A slow, heavy clapping echoed out of the dark.
I was on my feet in an instant, back to the abused woman, blade in my hands and body tensed. Roisin emerged from the shadows to stand guard over the woman from behind, guns drawn, her long coat kicked out dramatically in the rain as she braced herself for yet another fight.
"Brava." A woman's voice—not mocking, but warm and genuine. The kind of voice you'd expect an elderly family member to have as they cheered you for some mundane accomplishment.
Up the bank of the Thames, half-hidden by the now abandoned tent city, a long black car had parked, its hood adorned by the silver, leaping body of a jaguar. A woman stood just outside the opened door, a man alongside her holding an umbrella to keep the rain off.
She wore the highest heels I'd ever seen, the soles of them a red so bright it'd challenge the fresh blood washing away in the rain. She didn't seem to care that they were getting muddy. A slim navy dress clung to her rail-thin, rectangular frame, and waves of golden hair cascaded over her shoulders to the top of her waist. Eyes so grey I thought at first she might be a nightwalker, save for the lack of stench, pierced me. She smiled painted-red lips and stopped her clapping, adjusting the blazer thrown over her shoulders.
"Magdalene Shelley. Roisin Quinn. It is my lucky day. I've been looking for you two ladies for quite some time. And I am so impressed with the way you handled those creeps."
"Who in the hells are you?" I demanded.
Her face lit up with a smile. "How rude of me. My name is Sonia Rossi. I own a few properties here and there around England, including the building which once housed Club Garnet. Maybe you remember leaving it to burn?"
My lip curled. "I did not burn down your club."
"Heavens, no. I did, once I ran the numbers and realized the biohazard clean-up wasn't worth the cost compared to the insurance payout. I ought to thank you for that, really. The place was skirting the edge of being up to code. I could have never made a profit if I'd tried to sell it."
"Why are you here, Miss Rossi?"
"Call me Sonia, please. And I'm here to offer you a little help, by way of a business deal." She stepped to the side of her opened car door, her obviously-armed umbrella holder moving smoothly with her, and gestured inside to the shiny black leather seats. "Mayhap we should take this conversation somewhere a little more pleasant?"
I asked into my earpiece, "ETA on the mortals?"
"Maeve is there, holding until you mark the area clear."
I caught Roisin's eye, and she inclined her head.
"We'll have your chat," I said, flicking rainwater from my blade before sheathing it again. "But we ride." I inclined my head to the waiting motorcycles.
Her smile didn't even twitch. "Marvelous. Talk soon."
She winked at us and slid into the car, her guard shutting the door behind her.
"Seamus?" I asked over the earpiece.
"Yeah?"
"Get Talia to dig up everything you can on Sonia Rossi. And don't lose us."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
Three: Numbers Game
Sonia's black car soon disappeared along a road that slanted down into the earth. Massive teeth of steel barred the path ahead, with no sensor or mechanism I could see. Sonia's car must have passed some unseen checkpoint, as the guardrails slid away into the walls to let us pass without her driver ever slowing down. Warm yellow lights lit the way, her car moving at a crisp, but respectful pace. As if we could lose them in this single-direction, underground complex. Roisin and I rode in formation, side by side, tailing the car while we scanned, warily, for any threat at all.
The place smelled like mortals. If a nightwalker had ever been down here, it was so long ago as to be irrelevant.
"Fuck," Seamus said in my ear.
"What is it?"
"Lost you on the CCTV network as soon as you went underground. You're so deep now the GPS is bugging out."
"So you lost us," I said, dryly. Roisin chuckled.
"I, uh, I mean, the technology has its limits..."
"Don't sound so guilty. This place smells clean, I don't think we will require any further assistance."
"Tell us what Talia learned about this woman," Roisin said.
"That I can do!" There was a scuffle of static as Talia fitted her earpiece and turned it on.
"Hello?"
"We hear you," I said.
"Okay. Well, first of all, this woman is on the Forbes list."
