The Path of Razors

by Green, Chris Marie

  Probably team stuff, and Eva seemed to know it.

  Her smile was expertly forced, too understanding. Dawn could tell by now.

  “There’s more food in the kitchen if anyone’s interested,” her mother said.

  Kiko took a seat on a low green velvet couch near the fireplace. “How about I take you up on that later?”

  Natalia nodded to Eva in greeting while primly sitting next to Kiko, her ever-ready notebook in her lap. She was wearing a tweed skirt set and thick white stockings—practical, far less stylish than Eva’s Rodeo Drive ensemble. Dawn liked that the psychic didn’t seem to mind her lack of fashion sense, either.

  One of the Friends swooped over to Eva, and the blonde held up a hand.

  “I know, I know. It’s time to go to a different room so I won’t hear any of the team talk.”

  As the Friend escorted her out, Kiko turned in his seat, his gaze following her. “Hey, there’re a bunch of EastEnders episodes on the DVR, if you want.”

  Before things had picked up with business, he and Eva had started watching the British soap together as just another way to fill her time. She’d been trying hard to get into the swing of life over here as a new person under a new name, “Mia Scott.” She had no career and, truthfully, no family who required her attention, and it’d been hard for her.

  Eva maintained that family had been her big reason for becoming a vampire back in L.A., but ... Well, her plans hadn’t really worked out. Not unless you counted her voluntary blood donations to Frank as making her a part of the family now.

  Her mom acknowledged Kiko’s TV suggestion then left the room.

  No, you couldn’t say Eva was much a part of anything nowadays.

  Dawn could feel Kiko gazing at her and wondering what was going through her mind, but he didn’t dare read her. He hadn’t done that to her, or anyone else on the team, since Hollywood, when she’d broken him of the rude habit.

  Needing something to do, she took another bite of her sandwich, then held it out to Kiko and Natalia. They both declined.

  Frank ambled in soon afterward, his wiry brown hair sticking up in back from his resting time. Dawn wondered if he’d seen Eva in passing and, if so, how they’d reacted to each other.

  Like exes, no doubt. Even though Dawn wished it could be different. She adored Breisi—hell, as much as Dawn could “adore” anyone—but ...

  She felt a rogue thrill tumbling down the back of her neck, indicating another presence.

  Costin, she thought, putting down her sandwich.

  She took a drink of tea to coat her suddenly dry mouth, catching their boss out of the corner of her eye as he moved toward the fireplace. He leaned against the mantel in his black lounging suit, which was all rustling, silken material.

  Unlike Frank, Costin’s every post-rest hair was in place, his midnight-hue locks curling slightly down his neck and bringing out the pale of his flesh, the topaz of his eyes, which were burning a little more than usual.

  She could tell he hadn’t fed from a blood bag yet, but he would have to do it soon, and the notion made her put down her tea before she spilled any of it. He’d drink a bit from her, too, since her blood gave him more strength and contentment than any other.

  A feeding. A bite. Sadly, it’d somehow become the most constant and fulfilling component of her life.

  “Our Friends,” Costin said without preamble, “have relayed that Mrs. Jones has not yet returned to Queenshill or, more specifically, to her room. However, something else did.”

  Kiko said it first. “One of those pseudo-ninja figures? Like the kid we have downstairs in the freezer?”

  “One of those,” Costin answered, low and smooth. “It seemed to be investigating her room.”

  “So,” Kiko said, “I guess we can now be pretty sure that those shadow figures are related to the schoolgirl vamps.”

  Breisi had entered the room, and as she swished in the door, her voice tunneled around them. “The question is, do these vampires know about these shadow figures? Or are the figures after the vampires?”

  Great—more questions, but they were valid ones.

  At any rate, Dawn felt justified in what she’d suspected earlier. “These shadow things must’ve finally noticed a pattern of camera clouding—on Billiter Street, last night at Queenshill, today in Mrs. Jones’s room.... They’re not just onto the vampires, if that’s the case-they’re onto us, too.”

  “But a few steps behind us,” Kiko added.

