“No more,” he said, fogging into her mind.
Suddenly, stopping seemed like the best idea ever.
She tried to force the hypnosis out. Damn it, he’d gotten to her again.
But then, as if unable to hold his position or maybe even reconsidering it, he retreated from her head. Her arm ached while the pressure of his essence disappeared from behind her.
The cold wind of him arced away, toward the other side of the room. Toward the real Jonah. There, the body jerked. Then Costin aimed a glare at her, secure in his host again.
Revealing an expression so terrifying that she couldn’t move.
There really was no going back now. She couldn’t be in the same house as this Costin. Yet there was someplace she could go.
Without thinking further, she darted toward the still-sleeping Kiko, but hit something that felt like a brick wall just in front of the couch he was lying on. The impact was enough to knock the breath out of her and throw her to the floor.
She got up again, only to hear a lone voice say, “Dawn, don’t! Please!”
Breisi. And she was pleading.
Jarred by that—Breisi never begged—Dawn scrambled in the other direction. Taking Kiko with her wasn’t going to happen. Matt. She needed Matt Lonigan on her side now, because there wasn’t anyone else.
She ran, stumbling down the hall, tripping over the rug, and aiming herself toward the stairs. She slid down them more than stepped, then had enough presence of mind to grab her jacket from the clawlike coat tree near the door in the foyer. Her keys were inside, along with a few small weapons. More of the same would be in her car.
As she barged outside, triggering the UV lights and shielding her eyes from the descending sun, she was in such a frenzy that she didn’t stop to spray on any garlic that might act as a repellant to lower vamps. No, she just fumbled with her keys and prayed her car would start.
The engine whined, and with every cycle her nerves got closer to the surface of her skin. Come on, come on, she thought, her eyes starting to blur with heat, her chest clamping into itself.
Finally, it vroomed, and she skidded into the street, driving into the afternoon sun like a maniac, just trying to get away.
Away from Jonah, Costin, jasmine, monsters—
Dawn flailed to get her phone out of a jeans pocket, then almost dropped the cell.
Blood, thick, red, fangs, Costin.
Cursing herself into steadiness, she dialed Matt’s number and then, when he answered, basically yelled that she was on her way and to have the door open when she got there. Maybe he said, “Done,” or maybe he didn’t—Dawn wasn’t sure. All she knew was that by the time she hung up and tossed the phone away, she couldn’t see very well, her eyes flooding, hot, leaking. She tried to wipe the tears with an arm, but they still came.
Jonah. Costin. What had just gone on?
She rounded a corner, heading downhill, swiping at her eyes. Costin, Costin, Costin . . .
She didn’t know how long she drove, where she was as she floored the gas. She didn’t know anything.
But when she turned a corner, nearing Matt’s house, she heaved in a breath, pulling back on the wheel and digging for the brakes when she saw something on the road.
A woman dressed in a long flowing dress, standing as if she’d been waiting for Dawn to arrive.
Tires screamed on the pavement, the windshield view going topsy-turvy, showing the quickly approaching woman holding out her arms in supplication. Her blond hair blew in the breeze as she tilted her head.
Eva?
Something broke inside Dawn.
She jammed down on the gas pedal and targeted yet another betrayer.
Her mother.
TWELVE
BROKEN
SHOULD we awaken Kiko?” Costin asked as he stood at the window overlooking the late-afternoon-shrouded street. He had parted the curtains to stare outside, where Dawn had driven in her rush to get away from him.
Gone. She was finally gone.
Next to him, Breisi floated, heavy with sorrow. “Let’s let him sleep. He’ll get up soon enough, and he’ll have a lot of questions. Put it off for a while.”
“There is always a price, is there not?” Costin pressed his—no, Jonah’s—head against the windowpanes. Blood from when Dawn had slammed him into the wall still ghosted his mouth. While Jonah admitted to enjoying the taste because of his romantic longing for the adventurous life he thought Costin could provide, Costin himself shunned it.
