Scraa—eeeee-tttccchhh!
Sensing the threat of Dawn’s gun, Robby redirected his fury, raging over her now with the force of an animal clawing into the belly of felled prey.
Violated, attacked—
She bared her teeth at him and tensed, ready to shoot.
“Dawn, no!” Breisi yelled.
Robby, in her head, pawing though stinging images of Eva…
In a moment of clarity, she realized that she wasn’t facing a child here. Robby wasn’t even a poor monster that someone else had created. No, this thing above her was something that snuck into houses at night to kill, over and over again, unless it was stopped—
Dawn fired.
The silver thunked into his arm, embedding itself like a jewel in the midst of white cotton. The vampire’s roar came to an abrupt stop. As Dawn avoided his eyes, he hesitated, then dropped to the floor, his body spinning back into human form.
He panted, going into the fetal position. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Yes, I did, she thought. For Kiko. Forme.
Even through a filter of terror, Dawn heard sobs in back of her. Marla had come from behind the chair and…damn it, Nathan was holding his head where Dawn had hit him.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t cracked him hard enough to knock him out, but a fine trail of blood was wiggling down his face as he stared at his son, his mouth and eyes saucered.
Maybe Nathan had just seen the true face of his child for the first time. He’d created this thing, and it horrified him. Good.
She heard the Guards hissing near the window, but they weren’t standing in front of it. They were hiding, making themselves sneaky, tough targets.
“Blood,” Robby said plaintively from his spot on the floor. “I need blood to wash the silver out.”
While Breisi covered the Guards, she shouted at Dawn. “The silver is working slowly. We need to allow the boss access to him in this weakened state before the elements consume his body and destroy him.”
“Daddy?” Robby crawled to Nathan, fixating on the trickle of blood. “Will you feed me?”
“Get away.” Sweat poured over Nathan’s face, mingling with the red. “No fangs, no fangs!”
Fear of vampires or fear of his son?
“Dawn,” Breisi said, trying to get her moving.
She rolled to her good side as Robby plopped to the floor in front of his father, tilting his head.
“They’re going to get you anyway, Dad.” The boy vampire smiled. “You’ve already said too much. If it’s not my fangs, it’ll be theirs. You’re going to be with me forever now.”
“No! Nonononono—” Nathan’s eyes were rolling back in his head. “I’ll kill myself before I let them—let you—touch me!”
Marla resumed her place behind the chair, her gaze darting from her son to the window.
“Forever.” Robby smiled. “We’ll always be together.”
Nathan’s wide eyes locked on something to his right.
The sculpture by the door—the blob with the bladed thrust of iron coming from its center.
Robby scooted closer to his dad. “Let me feed from you.”
With a long cry, Nathan darted away and ran ahead at full steam, straight at the sculpture.
Robby watched him, head cocked. “Daddy?”
“Nathan!” Marla screeched.
With a thrust of blood, the blade jabbed out of his back, making Dawn’s arm lose strength as she fell to the floor in shock. He slumped against the iron, embracing the sculpture, the artistic sword holding him up.
Unintelligible words whistled out of his mouth and, for a blurred second, Dawn thought they were regrets for his son.
But then all hell broke loose as the Guards appeared in front of the window frame.
Dawn knew exactly what his last words had been.
“He invited them in!” she yelled.
Before she and Breisi could raise their guns, a baffled Robby had staggered to his feet, beginning to change back into what Dawn now thought of as “Danger Form.” He flickered in his attempts, weakened as he watched his father hug the statue with more true adoration than he’d probably ever received himself.
But the Guards were already pounding forward, propelling into the room as their tails whizzed behind them. Abruptly, they reared back—from the garlic?—and clawed the air, preparing their tails to strike.
At their hesitation, Breisi’s bullet found a mark, and one creature jammed back against the wall, its body shriveling into itself as if eaten by an internal vacuum.
But Dawn wasn’t so lucky. With her left-handed aim, she was off, hitting the wall, plaster exploding outward. The Guard aimed a stream of spit at her, but she expected it, dodged it.