  Frank sat in a chair next to Dawn, leaning his bulky forearms on his thighs as Breisi settled around him. “So whatever these shadow figures are, they’re using cameras to monitor. If we keep clouding the lenses, we’ll tip them off to where we are because they know what to look for now.”

  “Then we don’t cloud anymore,” Kiko said. “We use disguises from this point on since I doubt the vamps—if they’re even aware of the shadows and the cameras—get smell-o-vision over their screens. Maybe I’ll have to go around dressed like a kid, and maybe it’s time to pull out a lot of wigs and disguises for the rest of you.”

  “But,” Dawn said, “if we’re going to be creeping around vamp territory, we’ll need some sort of distraction for those cameras. If the vamps are using the shadow things to monitor us, they’ll catch on soon enough that we’re a threat. According to what Violet said, it sounded like they still weren’t sure about our status, and that’s why they haven’t risked hunting us down in public, where they could be identified by society at large. They’re only being cautious with us because we’re not exactly one of their ‘nightcrawl’ victims who disappear without much of a trace.”

  Natalia was at the edge of the couch. “I noticed a camera near our headquarters. One of the London surveillance network’s?”

  “Right,” Kiko said. “The shadow things could be accessing the network somehow, so I guess we’d better hope that they take their time in recognizing us.”

  Costin’s tone was terse. “Most unfortunately, the camera outside headquarters was clouded this morning when Violet appeared. A Friend was only following procedure in keeping our business private.”

  Right, Dawn thought, because the last thing they needed was for regular society to be all aflutter about vampires—especially since there were two of them on the Limpet team.

  One of whom was particularly important to wiping out the dragon.

  As they all let that knowledge soak in, Costin added, “It will be a time game with these monitors and possibly the schoolgirls: will they discover us before we find out who and what they are?”

  Breisi’s voice whirled around them. “The Friends will be ready to defend headquarters if they show up, Costin.”

  “Yeah,” Dawn said. “We’ll batten down the hatches even more than we already have. But to invade us, they’ll have to be real good ... and real ballsy to risk a public battle in the middle of a city. Queenshill was at least removed from traffic.”

  Kiko added, “We’ll strike at them before they can identify who we are. Don’t worry about that.”

  That seemed to assuage the boss for now, although he didn’t look completely satisfied.

  Natalia didn‘t, either, as she went back to taking notes.

  “Anyway,” Dawn finished, “this investigation really has gone a lot better than the last one and, if I’m not mistaken, most other Underground hunts. We’re doing just fine on it.”

  “If these girls are even Underground,” Breisi said.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Kiko was obviously beginning to get itchy to move on. He liked the research part of the job more than almost anything except the actual fighting. Oh, and bragging about his talents. “What’s next?”

  Costin took a sleek, black-cased object out of his shirt pocket, then handed it over to Frank, who barely glanced at it before passing it to Dawn.

  “Explain?” she asked.

  Breisi hovered over Dawn. “It’s a pulser I had Frank construct.”

  Frank said, “She started developing one in L.
A. ‘cos of a vampire’s sensitive hearing in general, and she figured one day we might need this to avoid being tracked.”

  “Bingo,” Kiko said.

  “But,” Breisi added, “I picked up the idea of a pulser again, knowing we’d need it more than ever.”

  With a rush of adrenaline—of get-me-back-out-there-to-fight urgency—Dawn ran a finger over the slick casing, which was no bigger than a cigarette lighter, really. “So we can use this to confuse our body rhythms if they have the ability to track us like that.”

  “That’s the hope,” Frank said.

  Kiko hopped out of his seat to take a gander, and Dawn yielded the pulser to him. But instead of keeping it for long, he brought it over to Natalia.

  When he handed it to her she smiled at him.

  Was it Dawn’s imagination, or was he turning a shade of pink she’d never seen the likes of?

  “Back to the task at hand,” Costin said, prompting Natalia to give the pulser back to Kiko and pick up her notebook again. “Everyone here has had an opportunity to process what we saw at Queenshill today. What have you arrived at?”

