Fear pressed against Dawn’s ribs. She thrust her crucifix at the vampire again, concentrated all her mind power against him.
But it seemed like the initial shock of the silver item had worn off. Dear God, is that what Robby had been talking about when he’d said he’d escaped the Guards by hiding someplace they couldn’t go? Like maybe a church?
“Oh, oh,” Kiko said, flashing his crucifix at Robby again, then one more time…and once more after that.
In slow, warped thought, Dawn pictured a man attempting to start a car that was dead.
Survival instinct kicked in. She reached for her shuriken because they were closer than the gun, and she would sooner kill this vamp and suffer Jonah’s anger than die here tonight. Like the bullets, the silver on the blades might do some kind of fancy Breisi-inspired alchemy in his bloodstream, even if the holy water didn’t.
Yet she wasn’t in time.
Robby wailed, reared back, swung forward with a tentacle-like hand. It all happened so fast…a blur…the smack of contact…
With a yell, Kiko went flying backward, spine arched.
Dawn screamed as he zoomed toward the back wall—the only one without shelves.
Crrrrr-unnnch.
The crash was bone-breaking, her body shriveling into itself at the painful sound.
“Kiko!”
As she jumped in his direction, she perceived—but couldn’t process—that his body lay twisted on the floor, crumpled, eyes wide with disbelief. His mouth worked, trying to form words.
He shuddered, head hitting the tile, his gaze going blank.
A sob tore out of her and she tripped over herself to get to him, but something—a freezing hand on her ankle—was holding her back. In the next instant, her body was flipped upside down, hanging, her heart pounding in her head as she lost hold of her weapons.
In the horrifying silence, her vial of holy water fell from her loose jacket pocket and smashed to wet pieces. Her shuriken tingled to the tile one by one, like silver snowflakes.
Robby growled and sped back to the nearly closed door, Dawn still in tow. In his displeasure, he swung her around, her vision fast-forwarding with the speed.
Her body recognized a stunt gone wrong, and she fell into evasive maneuvering, balling up before her body hit—
Bam! Her right arm blasted into a burn of agony as it caught the metal shelves. Thankfully, it went numb before she could acknowledge the full pain.
No time for it, because Robby was already rearing her back for another beating—
She grabbed on to a nearby table with her left hand to slow herself, but he still got the best of her. As the table screeched over the floor, she lost hold of it. The corner of the shelves rushed toward her head, and for a sick, flashing moment, she remembered that day with Frank on the merry-go-round, the green of the grass flying up to meet her….
Hollering in denial, she averted her face, expertly twisting around—
Boom!The shelving caught her in the right shoulder, and that, too, went dead. God knows what she’d look like now if she hadn’t grabbed that table….
He started to swing her again.
“Eva!” she screamed.
It hadn’t been a plea to the mom Robby had lured her with, the prodigal lifegiver whose image had comforted Dawn in this room only minutes ago.
Or had it?
At the name, she sensed Robby pulling back his strength, and her head glanced off of the shelves, her sight going white, then exploding into a multitude of patterns and colors. She felt her cheek opening up with bloody heat.
Even though she hadn’t realized she’d still been holding it, her crucifix clattered to the ground. When Robby let go of her, Dawn’s body followed, crashing next to the silver weapon.
She came to a crouch, oxygen chopping out of her. Blood began to wet her face.
Kiko. She had to get to Kiko.
“Your mom,” Robby said, referring to the cry that had released her. His head was cocked in curiosity again—but this time it was that beautiful, ghostly head, not the visage of a little boy. His voice sounded like it’d been spliced together from a thousand painful days. “Daydreamer…Eva was my friend.”
“Yes, yes, she was, your friend and costar. Please, can I go tomyfriend?”
Kiko…God. In her line of work, she’d seen injuries before—had seen a fellow stuntman almost get his neck broken with the force of a high fall once, had come close to breaking her own back, too—so she knew her partner was in bad shape. Damn it, she needed to get to him.
