A Drop of Red

by Chris Marie Green

  “Kik?” Dawn said.

  He shrugged. “They feel a pull. But I do, too.”

  Before anyone could respond, he took the path to the right, speed walking, then halted and glanced back at Dawn as if he’d expected her to be right behind him.

  Natalia had stopped and was watching Dawn, too, a hopeful lift to her brows.

  A niggle in the back of Dawn’s mind testified that she should put her money on the new psychic, that maybe when they got to Natalia’s headstone, she might have another vision that would lead to a break in the hunt.

  But when Kiko got that same beat-down expression he wore whenever he disappointed her by taking those pills, she didn’t know what to do.

  “Are you coming?” Kiko asked, his tone indicating that he knew how little faith she had in his ability these days.

  And . . . game over.

  Dawn addressed Breisi as she moved toward Kiko. “I’ll keep an eye on this one.”

  Natalia lowered her gaze, drowning in that big coat of hers while Breisi circled around Dawn and the other spirits divided themselves between the two psychics.

  “We should stay together,” Breisi said in a warped version of the voice she always used to adopt when leading a hunt as a human. She’d been totally kick-ass then, too.

  “We’re in public,” Dawn said. “If our ‘clients’ survived this long, they did it through some secrecy. We’ll be okay.”

  Breisi sighed, but she didn’t argue while she flew to Natalia again, her voice fading as she said, “Follow your Friends by taking the path on the right, then going a hundred and fifty feet. The grave will be on the left side.”

  “Thanks, Breez.”

  Dawn raised her hand to say bye to Natalia, but the girl was already following her own spirits, her hands stuffed into her pockets.

  But why would Natalia give a hoot about Dawn’s support? Didn’t she know it wasn’t worth a three-dollar bill?

  When she got to Kiko, he broke into a smile, and her chest squeezed into itself, just like it was trying to wring every last drop out of her damn heart.

  “Knew you’d pick me,” he said, then spun around and dashed down the path.

  Rolling her eyes, she nonetheless backed him up, flanked by Friends and recalling Breisi’s instructions as well as the details of Kiko’s vision: on the left, a boxed garden with a burning glass lantern. . . .

  They passed slabs laid out like flat, marbled resting beds.

  Newer dates. Older dates. Graves with Asian symbols. Crosses. More angels.

  “Kiko,” she asked when they’d gone the required length, “maybe we already passed it.”

  “Nope.”

  He sounded utterly confident, and when he came to a halt several yards in front of Dawn, the goofy grin on his face told her that she’d made the right choice by being with him.

  When she caught up, she rested a hand on his shoulder.

  They stood there like that for some seconds, the movement of Friends swirling around them while they looked at a cross surrounded by blood-hued leaves. Someone obviously cared enough to visit often, because it really did seem like a small well-tended garden. Red roses and ferns guarded the foot of the grave, where a flame danced in a protective glass box that held a mirror in the back of it, reflecting their faces back at them if they bent low enough.

  The rain had grayed to a drizzle, moistening Dawn’s face as she slipped off her hood.

  “I wonder if a family member comes every day,” she said.

  “Maybe a son or a daughter.” Kiko motioned toward the gravestone dates. The deceased had been in her early forties, but the Friends hadn’t been able to see that clearly last night with the lantern tucked beneath the shadow of foliage.

  Dawn had already reached into her jacket pocket, ignoring the throwing blades and silver crucifix to pluck out a small PDA that included a recording option. Accessing it, she dictated her impressions, then the information on the gravestone, including the name: Colleen Abberline.

  When she was done, she said, “Maybe an interview with Colleen’s family and friends will give us some clue as to why you saw her grave in a vision.”

  “Or maybe the flame, the garden . . . Could these be symbols that are trying to tell me something else?”

  Kiko had bent down to the grave, touching everything while Dawn was recording. But when he ran his fingertips over some fallen rose petals near the lantern, his spine stiffened.

  Adrenaline shot through her. He’s got something.

