Blood Kin: A Novel of the Half-Light City

by M. J. Scott

  “Another fall?” he said. “What happened? The stairs in your building rusted too?”

  “Yes,” I said shortly, lifting my chin. Then I winced because moving my head sent fiery spikes down the right side of my face from temple to jaw. What the hell had Cormen’s pet Beast done to me? I didn’t remember all the details. I hoped I wouldn’t remember all the details. I remembered the anger, though. Underneath the pain, that still burned hot and bright.

  Guy’s expression didn’t change. “You should find other accommodations. That place seems . . . unhealthy.”

  “I’ll take it into consideration,” I said. He loomed over the bed, making me feel small. He’d left his mail at home today, clad in just a loose white shirt over gray trousers and long, well-worn black boots. Off duty, it seemed. He wore a sword—not the massive one I’d noticed slung between his shoulders last night, thank goodness—at his hip. The sword belt also housed a pistol and some sort of dagger in a sheath. Only three weapons. That probably counted as off duty for a Templar.

  But the lack of armor did reduce the sheer physical impact of him. I tried to lever myself up on one elbow, so as not to feel quite so intimidated. Mistake. Everything went swimmy and black again.

  “. . . off the fucking roof,” Guy was saying as I came back to consciousness. This fainting business was growing tiresome. I’d only ever fainted once in my life before. They were going to think I was some sort of weak and stupid female.

  Then again, that was what I wanted them to think. People underestimated weak and stupid females. And didn’t pay them much attention. Useful if you’re a spy.

  “That explains the odd bruises on her back,” Simon said. “Did she say what she was doing up there?”

  “Some nonsense about a weather vane creaking.”

  “What was she actually doing?”

  “I don’t know but if she was fixing a weather vane, then I’m a Nightseeker.”

  I thought it might be wise to interrupt this conversation before Guy could speculate any further. I let out a soft moan.

  Simon—well, I assumed it was Simon—laid a hand on my forehead. “Back with us, are you? Good. I’m going to fix some things now and then I’ll work more on your arm later, when you’ve had a chance to rest. You’re in shock.”

  That much I could have figured out myself. I nodded slowly and carefully. Simon’s hands moved to either side of my head, and a cool sensation flowed through my skull. The throbbing in my face eased.

  “Ohhh,” I said in relief. “I like you.”

  Guy snorted. But it was an amused snort. “He’s taken.”

  I lifted an eyelid. I’m not sure what possessed me. Shock or some deeper instinct that told me there was one way to unnerve the big, strong knight. “That’s unfortunate,” I said. “Does he have a brother?” Let him think I had really been asleep and hadn’t heard what he’d called Simon.

  This time it was Simon who laughed. “Yes, I do. Though he isn’t a healer.” He nodded at Guy. “We had to throw him to the Templars to find a use for him.” His tone was affectionate. Guy rolled his eyes, as though this was a very old joke.

  “Really?” I murmured. “Well, he does look as though he might be good with his hands.”

  Guy’s face went stiff, blue eyes widening.

  “That,” Simon said, now sounding highly amused, “is something you’ll have to find out for yourself. My fiancée’s cat likes him, if that’s any help.”

  The cool sensation flowed farther down my body, and pain receded as it rolled over me. I could get used to this, I decided. I’d never had need of a healer. Another gift of my Fae heritage was an immunity to most of the human diseases that plagued the border boroughs, and I hadn’t ever injured myself beyond what some of my half-breed friends could heal before.

  I opened the other eye and pursed my lips as I studied Guy. “Good with animals. That’s always a promising sign.”

  Guy’s expression went, if anything, even stiffer. “I have to go,” he said abruptly. “Let me know if she changes her mind about telling you who did this.” He took a step toward the door.

  Simon caught his arm. “Wait, didn’t you come here for something?”

  “One of the novices broke his arm at practice. I’ll ask Bryony to take care of it.” He made a stiff half bow. “Miss Everton.”

