Black Sunshine (Dark Eyes 1)

My mother’s face goes slack, hand at her chest. “Are you sure?”

He nods. “Jeremias and Alice had a child. Witch and vampire. Lenore is their daughter.”

She shakes her head, mulling it over, then plops down on the chair by the desk. “I can’t believe it. And yet I can believe it. Oh, this makes so much sense.” She looks at me with a sense of awe. “You know your father and I often wondered. We knew you were part witch, of course. But there were so many peculiar things about you.”

“Like what?” I ask, wanting to know everything.

“Like,” she says slowly, eyes going between the two of us. “When we…when we killed your parents,” I can’t help but flinch as she says that, “we didn’t know you were there. We set the house on fire, you should have burned in the flames. But you didn’t. We heard you crying and thought it was too late to save you. But then you…you walked right through the fire. All of it. Didn’t stop. The flames didn’t hurt you, didn’t leave a single mark or burn. You’re impervious to the element, Lenore.”

“What about now?” I ask quietly. “With my vampire blood. Fire kills vampires.”

My mother looks at Solon. “Do you know?”

Solon rubs his lips together. “Regardless of the time they turn, they still have vampire blood in them, it’s just dormant. But I don’t think the vampire in her negates the witch. I think they both work together seamlessly. Yin and yang.”

My mother nods slowly and then gets to her feet, taking a step toward Solon but not getting too close. “And so that’s why you want her, isn’t it? For your plan.”

I frown. “What plan?” I ask. I stare at her, stare at Solon, and both are silent. “What plan?”

My mother tears her eyes away from Solon. “The plan he has. To use you to destroy his father.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

It’s been a week since I learned that Absolon needs my help to take down his father, Skarde. It wasn’t exactly a plan, per se, not the way that my mother came out with it. But once it was out in the open and we got to talking, we realized that perhaps, one day, it’s something I’d be willing to do. Able to do.

Of course, Solon and I discussed that without my mother there. In the hotel, he was adamant that he had no plan and that he would not be using me for anything, especially something that puts me in harm’s way, and I believe him.

Afterward though, it kept coming up.

Because the thing is, my nightmares aren’t stopping.

Every night since then I’ve dreamed about the Dark Order and Skarde, always in the ice and snow, always with circles of blood, always ending in my death. It scares me, to be honest, like Skarde is aware of my existence and has found a way to get into my dreams. Could that be right? He is a creation of the Devil himself, so why not have that ability?

All I know is that, as ludicrous as it seems to help Solon take his father down, in whatever way he means, I’m far from ready for that. I mean, this would be a war, wouldn’t it? I’m not a soldier, I’m only a half-witch, and at the moment, totally helpless against anything so dark and formidable. I might be the daughter of Jeremias, but it means absolutely nothing.

Solon hasn’t been going into any details about it either. When I bring it up, like “So, if I were to take down the Dark Order, how would that work exactly?” he just placates me with kiss or a noncommittal response.

“Solon?” I ask.

He looks up from the book he’s reading, forehead creased. “Hmm?”

We’re in the library, going through the stacks of books on witchcraft and magic. I brought down the ones I had been keeping in my room, but it turns out he has way more, from ones in Latin, to how-tos, to grimoires passed down through families. Every time I ask him how he got his hands on them, he mumbles something about a trade.

We’ve been in the library most days this week…and in his bedroom the rest of the time. When we returned from the hotel, after a tearful goodbye to my mother, telling her I’d see her soon, we got started in earnest about schooling me in witchcraft.

But like before, there’s been no text yet that strikes a chord with me. A lot of them have to do with saying certain words over and over again, intention being the focus, intention shaping the energy around us.

Yet, no matter how many times I repeat the words and truly believe it, drawing on that infinite dark well inside me, nothing happens. I can’t even feel it building inside me, there’s nothing to even create from.

I take a big gulp of my whisky, Solon still staring at me with learned patience, waiting for me to go on. “I need to get out of the house,” I tell him. “I’ve been in here for far too long and I can’t read another page. This isn’t helping me.”

His brows raise further. “Okay,” he says, carefully closing the book he was reading and putting it on the coffee table. “Where do you want to go?”

“Out,” I say emphatically.

“Alright. Well, you know wherever you go, I’m going with you.”

“What, like you’re my bodyguard?”