Sun Cursed (Shades of Blood Book 1)

by Megan Blackwood

  "Are you telling me you can't hack into the CCTV network all over London? I thought I hired you for this kind of thing!"

  I didn't hear what Seamus said, he was stammering too much for me to make out the words, but I was pretty sure they weren't in any real danger. DeShawn crept up the stairs after me, seeing my hand relaxing around the grip of my blade, and shot me a look. I shrugged, not really knowing what was happening, and closed the rest of the distance upstairs. I opened the door into Seamus and Talia's workroom, and was met by all three of them whipping around to stare directly at me, mouths opened with shock.

  "You're all right!" Talia burst to her feet, clapping her hands in excitement. She looked ready to swoop in and grab me in a hug, so I took a guarded step back.

  "I'm fine, DeShawn patched me up. The silver poisoning takes a while to wear off, but I am battle ready." I looked at Adelia, whose narrow face had grown very pale and very gaunt in the time I had been gone. "What's going on here? I heard you berating Seamus."

  Adelia adjusted the lay of her lapels and brushed nonexistent lint from her shoulder. "We didn't know what happened to you. After you called Seamus and told him to follow that van, we lost all contact. Our people arrived on the scene within five minutes of that call, but you were already gone, and there was blood all over the park.

  "We took the poor man who had been injured by a ghoul to a hospital, but he couldn't help us. He kept babbling about shadows, and even though he said that a woman with golden eyes had come and saved him, he didn't know where you had gone."

  Seamus caught my eye and shoved his hands into his pockets, his shoulders rounding forward. "We thought the nightwalkers had taken you. I was about to try hacking into London's CCTV network—that's a series of cameras all over the city—to see if we could pick up any hint of you. What happened?"

  I moved aside, making room for DeShawn. He stepped in hesitantly, his hands shoved in his own pockets in the mirror of Seamus's whipped-dog posture. He rallied, straightened himself and looked Seamus in the eye.

  "I picked her up. I came up in a city squad car and saw her fighting with some tricked-out man in a black coat. I didn't know what was going on, but she seemed in bad shape, she was already collapsing.

  "So I scared the guy off and bundled her into my car. I didn't know if your people had medical facilities, so I took her back to my apartment where I could get her patched up without raising the eyebrows of too many medical professionals. I don't know what your systems are like, so I didn't want to raise any accidental flags. I'm sorry I didn't call you. That wasn't cool of me. I was honestly too freaked out by what I saw, and it slipped my mind."

  Adelia's whole posture shifted. All the stern anger left her, and she even cracked a smile as she shifted her glance from me to DeShawn and back again. "You are forgiven, Inspector Culver. But next time, please do us the favor of calling us right away. We were all very worried about Miss Shelley."

  "You got it, Lady. It seems both of us have been a little short on phone calls."

  The whole Sun Guard team shared an uneasy glance. It was Talia who spoke up.

  "Sorry we didn't call you," she said. "Things were moving too fast. Was Mags able to explain everything that happened?"

  "I did." I sat in the spinning chair that Seamus had popped out of the moment we walked into the room. It felt so good to take the weight off my wounded hip, and to rest my arm against the arm rest, that a small grunt of relief escaped me. Seamus turned around and looked at me, his expression going from relief to concern in an instant as he noticed the remnants of battle on my clothing. He poked a finger at the slash in the leather over my bicep and scowled.

  "DeShawn may have patched you up, but you're not looking so good. Is there anything we can do to help?"

  A petite figure moved into the room, brushing a long braid of golden-yellow hair off her shoulder. I smelled her before I saw her, and I turned my gaze away so that neither she nor her mother would see the flash of hunger in the gold of my eyes.

  "Are you hungry?" Emeline asked.

  "Later," I said gruffly, trying to hide the soft growl that rose in my chest. Normally, my body was a lot more patient. But with the silver poisoning riding my veins, the mere presence of someone whose blood I had already tasted gave me the equivalent of human stomach rumbles.

  "Emeline," Adelia said. "Why don't you go upstairs and arrange a quick snack for Miss Shelley?"

