Sun Cursed (Shades of Blood Book 1)

by Megan Blackwood

  "These aren't professional thieves," Adelia said. "They're killers."

  "That aren't currently killing," DeShawn said.

  "Tell that to the dead Sun Guard," Seamus snapped.

  "Whoa," DeShawn spread his hands. "I didn't mean—"

  "It's their numbers." I said, raising my voice to cut off the brewing argument. "The nightwalkers were extinct, we thought, and if they wanted to bring their numbers up they couldn't risk the sunstriders awakening due to the call of the oath. They needed us at rest while they rebuilt themselves."

  "But we were moved before the spell took hold," Roisin said. She crossed her arms and tipped her head back, staring at the grey stone of the ceiling as if it would offer answers. "Was there any sign of how long you had been in the sewer?"

  I shook my head. "No. It was a bare stone room. There weren't even footprints left in the muck. It could have been years, it could have been hours."

  "We need to focus on the two of you," DeShawn said. "There's got to be a reason you two were moved away before that spell thing took hold. Either the nightwalkers need you two conscious, or someone in the Sun Guard knew what was coming and moved to protect you two. Which means they sold out the others."

  "How dare you." Adelia rounded upon him. "Our people are sworn to loyalty, and we choose our employees with great care. They would never."

  DeShawn held up his hands in defense. "I'm not trying to impinge the honor of your order, Lady, but humans are humans. Sometimes they screw up. Sometimes they get tempted. Could be for money, could be for immortality, I don't know. Maybe it's blackmail. But someone involved in this whole mess had a change of heart and put these two ladies where the spell wouldn't get them. That's worth remarking on."

  "I wasn't spared," Roisin said, then winced. "I'm sorry to say it, Lady Adelia, but my family did not trust the order to take proper care of me. They tagged me with a GPS chip and when Maeve realized I was being moved without authorization, she intercepted the van that took me. Someone spared Mags, but they didn't spare me."

  The gazes of the room drifted to me. I didn't want to name Lucien. Not because I feared incriminating him, but because I feared the hope that came attached with the mere thought. If Lucien had moved me, then he had moved against his masters.

  He could have placed me in that sewer, hiding me away for some future date, knowing that once his kin hit a critical mass I would rise. Rise and do everything in my power to undo what he was. If he had saved me... Preserved me against that moment... then his soul was not all undone.

  "Lucien Dubois." My voice was even, and I felt Roisin's gaze upon me with every word I spoke. "The nightwalker I encountered at the Chatham House. He was known to me," I said, glossing over the details as I did not wish to explain my personal life to every hungry set of Sun Guard eyes in the room. "He was a friend, when he was mortal. He is the only one I can think of who would set me aside."

  "Great," DeShawn said, punching his palm. "Then we've got an in with these bastards, if this Lucien guy is willing to work with us."

  "It's not so easy as that. The nightwalkers lose more of who they were every year, and we cannot be sure how long ago I was set aside. The Lucien who spared me might not be the Lucien who exists today."

  "What we need," Roisin said, "is to figure out how to undo this spell. If I knew who cast it, or their lineage, then my niece might have an easier time puzzling it out, but I've never sniffed anything like it. It's older than any magic I've encountered and... not of the elements. It's corruption that's inverted the sunstrider oath."

  Emeline straightened, her eyes widening a touch. "I think I read something like that in the annals, a long time ago." Before we could ask any questions she spun and jogged off. I smiled to myself, seeing the look of shock and apprehension on Adelia's face. The Emeline I'd met a few days ago would have never interrupted such an important conversation and run off before explaining herself.

  "Call me if you have anything concrete," DeShawn said. "I'm going to take the guard here with some of my people to secure the perimeter. It's getting late."

  "Let me know if you need anything," I said as I passed him, hurrying after Emeline. Roisin, Adelia, and Talia followed me. Behind me, Seamus began to organize his IT people.

