Camera Obscura (A Novel of Shadows Book 1) Read online

  To say it was in the bad part of town would go so far beyond stating the obvious it was sad. Most Shadows even refused to go into the Collins District. Police rarely went there, and fire crews never did. The majority of people who could feel magic kept a wide birth of it as well. Most didn’t know why, but I did.

  At the heart of the Collins District was an old brick manor which seemed pristine in comparison to the squalor around it. The yard was kept clean, and none of the gang members bothered the little old Haitian lady that lived there with her butler and servants. I should maybe mention that her butler was her husband who cheated on her, and her servants were zombies—well-preserved zombies, but still zombies. She was a practitioner of some sort, and her magic was startlingly strong. I’d say she practiced Hoodoo or Voodoo, but I was almost certain it was something else. Maybe something dark left over from the very beginning of those practices.

  Gunfire sounded in the distance, beside me Thorn jumped and looked around with wild, frightened eyes. Part of me had a hard time believing he was just that helpless—I wouldn’t say it was an act, but it was certainly something. Then again, he did come from the upper crust of society. Audrey could probably help me understand what was going on. I wasn’t just seeing her to check on her, it was also because she had been in that life before.

  “Are you sure we’re safe here?” Thorn asked glancing around nervously.

  “I’m sure they won’t be looking for you here.”

  “So, we’re not safe?”

  “That’s cute.”

  “What?”

  “That you think safety is something attainable.” I beamed at him and opened the door to the atrium of the apartment building.

  After a moment's pause attempting to unlock the inner door that seemed to refuse to open for me, I started down the hall. Thorn followed me close behind like a scared little puppy. Shouts, screams, and the sounds of vigorous sex droned from every apartment we passed, muted by the heavy, old, wooden doors.

  Stopping at apartment twelve, I knocked hard and waited. A handful of minutes passed and Audrey opened the door, looking fresh and happy as always. Her hair was blonde, and her skin was pale with a slight dusting of freckles. Her eyes were blue and what I could only describe as eager. There was something about how she smiled that gave off a certain air of excitability that her brother lacked.

  “Rose!” She wrapped her arms around me in a quick hug before stepping back and ushering us into her kitchen. The apartment wasn’t the nicest. The walls were old yellowed paint, and the floor was warped and off level like the building was sinking—and no one could say anything to convince me it wasn’t.

  “Rose?” Thorn said my name with a bit of a grin, making me roll my eyes.

  “Audrey this is—”

  “Thornton Sterling IV, I—”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  “Sterling was a cadet branch of Cavendish before they went to the states. My parents sent me across the pond for him.”

  “And you lost me.”

  “I’m supposed to mate with a powerful sorceress from a pure line,” he explained with tense words.

  “Like an arranged marriage thing?”

  “No, like a—”

  “More like he’s prize winning race horse and they’re hoping to breed other prize-winning race horses.”

  “What? Okay, explain this to me like I’m five.”

  “Okay, say you breed corgis. For some reason whereas your females are always breed standards, your males are often subpar, but occasionally you have one that’s passable. You think the best way to amend this defect is to keep breeding the passable male with the best of the females in hopes of rectifying your problem. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to change anything, but then with one litter you get an immaculate breed standard male who now comes from champion lines. Thornton is the corgi to end all corgis.”

  I chortled. “I’m sorry.” I had to actually take a minute to regain some composure “So he’s not just powerful for a male?”

  “No, he’s supposedly the most powerful sorcerer we’ve seen ever.”

  “Why would someone want to kill him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because House Sterling has been playing God? I heard rumors that Mr. Sterling here is a lab created diamond so to speak.”

  “What?”

  “Supposedly, his mother did invitro, and they fiddled with his DNA a bit. But that’s just rumor.”

  “I can assure you I wasn’t made in a lab,” Thorn huffed.

  “I’m only telling you what I overheard, Darling, nothing more. Speaking of such things, I am so sorry about your family. Your father is still alive, though, your mother too. But the rest of the main house was at the fundraiser.”

  “I guess there’s that,” he whispered rubbing his temples.

  “Rose can keep you safe. She’s kept me safe for a few years now. I even get to see my brother. I’ve had boyfriends that I didn’t select from a book. It’s jarring at first to go from penthouses and caviar to this… but you get to actually live. What we do within the bubble of our society isn’t living. It’s nice to be free.”

  We stayed for a few hours at Audrey’s eating lunch and watching television before leaving. Once out on the street, I found a man with white eyes standing directly in front of the building. He was mannequin still and pointing in the direction that led to that old woman’s home. A few yards from him stood another and so on and so forth, like some sort of fucked up zombie GPS.

  I followed the path with Thorn because what else was I going to do? I might have been a minus null, but that wouldn’t protect me completely from her wrath. Oh, she couldn’t turn me into a zombie, but there were other things I’m sure she could do. That was why I followed the line of zombies which collected themselves to walk behind us. Their silence was unnerving, the only sound that came from them was the shuffle of their feet.

  “Are we—”

  “If your next word is safe, I swear to fucking God,” I hissed from behind clenched teeth. He fell quiet until we reached that immaculate brownstone with its perfect garden.