Then, out of nowhere, a blade spun out of the darkness from the third Guard’s direction, chopping Robby’s wounded arm off, spraying blood over Dawn’s arm as she hit the deck. Instinctively, she recalled the burn from the spit and prepped herself for the pain. But she was fine. Just fi—
A roar of anguish shook the room while Robby fell to the floor, clutching his shoulder stump.
The long blade was speared into the couch, shivering.
Had that come from a Guard? And why the hell were they trying to kill Robby? Had they removed his arm as some kind of surgery to keep the silver from spreading?
In a fractured flash, her hands remembered the feel of Matt Lonigan’s blade sheathed near his spine. A machete?
With one peek at the darkened window, she decided she didn’t have time to sort this out. She aimed her revolver at the spitting Guard, hitting its heart this time.
Swww-uuuuck.
Two down, one to go.
In the meantime, Robby was staring at what had been his arm. Then, a little boy through and through, he began to cry.
Concurrently, as soon as Breisi had knocked off the first Guard, she’d engaged a second, ducking its tail and spit as she made her way to her saw-bow by the door. The creature had knocked her gun out of her hand with its tail and was now beating through the air toward her, wrinkling its nose and swiping at the garlic repellant.
But that’s all Dawn saw, because she was facing Robby now—the boy who was starting to sputter with Danger Form. His bottled emotions were obviously fuel for the monster within.
Uninvited, memories stripped from her…
Uncontrollable, helpless rage had her in its thrall now, robbing her of common sense.
Ripped open, defenseless, attacked…
She grabbed her machete, slid it out of its sheath, swung back the blade, then leapt at the vampire.
Smack—the machete hatcheted into his neck, blood gushing over her chest, her neck and arms.
Unlike the Guards, Robby didn’t spit. No, it was red matter bathing Frank’s shirt as Robby fell to the floor, the blade gouged halfway into his throat.
“Dad?” he gurgled, his face wet from his tears. “Mom?”
No answer. With a glance, Dawn saw why.
The remaining Guard hadn’t been going after Breisi at all—Marla had been its target. And with eye-blinking speed, it was flying out the window with the woman in tow, her mouth gaped open in a gulping scream.
Breisi rushed after them, leaving Dawn alone with Robby.
Now that he wasn’t in Danger Form, she felt ill. Blood was gleaming on the marble. Red over white.
The boy sought her gaze, crimson bubbling from his lips.
Dawn wasn’t sucker enough to make eye contact. “It hurt when my friend broke his back, too,” she said in an effort to conjure her ire. But it was harder with this little body in front of her. A crying child.
Dawn, she told herself, don’t trust him. Don’t let him fool you. Don’t have any mercy, because he didn’t with you.
Fumbling with urgency, she cried out, yanking the machete out of his neck. Then, with feral purpose, she raised the blade over her head, swiped it at him again. Swick—he stopped crying.
The sound echoed as his head rolled away from
his body, severed from his spine, coming to a stop near his father’s impaled corpse in the foyer. Together forever.
Her heartbeat, her breathing filled the room, surrounding her in anesthetized distance from the horror of what she’d just done. But she didn’t linger. No—for good measure, she calmly shot the vampire in the heart.
With a savage sucking noise, the clothing, torso, and head zipped into themselves, and Robby was obliterated. Leaving an outline of blood, like chalk lines at a crime scene.
Is this what you did for a living, Frank? Is this how it felt? Numb and inconceivable, even as you stared at the damage?
Dawn turned her head. Blocking it all out.
As a rivulet of Robby’s blood ran over the marble and past her feet, she heard a sound at the window, quickly aimed at it.
Breisi, empty-handed except for her spent saw-bow.
“It got away,” she said as Dawn lowered her revolver.
Now that the adrenaline had cooled, Dawn sank to her knees, holding herself up with her left hand. She wanted to throw up. And when the shakes took over, cold and throttling, she lay down, her right side pierced with agony.
