by Dana Cameron
By Dana Cameron
Fangborn
Seven Kinds of Hell
Pack of Strays
Hellbender
“The Serpent’s Tale” (a short story)
“The Curious Case of Miss Amelia Vernet” (a short story)
“Burning the Rule Book” (a short story)
Emma Fielding Mysteries
Site Unseen
Grave Consequences
Past Malice
A Fugitive Truth
More Bitter Than Death
Ashes and Bones
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Dana Cameron
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
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E-ISBN: 9781503950450
Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects
To my readers: you rock!
Contents
Start Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Somewhere outside his Portland apartment, Jack heard the televised sounds of the Red Sox losing. It had been nearly seventy years since they’d won a World Series, and as long-lived as his Fangborn Family was—and they were spectacularly long-lived—he had no expectation of ever seeing a Series win himself. Being an underdog and a perennial outsider, he felt sympathy but didn’t feel compelled to root for them. He had no room in his life for more emotional violence.
The knock at his door took him by surprise, and he approached the peephole cautiously. Glancing through, he saw a tall redheaded woman in a faded Levi’s jacket, acid-washed jeans, and white high-top Adidas sneakers. Her hair was pulled back with a black scrunchie. As he frowned in confusion, his partner, Sully, raised her hands in a gesture that was part “Yeah, it’s me” and part impatience.
He opened the door and Sully walked in, glancing around, out of habit, for other visitors, for other danger. “You alone?” she asked in a Boston townie accent. “Good.”
“I didn’t expect you to come right over,” he said. “Want a beer?”
“No time. Get your bag. We have work.”
“Wait, I thought—?”
“You thought I was gonna rush right over with the illegally obtained confidential records you wanted, is that it?”
As Sully spoke, Jack felt the blood rush from his face and the panic well up inside him.
“They’re background on the girl you’ve been seeing on the sly, right?” She shook her head. “Nope. But we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that on the drive.”
Jack was already in a precarious situation with the Family, and he’d hoped his clandestine, and therefore frowned-upon, romance was still a secret. “Oh, shit, how did you—? Does anyone else—?”
“I haven’t told anyone—yet—and you’ll have the drive to Boston to give me a good reason to keep it that way. But come on, chop-chop.” She clapped her hands. “We have a job, and time is of the essence.”
“Can’t I—can’t we get someone else to fill in for me?” he said, grasping at straws. “Now’s really not a good time for me to leave—”
Sully held up a hand and frowned. “You, better than anyone, know what happens when you go against the Family’s orders, and we are on the clock, my friend.”
He knew she was right, that he had no choice, but Jack stood another few seconds, trying to figure out how to keep disaster from crashing down on him. There was no solution, and further noncooperation wouldn’t help, so he nodded once and went to the front closet. His bag was already packed—it was always packed. As much as the Family demanded obedience, it also required speed and preparation. “What’s the job?”
“It’s big, it’s bad, and it’s as weird as a snake with sneakers. We need to talk to an oracle.”
“Yeah? What’s so weird about that?”
“She’s holed up in the Tower of London and won’t come out until she talks to us.”
“What?”
“Weird, like I said. I can tell you in the car. You ready?”
“Let me just call Emily, okay?”
Sully shrugged. “Keep it quick, okay?”
Jack dialed the number for the diner.
“Sunshine Diner. This is Emily.” The voice wasn’t impatient, but it was rushed.
“Hey, babe, it’s me.”
Her voice went softer, knowing it was him, like she was trying to keep the rest of the world from intruding on them. “Jack! What’s up?”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
“Hang on a second.” There was a sound of the phone being ineffectually muffled. “Yes, scrambled and wheat, just like I wrote!” she yelled at someone in the diner.
It drove Jack crazy when she did that, but Emily was at work. It also made him wonder how she, a short woman with a soft voice, could suddenly sound like a foghorn.
She took her hand away from the receiver, speaking normally again. “Let me guess—you’ve gotta work late.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. Actually, more than late; might be a few days.” He sighed. “The life of an insurance adjuster is always intense.”
“Ha. Funny.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“Sure. Tracey Ullman’s on tonight. They’ve got these weird little cartoons now; everyone’s yellow. The Simpsons—it’s pretty good. And I’ll take a couple of late shifts. But I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. I’ll be back . . . I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but I’ll call as soon as I can and let you know.”
“Okay. You give me enough notice, I’ll bring home meat loaf.”
“You’re the best.”
“No, you are.”
He smiled into the receiver, and then caught Sully miming sticking a finger down her throat, pointing at her watch immediately afterward.
“Gotta go. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” He hung up.
“Gag me with a spoon,” Sully said. “That was gross.”
“Shut up and let’s get going.” But Jack still had a dumb smile on his face.
