“The Master would let us know if he knew,” yet another vamp said, leading to even more comments.
“Maybe the Guards have already taken care of the rest of them?”
“Or maybe the Groupies did.”
“It’d be nice to have that update. . . .”
Another smack on the butt made Dawn flinch. The burn in her throat made her choke back threatening tears.
Her head began to tighten.
“Tell us, you little bitch!” Another spank from what had to be Rea. Then another.
Outside the emporium, there was a shriek, this one closer. Dawn didn’t know if it was in her own head or for real.
Another spank. With every one, her poise took a hit. But her helpless outrage flared.
Something barged into the other end of the emporium, making most of the Elites gasp and stir, but Dawn could only feel a tentacle sneaking beneath her body to undo her jeans for a bare-assed whack.
A furious sob came from Dawn, and her mind exploded.
Vision blurred, she levered to her hands and knees, directing her fury at Rea. Meanwhile, the rest of them were whirling around the room, frenzied by whatever had come into the emporium.
At Dawn’s mind punch, Rea’s mist and tentacles had spun away like an unraveling ball of silk threads. The vampiric mass crashed into a pillar, then banged to the ground.
Quickly, Dawn groped over the floor, toward her dropped revolver, aiming at Rea and plugging it in the heart.
As she squeezed off a shot at another vamp that was fleeing toward the door with the rest of the herd, the room went to an even higher level of chaos. Something had clearly won their attention away from Dawn.
Her silver bullet pierced her target’s heart and, just then, Dawn realized which Elite she’d gotten. Charity Flynn screamed and clutched her chest. Then, like a career gone into free fall, her celestial beauty sucked into where the bullet had struck, a star collapsed into nothing.
Wobbling to her feet, Dawn began to stumble toward a pillar for cover. But one Elite wasn’t letting her go anywhere.
Jesse Shane.
She aimed at him. Bam—her bullet caught the silver fringe of his Danger Form, and he jerked back but didn’t implode.
Damn—silver anywhere but in the heart poisoned but didn’t immediately kill.
Shaking his head, Jesse got into a compacted attack position, then charged her. Dawn rolled away, shooting again, missing altogether this time.
He whizzed above her, intimidating her by hovering, then zoomed down to attack, his mouth opening in a silvery, fanged grimace.
“Costin,” she said under her breath as she raised her revolver. Probably her last word, and she’d spoken his name.
It all came rushing back—an avalanche of emotion that destroyed all the containers where she’d been keeping her real feelings: a flash flood of heat, remorse, bewildered anger.
Crasssshhh!
At her mind punch, Jesse spun backward, as if hitting a shield.
Steeped in everything she’d always tried to white out of her, Dawn now opened herself to the anguish Eva had initiated, the self-hatred Dawn herself had nursed all these years. She used every burst of it to pound back at the ever-weakening Jesse, wielding the fear of not knowing how long she could keep this up to feed her even more.
But each mental smash was losing power. . . .
Costin, bait, using each other—?
Now her repulsing grew in strength and, soon, Jesse dropped to the floor, swishing back to his more human form while he held his waist where her bullet had nicked him, poisoning him.
She sprang up and came to stand over his body, leveling her revolver.
“Mercy?” He was still playful, grinning at her as if his charm could win the day. But he was nervous, too.
Aw.
Dawn planted a bullet in his heart and his smile disappeared in an inward rush of full-body oblivion.
Then she ran—no, tripped—to the other end of the emporium, where shrill cries strained her ears. What she found surprised the tar out of her: the smell of jasmine—Friends!—plus the sight of all but two Elites frozen statue still in their more human forms: she recognized Tamsin Greene among them before she realized that two remaining vampires had flown up to the golden dome, plastering their Danger Forms against it like filmy webs.
What the hell? They were afraid of the Friends, even though the vampires knew how to captivate them . . . ?
Then the truth hit. Duh—these Elites didn’t want to be statued like the others. But how were they getting statued?