  After a minute, he stood, laughing, fully energized.

  “You got a clear reading?” she asked.

  His smile was so wide it stretched his face. “H-yeah. I saw a guy’s face in the mirror of that lantern box.” Kiko pointed toward the constant flame. “This flower was touched by a young male in his twenties with dark hair and greenish eyes. He looked like the tall, thin type.”

  “How tall?”

  “I’m not sure, ’cos I just have that mirror to go by. It was near dusk, and he was kneeling in front of the grave and setting the flowers down, so I didn’t have anything to scale him against. Maybe he comes here to take care of Colleen.”

  Two words had lodged in Dawn’s brain: tall. Thin.

  Descriptions of what had once been witnessed beyond the gates of this cemetery in the dead of night.

  But the Highgate Vampire was supposed to be abnormally tall with red eyes, and Kiko’s vision didn’t necessarily indicate either. . . .

  She shook her head. Her imagination was wonky. Still, she couldn’t forget those hollow vibrations Natalia kept noticing around here.

  Was there something more than just an urban legend at work?

  Her mouth was dry as she asked, “Kiko, do you think there’s any reason you might’ve tuned in to this grave in particular?”

  And the tall, thin guy who visited it?

  “I don’t know yet,” Kiko said, “but you can bet we’re gonna find him and have us a nice talk. Before that though, what do you say we track down Natalia and the wrong grave?”

  He took up a cock-of-the-walk stride and whistled down the path, away from the flickering lantern and the garden grave.

  As the Friends followed him, Dawn bent down to pick up a rose petal. Another tingle slid down her spine, and she glanced behind her, toward the north.

  Nothing.

  Hardly trusting in that, she stood and walked after Kiko, taking out a throwing blade and daring any Highgate lurkers to come out and play.

  TEN

  LONDON BABYLON

  Later the Same Day

  WHEN darkness arrived, the girls awakened from their binge resting, then gathered in Violet’s room to wait until they sensed sleep from the rest of the students in the house.

  “Last night wasn’t fair at all,” Noreen said as she sat on the floor and leaned back against the frilly bed.

  Vi and Polly were up on the mattress, lying on their stomachs with their ankles crossed and lifted. Across from the bed, Blanche was slowly spinning in an office chair, just as distant from the conversation as Della, who reclined at the base of the accompanying desk.

  “Most certainly unfair,” Polly said. “Banning us from leaving the grounds for the weekend until all this media blather dies down was brutal enough. And then having us drink rodent blood instead of allowing us to go out for a true feeding? Such bad form.”

  “Infighting is bad form, as well,” Violet said, glaring at Blanche.

  The black-haired girl seemed to care less about listening to their self-appointed leader, so Violet went a step further and used a communal mind link.

  Am I correct, Blanche? she said with such force that Della’s skull buzzed. We’ll not do anything more to deserve such punishment again?

  The other girl stopped circling in her chair. “I agree,” she said out loud, so carelessly that Della admired her for it.

  Yet she hid her approval well.

  Blanche began to spin again, and Violet sat up, lazily tracing her manicured fingernail
s over the flowered duvet and watching Blanche as if she were to be her next meal.

  “No need to despair.” Noreen sprang up to a stand. “We do have the run of the house tonight, y’know.”

  “I fancy the idea of avoiding more rats,” Polly said. “When was the last time we sampled the wares round here?”

  “Months ago when we were last punished,” Violet added, still staring at Blanche. “But mind this: as we did back then, we would have to be careful to keep ourselves to a short, sweet drink and nothing more tonight.”

  Della leaned her head against the desk. A drink would suffice to keep them nicely nourished, but it wouldn’t fill the appetites to which Wolfie had introduced them. Not entirely.

  Blanche used the desk’s edge to stop her chair from spinning altogether. She seemed exceedingly serious when she turned back toward the others.

  “Let’s think for a moment about what we’re proposing,” she said. “We truly wish to poach on the territory of the very one who meted out our punishment last night?”