Jack threw his bag into the back of Sully’s Trans Am and slid in with a little difficulty; whoever had been in the passenger seat last had been shorter than Jack, who was just medium height. He adjusted the seat to a more comfortable position. Sully, on the other hand, had to fold her long self into origami to get into the low-slung seat, which was already as far back as it could go. She glanced at the mirror and found nothing to complain about; Jack followed suit. It was almost second nature for the Fangborn to check their appearances, as it wouldn’t do to get caught up in battle lust and then go out among the Normal population with a smear of blood on one’s cheek. He sighed. There was nothing he could do about his hair; if he cut it too short he thought he looked like a bristling badger. Too long, and he thought it made his oval face with its fine features seem effeminate. The best compromise left him with a side part and a flop of black bangs, which hung in his eyes.
“You about done admiring yourself?”
He’d no sooner nodded when Sully took off from the curb with a screech.
“You know, I’m an officer of the court, and I have to watch my step getting information to the Family, else I’ll lose my job as court stenographer.” She started right in, making good on her promise to talk in
the car. “I have to not only go by the book, I have to be like Caesar’s wife and avoid even the idea of impropriety. If the Family understands why I can’t just take whatever records I want, you know that I’m going to hold you to a higher standard. And given your past, I have to be even more careful. Spill it.”
Jack couldn’t decide if it was worse to reveal Emily’s place in his life or to have Sully bring up the incidents that had made him practically an outcast. “How did you find out?” he asked, delaying the inevitable.
Sully knew exactly what he was doing. “I followed you, when you were following her. Couple months back, after we got that serial killer. You were out of sorts and wouldn’t go out for a beer. I got curious and I followed you, and then when I found out what you were up to, I followed you a couple more times. I couldn’t figure out why my newish partner hadn’t told me about her, because, hey, his activities might reflect badly on me. I couldn’t figure out why my partner wouldn’t tell the Family he’d been seeing a Normal woman for weeks. I figured, he must have a good reason, he’ll tell me; we’re friends. He’ll report his relationship soon; he knows what will happen if he doesn’t. And yet, months went by and you did neither. So, enough stalling. Talk.”
Jack stared at the spotless dashboard before he could bring himself to say it. The Fangborn had to adhere to strict rules. After all, the vampires, werewolves, and oracles of his Family were working in a world of Normal humans who didn’t know they were being protected by supernatural creatures. For thousands of years, under the guise of being ordinary humans, the Fangborn took jobs that put them near human trouble—doctors, nuns, cops, lawyers, and even insurance adjusters—so they could better seek out true evil and eradicate it. In the presence of evil, werewolves might Change to the form of a large wolf, but more often that of a bipedal wolf-man—or wolf-woman. The vampires’ half-Change made them look like a walking lizard-creature, which was even more unsettling than their full-Changed aspect of gigantic snakes. The Change was a glorious embrace of their true selves, and not the bone-crushing torment of legend, and while oracles did not shapeshift, they had powers of precognition, luck, or telepathy.
Long-lived and fast-healing, the Family was not immortal, and rather than being the monsters at the edge of every culture’s nightmares, the Fangborn considered themselves saviors and angels. Acting in the shadows, disguising their activities had ever been their way, and, like any secret service, extended contact with Normals was always reported.
Except Jack hadn’t done that.
Each time he opened his mouth to speak, he stopped himself. Confessing to Sully seemed fatally stupid, and it went against every fiber in his being to talk about Emily, but his partner already knew about his romance. And more, he trusted Sully. Her character, as well as her dedication to the Family laws, made her trustworthy, but it was those very qualities that might get him into hot water.
Finally, he said, “I love her. Emily—that’s her name. I’ve loved her from the moment I saw her.” Not given to sentiment or the expression thereof to others outside his relationship, he felt his face go hot.
“Okay,” Sully said nonchalantly. “There have been relationships between Normals and Family before, even some marriages. Why not just tell the Family?”
This was the part Jack had the most difficulty with. He’d been working as hard as he could to toe the line and follow the regs, but for some reason, this was an absolute sticking point for him. Even now that Sully knew, he felt as though he’d give almost anything to keep his relationship with Emily a secret. It made no sense, but it was almost a physical urge, almost as great as the Call to Change.
Several more miles passed before he said, “She’s . . . I think she’s had a rough life, on the run from trouble. What kind, she refuses to say. Which is why I didn’t want to say anything to the Family, at first, and then . . . it just got later and later, and the moment had passed and it all got too complicated, so I kept on keeping us a secret. The idea of the Family looking into her background . . . it just made me nervous that any kind of attention would scare her away.”
“We’re awful good at finding out things without being caught,” Sully said as she pulled onto Route 95, heading south.
“But we’re not perfect,” he said. “I’m proof of that.”
There was an awkward silence before Sully responded.
“What’s the difference between me looking into her past—to ‘help’ her, as you say—and telling the Family?”
