“Explain? Can’t I hear even a syllable of truth from you?”
Stop crying, you wuss.
And Dawn did, though she was so worked up that she couldn’t even moderate her breathing. Her lungs stung with the unnatural efforts of holding back, holding together.
“I’ve never lied to you,” he said. “There’s been some omission, but no lies.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” A long pause cut the room in two, putting them on opposite sides of a chasm. “It’s not the same. I want to keep you safe, but there’s so much more at stake. Matters that are worth the sin of omission. Matters that will have an effect on this world much longer than the span of your lifetime.”
“So it’s all for the greater good, huh?” Bitter. God, so bitter. “You’re such a hero, Voice.”
The nickname struck an odd chord, like a grandfather clock whose chimes had warped and accidentally announced a secure hour at midnight.
“I’m known by a lot of names, Dawn, but that’s not one of them. Please, call me…Jonah.”
Cold air from the dark slat seeped into the room, surrounding her, coaxing her to understand his reasoning.
“Why don’t you just come all the way out?” she asked.
“As lovely as that sounds, it’s not wise. Would you like to hear about Frank?”
“What do you think?”
A caress of air dragged over her cheek, an invisible hand stroking her in compassion. Dawn jerked away from it, wanting so badly to accept it, too.
The Voice…Jonah…continued, sounding wounded by her rebuff. “You certainly have Frank’s passion and conviction.”
“I have his temper, too.” She glared at the darkness. “What are you exactly? Who are you?”
In the resulting pause, she thought she heard a shift behind the bookcase, like a body—his?—had settled itself in for a long talk, crouched in readiness in case it had to flee.
Or maybe it was her overactive imagination. And why not? It had served her pretty well lately.
“What am I?” he repeated. “That would be up to interpretation. But I know what your father is. He’s a good man, Dawn, and I regret that he went missing.”
Smooth, she thought. He was just as adept as she was at manipulating a conversation.
“I didn’t plan for him to disappear,” he added. “You must understand that. But I did track him down and hire him a few months ago, with an eye to convincing you to join him in Los Angeles again. He even knew about Kiko’s vision—”
“The one where I’m ‘key’?” She put sarcastic emphasis on the last word.
He withstood her abuse. “Yes. I place great stock in Kiko’s emerging prescience. He has a developing talent I haven’t seen since…” He sighed, resigned again. “I’d be a fool to ignore his visions. When he mentioned you by name and advised me that he felt you’d be reluctant, I wasted no time in contacting Frank. It was a devious way to get to you, yes, but he jumped at the salary, and had no problem acting as our ‘hired muscle.’ When we trained him for PI work, he didn’t hesitate there, either. Then we approached him with his biggest purpose.”
“Getting me here? So I could be some dreamt-up savior? I think you’ve got the wrong woman.”
“No, I don’t. We believed that he could persuade you to return, to work with us, but Frank didn’t want you involved with the paranormal.”
“Probably for good goddamned reason, Jonah.”
“As I said, our work is more important than any individual. But what you don’t know is that Frank began coming around. As he got deeper into the investigation, he saw how important it was to ‘save the world,’ for lack of a better description.”
Dawn was already shaking her head. “My dad. A crusader. Right, tell me another one.”
The Voice’s silence was more powerful than any comeback.
“So while he was detecting, Jonah, did he find out anything useful? Or were you just keeping him busy until your key came?”
“Dawn, Frank turned out to be very valuable to us. He was hitting a lot of walls in his work, but he did discover…something. He called me from what I now think to be Bava and said that perhaps it was time for you to come out here and fulfill your place. Yet before he could continue, the phone went dead, and I didn’t hear from him again.”
She still didn’t understand the part about him changing his mind about her working with Limpet. It wasn’t like Frank to go against his beliefs. He was as stubborn as she was.
“Are you lying to me about his turnabout?” Dawn asked.
