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

  “I have to text my document guy.” I left the bathroom and took my phone out of my pocket.

  For a few moments, I loitered just outside of the hallway. I did not text my document guy like I said I was going to. I should have. But I didn’t. No, instead I stood there like an idiot and stared at my screen. Behind me, the sound of his footsteps was like a lure that pulled me in.

  Looking up from the phone, I found myself gawking at him like a school girl. Well, hello there Mr. Sterling. I smirked as I watched the beads of water trail down his fatless torso. I might have sucked in the whole feelings department, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t admire the near perfection of his physique.

  The towel was around his shoulders and that freshly dyed hair hung in his face, dripping water down on my floor. I felt a bit like an idiot as I gaped at him. It was like someone had gone in and used an ice-cream scooper on my frontal lobe. I laughed to myself, recalling the night before and how he stared at me almost exactly the same.

  “Do you have a blow dryer?”

  “Yeah, it’s under the sink in there.” I nodded toward the bathroom, and he disappeared back down the short hall.

  That was when I finally texted my document guy that I needed a full work up for a guy in their early thirties. He got back to me within seconds telling me I’d just need a name and he’d get started. More importantly, he said it’d be free. I helped him get his kids back in a messy custody dispute. One of my prouder moments.

  It was rare for a non-human parent to get their kids and his ex-wife took full advantage of the fact her husband was a Sidhe—those gorgeous creatures who live damn near forever and have magic supposedly beyond magic. Sidhe could supposedly even effect most nulls, but not a minus null such as myself. No, I was treated to their full glory all the time—their glamor that they used to hide in plain sight didn’t work on me. I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that Thorn had Sidhe blood. He looked too good to just be human.

  “Is this a gun under the sink?” He called, breaking my train of thought.

  “Yeah, leave it there.”

  “Why do you need a gun in the bathroom?”

  “Because I’m human and I hunt things that can easily kill me. I don’t think I really have to say more.”

  “Are you always armed?”

  “Most of the time.” The blow dryer kicked on, and I was treated to a few minutes of white noise.

  If he was weirded out by the bathroom gun, he was going freak when he discovered my under the bed gun, let alone the one in the closet.

  A few years ago, I was sloppy and left a trail that led back to my home. A werewolf broke in and almost killed me because I had a contract for their execution. I only carried one gun at the time, and I couldn’t reach it while he was beating the ever loving shit out of me.

  I was only saved by making it to the kitchen and grabbing a knife. Let me just say fighting a werewolf hand to hand isn’t exactly a go-to strategy for tiny, non-magic using humans. I healed well, but I still carried the scars from it. Granted they weren’t as gruesome as the ones that adorned the bodies of the other Executioners. It was my first fuck up, and I hadn’t had one since—namely because of my crazed placement of guns throughout my home. The next beastie who thinks to darken my doorstep is going to need to be fucking bulletproof to survive.

  By the time I finished musing to myself, Thorn had stepped out of the bathroom with his hair dried and the sweater and shirt back on. He looked good with that mousey brown hair, his natural ticked coloring seemed like expensive highlights while coated with dye. He still looked like a Thorn to me, but that was partially because of those amazing smiling eyes of his.

  “Sidney Baxter.” It was the second name that came to mind while staring at him. He looked like a Sid.

  “I like it. So, you’ll be calling me Sid from now on?”

  “Mhm. You’ll get your license and stuff probably tomorrow night sometime.” I sent a quick text to my document guy with the name.

  “Sidney Baxter. Sid Baxter,” he repeated the name, again and again, nodding a bit each time.

  “C’mon, Sid. We have to get to Castella’s before Tammy leaves.”

  “Tammy?”

  “The owner. She hires people under the table.” And she’s also one of my informants on the werewolf clans, but I’d surprise him with that later.

  Four

  CASTELLA’S LOOKED A little like one of those forgotten, hole in the wall type places. The music was too loud, but the atmosphere was warm and inviting. Everything was either salvaged wood, brick, or industrial metal. It was cleaner than most dive bars, but that was probably because Tammy had a soft heart and gave jobs to a number of individuals in hiding for one reason or another.

