Vampire Babylon - Break Of Dawn Part 30

"What's keeping you from going into that backup's body?"

"Jonah has sacrificed much to help me. He is a true believer, in spite of everything else." Costin shook his head. "And I depend upon him just as much as he does me. We are in the thick of the hunt, and he is trained for what must be done. I cannot leave him so easily right now." Dawn took a couple of steps forward, then reined herself in. "Isn't there a choice? There's always a choice." But she knew she was being idealistic. Yeah, Dawn Madison-Pollyanna.

"Choice does not rate high at the moment," Costin said. "Because you know what is at stake."

She knew. d.a.m.n it, she knew.

As if she hadn't heard enough, he continued. "And I would suffer a million more centuries of this existence before becoming what I was."

An awareness so heavy draped over her that she couldn't meet his gaze. Not like this. Not until she got back some sense of control.

"So even though Jonah is your cover," she asked, "he can't go outside, either, even during his breathers?"

"That is right. My team does the groundwork while my host and I wait in antic.i.p.ation of the work I must do in the end. We must hide behind these protected walls from a master's Awareness, which can be developed among the brothers. That is, if a master chooses to risk using it." Costin walked closer to her, yet kept his distance. "Besides, after Jonah scarred himself, he preferred to stay in darkness because he was ashamed of what he had done. So when I finally revealed what I looked like to you . . ."

The night when Breisi had died . . .

"Jonah was angry," he finished. "But I told him that the appearance kept you here, kept your curiosity leveled, and he came to accept my choice. He becomes agitated whenever it seems as if you will leave."

Tick, tick- The clock banged away, reminding her that Costin was about to leave. Almost time, almost time . . .

"I understand now," she said. "You . . . me . . . the feedings . . . You need an attachment."

"Yes. Whether human, whether vampire, there is a commonality. We all have cravings. It is the caliber of them that distinguishes us from the monsters."

Cravings: her addiction to easy s.e.x, her hard feelings toward Eva . . . her yearning to be just like her mother.

They had all flowed from one to the other, keeping her alive, or at least feeling that way.

"Then you live off s.e.x," she asked, "like an . . ."

"Incubus? No. That is not what nourishes me." He clasped his hands. "Humanity. I must take root in it to survive. And the power you have inside of you is enough to fuel me beyond anything else I have felt before."

He came even closer, and Dawn's body reawakened.

"When I am away from Jonah," he added, "I take rest in the field of fire. I dream in fire. I will it to be so, because every lick of flame reminds me of what I have to lose. But I cannot stay away from my host for long-not even with you. Every hour that I am apart from Jonah eats away at my spirit until it is in danger of disappearing."

"What? Why?"

"The Whisper was kind enough to explain that it is a safety mechanism of sorts-a method to ensure that I keep to my deal and do not attempt an escape from my chosen shelter with my rented soul. I am tied to my duties as an enforcer for the higher powers that have given me this second chance." "You wouldn't abandon your mission anyway," she said.

"Yet my mysterious benefactors wanted to be certain of my loyalty, and that is understandable. So I never stray far from Jonah.

And when I do, it is never for too long or too often."

He risked a few steps nearer to her, increasing the tension between them. Dawn wanted to close the s.p.a.ce intersecting their bodies, but . . . After everything he'd put her through?

She broke away, and Costin looked bereft. She tried to take pleasure from that. Tried.

"Kind of like a vamp," she said, emotions flailing until they snagged on the only thing that kept her solid-distance. "What with you needing a willing partic.i.p.ant to be your host and allow you inside them. That's just like a vamp."

She'd hit the target. He looked a.s.sa.s.sinated, stunned, and profoundly disappointed by the attack. The thing was, she saw it only around the lines of his mouth. The rest of him was still a soldier, impenetrable.

Remember, she thought. Remember him using you as bait more times than you can count. Remember that he's lied to you before.

Remember that you can't put any faith in him. . . .

Harshly, she motioned toward Breisi's portrait, where the background looked so dead without her Friend in it.

"Come to think of it," she said, "I remember that Dracula had a harem, too. Brides, right?"

His jaw had clenched at the name "Dracula." She'd finally crossed a line. She'd been banking on that.

"They agreed to live on in these pictures." Only a tiny fissure in his tone revealed a crack. "In those portraits, their worlds are intact, and they are happy."

