The Path of Razors

by Green, Chris Marie

  Almost.

  “She took it all away,” Violet said. “All of it.”

  “So everything’s her fault,” Dawn said, trying to return to the subject of the Underground, knowing her coworkers were taking in every detail over their earpieces. “She’s the one who kicked you out.”

  A lowered glance from Violet. A vengeful one.

  Dawn knew the girl was only going to tell her what she wanted to, and this might not help their cause at all.

  Damn it, could Dawn distract her enough for Frank to get out here to surprise Violet and then read her mind, so they could get everything possible out of her?

  But then how could Dawn get him out here without scaring her off?

  “Do you really want to know?” Violet asked, shards of light in her eyes.

  The malevolence of the question should’ve warned Dawn, but her adrenaline pulsed, and her need to save Costin moved her mouth, causing her answer to spill out.

  “Yes,” she said, and for that one instant, she stopped shielding.

  In the next heartbeat, Violet sped close enough so that Dawn could discern some faint pinkish scars on her face. Then the girl’s eyes went electric, her gaze seeming to blast against Dawn, shattering into her with a crash of color and image, just like the time when another vampire, Robby Pennybaker from Hollywood, had come into her head.

  But Dawn had given permission this time, and she froze under the visual assault, the connection telling her why Violet had chosen to talk to her one-on-one instead of any of the others on the team.

  She’d sensed a perfect target, all right—but it’d been because of the darkness that’d been growing in Dawn ever since the night she’d become a Hollywood vampire and then gone human again after killing her master.

  It was because of the black hole in her, yawning open and sucking in all the hate Violet was feeling, too....

  The vamp schoolgirl shared punches of image and sensation: a small cavelike room with fairy lights strewn over the ceiling, a lava lamp, a poster of Orlando Bloom over a zebra-covered settee, girls—the vampires from last night—rolling over the ground and wrestling with one another like pups....

  One word laced through the image, long-drawn-out, sorrowful: home.

  Dawn shrank under the yearning of it, Violet’s pain in losing it.

  Then there was a luxurious flat with leather furniture and swinging crystal chandeliers and, oh God, Kate Lansing, the young human the team had been investigating, and she was running up some stairs, trying to get away from the pack of laughing vampires....

  More words: Recruit. Nightcrawl.

  Then a flood of girls dressed in historical and fanciful costumes, all of them flitting around a tavernesque room that rang with laughter and gaiety and blood as they chased males and sank their fangs into them. Girls, girls, girls, their mouths ringed with red.

  Graduate. Reward.

  And then, most keenly of all: a wild-haired man with golden eyes smiling down like a wolfish god.

  Love.

  Wolfie.

  Warmth rushed through Dawn, but just as quickly, the ice of loss took its place, hardening to such hatred that Dawn pulled out of the mind-link and held up a hand, just to block and keep Violet from infusing more bitterness and bile into her.

  That dark spot in Dawn swelled, as if thirsting for more, but she backed toward headquarters, away from the vamp girl, bat tling to get herself back.

  Slowly, slowly, reality returned: the chalky street gaining color and form, the adrenaline ebbing to a sense of nausea that coated Dawn’s stomach and shook her from fingertips to toes.

  She turned to Violet, finding the girl’s eyes alight while she took in breath after quick breath, like she was excited to have found a repository for her ill will.

  Like that hatred was the only thing keeping her going.

  As Dawn recovered, she realized something: girls running around, the tavern, the costumes ...

  Underground?

  Had Violet just shown her a glimpse of it?

  “What—” Dawn started to ask.

  “It’s all her fault,” the other girl said, and as her hands flexed, Dawn saw that her nails had grown an inch, making her fingers into semiclaws. “Della’s.”

  She raised her awful hands to her face, covering her expression, shaking with either overwhelming emotion or an effort not to change into her vamp form.

  “Tell me more,” Dawn urged. Save Costin.... “I can help you, Violet, maybe—”

  “Help me?” The girl uncovered her face, and the sight of a growing snout and knifepoint teeth jarred Dawn.

  But she didn’t let the painful jerk of her veins or the shudder of her pulse stop her. “How do I destroy her? Them?”

  The Friends were swirling around in a frenzy, but Dawn thought it was only because they were so close to finding everything out.

  Yet Dawn should’ve listened to one of them saying, “Hear that? Hear it!”

  The shudder of an approaching train hit the air, and Violet cocked her head again, her posture going rigid.

  Something—a feeling—tickled the back of Dawn’s neck in apprehension.

  “Run!!!” Breisi screamed in Dawn’s ear before pushing against her.

  Dawn stumbled backward, toward headquarters, when it started.

  Violet’s eyes widened, her fanged mouth opening in what looked like one word—DELLA?—before she shielded her face with her hands.

  Then ...

  The descent of a massive black shadow.

  Breisi smashed against Dawn in earnest now, forcing her to lose balance and fall to the ground, dropping her throwing blade and then crawling backward up the stairs.

  Partway up, she fumbled for her flamethrower, only now realizing what was happening.

  Birds.

  Ravens.

  Was it possible that the other vampires were in hiding nearby now, summoning these animals to catch Violet?