“You put the modified locator on her?” Breisi asked.
Costin thought of the moment he had gotten close enough to press the tracking device on the back of a denim belt loop. “Yes.”
“Then we won’t have long to wait.”
“If she ever arrives at the Underground.”
“Boss, you know that this master would stop at nothing to get her there, and if your suspicions are right, she’s unknowingly been in contact with him. And she needed to be driven to him. Otherwise she never would have left this house while you were still in it. And you know Dawn needed to make that choice herself, because if she was hypnotized, she would fight the mind control off eventually. She didn’t know who to go to, but she knows now. It was a gamble to depend on scaring her away, but we needed to find the location. Frank is there.”
He knew how much that meant to Breisi. It was her only solace these days. “Then it’s up to Dawn now.”
“Sacrifices,” she reminded him. “You told me from day one that this life would be full of them.”
Costin’s shoulders slumped. “I did.”
A jasmine weight pressed on his back. Breisi’s comforting touch. “I know it took you a long time to finally get the cojones to carry this off. It took one final feeding for you to have the strength to let her go. Now we have to take care of the rest and worry about the aftermath later.” Breisi paused. “When Dawn came on board with the team, she said she would do anything to get Frank back, Boss. You’re only taking her at her word.”
He forced himself to straighten his posture, to be a soldier. This was a war, and he’d done what was necessary.
“I only hope,” Breisi said, “that Dawn doesn’t become the enemy.”
Costin went cold, even though Dawn didn’t know enough about his true powers to reveal critical information to an Underground. Let them know he was Costin. Let them wonder.
“God forbid she does,” he said softly.
He then allowed the curtain to fall closed before anyone could say they saw a monster framed in the window of this haunted house.
THIRTEEN
THE WELCOMING
DAWN’S car picked up speed in its path toward the woman in the middle of the road. Her foot crushed the gas pedal, gunning it for all it was worth.
Eva got closer, her blond hair blowing, her hands outstretched with her palms up. She wasn’t moving an inch, as if she were expecting her daughter to hit the brakes.
Dead, Dawn thought. I wish you were dead—
The car’s tinny engine roared, unstoppable as the vampire loomed.
At the last second, her mother dropped her hands, stricken, finally understanding that Dawn wasn’t going to slow down.
As the car’s fender reached Eva’s knees, Dawn cried out, impulsively wrenching the steering wheel to the right and closing her eyes at the expected impact.
Screee—
Resistance, as if someone were pushing against the car. It lost speed....
But Dawn was still going fast enough to thunder to a crunching stop.
A flash, a chop to the knees, a yank so sudden that when it was over, she could only sit there, hearing a sound like a hissing, primal breath. She saw a streetlight pole squished against the seething hood.
Got to get Eva, she thought, not feeling anything at all. Got to try again.
She attempted to start the engine, but it only offered a droning whine. Again. She kept trying and trying, not grasping that her car was done.
Then she l
ooked down at her knees, which had started to burn. Her jeans had been torn open there, her flesh bloodied. The dashboard . . . Had her knees banged into it? And her seat belt had strained into her chest, hurting it, too. Her Corolla was too old to have air bags and, slowly, it entered her mind that she should’ve been really injured at the speed she’d been going.
Unless . . .
Dazed, Dawn turned to her window, where Eva waited by the back of a nearby RV blocking the view of a house. Strong, quick . . . Had her mother slowed the car down before it’d crashed?
Dawn didn’t like knowing how weak she was against these vamps, didn’t like being beaten by Eva yet again.
Always second place, she thought, fumbling with her seat belt and getting her head together enough to grab her cell phone and a couple of weapons from the passenger area’s floorboards.
Always left in the dust.
Ignoring her slight wounds, she stuck her cell in her jacket pocket and busted open her door, barging out with a machete in each hand. Then, not even bothering with a hello, she stumbled toward her mother, who was lingering in back of the RV like she was hiding.
