Nocturnal, BK 1 of Lightwalkers (completed)

IX - Sin

Sin

England, United Kingdom

I stepped off the streets of London and into a pub called The Lion's Den. I felt every head turn, eyes all glaring at me as I entered. Entire conversations died as the noise level fell to a mere scrape of a chair leg against the floor. They stared at me like I'd walked in with two heads on my shoulders.

Shifters, they just didn't take to us as kindly as they used to. I kept my face still, as emotionless as possible. Had to keep up the vampire's reserve, after all.

"It's alright, fellas. He's a friend o' mine," the bartender called out. He flipped a towel over his shoulder, and turned to pull another bottle from the shelf behind him.

I stepped up to the bar, taking the last seat near the wall. The shifter next to me got up and left, giving me an evil eye. I pretended not to notice. At least he hadn't out right attacked me, like one had the last time I'd stopped by unannounced.

"What's wrong with ya?" the bartender said as he stepped over. "I don't hear from you for years, and then you pop in just after sun down? Ain't you ever heard of such a thing as a phone call?"

He was a heavy set man in his early fifties. A human that had gotten mixed into the wrong crowd in his teens. He'd managed to beat the odds and come up on top with his life and a bar to do business in. And by business, I meant trading information. Though, that's strictly between him and I – I hoped.

"My apologies, Charles. I'm afraid I don't have much time."

He looked at me squarely, pulling the cigarette that had dangled dangerously from his lips. "All your kind has is time. Want a cuppa?"

Despite my need for a vampire's reserve around the shifters, I smiled. "You know me too well, Charles."

He grinned back at me. Stubbing the cigarette out in an over-full ashtray on the bar, he called into the kitchen. "Holly! Come watch the bar!"

I stood and made my way to the door marked 'Private' in very back of the bar. I glanced over my shoulders at the other patrons before closing it behind me. If glares were daggers, I'd be a walking pincushion. I followed Charles up to the second floor, where the small apartment he shared with his wife was.

"Are you lookin' to get yourself killed? Walkin' in here at this early in the evenin'. You're lucky I was here."

I chuckled, finally able to drop the 'dusty-old-bat' act now that I was out of the shifters' sight. "You're always here, Charles."

"How many times I got to tell you to call me Charlie, eh?"

We sat down in his kitchen after he'd grabbed a bottle and two tumblers out of the back of a cupboard. He blew off a layer of dust that had settled on them. I guess it had been a few years since I last stopped by.

Charlie poured us both generous glasses of the bourbon, and leaned back in his seat.

"So, I might as well ask. What you here for, Sin? You wouldn't show up without tellin' me first if it weren't important."

I nodded, "I'm looking for someone from the Hewiet family line, preferably a male."

Charlie gave me a serious look before taking a swig of his drink. "There be bad blood there, Sin. You don't wanna be lookin' in to them."

"I really don't have a choice." I raised the glass to my lips, but inhaled deeply before taking a sip. It's not that I didn't trust Charlie. I just didn't trust the people he kept as company. The bourbon was as strong tasting as ever. I set the glass back on the worn table top.

How was I supposed to explain this? He didn't know I worked for Nickolas, and I wasn't about to tell him it was an order from the Crowned Prince that I had to find this guy. I settled for asking a question instead.

"What happened to the blood line?"

He took another heavy swig of his drink. "There's only a few of them left, and they all fightin' each other. Turned into some gang war in East End." He paused, looking at me squarely across the table. "Do you really need to find one of them?"

"Unfortunately." It didn't sound this was going to be as easy as I'd thought.

Charlie stood abruptly, turning to rummage in a stack of papers behind him.

"Where is it?" he mumbled to himself. "Ah!" He turned back around with a business card in his hand. "This will be who you want to talk to."

He passed the card to me. The front of it listed a foreign name for what looked to be gutter cleaning services. I looked back up at Charlie and raised an eyebrow.

"Don't look at me like that. The other side is the number you want to call."

I turned it over, looking at the scrawled number across the back.

"He ain't the best of folks to get along with," Charlie continued. "But he's the perfect person to use if you're looking for something. That guy knows everyone."

I left Charlie's three hours later a little worse for wear. It'd been a few years since I last had anything stronger than O negative. If I didn't find another meal tonight, I'd wake up tomorrow evening with a hangover for sure.

Stepping into the nearest telephone booth, I pulled out the card he gave me. I had a cell phone, but I didn't want to give away my phone number so easily. Every body and their mother had caller ID nowadays and you'd be surprised how much information you could give away by just making one little phone call.

I stuffed the coins in the machine and punched in the number from the back of the card. It rang twice before someone answered.

The noise of a party in the background died quickly as someone spoke.

"And who's this?" the voice was laughing, delicate but definitely male. Not at all what I was expecting. His lack of British accent threw me off too.

"Charlie gave me your number. Said you were the man to talk to if I need to find someone."

"You still didn't answer the question." He sounded less amused, slightly annoyed even. "Let's try this again. Who is this?"

I grimaced at the attitude in just those last few words. Charlie was right.

"You can call me Sin."

"Sin uh? Like the Seven Deadly Sins?" he chuckled.

"Not quite." I stopped breathing to keep myself from sighing heavily into the receiver. "Look, can you help or not? I don't have time to be playing party games."

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!" he laughed into the phone. When he could breathe again he asked, "So you're looking for a certain someone, uh? Who might it be?"

"I need to get in touch with someone of the Hewiet line," I said.

The other end of the line was dead quiet, so quiet that I'd was beginning to think we'd been disconnected.

"Meet me at Scorned in East End tomorrow night. Ask for Jay." All joking and laughter was gone from his voice, and then the line actually did go dead. I hung up the receiver and stepped out of the booth. Tomorrow night was going to be a very long one.