  Or to shut her up?

  The birds crashed into the schoolgirl, their wings barely camouflaging the blood as they nipped at her, clawed at her, ate away at her skin and face and hair, pinning her to the ground with the force of their numbers.

  The train continued on by, but Dawn could hear the cawing, could hear the trace of a girl’s screech as Violet fought her way down, and feathers ripped into the air as she swiped at them with her claws in a counterattack.

  Dawn crab-moved up the stairs, where Frank was already outside, reaching for her, intending to bring her to where Kiko waited in the doorway with his own mini flamethrower in hand.

  The train trailed off, and the ravens finished up, several of them lifting away from the barely moving pile of rags and flesh that remained on the ground.

  Violet was a mangled mess of gore and eyeless sockets and fingers that were still gnarled into barely flexing claws, and ...

  God.

  It took Dawn a second to realize that the vampire’s head was still barely attached, keeping her animated.

  On the walkway, two ravens carried Violet’s eyes in their beaks, waddling away from the action as three other birds dug into the girl’s chest.

  Dawn’s trigger finger itched. So did the trigger of her mind, because she realized too late that she might’ve been able to stop the ravens with her psychokinesis.

  Jesus, even if Violet was a vampire she had to be in pain.

  But ...

  Bad vampire, said the dark place inside of her. Kill or be killed.

  Frank was tugging at Dawn’s jacket now, trying to get her all the way inside. He could’ve yanked her into headquarters if he wanted—he was the strong, fast one—but the quaking of his hands told her that the sight and smell of Violet’s blood was overtaking him, even over the stench of the garlic.

  Once she was in, Kiko started to close the door behind her just as a horrifying sound beat down from the sky: a cloud of ravens—the ones who’d gotten Violet—zooming toward the girl again.

  The team threw their bodies against the door to shut
it, and as Frank sank to the ground, Dawn sprang up to gape through the peephole.

  “Come on!” Kiko said, wanting to see, too. They’d bricked up the lower floor’s windows, so this was the only view available down here.

  A nasty taste lingered in the back of Dawn’s throat as she watched the ravens swoop down to tangle their claws in Violet’s hair and brutally yank her head from her body.

  Then, as simple as that, the schoolgirl withered away, just like she’d been covered by a quick-working acid that ate skin, bones, and clothing.

  The ravens seemed to scour their wings over the walkway before taking off, leaving a new pink glow to devour the sky.

  Dawn sank to the floor beside Frank just in time to see her mother coming from the back of the house through the gap of a dark hall, concern slowing her steps.

  Dawn didn’t have the words to explain to Eva about the ravens—the animals that the other girls might’ve called to take care of Violet.

  So what hell would they have in mind for the hunters?

  Kiko spoke. “Once, the Friends told us that it didn’t seem like these vampires can see through the eyes of the animals they call. They just use a command mind-link, like the animals are hearing orders. They probably tracked Violet, and the rest of the vamps might not know where we are. Not yet.”

  Dawn barely heard him over the “Holy shit”s stabbing her every thought. She caught her breath, the room a flurry of jasmine since Friends had whooshed in with her.

  But she did have enough brainpower to realize that the Friends hadn’t stopped the raven attack, either.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Dawn finally said out loud, as if she’d never seen killing or maiming in her life. Or maybe it was just that she would never get used to it.

  Yet when she felt the coldness spreading through her, like it’d come to protect her, she rethought the getting-used-to-it part.

  She told them about what she’d seen, about how the ravens had finished off Violet.

  “Well,” Kiko said, plopping down next to her and watching Frank as he continued to recover. “At least we know for sure that decapitation works on them.”

  Dawn closed her eyes and allowed the cold, dark stain to spread even more until it calmed her.

  Making her as frosty as she needed to be to go on from here.

  FIVE

  ONCE UPON AN IMPLANTED TALE

  In the deepest part of the main Underground, where air hummed over the skin and darkness was lit by blue flutters from the banks of small telly screens, the new custode stood at attention, mask off.

  “You called me back here just as I was getting started on tracking those attackers. Thirty minutes didn’t give me any chance whatsoever.”

  “We’ve suddenly got larger issues at hand,” Nigel, the head keeper, said. His sandy hair was slicked back, his athletic body encased in the black of their tight uniform as he lounged in the swivel chair in front of the monitors.

  “Larger issues.” A small laugh. “I see. You recalled me because you believe yourself to be more capable than I when it comes to outside duty. How just like a big brother.”

  Nigel’s lime-hued eyes—a family trait—brooked no argument, but the new custode wasn’t about to present one. It was true that it would take time for a recently activated caretaker to master this job; Nigel would be far more effective in doing the highest priority fieldwork right now. A week wasn’t a very long time to get used to what a newly attuned body and mind could do.

  They weren’t vampires, but they were the best sort of servants nonetheless.

  “I called you back,” Nigel said, “because expedience is necessary, and there’s no time to dally with your less developed talents today.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nigel ignored the sarcasm.

