Midnight Reign

by Chris Marie Green

  “You were into biting, too?” she asked.

  “Still am. Care to trade some?”

  The feminine side of her preened. Yeah, screw you, Eva. See how men can like me as much as they like you? But her common sense was overriding everything else.

  “Bites aren’t my thing,” Dawn said. “Where do you think Lee got his?”

  As Sasha paused, Dawn noticed her partners trading a glance. From the way Breisi glowered, it was easy to guess that Kiko hadn’t gotten much off of his Sasha reading. Damn.

  “Biting was just playtime for me.” Their interviewee rested his hands on his hips, coming off like the most masculine thing on the block. “But for Lee…? He got more and more into the fetish. Obviously, he went to other sources besides little ol’ me. I’m sure there’re a thousand places in town you can check into, businesses or pleasure palaces that would’ve accommodated him.”

  Almost in desperation, Kiko watched Sasha’s hand, no doubt planning how to touch him again.

  “But,” the ex-lover added, yanking his cap lower, “what do I care? Lee wasn’t the love of my life. Hell, when he hit the big time, like he always bragged about, I was going to leech off of his grand career anyway until it was time to move on. He took what he wanted from me, and I’ve done the same with him.”

  Sasha tossed another charming grin to Dawn, making her wonder if he was full of shit or just the world’s most honest individual. Something told her he wasn’t kidding and wasn’t remotely ashamed of it.

  Once again, his eyes burned into her. Automatically, she reverted to training, jamming him out with a mind block. But after a second, she realized she’d gone overboard.

  God, she was on edge. All this waiting for something to attack them since Robby died was eating at her.

  “Sasha—” she began.

  “My real name’s Dave. Dave Nisro.”

  He seemed to catch something over her shoulder, and his smile grew wider, revealing a set of beautiful white teeth as he spread out his arms and ambled away from his dressing station.

  Dawn followed him, discovering a young man walking toward Sasha/Dave to be enveloped in his embrace. The other male was somewhat familiar to her: slender, pale, his long auburn hair teased out to…

  Oh, crap. Sasha’s friend resembled Klara Monaghan.

  Jaw tight, Breisi guided the team toward the back exit of the dressing room while Sasha nuzzled the new arrival. As the three of them passed, they thanked him, knowing they were anything but done.

  “Give me a call if you need anything else,” he said, eyes still only on the Klara doppelganger.

  Kiko was the last one headed for the door. “Count on it.”

  The exit led to a back alley, where a Dumpster provided stale-trash cologne and a lone streetlight shone piss yellow.

  Weirded out, Dawn stuck her hand in a pocket, fingers digging past some velvet to touch the reassuring, sharp tips of her silver, holy-water-tipped throwing stars: shuriken.

  “That was disturbing,” Breisi said.

  “Which part?” Kiko wrinkled his nose at the Dumpster. “Where the male Klara clone sauntered in or where Sasha kept crossing gender lines to hit on Dawn? It was all…”

  “Something to go on.” Dawn couldn’t hold back a smile because it was a lead, a reason to think Sasha was more invested in Klara or Lee than was obvious. “And I keep wondering—is Sasha vampire material or just a leech?”

  “Guys, we gotta come back,” Kiko said, hopped up. “I had a reading from him—mainly images of Lee, and I don’t want to linger on those, thank you—but nothing about the Underground. I can get more, I know I can!”

  Breisi motioned toward the alley’s mouth and they all moved toward it. “Maybe he isn’t vampire-related at all, Kik.”

  “Maybe he is and I need to dig deeper.” His voice cracked on the last word as they passed the Dumpster.

  Dawn felt terrible for him. “Hey, Kiko, don’t…”

  A shudder ripped through her, a warning that flinted against all the time she’d spent thinking that a vamp attack was just waiting around the corner for them—

  She turned to find red eyes staring back at her, a dark shape huddled beside the Dumpster. Without pause, she extracted a throwing star, fired it at the looming threat.

  “Dawn!” Breisi yelled.

  But it was too late—she was already buzzing, glad to get back into action, to finally do something that would bring her that much closer to Frank.