At the reprieve, Dawn got out her flamethrower to see if it was working well enough to cover the range. Then she heard Kiko’s voice; it hardly registered.
He’d run to her, now that the Friends were in control. “Those last two Elites are peeing their pants so hard that they’re not even thinking of captivating our girls. The others”—he gestured toward the statued Elites—“never knew what hit them.”
Slowly, Dawn turned to the psychic, finding his gaze on the dome. Frank walked up to them, too, towering over them both as he scowled at the mini Elite gathering.
Then Breisi’s voice whispered into Dawn’s right ear. “I shouldn’t have expected you to follow the boss’s orders and stay home.”
All the heaviness, the anger, left Dawn in a shaky moan. “Breisi.”
An indistinguishable nattering from a second Friend shook Dawn’s other ear. There, the jasmine was overpowering.
“Aw, Kalin,” Kiko said. “Shut up and do your thing.”
He tossed a hand-sized velvet bag into the air and, just like that, all the jasmine swept up and away, toward the dome, the bag juggled aloft, as if an invisible force or ten were batting it around.
Even Breisi got in on the action. “Here we go.”
But first her jasmine trailed toward Frank. He smiled, reached out a hand as if to touch the scent, then lowered his arm as he watched the spirit-woman he loved go to work.
Kiko indicated Dawn’s washed-out, bloodied shirt and her ripped ear. “I see you’ve been busy.” He nodded toward the traveling Friends. “After you disappeared, one group of Friends caught us in the halls before we could even find Eva. On the way, they neutralized some Elites with—jeez, wait ’til you see what they have in those bags—and then shuttled us to a little closet room where vials were being kept. That’s when we all let Breisi and the other captivated Friends out of those containers. Then, just like nothing happened, they all went to work on the rest of the Underground. They were protected by the last of a hypnotic spell that Costin used to let them sneak around undetected, so none were captivated this time out.”
Costin . . .
She let go of the name and instead took in how, for the first moment in ages, Kiko seemed confident, redeemed by finally getting to play the stud again. True, he was slurring slightly, but what could they do about that now?
“Only thing is,” Kiko continued, keeping his eye on the spirits as they swarmed near the two leftover Elites, “the Friends wanted to get back to a room of souls—the ones the Master was collecting from his Elites. I don’t know what we’re gonna do with what’s in that room, but the Friends won’t be quiet about seeing to them.”
Dawn imagined that Costin probably had plans for those Elite souls: releasing them so they could return to their humanized owners after the Master was vanquished? Or would that happen automatically?
She glanced around for her saw-bow, then picked it up and came back to watch what the Friends were up to with the remaining Elites.
“They had everything in check before we even got here,” Kiko said. “Kick-ass former vamp hunters, huh? They haven’t lost it. You know how the Friends were all secretive in the lab? That’s ’cause Breisi was helping Costin make this . . . stuff.”
“Stuff?” Dawn secured her bow on the floor, then reloaded her revolver while keeping her eyes raised above.
Near the dome, out of seemingly nowhere, something sprayed out of the bags at the
Elites, as if forcefully spread by the Friends.
Silver sprinkles?
The Elites seemed to inadvertently inhale the matter, moaning as they struggled to breathe.
“You’ll see,” Frank said. “The Friends made some silver-based dust that should put every vamp but the Master out of commission while Costin does his own work. Once that silver concoction’s in the Elite’s system? Loss of body control—poison. Friends say they already took care of all the Elites who weren’t hanging out in this room.”
“Except for Eva,” Kiko added. “They said she’s with the Master and she’s not moving around anyway.”
Dawn’s stomach flopped, and she turned to her dad. When he didn’t react, she wondered if he still wanted to go after his wife, even though he didn’t need her help to find Breisi anymore.
At that moment, there was a wailing from above, and it consumed her attention. Silver dust showered down, blocking Dawn’s view of the action at first. But then she saw something wondrous: the two Elites changing from Danger Form to their solid bodies. Their silk clothing fluttered as Friends guided the vampires down, down, like comets streaking from the sky.
