Read Chapter 6: Blood Sister

The rain had stopped by the time Amara reached the Vauxhall flat, but the air still smelled of wet asphalt and something else. Something sweet. Rotting sweet, like flowers left too long in a vase.

The uniformed officer at the door looked green around the gills. "DS Cole? Scene's all yours. Mortuary team's waiting downstairs."

Amara nodded, pulling on gloves as she stepped inside. The flat was small, neat, almost aggressively ordinary. A pot of tea sat cold on the counter. A half-eaten biscuit. A book face-down on the armchair, spine cracked.

The man in the bedroom wasn't neat at all.

He lay on his back on the floor, arms folded across his chest as if arranged. No blood. No wounds. Just the same waxy pallor as the victim on Waterloo Bridge, the same look of having been drained from the inside out. But this time, the symbol wasn't carved into the bridge — it was burned into the man's palm, the three circles fused into a single black brand.

And next to his head, placed with deliberate care, lay a Polaroid photograph.

Amara crouched. The photo showed a group of people outside a pub, arms around each other, laughing. She'd have dismissed it as an unrelated personal effect, except for one face in the back row. Young. Wiry. A familiar slouch, a familiar sideways grin that she hadn't seen in eleven years.

Her breath caught.

"Danny."

"Recognise him?" Julian's voice came from the doorway. She hadn't heard him arrive.

Amara stood too quickly, heart hammering. "No. I mean—" She forced herself to look at the photo again, to read the pub sign behind them. The Stag's Head, Deptford. "No. Just startled me. Old photo, that's all."

Julian studied her for a beat too long. He'd been doing that more since the creature's attack — watching her like he was trying to solve a puzzle that kept changing shape. His right hand was jammed in his coat pocket. The mark was still spreading, dark tendrils creeping toward his wrist, but he hadn't mentioned it. Neither had she.

"The victim is Dr. Marcus Webb," Julian said, stepping past her. "Historian. Specialised in early Industrial London. Eccentric, but respected." He tilted his head at the book on the armchair. "That's his latest monograph. Sewer infrastructure of the nineteenth century."

"Thrilling."

"Notably," Julian continued, ignoring her, "he was part of a loose collective of amateur historians who called themselves the Lamplighters. They meet monthly at the Stag's Head."

The pub in the photo.

Amara kept her face still. "So he was researching something. Something that got him killed."

"Something that got him drained and marked, yes." Julian crouched, examining the brand without touching it. His fingers hovered an inch from the burned flesh. "This is newer than the mark on my hand. More refined. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing."

"You knew the symbol already. From the vault, from the creature." She paused. "From whatever's coming."

Julian didn't answer. He was staring at the photo now, at the faces Amara hadn't dared look at properly. "You knew him," he said quietly.

"What?"

"Marcus Webb. You flinched when you saw his picture. But it wasn't the victim you recognised, was it?" He picked up the Polaroid, turning it toward her. "It was someone else."

Amara had always hated how easily Julian read people. "There's a man in the back row," she said, keeping her voice level. "Looks like someone I used to know. Danny Cole. My brother."

Julian's expression flickered — a shadow of something that might have been recognition, or might have been dread. Then it was gone.

"I haven't seen him in eleven years," Amara continued. "He walked out when I was nineteen. No note, no call. Nothing until—" She pulled out her phone, showing him a message thread. "I got this last week. Three words. 'Still alive, Roo.'"

"Roo?"

"His nickname for me." She scrolled to the attached photo. Danny in front of the Tower of London, grinning. The timestamp was six days ago. "He was here. In London. A week before Marcus Webb was killed."

Julian had gone very still. Not his usual stillness — that was predatory, calculating. This was different. This was a man holding his breath.

"The Lamplighters," he said finally. "What do you know about them?"

"That they're fringe historians. That they research things the establishment doesn't want touched." She stepped closer. "Julian. What do you know?"

He didn't meet her eyes. "There was a Blackwood mentioned in connection with a case from, let me think — the late 1690s. A woman who ran a network of information brokers under Southwark. The Blackwoods were her main suppliers of... unusual artefacts."

"My family name isn't Blackwood."

"No." He said it too quickly. "It isn't."

The rain started again, tapping against the window. Amara watched Julian's throat work as he swallowed, watched him shove his marked hand deeper into his pocket. He was hiding something. He'd been hiding something since the moment she'd been assigned to him, and she was tired of it.

"You said my father's name was in your ledger."

"I said I'd seen it."

"In the ledger. Your private ledger. The one that's supposed to list everyone who's ever owed you something." She folded her arms. "So tell me, Julian. Did Danny owe you something too?"

That got his attention. His head snapped up, and for a moment — just a moment — she saw something raw in his face. Fear. Not for himself. For her.

"No," he said. "He didn't."

"Then why does my brother being in London terrify you?"

The silence stretched. Outside, a siren wailed past, fading into the wet city hum.

"Because," Julian said slowly, "I've seen the name Danny Cole in another file. Not mine. Finch's."

Amara's blood went cold. "Finch knows my brother?"

"I don't know what Finch knows." Julian's voice was flat, deliberate. "But I know why he brought you into this unit. It wasn't because you found the symbol on Waterloo Bridge. It was because the Trust is interested in your family, Amara. They've been interested for a long time." He glanced at the Polaroid in his hand. "And your brother just walked into the centre of it."

The photograph felt heavy in Amara's pocket as she followed him out of the flat. Danny's face — older, harder, but still unmistakably hers — burned against her thigh. She'd spent eleven years not knowing if he was alive. Now she had proof, and it came with a dead historian and a brand that matched the one spreading up Julian's wrist.

"Julian." She stopped at the top of the stairs. "If you know something about my family that I don't — something about why the Trust cares about us — you need to tell me. Now."

He turned, and for the first time since she'd met him, Julian Blackwood looked old. Not ancient, not immortal. Just tired.

"When I find out for certain," he said, "you'll be the first to know. I promise."

It was the second promise he'd made her. Amara had a feeling she wouldn't like what it cost to keep.