Vampire Babylon - Break Of Dawn Part 14

It'd come off as pathetic. Dawn even cringed, but she recovered quickly, p.i.s.sed off that he had the power to make her feel so insignificant.

"Kiko has been wrong before." The Voice leaned back against the couch, bending a leg so he could rest his ankle on the other knee.Bulls.h.i.+t. Once The Voice had told her that he had a lot of faith in Kiko's talents. That couldn't have changed so drastically.

She stood her ground. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm not leaving. This is crazy."

"This is necessary," he whispered.

Dawn's toughness slipped a little. A c.h.i.n.k in his armor?

"Leave," he said, "before you can never go back. Just leave, Dawn."

Leave? And go where? And do what?

"Oh, how merciful," she said, fighting oncoming tears. "Do you actually think I can 'go back' to walking around the streets without knowing what's under them? Do you think I'll ever be the same person again?" Her fingernails dug into her palms, clutching on to something since everything else was out of her grasp. Her nails broke skin but she still kept pressing.

Once, when she'd first come back to L.A., Kiko had told Dawn that she'd never return to her old job as a stunt double. She'd thought he was full of it, but he'd been right.

She'd always been wrong.

Dawn forgot about protecting herself, allowing her gaze to meet the stranger's. What she saw there made her want to cry out in frustration. It was the old Voice, the one who'd taken her under his wing and educated her, even while keeping her at an intimate distance.

Then, as if he'd gotten caught, the stranger's body seemed to steel itself, transforming before her very eyes into the thing she didn't know anymore.

"I cannot afford to care how life will treat you from this point on," he said.

But she'd seen that he still cared, somewhere in that body of his. She knew it, and this was all another one of his games.

She gave it right back to him. "Okay. So when the Underground comes to get me for the part I played in hunting them down, you'll just shrug and chalk it up to life as a Limpet PI. Is that how all your team members end up-deserted if they don't become Friends?"

He was clearly battling himself, like he wanted to argue but wasn't going to.

Unable to tolerate it anymore, she made a dismissive motion. "You are a monster-just not one to be that afraid of."

As she began to turn her back on him, her nape tingled. Chills.

What's he doing? What's he thinking . . . ?

Against her gut instinct, she looked back. He'd come to a slow stand, looming in a rage, his jaw and hands clenched.

"Would you finally leave if you knew the true definition of 'monster'?" he asked. "Is that what this will take?"

She didn't like the question, didn't like his nightmare tone. And when he lowered his chin and offered a terrible smile, she regretted ever stepping into the Limpet house.

In his hands, something was gleaming. The dagger-the simple tool etched with a C that had shown her the stuff of h.e.l.l with Kiko's help.

No. No, he wasn't saying what she thought he was saying- "The mark on this dagger stands for 'Costin,' " he growled. "That is my true name."

Dawn's blood hammered in her temples, her vision pulsing until her eyes hurt.

Costin. C. Bloodl.u.s.t. Monster.

The seer in Kiko's dagger vision.

A wet stream slithered out of one eye, trickling down her cheek. "Stop saying things like that. You're going too far."

He walked toward her, dagger outstretched, as if asking her to take it from him. On a different day, she might've thought he was begging her to remove a burden from his soul.

"I was introduced into this new life through blood," he said. "I know what it is like to thirst for it, to murder for it, to drink it until my every fiber sings with it. As you have seen, I have the potential to be a monster, like the vampire Robby Pennybaker who raped your brain." His eyes heated. "Like the mother you claim to hate."

She tasted bile in the back of her throat. The stench of jasmine compounded her nausea. He'd been inside her, with her permission, caressing her, saturating unfilled holes where she hadn't allowed anyone before.

Her legs itched to move, but she couldn't. d.a.m.n her, she did trust him, because she couldn't believe what he was saying, couldn't truly believe he could be evil, too.

She barely got out her last question. "Are you one of the masters?"

Another awful smile. "I should have been."

The sinister insinuation seeped into her until every last hope she'd been clinging to rotted away. He was just like the Master she hated. Just like a cold killing machine.

