Dawn Slayer

by Clara Coulson

  “But we do know they have some sort of disease.” Foley runs his finger down the napkin he started jotting notes on while I was recounting my astral mini-vacation. “There was something said about ‘blood restraints’ and a kind of ‘wasting.’ And the way it was talked about made it sound hereditary but also intentionally inflicted on the victims. Some kind of blood curse, maybe, meant to limit the Children’s power indefinitely?”

  “If that’s the case”—I spin my water bottle around on the table, considering all the possibilities and weighing the value of all the unknowns—“and their threat level is solely a result of their magic prowess, then we may be able to exploit their physical infirmity to come out on top. But that all depends…”

  “On who’s influencing them from the Eververse.” Lucian’s gaze lingers on the ceiling as he contemplates. “I’ve heard of blood curses lasting a generation or two, but for thousands of years? Only an Eververse power player could cast a curse like that, and I take that to mean whoever is helping the Children from beyond the veil is also a power player. Probably a rival of the curse caster. If that kind of being has any direct influence here on Earth, we’ll be treading dangerous waters if we openly engage the Children of Enoch.”

  “And yet,” I throw in, “if we allow the Children to obtain Dawn Slayer, assuming it’s a fully functional ‘seraph blade,’ then they’ll become all the more formidable an enemy.”

  “So we have to try our best to recover that sword,” Foley finishes, “even if victory comes at great cost.”

  Lucian and Foley share a long, doleful look. No doubt ruminating on how much they’ve already lost to the Black Knights and their benefactors. And wondering how much more they can afford to lose before the entire Vampire Federation simply falls apart.

  Neither of them complain about the grim circumstances though. They’re determined to beat the Knights, beat the Children, and reclaim the heavily tarnished glory of the noble vampire houses, even if the price of such a triumph is devastatingly high.

  I too feel compelled to hop aboard this train to hell. Because as much as I want to run from this dreary city with my tail between my legs, I can’t discount the fact that the Children of Enoch were at least partially to blame for the Black Knights’ assault on Aurora’s leadership last month. Innocent people were killed. A museum was practically destroyed. And I ended up with a hand-shaped hole in my chest, dead on the floor.

  I survived that incident due entirely to luck and happenstance, and I came out the other side with a metaphorical arrow pointing to the very people I encountered in that theater an hour ago. There’s no way my convenient eavesdropping on Don and Pell’s conversation was a coincidence. And when you add that connection to the fact the shapeshifter who saved me from Lizzie Banks also wore my face to steal Dawn Slayer from the Children…well, there’s no two ways about it.

  On some level, I was involved in this conflict before I even stepped foot in Moscow. If I leave without pushing my role in this convoluted game as far as it will go, then not only will the numerous questions piling up in my head remain unanswered, but I might inadvertently allow some force beyond this world to advance its agenda that much further.

  I let go of my water bottle and smack my palms against my thighs. “Now that we’ve established our grave obligations regarding the Children and the sword, what’s our next step? Assuming the shapeshifter is still out and about and not six feet under, and assuming he hasn’t handed off the sword to his client yet, how do we track him down before the Children?”

  Lucian plucks his hat off and picks at a nonexistent piece of lint. “I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve got an idea on how to find out where he’s staying in town. He might not be there now; this particular shapeshifter is a cautious guy, and he’s not keen on leading people back to his hidey-holes. But at the very least, we can toss the place for clues and maybe put a couple guys on stakeout in case he comes back later.”

  Foley nods. “As good a start as any, I suppose.”

  Lucian shoves his hat back on and juts his chin at me. “You, come with me. But leave your wallet here. I don’t want you to be easy to identify if you get yourself caught.” He points at Foley. “You, stay put. Annette almost bit my head off because I allowed you to talk me into taking you along to the theater. I put you in any more danger today, you’ll find my exsanguinated corpse in a gutter tomorrow.”

