She looked the same as she always did to me. But I was not so removed from humanity that I couldn't see what she was asking for—reassurance that she had worked hard, and that we appreciated her efforts. The continued sleep of the sunstriders needled her more than most.
"Thank you." I smiled at her, keeping my fangs to myself. "I don't know how we'd get on without you."
"Well." She dropped her hair and straightened one of the layered, colorful skirts she wore. "We're all just doing our best, aren't we?"
I must do better, I thought, but what I said was, "Yes. Of course."
She pulled a long, braided-leather necklace out from one of her many pouches, a heavy amulet hanging from one end. She flipped it around so I could see the stone—amber, upon closer inspection, no kind of rock at all—chased in a circle of bright yellow gold.
"I'd have provided a prettier chain," she said, "but all I had on hand was silver, and that hardly seemed appropriate."
"It's perfect."
I slipped the necklace over my head, tucking the amulet into my shirt so that it rested against my skin. The magic fizzed like champagne, protesting being put to use by a dead thing, but Maeve's strength prevailed, and the magic closed around me more like a fist than a soft veil, clenching tight to let me know it was in charge and, if I tested its boundaries too severely, it would let me go. Prickly things, magic charms.
I waited until the ELEGANT AFFAIRS van drove off, the driver craning his neck around to get a better look at our car as he maneuvered past us in the tight alley. Tinted windows blocked his view of me and Maeve. All he would see was Basil, placid as always, his leather-gloved hands resting patiently on the wheel. The car was too nice to hide party crashers. No doubt the driver suspected we were some celebrity or another, slipping in through the back to avoid notice. A useful enough assumption.
Once they had gone, I opened the door and stepped into the road. The magic crackled against my skin, like a cat with its hackles up, annoyed at being expected to hold the illusion while I moved such a large thing as a car door. Good to know.
The back garden was hemmed in by little more than a low hedgerow and a wrought-iron gate, one side of which had been left open—forgotten by the delivery men—so I risked no detection as I slipped inside.
Here, on the east side of the house, the sun had already bowed its head for the night. Portable heaters shaped like miniature fire pits dotted the garden, adding warmth and light for the humans, but no sustenance for me. Every degree the sun sank deeper beneath the curve of the earth, my strength waned. If it weren't for Maeve's protections, I'd stand no chance hiding myself here. At least my grace was something my body knew, not just the magic of my blood.
Servants had shuffled out and bedecked the white tables with bursts of blood-red roses and sprinkled the tablecloths with small, clear crystals that caught the false light and twinkled like bits of broken stars. The scent of roses clung to air, heady and alluring, but not strong enough to hide the taint of nightwalker on the soft breeze.
Music pulsed from within the open patio doors, not the heavy whump-thump I'd encountered at Club Garnet, but something closer to what had been popular in my time. Not quite a waltz, or anything so old-fashioned, but an arrangement of classic instruments that
tickled my senses. Through the tempting sound, a laugh—nervous but genuine. Talia. I slipped inside the open doors and peered around the house.
Austere, as expected. All done up in shades of white and grey, strange odes to cement resting in places of honor while the walls and built-in shelving held homage to the few old trinkets the family found worth trotting out into the open. Though the townhouse had appeared modest from the street, the central foyer opened up to the upper floors, a tongue-curl of stair reaching down to connect all four levels.
Wait staff moved in and out of small clusters of party-goers carrying trays of wine, champagne, and appetizers that made even my stomach jump with interest. I tracked a particularly nice looking tray of baguette slices slathered in a creamy, browned cheese until the waitress's head turned away, then snatched a piece and popped it in my mouth. Worth the risk.
I found Talia near the stairs, leaning against the banister while she talked with a man I did not know and a woman I knew from photographs alone—Raina Hensford herself. The woman of the hour had platinum blonde hair with pastel blue streaks swooped up into a tight French twist, her body sheathed in a mossy green dress that flared out around the hips and made her eyes bright as clear lake water. Raina seemed, for all her posturing pretense, genuinely delighted to have Talia there.
I slipped closer, edging myself behind a nearby planter stuffed with grey-green succulents.
"I can't believe we finally dragged you out of that cave you call a job, dear," Raina was saying. She placed a hand on Talia's arm. Talia's jaw tensed a little.
"I love my job," she said, "but it's nice to get out once in a while."
"Our Talia, the mousy archivist. You can't possibly love those musty artifacts more than you love fresh air on a clear night."
Talia snatched up a glass of champagne and sipped a little too readily. "I handle logistics, mostly, the puzzle of it all is fascinating."
"The only puzzle I'm interested in solving is how to get you out on a date. Don't you work with that cute Irish guy? He's a bit rough, but has great eyes."
Talia went scarlet and sucked down half her glass. "Not my type."
Raina's hand shifted from Talia's arm to her elbow and drew her closer, leaning forward in a conspiratorial whisper. "Tell me all about your type."
Talia flicked her gaze around frantically, bouncing off me once or twice, and a guilty stab hit me. She knew I was here, somewhere, and was terrified I was eavesdropping on her. Interesting as the girl-talk was—it'd been ages since I'd had anything like a mortal heart-to-heart with a friend—it wasn't my place. Investigating was.
I slipped up the stairs, brushing my fingertips against the small of Talia's back as I passed so that she'd know I'd been there, and that I'd gone by. She jumped at first, and Raina's eyes narrowed.
"Huh," Raina said, "one of the lights must be malfunctioning."
"Can we chat somewhere a little more private?" Talia asked.
"Yes!" Raina said, and steered her away from the stairs, the flash of light all but forgotten. I hoped some poor maintenance worker wouldn't have to investigate that malfunction later.