By the time the bodies were laid on the floor, they’d become flesh-and-blood statues.
Dawn got closer to inspect them, gritting her teeth at the aches in her joints and bruises on her skin.
“It’s just temporary until the boss can take care of the Master,” Frank said, sounding proud at Breisi’s genius in creating vamp weapons. “The Friends don’t have to kill to be efficient yet ruthless.”
Speaking of ruthless. Dawn thought about Eva again. What if the Master had punished her mother and that was why she wasn’t moving? What if she needed their help?
Dawn had to get more information before deciding how to go about phase two of her own personal Underground mission. “And the Groupies and Guards? Are they out of the way?”
“We got other Friends seeing to the lower vamps,” Frank said, “but from what we heard, the Groupies and Guards pretty much took care of one another. Groupies got snacked on hard.”
“Any Servants?”
“Friends said they’ve all gone Above. They’re nothing anyways.”
“And the surviving Guards?”
With one last look at the Friends tending to the motionless Elites, Frank hefted his flamethrower and started for the door. “We’re going to try more dust on them. Breisi said that Costin was going to take care of euthanizing Guards after he finished his job, but I volunteered to do it first, since we’re down here anyway. I figure I might as well stay on his good side.”
“Let’s go then,” Kiko said, untroubled by the possibility of getting busted. He was still flying high in hero mode and, really, it was good to see.
Still, Dawn’s first instinct was to stop them from putting the not-running-on-all-cylinders Kiko at risk again, but she decided she would go with them instead. She would talk to Frank about Eva on the way. If he wanted to help, great. If not, oh well.
“So,” she said carelessly—acting!—“it sounds like Costin’s no doubt doing okay in his part of the Underground. He had everything planned, all right, but—”
“Don’t even,” Kiko grumbled as they headed for the door. “I don’t have to read your mind to know what you’re thinkin’.”
Even though her body felt pulled to another side of the Underground, where Costin was probably even now fighting with Benedikte, Dawn forced herself to follow her group.
They entered the hallway, where more Elites lay frozen on the tile, no longer a factor. Then a stream of jasmine joined them while the team readied their weapons for any unexpected Guards, Groupies, or even Servants.
The lights in the hallway flickered with malicious warning while they patrolled, up and down, all the rock walls looking the same. But the Friends kept them on course by zipping ahead and reporting back. Plus Frank was familiar with the surroundings, thanks to Eva.
When they heard a massive scream that shook the walls, they all looked at one another, knowing exactly what it was. The Master, or maybe Eva . . .
Or it could’ve even been Costin.
Dawn sprinted toward it, knowing nothing could keep her from where she really wanted to be.
WHILE Dawn was facing the Elites and the Friends were dusting the house, Costin and Benedikte were meeting head-on.
Perhaps the Master was withstanding the attack so deftly because he knew Costin’s limits in battle: the hesitation he had shown before taking the vow, the loyalty that had linked him to the sovereign for only as long as Costin could endure, the humanity both Benedikte and Costin had shared in their bond as friends.
But now, in Benedikte’s frenzied state—one that Costin chalked up to a disease of the mind, cultivated through the madness of living too many years without a soul—he was all but unstoppable.
In Costin’s rented spirit form, he had advantages a monster like Benedikte did not: Costin could dart here and there, disappearing in collapsed pockets of air and popping up somewhere else to attack. Yet Benedikte had the strength of insanity on his side, flashing from human form one moment to a hell-beast mass of smoky matter another.
Now, as they circled each other in the Master’s room, Benedikte wore this last terrible shape. Costin could see hints of nightmares inside his brother’s abysmal form, yet the images did not affect him. He had lived with these nightmares every day, and they had only served to drive him in this quest to rid the world of the dragon and his ilk.