  “We weren’t left with much of an option,” Violet said. “And we were never told to starve ourselves tonight.”

  “We’ll only visit the younger girls anyway,” Polly added.

  Della refrained from saying her own piece. Yet why should she when Blanche was doing it for her?

  “Consider this from a human’s point of view,” she said. “Twice a week, there’s a different girl in the house who takes ill. Both seem pale and listless, yet both quickly recover with bed rest and proper nutrition. We five are the only students who know what is actually occurring, yet none of us speak of it, because we know our keeper enjoys feeding here. But the other adults and students? They say the illness is due to stress. Only stress. Yet soon, there’s another sickly girl. Then another later in the week.”

  “Your point?” Polly asked.

  “As of now, we’ve been fortunate they haven’t put the pieces of the puzzle together.” Blanche didn’t even blink. “Won’t multiple cases over the weekend change that?”

  Noreen crossed her arms over her stomach. “We’ve managed to hide a quick drink the other times we were told to stay on the grounds—”

  Violet held her hand up and everyone fell to silence.

  “Perhaps,” she said softly, “we should consider Blanche’s argument.”

  It had taken quite a bit for Violet to agree with Blanche, but Della knew just how much none of them wished to get caught. How they treasured this existence.

  Truth be told, all of them fancied it beyond measure, because Queenshill was more of a home than any of them had ever possessed. Yes, they were well-bred and well-off, but all they had ever known since an early age was boarding school.

  And, in school, they had come to find each other.

  In fact, when the invitation to join in this exclusive class had come along, not a one of them had thought to refuse, for where else did they have to go? To whom did they have to go?

  “Violet?” Noreen said, her fingers entangled. “I’m so ravenous.”

  “We all need better sustenance,” Polly added, “especially after last night.”

  Della’s veins grumbled in agreement.

  Violet laid a hand on Polly’s head and smoothed back her hair. Then she eased off of the bed.

  “I wonder if providing the campus with something to chat about in the morning rather than ill little girls would be the answer,” she ruminated out loud.

  “Yes,” Polly and Noreen said, excited to see that there was hope. Even Della whispered her own “yes.”

  Blanche merely folded one leg over the other. Even though she had argued, she was hungry, also.

  Polly rolled off of the mattress to her feet. “Mrs. Jones should be out with Mademoiselle at the usual Saturday-night art cinema. That leaves Miss Fairchild in charge.”

  “The bumbling assistant on duty who’s no doubt sleeping in front of the telly.” Violet went to the lace-curtained window and peered at the night. “I’m able to work with that.”

  And work she did while the girls waited to see what she had in her blocked mind.

  Restless, Della changed position on the ground. Polly shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  Noreen began to talk, as was her habit when anxious. “It is good to see Mademoiselle out and about, isn’t it? Mrs. Jones seems to be the only one who can drag her away from that classroom, or even the latest campus project that’s keeping her here until all hours.”

  “Oh, belt up, would you?” Polly moved toward the door, then put her ear to the wood. “I can hear Miss Fairchild snoring.” She imitated it. Snorrrrrrt-snort-snort-snorrrrrrt.

  Noreen giggled, but her laugh was interrupted by a mental fluttering that carved into all of their minds.

  Then . . . a cawing.

  As one, they all looked toward the window, where Violet was grasping the curtain.

  “Vi?” Polly asked.

  She still had her back to them, but the question had been rhetorical anyway. Della shrank into herself as the caws became louder in their heads.

  Blanche got out of the chair, clearly unimpressed as she moved to the door. “Vi’s securing our diversion, yet she’s getting her rocks off, too. Two birds with one stone, eh, Vi?”

  At the notion of finally eating again, Della’s veins seemed to wrap around themselves, and she got to her feet as Violet turned away from the window.

  She was grinning, her eyes flaring purple as she opened her mind to them. Time to leave.

  Like one sleek, stalking entity, they moved into the quiet, fluorescent-paled hall, the lights stuttering above them, responding to the suddenly bristling energy that emanated from the group.