  Emeline stared at me until the force of her gaze made me glance up, meeting her eye. Once she had my attention, she tipped her chin down, letting me know that she was not just following her mother's orders. She wanted to help me, and this was the only way she could do that.

  I cleared my throat and looked away, embarrassed. It really wasn't fair that sunstriders had to subsist off human blood. There must be a better way to protect humanity than a whole species of parasites that just happened to be sympathetic to them.

  "I'll be back in a moment," Emeline said, and disappeared down the hallway.

  DeShawn gave me a look, wondering what the hell that was all about, but I shook my head at him. He leaned against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other, and hooked his thumbs into the loops on his pants. "Mags and I have been talking. The Sun Guard's got a real big problem. She's agreed to let me help her do something about it."

  Adelia pursed her lips like she tasted something sour, but one look from me and she nodded acquiescence. "We're happy for your help. We're especially grateful that you took care of our Miss Shelley when she was wounded. Did you see anything that might be useful when you collected her?"

  "By the time I got there that big bastard was all that was left. And he didn't stick around long enough for us to have a chat, you catch my meaning."

  "Who was that man?" Adelia asked.

  A cold dread solidified in my belly. Even though I knew the information might be helpful, I didn't want to tell Adelia who he was. Telling DeShawn had been an easy thing, he didn't run the risk of having heard of Lucien. But if anyone knew about Lucien as a nightwalker, it would be her. She might even know who his maker was. Even though I had demanded that information of Lucien, I really didn't want to know. As soon as I knew, it would all become real.

  "His name is Lucien Dubois," I said. Adelia tilted her head to the side, considering. A wrinkle of thought appeared across her forehead, but the name meant nothing to her. I should have been relieved. Instead, I was just frustrated.

  Eventually she said, "I don't know that name. Should he mean anything to the Sun Guard?"

  That was one hell of a question. I didn't want him to mean anything to the Sun Guard, didn't want him to have anything at all to do with this. And if I were being honest with myself, I'd acknowledge that I was annoyed that they didn't know about Lucien. He was a nightwalker, an old one.

  He must have been turned within a decade of the time I went to sleep, for he didn't look much older than I remembered. It was the Sun Guard's job to keep a ledger of all active nightwalkers, so why didn't they know about Lucien? More important: Why hadn't someone warned me?

  "Lucien was a mortal when I knew him." I watched that piece of information sink in, watched Adelia's face fall just slightly. "I don't know who turned him, but he is a nightwalker now."

  "Shit," Seamus said. "So the guy's been a nightwalker for something like 200 years? Doesn't that mean he is, you know, like, super-powerful?"

  I nodded. "The older we get, the stronger we get, that's true. He would have to have been actively trained those past 200 years, though. If his maker is still alive, then it's not likely he was able to train to his full extent. Nightwalkers are jealous of their power, and they tend to not allow their turns to gain much strength. They're all afraid that they're going to be overthrown at any moment."

  DeShawn snorted. "Figures. But I guess that's good news for us, although that nightwalker friend of yours didn't look exactly unprepared for the situation."

  "I agree," I said. "Lucien did very well. But we must remember he wasn't expe
cting much resistance. The three ghouls were ransacking the Sun Guard offices when I showed up, and it surprised him that I was awake. As if he knew that I should still be asleep. He wasn't prepared to fight a sunstrider, even though he had a silver dagger."

  Adelia stepped toward me, concern widening her eyes. "He struck you with silver?"

  I nodded, seeing where this was going, and peeled my torn jacket off and laid it over my thighs. The angry gash in my bicep was sealed, but barely. The flesh was pink, red striations snaking out in all directions. A dark red spider web of poisoned blood pounding through my veins.

  "It's not as bad as it looks. DeShawn cleaned it up, even though he didn't know what it was."

  "Hey," he said. "I see a wound, I clean it. I don't have to know about any of your freaky vampire details to get that part right."

  I smiled at him over Adelia's shoulder as she fussed with my arm, prodding at the edges of the wound as if she could glean some kind of information from it. "If they are prepared to use silver against you, then we will have to retaliate in kind."