He sighed. “I think the fewer people who know, the better. Look, I know this doesn’t make sense. She doesn’t talk about her life, makes a point of asking me not to ask her, but I just have this feeling. If I find out more about her, I can help. I’d give anything to fix . . . to make her feel better. Keep her safe.” He shrugged helplessly, hating himself for being so inarticulate about something that felt so primal to him. “I just want to protect her.”
“Do you have any idea how creepy that sounds, Jack?” Sully shook her head and drove a little faster, the nonchalance fading from her voice. “This relationship already sounds pretty precarious to me; don’t make it worse by going behind our backs and hers. As a friend, I’m telling you: Don’t do this. It’s against Family rules and it’s against my better judgment. Just go to the Family.”
Jack knew what Sully meant by “creepy.” But he knew that, in spite of their obvious and not-so-obvious differences, he and Emily were in love. They were meant to be. It was a simple, immutable fact, just as he had green eyes and the best nose for trouble in the Family.
Realizing he’d been chewing his lip and staring out the window for too long, Jack glanced guiltily at Sully. “I can’t do that. I need to find out more about her. I can help her, I feel it. Will you help me?”
She gave him a quick, evaluating glance, then turned back to the road, silent for so long he was certain she’d refuse. Eventually, he saw the shrug of her shoulders and the self-disgusted sigh that meant she’d help him. “But just this once. I won’t do anything to endanger my place at work. It’s too important to the Family’s business.”
He nodded hastily.
“And it won’t be right away. Might be a couple of weeks. We have urgent business that requires our special talents.”
“What is it?”
“I told you, one of our oracles locked herself up in the Tower of London with an artifact. Said she’d talk only to us.”
Jack looked at Sully. “I don’t know anyone in London. Do you?”
“Nope. Doesn’t matter. Three other oracles, while having no idea the London Cousin was going to do this, saw big things happening for you and me. So we’re it. Jack,” Sully said hesitantly. “Look, I’m just a werewolf with a decent nose and better fists. I don’t have any oracular talent whatsoever, and don’t have any in my family. But I get the impression that something big’s coming down the pike very soon. There have been attacks on the Family lately, too many for coincidence.”
He shrugged. “We’re always being attacked.”
“No, I’m not talking about the bad guys we’re chasing.” Sully chewed on her lip. “These are unprovoked and directed specifically at the Family strongholds and resources.”
“The Order of Nicomedia?”
“Maybe. They might have finally found a way to spy on us. So when I say the oracles are getting into an uproar . . .”
“We get on the case.” Jack nodded.
The drive from Portland down the coast to Boston was uneventful. At the halfway mark, they stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee. Jack ordered tea.
“I thought you were a coffee drinker?” she asked when they were back in the car and on the road.
“I hate the stuff.”
“It’s all you ever drink at that diner.”
“Yeah, well . . . it’s hard to explain.”
Fortunately, Sully only raised one eyebrow. She turned the radio on to a rock station, and a saxophone solo wailed, filling the car and making it impossible to talk.
Jack was tired of talking anyway. The smell of the coffee brought back too many memories of meeting Emily for the first time.
Jack knew Emily was the one from the moment he saw her.
He’d felt it even as he walked into the Sunshine Diner for the first time, almost a year ago. At the time, it had seemed like a whim.
She’d poured him coffee, automatically, without looking at him. Transfixed by the sight of her, he was too stunned to ask for tea. So mesmerized by this sudden attraction, he barely tasted the brew at first, then didn’t mind that it was coffee—weak, scalded, and bitter.
Emily wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, and Jack wondered if that wasn’t part of his attraction to her as he visited the diner over the next few months. She was short, with mousy brown hair in messy curls pulled back with a headband. There was a small, pale, puckered scar near her right eyebrow that he hoped was from some childhood misadventure and nothing else. She had a very small mole near the corner of her mouth, which she’d darkened into a beauty mark. That, and her fondness for a Fiorucci hot-pink lipstick, told him she was going for that Madonna look. The lipstick was the wrong shade for her skin, but you could tell it made her happy. If he could only make her happy like that, he’d—
Oh, for crissakes, Jack. Ask her out, or don’t. Just do something other . . . than this . . . pining.
But he knew, deep down in his heart, that if he did anything so abrupt, it would ruin it. She’d flee as surely as a deer scents a hunter on a changing wind. From long years of watching people from the shadows, Jack knew she had secrets, that she was running from something. Her fear was real.
He got that. He had secrets, too.
So he drank the awful coffee, day after day, gradually drawing Emily out. He didn’t mind that she was quiet; he was, too. He knew from the first she wasn’t quite right, and that, for some reason, drew him even closer to her. It wasn’t curiosity and it wasn’t a Galahad complex. Jack didn’t have time for most damsels in distress, because all too often, the drama was of their own creation. His own romantic experiences had mostly been the short-lived flings of his youth. Just when he might have considered something more serious, he’d gotten into the Family’s bad books.