With brutal efficiency, Robby sucked back into his former facade. At this distraction, Dawn used her good arm to unsnap her gun holster. But when the vampire angled his head at her again, as if trying to see Eva in her, she left it alone, not wanting to provoke him unless she was confident she could draw. And she wasn’tsure about her chances of success—not until she got a hold of herself and got her shooting hand back in working order.
He sniffed, scenting the blood from her injury. His eye-color began to swirl.
Carefully, Dawn gathered a batch of napkins from a bottom shelf, held it to her face to stanch the bleeding. She wanted to hide the blood from Robby, even though she knew it wouldn’t matter, because vamps were vamps, and she was a meal. Nonetheless, she started to move toward Kiko.
“He’s not dead,” Robby said. “I hear his heart beating.”
She glared at him, so disturbed that she forgot about mind blocking, forgot about almost everything but her friend.
With an invasive swish, Robby attacked her memories, his eyes blazing into hers, bolting into her with invasive discomfort. Dawn tried to cuff him off, but—
Helpless, she felt him sifting around in her, violating her secrets, her most tender possessions.
“No!” She mentally pushed at him with desperate futility. She didn’t want him inside, hadn’t given him permission…. Her left-hand covered her heart as he tore through her.
“You’re like me.” He smiled again but didn’t release her. “You didn’t want to come home, either.”
Through her anguish, she saw Robby’s nostrils widen again as he came closer.
“Can I drink from you? Please?”
“No.”
Surprisingly, he didn’t force himself on her physically. Mentally, he was still attacking.
And she was still fighting.
Yet, in spite of her turmoil, she wondered why he wasn’t just taking her blood, too. What was holding him back?
“I’m hungry,” Robby said. “Can’t I please—?”
“No.”
As if angry with her, he forcefully rooted around her mind some more, finding images of Eva, of Frank. He seemed thrilled with these discoveries.
“I said no, you little…” She took a deep breath, then yelled, “shit!”
The force of her rage thrust him back, crashing the vampire against the shelves, his head banging against metal. Dawn felt a cleansing rush of vengeance and pressed it forward, keeping him back, daring him to screw with her again.
How’d she manage that? Hell, now wasn’t the time to hypothesize.
“Stayout,” she said, glaring, right above his eyes.
Touching his cut forehead, he looked stunned to feel the blood, then inspected her as if she were an intriguing specimen. Most importantly, he’d backed off, and Dawn was going to make sure it stayed that way.
“You miss your dad,” he said, acting as if they hadn’t just thrown down. Maybe it was because he was more interested in relating to her own daddy situation. Or maybe it was because he knew he could kick her ass at any given second and he was in no hurry. “You want to see him again more than anything.”
Even while she was mentally pushing at him, she had the presence of mind to realize that Robby might be able to help. “Then take me to Frank.”
Robby thought for a moment. Then, “No.” It was a parody of her refusal to feed him.
“You’re not going to help me? Or are you saying that you weren’t th
e one who took him from Bava?”
“I…” The boy seemed puzzled. “I really can’t help you.”
Why? Wouldn’t he, or couldn’t he?
She felt his hold release a little, probably because his emotions had gotten the best of him, distracting him again.
Make Robby talk more, she thought, shielding her body with her left hand, ready to fight him off if it came down to it again. Her right arm and shoulder were still robbed of feeling, her left cheek dulled by cutting pain. Take advantage of his fragile temperament. Mind screw him. Control him.
Her best weapons were her words right now.
“Why’d you stop loving your dad?” she asked, vying for the upper hand. “What happened, Robby?”
Behind him, one of the Bava workers opened the door. With a flick of his wrist, Robby shut it, never even glancing back.
“I told you,” he said. “He left me.”
“Why?”
“It was for the best, he said. He would send me away, and years later, I’d make a comeback. Then we would be together again.” Robby’s lips attempted a smile, but his mouth lost the struggle. “My dad and I were close, a long time ago.”
“I know.” She wouldn’t bring up the pimping, the abuse. It would probably agitate him, and she was doing so well without that kind of brain-dead strategy.