  Kneeling on a pillow in front of a flower bed was the elderly Haitian woman. She was all smiles when she glanced over her shoulder and saw me. The Zombie conga line filed passed us, up the stairs and into the house as she continued to pluck yellowed leaves from her roses.

  “Rosie, it’s always good to see you,” she spoke as she slowly stood. I was in envy of her skin, smooth and brown it was near lineless. The only place her age showed was on her neck and hands. “We’ll have tea. Do you still take chamomile with milk and two lumps of sugar?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I answered following her into the house.

  “Does the heir to House Sterling still like peppermint tea?”

  “Still?” I turned and glanced at Thorn.

  “I saw him as a child. His mother brought him when he was hardly forming words. The Sterlings gave me this part of the city, you know. Years and years ago. Payment for services rendered.”

  “What services?” Thorn narrowed his eyes.

  “Things of the past, that are passed even the reach of the Camera Umbra. But you never answered my question, Child.”

  “Yes, I still like peppermint tea.”

  “Good. We’ll have tea and a nice little talk.”

  I wasn’t afraid to say she scared me shitless. I didn’t even know her name, she knew mine, but had never introduced herself, so I just called her Ma’am. It was better and sounded more respectful than high-supreme-over-lord-for-the-sweet-love-of-fuck-please-don’t-kill-me. So needless to say, we all sat in the backyard drinking tea and eating petite fours while the zombies stood around or did housework.

  “I brought you here, not to see the type of handsome young man Thornton had turned into, but rather to ask you a favor, Rosie.”

  “Me?”

  “Mhm, I know you work as a Private Investigator when not fulfilling your duties as a Shadow. Someone who is dear to me—let's
call her my granddaughter—is missing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve looked down every avenue I could. But my servants can only do so much. I would be willing to pay you as well. Simply name your price, and it is yours.”

  “Two thousand up front and then seven hundred a day.” It was my I-might-die-from-this-case fee.

  “How about six thousand now and a thousand a day. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach like no other, Rosie dear. I hope I am wrong, but I fear for my girl.” Her voice actually did register as frightened to me.

  “Hopefully I can find her.”

  “Here is the key to her apartment and her address.” A zombie approached carrying a shining silver platter with a house key and card on it. I took them and tucked them into my pocket. “And you’re welcome to question the man who took her from school.”

  “What?”

  “He forced her into a van for someone, took it to the pier and left it there. And they dropped the money at the park under a bench last night.”

  “Last night?” I glanced at Thorn for a moment.

  “Yes, after what happened there I fear for my girl.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I know, Rosie, oh I know. You’re scared shitless of me. But as I told you when you first stumbled into my kingdom here, you’ve nothing to fear from me. I like you. You’re a smart girl.” She then turned her attention to Thorn and pulled her long dreadlocks over her shoulder. “How’s the tea?” After she spoke, he swayed and face planted on the white linen tablecloth. I drew my gun and pointed it at her before I even realized what I had done—and she laughed at me. “Put that down, you’re making a fool out of yourself.” She waved her hand. “I simply undid what his mother made me do.”

  “And that is?”

  “I’ve been keeping him from his full potential, now he can be all that he was meant to. Finish your tea, and I’ll have one of my servants help him to your car.”

  Three

  A HANDFUL OF hours later Thorn woke up on my couch. It was a bitch getting him up the stairs and into my apartment, but I managed—after banging his head on a few steps and the trim around the door. Frankly, I was a little shocked he woke up at all. He blinked a few times and rubbed the back of his head with a sexy little growl.

  “How—”

  “You’re a lot heavier than you look,” I quipped returning my attention to my tablet. I was busy filling out a case file for the missing girl, while simultaneously tracking her debit card usage up to her disappearance. I could do most rudimentary case work on my own which meant I didn’t need Davy most of the time. Some at the Manor liked to joke that he was the most underused Sybil.

  “I have the worst headache.”

  “That would be from me dropping you a few times.” I stretched and glanced back at him. “I need to go grocery shopping and swing you by Castella’s.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where you’ll be washing dishes and bar backing while I’m at work until I get to the bottom of whatever this is.”

  “So, your name’s Rose?”

  “Rosaline,” I corrected him.

  “You know, every rose has a thorn?”

  I threw a throw pillow at his head. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m better, minus a headache. I don’t think it’s really caught up to me. Honestly, I wasn’t that close to my family to begin with. It’s just kind of jarring to think that they’re all gone. I mean I didn’t get along with Samantha, but I didn’t want that to happen to her. And at the same time, I can’t shake feeling that the world is somewhat better off without them.”

  Again there was that sensation in the pit of my stomach like I should say something but I had no clue what. Instead, I rubbed Thorn’s thigh, and he smiled at me before sitting up and scratching the scruffy day and a half of stubble which was just as ticked as the hair on his head, white at the tips and almost black at the roots. That hair was an obvious sign of what he was. I had seen guys with the look before, expensive dye jobs that looked like shit within a week or two without upkeep.

  “On second thought, before we go to Castella’s we’re going to pick up groceries.”