  A lot of the people she employed were either weresomething-or-others or vampires. There were a handful of lesser faeries as well, people with what some might assume to be elaborate tattoos on their backs which are really wings lying dormant. It was unfortunate, but though the preternatural were considered a part of our oh so inclusive society, they still conveniently found themselves fired from certain jobs if it was discovered that they weren’t human. More so with Weres than others.

  Vampires had gained a certain degree of celebrity, and almost none of them ended up unemployed after being turned. For some reason, people were okay with Vampires as chefs, executives, and even surgeons, but heaven forbid a Were did the same job. No one had been infected with any strain of lycanthropy through cross contamination of food ever. Idiots clearly couldn’t wrap their brains around the fact that you couldn’t catch it unless they were in animal form.

  Tammy did her part in making certain these cast-offs from society had a place to work. She was a werewolf. From what I heard she once worked at one of the five-star restaurants downtown before being outed and summarily terminated. That was thirty years ago, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at Tammy. One of the perks of being a werewolf was that they aged slowly. So, whereas I knew she had to be pushing sixty, she looked late thirties.

  “Rosie!” She called to me the minute I stepped through the threshold. She looked chipper as always. Her long dark hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and her almond shaped hazel eyes kept sweeping over the bar. Her skin was deeply tanned, telling of her Native American and Italian heritage. She liked to joke that I looked like her daughter. We did favor to a degree, we both had long near black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and an exotic dark olive complexion. But my mouth was fuller than hers and my face heart shaped to her triangle.

  “Tammy! I have another one for you.”

  “Aren’t you just a pied piper of the disenfranchised.” She laughed a bit as she filled a tumbler with well vodka.

  “His name is Sid Baxter, and he can wash dishes and probably pick up bar backing. Say hi, Sid.”

  “Hi.”

  She glanced up at him and smiled. “Oh, a cute one.” She finished mixing the drink and slid it down the polished bar top. “You can start tomorrow. I pay a dollar over minimum wage plus tips. I might teach you to tend bar if you work—”

  “He can’t be out front for very long.”

  “Gotcha. Say no more, I’ll treat him like I do Aud.” She pursed her lips for a moment. “Carson! Watch the bar!” She yelled to a tall blond man taking orders from a table. “Let’s talk someplace quiet.”

  We followed her down the small hall that led to the bathrooms then back into her office. The music from the bar was only a faint whisper once she closed the door. The small room was neat and tidy, the type of office you’d expect from a woman who ran a successful business. She took a seat at the desk and gestured to the two chairs in front of it.

  “Logan Erikson is missing,” she spoke before I had even sat down. My brows furrowed, it was troubling news, to say the least. Logan Erikson was essentially the local werewolf pack’s Thorn. He was the son of the local Jarl—read werewolf king—and supposedly one of the most powerful werewolves born in centuries. Being a hereditary were-anything was rare i
tself, but being one that was actually powerful was like freezing to death in the middle of a hurricane. Rumor had it he could commune with the Munin, the spirits of the dead Jarls.

  “How long?”

  “No one has seen him in five days. There’s been nothing online, and he loves social media. You were asked for by name. Jarl Destin told me to give you this when I saw you next.” She opened her desk and took out a brown folder. “He’ll probably get an appointment with you tomorrow.”

  “Awe doesn’t this make me special.”

  “I’d say be careful, girlie, but it’s you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you’re probably one of six people I know who I don’t need to say that to, and I know some bad ass motherfuckers.”

  “Thank you?” I chuckled some and glanced down at the heavy envelope.

  After the meeting, we ate at Castella’s before heading back to my place. Thorn was silent for most of it, he kept staring at his reflection. I had been there before, a hair color change could be jarring. I was already used to it, but I hadn’t known him long. I wasn’t going to tell him that the brown hair fit him better, that it made him seem more down to earth and real. That would have almost been cruel, and I wasn’t in the business of being cruel for the sake of it.

