He gave me a sideways look, as if to say he doubted two sunstriders could do much damage to a dozen of his people kitted out and ready for battle. And that was the problem, that hubris of his. He didn't know what we were capable of, even though he'd seen the destruction Ragnar had wrought for himself. He trusted too much in his weapons, in his armor, and not at all in the ancient power of our blood. Such faith would destroy him one day, if he were not careful.
Still, he pressed his earpiece and murmured something I couldn't hear, but the effect amongst his people was clear enough. They relaxed slightly, pointing weapons toward the ground instead of at me, Seamus, or Roisin. It was a start.
Roisin rolled the bike sedately up to the Imp and kicked the stand down, swinging herself off the saddle. Behind her, a sedate figure in a slim, navy blue pantsuit wearing Maeve's sparkly pink helmet took Roisin's hand and dismounted, a little wobbly.
Emeline. She tugged the helmet off and shook out her mussed hair. Then, finding DeShawn in the crowd, her shoulders drew back and her jaw set before she marched over to him.
"Inspector Culver," she said coolly, tucking the neon pink helmet under her arm as she pulled her phone from her pocket.
"Emeline. This isn't the place for you, girl. Go home. Everything is under control."
Roisin sauntered over to my side of the car and braced her arms against the top of my door, leaning down through the open window. She caught my eye and arched a brow. I shrugged in response. That was all the catching-up needed between the two of us.
"You will address me as Lady Emeline," she snapped.
DeShawn actually took a half step back, his eyebrows climbing so far up his forehead they merged with his hairline to make a wicked widow's peak. "Since when?"
"This morning. And I believe this call is for you."
Surreptitiously, she had pulled up an active call on her phone and held it out to him, the audio switched over to speaker. He looked at the number displayed on the screen as she held it out to him like a sacred offering, and his color drained a few shades lighter. "You can't be serious."
"Take the call, Inspector."
Hand trembling, he took the phone from her and held it up to his ear, switching the speaker phone off, but I extended my hearing to overhear. Perks of the blood.
"Is this Inspector DeShawn Culver of the Night Guard division?" The voice was older, feminine, and had a slight tremble to it that had more to do with age than anything else.
"Ye-yes, Majesty It's an honor—"
"I'm sure. Please allow the Sun Guard to do as they will. Their charter is an ancient one, and your intervention, while well-meaning, is wholly unnecessary."
DeShawn drew himself up. "With respect—"
"That is an order. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Majesty."
"Very good. Return me to Emeline, please."
DeShawn, eyes wider than tea saucers, handed the phone back to Emeline.
"Thank you, Majesty. I shall see you soon. Tea at Balmoral? Lovely." She hung up, slipped the phone into her pocket, and fixed DeShawn with the hardest stare I'd ever seen. It would have been enough to wither even Adelia.
"Your division is under the order of the Sun Guard, of which I am its head. Do you understand the situation, now, or shall I have Her Majesty explain things to you again?"
DeShawn licked his lips. "You're making a mistake."
"No," she said, closing her eyes briefly. "I'm fixing one."
She turned on her heel to regard me and Roisin. Her eyes narrowed briefly at the shocking state of my appearance, but she rallied quickly and dipped her hand into her pocket, drawing out three sets of earpieces that she distributed to Seamus, Roisin, and me.
"You two." Emeline pointed to me and Roisin so that there would be no confusion. "Go. Save Talia. Your backup is on its way."
She didn't need to tell us twice. "Understood," we said in unison, and I was out of the car before DeShawn could muster up any kind of protest. I mounted the bike behind Roisin and she stroked the engine into life, swinging the bike around to put the gathering to our backs.
The sun tumbled below the horizon, only the crest of its curve spilling pink-and-orange light across the land. There was so little time left. If DeShawn had made us late for saving Talia... I pushed the thought out of my mind and wrapped one arm around Roisin's waist, leaning against her as she poured in all the speed the bike could handle on these dusty old roads. We were coming, Talia. Hang on. Please.