  Ah. So he was being quite the serious professional now that Charles was dead and gone. Pity Nigel hadn’t been so vigilant before last week, when Charles had mysteriously disappeared at Billiter Street—and no doubt died there, too, based on the traditional vision/tales that had been fed to the new custode upon activation.

  Tales containing the history of this particular vampire community, which the Meratoliage family had protected and served for generations.

  But Nigel would never be able to make up for Charles’s death. Not now, after failing so bloody miserably.

  And that’s the reason the new keeper had taken such secretive and risky measures to protect the Underground—to protect while serving. Frankly, Nigel didn’t seem to be up to it.

  Yet the new custode‘s plan was a gamble well worth taking, based on what these monitors all around them had shown recently : The schoolgirl vampire Della staring at Claudia so suspiciously. Della keeping her distance from the elder vampire, as if she sensed more danger than the others did. Della taking the lead position among the girl vampires last night with such strength and barely contained ferocity.

  Della: a perfect instrument, much like the tuner that had been used on her back at the hotel.

  The new custode watched Nigel, wondering what he might do if he should discover this plan with Delia—if he would agree it was necessary or wage punishment on a keeper who’d overstepped all bounds.

  But why tell him?

  Why take the chance that he would shut down a plan that was so beautifully conceived and bound to work in the end?

  Even a new caretaker could see that security had fallen to shite Underground, and Nigel was partly at fault. Apparently, no previous custode had seemed to recognize just how weak Mihas was when he was with Claudia. His companion allowed him the freedom to be reckless but, without Claudia, he would have to think on his own, and think clearly at that.

  Yes, Mihas had always been the more vicious, wilder soldier of the two—the most valuable. Yet coupled with Claudia, he had become a creature of his own appetites and didn’t pay much mind to anything else.

  The newest custode didn’t stir as Nigel stood from his chair. Perhaps previous keepers had been too intimidated by the old ones to carry through with some sorely needed maintenance. Nonetheless, an hour or two ago, when Nigel had finally given the new caretaker an assignment that took place outside the confines of the Underground, where freedom of movement wasn’t so simple, it had been the perfect time to act.

  The new custode rested a gloved hand on a belted compartment where the tuner was kept, as if to protect the plan itself—the secret of it. The spindly object had been formulated a generation ago by an uncle, a maintainer who’d stepped down from service to the Underground when his body had grown old. It worked on the younger, more susceptible vampires, not the older ones, and custodes had found that it kept the main Underground’s vampire girls in line if they required punishment ... as they often did here in Mihas’s hormonal, crazed community.

  Not that they ever told Mihas that they used it on the girls.

  Yet it came in quite handy when a younger vampire would wander too close to the custode area. Della herself had almost needed it the night before last when she had stumbled too near and the custodes had intercepted her, thinking she could use a lesson in never straying from the main part of the Underground.

  But, tonight, the tuner had been used to imprint a new fear on Della’s subconscious. Mind-to-mind via the implement, the new caretaker had vaguely shared only three of the tales that were given to each family member upon a custode’s calling. Della’s own imagination would fill in the blanks of the purposely blurred faces, providing her own boogeymen.

  Providing the fright that would make her the perfect conduit to whip Mihas and the Underground back into shape.

  And Della should be afraid, really, with what Claudia was doing to the unaware girls in private. But, with success in this plan, the housematron’s sins would be the very thing to bring about her downfall.

  The custode would have seen to everything personally, but that would involve too much individual risk. Yet secretly implanting the tales in Della meant that the schoolgirl would never be able to reveal how she r
eceived her information, should she be asked. Although the keeper would have to be careful about manipulating her through the fear that would result as the tales turned her against Claudia.

  Hopefully.

  Certainly, though, there was a bit of rule bending involved with this strategy. But if this gamble resulted in removing Claudia from the Underground and shaking up Mihas, thus making him a stronger blood brother, the end would certainly justify the means.

  The newest custode would bet the house on it.

  Nigel was lending one last glance to the screens, most of which had been furtively tooled to pick up images from CCTV cameras in London’s surveillance network, plus a few key lenses of the Underground’s own. Although the custodes couldn’t manipulate most of the cameras themselves—they could only see what the lenses were showing—the tellys revealed everything from views in the Queenshill dorm, where the vampire schoolgirls had lived, to feeds from places like Highgate, above the main Underground.

  By combing through past footage, day by day, the custodes had been attempting to discover the whereabouts of the attackers, but they were having no luck, especially with the lack of anything such as facial recognition capabilities.

  Yet it could only be a matter of time before they found something among the thousands of hours they’d captured.

  While inspecting what they’d cultivated so far, they had come upon recordings that had been clouded for some reason, including the footage from cameras on the Queenshill campus last night. The fogged images, in fact, resembled the malfunctions from the night Charles had died while investigating the same clouded camera feeds at and around Billiter Street. Unfortunately, the custodes had been immersed in Relaquory—an every-night activity not to be deserted at any cost—during the goings-on at Queenshill, and it was only when they had returned to the monitor room to review the footage that they had noticed a pattern.

  Quite the coincidence.

  Quite the clue that, perhaps, these attackers were more than they seemed.

  “Our present situation is this,” Nigel said. “Shortly after you checked in on the schoolgirls—”