  Kiko reclaimed his seat. “I still think that, based on all those shiny tools hanging from the ceiling plus the sight of that fridge, we could guess we’re dealing with a vampire who has developed a taste for a victim’s organs. And whether this vamp—or even a human who’s a monster just the same—is from an Underground or not, what we found was a torture station, complete with a bathtub for letting blood.”

  Natalia’s brow furrowed with what Dawn thought might be the same repulsion that’d overcome her earlier.

  But she was over it now.

  Kiko had suggested the same slice-and-dice idea on the rushed ride back from Queenshill, but the presence of the bathtub had taken Dawn in a similar yet different direction.

  “I told you guys that the bathtub”—which had been cleaned down to a sparkling shine, just like the fridge and the blades—“reminded me of Elizabeth, Countess Bathory. Even though her original story seems to have gone the way of legend, she’s been called a vampire. So during research time, I looked into her.”

  Natalia furiously wrote as Costin straightened away from the mantel, his expression disturbingly serene.

  “And what have you come to know about the countess?” he asked.

  That look on his face ... It wasn’t just serene, but sinister, Dawn might call it, if she had guts enough.

  With all the calm she could muster—all the coldness—she reached for her teacup and took a sip. Her mouth had gone cottony again, but this time, it wasn’t because of what Costin did to her libido.

  She put the cup back down. “She operated mainly from the late fifteen hundreds to the early sixteen hundreds in the region of the Slovak Republic. Some say it was Hungary, but either way, she lived with her war-hero hubby, who was absent a lot of the time. The legends say that she bathed in blood to preserve her beauty. I didn’t have tons of time for research, so I didn’t find any solid documentation to back that up yet, but there’s a lot of speculation that the bathing story has been stretched to some mighty lengths of bullshit. Still, the countess did go to trial for torturing scads of young girls and women. The number of her victims varies—”

  “Over six hundred and fifty,” Costin said, his gaze clouded.

  Everyone in the room glanced at him, and it was the type of glance where you’d rather not be looking, but you do it anyway. Hell, Breisi even stopped moving around.

  He clearly recognized the need to explain. “I was involved with dismantling an Underground in Siam at the time the countess was at large. When I finished with my task, I heard the rumors about her, yet arrived only after her incarceration. Even so, I talked to many a villager who lived in fright of her and her accomplices. In addition to her reputation for ... mistreating ... servants, she had a predilection for enjoying the company of those who practiced the black arts. She was even supposed to have eloped with a man who was rumored to be a vampire, but she returned to her castle all alone, without him.”

  Dawn had been holding her breath while listening. Although she and Costin had a master-progeny Awareness, that didn’t mean they had ever let each other all the way in, exposing and sharing everything. There were still personal shields in place.

  It wasn’t even too often that Costin spilled personal information outside of their Awareness, and when he did, she was never sure where it would lead.

  If he had a purpose for doing it.

  Nice to have trust in a relationship, she thought.

  She exhaled, then said, “I read that stopping the countess was a lot of trouble. She was real well connected, even related to the prime minister of Hungary and a prince of Transylvania. Then there was an aunt at royal court, but she was supposed to be a witch, just like the other people the countess obviously hung with.”

  “A witch and a corrupter of young girls,” Costin added.

  A mental lightbulb went on for Dawn.

  “Girls like the ones from Queenshill?” she asked.

  Natalia lowered her notebook while Frank lowered his head.

  “Well, slap me silly and call me Spanky,” Kiko said. “I’m going to venture that corrupting young girls was a family tradition?”

  They all looked at Costin for assurance, but he’d gone back to lurking against the mantel. That probably meant he agreed.

  Dawn sat back in her chair, knowing when Costin was open to her using Awareness between them and when he wasn’t. This would be a “wasn‘t” moment.

  She continued. “The countess’s accomplices would supposedly tempt girls to her domain with jobs, or if necessary, drug or beat them into submission. No one escaped alive.”

  Costin gave a subtle nod.