Twenty-nine: Old Oaths
By the time we reached Sonia's garden, the sun had given up at last. Darkness seeped between the trees once more, twisting shadows through the vegetation and cracked landscape that even the brightness of the moon, obscured by clouds, could not penetrate. While this land had felt foreboding to me the first time my feet had touched it, I now resented that repelling presence. Saw it not as a function of ancient England's bedrock, but an intrusion. A cancer in the soil that was the skin of my world. And I would excise it.
In silent agreement we left Roisin's motorcycle in a copse of trees down the road, unwilling to let the roar of the engine alert the Daughters of the Moon to our presence if they were already gathered.
Sick of the contacts giving my world a sepia hued view, I turned aside and pinched them from my eyes, flicking them into the dirt. I'd pay Seamus back for them later. They'd served their purpose, but after having slept in them and feeling them cling like burrs to my eyeballs, I was done with them.
"Your mote is larger," Roisin said.
I brought up a hand to cover my eye, as if masking it could take away all meaning. "Then after the cathedral?"
"Yes."
She regarded me a long while, and I took my hand away, letting her see all that I had become, feeling more vulnerable than a naked babe in a bath. Thinking of baths made me try to remember when I had last bathed—shortly after awakening from my sickbed. Though we sunstriders didn't put out the usual human oils and scents, my clothes felt stiff against my body, my hair a matted mess. So focused had I been on the task at hand that I hadn't given a single thought to my appearance.
My clothes, if I breathed deeply enough, were still scented with the body of Lucien.
"Does it feel... Different?" she asked after a long pause, her gaze returning to that smear of the moon in my eye.
"The oath?"
She inclined her head.
"It remains. But it is... distant. Like a drumbeat in the back of my skull, running through my bones, demanding attention, but not final. Not the leash it once was."
"You can ignore it, if you choose?"
Here we tread dangerous ground. Roisin's expression revealed nothing to me aside from her usual intense concentration, her hands crossed loosely over the open folds of her coat, far enough away from her weapons to make a mortal comfortable, but not me. I knew how quickly she could move, when she desired to do so.
What was I, if not a sunstrider bound by my oath? Though Seamus had reassured me that he believed in my internal moral compass more so than the whip of my blood, Roisin was not granted the luxury of mortal faith. Her drumbeat could not be ignored. Her purview was the death of those immortals who threatened humanity. Without my oath keeping me from harming humanity, I could easily be shifted to the column of her enemy.
I should lie. I should tell her that the drums were too loud. That, although I could hear them now in ways that I never could before that I was still bound. She would accept that answer, whether or not she believed it. Would accept it because it would mean we could continue as always, the status quo between us unchanged. Would accept it, because it was what she wanted to hear.
"I can ignore the oath."
She arched one brow at me, as if to say, you stupid bitch, and leaned back, crossing her arms a little tighter. I wondered what she was feeling—if the thrum of her blood had increased, if her internal paradigm had shifted and the magics that fueled our unlife now registered me as a threat.
"And will you?"
; I thought of Lucien. Of how my blood had drummed out my betrayal as I'd allowed Ragnar to restore himself to lessen the burden Lucien carried. A denial of my oath, if not in letter then in intent. Standing by, doing nothing, made me no less guilty than if I had facilitated the ritual myself.
"If I must."
Roisin let out a slow breath, pursing her lips as she looked me over once more, scraping her gaze against me, fingers drumming at her hips. I wondered if she itched to grab a weapon.
"Sebastian would stake you for that."
"And you?"
"When I have to," she said, and strode away from me, toward the house, her long brown coat swooping out behind her like a cape. I almost laughed in relief, bending forward slightly as I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes and increased the pressure until I thought my head would surely burst.