  ****

  When we made it back, I went right for my tablet and created a new case file for the missing Erikson kid. I even created one for Thorn using the name Sidney. Staring at the three case files on that screen and their connection made my blood run cold. One powerful person missing was suspicious, two could be a coincidence, but three was a fucking conspiracy. They had to be related to each other in more ways than just being powerful successors to preternatural dynasties.

  Was something out there trying to force some kind of magical brain drain in the region? But why? It just didn’t make any sense to me. The three groups didn’t interact much. Most of the Sorcery crowd never left the Lexington and Park neighborhoods. Werewolves tended to stick to the outer edges of the city. Even Esther, the Haitian woman’s successor, lived only five blocks away from the Collins District. She went to University closer to downtown, but there was no overlap with what I had on the Erikson kid and absolutely none with the Sterlings whatsoever.

  Glancing up at Thorn I stared for a while as he watched television, the blue from the screen lit up his face, making him seem paler than usual. Vampires tried to kill him but—

  My phone buzzed. Sure enough, I had a meeting with the Eriksons scheduled for tomorrow. Tracing my tongue over my teeth I sent out a quick text to all of the other P.I.s in the firm asking if anyone else was working a missing person. There were other groups in the area, if it was a brain drain more would have to be missing. I could think of rumors at least three other groups that had a promising up and comer.

  “Okay, I’m going to float something to you just because I need to bounce ideas off someone.”

  “Who do you usually do this with?”

  “Davy. But he can’t know about you, which means there’s an extra piece of the puzzle that might be a key element he’d be missing so it’d be pointless.”

  “Alright, bounce away.”

  “Three heirs have gone missing and let’s just say they’re presumed dead. Sorcerers, Werewolves, Voodoo Priestesses. What would those groups have in common aside from the obvious?” I kicked my feet up on the coffee table and crossed my ankles.

  “They’re hereditary.”

  “Well most…” I pursed my lips and quickly scrawled WHO’S YOUR DADDY, in the document. Maybe it was a nasty preternatural paternity case? That could make sense. “Hmm… we might have something.” I deleted the word DADDY and replaced it with MOMMY. Thorn was clearly a Sterling, but his parents had issues getting pregnant. It was part of his file, listed as one of the reasons for him being the only little Sterling to come from his mother and father’s branch.

  The Eriksons were going to love me. It always makes a glowing first impression when you imply infidelity or whatever this was within the first two minutes of meeting someone. Maybe I could get them coffee first? It was more than just a simple case of someone getting around and sowing some wild oats in an extraordinary pasture. This had to have been deliberate at least on someone’s behalf.

  “Oh, joy,” I growled to myself, setting my tablet aside and standing.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I have to visit a contact.”

  “But it’s so late.”

  “Yup. You can stay if you’d like, it’ll be two hours tops.” I started walking to the bedroom without even waiting for an answer.

  Eventually, he trailed behind me as always, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this arrangement might not be healthy for him. Again, I stripped on my way to the closet, not even glancing back at him as I stood mostly nude in the doorway to the walk-in. I hated seeing Christian. He was the most useful contact I had made with the vampires and still I absolutely loathed having to talk to him. He was a hedonist at his very core, and spent from dusk until dawn fucking and sucking whatever group of misguided co-eds his servant procured for him. It was still early enough that he wouldn’t have retreated to his den of sin just yet and I might be able to get some information out of him between propositions.

  I made a mistake once of sleeping with him. Hell, let's call it what it was; I fucked him.

  It was my first month as an Executioner out in the big bad world ocean without the floaties provided by the Order of Shadows. I had been told in my training to be careful around vampires. Silly me I thought they meant that they’d try to kill me, not fuck me and develop a very odd sense of attachment. In Christian’s mind, he had made me what I was, and because of that, he liked to help me.

  “You’re okay with strobe lights, right?” I asked snagging a patent leather push-up bra from a hanger.

  “O-oh, yeah. I had my wild clubbing days like most spoiled rich kids.”

  “Good.”