Nerve sawing against nerve, she snuck a glance at Kiko, who was still in a pile by the back wall. A hitch of overwhelming worry pulled at her, but she kept it at bay. She had to.
“Dad made me a man,” Robby said, touching his head wound again. The slight bleeding fascinated him. “He taught me how to rule Hollywood one day.”
“Is that what he was doing?”
Robby seemed taken aback by her venom. “He wanted me to be strong. He showed me how to dominate people by offering, then withholding, then giving them what they wanted at a bigger price than they could’ve ever imagined paying. Lots of money. Lots of opportunity. I had half of Hollywood dying to be with me.”
Even through the vampire bravado, she saw a flicker of human shame. Both of them knew he was lying to himself, failing to make Nathan’s actions seem more acceptable.
At her steely silence, his expression fell, and he stared at the ground.
“I don’t know how to function without him,” he said softly. “Can you imagine that? Thirty-five years old and I still need him to tell me what to do. But it’s not going to be that way for long. I kept telling him, even back when I was twelve, that I wanted to move on and stay out of the spotlight for a while until I could start getting adult roles, like Jodie Foster. Yeah,” his voice lifted with rekindled dreams, “just like her. I did everything I could to show him I wasn’t a little boy anymore—got piercings, turned down parts in family movies, all because I knew I could reinvent myself.”
“He didn’t like that you weren’t daddy’s boy anymore.” She could feel herself getting dizzy, but she sucked it up.
Again, Robby leaned closer, scenting her blood. She didn’t dare make eye contact.
“Robby?” Dawn needed him to keep talking. She wished she could drop the napkins and grab her gun. It’d be awkward, and her left-hand aim wasn’t as sharp as her right, but still…
The vampire reared back, tone sharp and self-mocking. “I’m the one who didn’t like that I wasn’t daddy’s boy anymore. I was afraid not to be, even if I couldn’t help rebelling.” He grinned. “I used to sneak out of the Underground, you know. Used to go to my old hangouts and workplaces, then slide right back into my room before anyone knew I was gone. That’s how I stayed in touch with my sanity.”
“Diaper Derby was filmed on the same set as one of your movies?”
“Yes—Bug Hunt. When my caretakers saw that I’d been accidentally filmed, they punished me by keeping me locked up. That’s when I escaped for good, before…” He looked afraid. “…the final phase of my release.”
“And you couldn’t help returning to all the old places again.”
“Places my dad and I used to go. First I went home. Dad still wasn’t there. Then I came to Bava, and it was the same deal. I kept visiting both places, but then the Guards followed me home, and Groupies were infiltrating Bava more than usual, looking for me. I could tell they were present before I even went in again—they have a different scent than the regular vampires and ghouls that hang out. But they’re not here tonight. That’s why I followed you in when I saw you.”
She couldn’t quiz him about what Groupies were before she detected the self-disgust creeping back into his gaze.
“After all these years of being away,” he added, “there was comfort in these places, like returning would take me back to being the normal Robby Pennybaker.”
This guy was confused, Dawn thought. He wanted to resume his little Robby life, and he didn’t. He obviously loved his father, and he hated him. Had vampirism affected his brain? Were all of these creatures a little tetched?
As he gauged her compassion, he came close enough for Dawn to see he wasn’t showing any fang. Obviously, that happened only in his vamp state. In this form, he could pass for human—it was only the mind screwing that revealed him as a vampire.
“When my dad came back home,” Robby said, “I realized how much I hated him. Seeing him in the flesh, strolling through the door like he’d never deserted me, made me want to hurt him.”
Pulled to Daddy out of habit. Sounded familiar to Dawn. “So what’re you going to do if you have no place to go?”
“I’ll make a new life Above no matter what. I told you, I’m never going back.”
“Even if your mom loves you?” Dawn thought he’d been talking about going back home. Or was he talking about that other place? The Underground.