  The estate's library took up a third of the first floor. Massive doors under a stone arch guarded the way, the dark wood carved into panels that depicted various scenes from mythologies around the world. They dwarfed Emeline, and as she approached I wondered if she had the strength to force them open, but she pressed one palm against a brass plate where a handle would normally be and pushed. A tinge of magic scented the air, and the door swung inward as if it weighed little more than a feather.

  I stepped into the room and stopped cold. Books towered above me on all sides, built-in bookcases lining every scrap of the walls so that not a hint of the naked stone was visible. Rows upon rows of shelves jutted at hard angles from the walls, so deep and long I couldn't see to the end of them through the soft lighting of the room. The comforting scent of old paper and worn leather assailed my senses, mixed through with the sharper scents of wood polish and ink.

  The shelves must have reached three stories high upon the walls, and catwalks broke them into sections accessed by a network of sliding ladders. The ceiling was domed, a cupola of stained glass throwing fragments of vibrant color across the tomes. I could have spent the whole of my unlife thus far in this room, and I would have scarcely begun to scratch the surface.

  "Emeline!" Adelia called, her heels clacking across the smooth wooden floor. "Slow down, dear!"

  The Lady pushed past me and I shook myself, focusing. Talia chased after Adelia and Emeline, but Roisin was stuck beside me, the same wonder evident in her glittering golden eyes. We shared a look, and she quirked a half-smile.

  "Makes you feel like even we won't live long enough, doesn't it?" she asked, too soft for the mortals to hear.

  "The humans have done all this... And what have we done with our time?"

  "Protected this. Protected them. Come on."

  Roisin picked up the pace, and I followed, digesting what she had said. My memories of mortality were thin wisps that surfaced here and there but had no true form. I remembered, in a vague way, a time when I thought I might create something. I had been a dancer, I knew, for my agility with the blade was explained to me as a result of my dancer's grace. But I had not danced only the forms required of me. I had created.

  Now, the only thing I made was death.

  I found Emeline somewhere in the center of the library. She climbed halfway up a ladder with easy grace, looped her ankle around the rung, and leaned out precariously as her fingertip trailed across the spines of books.

  "Ah! Here!" She called, triumphant, and snatched up a tome as tall as her forearm and six inches thick. The muscles of her arms bulged beneath her simple cotton dress, but she manhandled the book into the crook of her arm and half slid, half scrambled, down the ladder.

  "Emeline," Adelia said, steadying the ladder with one hand. "You must be more careful."

  "This is important, mother." Emeline waved off her mother's concerns with a flick of the wrist. Adelia's mouth parted in an 'o' of surprise, then twisted up into a small, proud smile.

  Dust puffed from the book as she dropped it onto a table. The cover was navy linen, the corners worn into rounded edges. A sun flared across the cover in gold leaf, and an English title proclaimed "Mysteries of Ancient Power, vol. III."

  "Oh," Adelia said, smile failing. "Those are all rumors, darling, not hard accounts."

  "If what we're dealing with was fully accounted for, we'd already know what it was."

  Emeline flipped the book open and thumbed through the pages, seeking a place she knew well. She stopped when she hit a two-page spread. On the left, a tall woman with flowing black hair hovered above a twisted garden. The plants were none I recognized, but their purpose was clear enough. Each was warped in some way, either with thick thorns or knobby limbs, thei
r leaves heavy and streaked with glossy black ink. These were foreboding plants—poisons, if I was not mistaken.

  The woman wore a flowing robe, the hem darkened with black ink to look like it had been dipped in dye, or blood. A crown of broken glass ringed the woman's head, and smoke tangled in her fingertips. Her smile was kind, inviting. The worst kind of evil.

  "The Venefica," Emeline said, trailing her finger along the handwritten scrawl of text on the opposite page. "Early witches of the Roman empire, known for their corrupting poisons, and magics focused on corruption. There's very little common knowledge about them, and many scholars believe they are a myth, but the Guard has kept extensive records. They were real, and it was believed many were experimenting in extending their lives using their sorcerous powers. They went into hiding after Rome burned in 64 C.E."

  "You're brilliant," Roisin said, stepping forward to peer over her shoulder. "I'll bring in my niece to confirm, but that sounds absolutely like what I was sensing on the caskets. How do we kill a venefica?"