She was right. I deserved to be staked, by all the definitions of our oath. Sebastian—always a stickler for rules—would have turned me to ash the moment the mote had appeared in my eye. I'd been so concerned with ending Ragnar that I hadn't thought of what my kin would think of me. Even if Roisin was willing to look the other way until I crossed some invisible line, we weren't the only sunstriders left standing now. Our other kin were lesser in power, true, but their voices were just as important—and their oaths just as compulsory.
Could I even stay at Emeline's anymore? The thought of a younger sunstrider slipping into my room while I slept to put me back in the dirt flashed through my mind—but to leave, to hide? It would be an unforgivable admission of a guilty conscious.
I could not lie to Roisin. But maybe I could lie to the others—the only question was, would they believe me?
Lights flickered into life in the main house on the grounds, spilling yellowed light across the white wooden siding and the hedgerows growing close against the building. Figures moved in silhouette on the other side of the curtains, distinctly feminine.
I could worry about my own neck later. Talia needed me now.
Roisin didn't comment on my hesitation, only nodded when I jogged up beside her. We moved in silence to the largest window and crouched alongside it, peering in through the slight crack allowed by the curtain being a little skewed. A massive dining room was on the other side of the window, a long table of walnut wood supporting a collection of Victorian candlesticks.
Seven women sat around the table, each sitting perfectly straight, their hair and clothes done up as if they were prepared to sit for a portrait painting. Sonia controlled the head of the table, Raina at the other end, with Talia to her right. That left the other four—none of whom I knew, but all appeared to be near to Raina in age and status.
Sonia had left her bodyguard behind tonight, and that set off warning bells in my mind. Whatever happened here, she wanted no one else to see.
"Tonight," Sonia said with an air of gravitas, "we welcome a new sister."
I moved reached to fling the window open, but Roisin's hand clasped on my shoulder—claws extended—and forced me to my knees. She whispered in a tight voice that only we could hear.
"Wait. Talia does not look afraid. Let her work. And I..." She wrinkled her nose. "I sense power in one of those women."
"Magic?"
She nodded, grimacing. "Corrupted magic."
Thirty: An Older Vintage
All eyes swiveled to regard Talia, who was a perfect statue of propriety. She laced her fingers together on the table top and inclined her head to the other women.
"I understand I am joining you late in your plans, but I hope my special expertise will be of use to you all."
A woman with tight blonde curls and a pale blue dress sniffed. "We have all the expertise we need. We have the vampires."
"Had," Raina corrected. "Lucien has been freed and is unlikely to return to us."
"Doesn't he trust you?" the woman in blue asked.
"He does. But that may not last. There is no way to tell his mindset, after he granted his power to Ragnar. With his mind clearer, it is possible that he will reconsider the details of our arrangement and suss out the truth."
"Ragnar, then."
"He remains capricious as always." Raina glanced at a clock on the wall. "Though he will join us soon."
"I know you're wary of me, Irina," Talia said, leaning toward the woman in blue. "But I have knowledge of nightwalkers that your allies may not have revealed to you."
"Our allies are just that, allies. You, however, are fresh blood." Her lips curled over the word blood as if at some private joke. "I don't see why we should trust you just because you and Raina were playmates as tots. People change. And your information comes from being Sun Guard, you know. The people who will want us dead if this all goes to plan."
"Only someone very shortsighted would scorn the knowledge of their enemy."
"Ladies," Raina said and leaned over the table, spreading her arms magnanimously. "This is hardly the time to rehearse old schoolyard squabbles. We are, all of us, in search of the same thing—immortality."
"Which we could have had already, if we had used Lucien while you had him chained, Raina dear," Sonia said.
Roisin's hand was on my arm, holding me in place—I hadn't realized I'd moved.
"Maybe you would have found his bite sufficient, dear," Raina emphasized the word as if she were thrusting with a blade, "but in the world of the undead, generations matter. I require the power that comes from an older vintage. But I understand how, with your upbringing, you might settle for less."