Robby’s mouth tightened, and Dawn shifted, upsetting her arm and shoulder. Who cared though? She just made sure her good arm was ready to grab her gun.
“I never thought…” Robby’s lips broke into a tremble. “She didn’t pay much attention to me when I was human.”
“She regrets that.”
“Really?” His voice was thick. “I didn’t try to contact her because I thought she’d care as much as she used to—which is not at all.”
“That’s not true. If you saw how upset she is…”
He grew contemplative, giving Dawn too much of a chance to think about Kiko. She had to get to him. Had to find out more about this Underground, too.
“Please,” she said, taking advantage of this peaceful lull. “My friend.”
Seeming to come to a decision, Robby stood, moved to the door before she could ask more questions. Then, as if he hadn’t wrecked havoc in the supply room, he zipped out, leaving the door open.
She didn’t have the opportunity to wonder what the hell had just happened, how she’d made him leave.
Instead, Dawn groped in her jeans for her phone, calling 911 for an ambulance. At the same time, she gimped over to Kiko.
Hearing her, his eyes fluttered open, and she laughed in pure relief, reaching out to touch his cheek.
But when he spoke, it wasn’t with the lighthearted humor she’d come to expect.
“My back,” he murmured. “Help me.”
Twenty-Four
The Visit
The ambulance got to Bava in good time. From there, Kiko was whisked to Lady of Mercy Hospital, and despite the overflowing ER, the staff saw to him as quickly as possible.
Though she’d refused to leave Kiko’s side, keeping a hold of his fingers while he bravely smiled then alternately winced, Breisi, who Dawn had called from Bava, had pretty much manhandled Dawn into being taken care of, too. So after Breisi had quietly offered the staff a hefty donation to see Dawn quickly—and to ask no probing questions about Kiko’s injuries—Dawn had caught Breisi up on current events while a doctor stitched up the gape in her cheek. He pronounced that her arm and shoulder were severely bruised—nothing broken, due to her stunt-experienced maneuvering. Then the medical staff handed her some painkillers, but when they weren�
��t looking, Dawn pocketed the pills. Nothing was going to put her out for the rest of the night; damn the pain.
When further news of Kiko came, it was a mixed blessing.
Dawn and Breisi were in the bustling reception area, where people cried out for attention. Down the row of seats, a drugged-out woman had vomited on the floor, and an orderly was rapidly—and not so happily—mopping it up. Across from them, a little African-American girl was stretched out over a few seats, her head in her mom’s lap. The older woman, who was hooked into an iPod, probably to block out the cacophony, stroked her child’s hair, singing “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…”
The song made Dawn turn away.
“A broken back,” she said for what had to be the hundredth time. She’d removed her shoulder holster due to her new fashion accessory: a sling with ice packs attached to her injuries. She barely felt their wet chill over the throbbing. “It’s my fault. I should’ve made sure Robby went after me before Kiko. I could’ve taken it. I’ve crashed into a lot of walls, and I know how to do it without getting hurt. Once, during some harness work for a flying stunt, I flipped wrong. I almost broke my back, so I know how to handle this kind of—”
“Don’t.” Breisi had her legs crossed, her ankle bobbing at top speed. “Pain comes with this job.”
Dawn didn’t doubt it, but…God. Limpet was having Kiko transferred to the Cedars-Sinai Institute for Spinal Disorders, where he’d be diagnosed in more detail. Now, as they prepped him for departure, Dawn felt useless.
She fought to stay cool and distant, but exhaustion and then the tremors of Robby’s violation started to creep back into her.
No problem, she told herself. She could deal with the trauma. Right?
But when she realized that someone had to cancel Kiko’s big audition Monday, it was all over. She coughed, but she and Breisi both knew it was actually a tight sob.
She felt her associate’s hand on her good shoulder—way above the vampire-spit burns. Strange. She was getting too used to being touched like this—caringly. But, somehow, it wasn’t as terrible as she’d imagined. Especially right now.
“We need to get back to work,” Breisi said gently.
Night Rising Page 25