  Foley stifles a grin. “You’re much older than Annette. You could take her in a fight.”

  “If she fought fair? Definitely,” Lucian replies. “But she never does.”

  Chapter Five

  Lucian and I leave Foley in the suite to oversee the House Tepes agents, who are now working double time to use my intel, courtesy of Don and Pell, and the latest developments regarding Dawn Slayer, to build a more complete profile of our new favorite bad guys, the Children of Enoch. On my way out the door, I peek over my shoulder at Foley, who takes command of the room by clearing his throat and begins issuing instructions to various people.

  He doesn’t look entirely confident about playing the big boss, but he doesn’t let his insecurities stop him from doing what needs to be done. When he took up the mantle of house elder in that basement room at the art museum, fresh off the coattails of his father’s departure to the afterlife, he constructed inside his heart a concrete block of resolve.

  It’s apparent the concrete hasn’t fully cured yet, but if Foley keeps pushing himself, he’ll get there.

  Which reminds me…

  “Why did you bring Foley along to the theater?” I ask Lucian as the elevator whisks us down toward the lobby. “I would’ve thought you’d consider that too risky, given Foley’s status.”

  “I did,” Lucian grumbles. “Problem is, I’m also a pushover when it comes to Foley. Kid demanded I let him ride along so he could watch the show unfold. He stood in my way, wearing his best obstinate pout, until I capitulated.”

  “Why did he want to come along in the first place?” I lean against the curved wall of the cylindrical car and perform a quick visual sweep of the lobby below, ramping up my magic sense for good measure. Just in case someone under a veil is waiting to ambush us on our way out.

  But there’s nothing out of place. The wards on the BMW must’ve dampened my magic signature and kept us from being tracked as we fled the theater scene.

  Still, you shouldn’t let your guard down, Kinsey. You don’t know what sorts of magic capabilities these Children possess.

  After a stint of silence that lasts almost until we reach the ground floor, Lucian finally answers my question. “Foley wants to learn.”

  “Learn what?” The elevator door retracts, and I step into the lobby, Lucian on my heels. “How to do a stakeout?”

  Lucian motions for me to follow him to the exit doors on the far right. “More than that. He wants to learn everything. As a young noble vampire, he’s spent most of his life studying purely academic fields. Sure, he’s been taught magic, and he’s taken the obligatory combat and defense lessons that all young nobles do. But born vampires aren’t really considered strong enough to involve themselves fully in the brutal nature of vampire society until they hit about fifty, after which they put regular education on the backburner and focus more on honing their actual vampire skills.”

  We reach the doors, and he pushes one open, ushering me past him. “By the time a noble vampire reaches a century, they’ll have had fifty years of intense academic study and fifty years of intense magic and combat study, making them very formidable entities in the vampire political scene. At that point, they’re considered ready to take up important noble duties in which they publicly represent their houses.”

  “But the Knight coup threw the houses into disarray by killing most of the older nobles, leaving young, inexperienced vampires like Foley to take up the reins of house control.” I hop out onto the damp sidewalk, a brisk wind dancing across my face and leaving pinpricks of pain in its wake. “So Foley wants to, what, make up for the seventy
years of vampire life experience he didn’t get the chance to pursue before ascending to the role of elder?”

  Lucian shrugs. “He’s not wrong to want that experience. Once the last two houses are retaken and the repairs to the Federation at large begin in earnest, Foley will have to start navigating the treacherous political field of vampire society. And that involves a lot more than verbal sparring.

  “Learning the ins and outs of intelligence work is an important aspect of noble education. You have to comprehend how rival houses’ spy networks function and how to circumvent them, while simultaneously operating your own network without getting your people caught. It’s a tangled mess of manipulation. Some of it’s hidden behind faux friendly debates at fancy venues between parliamentarians. And some of it consists of late-night fights to the brink of death in dark alleys between noble house agents. Both of which are accepted forms of asserting superiority in vampire society.”