  Emeline's face fell. "That's the problem. Nobody knows."

  Twenty-Seven: Night Screams

  For the first time in all my long life, laughter woke me. After Emeline's revelation, I had seen to DeShawn's plans for securing the building, then gone to shower and rest so that I would be at my full strength come morning. If Roisin and I were going to cross the moor to find her niece, then I needed every last ounce of my strength.

  I cracked my eyes open, hearing a wild, joyous whoop echo down the long hallway outside the room Adelia had given me. Roisin's bedroom was directly across from mine, a closet was next door, and then a long, long line of empty rooms until the mortals took over the bedrooms. When Adelia had led us down here, far past the mortal rooms, Roisin and I had exchanged a glance, but said nothing. We were wolves trained over aeons to guard these sheep.

  But we were still wolves.

  A sliver of moonlight trickled through the half-shuttered window that overlooked the rose garden. The light lay sharp and crisp across my chest, like the flared edge of a sword from the east. I eyed the silvery face of the moon, what I could see of it through the heavy cloud cover, and smiled. She was not my friend, but there was some comfort in the familiarity of old enemies.

  Giggles echoed down the hallway, Talia's snort-laugh distinct among them. I swung my bare feet to the cold floor and stood, letting the thin bed sheet fall away from my body. An early autumn chill seeped through the opened window, a breeze teasing the ends of my hair. My nightgown was little more than a thin shift of cotton, something Adelia had rummaged up when she'd realized I'd packed no bedclothes and had no intention of purchasing any. Funny how concerned mortals could be about the modesty of a naked blade.

  The door swung open without a sound, and I peered up and down the hall. Roisin's door was closed, and I could sense her presence inside. For all her bravado, she had taken quite a few scrapes in the battle against the remnants, and needed the rest almost as badly as I did. Adelia herself had offered Roisin her blood. I could still smell the perfume of it, lingering in dregs against a glass behind Roisin's shut door.

  I stepped into the hall and shut the door behind me, moving silently toward the source of the laughter. A hint of sweet wine tinged the air the closer I drew, cut through with the sharpness of aged cheese and a smoky hint of whiskey. I wondered if they were celebrating their survival, or rallying their courage against the threats to come. Pausing outside an ajar door, I peeked inside.

  Talia, Emeline, Seamus, Roland, and DeShawn had gathered in a small drawing room. Talia and Roland sat in thick leather chairs around a low table, cards flashing, while the others stalked with predatory eyes around the green felt battlefield of a pool table. Talia had rummaged up a cigar from one of the nooks of the estate, but had yet to light it. Whenever she spoke, it waggled precariously between her lips.

  "You're cheating," she said, slurring a little.

  "Girl, it's not my problem you don't know the rules of the game."

  "We can see both your cards," Seamus piped up. "You're both cheating. Badly."

  "Hey!" They said in unison, then burst into laughter. The cigar flopped into Talia's lap.

  Emeline threw herself with dramatic flair onto a fainting couch and kicked both her feet up, crossing them at the heels. "Seamus says that like he isn't cheating."

  "I'm not!"

  "You scratched twice."

  "We never established..."

  An ache blossomed in my chest and I stepped away from that glimpse of light and laughter. Night may have been the time when I felt the most mortal, my powers suppressed under the silvery stroke of the moon, but I would never have what those people had.

  As I drifted down the hallway, I imagined what would happen if I'd stepped into the room. Silence, first. An uneasy shifting, and half-hearted attempts at a smile. Seamus would probably offer me a seat. Maybe Talia would get me a drink. They'd try, in their own way, to make me feel welcome. Like I belonged.

  I didn't think they would laugh anymore.

  DeShawn had set a watch, and the Sun Guard did their best with their strained resources, but no one saw me as I nudged the door to the rose garden open and stepped out into the night. Mist clung to the ground, a natural mist that swirled around my ankles, leaving my skin sticky with dew as I walked down the gravel path. Whatever magic kept sunlight on the garden during the day failed at night, but the moonlight was more than enough for me to see by.

