Vampire Babylon - Break Of Dawn Part 13

"Tell me"-Jonah slashed again, his face a mash of cuts-"you won't leave."

"Oh, Jonah."

"I won't go any lower with this razor if you promise."

The air went icy, and so did The Voice. Everything stilled.

Jonah held up his wrist.

"I will not leave you," The Voice said quickly. Then his tone took on a dreadful, rueful edge. "I promise."

Through the blood, Jonah smiled again, sinking to the floor. . . .

The memory ended gently, the red fading under Dawn's vision as Jonah's real face came back into focus. His beautiful, young, brutally scarred face.

He had removed her and Kiko's hands from his cuts, his blue eyes gauging her reaction.

Dawn's heart was beating so fast it was numb. She heard Kiko's heavy breathing next to her. Drenched with sweat and s.h.i.+vering, he lost his balance and Dawn caught him, getting to her knees so she could cradle his body on the floor.

"Is that an answer for you?" Jonah asked. It was such a young question from a young soul.

Jonah's soul. Not The Voice's.

They were two different ent.i.ties altogether.

She dragged her gaze back to him, only to find him looking so intent for a response that it almost crushed her heart.

"Please explain what just happened." Her words barely got past the dryness in her mouth.

He parted his lips to answer, but a bolt of cold air cut the s.p.a.ce between Jonah and Dawn. His body lifted, slamming back against the couch, while his eyes closed. For a second, all Dawn could hear were Kiko's labored breaths, her own heartbeat in her ears.

Fear did a pinching dance on her skin as her gaze traveled to the field of fire painting.

It was empty.

Then, from his p.r.o.ne position, Jonah . . . whoever . . . slowly opened his eyes to reveal the topaz hue she'd come to know so well.

But she hadn't known this. Had never even imagined he could be so different than what she'd expected.

Whoever it was sat up ramrod straight on the couch, once again the warrior.

ELEVEN.

THE BREAK.

DAWN held the shaking Kiko to her chest as he grabbed on to her tank.

"Who's in Jonah's body now?" she yelled at the stranger sitting on the couch so stiffly. "Who the h.e.l.l are you?"

When he answered, he seemed supremely unaffected by what had just happened. In fact, there was even a streak of cruelty rippling a low, harsh voice that nowhere resembled that of the real Jonah's tone.

"I am the same man you have known for over a month now, Dawn, and you should know that even I have my limits. Your meddling has finally gone too far."

She ignored that last part, ignored that Jonah had wandered in here for some random reason and offered himself to her, because she was stuck on something else he'd said. "Man? You call yourself a man?"

"I have been called myriad things." He forced a horrible smile, his eyes intensely golden. "And 'man' is what I prefer to most others."

Even through the shakes, Kiko spoke up. "The fire field . . ."

Dawn glanced up at the empty painting, then back to the stranger. She didn't want to keep him out of her sights. "Is that where you rest, just like any other Friend?"

"Yes, but I am not so much like them under it all. Not remotely."

Maybe the pieces should've all fallen together at that point, but she didn't get it. Didn't get any of it.

This lack of control made her feel more helpless than ever, especially when she realized that the room had filled with the scent of jasmine. Friends. A whole jury of them.One of their voices threaded through the air, feminine and song-like. "Toss 'er out. . . ." Dawn thought she heard the spirit say, even though she couldn't be positive.

Kalin?

The stranger in the real Jonah's body hadn't moved a muscle, even when other Friendly voices chimed in to drown out the Fire Woman, to cover whatever poison she was trying to spew.

"I hope you're planning to tell us your real name now," Dawn said to The Voice-because that was all he was to her again. Just a thing. To have him mean any more would remove the last st.i.tch holding her together.

Kiko fought to sit up, but didn't move away from the arm she kept around his shoulders. She was pretty sure he hadn't known about their boss. Hadn't known any of it.

"I can tell you more than just my name," the stranger said.

The Friends' voices rose again, one emerging louder than the others. Kalin's. "She's trouble . . . too much trouble-"

Cut off. It sounded like someone-maybe Breisi?-had shut Kalin up. Dawn took advantage of that.

"Stop stalling."

The room seemed to go cold at the commanding tone she'd used.

She thought she saw something sad in the stranger's eyes, but he hid whatever it was by lifting his-Jonah's-hand in a careless gesture. "Mr. Limpet is my gracious host."

She knew in her gut that he was referring to more than just living in this house. The Voice's essence-the force that'd been inside her so often-lived in that fire-field portrait, and when he wasn't there, he was in Jonah Limpet's body.

"You've taken him over?" she confirmed. "And he's the one who told Kalin to bind me that day, wasn't he? That wasn't you at all.

You . . . you stopped him from going any further. I remember how it sounded like there was a struggle, and then your voice-this voice-told me not to turn on the light. . . ."

The stranger a.s.sessed her, narrowing his eyes. "Jonah tends to want whatever I have, so during one of his 'breathers,' he sought you out. It was inconvenient."

Good G.o.d.

None of the agency's other spirits-the Friends-had usurped a body. Not to Dawn's knowledge. Then again, he'd already said he wasn't like the Friends. So what did that make him?

