A Drop of Red

by Chris Marie Green

  Frank said, “Too bad you couldn’t ask her questions.”

  “That’d be helpful in our line of work,” Kiko added.

  “The dead can be very focused.” Natalia didn’t even acknowledge Kiko’s slight dig. “I find that they’re normally seeking peace or righting a wrong.”

  “You ever actually see a revenant?” Dawn asked. “Or a ghost or a vampire?”

  Natalia shook her head.

  Kiko took the cue. “There’s a big difference between eavesdropping on ’em and actually coming face-to-face, which we do all the time.”

  The new girl raised her eyebrows a little.

  Even though Dawn was skeptical about Natalia, she liked the effect the second psychic was having on Kiko. Maybe, with his beloved job at stake, he’d get off those pills.

  “What about now,” Frank asked, “since you moved away from your parents, Natalia? Do you tell people about your talents?”

  “Not generally, but I do what the dead ask of me in my own discreet way. The voices I heard this morning . . . They needed me to come to you, and I’ve never turned my back on them.” Her smile grew wistful. “They led me to you, and they’re giving me what I most need.”

  “A job?” Dawn asked.

  “A job,” Natalia repeated. “I came to London to use my university degree and work for an honest wage, then send money home. Yet finding employment hasn’t been as simple as I had hoped. I’ve been living on savings, and they’re almost depleted. Before now, I thought revealing my gifts might give future employers the impression that my sixth sense made me a ‘gypsy’—a criminal. An outcast even here.”

  For some reason, Dawn related to her situation: being ear-marked as something you weren’t and trying to make up for it.

  Natalia addressed Kiko, her expression hopeful. “We have a lot in common, yes? Perhaps we can share stories someday.”

  He didn’t say anything, just focused his reddened eyes on the empty, ash-scarred fireplace.

  Although Natalia only smiled at Frank, just like she was signaling that she was fine with Kiko, Dawn knew she’d been stung by the blow off.

  But Frank did his best to soften the injury. “I suppose I should add that I have a few psychic stories to tell, myself.”

  “Ah,” Natalia said. “I knew there was something about you. With Dawn, as well. You both seem . . . different. And I should know the very definition.” She smiled, as if she’d finally found good company.

  “You mean we don’t resemble anything close to normal?” Dawn asked.

  Kiko leaned toward Natalia. “You can read Frank?”

  Not even Sober Kiko could read Frank. Something to do with vampires lacking souls.

  But the other psychic shook her head, and Kiko’s knuckles got a little less white.

  “I cannot read Frank exactly,” she said. “Yet when he’s near, I can . . . hear . . . something I’ve never heard before. Not a whispering like the dead. Just . . . This will sound odd, but it’s as if he is an empty room.”

  Stunned, Dawn could only widen her eyes.

  But Kiko was all over it. “So you do have vamp radar.”

  Natalia froze. “He’s a . . . vampire?”

  “So’s Dawn,” Kiko said, taking great pleasure in it.

  “I’m not a vamp,” Dawn said. “I just used to be.”

  “I . . . see.” Natalia sat there, hands in her lap, looking like maybe she wanted to scram after all.

  When she didn’t, Kiko’s curiosity got the best of him. “What did you hear in Dawn? Does she sound hollow, too?”

  “No, it wasn’t a sound so much as something I saw superimposed over her when we first met outside.”

  “And what was that?” Dawn asked.

  “Only a flash. Like that old song . . . ‘There’s a little black spot on the sun today.’ ”

  Kiko humphed. “‘King of Pain.’ ”

  There were no words, because Dawn had felt that dark mark on her, and nothing she did could wash it away.

  “A black spot, huh?” Frank said. “Dawn reclaimed her soul, but I suppose I sound hollow because I’m a full-on beastie.”

  At Natalia’s next speechless moment, he added, “See, I’d have to kill my ex-wife—my master—to get my soul back. It’s . . . complicated.”

  “You think?” Dawn said.

  He went on to explain about how he, a no-account bar bouncer, and movie-star Eva had defied her managers and married. How they’d given birth to Dawn just before Eva was “murdered.”