  “Honestly,” I say, tugging my scarf all the way up to my nose to repel the frigid air, “that does not surprise me at all.”

  Lucian halts on the sidewalk and gazes up at the overcast sky. “Foley is smart to want to better himself as fast as he can in all the ways that matter. Because he’ll need every ounce of additional experience he can obtain before the Parliament reconvenes and the houses get back on task. But with the playing field still so rife with external dangers, like the Children of Enoch and the Methuselah Group, it’s far more dangerous for Foley to put himself out in the world than it normally would be. And the problem is compounded because he’s just so…”

  “Young?”

  Lucian glances at me, and appears to suddenly remember that he’s talking to someone even younger than Foley. “There’s more to naïveté and inexperience than age,” he mumbles. “Circumstances force some people to mature faster than others, and you’ve been the victim of quite a few circumstances that have compelled you to quickly develop life-preserving skills in the face of supernatural adversity. Don’t get me wrong. You’re still dumb as a rock sometimes, but Foley’s green in far worse ways.”

  “Thanks for the backhanded compliment.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We walk side by side for three blocks, until we come upon a seemingly empty alleyway just wide enough to fit a car. After a quick check for nosy pedestrians, Lucian whispers a short phrase to dispel a veil lying over the car, and the BMW appears between blinks.

  I didn’t get a chance to examine its complex array of wards during the encounter with DSI Moscow, so I take a minute now to circle the vehicle and identify as many of the spells as I can. I recognize several general spell types from Erica’s textbooks, but the natures of most of the wards totally elude me. I haven’t accumulated enough book knowledge yet to decode this level of spellwork on sight. I’m probably “greener” than Foley in that regard.

  “If you’re done ogling my ride,” Lucian quips as he pops open the driver’s side door, “then plant your ass on a seat so we can get moving. The place we’re going closes to the public in an hour, and we don’t want to be stuck inside for any of their private ‘parties.’”

  “Where exactly are we going?”

  Lucian smirks. “I’ll let you figure that one out yourself.”

  “Ass,” I grumble as I round the front end of the car.

  “Heard that!” Lucian calls out through the windshield.

  “Good.”

  The traffic heading out of Moscow is far thicker than the traffic heading deeper into the city, visitors and citizens with somewhere to go fleeing en masse to get as far away from major terrorism targets as they can. They are, to my complete lack of surprise, being egged on by the news. Every radio station the car can pick up on the local frequencies is dishing out their best scare tactics, throwing out wild speculation that there may be more “bombs” planted in downtown Moscow.

  So far, the official word from the government seems to be nonexistent—there hasn’t even been an attempt to allay the public’s fears—which confuses me. In Aurora, DSI usually contacts the mayor’s office immediately after a supernatural event noticeably affects the public, and the two offices work together to build a believable cover story.

  Since Moscow is the capital of Russia, I expected the federal government would quickly step in after receiving word of the nature of the theater incident from DSI. But it seems they’ve done practically nothing except issue a vague announcement that an investigation is under way.

  What’s with the holdup on the cover story? I wonder. Surely they could just claim it was an accidental explosion of some kind, like a gas leak or an electrical malfunction, given that the theater building is largely intact. So why wouldn’t—?

  Lucian clears his throat as he turns the car off the highway and onto a narrow backstreet. “Question for you, Kinsey.”

  “Hm?” I pull my attention from the radio dial, letting the current news anchor continue his rant about the recent uptick in suicide bombings in Europe.

  “Why do you think your soul got drawn to that island in the Eververse after you died?” Lucian doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but I can feel him watching me.

  “Don’t know. And unlike the media, I don’t like to speculate when I don’t have enough information to make an educated guess.”

  “Or maybe you’re in denial.”

  My shoulders tighten involuntarily, like a cat bristling at the sight of an approaching threat. Lucian takes that as a blatant admission.