  The dark shape yelped, jumped away, red eyes dropping to the ground. Dawn’s pulse imploded as she used this distraction to reach for her revolver.

  But before she could fire, Breisi was yelling at her to stop again.

  Vision blurred by memory, by the running red blood of Eva’s crime-scene photos and Robby’s mind rape, Dawn barely held back. Then…

  No. God, no.

  Her eyes focused to reveal a bare-armed homeless woman with blood on her arm from where the blade had glanced off. She was quaking in her ragged clothes—not shrinking in Nosferatu, blood-poisoned injury. She was pinned in terror like a moth that only wanted escape—not clawing at Dawn with gnarled fingers.

  As Dawn’s stomach turned, the woman’s rickety-toothed mouth gaped in a scream, her brown eyes holding nothing but horror.

  Horror at seeing Dawn, who had suddenly, easily turned back into the hunter who’d savagely beheaded a little-boy vampire.

  On the ground, a stuffed animal tilted on its side, toy eyes glowing red. Bile crept up the back of Dawn’s throat.

  “It’s one of them!” Kiko yelled.

  When Dawn turned around, she found Breisi restraining the small man from joining in with his usual monster-hunting verve.

  “No, it’s…” She choked on disgust. “It’s not.”

  She faced the homeless woman again, recoiling at her terrified gape while putting her revolver back in its holster. “She’s human.”

  “How can you be sure?!”

  “Kiko.” Breisi’s tone was forceful. “The holy water and silver are having no effect—”

  “She could be one of those higher-level vamps! Let go of me, goddamnit!” Kiko grunted, trying to free himself.

  Dawn couldn’t feel anything—she was too afraid to. “I thought I saw…felt…” What? What the hell had she felt besides hatred and vengeance?

  For one second, while the adrenaline coursed through her, she’d felt like she had a purpose. She’d felt defined.

  Tentatively approaching the woman, Dawn reached out to her. “I’m sorry. So sorry, here…let me—”

  With an ear-stabbing screech, the woman sprang up, swiped at Dawn with her jagged fingernails and sprang away. She sprinted down the alley, erased by the darkness.

  Dawn’s gaze settled on the woman’s meager belongings: an army bag with torn pants sticking out, a plastic tarp, a ratty, stuffed pink bunny rabbit with dead pink—not even red—eyes. The last item had a bloodstain on it, fresh, livid.

  “We need to find her,” Dawn said, the words barely forming. “We should get her some medical aid—”

  She took off running to the end of the alley. Have to find her, Dawn thought. Have to make sure she’s okay…

  But when she arrived at the exit, she zipped her gaze back, forth, everywhere.

  The woman was gone. Hiding? Where?

  Footsteps slammed the pavement behind her, and without really feeling anything, Dawn recognized that a hand had landed on her shoulder, jerking her back into the alley.

  It was Breisi, frantic, pissed as hell. “Don’t ever run off by yourself. What if she was bait for an ambush, or—”

  “We’ve got to find her,” Dawn repeated.

  “No.”

  When Dawn looked at Breisi, she found her coworker angrier than she’d ever imagined. In back of her, Kiko finally arrived, slow to travel.

  “Dawn, you know what’s at stake,” Breisi half whispered, but her soft tone was lethal. “We cannot tell a medical worker that you stabbed a woman with a martia
l arts weapon.”

  “But you can give her some help,” Dawn insisted. “You’ve done it for me and Kik, with your gel….”

  Looking torn, Breisi glanced around. She was only being careful, Dawn knew, only analyzing the risk of a trap. Gradually, Dawn forced herself to admit the necessity of pausing; she’d already done enough damage by reacting too quickly. Was she going to make it worse by leaving her team?

  Kiko kept right on going past both Dawn and Breisi, clearly intent on finding the woman himself.

  “Kik—” Dawn grabbed at his jacket, holding him back from the unknown.

  He resisted, and Breisi stepped back in, holding his jacket, too, keeping him with them, just as Dawn was.

  “You’re not to engage in anything, Kiko Daniels,” Breisi said. “We’ve been clear about that.”