  The door swung shut behind him as he beat a swift retreat.

  Dimples flashed in Simon’s cheeks as he grinned after his brother. “Exactly what happened on that roof?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I fell, he caught me.”

  “I see.”

  “Any more DuCaine brothers likely to come visit me?” I asked, wanting to steer the conversation into safer waters.

  “No. He’s the only one.”

  I bit down the instinctive “Thank the Lady,” and thought for a moment, trying to come up with what a polite young lady would say in this circumstance. Might as well keep up the charade, even if my ground was looking shaky. “Your mama must be proud of the two of you.”

  “She’d prefer one of us did what we were supposed to and took over the family business,” Simon said with another laugh. He really was a very attractive man. But somehow, it was the other DuCaine who had me intrigued and on edge.

  “Ah,” I said. “I know that story.” Not exactly, but Cormen would definitely prefer it if I did what he wanted me to all the time and toed the line. I wondered what Mama DuCaine really thought of her two sons. Simon’s tone was light, so whatever maternal pressure she might be bringing to bear, it didn’t seem as though the relationship was strained.

  A pang of envy struck. What was it like to have normal parents? A family? Brothers and sisters? I had Fen and Reggie, but it wasn’t quite the same thing.

  Reggie. Damn. I’d forgotten about her. I needed to send her a note. Maybe I could ask one of the orderlies to arrange it. She’d worry. I didn’t want to ask Simon. The fewer clues the DuCaines had about me, the better. The question was whether an orderly could be trusted not to tell anyone else.

  I would think about it later, I decided.

  Simon worked a little more of his healer magic, then helped me sit straighter, propped on some pillows. He wrote in his notebook for a minute or two, then tucked it away and pulled a chair up beside the bed.

  “All right, Holly. This is how it is. You had some internal bleeding and I’ve staunched that and eased the bruises. You have three cracked ribs and a broken arm. The arm’s the worst and I’ll need to do more work on that. But whatever we do, it will take a week or so before everything is properly healed. You’re half Fae—”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I healed you. Fae and humans feel different.”

  “Oh.” So much for keeping my heritage a secret. Then I had a far more unpleasant thought . . . if he could sense I was half Fae, could he by any chance sense the geas? I searched his face for any indication he knew I was here under a binding. But if he did, he wasn’t letting on.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you prefer it not to be known. But it will be on your record here, and the other healers will have to know. It changes how you’re treated. Do you heal as Fae do?”

  “I heal a little faster than humans, but not much,” I admitted. That was one of the reasons my father had chosen this particular ploy, I imagined. He knew if I was injured badly enough, they’d have to keep me here.

  Simon nodded. “Is there anyone in Summerdale who should be informed you are here?”

  It was a polite way of asking whether I was acknowledged by a Family. I shook my head, trying not to feel the old familiar sting. “No. No one.”

  His expression stayed carefully professional. “I wasn’t sure because of your pendant.”

  “That’s just a keepsake,” I lied. I didn’t want to explain my father’s choke chain to this man, of all people. I might not even be able to, depending on exactly how Cormen had hobbled me with the geas.

  “It’s bespelled?”

  Nerves prickled. He cou
ld sense that? And the chain was a tiny enchantment. Not like a geas. “Yes, so I won’t lose it.” Another lie.

  I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not, but he didn’t ask any more questions. Instead he gave me a strict list of things I wasn’t to attempt to do.

  When I nodded obediently, he added, “You understood, before, when I told you St. Giles is a Haven?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need haven, Holly?” he asked gently.

  Can you keep me away from my father? I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t ask the question out loud. “No.” I shook my head cautiously. Tempting as the thought of haven was, sooner or later I’d have to leave the hospital. After all, I had a life. A business. Two, even. People depended on me.

  I couldn’t hide from my father in these bright, clean rooms.

  And while I was here, I was perfectly positioned to study this man who was being nothing but kind to me. Study him and do what my father wanted me to do. Find and betray his secrets. Perhaps even put his life at risk.