  “You know damn well,” he adds, “there’s only one reason why your soul would’ve jumped to a random realm you had no connection to: because you had a connection to a person on the island.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Why?” Lucian flicks on the right turn signal, indicating we’re about to turn into a parking garage a half-block down. “Because you have daddy issues?”

  My face flushes. “I do not.”

  “So why won’t you talk about him?”

  “Because ‘he’ is some random guy I know absolutely nothing about, except that he and my mom parted on shitty terms.”

  “You know more than that,” Lucian says after he flashes a parking pass to the garage attendant in the security post. The attendant hits the button to raise the boom gate, and Lucian eases the car into the garage, the shadow of the ceiling falling over us, dimming what little light can bleed through the thickening clouds.

  As he swings a left onto the ramp leading up the second level, he continues, “You know he’s not human. You know he’s a grumpy son of a bitch who overdresses in tropical weather. And you know his name: Don.”

  The mere utterance of those words sends my mind tumbling back to that scene on that island. To the sight of the man dressed all in black, armed with a sword, his body language rigid, like he was expecting a fight to break out any second. To that brief glimpse of his face, not even enough to write his features firmly into my memory. Except for that telltale glimpse of his eyes, those dark pupils ringed with gold that spoke of a nature far beyond mortal, betraying his otherwise human shape.

  Up until this moment, I have steadfastly avoided dwelling on the possibility that, during the handful of minutes I was literally dead, I encountered my father for the first time in my life. Because it hurts me. Hurts my heart. Hurts my head. It paints in vivid, painful colors a picture of my past. A picture of a mother who got involved in a situation far out of her depth, with creatures far above her weight class. A picture of a father who either didn’t know or didn’t care he’d gotten a human woman pregnant, and left her behind to care for a child whose mere existence put her in grave danger.

  Thinking of Don as my father hurts me because I don’t know whether I should hate him or help him, whether I should want to meet him or beat him, whether I should want to learn his motivations or spit in his face for the few acts I know he committed. And I’m afraid to find out the answers. Afraid that the only living relative I have is the sort of person I don’t want to be related to. Af
raid that the nonhuman blood in my veins will end up a constant reminder that I’m the son of an amazing woman and a terrible man.

  My mother died when I was a child, and I got thrown into the foster care system shortly after, the rest of my childhood and adolescence overseen by a string of detached guardians. I never developed the kind of critical relationship skills you need to manage complicated family problems. Managing the issue of my dad, who may very well be some type of immortal powerhouse, is not exactly the test case I want to use to start learning those skills.

  “Is there a point to you bringing this up,” I say to Lucian, “or are you just trying to torment me?”

  “There’s a point,” he replies, “but I’m also trying to torment you. It’s fun.”

  “Well, hurry up and get to your point, or I’m going to throw a lightning bolt at your ass.”

  Lucian snorts. “Is that the only fatal spell you can cast, or are you trying to evoke Lizzie’s death to rub it in that you killed her and I didn’t?”

  “The latter. And for the record, ‘big-ass lightning bolt’ is not the only fatal spell I can cast, but it is my favorite.”

  “What a shocker.”

  I shoot him my coldest glare. “I swear to god, if you make one more pun…”

  “Chill, kid.” He eases the car around the sharp turn onto the second level and heads toward a free spot along the far wall. “My point in bringing up your dear old dad is that, if he really is that Don guy you saw on the island, and as such, knows more than we do about the Children of Enoch, it might be to our benefit to contact him. Which we can do across the veil if you two have a blood connection.”

  “Wait.” I sit straight up in my seat. “What now?”

  “There’s a spell that lets you use DNA to home in on a person, regardless of their location, and send them a psychic message. It doesn’t establish an ongoing psychic connection or anything, so it’s not inherently dangerous. If we use it, it’ll be to send a one-off message, a request to your dad to lend us a hand in dealing with this shit that he’s obviously already involved in.”