  "Yeah," DeShawn said. "About that. Mags and I were talking, and I have a guy, Roland, who makes specialty bullets for a hobby. It will cost a lot, but he can load them up with pieces of gold shot, I think. Mags says that'll help."

  "Cost isn't an obstacle," Adelia said.

  "Sure," DeShawn said. "You get me the company credit card and I'll trot right out and get us the bullets."

  Adelia waved at Talia, who scurried off in search of that credit card thing DeShawn had mentioned. Adelia crossed her arms and looked at me.

  "Better weapons are a good start, but it's not going to solve all these problems. The Sun Guard is under attack, and we've only got you to protect us. But we do have you, and we're willing to help you with whatever it takes."

  Right. This was the point in the conversation where I was supposed to come up with a brilliant plan to save the day. Every set of eyes in the room was looking at me, practically glowing with anticipation to see what I would come up with to pull all of our asses out of the fire. I wanted to squirm in my seat, but if I showed any sign of unease, then all the mortals in the room would have a collective fit.

  I had to stay calm, had to come up with something, and I could only wish Sebastian was here to help me cobble an idea together. He'd always been the strategist. But he wasn't here. He was probably unconscious and in the hands of the nightwalkers. If I ever wanted to talk to him again, if I ever wanted him around to bounce ideas off of in the future, then I had to come up with something to get him back.

  "Seamus, did you have any luck chasing the van down?"

  He blushed and shook his head. "It got away from us. We tried to find it in the CCTV network but, well, as I said I had trouble hacking into it, it took too long. If we had the number plate number—" He broke off, looking chagrined. "It's my fault I didn't explain what those were to you ahead of time. Every vehicle has a unique identifying number on the back of it, we call it a number plate. If you could remember what those numbers were, then maybe we can look into the system and figure out who owns that van."

  I shook my head. "I didn't get a look at the plate. I was too busy hanging on for dear life."

  So that was it. We had no leads, save the club full of ghouls that had burned down not long after I left, and a white van that had disappeared into the mists of London. I knew all of Lucien's old haunts, but there was absolutely no way he would be stupid enough to go back to any of those. If I knew Lucien's master, then I might be able to track him down that way, but Lucien had foreseen that, and hadn't told me his name.

  The only other thing I could do would be to roam the streets of London sniffing the air like a bloodhound in search of ghouls that I could squeeze for information. I doubted that would do any good. Ghouls were often all talk, and none of that talk was of any substance. Nightwalkers liked to keep harems of ghouls around, it had to be nice to have a dedicated pool of people to feed from, but they hardly told them anything real.

  And in the time I spent seeking ghouls to question, Lucien and his fellow nightwalkers would move against us. They would ramp up their efforts, knowing that I was awake, that I had discovered them. They'd go for the other sunstriders, all of the coteries left in the immediate vicinity of London. While I searched, while I asked questions, while I wasted time, they'd pick off my family one by one.

  Fuck it. If they wanted my family, they would have to come through me to get them.

  "Yeah, I've got an idea. Seamus, call up every single compound within a day's drive of London. I want you to warn everyone left standing, I want you to scare the pants right off of them, don't give them any chance to refuse your order. And when you're done scaring them senseless, tell them to load up all of their sunstriders. Put them in vans, keep them concealed. And bring them here. To Somerset House. If the nightwalkers want my family, they will have to come and take them."

  DeShawn let out an excited whistle of approval and grinned at me. "I knew you had the guts to make a real stand."

  Adelia frowned, but she had asked me to come up with something, and she couldn't very well say no. Besides, if she really thought about it, she'd come to all the same conclusions I just had.

  "The idea of a centralized defense is a good one. But I'm not sure Somerset House is large enough, or defensible enough, to house all the sunstriders in the area, let alone the Sun Guard personnel that attend them. My home, however, is a bit larger, and more defensible. It rests on a moor, not far from London. We would be able to see for kilometers in all directions. And there would be plenty of room for all of us."