  “She’d been recruited into a vampire Underground,” Dawn tacked on after Frank did his part. “The Master took major celebrities while they were still in their prime, staged sensational deaths that would guarantee infamy, gave them shelter belowground while their legends grew, and then performed plastic surgery on these Elite creatures before they appeared Above again, where they’d use their Allure to make humans think they had the same star quality as the old model.”

  “When Dawn killed their master,” Frank said, “most of the humanized Elites committed suicide. Some disappeared. Eva reformed herself.”

  Feeling that they were getting too personal—why did this new girl have to know everything?—Dawn stuck to the technicalities.

  “Basically,” she said, “the Hollywood Underground had a stratified class system. There were human Servants who took care of dirty work Above and served as food. There were Guards—freaky-ass Nosferatu things that defended the higher beings. Then came the Groupies—pet vampires who didn’t have as much power as the Elites. The Master even had a lieutenant of sorts. Sorin.” Dawn took a breath. “If I had stayed a vampire, I would’ve had his power.”

  “But you didn’t stay a vampire,” Natalia said.

  “Didn’t want to.” Liar. “Besides, the Master needed to be put down, and my turning human was the result. Anyway, what I’m getting at here is even though we know the details of the Hollywood Underground, we can’t be sure about this new one we’re hunting—” Dawn stopped. “You figured out we’re hunting vamps, right?”

  “It is beginning to . . . click.” Natalia swallowed again.

  This was where they’d really lose her, no matter how much the girl wanted to help the dead or how vividly her visions told her she was making the right move by coming here tonight.

  Full steam ahead anyway. “What I was saying is that we can’t be sure about what to expect from this Underground that might have created the burial ground you passed.”

  “This is a real tough job, Natalia,” Frank added. “Lots of curve balls.”

  Kiko obviously saw an opening to cut every last tie keeping his competition here. “Since all the Undergrounds the boss has destroyed were different, we never know things like how exactly we can defend ourselves at first. The masters are all blood brothers, but over the centuries, they developed diverse talents based on individual strengths.”

  “And to make things more interesting,” Frank said, “the masters have a history of merging Undergrounds, and even going after one another to capture each other’s communities.”

  Mouth dry, Dawn took a swig from her juice, then said, “I was exposed to the last master’s knowledge, including his memories, when he turned me, and he experienced one of those takeovers firsthand.”

  “Tell her how Benedikte betrayed you by pretending to be your pal,” Kiko said. “Oh, and tell her how she shouldn’t expect total truth from the boss, either.”

  Natalia sent Dawn a don’t-do-this-to-me glance.

  “Just don’t trust anybody,” Dawn said, still unwilling to open herself up to an emotional autopsy. “Every creature involved is bent on survival.” She gestured with her glass toward the angel carving. “Even the boss.”

  In the mist of her mind, all of his apologies threaded together. The good of the many outweighs the good of the few. I had to do what was necessary. . . .

  Yeah, Dawn knew Costin would still choose his soul over her if it came right down to it, and she couldn’t blame him, either, because s
he’d lost her soul once and . . .

  And she’d liked what she’d been. For the first time, she’d felt accepted. Complete.

  Blocking that out—damn it, she couldn’t help the ingrained habit—Dawn started talking again, hoping the sound would chase away the truth.

  “Even though we have a few answers from Benedikte—none of which probably apply to the new Underground—there’s another question that’s been bugging us since we came here. It seems that London’s been the center of a lot of Underground activity, and we don’t know why.”

  Natalia asked, “It’s as if these vampires were drawn here?”

  “Yeah, looks like the blood brothers keep coming back.” Dawn finally acknowledged the painting above the fireplace. Kalin. “See this girl? She was part of a team that hunted a master and some vamps around this area in the early fifteen hundreds, even though there weren’t established Undergrounds at that point. Then, after Undergrounds started to form, there was one in some abandoned tube areas. It was the Hollywood master’s first community, but it was destroyed by another blood brother.”