  Violet slid toward the front, but Blanche crowded her. Then Polly nudged the black-haired girl back a position and took up her best friend’s shoulder.

  Mouth tight, Blanche didn’t fight.

  She was too hungry, too anxious for real human blood again. All of them were, even if they were bound for certain punishment if they should be caught.

  Creeping along, they were as silent as a drawn-out gasp, edging through the upper-sixth-form floor, then to the next wing, where the younger girls stayed, three to a room.

  Just from passing each door, they could smell how many students were in-house. The lack of overwhelming human aroma—musky, tangy, tempting—indicated that this section was relatively deserted for the weekend, the chances of getting caught slim.

  Della noticed a particular scent in the air that seemed wonderfully familiar. Sunshine?

  They came to a door that held a white board with neon-markered names—Yuki, Kristine, Annie—and in block letters “WELCOME TO THE FUNHOUSE! Come in unless you see a ribbon tied to the knob, hah-hah.”

  Yes, hah-hah, Violet communally thought while she reached for the knob, then gently opened the door, which always remained unlocked so the housematron or another adult could enter.

  In the back of their minds, they heard the caw, caw.

  Louder.

  Louder.

  As they filtered into the room, the scent of human washed into Della. Sunshine. Why did she keep smelling it . . . ?

  A digital clock flashed the hour. 11:32. Moonlight leered through the window, silhouetting the warped branches of an oak and canting over the three girls who cuddled under their duvets.

  When Della saw her idol, Melinda Springfield, in one of the beds, her heart kicked.

  What is she doing in the younger section . . . ?

  Sensing her unchecked reaction, the group turned their gazes on Della, and Violet bared her teeth in a smile.

  Of course. Della hadn’t known it, but Violet had no doubt heard that Yuki was away for the weekend and Melinda had come to the little girls’ wing to be with her younger sister Annie. . . .

  Caw . . . caw . . .

  A black shadow blocked a portion of the window’s moonlight, and Violet made an emphatic gesture toward Melinda’s bed, then Kristine’s, then Annie’s, twisting her wrist as
if she were locking something.

  Then, overcome by the heady human scent, by the assurance of food, all five fell to their hands and knees, excitement dancing over their spines and making them arch.

  Even Della couldn’t stop herself as her hands hit the carpeted floor and saliva flooded her mouth, stinging her jaws. The cawing seemed to pull at her, even as the hair receded back into her body, leaving every inch of skin bare as her ears were shaping into points, her eyes slanting, her fangs sharpening and growing.

  Caw—

  Then a

  Crash!

  The window darkened as a mass of ravens flew into it, their cries abrading the night while they scratched and banged to get in.

  Little Annie, a small model of her platinum sister, sprang up in bed, and she would’ve screamed if her clamped mouth and frozen vocal chords already hadn’t been charmed by Violet.

  As the second roommate, Kristine, awakened in terror, her hands clawed the air, attempting to discover a voice, as well.

  Everyone but Della laughed soundlessly, needling the air with vibrations.

  The humans had no doubt sensed the brutal mirth digging into their skin, and as if shaking off the swarming prickles, Kristine and Annie both flailed their arms. Their fear tickled the vampires’ appetites until it made the juices in their mouths flood and drip.

  Caw . . . CAW . . .

  Yet Melinda . . . Melinda wasn’t trying to scream, although Della could smell her alluring fear. No, Melinda hopped out of bed and darted to Annie, shielding her younger sister with her body as her horrified gaze focused on the screeching birds that were throwing themselves against the window.

  None of the humans had noticed the eyes glowing in the room’s dark corner yet.

  Kristine ran to Annie and Melinda’s bed, and they fumbled round, cringing and holding each other.

  The other vampires laughed with even more verve, but their gaiety had risen to such heights that they were softly hissing now instead of keeping silent.

  As the humans registered the sound, they went still, and Della began to pant, spellbound by their chemical fear, by this proximity to Melinda.

  Ready? Violet asked mind-to-mind.