"I do not understand what that means," I grumbled. Roisin snickered.
"Oh—right! Well, she's one of the richest people in the world, basically."
"This Forbe keeps a list of the richest people?"
"Kinda. A lot of money is tied up in private assets, and if those people don't report all their holdings then there's no telling how rich they are or aren't. That's usually where the big money is hiding. The Durfort-Civrac family, for example, keep their matters to themselves. But Sonia's businesses are all public, so it's easy enough to make an accurate estimate of her net worth even if she doesn't release those numbers herself..."
In my time, you knew how rich a person was by the size of their house and the amount of servants they employed. As soon as Talia started talking about fiat currency and money market accounts, my mind blanked out.
"Talia," I said gently, interrupting some spiel about trusts and overseas accounts. "Please move on."
"Sorry! Anyway, she looks clean as far as I can tell. I mean, clean of nightwalker stuff anyway. Her story about burning down Garnet rings true. The investigation into the fire brought up concerns of arson, but nothing could be proved, and the insurance payout was rumored to be more than the building would have been worth on the open market. You definitely did her a favor there, heh.
"She is young for all that success and money, though. Wasn't born into it. Her parents were a builder and an art teacher, but she maneuvered her way through the real estate market well and was a millionaire by twenty-five. Didn't take long for her to leverage that into exponential success afterwards. Her guards are armed, which I'm sure you've noticed, but I don't see what she wants with you or the Sun Guard. Sorry, Mags. She's clever and she's powerful. Be on your guard."
"Planned on it," I said.
The car slid into a spot under a long bank of lights, a door just a few quick paces away. I got the feeling that this wasn't the normal way for Sonia to enter her building, that she was putting some distance between us and her usual private entrance. This was far too plain and exposed, never mind the gates at the opening to the long driveway.
Roisin and I pulled in next to her and dismounted, shaking wet hair out as we stripped off our helmets. I didn't get cold like mortals did, but I could sure feel gross, and the sticky water clinging to me under the helmet was not a pleasant feeling. At least I didn't put off body heat to cause the moisture to fog and mist against the visor.
"Where are we?" Roisin demanded the second Sonia stepped from her vehicle.
"You know the building well, I'm sure, if not this particular entrance. I must be discreet, you understand. Competitors and foul-minded souls abound." Her head jerked to one side as she said the word 'souls' a muscle twitching in her neck, but then she plastered on a smile. "This is one of the many, if less known, paths into the Shard."
I was still getting to know modern London, but even I had noted the Shard. A contemporary construction of glass and steel—Talia had called it a skyscraper—it pierced the sky near Tower Bridge. Despite the architect's lofty descriptions, its crowning levels looked to me like a maw of broken teeth. As the tallest building in the city, I used it as one of my many points of orientation.
She expected impressed oohing and aahing, but Roisin and I just stared at her, letting our unsettling gazes do most of the work of informing this woman know we would not be impressed.
"The Shard," Seamus said in my ear. "Heard and noted."
When we'd said nothing long enough, Sonia forced a smile. "This way, please. I promise not
to keep you long."
We followed her through the door into a lift that she operated with the flash of one of her rings over the entry pad. Probably had one of those chips Seamus had told me about—the one with the acronym I hadn't bothered to remember. The only buttons in the lift existed to close the door and call for help, and the moment we were inside the door swished shut and we were throttled up the length of the Shard.
Light, but I hated lifts. Modern convenience or no, that sensation of been pressed down by invisible hands rose all my hackles, made me want to strike out. Roisin lounged against the wall, arms folded, watching me with a half-quirked smile that said she knew exactly how miserable I was, and thought it was funny. I shot her a look, and her little grin just became more devious. When the doors opened, I made a concentrated effort not to be the first to spring through them.
Sonia's office was austere in the way of most modern rich people. Minimalist, curated, the type of space that said only the best of anything would be tolerated within it. A glass desk supported by brushed steel legs dominated the area in front of the largest window I'd ever seen. Though the sparse style was not to my liking, the view more than made up for the boring grayscale decor.