In a spurt of quickness, Costin jammed Benedikte against the wall, then popped from left to right, emerging and disappearing as if he were a sparring boxer, putting off the foe until weakened. Soon he would have to retreat back to Jonah, who was still recovering on the floor from the sensation of Costin being out of body. But first Costin needed to get the Master into a more helpless state that would leave him open for the final attack—
As Benedikte took a swipe at him with a meaty, translucent-yet-solid claw that rent the air, Costin popped into a pocket of atmosphere, then reconstituted on the other side of the room.
“This is not worth the effort you are expending, Benedikte.” He was using what Dawn had always called The Voice, his ultimate weapon. Out of Jonah’s body, the undiluted power of it was always a master’s undoing. In body, it was not enough weapon to fight any brother who had taken the blood vow. At least thus far. Unfortunately, Benedikte was taking longer than most masters since he seemed to have more than just an Underground on his mind: was Benedikte also fighting for Eva? To get her back somehow? Or was he thinking of Dawn, too . . . ?
At the repeated thoughts of Dawn, Costin faltered, then forced himself to concentrate. “Does the thought of happiness, eternal and bright, not appeal to you?”
He had sensed this longing in his brother’s mind before Benedikte had shut him out. And, just as Costin had hoped, the Master’s dark form finally withered, as if touched by the possibility.
He stilled, then drifted, stormlike, over to the unconscious Eva Claremont. Her mind was blank to Costin, and he had not the strength to concentrate on both vampires.
Suddenly, Benedikte’s black form shuddered, and even Costin reacted, his essence ruffling in discomfort.
“Happiness does not exist,” the Master said, warped voice shaking. “It is a lie.”
Encouraged that a little hypnosis might end up going a long way with a master in such a torn state, Costin continued. “It was not a lie with your wife. Remember?”
Costin detected a smudge of recollection wipe through Benedikte’s sheer form, an image of Tereza, who would have died centuries ago as a human. She had the same innocent smile that had made Eva Claremont a superstar.
Now was the moment to end this.
Summoning every ounce of energy—energy he could only conjure out of body—Costin cast a solid-looking image of Tereza, blond and tiny and pale. This was more than the usual hypnotic vision—this would be life itself to Benedikte. This would be the Trojan horse carrying his destru
ction.
Costin’s essence shook with the effort of aiming Tereza on the other side of Eva Claremont, manipulating the vision into holding out her arms to Benedikte in a plea for him to return to her.
“Come to me,” he made her say to Benedikte, juxtaposing the fantasy next to the movie-star vampire who had betrayed her master. Anything to get Benedikte to lower his defenses.
The labor in completing the fantasy, coupled with being away from Jonah’s body, was sapping him moment by moment. While Costin hovered near Jonah’s slumped form, his soul jerked in anticipation of returning.
As for Jonah himself, the boy knew what to do now: he fumbled with a small flamethrower beneath his coat. Fire always seemed to work on masters—it was far more concentrated than the mere sunlight most could withstand. Costin prayed it would be the same with a weakening Benedikte. . . .
Across the room, the Master’s form had started to shift again, flickering back and forth between the deadly smoke and the body Costin knew as Benedikte—a form most open to decimation just as soon as the vampire committed fully to it. His bound hair had fallen loose from its band, slumping over a brow as he reached for the Tereza vision.
Yes, Costin thought. Forget everything but her! Become yourself again, Benedikte.
When he felt a tug of need consume his body, urging it to get back to Jonah soon, he ignored it. He was almost there, almost done with this master, and he could not maintain this caliber of image unless he was out of Jonah’s body, unblocked by human matter.
“Happiness,” Costin whispered in his Voice. “She wants you to join her, Benedikte. Join her as yourself.”
Still flickering between smoke and Benedikte form, the Master began to weep as he got closer to the wife he had so loved. The wife who had indeed brought him such joy during their life, even through their trials.
Then Benedikte remained in humanlike shape for a longer time, flickered to smoke again, and finally went back to being himself. . . .
A mighty yank drew Costin nearer to his host, a costly distraction.
At the same time, a whole-bodied Benedikte leaped forward to embrace Tereza—a vision that his arms cut right through.
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