What had she done? They couldn’t take Robby back to The Voice now. And Marla couldn’t be questioned about any lies she’d been telling.
“I didn’t want him in me again,” Dawn whispered between trembles.
Jonah’s voice, soft and somehow understanding, came through her earpiece. “I’m sure you didn’t, Dawn.”
Skin spotted with blood, Breisi stood over her. But…why wasn’t she as upset as she should’ve been? And why was The Voice, of all people, being so nice?
“There’s one locator tuned to a Guard’s body heat and one programmed to detect Frank,” Breisi said. “I managed to attach them to the Guard’s clothes.”
Optimism somehow rose above the shakes. “We can track it?” Dawn asked.
“If it doesn’t discover the bugs first.”
“It’s all right, Dawn,” Jonah said. “This was only the beginning; a small battle in a big war. And Robby gave us some very useful ammunition.” Pause. “We’ve just started.”
Inexplicably, Dawn started to laugh—big, automatic gulps of relief, weariness, and disbelief. Crazy sounds of grief that she couldn’t acknowledge because it would break her apart until she didn’t exist anymore.
A war, she thought. This wasn’t even close to over. God help her, not even close.
And, as the sun saturated the sky with streaks of red, Jonah drew up more battle plans, concocting a story that they’d give to the cops about Nathan Pennybaker’s suicide at the news of his wife’s disappearance. They would tell the authorities that the distraught man had called the PIs over and then impaled himself in their presence. The rest—burns from vampire spit, blood—they’d leave to the crime technicians to fret over.
Because skepticism about monsters and Jonah Limpet’s money were powerful allies—ones they had to depend on.
Ultimately, after being questioned and released by the authorities, the women finally slouched to the 4Runner in the emerging light of day. On the way to the vehicle, Dawn took off her earring, not because she was following Kiko’s advice about it getting ripped out, but because it didn’t seem to fit anymore. Actually, nothing fit her now.
Except for the painful echoes of another vampire hunter’s screams—her father’s.
Twenty-Seven
New Moon
Hours earlier, at nightfall, a star had been reborn.
Unlike previous “deaths”—such as Jesse Shane’s—this one had been made easier with the advances of technology. Certainly Dr. Eternity and his trusted group of Servants could have used Hollywood special effects to simulate Tamsin Greene’s gory demise, but there hadn’t been any need for it—not with the doctor’s vampiric talents.
The resurrection had been deceptively simple.
As night swallowed Los Angeles, Dr. Eternity’s plans had been set into motion. Using the cover of darkness and disguise to emerge Above, the doctor—or Master, as he was known to Sorin and the Elites—visited the victim’s home. There, Tamsin Greene invited him over the threshold.
Greedy for forever-fame, she was eager to begin the agreed upon ritual, her makeup carefully applied, her body clothed in satin, her eyes speaking of a fear she would soon forget.
Fear of aging. Fear of losing the adoring glances bestowed upon her by millions.
Then she led him to her room, where he lay her down on the white bed, caressed her neck, encouraged the jugular vein to emerge while assuring her that he would be gentle. That her new life was going to be beautiful beyond imagination.
That she would always remain beautiful.
As her eyes glazed under his seductive words, her breath came in shallow gasps. He stroked her to calmness, his gaze a hypnotic sedative. Then, when she was primed, he carefully took her in the time-honored ritual of exchange, fangs extending as he revealed his true, terrible face.
She gasped at the shock of it, gasped at the rapid, animal pierce of broken skin at her neck. Then, after a tender and languorous feast of her blood, Dr. Eternity reared back, slit his wrist with a clawed nail, and bequeathed her his own life’s water. He allowed her to drink only so much—enough to rise.
To complete the cycle, he placed his red-stained lips over hers, giving her the kiss of a Soul Taker. He drank completely again, immersing himself in her essence, feeling as revered as a one-hundred-foot god on a movie screen. Every vivid human experience: laughter, sadness, love—all the emotions he had to work so hard to possess—filled him to overflowing.
To drunken agony.