"The worlds they shared with you. How sweet." At this point, she realized she was also working off of a twisted jealousy. "When do their sentences end, Costin?"

Tickticktick- "When I die peacefully," he answered, a note of longing creeping into the words. "Then they come with me."

His answer echoed like the aftermath of a sonic boom, canceling out everything else.

Death. When he died, he really wouldn't be around anymore. No hocus-pocus, no more miracles. He would get his soul back, all right, but he was telling her that he would be going to a better place than h.e.l.l. A place he had earned.

And it would have nothing to do with her because she'd resisted joining him.

"That is why I do not allow my Friends to kill while they remain in pure spirit form," he said. "I take on the stain of blood in the state of what should have been their grace. It is part of my penance."

"Aren't you in pretty much the same state? When you kill, doesn't that mean you won't go to heaven?"

Much to her shock, he refused to answer, falling to the floor before her instead, bowing, lowering his head and putting his hand to his heart.

Now it was her chance to apologize for everything, before he left, before he fought and maybe never came back.

"Costin . . ."

He peered up at her, his dark hair falling forward, his eyes burning, his face scored not only from wounds but from the hurt she'd visited on him.

"If there ever was a woman for whom I would give up my soul," he whispered, "you would have been the one."

She choked on her shock, on her grief. Say something, she thought. Do something, stop him- Tickticktickticktick At her indecision, he arose, then formally nodded to her as if to work around an obvious rejection. She tried to find something to say, anything, but . . .

"Remember," he said, cold and beyond reach now, "you will not come anywhere near the Underground. Breisi is in my hands now."

And Eva? What about her?

G.o.d, why was she worried about that?

"Costin-"

"Dawn, our last argument has pa.s.sed and I have no more time for waiting." His eyes flared to sun gold. "You stay here with Kiko and your father, whose intentions are good, by the way-"

"But Breisi-"

The heat of his eyes rushed at her, and she rallied to block the incoming power. But a blast of buzzing color blinded her before she mentally chopped it away.

In the chorusing aftermath, as she stood still, unable to move, all she saw was the gold of his gaze.

The warm, beautiful hues of the daybreak Costin was venturing into for the first time since shutting himself in.

TWENTY-THREE.

... ACTION.

DAWN did get back her sight, although she didn't know how long it took.

h.e.l.l. She'd blocked one of Costin's hypnotic attacks, hadn't she? That was what'd happened? Of course, at the same time, he'd skimmed her mind for everything else she'd seen in the Underground, but she was fine with that part.

Partially recovered, she stumbled up the stairs, yelling for Kiko. When he didn't answer, she found out why. He-and reportedly Frank-had been plugging their ears with their fingers while the Friends had vacated the house. They'd done this just in case the spirits tried to lull them to sleep, and the simple solution had worked.

After that explanation, Dawn stated the obvious. "He's gone." She was still blinking away the sunspots. "Costin tried to stall me with his mind, but . . ."

But it hadn't worked. Not this time.

Kiko went on to explain how, after the Friends had left, Frank had made a run out the door so he could go and save Breisi. Of course, since it was daylight and Frank wasn't a strong enough vampire to work well in the sun, he'd retreated inside. Dawn found him pacing near the back door, his skin reddened. He was almost in a frenzy to go Underground, no matter what Costin had forbid them to do.

There wasn't even a question about what would happen next. Dawn went up to her guest room and changed clothes, keeping to the tank top, jeans, and biker boots. She rubbed garlic over her skin out of habit, donned both a locator and a silver crucifix with pointed ends, then gathered weapons, mostly backup: a few throwing blades, a silver-tipped stake, more machetes, a .45 with silver bullets, her whip chain, and a mini-flamethrower. She stuffed most of those into a bag that she slung over her chest. The machetes and revolver had their own holsters.

After binding her hair back into its practical low ponytail, she took out the upper earring in her right lobe, went to her suitcase, and unzipped her jewelry bag to stow the stud. In its place, she donned her blood-moon earring, taking up where she'd left off the night she killed Robby Pennybaker.

Breisi, I'm coming, she thought all the while. And Eva . . . ?

They weren't topmost on Costin's agenda, but Dawn had her own mission now.

Yet had he taken any precautions besides the attempted hypnosis to keep them away? They would soon see.