  "Yeah, when she says large, she means it's a fucking mansion," Seamus said. I grinned at him.

  "That'll do nicely. Thank you for offering your home, Adelia."

  She inclined her head to me, and as she did so I saw something pained flicker behind her eyes. I didn't know what it was, there was a lot of pain to go around these days, but I knew that what was happening here in the Sun Guard was costing her deeply.

  "Seamus, make those calls."

  He gave me a sloppy salute, plunked back down in a chair, and spun himself around to bring up a list of all the phone numbers for the local Sun Guard. Exhausted, I heaved myself to my feet and took a few sluggish steps toward the door. DeShawn halted me with his body. "I'm going to go commission those bullets," he said. "You want me to teach you how to use them when I get back?"

  I clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "You know I do."

  DeShawn took off down the stairs and I heard the front door to the compound open and close. I considered going down to make sure it locked, but I was too tired to care. Instead, I mounted steps up to my room, kicked off my boots, and threw myself down onto the bed without bothering to turn off the lights. Through my fatigue, I could scent the sharp taint of blood on the air. I rolled over, and there on my nightstand rested a tall wineglass, filled with Emeline's blood. This time, I did not hesitate before I took a drink.

  Eighteen: Moonlight

  That night, Adelia found me on the roof of Somerset House. I smelled her before I saw her, the familiar blood of her family's lineage tickling my nose. I didn't bother to look around, there was really no point. She must have known I knew she was there. Of all the Sun Guard, Lady Adelia knew the most about us.

  I leaned against the railing, looking out across the moonlit glimmer of the Thames. The sleep I had fallen into after drinking Emeline's blood had been enough to restore my body almost to full health. I was still a little sore, and slightly woozy from the silver poisoning, but I was restless. I didn't want to spend the rest of the evening in bed, and anyway, I needed to get to know this new skyline of London.

  Adelia stepped next to me, resting her arms against the cool metal railing. She had given up her slim charcoal suit for loose-fitting silk pajama pants, and had wrapped her torso in a crimson pashmina embroidered with gold. Her gray hair hung loose around her shoulders, kinked in funny directions left over from the bun she had corralled it in
to.

  She'd taken off her horn-rimmed glasses, and the whole effect gave her a softer look. As much as I relied on her family to take care of the Sun Guard, seeing her now brought it back to me just how vulnerable she was. Despite all her illusions of cool confidence, she was just a mortal. An aging mortal at that.

  "Aren't you supposed to be resting?" Adelia asked.

  "The only thing I'm supposed to be doing is finding my family." The words felt harsh, even to me. I didn't mean to snap at her, but I was tired of pretending to be the bastion of easy confidence these people needed me to be. If there was anyone I could be honest with, I hoped it would be Adelia.

  "You have to rest sometime. You'll never find them if you wear yourself into the ground. And those sunstriders still in the Sun Guard holdings, they need your help too. I know it's a race against the clock in your mind, but if you push so hard you injure yourself beyond the repair of a glass of blood, then all will be undone."

  I let her admonishment sink into me. Understanding that those words were true, and accepting them, were two very different things. As I admired the new skyline of London, I wanted nothing more than to summon my strength. To leap out across the dark and follow my nose to any likely nightwalker hideout.

  It would be folly. Seamus and Talia were busy at work, contacting the other Sun Guard headquarters and getting the rest of the sunstriders into protection. If I wore myself out tonight, while I was weak from lack of sunlight and healing from silver poisoning, I would be no good protecting the convoy as it moved to Adelia's house the next morning. The constraint chafed me.

  "I thought," Adelia said, "that you would sleep through the night. All the research I have done on your kind says you don't like to come out unless it's daytime."

  I smiled at an internal image of Adelia as a younger woman, poring over all the dusty old tomes the Sun Guard kept on hand. Even though we sunstriders were always around to answer questions, the Sun Guard liked to keep its own notes.

  They were always fussing over what we could and couldn't do, always running strange experiments to figure out new weapons or defensive techniques. Sometimes, they ran experiments just to see what would happen. I liked those experiments best.