Meanwhile, Tamsin’s veins constricted with the new elements in her system, her body animated by the Master’s blood. Later, before the Underground welcoming ceremony, her body would fully shape itself to her new vampiric form.
But that was yet to come.
Now, she screamed at the heat of her change, straining along with her master, both of them in pain and near weeping.
Her memories consumed him: the thrill of being desired. The lovely terror of facing a thousand fans who needed you…
All too soon, like skin being torn from bone, Tamsin’s soul screeched and separated from him, and the doctor fell to the carpet. Her essence wailed into a vial that sat on the bed, a container he had charmed with the facade of safe harbor. Her soul cowered there, not knowing any better.
To the Master, losing the soul was akin to being stranded in the darkness of forever. Alienation, isolation, the terror of not knowing what was coming next, the horror of being rejected. He reached out, scratched at the bedspread, but like eternity, there was nothing to hold on to.
Even so, he wanted more…more.
As tremors wracked his body, he capped the vial, yet one more soul to add to his collection.
An hour seemed to pass while Tamsin moaned and fumbled for him, but the Master knew that time was only stretching itself out during their agony. It tortured him with the knowledge that he was fallen and bereft, that the very people he was saving with his blood would never love him as much as he loved—or wanted to be—them.
As he held Tamsin’s hand, her gaze grew wide, locked to the ceiling during a trauma she would soon rise above. Trembling, he kissed her neck, healing her bites instantly, then left her side to put her newest CD into the player. After tonight, this would always be known as Tamsin’s final work, her greatest masterpiece. It would sell millions, and much of that would be in his coffers due to the payments she would always owe him.
With the first notes of a lazy love song, he slunk into the night, thus allowing Sorin to take over.
The second-in-command—first-in-command, as far as most of the Underground believed—strolled in by himself and waited until Tamsin’s reanimated body gained enough strength to rise.
When she did, it was with the tentative wonder of an infant. She felt her body, ran her hands over her skin, staggered to her mirror.
“I look the same. Why? You promised
me I’d be—”
“We have merely begun the ritual,” Sorin said, never minding her tiresome Elite dramatics.
He called in the human Servants who would aid in this production. Eyes averted from Tamsin in respectful modesty, the underlings went about setting up the scene, making sure it was safe, yet convincing.
So easy compared to the ones who came before, Sorin thought.
Previous Elites had required Dr. Eternity to maim them and slow their vitals to the point where they appeared dying or dead, forcing the vampire to flee the Elite’s side in a timely manner before the police arrived. But this particular presentation would be done on camera, allowing them more leeway. They had even discussed using a prosthetic throat that would gush blood, but an Internet broadcast would entail so-called “geeks” reviewing the footage ad nauseam, and they would uncover such fakery.
No matter though. Even at this stage of vampirism, Tamsin would heal, especially with Sorin’s ability to mend wounds with a touch, and then the Master’s astounding, final actions.
The older the vampire was, the quicker and more widespread the healing. With enough years, youngsters would ultimately gain that sort of power, as well.
After two hours, Tamsin was prepared for her biggest role yet.
Outside her mansion, Sorin waited for the broadcast to end, using an encrypted cell phone to handle Underground business: the updating of Robby Pennybaker’s demise from spywork. Still doubtful of the Master’s methods, Sorin’s mind stayed focused on the fire that would burn in front of him; it was one of the only methods that could harm him, so caution was wise.
Predictably, the superstar performed without error.
As the flames consumed her home, the Servants, dressed in protective gear since they were stunt technicians in their Above lives, whisked Tamsin out of danger. Quickly, they substituted a body that had already been burned and stripped of identifying features. Then they carried out the necessary, routine trickery: with Robby Pennybaker, for instance, they had slowed his vitals after he had attacked his first, unlucky victim, then stolen his “corpse” from the morgue to avoid investigation; with Jesse Shane, they had wired his ambulance to explode in a remote area, leaving only body fragments behind—so mangled that the investigators would never discover that Jesse Shane’s remains were not among the carnage.
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