  He held up a finger, first to Breisi, then to Dawn, accusing them both with a heartbreakingly enraged grimace.

  “You need my help,” he said, voice trembling. “You can’t stop me from giving it.”

  Feeling dead again, Dawn shook her head. “You’re right. We do need you. But you’re not…”

  How could she say it without mortifying him?

  He finished for her. “I’m not up to it right now. You’ve told me. I’m a gimp, physically and mentally. But that’s just because you’re coddling me. If you’d let me loose, I could get us back on track….” He trailed off, probably because he, also, knew that he was lying to himself.

  Without another word, he turned his back on them.

  Slowly, Breisi put an arm around his shoulders, then guided him away, casting one last baleful glance at Dawn, who slowly followed, taking up their backs.

  But before she turned the corner, she looked behind her, seeing the faint glow of the stuffed bunny’s eyes by the Dumpster.

  The pink lights sputtered out.

  ELEVEN

  THE HAVEN

  IN the clenched silence of the SUV, Dawn sat on the edge of her front seat, vainly inspecting the passing storefronts and sidewalks. “Can’t you slow down?”

  Breisi complied as Kiko spoke up.

  “If we haven’t found her by now, we’re not going to do it anytime tonight. The boss even said that none of the Friends can locate her. She’s gone where all the other faceless people in this town go: through the cracks.”

  He’d grabbed the backseat, surrendering shotgun to Dawn, acknowledging that she needed the clearer view in this fruitless search. Lying flat on his back, he wore his sunglasses, as if blocking everything out.

  “Kiko’s right,” Breisi said. “Chances are slim to none we’ll find her.”

  “A slim chance is higher than zero.” Dawn swiveled her gaze back and forth, covering every streetlamp-lit patch of sidewalk and every shadow. This wasn’t over. Not until she made up for her mistake.

  “We can anonymously look around to see if a woman of her description checked into any ERs,” Breisi said. “How is that?”

  “Not enough.”

  Even as she said it, she knew her teammates were right, that they couldn’t do this all night. L.A. wasn’t a sandbox; the wounded lady could be anywhere by now. But, still…it was her own tangled thirst for payback that had injured the innocent bystander, and the more she recalled the thrill of whisking that throwing star at what she thought was a monster, getting it before it got her, the more her self-disgust grew.

  The dashboard clock flashed 11:08, each pulse seeping into Dawn with stressful urgency. But when Breisi turned the SUV back toward the office, Dawn knew it was done.

  I’d take it back if I could, she kept thinking over and over in useless apology to a woman who’d never hear it.

  Wouldn’t I?

  The question stabbed at her, a knife point digging toward what she suspected was the truth.

  Her weapons were real now: no more stunt fighting, no more movie magic that made the imaginary into a facsimile of life. She’d crossed that line a while ago, but it was only tonight, faced with the wounds she could inflict on a human, that she understood the full impact of drawing blood.

  And, someone help her, deep inside she knew she’d do it again if the situation were repeated. She’d do it to get Frank back, and that scared her more than any monster.

  Terror lodged in her throat, and when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, she rushed to grab it.

  The call screen read “Matt Lonigan,” and even though Breisi, his biggest fan, was sitting right there, Dawn went ahead and took it. They’d been playing too much phone tag. “Hi.”

  “Hey.” He hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

  She straightened in her seat, like that would change the flatness of her voice or something. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Breisi glance over, then turn back to the front.

  “I’m just tired.” There. The most deflective excuse in the book. It was almost the How are you? / Fine, thank you, how are you? of meaningless exchanges.

  A beat passed while he probably thought the same thing. Then, “You sound busy. I was actually expecting your voice mail since it’s pretty late….”

  So polite. He often called late, knowing she’d be up. They knew each other’s schedules by now, if nothing else.

  “I’m just…” What? Worried about her id? “…puttering around right now.”

  From the backseat, Kiko grunted but didn’t say anything.

  “Just puttering?” There was a smile in Matt’s voice. “Well, how about that. Me, too.”

  “No pressing PI duties tonight?” Her tone was still comatose, but it was improving. He had that effect on her. “No dead bodies to lurk around or shadows to jump out of? You must be at a loss.”