London sprawled in all directions, her bright lights winking up through the dreary, rainy night. From here, the cloud cover that had shielded the moonlight was reduced to a fine mist, fogging the window and giving the city an otherworldly feel.
Beautiful as it was, I wondered what it would do to one's mind to stand with one of the world's greatest cities at your feet. I glanced at Sonia, and found her watching Roisin intently as she stepped toward the window, the moonlight painting lies of grey into her hair. Something in the way she watched my friend unsettled me. Sonia was calculating, I had already surmised as much, and normally that behavior did not ruffle me. But this... This was unusual. A tinge of hunger, maybe. My instincts always rankled at hints of hunger.
"I would offer you drinks," she said, breaking the spell of whatever had come over her and turning in an instant into the consummate hostess. "But somehow I don't think I have anything that'd appeal to your palates."
"You'd be surprised," Roisin said, and turned away from the window to pick up a desk lamp at random and flipped it over, inspecting some unknown detail. "We can eat and drink what we choose."
"Oh!' Sonia hurried across the wide space of her office to a well-stocked bar as her bodyguard drifted back, lurking by the lift door but saying nothing. "Then would you care for something?"
"No." Roisin sat the lamp down and slung herself into a chair, kicking one leg up over its arm. Sonia deflated at her hospitality being denied.
"We have very little time to spare," I said, and sat in the chair alongside Roisin, facing Sonia's desk, and crossed my right ankle over my left knee. "You understand."
"Yes, yes I do. I'm honored you decided to speak with me." She was all smiles again as she poured herself a gin and tonic, then kicked off her shoes and strolled over to sit behind her desk.
She was so very comfortable in this room. I wondered if she had a bed stashed somewhere. In my experience, people like Sonia kept homes as showrooms, not places to relax. Here, in her office, was where she was quintessentially herself. I sniffed the air. No hint of nightwalker, or ghoul, save the blood that clung to me and Roisin. Pity about the muddy footprints we'd tracked over her pristine, ash wood floors.
"You know our names," I said. Roisin picked at her teeth with a thumbnail. "Do you know what we are?"
"Sunstriders," she said the word as if pronouncing a holy writ. "A type of vampire, if I am not mistaken."
"And how do you know that?"
Roisin and I went perfectly still. It's hard to explain what this is like. Even corpses move. They rot and bloat and dissolve under the hungrier lives of the bacteria within them. No mortal is ever perfectly still. They can hold their breath all they like, but it won't stop their hearts beating, their hair from growing. Though a mortal cannot see most of these things, they're aware of them subconsciously, and when they're stripped of that feedback... Well. It can be an unsettling experience to even the hardest of hearts.
It was a cruel thing to do, but we were testing her. We needed to know her tolerance for our kind—and to remind her, subtly, that this was no ordinary business deal she toyed with. We were not human. The powers she played with were beyond the reach of even a woman who stood with all of London laid at her feet.
Sonia shifted uncomfortably in her chair, took a drink of her cocktail, pushed hair behind her ears. Sat her glass down and twisted it, just so, as if having the glass in its right place would somehow fix the uneasiness she couldn't explain, couldn't consciously understand. Her heart, silent to her ears, was a percussion instrument to mine. I picked up its beat, rushing faster, anxiety sweat sheening her skin. Her brows knit in confusion—she did not know what was happening to her. Had probably never in her life felt such stress out of nowhere before this moment.
We moved. She breathed a sigh of relief, though she didn't know why, and threw us a nervous smile. It was over in a matter of seconds, but whatever she'd thought of the moment—early menopause, an inexplicable flash of anxiety—she was off her guard, now.
"Brian Garnet had a sister, did you know? Her name is Molly, and you met her briefly, Miss Shelley, that night at the club."
The woman with the stake shoes. She'd been close to Brian, but not a love interest, and clean of the ghoul taint.
"I remember her," I said.