  “Why?”

  “You need to dye your hair. Those locks of yours mark you out as a sorcerer.”

  “People get this dye job all the time.”

  “Yes, some people do, but generally not people who work for a living.”

  “Fine. I’ll trust you.”

  “Good, now go change.” I pointed to the bedroom with one hand as I texted the description of the missing girl to my contact at the morgue.

  While I waited for him, I sent another text to the receptionist at the P.I. Firm I worked for, letting her know I’d be in the next day to take clients. Within seconds my phone buzzed with client meetings. I hoped my first day back would be an easy one—I should have known better.

  What stuck out to me were the two missing person’s cases. If they were coming to me, that usually meant nine times out of ten that the client was looking for someone in the preternatural community. One of the meetings was just after dusk—that usually meant it was a vampire.

  Grumbling, I set my tablet back in its drawer just as Thorn exited the bedroom wearing a tight blue sweater with a white button down underneath and jeans. Minus his hair, he seemed so normal. No longer looking like the billionaire playboy heir to a dynasty that went back hundreds of years, he seemed approachable, nice even. For some reason unknown to me, I smiled at him, grinning wide and happy as he made his way toward me, stopping just shy of the coffee table.

  “We’re going now right?” He asked pushing the sleeves of his shirt over his forearms—exposing a tattoo I didn’t even have in my file.

  “What’s that?” I gestured to the ink that crawled up his arm. He blushed.

  “Oh, yeah I got this a few months ago. It’s my little secret.”

  “That it is. It wasn’t even in the dossier about you. Under distinguishing marks, it just listed your eyes and hair.”

  He rolled up his sleeve more showing off the intricate ink. I loved it. The twisting and turning filigree flanking a stylized version of the House Sterling Crest—the rampant silver lion over the passant stag symbolizing what they saw as their triumph over House Cavendish after the migration. The crest looked generic at first glance, so I wasn’t too worried about someone recognizing him based on it. It was odd for intel to be that off but I wasn’t going to bring it to Davy’s attention even though I was certain he wasn’t part of the problem.

  “I was feeling a bit rebellious.”

  “Not seeing eye to eye with daddy and mummy?”

  “More or less.” He flashed me a grim smile that spoke more than those three words did. There was a certain degree of tension between him and his parents. I wasn’t convinced it didn’t have something to do with what was going on—his parents were conveniently absent from the deadly fundraiser after all. That little tidbit of information mixed with what I had just learned made the whole thing seem supremely suspicious.

  Just like that, I had my first two suspects. Houses of Sorcery had put down their heirs before when they didn’t share the vision of the matriarchs and patriarchs. It hadn’t happened in about a century, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t resort to it in desperation, especially when a good few billion on top of control of a multinational cooperation was on the line.

  ****

  Shopping went quickly and smoothly, minus the five minutes of Thorn complaining after I chucked the box of mousy brown hair dye into the cart. While he whined about his hair being part of who he was, I continued with grabbing items from my list, so we were out of there in no time and back to my place.

  He fell quiet and didn’t say a word as I applied the box of dye to his hair. He just sat silent and shirtless at the foot of the couch, between my legs as we waited for the timer to go off. The twenty minutes gave me plenty of time to realize I was going about things all wrong. For starters, I
should have left him with Audrey. I stared down at him as the news droned on in the background and the sun started setting, casting long shadows across the wood floors.

  “Two nights ago, we reported on a fundraiser for the Humane Society where a vicious gunman opened fire killing all fifty-seven attendees, including several members of the prominent Sterling Family…” The anchor droned on, and I changed the channel to some banal romantic comedy.

  “That’s enough of that.” I patted his shoulder, and he glanced up at me.

  “They think I’m dead?”

  “Mhm. It’s for the best.”

  “Do you know what that’s going to do to our stock?”

  “Our stock?” I raised a brow.

  He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just…it’s my legacy.”

  “We can’t be sure it wasn’t your own family who wanted this. You’ve done it before, granted the last time was eighteen something, but if this was the doing of your parents it wouldn’t exactly be new territory.”

  “Why is it that I want to scream you’re wrong but I know you’re right.”

  “That’s life.” The timer went off. “C’mon, it’s time for you to meet… what do you want your name to be?”

  “What?”

  “While you’re in hiding you can’t go by Thorn or Thornton. I’m sorry, but outside of Lexington and Park that’s a very odd name.”

  “Fine. Sidney…Smith.”

  I couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up from my throat. “That sounds like a bad superhero alter ego.”

  “Okay, why don’t you take a shot?”

  “Mn, after I see what you look like with your hair color.”

  We went right into the bathroom from there, and I rinsed out the hair dye. I wasn’t certain how I felt being so close to him. It was only the second day, but I had already thought about keeping him like most do stray puppies that follow them home. He should have gone to Audrey’s, and I shouldn’t have been doing the equivalent of buying him a doggie bed and treats. While shopping, I caved and bought a lot of food he liked instead of my normal bland cuisine. The fuck am I doing? I stared down at his face for a few moments after the water started to run clear. Snatching the towel off the sink, I dropped it on his face and stood.