  I trailed my fingers over the petals of the roses as I passed, feeling more akin to them than I did the mortals in the estate. Beautiful creatures that their flowers were, each was studded with thorns ready to draw blood. Enforcing distance, and a sense of otherness that could never be bridged.

  Sometimes, in the dead of night when my powers ebbed and mortals caroused, it was easy to forget that I had chosen this. That, even though I could not recall making the decision as a mortal, I must have had my reasons. Whatever those reasons were, I had only my oath to guide me now.

  The edge of the garden came sooner than I liked, dissolving into manicured lawns that looped through trees of various native species. Somewhere to my right, the brook that fed the roses frothed over a small waterfall, spilling toward a hedgerow maze. I followed the sound of the water, letting its soft murmur drown the voices of conflict in my mind.

  Halfway through the maze, under the bent arms of a willow tree, a familiar scent shattered my reverie.

  First: warm musk, amber, hay. Then: the choking stench of nightwalker.

  Gravel crunched behind me. I spun, dropping into a defensive crouch. What little power I could summon under the light of the moon thrummed through me, awakened and ready to be used.

  Lucien froze, his long coat swishing forward about his legs from the arrested momentum. My heart lurched. From the look on his face, his did likewise.

  "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said, hesitant, his voice pitched barely above a whisper.

  "No. You meant to kill me."

  "Never. That was..." He half-turned, baring the side of his neck to me. The faint impression of two scars marred the skin above his jugular. A cloud passed across the moon, dimming its face, and he shivered before turning back to me. "I don't have much time."

  "Then you had better answer me quickly. Where are you taking the sunstriders?"

  His gaze flitted down, to regard the tops of his shoes, and his smile was slow, but genuine. "Is that all you have to ask me, after all these years, Magdalene?"

  In that moment, the silvery pool of his unnatural eyes turned away from me, his voice coy and warm, I saw him as he had been, as he would always be in my mind: human, vibrant... mine. I wanted nothing more than to bundle him against me, to chase away whatever had been done to him and set him back to rights.

  But that wasn't how this worked. The moon was his harsh mistress, and I had an oath screaming through my veins to do something about the nightwalker standing in front of me. Still, he had preserved me from the spell. He migh
t yet be turned against his sire. It was only that thought which kept my oath from screaming at me to fight.

  "No. But it is where I must begin."

  He nodded, understanding, and met my gaze again. "I cannot tell you that. But I wanted you to know: I didn't ask for this."

  I swallowed, hard. "Who did this to you?"

  He parted his lips to form a response, then his face twisted, his mouth puckering as if some external force were grinding the words into dust. A shudder passed through him, and he closed his eyes before answering.

  "He knows where you are. You must leave this place. It's not safe."

  I wanted to laugh at the thought, but the earnestness of his expression chased my laugh away. "I can't. You must have known that. It's why you set me aside, isn't it? So that the Venefica's spell wouldn't affect me?"

  He drew his head back, eyes widening. "How...?" He cut himself off and chuckled, quietly, shaking his head. "Of course you discovered her. I've never doubted your ability—though he has—but I did not spare you so that you would fight this battle. I just... I needed you safe."

  "From what?"

  "Him." His expression was drawn with sadness, he knew how his evasions frustrated me. If I could just find the right questions, the ones that wouldn't test the limits of his loyalty bond, then maybe he could help.

  "Why aren't you trying to kill me now, as you did at Chatham House?"

  "His attentions are elsewhere." He glanced at the moon, as if checking a clock. "My mind is more or less my own, for a while."

  He did something then that both thrilled and terrified me. Lucien stepped forward and cupped my cheek in the palm of his hand. The touch was cold, as it had never been when we were first together, but the shape of his hand was such that the memory of his mortal touch reared through me, making me shiver. I did not move, fearing what I might do if I closed the scarce distance between us.

  "Leave this place," he said, "please."

  "Why?"

  Again that glance at the moon, his face so close to mine now that I could see the delicate tendons that ran along his jaw protrude as he pursed his lips. "He's coming. For you."