She wanted to know. And she didn't. She really, really didn't.

He must've read the trepidation on her face, because he stopped watching her, as if finally seeing what he'd been expecting in her reaction all along. "Does that satisfy your curiosity, Dawn? Do you have a better idea of what you are dealing with now, and will it finally put a stop to your invasive activities?"

She held on to Kiko, just as he was holding on to her. The sweat from his body was making her arms slippery, dampening her s.h.i.+rt.

Or maybe it was her own fear doing that.

This wasn't happening. She hadn't seen into Jonah's head, hadn't made this discovery. d.a.m.n it, why couldn't she blank it all out?

"Don't you wish to know more?" the stranger's voice thundered. "Or have you had enough?" She flinched, but she didn't back off. She just wanted to attack, to take back her mind and put it the way it used to be.

"There's more to tell?" She got to her knees, protectively maneuvering Kiko behind her.

You work for a monster, Eva had told Dawn. Why hadn't she listened, even to her mother?

Jasmine started to press in around her and Kiko, as if flanking them. Dawn's blood began to race, her hearing going fuzzy in panic.

The stranger smiled that unfamiliar, vicious smile again. Where had her boss gone? Had he forgotten how he'd filled her last night?

And didn't he understand that Jonah, himself, had given her permission to see inside his head?

"You want to know how I came to take my host over, yes?" the stranger continued. "You and your endless nagging would perhaps cease to drive me mad if you knew my true name, my true self? Do you wish to see the darkest parts of me now? Will that make you happy?"

"What's wrong with you?" Sure, they'd had their moments, but even in his worst hours, he was always respectful.

"Ah, avoidance." The Voice nodded. "Now that it comes down to it, you wish to shut out reality, just as you did with your mom's death. Yet after hearing the truth of that, Dawn, all has not turned out so well, has it?"

b.a.s.t.a.r.d. "Why would you be so willing to blurt out the truth now instead of b-"

Before she could finish, something unseen hit her, bowling her backward until her spine flattened against the rug. Gold-all she saw was the topaz of his irises, and the color, the heat, was sizzling her eyes. His essence had come inside her head, taking advantage of the door she'd always left open for him. He was searching around her brain, violating. . . .

She screamed, pus.h.i.+ng against him as he pummeled her memories of being kidnapped by Eva, of going to rescue Breisi, of seeing the woman who'd come to mean so much to her die- Then, just like that, it was over.

Gagging, she rolled to her side, her s.h.i.+rt clammy, her skin filmy.

"What did you do to her?" Kiko yelled.

She heard his feet pounding the floor. He was charging the boss-the stranger.

Weakly pus.h.i.+ng to her elbows, she tried to get up, but she was too late. Just before Kiko jumped at The Voice, the little man was picked up by a whoosh of air, then pinned to an adjacent couch. There, he stayed, punching at nothing.

"Breisi!" he yelled. "Let me go!"

Breisi's essence flew away while other whispers shot toward him, whispers Dawn had heard earlier when the collected Friends had put Kiko, then her, to rest.

Within seconds, he closed his eyes, his head lolling to the side.

Wait-Dawn could command the Friends. She'd forgotten because it was such a new power.

She began to order them to leave Kiko alone, but the stranger quashed her hopes.

"My commands take precedence over yours, so do not bother."

She almost preferred being put to sleep over this. Would the Friends be lulling her next? Then why was this stranger bothering to taunt her? What was happening?She got to her hands and knees, unable to stand because of her jelled legs. "What's wrong with you?"

Her guard slipped and, for one moment-just one-she didn't want to fight. She wanted her mentor, her guiding force, back.

She whispered the rest. "What are you doing?"

At that, he seemed to wilt a fraction. But then he went rigid. "I'm being the monster you should have expected. Did your mother not warn you? Were you not paying attention to what she was trying to tell you?"

"Shut up." She almost put her hands over her ears but fought the urge. Blocking out her mother's words from the outside wouldn't do anything when they were already ingrained in her head. They were burning, scarring a message into her gut that she never should've ignored.

A monster. One of them.

Or maybe even worse?

"What I find interesting," the stranger said, his tone like a slight retreat, "is that you still don't want to believe what Eva said about me. I saw that in your mind, as clear as day."

Confused by his change in voice, Dawn hardened herself, avoiding the stranger's eyes now, vowing he wasn't going to get inside her again. "I'm starting to believe what she told me."

"That's because you will never trust me." He leaned forward. "No matter how much you learn about me, it will never be enough. In fact, it will be too much."

It was already too much.

She tried to get to her feet, clawing at the rug in her effort.

The stranger shook his head. "No sense in standing unless you wish to walk out the door."

She stopped at the return of his razored tone.

"Go on, Dawn. You are free to leave."

Everything seemed to fall down around her. Wasn't the team supposed to stay locked down? Wasn't it dangerous for her to venture outside?

Or was it more dangerous in here?

"I . . ." she began.

"Invading my host was the last straw. You clearly have no respect for my privacy, though, last night, I thought you might have cultivated some. But you are unwilling to accept my protection here in the house without causing distress, and you will need to leave us."

"But . . . I'm 'key.' "