  Frank said, “Then there appears to be this Underground.”

  “So why do they keep coming here?” Dawn finished. “It’s something we need to find out, along with the usual junk.”

  Natalia volunteered a theory. “Why are there so many hauntings here, as well? There’s much spiritual activity.”

  “Enough to even draw what’s referred to as ‘the dragon,’ ” Kiko added, probably because if this part didn’t get the other psychic out the door, nothing would.

  Natalia had leaned toward him, her dark curls tumbling forward. “The dragon?”

  Kiko chuckled softly, the terror.

  But Natalia surprised the tar out of Dawn when she sucked it up and smiled right back at him. It was a bring-it-on gesture if there ever was one.

  Kiko slid out of his chair, folding his hands behind his back in preparation for his doom speech.

  “Oh, yeesh,” Dawn said at the drama.

  He forged on anyway. “Our boss—the guy you’re about to sign on with? Well, a long time ago, he got caught up in some real hairy stuff with some real hairy men. I ain’t naming names, but the boss exchanged blood with a guy who made a bargain with the devil. And that guy was freakin’ brutal. A warrior who turned all his closest men into master vampires and eventually told them to secretly create powerful, individual armies that would all gather one day to take over the world once this guy woke up from a loooooong sleep.”

  “This is the dragon,” Natalia said.

  It looked like Kiko’s story had bitten a chunk out of her second-wind courage.

  But Dawn watched carefully for any signs of deception. If she’d done the same with Matt Lonigan, aka Benedikte, back in L.A., she would’ve saved them all a lot of trouble.

  Kiko hammered on. “In my vision—we call it the ‘key vision’—I saw Dawn bathed in a vampire’s blood, victorious. At first, the boss interpreted it to mean she would find the L.A. master and somehow be the key to besting him. And she was.”

  “But . . .” Natalia said.

  “But we think there’s more—that Dawn’s going to be key in the destruction of the dragon, too.”

  “Or maybe you’re being optimistic.” Dawn took another drink of juice, basically to cover how her pulse had just tried to jolt its way out of her chest.

  “Or maybe I’m right,” Kiko said.

  She didn’t mention that maybe he was holding onto the glory days when his visions had been on the ball.

  Dawn drained the rest of her glass and turned to Natalia. “I’d make a guess that you’re familiar with the history of Vlad Tepes and how he inspired Bram Stoker.”

  Swallowing really hard now, Natalia nodded.

  A few moments passed, and Kiko seemed to be loving every one of them.

  “Am I to understand,” the second psychic said, her voice thin, “that Mr. Limpet is one of those masters?”

  “Sort of.” Frank stood away from the fireplace. “But he’s not using us to take over his blood brothers’ Undergrounds. He’s fighting them.”

  “Tell her the rest, Dawn,” Kiko said, as if she were the only one who could.

  And maybe she was, even if Costin was showing signs of going all secretive Voice on her again. . . .

  Although Natalia looked like she half didn’t want to hear it, Dawn complied. Last year, she wished she’d known everything.

  “Our boss regretted exchanging blood with the dragon,” she said. “He even began seeing himself as a monster. But then some higher being—Mr. Limpet doesn’t even know exactly what it was—made him an offer.”

  “The being in question was like magic,” Kiko said.

  “Whatever he was, he told the boss he could rent back his soul and someday bring it to peace if he agreed to kill the dragon before its rising. But Mr. Limpet would also have to terminate every last master, too.”

  “And there’s a catch,” Kiko added. “One of the masters is hiding the dragon while he sleeps and gathers his power. We could find him at any time, and we when do . . .”

  He paused, stretching out the horrific possibilities.

  Natalia cleared her throat, then asked, “What if Mr. Limpet isn’t successful in killing all these masters and the dragon?”

  The room went still, wind moaning through old creaks and crevices that hadn’t been shored up.

  “His soul becomes damned for good,” Dawn said softly.

  As the reality sank in, Natalia grew pensive, disturbed.