The party noises dwindled as I mounted the steps, following my nose. A lot of rude remarks had been made to sunstriders over the years comparing us to bloodhounds, but I'd never been half so insulted by them as the deliverers of the insults had intended. Bloodhounds had been bred for a very similar purpose, after all. If I were behaving like one, then I was doing my job properly.
The further I walked up the stairs, the darker it got. A second-sense tingled at me, pulling me along. Maybe it was the magic amulet, growing frustrated that it was running out of light to work its trick with. By the time I reached the fourth story, the lights had all been doused, and I couldn't find even a hint of house staff. Up here, the fragrant roses could not hold their own against the nightwalker stench.
Everything in me screamed to act. The oath tugged at me so hard I staggered forward a step, my hand on the grip of my blade before I could think, the steel slung free and shining, even in the low light. Some fragment of me that remembered I was a part of a team made me reach up and press the earpiece.
"Nightwalker present," I whispered across the digital ethos.
Talia could hear me, but she was having her tête-à-tête with Raina and could hardly respond. So it was Seamus's voice that answered me, bright with an excitement that would have made me wonder, if I'd had space for any thought aside from the oath screaming at me.
"Do you require backup?" he asked.
I crept forward, uncertain. The night hamstrung me, stripped away the bulk of my powers and forced me to rely only on my supernatural strength, speed, and grace. Not a small arsenal, by any means, but an older nightwalker in the full bloom of their power was something else, and though the sun clung by its fingertips to the horizon, the nightwalkers we knew of were old indeed.
The lingering scent of ghoul muddied things. They weren't here, not now, but they had been recently—and my blood curdled to think of them mingling below with the mortals. Who were they? Did Raina know what nightmares her house held? Was that her reason for taking Talia aside?
Talia. Shit. I couldn't run off and leave her with an unknown threat. But my oath would not let me turn back to get her out of there. Every muscle in my body locked up at the thought of turning back.
"Talia, if you can hear me," I said into the earpiece. "Get out. Get out now."
"I'm coming in for her," Maeve said. "I can play kooky aunt well."
Not really an act, but I kept that thought to myself.
"I'm sending Roisin," Seamus said.
The very thought soothed me, but I could not wait. I needed to take advantage of every scrap of daylight left. A window in the hallway up ahead cut a swathe of dwindling sunlight across the floor, painting a door in dusty-pink light, a diluted mirror of the roses. The seam of gold that Roland had inlaid into metal of my blade below the cutting edges caught the light and shimmered, reassuring me.
Here, my senses cried. The thing is here.
And you know it.
My heart clenched. A hint of familiarity clawed at my senses, demanding attention. Hay. Warmth. Musk and mahogany. Even masked in the nightwalker's miasma, I knew him.
My heart wept, my body acted. I threw the door wide, shattering Maeve's clinging illusion, and stepped into the room.
Small, for a house of this size. A narrow space floored in wood and dotted by only a bed, a washstand, and a dresser.
And Lucien, stiff as if he were furniture himself.
The Venefica's ritual had changed him, twisted him beyond my ken. Some creature that was not nightwalker, and was not mortal, inhabited the body of my love. He hunched against the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, arms with too many joints wrapped around them with the liquidity of a snake.
His head had been bowed as he crouched beneath the room's single window, his back pressed against the wall as the fading western sunlight speared his back, painting the pale flesh of his neck in lurid hues of orange. As the door slammed open he jerked as if struck, pressed his body tighter against the wall. Clothes that were not fabric encircled him, waves of raw shadow held in place by his will, wrapping him in wings that reminded me of leather.
His eyes... Spheres of black shot through with pinpricks of silver, like broken stars.
It took me far too long to notice the chains.
Steel engraved with gold in all the ancient symbols of the sun circled his wrists, his ankles, bound him to the wall and floor against plates of metal inlaid with the same markings. If the oath had not been screaming at me to kill this—this thing—I would have dropped my blade in shock.
"Lucien?" I asked, begging it not to be true. Wanting that thing to provide some other name.
He lurched against his chains, rushing forward like the alligator snap of a jaw, too quick for even my eyes to see. Everything in him strained against that metal, eyes rolling with animal terror. The sun disappeared behind the horizon, and the l
ast of my power fled me.
The dusk, I thought. The dusk and the dawn were to be all we had.
But the dusk had gone, and in its place, Lucien Dubois burgeoned with power.
Eight: Broken Shadows
His black-eyed glare pinned me to the spot. The chains bound around his ankles and wrists screeched as he yanked on them, the metal grinding and squealing. Magic fizzled in the air, the enchanted wards carved in soft gold into the heavy steel which bound him popping and hissing as he jerked, again and again, against that which bound him.
Instinct won over shock.
Even if the oath had not been screaming at me to destroy this creature of the moon's thrall, my heart would not have made me stay my hand. Whatever was left of Lucien was too little to be saved, his humanity crushed to brittle diamonds under the coal that gripped his heart. To kill Lucien, now, was the closest thing to kindness I could give him.
I'd like to say I thought all this through, that it was out of mercy that I moved, but the oath rode my blood and in a blink I was within range, my blade reaching for the place his ruined heart lived.
Nothing. My blade pierced nothing. Liquid black shadow shifted over the metal in my hand, boiling and crackling as it touched the gold inlays, but otherwise unaffected. Lucien lurched forward, as if throwing himself upon the blade. My sword bit nothing but air and darkness, the shadow licking up the steel, following that metal straight to my heart.
Pulled away, bringing the blade in an arc across his chest. Nothing. Nothing. He writhed and screeched inhuman sounds—sounds I had never heard before, and prayed to never hear again—and again and again I thrust, slashed, sought the hidden place of his unmaking and achieved nothing.
"What are you?" I breathed, the words wrenched from somewhere deep inside me as pain laced new and hot through my veins. I could not even end his suffering. Why could I not even do that much?
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