  Hatred boiled up in me, fresh and hot. If I’d had any power that was useful, I would’ve killed my father. But at the thought, the geas tightened again, making me suddenly greasily nauseated.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Simon asked sharply.

  “A little faint,” I admitted, leaning against the pillows and swallowing hard until the feeling subsided. Simon’s fingers caught my wrist, found my pulse, and he fell silent, a small frown of concentration wrinkling his forehead. I stared up at the ceiling, which was painted the same plain white as the rest of the room, hoping like hell he couldn’t sense the magic controlling me.

  I didn’t know a lot about how one worked a geas . . . it was beyond the reach of my power and therefore something I’d never been taught, but I knew they somehow interacted with your own magic if you had any. So maybe he couldn’t sense it. Maybe there was nothing to sense. I fervently hoped so.

  As far as I knew, it wasn’t unknown in the Veiled Court for a geas to be used as a weapon, so maybe they were truly undetectable.

  Simon finally released my wrist. “You need something to eat and drink. Healing depletes your energy stores. I’ll get something sent up, and then you can rest for a while before we work on the arm some more. In the meantime, I’ll block the pain for you.” This time, his fingers rested on my shoulder, three of them positioned in very precise spots. There was another quick cool tingle. Then my arm went dead.

  The relief from pain was pleasant even if the overall sensation was unnerving. “Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been very kind.”

  “It’s my job,” he said with a don’t-mention-it wave of his hand.

  “Healing is your job,” I corrected. “Being kind is extra.”

  That won me another smile. I realized I hadn’t yet seen his brother smile fully. Simon’s smiled made me wonder what Guy’s would be like. Would his face lighten and almost glow the way Simon’s did? I imagined those blue eyes lit with laughter. It would be a dangerous combination, if I were any judge of men. Which, most of the time, I was. I shifted in the bed slightly. My ploy had worked to keep Guy off balance, but I needed to be careful. Play with fire and sometimes, you end up burned.

  GUY

  I left Michael, the novice who’d discovered the hard way that fooling around with a mace is not a good idea, in the capable hands of Lady Bryony, the head healer of the hospital, and went to find Simon.

  We’d argued to a standstill after I’d gone back to his house to remove the Beast’s body, but I was determined to get him to see sense. Even more determined now that my mystery rooftop girl had turned up at the hospital. Her turning up at St. Giles, so close to the attack, made my survival instincts twitch.

  I didn’t like coincidences.

  She was trouble. That much was becoming increasingly clear.

  She’d looked different in the daylight, once I’d been able to see past the bruises darkening one side of her face. In the light of the sun, hers was a glistening mass of mixed brown and red. Not entirely human, that hair, the red a shade too red, the brown somehow too bronze in places. Somewhere in her ancestry was a Fae. Her eyes confirmed it. Set at slight angles, large, and, even shadowed with pain, a vivid green-flecked brown. Like something that belonged in a wood, growing free.

  Shit. Now I was starting to sound like Simon. What did I care what she looked like? What mattered was what she’d been up to last night and what she was doing here at St. Giles.

  My frustration turned my knock on Simon’s office door into more of a thump.

  “You didn’t mention her this morning,” Simon said as I let myself in without waiting to be invited.

  I shut the door behind me. “There wasn’t anything to mention.” I tried to sound disinterested. I had no doubt Simon was going to have his moment of fun at my expense, but reacting would only inspire him to even further flights of fancy and brotherly harassment.

  “Really? You left in an awful hurry back there.”

  I didn’t have to turn my head to see the grin on his face. I could hear it, plain as day in his voice. “I had a novice to take care of. We need to talk, Simon.”

  Simon ignored me. “She’s pretty. Beneath the bruises.”

  That was a pretty damned obvious change of subject. My hands clenched; I didn’t want to start thinking about her again. Especially not about those bruises.