  Kiko pursued. “You think that’s a bummer? Well, the boss abandoned his vampire body and became this ‘soul traveler’ who borrowed pure human bodies so he could carry on this fight throughout the centuries. And that’s caused some issues.”

  Both Kiko and Frank peered at Dawn again.

  “I suppose I’d be a big part of those issues,” she said.

  The guys averted their eyes as Dawn sighed, then gave Natalia the basics about Jonah, the willing host whose vampire body was trapping Costin.

  “Since the boss and Jonah have a symbiotic relationship,” she said, “they feed off of each other. During the big throw down with the Hollywood master, the boss came out of his host’s body so he could use all his powers, pure and undiluted. Thing is, he would gradually lose energy when he left his host, and the fight battered him, so he had to go back to Jonah and anchor inside of him to revitalize. He wouldn’t have survived outside at that point.”

  Kiko added, “The boss used to feed off human energy, but now it’s all about blood.”

  “So he couldn’t come out of Jonah’s body until he was healed?” Natalia asked.

  Dawn nodded. “Jonah was severely wounded, too. He was dying and the boss couldn’t get out—he was trapped by his need to root on what was left of Jonah’s humanity. If Jonah had died, it would’ve been just like a cave-in of dead matter, and the boss would’ve never been able to escape. I think he might’ve even perished there from lack of sustenance.”

  She stilled her pulse, trying not to show how upset she was getting. “So, as a vampire, I exchanged with Jonah, thinking that would set the boss free. But even though I reanimated Jonah, his body altered in the process. I only made him undead. I didn’t actually realize it at the time, but his matter still ended up trapping the boss’s soul.”

  “So he can’t leave now,” Natalia said.

  “Right. But his powers make him dominant . . . most of the time. He’s done everything to escape over the past year, but it hasn’t worked. Besides, Jonah doesn’t want to let him go.”

  The wind kept howling, and finally, the weight of all the eyes in the room got to Dawn.

  And when Frank hitched in a breath, she realized that there were more gazes on her than just the team’s or the eyes from Kalin’s portrait.

  The scent of jasmine had filled the room, and Dawn lifted her head as the invisible Friends entered, no doubt summoned awake by Costin. Several of them surrounded her, whispering encoura
gement, just as they did night after night. Even Kalin gave her a mean nudge, just to say her version of “Hi, bitch.”

  Above the fireplace, her portrait stood empty as the room brimmed with life.

  Dawn glanced over to Frank, who had raised his face to the invisible Breisi. He was smiling, languishing under the greeting of his girlfriend. Kiko was nearby, standing alone, seeming so defeated that Dawn started walking over to him.

  On the way, she focused on Natalia again, finding the new girl . . . at home?

  Her hands were outspread in the presence of the spirits, her face glowing while she took in the Friends’ voices. They would be encouraging her, too, Dawn knew.

  Whispers from the dead, she thought. Maybe Natalia really was meant to be here.

  But was that because of some kind of Underground-designed plan? Or was Dawn giving the enemy way too much credit?

  Hell, they’d find out soon enough once the team got to those bodies on Billiter Street.

  FIVE

  THE WHiSPERiNG GROUND

  THIS is it?” Frank asked Natalia as he leaned on the handle of the shovel he’d brought with them to the Square Mile, which housed the financial district.

  They’d hauled themselves and their equipment over here in a modified black Kia Sedona, noting the deserted streets at this witching hour, when most everyone was safe at home in their beds outside of the City’s core.

  “This is where I heard them,” Natalia said, lacing her gloved fingers through the chain-link fence separating them from the small, clearly dormant construction site. Like Dawn and Kiko, she’d strapped on a lighted headset that shone over the rotted cement bags and old dustbins littering the dirt. Frank had such good vamp sight that he’d gone without.

  Nose and cheeks stinging because of the cold, Dawn glanced around while the air hummed with the hush of night. They were enclosed by lights-out banks and empty structures “to let”—which meant they were for rent, in American. In the near distance, the Gherkin building loomed, coming off like the kind of shattered black and silver Easter egg a Goth child might create.