Vampire Babylon - Break Of Dawn Part 19

By the door, Eva was taking all this in, hugging her arms over her middle.Dawn gave the Master a negligent look up and down, her eyebrows drawn together. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

The Master masked his surprise. "I'm sure you don't."

She turned to Eva, who lifted her shoulders in a more modest shrug.

"Familiarity bodes well," he said, channeling the smoothness of the vampire he'd always been. There, this was better. She was a human; he was a force of supernature.

Grunting softly, Dawn started walking around the room while running a hand over the rock walls. "This is where I'm supposed to stay? Before Limpet attacks, that is?"

Beautiful-she'd slipped right into where the conversation needed to be.

"The room suits you well."

She walked down to the sunken bed, just below where he was standing in front of the long mirror, his back to it. With an odd look, she touched the delicate veiling that tumbled from the bed frame, as if she were almost afraid to come into contact with something that was her opposite.

"To think," she said, "that a couple of nights ago I was sleeping on a couch at a buddy's place."

"The Underground isn't a flophouse." The Master watched the sheer material caress her fingertips.

She seemed to become aware of his devout attention, then dropped the veiling. A hardness cracked over her.

Matt's body, he thought. I need it-it's the only way Dawn will warm up to me. . . .

But Benedikte didn't want to be loved as "Matt."

"I don't know what to think," she said, her voice cryptic as she put her hands on her hips. "All you vamps have this baroque thing going on. It's kind of fruity."

He knew her well enough to realize she was getting his goat, as they said.

"Why are you like that?" she concluded.

Now he knew that this was her way of trying to wheedle more-significant-than-it-seems information out of him. They'd gone through that exercise too many times for him to count.

Benedikte paused before answering. Maybe Limpet had staged difficulties with Dawn and had sent her Underground to spy. Well, two could play that game-not that she would ever get the chance to return Above to report to her boss.

Plans formed in his mind: Dawn was a creature who craved endless answers, so Benedikte would give them to her-to a certain extent-if it would win her over.

"Why are we so 'fruity'?" he repeated. "Possibly because we've lived through many gilded ages, and a taste for fine things never dies. We fruity vampires would kill for beauty."

He just thought she needed a reminder.

At the word "kill," she looked down, as if recalling something painful. But she still managed to ask, "How old does that make you?"

Near the door, Eva cleared her throat in a very motherlike way of telling her daughter to be polite.

Benedikte merely laughed. "I was born in the fifteenth century." "Born. When you say 'born,' do you mean as a vampire?"

He nodded, waiting for more.

"Got it." Dawn peered up, inspecting the mirror poised over the bed. This time she did look impressed.

Was she coming around?

She meandered to the other side of the bed, the veiling partly obscuring her. It set Benedikte's fantasy machine into motion because the seductive sheerness made her look more feminine. More like Eva.

"How do you know Limpet?" she asked.

Oh, how to word this response?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eva straighten up by the door.

"I suspect I know him through a brotherhood," he said. "Long ago, we made a vow together. I kept it and, like so many other blood brothers, he did not."

In fact, Benedikte wondered which one of the brotherhood was betraying him this time. It wasn't Andre, who'd perished while trying to take over Benedikte's first Underground. And since they'd all cut off contact from one another-a result of greed and paranoia reaching a peak-the Master had no idea whom he would be facing now.

But he would be ready, along with his small army who would fight to the end for their careers, egos, and home.

Before Dawn could take over this interrogation-c.u.m-conversation, Benedikte spoke. "How much do you know about Jonah Limpet, Dawn?"

Behind the bed veiling, her silhouette froze. The material belled in and out with her breathing.

Would he have to go into her mind to get answers? It was a last resort, a rape of sorts, and it didn't fit into any romantic scenarios the Master had planned. It demeaned him.

She finally answered. "Why would I help by giving you information?"

Near her spot by the entrance, Eva winced under her breath.

"I mean," Dawn continued, "do you really think I want to help any of you cretins to stay alive?"

If she'd concocted some sort of fake fight with Limpet just to fool Benedikte, she was acting like a pro. The hatred in her voice sounded too real.

Suddenly, Dawn jerked away from the veiling, almost tearing it from the bed frame. She headed for a shocked Eva.

"Did you want to show me anything else in this place?" Dawn asked her mother. "Or am I confined to this s.h.i.+thole?"

His one-his only-barged out the exit, leaving Eva behind to shake her head in puzzlement at her maker, then follow Dawn into the hall.

Stinging, Benedikte composed himself by straightening the ruffles on his wrists, one at a time.

For a first meeting, it had gone well, he told himself. Yet as he turned around to glance in the mirror again, his body warped back into the only one Dawn would respond to."Matt." A subpar form whose appeal he didn't comprehend.

But during their next meeting, he would use it, just one more time: he would indulge her and then . . . then . . .

Despondent, the Master s.h.i.+fted into his blank, ghostly, nebulous n.o.body form, not knowing any answers beyond that.

SIXTEEN.

THE SCREENING.

WHAT a blowhard, Dawn thought as Eva caught up to her in the rock hallway, their footsteps heavy on the Moorish-patterned tiles. On the walls, electric lights flickered as they pa.s.sed, casting color that had been leaked of life.