After a stop in the lab to pick up the saw-bow Breisi had given her, Dawn met Kiko and Frank in the connected, darkened garage.

There, they bundled her dad under thick blankets in the backseat of a backup, Breisi-modified 4Runner, then blocked the already- tinted windows with tarp.

When they finally blasted out of the garage and into sunlight, they were ready for any Servants who tried to stop them.

But that wasn't necessary.

At the sight of the SUV roaring away, one Servant, a woman who worked at a private security firm in normal life, sat in her Jeep on the other side of the road and dialed her secure cell phone. On the other end of the line, another Servant, a lawyer named Enrico Harris, picked up.

"They're on their way somewhere," the security woman said. "Don't know if it's the Underground, but you'd better get ready down there."

"Did you see who was in the car?" Enrico said.

"Negative. The windows were blacked out."

The other two Servants lingering outside couldn't have seen inside the 4Runner, either. At least, that was what the security woman thought. And there was something bothering her about an event that had occurred over thirty minutes ago. Before this SUV had blasted away, she thought she'd seen something else-maybe it was nothing at all-come out of the driveway, but her mind had gotten a tad muddled and she wasn't sure it had actually happened. A check with the other Servant watchers revealed that they'd seen-or not seen-the same thing. . . .

Meanwhile, Underground, Enrico Harris had already hung up and was heading for an all-purpose communicator that sat on the surface of an office desk. He was in a reception area, on volunteer watch duty.

He pressed the b.u.t.ton on the side of the communicator, and it beeped like an electronic trill. "Master?"

Waiting for his leader to answer, he tapped his foot on the ground. Enrico had expected a quick response, especially under the high-alert circ.u.mstances.

"Master?" he said into the speaker again.

Finally, a beaten voice answered. "Yes?"

Enrico paused in surprise, never having heard his master in such a state, but then he rushed on. "We need to prepare. . . ." On the other end of the line, Benedikte lay on his room's cold floor, one hand on the handheld communicator, the other on Eva's shoulder. He had been trying to help her heal, but something was wrong. Physically, she was recovering, but she wasn't waking up.

It was as if she didn't want to.

Through the maze of his mind, he barely heard the Servant on the other end of the communicator, but Benedikte got the gist of it.

It was time.

Slowly, he left Eva slumped against the wall, then s.h.i.+fted into Sorin's body-the one most of the Underground was used to seeing as "the Master." Benedikte made a great effort not to look at evidence of his son's demise on the floor. Phantom bloodstains remained, resembling accusing eyes, burning into what the Master had always thought to be his heart.

Then he numbly made his way out of his room and to the Guard's cells so he could instruct them in Sorin's place before they were let loose.

Once there, all the grotesque centurions stared at him, their eyes red as they crept toward the bars of their cells.

Without much verve-how could he muster it when Sorin was gone and Eva was not much better?-the Master gave them instructions to defend the Underground perimeter and tear apart anyone who tried to get in. He thought he saw a slight bewilderment in their gazes, in their gaped, iron-toothed mouths.

A Groupie spoke into a microphone in the s.h.i.+elded control panel down the cell's hall. "Master, we've noticed that the Guards seem . . . scattered . . . for some reason. They have even less focus than usual."

"Then you Groupies must back them up if anything goes wrong on the perimeter," the Master barked. The lower vampire's comments were reminding him of the way Sorin used to nag.

"Us?" another control Groupie asked. "Master . . . we haven't gone near the Guards lately, not after they've been calling for our blood. Didn't you just say the other day that they might be showing signs of addiction to us in particular?"

And more nagging. Not only were they quoting Sorin's notes to him, but they were bringing on fresh pain. An image of Sorin's head exploding with the punch of Benedikte's fist blinded the Master. He held a hand to his temple and closed his eyes.

"Do as you are told," he said, turning to mist-not caring that the Groupies would see the odd change from whom they thought to be Sorin. Then he zoomed back to his room to be with Eva.

He didn't stop to think that, even though he had a.s.sumed the shape of Sorin's body, it didn't mean the Guards would obey anyone but their creator. He didn't stop to think at all.

Eager to try healing Eva again, Benedikte reached his room, s.h.i.+fted back into Sorin's body since his son was still on his mind, then prepared to undo the secret lock. But his door opened before he could finish.