Eva made a put-upon face, then darted to the side as Dawn lunged and sliced a machete where her mother had just been.
“You don’t want to kill me,” the glamour goddess said.
“Wrong.” Dawn spun around to find her target again. It took her a second to steady herself.
“You need to sit.” Somehow, Eva made hand-to-weapon fighting sound maternal.
Dawn sliced downward with the right-hand machete, just as if she could hack at her emotions. Missing, she immediately raised her left arm for leverage, then swung down with it while reverse chopping the right blade back up at Eva.
The vampire easily dodged, then, quick as you please, exploded into her Danger Form, where she rose in a dazzling mist. Within a millisecond, she had swooped into an almost hidden tree at the side of a house with a For Sale sign in the yard. She wove herself into its leaves, her essence pearled, angelic, and decorated with tendrils waving out and in, like silk ribbons in a wind. Dawn couldn’t look away.
She lowered her machetes to her sides because, inside Eva’s cloudy form, she saw images of what she’d always wanted: a mother who was reaching out to embrace her.
“I don’t know what happened inside the Limpet house to make you drive that way.” Eva’s voice held all the silverware chime and soulful simmer of dinner being made in a homey kitchen. “But I’m here for you, even if they’re not.”
Dawn wanted to nod, to go to her mom and imbibe what Eva offered. But a mental twitch kept her from giving in.
When that twitch turned into a nudge, then into full-blown repulsion, Dawn shook her head. Shook Eva right out of it.
“I suppose you were there for me the other night, too,” Dawn said, “when you lied about saving Breisi. You were never going to carry through with it.”
In the tree, Eva twirled back into solid form. When she was done, she was left sitting in the branches, grabbing an overhead limb, and leaning her temple against an arm in summer-soft repose. “Will you listen to my explanations now, D—?”
Zoom quick, she jerked her gaze away from her daughter to something behind Dawn’s back. When Dawn looked, too, she realized that a family across the street was squinting out the window of their quaint house. She got closer to the tree trunk, using it to shelter herself. They’d heard Dawn’s crash, no doubt, and were scoping things out.
So that was why Eva had hidden in this out-of-the-way tree, to remain incognito.
Again, Dawn cleared her head with a good shake, inconspicuously tucking her machetes close to her sides, then taking a better look around. Her vision was a dull sepia that she tried to blink away. But she couldn’t. The neighborhood, with its palm trees and white-planked serenity was familiar.
She’d made it to Matt’s block, near his cottage.
Dawn peered back up into the tree branches, only to find her mother gone.
Goose bumps lifted her skin, and she backed away. From somewhere, she heard people coming out of their houses.
Taking care to hide her weapons, Dawn crept in the direction of Matt’s, minding her balance but dismissing her aches. Maybe she could call a tow truck when she got to him, yet she had no time for going back to the car and taking care of normal-person business now. But, damn it, she didn’t want a random, well-meaning stranger going through her weapon stash.
She could care about that later.
When she got to Matt’s, with those bird-of-paradise plants blocking his windows, she saw him standing in the open doorway, craning his neck to see what was going on down the street. He spied her, then started asking a question.
She sprinted forward, panic welling in her chest and chills eating her spine.
“Dawn, what’s—?”
She stumbled over the threshold, then kicked the door shut. He’d kept it open for her, just as she’d asked. Without a word, she numbly set her machetes on the hardwood floor, took off her jacket, and dropped it.
“I need my car towed,” she mumbled.
Now that her adrenaline had clamped off, she felt like she was moving in a vacuum. Colors had drained themselves out of a room that Matt kept so carefully male: the stark entertainment equipment bleeding wires, the blank walls, the bolted closet door with the basketball backboard canting against it. None of it really registered.
“Was that you making a scene out there?” Matt asked. “I was downstairs, finishing up something before you got here. . . .”
His words dissipated when he noticed her knee-gaped jeans, the wounds. He swallowed, nostrils flaring, then grit his jaw.