"That was brave of you," Eva said.

"What, I'm supposed to be afraid of a fop?" Okay, she would admit that the Master had been sort of Gary Oldman-as-Dracula intriguing. But, come on, his s.h.i.+rt wasn't exactly a testament to ultimate manhood. He had a quality that she remembered from pictures in high school English-lit textbooks-one of those romantic guys who wrote about Greek vases and s.h.i.+t.

And there'd been something about him. . . . Had she seen the Master before?

All the same, Benedikte really hadn't unnerved her. But that didn't mean she was just going to write him off. Never trust what you see.

"Dawn," Eva said, gently grasping her arm and stopping her progress down the chisled hall. In the near distance, there was a sound like wailing, even though there wasn't a breeze. "The Master didn't invite you here so he could pop out of corners and make you shriek. He's not a joke to be taken lightly."

Dawn s.h.i.+rked off Eva's touch, and her mother kept her hand in the air. The sharp keening from down the hall grew louder-it sounded like "home"-and disappeared abruptly.

"At any rate," her mother said, "I appreciate how you didn't put up a fight when it came to seeing Benedikte."

"What choice did I have? I was already Underground, thanks to you. Might as well take the whole tour." Dawn didn't add that her options for being anyplace else were limited to Matt's house and . . . nowhere.

A sense of alienation swallowed her, a mental anesthetic that removed her from everything. She couldn't even feel the soreness of her post-smashup body anymore.

Eva began walking ahead of Dawn, then turned around to see why her daughter wasn't following. "Are you coming then?"

"Coming . . . ?"

"For a tour." Eva smiled. "I don't mean to brag, but this place is going to blow your socks off."

"Sure it will." Living in L.A. had desensitized Dawn to so much that wowing her was unlikely. And with what she'd seen just in the Limpet house alone . . .

Anger ratcheted her body up another notch on the tense scale. She didn't give a c.r.a.p about the Limpets anymore. Or, at least, she shouldn't. The fact that she still caught herself thinking about Jonah and Costin and all the rest ticked her off.

Dawn went to Eva, careful to leave a chasm between their bodies as they walked.

"Great." Her mother sounded like Jac: chirpy and energized by Dawn's cooperation. "We'll be coming to the emporium first, where everyone hangs out." "Yay. I get to meet and mingle with your kind."

"You've done it Above. What's the difference?"

Dawn's hackles rose, but she didn't want to give Eva the satisfaction of seeing that the notion freaked her out. She changed subjects. "About Benedikte . . ."

Her mother slowed her gait.

"Do you know your master's history?" Dawn added.

"Not really." Eva wore a guarded look. "Why?"

"Why do you think?"

"Dawn, if you plan to go back Above to inform Limpet of-"

At the name, Dawn's body screamed. Next to them, a lightbulb popped, darkening a circle around their bodies like a deadened halo.

Eva shrank back from the tiny explosion, then gazed wonderingly at her daughter.

"I won't be going back there," Dawn bit out. "Don't ever accuse me of that again."

"All right."

"Now . . ." Dawn casually brushed her hands together, trying to seem in control. "What do you know about Benedikte?"

"I . . . I know that he's old, like he told you. I know that he's a vampire of great power who was born in violence and has murdered his way through the years. He realizes I don't like to see that side of him, though."

"You like to ignore it." To reimagine the Hollywood story.

Her mother sighed, clearly biding her patience.

Once again the persistent detective, Dawn asked, "And how about my old boss? How much do you know about him?"

"Besides that he's evil? We know a monster wants to ruin us, and we've been instructed to exercise our powers to fight him. I've wanted to get you away from . . . your boss . . . ever since you started working there."

Was Eva still playing her? Was she withholding?

"Dawn, forget about all that." Her mother came closer. "Roll with Benedikte, and you'll find out that life can be very easy. It can be everything you've always dreamed of down here. Think of what you'd want the most, and it's yours."

Absently, Dawn ran a gaze over Eva, almost as if her mother were a wishful reflection in a mirror. Then she caught herself, ending the moment with a blanked expression.

"When you're ready to give permission," the actress added, "Benedikte will be there."

The vampire's bite. That was what her mother was talking about. They wouldn't force it on Dawn, though. Supposedly.

Well-worn anger stepped in to ease Dawn's longing for what Eva was dangling. "I'll bet the bite is a real rush."

She was being sarcastic, testing.Her mother's eyes began to swirl. "It's like nothing you've ever felt before."

"Do you think it's the type of rush," Dawn added, unable to resist one more dig, "that Ca.s.sie Tomlinson got when she killed women like Klara Monaghan and Jessica Reese-"

"Lee Tomlinson killed Klara, not Ca.s.sie-"

Dawn didn't absorb Eva's continuing effort to be forthcoming. She couldn't even enjoy the answer to one of the questions that'd been d.o.g.g.i.ng her about the Vampire Killer murders.

"Back to the point, Eva," Dawn continued, raising her voice above her mother's. "When Ca.s.sie killed women like Breisi, did you, as what amounts to an accomplice, feel the rush?"

"No, I felt . . ."

"Nothing, I'll bet, even though you're laden with guilt in the aftermath. I'll bet you thought it all over and realized that remorse was an appropriate emotion to use."