“No.” The cold breeze angled again, even as his voice was still anchored from behind the bookcase. “If you hadn’t been called now to come to Los Angeles because of his disappearance, you would have been called soon anyway—by Frank. He had come around, I’m certain of that. His disappearance was a tragic surprise—and it wasn’t designed to get you here.”
“I still don’t see how he would’ve agreed to recruit me.”
Pause. “Before he disappeared, I asked him what he would do to make the world a safer place for you. Do you know what he answered, Dawn?”
She knew, because she’d said the same thing to Jonah that first night. Anything—she would do anything. But, back then, Dawn hadn’t known just what that meant, how far it would go.
“Frank,” Jonah added, “started to realize what ‘anything’ entailed. I believe you’re at the same point.”
Her armor wouldn’t allow her to believe him—not yet. Especially with Matt Lonigan’s words embedded in her brain.
Demand some answers.
Answers about what? Did the PI know that Frank had been hired by Limpet so they could get her back to L.A.?
“Does Matt Lonigan know about all this?”
The air seemed to quiver at the mention of the name.
“I’m not certain what Lonigan knows. Not certain at all.”
She shuddered. What if Lonigan had been referring to other secrets that Jonah was playing close to his chest? What else wasn’t The Voice telling her?
She thought about the reason Lonigan might have been at Klara’s murder scene.
Summoning all her courage, she unsteadily got to her feet, asked one of the questions that was bothering her the most. “Do you think Frank had anything to do with Klara’s murder?”
“I don’t believe so.”
She exhaled, profoundly relieved, but not entirely. Also, she wasn’t sure how to react to the simple truth from The Voice. It’d taken so long to get to this point that she wasn’t sure Jonah was really on the up and up. Nevertheless, she rode this opportunity.
“Do you think Frank somehow became a…a…”
“A vampire?”
She managed a nod.
“If he is, he wouldn’t have done it without regret.”
No. Please, that couldn’t have happened….
“We have no proof of his change, Dawn, it’s merely a possibility to consider.”
Her defenses down, he flowed right back against her, the cool air pressed against her arm like a face buried there and asking forgiveness. She didn’t have the strength to be angry anymore. She had to save her rage for more important fights, fights she knew were inevitable.
“Kiko said Frank’s in pain.”
“And pain could very well be a sign of humanity.”
Pure relief had her slumping backward, turning toward the half-covered mirror, but a pair of invisible arms caught her. More powerless anguish wracked her, threatening new tears.
“If you’re going to help him, you must rest.” His voice was gentle in her ear, fluttering the loose hairs around it. “Rest, Dawn.”
He was soaking past her skin, cell by cell, becoming a part of her, feeding off of her just as she fed off of him. And as much as she knew it was wrong to welcome him, she did, loving the joining too much, needing the comfort.
“Rest,” she said in agreement, tired of the struggle. “Please.”
The request allowed him all the way in,
her limbs heavy, shot through with sexual yearning.
In victory, The Voice’s essence swirled around her, scented with familiar mystery, tasting of things she recalled only in the back of her mind—things stored tightly away and mourned by her unconscious self. In the lone, unshrouded corner of the mirror, she could see her jeans-covered thigh, and nothing else.
Closing her eyes, she felt the tips of ghostly fingers running up and down her arms, pausing over her burns, then circumventing them. In the background, the hinges of the bookcase creaked, then stopped.
“I can keep us safe, Dawn,” he whispered, his voice mere inches from her ear. “With your help, I can finally do it.”
With a heady thrust, he came into her.
Gasping, she tingled, her body like a shower of cinders. But this time, he was on the outside, too. Somehow, he was in both places at the same time, using the physical touch of his hands, his mouth.
The pressure of his lips traveled to her neck. At his urging, she leaned her head to the side. She felt the silver-and-gem strands of her earring shift, felt him pause as if memorizing it. Then she felt him against her throat, running his mouth over a vein, exploring the scent of her skin.