  He laughed. “See. I knew I could get you to say something scrappy. For a minute I thought you were in a bad mood. Well, worse than normal.”

  What she wouldn’t give to allow him to help her forget. She managed her own smile, then rubbed a hand over her eyes.

  “If you’re not doing much,” he said, voice going low, “I have a couple of ideas about how to cheer you up.”

  “Cheer? That sounds so…” Impossible. But if that were true, why did it send a blip of interest through her?

  They’d reached the Hills by now, pulling in front of their Spanish Revival office. A small sign proclaiming LIMPET AND ASSOCIATES hung over the porch, near the iron cross that guarded the doorway. Like shaded eyes, the circular windows were blocked by iron grating and thick curtains. The red-tiled roof and tan stucco provided caked makeup for the building’s aging face—a Gloria Swanson used-to-be who was creaking into modern times.

  As Breisi pulled into the garage and cut the engine, she didn’t make a move to exit. Even Kiko, slowly sitting up in the backseat, wasn’t leaving.

  Dawn cleared her throat at them, indicating that, perhaps, some privacy wouldn’t come amiss.

  Both coworkers remained rooted. Nosy.

  Matt started to say something again, but Dawn stopped him.

  “Can I call you back?”

  “All right.” He sounded a little baffled.

  She hung up. “May I help you two?”

  “Besides recovering from tonight, you need to catch up on sleep,” Breisi said. “Things are picking up, so any rest you can get now might help later.”

  Kiko joined in. “I think that’s Breez’s way of saying some shut-eye will increase your powers of judgment, Dawn. And you know what? Not a bad idea.”

  Dawn got the impression that he’d wanted to add something like “for us both” to the end of his comment. She didn’t remark on this near-apology for getting angry at her and Breisi. No sense in rubbing salt in his sores.

  “Are you saying you don’t need me for the rest of the night?” she asked Breisi.

  “I’m saying you need to use your time wisely.” The other woman gave a pointed glance toward the phone.

  Dawn’s rebellious attitude reared up. “Did it occur to you that I might be able to get a bead on what Matt knows about Jessica Reese’s murder and
how it’s connected to Klara’s?”

  Breisi opened her mouth, but Kiko beat her.

  “If that’s why you wanna go, then go, Dawn. It’s too late to make any other possible interview appointments tonight anyway.”

  With one sex-patrol glance back at her, he carefully got out of the SUV, sliding down the seat until he hit pavement.

  He shut the door, leaving Breisi and Dawn alone. Genuine worry lingered in her coworker’s gaze, and Dawn couldn’t find it in herself to battle against that. It was kinda nice to be cared about sometimes.

  “Don’t get all fretful,” Dawn said. “I’m defense-ready, just in case he turns out to be the mean man you think he is.”

  “You’ve got free will, but…If you insist on seeing him, would you refuse to have a Friend accompany you?”

  “Breisi.”

  “Dawn.”

  Stalemate. Realistically, Dawn saw the sense in bringing extra protection; part of the reason she found Matt so attractive was his dark mystique. The other part of it was because, out of everyone else in her life right now, he really did make her feel that normalcy was not just an abstract word someone had stuck in the dictionary. In spite of all his possible closet activities, he was a genuine guy. Hollyweird didn’t have many of those. She sure as hell didn’t know any.

  And, anyway, he did know something about Jessica Reese; he’d let on as much the last time she’d seen him. Why not subtly grill him about it in person?

  Breisi traced her car key over the steering wheel. “I don’t feel right about leaving you alone with anyone right now. We should all be sticking together.”

  It occurred to Dawn that maybe Breisi thought she owed it to Frank to watch over his daughter. Unable to help it, she smiled at the other woman, touching her arm briefly before taking her hand away again. Breisi merely nodded once, as if most everything was out in the open now. Right.

  “I’ll tell you what.” Dawn felt like a kid bargaining for the car on a Friday night. “What if one of our Friends hangs around outside while I go to Matt’s. I won’t even stay long, just enough to get some information if he’s willing to give it. No guts, no find-out-about-the-Underground, right?”