  Hell—a contemporary of the countess at their disposal. As usual, Dawn tried not to let his age bother her, but the truth was, she wondered if that wasn’t the least unnerving chasm between them.

  Anyway ... “The more sensational accounts say that the countess started the whole blood bath deal after she hit one of her maids and made her bleed. Elizabeth noticed that her skin was softer—”

  “More supple.” Kiko added in randomness.

  Dawn didn’t stop, even while shooting him a what-the-hell glance. “—than normal. So she bathed her face in blood. Some tales go on to say that she kept girls down in the dungeons beneath the castle, and she started using them for blood baths. After soaking herself, she’d make other girls, who were picked for their beauty and talent with the tongue, if you know what I mean, clean her off.”

  Natalia jerked, like she’d thrown up a little in her mouth. Dawn passed her the tea while continuing.

  “Whether this is all true or not, the countess did go to trial, like I already said. Her accomplices turned on her, but, as we know, she had powerful connections in life, so even when her crowd was put to death, Elizabeth was just walled up in a room until she died.”

  Here, Costin spoke once more. “When she was put away, she was nearing her fiftieth birthday, yet even so, she appeared strangely ... young.”

  Dawn canted forward now. “You saw her?”

  His gaze was distant again. “The first time, I caught a glimpse when a meal was slipped through to her, for there were no windows or doors in her room. Since she wasn’t a blood brother, and there was no indication of one recently around her, she wasn’t a priority, in my estimation. I did attempt to question her, though, but she didn’t yield significant information.” He paused. “In the end, I determined she wasn’t involved in an Underground and I was soon on my way, following a much stronger lead.”

  “And now?” Dawn asked. “Is this something worth pursuing? ”

  “Over the ages, I’ve learned to rule out no connection, regardless of how thin it might seem. The bathtub, the blades ... Disturbing evidence to consider.”

  Frank ran a hand down his face, his features like those of a man frozen in never-ending battery, just like the bar bouncer he’d been in true life.

&nb
sp; “What you’re not saying out loud,” he muttered, “is that maybe the countess is alive and well and we found her playroom today?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” A bitter smile ghosted Costin’s mouth. “But I would certainly wonder if she has served as inspiration.”

  “Good gravy,” Kiko said. “What kind of vampires take a blood bath?”

  Dawn knew. “Ones who subscribe to the countess’s supposed method for staying young and beautiful. Sound familiar?”

  Hollywood. Fame, fortune, youth, beauty ... all worth selling your soul for.

  And Dawn could testify to that, because she’d been beautiful once, during her own few moments as a vamp back in L.A....

  Kiko had already ushered in a related topic, keeping things moving. “Natalia was pursuing research about Thomas Gatenby, so there’s even more to think about.”

  Focus on that, Dawn thought, because her dark spot was eating at her, reminding her it was there. Like she could ever forget.

  But she did manage to force her attention on Gatenby, the man who’d donated the land for Queenshill in the first place. They’d speculated that the name “Thomas Gatenby” could be a pseudonym for a blood brother, so this could pay out.

  “Besides the basics of what we already know about Gatenby,” Natalia said, pushing back a brunette curl that had escaped her barrette, “I haven’t much to report. I spent the afternoon attempting to find a historian who might be able to offer more.”

  “But you did find someone,” Kiko said. “Over at King’s College, with the University of London.”

  Natalia was pretty much aglow with the support from Kiko. It was a newbie, I-can-be-constructive-too thing.

  Or maybe something else?

  “I have an appointment to speak with Dr. Hopkins tomorrow,” she said, “on campus at her office.”

  “I’ll go with,” Kiko said.

  They exchanged smiles before Kiko cleared his throat and turned back to the group. He avoided Dawn’s raised eyebrow.

  “Anyhow,” he added, “I, myself, brushed up on Bram Stoker stuff, just to see if anything jumped out at me.” Kiko addressed Natalia. “You weren’t with us before we settled here in London, before the boss isolated the vibes he was getting and pinpointed this city. But while we were tracking down vibrations from what he thought might be a master, we did a lot of research along the way—especially about Stoker.”