  Stairs, she’d said. If she’d fallen down stairs, then I’d eat Gray’s saddle. She’d been beaten. The only questions were why, and by who? The thought of anyone putting their hands on her made my stomach knot with something uncomfortably close to rage.

  Rage I couldn’t show or afford to indulge. Holly Everton wasn’t an option. She might, however, be an enemy. “I didn’t notice,” I said. “Stop changing the subject.”

  Simon shook his head. “My subject is much more interesting than yours. And if you didn’t notice that girl, I think it’s time you took a leave of absence from the Brotherhood. They’ve obviously killed your appreciation for the female form.”

  “My appreciation of the female form is alive and well, thank you. Some of us just have some self-control and don’t fall for every female we trip over.”

  Simon claimed he’d fallen for Lily the moment he’d laid eyes on her, even though she’d been trying to kill him at the time. I had more sense.

  Simon grinned. “Looks as though she fell for you.”

  “Don’t cut yourself on that razor wit, little brother. She’s part Fae, isn’t she?”

  Simon’s eyes narrowed a little. “Yes. Is there a problem with that?”

  Touchy, my little brother. Lily was half Fae. The other half was unconfirmed. I didn’t care about that, as well he knew. But I did want to know what I was up against. “No problem, just information.” Now it was my turn to change the subject. “I don’t like her turning up here today. It seems a little too much of a coincidence.”

  That caught Simon’s attention. “Where exactly did you run into her last night?”

  “Seven Harbors.”

  “Not the Night World.”

  “It’s the next best thing,” I pointed out. “And we were ambushed not long after we left her.”

  “I thought you said that was in Mickleskin.”

  “It was. But it wasn’t that far from where she was.”

  “Would you be so concerned about her if it wasn’t for the Beast attacks?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe not. But my gut tells me there’s a connection between the ambush and the attack on her, and she keeps appearing near both. It’s convenient. Too convenient.”

  Simon tilted his head. “You’re drawing conclusions from thin air. You don’t know who this girl is, or what she does. She could be perfectly innocent.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I intend to find out.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “This from the man who refuses protection when he’s being targeted.”

  He held up a hand. “Before you yell more about
that, is there anything I can do for you? That must’ve been quite the catch. Are you hurt?”

  “She doesn’t weigh much,” I said automatically, feeling the weight of her in my arms again, arms looped around my neck in that instinctive clasp. For someone who didn’t weigh much, she was weighing on my mind today. Only because she was up to something, I told myself sternly.

  Simon’s smile broadened. “Is that so? Still, even a small weight can make quite an impact from a height. That pesky gravity.”

  “I’m fine, little brother. Save your voodoo for someone else,” I said, mostly to annoy him. Having spent some years in the heat of the Voodoo Territories, I had a perfectly clear understanding of the differences between Simon’s magic and that worked by the Vodouns, with their spirit rituals. Simon had never actually raised the dead, as far as I knew.

  Though I’d never actually seen a Vodoun priest do that either, despite the rumors that they could call armies of mindless reanimated bodies to their bidding. Disgust twisted my stomach at the thought. Mindless bodies sounded too close to blood-locked humans. Though the blood-locked had no one to blame but themselves for their condition.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look?”

  I folded my arms, ignoring the ache as I did so. I’d rather let the bruises heal naturally than put up with Simon trying to interrogate me about Holly for the next twenty minutes while he healed me.

  “I said, I’m fine. You have patients.” Including Holly. Who had all my instincts twitching, and not only the soldierly ones. Still, it was only the soldierly ones that I was going to indulge. Tonight, supposedly my night off, I would being going over to the border boroughs to see what there was to find out about the Favreau pack and a girl named Holly who might have a reason to be climbing around on rooftops at midnight.

  * * *

  In the end, my investigations had to wait a day. I pulled another night’s extra patrol and then was forced to sleep. I was tired enough to risk accidentally chopping my own foot off with my sword. Not a good thing to be when I was about to go poking my nose into places that might not take kindly to it.