Languid, animal instinct got the better of her. She wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her, wanted to punish, so she ground back against him, feeling the stiffness of an erection. With a swipe that seemed to play out in slow motion, she reached back, her fingernails catching a face. Or what felt like a face. Moisture—his blood—immediately dried under her nails.
He groaned against her ear, driving her to erotic madness, getting her damp, ready.
“I’m going to make you tell me everything,” she said.
He bit her ear, hard, eliciting another gasp from her. Then he laughed at her pain, knowing damn well how much she liked it.
Inside and outside, she thought. This isn’t a mind probe. It’s something…different.
Still, she wanted him within her, thrilled to the pulse of him under her skin. It drove her crazy to have a man in her veins, possessing her. She grabbed for his hair, intending to wrench him around. But he knew her too well.
Anticipating her violence, he maneuvered her arm behind her back, arching her spine. Her distended nipples brushed against her bra, agonized and raw.
“Bastard,” she said, a low, hungry wince telling him that she was lying.
Physically, he eased up on her, but, inside, he was now pooling around her stomach like a jet of warm cream, sliding downward, bathing her sex. With warm, lapping strokes, his essence licked at her.
She cried out.
He laughed again.
In heightened response, she roughly reached behind her, feeling for his erection. When she found it, she rubbed, hard and slow.
Groaning, pushing her forward until she bent at the waist, he buried his face against her neck, nipping. One hand entangled itself in her hair as he carefully undid her ponytail, proving just how much he could take of her torture without giving in. As she continued rubbing him, anticipating the moment he’d glide into her, she felt the strands lift from the sensitive spot where neck met spine, felt the weight of him settling his mouth at her nape, forcing heat and tightness to pull at each other in her belly.
Exerting his control again, he deliberately removed her hand from him, guided it to her stomach, slipped her palm beneath her undershirt so she could touch her tender skin, trace the bared plane just above the line of her jeans.
Responding, she swelled, throbbed, grew even wetter.
God, the texture of his hands…The undulation of his mind swirling against her…
Suddenly, with a whoosh of cold air, his essence retreated from her body, then plunged back into her, making her stifle a scream because of the driving sensation, the simultaneous inner pressure of a nearing climax.
In his flurry of movement, the material shrouding the mirror had flared away, falling to the floor like wings guiding a raven to a landing.
Moaning in her haze, she looked into the mirror. She had to see him, see what he was doing to her.
But…
She blinked, bucked back against him.
The mirror showed a woman flushed and writhing, her eyes passion-flared, like one of the seductive portraits in The Voice’s collection. Her shirt was twisted upward, showing her own hand rubbing her belly, moving as if it were being guided by another. Her hair was flying free, suspended in air and wavering up and down as if held by fingers.
But there was no hand over her hand. No fingers in her hair. No one behind her.
He was there, but he wasn’t there.
A flash of terror and excitement blinded her, seeping downward, through her skin, into the center of her, wet and furious. She started to slide downward, her knees unable to hold up any longer.
In the mirror, she was floating, her body braced by invisible hands that were holding her up.
“What the hell are you?” she repeated.
Caught, he sought escape: her hair dropped, and the rest of the pressure lifted off of her body. Fighting for balance, Dawn stumbled around, reaching out to grip his arm, his shoulder…anything.
Nothing.
Popping out of her stupor, she frantically searched the room for any sign of him. Nowhere. The bookcase creaked, and she noticed that it had gone back to its original position, revealing only a dark slat between it and the wall.
Mirrors, she thought. What did movies say about vampires and mirrors?
Turning back around, she looked in the shiny surface again, seeing only herself, posture steeled with ire.
“Jonah!”
A frenetic breeze whipped around the room, a prelude to a storm. On the traces of the wind, she thought she heard a cry of fury that mirrored her own emotions.
Smash.
Books tumbled out of the case as the wall crashed back into itself, closing up the slat.