"Then G.o.dd.a.m.n you, whoever you are," she said.

"Too late." Costin stopped short of her, the dagger offered. It lay like a sleeping creature nestled in his hand.

Just like the Master. She wanted to use the weapon on him so badly, but her confusion held her back. None of this made sense.

His change in temper, his story, his holding out the dagger right now. He said he had feasted on blood, but why hadn't he taken it lately?

No sense, no sense . . .

Jasmine stifled her, pressing in like the sides of a coffin. She struggled for pure air, but couldn't get it.

A stray thought parted the waves of nausea. Help. Who could help her? One person. One PI vampire hunter who'd told her he could take care of everything.

The dagger winked as Costin shoved it closer. He kept watching her, the scars on his face livid. In his smile, she saw the hint of a Robby Pennybaker, of Eva herself, of a master somewhere Underground who had planned Breisi's death.

Monsters.

Anger and terror exploded inside of her at the same time, and she lunged through the jasmine to grab at the dagger. But with heart- stopping speed, the stranger gracefully removed the weapon from her reach.

"Thank you, Dawn, for making this easier," he said, his lips twisting at her betrayal. "Now get out of my sight." He'd set her up. The helplessness built in Dawn's soured stomach, pus.h.i.+ng up through her chest until it burst out of her head with a force she'd never been able to control.

Until now.

Zoom-she aimed her mind power at him, hitting him and thrusting him backward. He stumbled, then recovered his balance.

For a naked second, she saw something like surprised admiration in his gaze before it went cold again.

"It is going to end this way, then?" he asked, tucking the dagger into the back of his pants. When his hand emerged, it was fisted.

"You don't scare me," she said.

"No?"

He wandered closer, his eyes like magnetic forces. Suddenly, she couldn't move. Hypnosis.

Her mind snowed as he stalked her, circling and maneuvering behind her, then pressing into her back. But she was in such chaos that her body didn't know how to react, not even when she felt the tug of his fingers at her jeans waistband.

"What would it take to scare you off?" he whispered, slipping a finger past the denim so that it brushed the small of her back.

Her body, then her head, split into pieces.

Blood thirst . . . Jonah . . . good guys and bad . . .

Who was who?

It was only when he backed off and came around to the front of her that she could focus again.

Fight him off, her instincts shouted. Don't let him near you.

She used her own mind to pound away at the hold he had on her. Out, get out!

Shoop-his mind sucked out of hers and she brought her fists up through the perfumed air, bending her knees in a fighting stance.

She felt something pulling at her, as if the Friends were keeping her from their leader.

So instead of attacking him physically, Dawn summoned her mind energy again, las.h.i.+ng out.

It was as if he'd been slapped. His head whipped around and, when he faced her again, his hair stuck to his cheek.

He stood strong, ready to take whatever she had to give.

She let loose, pus.h.i.+ng, pus.h.i.+ng, forcing him back step by step until he was at the couch.

"Save your strength," he ground out. "Stop and leave now."

Like she was going to follow that advice, especially from . . . What? Who?

Anger renewed by bewilderment, she struck out again, this time with a mental punch so forceful that he spun to the wall.

As he smacked it, the portraits shuddered, and Dawn's breathing almost stopped.

Slowly, he turned to her again, his mouth red with blood. He licked his lips, as if tasting it. She thought she heard . . .

A slight groan? Or was it the sound of a nearby Friend?"Last warning," he said quietly. "Go before this continues in a direction no one wishes to see."

There'd been a sting of pain in his words, and that made her even more crazed. Anger took the form of heat, and it flared inside her. This time, when she pushed with her mind, the stranger reacted.

Jonah's body slumped to the ground, as if deserted and, before she knew it, Costin's essence was behind her-smelling of that strange, exotic mint while wrenching her arm up between her shoulder blades until agony consumed her.

"No more," he said, fogging into her mind.

Suddenly, stopping seemed like the best idea ever.

She tried to force the hypnosis out. d.a.m.n 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 s.h.i.+elding 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 winds.h.i.+eld 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.