They burst into heated bickering, gesticulating to emphasize their points. Under the table, just out of view from the other women, Talia drummed her finger tips against her thigh and threw a few furtive glances over her shoulder—toward the front door, through which she must have entered. That woman carried a core of braveness stronger than I had ever suspected.
"We should secure the mortals before Ragnar arrives," I whispered.
Roisin shook her head. "I don't know... It's all confused and mixed up. There's power in this house, and around it too, I think. I can only sense power. I cannot understand it."
The speaker in my ear crackled, Seamus's voice a balm against my frayed nerves. "Mags, Roisin, can you hear me?"
"Yes," we whispered in unison.
"I've been going over that data I told you about the house, Mags, the satellite images and such—and nothing matches up with the files on record. Sonia bought that land recently, it was in foreclosure, but it used to belong to Raina's family before she lost it—and I have no idea how a family that wealthy can lose a piece of land like that.
"That buyout must have been what forced them to work together. But there was never any construction on the property in recent times. Nothing filed with any of the usual boards. To get builders in to put together something that large they'd have to go through the appropriate channels."
I scowled. "Seamus. I don't understand what any of this means. I don't know how your laws work."
"Oh, yeah, sorry, that's complicated. But the important part is there used to be a building on that site, built in the mid-1600s. A private house, made of stone and the usual building materials of the time, and according to all the paperwork, it should still be there."
I prodded at the side of the house as if it would vanish beneath my touch. It was just cold wood. "There's a very modern house right in front of us, Seamus."
"I know. I know. It sounds crazy. But the satellite imagery confirms it. Even the maps—the photos—think there's nothing but a rundown stone ruin there, long abandoned."
Roisin reached up to touch her earpiece. "Seamus, this is Roisin. I'm sensing a lot of magic from this place and its inhabitants. We need Maeve."
"She's... Uh... Under house arrest. Hold on."
We heard crackling and low murmurs as he spoke with Emeline. "Okay. Emeline's getting her out. Is Talia secure?"
"More or less," I said, bemused as I watched her cut through the bickering and admonish Irina so thoroughly that the woman's cheeks turned
scarlet.
Static crawled up my arms, raising the small hairs across my body. Roisin and I shifted as one, craning our heads to scan the thin tree line that hemmed in the estate—or what we could see of the estate, anyway. Nothing had changed, not outwardly, but the clouds in the sky seemed thicker somehow, the ambient light of the moon a touch darker than it should be.
A howling whipped through the trees, and the shadows cast by the leaves frayed slightly at the edges. A familiar presence filled my senses—not here, not yet—but close. And drawing closer.
I should know him well. I gave him back his power, after all.
In the dining room, Raina sat stalk-straight, as if someone had jerked her upright by the shoulders.
"Hush," she said, and her voice was laced with something heavy—something powerful. The women, so happy to argue before, snapped silent. "Ragnar comes."
Roisin and I extended our claws.
"Hurry, Seamus," I whispered.
Thirty-one: Turbulent Waters
Too much. He carried too much power. Light, how much had he taken from Lucien? How could I have ever let this come to pass? Curse the mote in my eye—curse the broken oath of my blood. Better to have the power sequestered in Lucien, who did not want it, than in the man who had crafted it to begin with. Who could control it.
I had not thought, and it might be the death of us all.
The scrape of power against my skin turned from a pleasant tingle to an oppressive grip, as if the air itself thickened around us like amber, cocooning, trapping. Roisin hissed softly and arched her back as if she were a cornered cat. The presence of so much nightwalker energy must be driving her mad, making her oath scream at her to act—to act now. It was not so long ago that the same bond would throw me into a frenzy of action—and consequences. I gripped her shoulders and stared hard into her eyes, forcing myself to retract my claws, to keep my fangs tucked up in the shelter of my jawbone.
"Roisin." I kept my voice in that low range that only our ears could hear. "Steady. Remember the magic in the house. Remember that we must wait for Maeve."
Night Blessed Page 17