  I put on the bra and found the rest of what some might call an outfit—others would call it lingerie. The shiny black short shorts that sat low on my hips and ripped thigh highs didn’t entirely look like something to wear out in public, but they had the desired effect on Christian—and most males who liked women. Topping off the outfit was my favorite pair of knee high black boots with steel toes and a thick chunky heel. The worst part of the outfit for me was figuring out where to put a gun. I had a thigh holster, but I hated using it. Admittedly, I took it from the armory for novelty—one too many film noir movies with femme fatales. Unfortunately, in reality, it chaffed like a motherfucker. I did decide to wear it after all. I looked bad ass, and I could suffer through it.

  Usually, when I went to visit Christian I didn’t go armed into his club, I’d leave my gun in the glove compartment or at coat check. He’d never harmed me, and I knew I had nothing to fear from him, but I wasn’t entirely certain how he’d react to Thorn. Essentially, I was about to willingly put myself in the middle of the tensest game of fuck, marry, kill ever.

  “If you’re coming with me you can’t wear that.” I took my makeup box out of the top drawer and started applying the six pounds of eyeliner and black eyeshadow that would make me blend into the crowd.

  “Why?”

  “Have you heard of Abaddon?” I asked as I put the finishing touches on my lipstick.

  “Yeah, that place is supposed to be pretty wild. Is that where we’re going?”

  “Yup.”

  “I don’t have the clothes to go there.”

  “You do. I bought those jeans you said were too tight and too holey. Those with a collar and you’ll fit right in.”

  “C-collar.”

  “Yuh-huh.” I walked back into my closet and searched through the chest of drawers for a collar that would fit his neck. I had several, it was part of the job occasionally. What better way to get a known submissive alone than to collar them and lead them to their impending doom?

  I eventually found one,
it was thick leather with a simple O-ring to clip the lead to. Without asking, I strode across the room, stood on my toes, and fastened it around his throat. Being so close to him I had to fight myself, I wanted to loop my finger in that metal and pull his mouth to mine. Instead, I turned on my heels and walked to the bags on the floor. I fished out the jeans and handed them to him.

  I might have slipped up by letting him stay with me, but I wasn’t going to do it again by getting intimate with him. No matter how attractive he was, I was going to keep that line firmly drawn in the sand, like his tight ass in those jeans. Damn it, Rose! Be professional! I left the room, giving him time to get naked by himself.

  It wasn’t until I stood in the kitchen that I realized I could have just set the collar on the bed, I didn’t have to secure the thing around his neck. He was a grown man with full use of his fingers, there was no reason for me to do it for him.

  Moments later he stepped from the back, smiling and looking too good for my brain to function properly. I was suddenly thankful he couldn’t read my thoughts, and I was good at keeping my emotions from my face. My mind was full of nothing but all the naughty things I wanted to do to him as I made my way back into the bedroom to grab the chain lead. Though as I stepped passed him I did catch him staring. His gawking made sense, I was what he liked and dressed in an outfit that some might have called a fuck me ensemble were they so inclined.

  When I returned, I clipped the lead to the collar as I passed him and dropped it. He stood frozen for a moment, and I realized by the simple act I might have tapped into something that he had scrubbed three times over from his browsing history. He wanted this, he was probably secretly hoping for the full experience in the darkest recesses of his mind. Boy, was he going to be disappointed!

  ****

  It was almost midnight when we pulled up in front of Abaddon. The bright, red, neon sign in front of the brick building cast everything in an ominous glow. It was in the warehouse district, and you could tell by looking at the massive box that about sixty years ago it had probably been just that. Now, however, it was a nightclub that catered not only to goths, but also to those into S&M. Because it was owned by a vampire. I guess it was bad for me to say but it seemed like no vampire wanted to own a bookstore, or even a trendy nightclub where they did molecular mixology or some crap. No, it was always a goth club or an S&M club or in this case both, because why the fuck not. I rolled my eyes as I approached the side entrance and the beefy bodyguard at the door. He smiled when saw me.