Sonia nodded. "It was her club, financially speaking. Brian had a financial history so poor he couldn't get a loan for a Mars Bar, but his big sister stepped in and took the risk on his behalf. I thought she was stupid, that he'd blow the cash flow and she'd end up on the hook, but her numbers shook out, and I'm not her mother, so I let her lease the place. He did it up, and I was surprised as anyone when it caught and became popular.
"After the massacre, I heard the rumors of a vampire, naturally. They were all over the news for a while. Your order squashed that fast, by the way. Brava. I figured, like everyone else, that it was some sort of mass hallucination caused by a new recreational drug.
"But then Molly came to me. Straightest arrow I've ever met, Molly. So imagine my surprise when she called me up and told me the same damned story I'd been hearing all over. A vampire really had attacked Garnet, and Brian had known some, though not the one that killed him. That one." And she looked me hard in the eye. "Had golden eyes."
"I thought she'd cracked, you know?" She trailed her finger around the rim of her glass. "Thought she'd suffered that shell shock thing—PTSD. So I agreed to meet her for coffee, and I contacted some people I knew, best in the business, to help her sort herself out and get better. But when I met her..."
"You believed her," I said.
She nodded firmly. "I've never seen someone so sure of themselves, so in possession of their right mind, while speaking utter nonsense. It made me feel like I was going insane, because I believed her. She claimed she had proof, and I was so moved by her insistence that I let her show me." Sonia shivered. "She took me to a house, close to the cafe, warning me that the place we were going was dangerous. Michael—" She inclined her head to the guard. "—was unhappy about it, naturally, but he's a brave soul and went along anyway.
"From the outside, I thought it was a crack house, and probably it was before whatever happened, happened, but inside... Well. Those people weren't really people anymore, if you get my meaning? They weren't like you, they were in some in-between state, what did she call them..." She snapped her fingers as she trailed off, thinking.
"Ghouls," I provided.
"Yes!" She snapped in victory. "Thank you. They were ghouls, and Molly, bless her, claimed that's what Brian had become in the end, and that even though he was in better shape than those wretches—oh, they were skinny—because his master kept feeding him, he'd been enthralled. I was stunned. I didn't know what to do. This isn't the kind of thing you can call the police about, you
understand."
I thought of Inspector Culver, and what he called his Freak Squad—despite his bosses' attempts to get him to call it the Night Guard—but nodded understanding anyway. The sun burgeoned on the horizon, and I wanted to get back to the estate to convene with the other sunstriders and talk strategy for the next night.
"I asked around, or I should say I had others ask around on my behalf, and learned of your order. And your personal efforts regarding the vampire called Ragnar."
"Nightwalker," I corrected. If she were keen enough to call us sunstriders, she could mark the difference. She nodded.
"Nightwalker. My apologies. The more I looked, the more horrors I unraveled. You'd be shocked, I think, to know just how many houses and flats have turned into, well, I don't know what to call them—hideouts?"
"Crèches," I supplied. "A place where ghouls that have been abandoned by their makers gather."
" They are spreading, Miss Shelley, Miss Quinn, and while I understand your order is very overworked, I must say you are doing a poor job of containing the problem."
I gripped the arms of my chair, fingers elongating as my claws threatened to extend.
"We are small in number," I said, a little too defensive. Roisin snorted.
"Yes, I understand, and while I cannot assist with that side of things, I can assist you with resources."
"Why?"
She glanced down, embarrassed, and clutched her glass in both hands. "I'm afraid you'll think me monstrous in my own way, but the truth is that this outbreak is lowering curb appeal all around London. No one wants to live in a neighborhood that's being taken over by what normal people would think of as drug fiends."
"You're worried about them bringing down your real estate value?" I could not keep the disgust from my voice.
"You must understand, Miss Shelley, I deal in very expensive properties. Not the hovels Molly showed me that day. These creatures you're fighting aren't just living under bridges by the Thames. They're everywhere in my circles and I won't stand for it. It's unseemly."
Night Blessed Page 2