“No…” She ran to the wall, pounded on it, tried to force it open, but she knew it was useless.
The Voice…Jonah…had left her.
She whipped around, using the bookcase to hold her up. As she tightened her fists by her side, she focused across the room on the mirror again.
But what she saw there made her do a double take.
It was her, all right, yet not her.
Her mind—she knew it was just her mind—had conjured up an image of Dawn with blond hair, bigger brown eyes. It was what she would’ve looked like if she’d inherited more of Eva’s DNA.
As Dawn stared in horrified wonder, heat soaked her body, beating to a mortifying afterglow. But the vision stared right back, broken-hearted and disappointed in how she’d turned out.
“I’m so sorry…” she said.
She was apologizing for a lot of things: being weak, never being good enough to warrant the title of Eva Claremont’s Daughter.
Like a fatal blow, deep, bone-searing grief broke Dawn in half, reducing her to exhausted tears again. The image hushed to black, and she felt her own soul going along with it.
Fading to wherever movies die after the ending credits have rolled.
Twenty
Below, Phase Four
Sorin, the Master, and a guest were in a secret room watching through a trick window that was mirrored on the side of the citizens. Steam from the spa, where the Groupies waited on the Elites, fogged the glass’s edges, yet a view of the bacchanalia was still clear.
Male Groupies massaging female Elites, female Groupies bathing female Elites, or any other combination of pleasure they could dream up. As if to provide a beautiful garnish, Groupies huddled in the room’s misted corners, stroking each other, giggling, as they waited to be called.
The hidden Sorin and Master were focused on the nearest of the raised beds, where an Elite was bent forward, naked, his arms propped on a column of harem pillows while he rested on his knees. Three female Groupies attended him: one rubbing her fingers over his scalp, one spreading oil over his broad shoulders, one positioned on her back beneath
him, in between his parted legs. Her mouth worked at his penis, taking him in and out as she lightly squeezed his scrotum with her fingers.
“They are glass gods,” Sorin said, ignoring their cowed guest, who was huddled on the floor by the Master’s feet. Sorin could scent the nervous sweat from the human’s skin. “I find it unsurprising that the Elites enthralled Lee Tomlinson to such an extent. You have created fragile monsters.”
In the darkness, the Master’s aura pulsed with contained wrath at the mention of the errant Servant.
Due to the spywork Above, they had already seen to Lee Tomlinson’s punishment. He had been caught by a patrol of Guards an hour ago, charged with the flagrant murder of Klara Monaghan. Though the Servant’s intentions had been noble, he had done much harm. He had confessed and genuinely believed that quieting the aging actress from speaking of Robby Pennybaker for good would only benefit his Underground. Yet Lee Tomlinson had forgotten his humanity while attempting to prove how much of a vampire he was meant to be: he had ripped out his victim’s throat in his passion for Underground redemption.
When the Servant had first been caged, he had even then maintained his loyalty to the Underground and petitioned anyone who would listen to believe that hewasvampire material. His yearning for Klara’s blood had proven it, he had cried.
Unfortunately, Sorin and the Master had learned that the murder had indicated vampire activity Above; it had excited the humans who already believed in—and were prepared for—“monsters.”
Humans such as the private detectives.
If there were any monsters, Sorin thought, Lee Tomlinson was the epitome. Did he not understand that they were civilized? Indeed, food came from Above, but they did not feed like crazed creatures. At the risk of penalty, they took a prey’s volunteered blood. It was their code.
But there had been no need to explain this to the former Servant after he had secretly been brought to the Master’s chambers to have his mind wiped.
Afterward, they had released Lee Tomlinson to the Servant lawyer, Milton Crockett, “The Fixer,” as he was known up Above to the Hollywood community. Crockett would see to it that his client settled in to a normal life outside of Los Angeles, devoid of Underground memories. He would make certain that no one—not Lee’s lover oranyone—found out about the incident, as well, at the risk of having to perform yet another mind wipe.
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