“Does Limpet have anything to do with this?”
Angry. That had to be why he was reacting this way. Everyone seemed angry these days.
In her cotton-thick shock, Dawn didn’t know what to tell him. Where should she start? How far should she go?
“Dawn.” He took her hands in his and, faintly, she recognized the scratches she’d given him the other night, baked into the back of his hand in violent reminder.
He guided her toward the couch, and it was all she could do to maneuver her body correctly. But then she took a jittery breath, pulling away from him.
“I’ve got to . . .” She stumbled back to the front window where, between the thwarted colors of the bird-of-paradises, she could see the street. Eva might still be out there. Dawn needed to get Eva. “Did you see her?” she asked.
“See who?” Matt stood next to her.
“My mother.”
He paused. “Isn’t your mom . . . ?”
“Dead?” Yes, she was. Dead to Dawn.
She could sense Matt’s piqued interest. Once more, he began to lead her away from the window, but she wouldn’t let him. She needed to watch for Eva. For any of them. Vampires. Every single one of them was the enemy.
A swipe of Jonah’s—Costin’s—face clawed over her mind’s eye, but she shut it out.
“Hey,” Matt said softly. “First, let’s take care of your knees. Then we’ll talk about getting you some . . . medical help.”
“No.” She hadn’t crashed that hard, thanks to Eva.
Matt kept on. “Then we’ll get a tow and . . . I guess we’ll go from there.”
She glanced at him. Even the usual startling blue of his eyes seemed less vibrant to her now.
“For Pete’s sake.” Taking charge, he lifted her, set her on the long dining table in front of the window. “Happy now?”
She could still scan the street, so she “mmm-hmm”ed. The next thing she knew, Matt had left, then returned with some big bandages, Mecurochrome, liquid soap, and a wet bunch of paper towels. Gently, he tended to her stinging knees, keeping his head down. As he dabbed at the blood with the towels and soap, she thought his hands might’ve been shaking, but she wasn’t sure.
After he cleansed the wounds, he swiped the Mecurochrome over one and she jumped.
“That brought you back a little.”
He smiled slightly.
“Biting off my tongue usually does that.”
Glancing at the bottle, he made a face. “This might be pretty old, but it was the only thing I could find in the medicine cabinet.”
“Let’s put some of that on one of your open sores, and we’ll see how high you can sing.”
He laughed, then cut himself short. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“I’m not talking about Mecurochrome, Dawn.” His gaze was steady. “You know it’s not beyond my experience to believe that you saw Eva Claremont outside. What’s going on?”
Okay. She could start there. But how much should she tell him?
Why not everything?
A red light leeched of its vibrancy beat against her eyes, and she intuitively felt that she should keep Costin to herself. Or maybe not. She had no idea what to do. But Matt deserved to know the basics. He’d earned it with his patience and support.
“Dawn?” he said, tucking back a strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. He looked so sincere. “Whatever it is? It’s okay to be angry about it.”
He grinned, winning her over. Matt understood, even if he had no concept of what she’d gone through today. He was the only one on her side. At her side.
“Much to my pleasure,” she said, throat raw, “I’ve discovered that Mommie Dearest is a vampire.” A near-hysterical laugh quaked in her chest. “How’s that?”
His hands paused as he bandaged one knee. His touch lingered, as if he was memorizing how her skin melded over bone, or how the bruised angles of her were pieced together. Or maybe he was just witnessing her becoming unhinged.
As his finger brushed her flesh, he shuddered.
“No surprise about Eva?” Dawn was positive that she’d never fully confided in him about what her mother had done.
He made an abrupt move away from her knee. “Sure, of course I am.” His forehead furrowed. “I suspected it. . . .”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
He touched her ankle. “Why worry you? I was just getting started on looking into it.”
Okay. She could buy this . . . except for that one fleeting moment when he should’ve shown more of a reaction. Or maybe she was on such hyperdrive right now that she thought everything should be going kaboom around her.
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