A Drop of Red

by Chris Marie Green

  Among their talents was the ability to play hard, then binge rest on the weekends plus the few hours they had before class began and after they had got in from their nightcrawls. Della enjoyed rest—it allowed her not to think.

  A pleasured-pained sigh came from the other side of the room as Violet bit into Polly’s neck.

  It was just an appetizer since Polly had taken most of that girl’s blood the other night, sharing Kate with Violet only after Wolfie had finished dining.

  “Let’s leave for some fun now,” Blanche said, standing, the hammock swinging behind her. She gave a pointed glance toward the feeding Violet, then headed for the bead-covered tunnel.

  Creak, creak went the hammock’s boltings in the walls as no one moved to follow her.

  Polly moaned as Violet continued sucking.

  Blanche blew out a breath, then changed direction, walking over to the stereo system, where she plucked out a CD from the wall holder and stared at the song list.

  In the meantime, Violet fed, her fingers slipping to Polly’s breast.

  As Violet caressed it, the other girl shifted her hips, biting her lip until a squiggle of blood trailed down her chin.

  Della’s belly went tight at the scent of the blood.

  Hungry, so hungry. But she never went first. Always last.

  Always.

  At another of Polly’s moans, Blanche put the CD into the player, cranking the volume. A thundering techno beat covered the feeding noises.

  Unable to resist a good rhythm, Noreen stood and immediately swayed into a dance.

  In its corner, the cat blinked awake, then hefted out a sigh and put its head back down.

  Della came to focus on the ceiling, the fairy lights sharpening to white points in her gaze. But the whiteness pained her, so she looked away to see Blanche joining Noreen.

  They danced away as Violet raised her blood-soaked mouth from Polly’s neck, her fangs shaded red.

  “Mind the volume,” Violet said, her command vibrating over the music.

  Mocking the beat, Blanche shook her head.

  In a brutal flash, Violet sprang out of her seat, flying across the room, crashing into Blanche with enough force to smash the black-haired girl against the rock wall.

  In response, Blanche’s fangs shot from her gums while Violet hissed in her face.

  Noreen dashed over to turn the stereo off, glancing toward the cat, her fingers fidgeting into a tangle. Then she looked at Della.

  What should we do? she asked.

  Nothing. We shouldn’t interfere. . . .

  Violet’s voice shivered the fairy lights. “Why can’t you obey?”

  Shadows jittered over the walls.

  Blanche’s eyes slanted, then went an electric blue, her hair receding back into her head, making her bare and ugly. Yet even as her face changed into something feral and catlike, her ears extended to points, like a wolf’s.

  Not to be outdone, Violet altered into the same full vampire form, as well. Then, opening her mouth all the way and brandishing her long fangs, she swiped at Blanche’s face with fingers that had extended into claws, leaving deep, bloody gouges in the other girl’s cheek.

  Della’s stomach tumbled. Hungry.

  Scared.

  The black-haired girl fought back, raising her foot to lever against Violet’s stomach. The force lifted the brunette off her feet, and she landed on her bum with a grunt, then bounced right back up, her spine arched, claws outstretched as her hiss lowered to a screeching growl.

  The blood, the frenzy . . . Della couldn’t take any more.

  “Don’t!” she yelled.

  As the two fighting creatures whipped their gazes over to her, she pressed her lips together.

  She should’ve stayed quiet. Why hadn’t she?

  When a louder, angrier hiss filled the room, they all froze.

  For against the rock wall behind Blanche and Violet, a shadow was growing, expanding, finally settling into the form of a humanlike being.

  Della felt as if needles were being shoved under her skin, and she cowered.

  “You fight even as our carelessness causes trouble aboveground?” the shadow’s owner said from its former sleeping spot behind Della. Its voice sounded like steam rising through the cracks of hell. “I was waiting to see if you appreciated the reprieve I was extending.”

  Violet and Blanche both cringed, their fangs receding and their eyes going dull as they lowered their gazes. They should have known punishment was coming. They had all known.

  On the wall, Della could see the shadow crooking a finger at the two girls.

  Summoning them for an even worse scolding.

  SEVEN

  THE MiSPLACED HEART

  Earlier the Same Day

  AT sunrise, Dawn had met Costin in their bedroom.

  She was already in her nightgown—he liked the elegance of them, he’d always said—when he entered and shut the door behind him. The curtains were closed, and a sanguine light suffused the room from a lampshade decorated with red velvet swirls, just like blood curling in water.

  “You showed,” she said, getting under the sheets and quilt. “I almost thought you might stay locked up tight from now on.”

  Costin stood by the walk-in closet, shedding his roomy white shirt. Dawn couldn’t help lingering over the streamlined beauty of muscles under pale skin.

  Then she remembered that this was really Jonah’s form, not Costin’s. That she would never get to touch her lover’s original body. Ever.

  He left his torso bare, coming to stand at the side of the bed in his loose black trousers. She could see his topaz eyes shining through the sheer draping.

  “You are concerned that I will be distancing myself?” he asked, his voice like a scratching caress over her skin.

  Her belly heated. “It did cross my mind.”

  He leaned down, hands on the mattress. “It is nice to see that you care.”

  The last word rattled her. She’d never allowed herself to care about anyone, and when she’d let down her guard enough to try, she’d been burned. By “Matt.” Even by Costin.

  She didn’t like where this conversation was headed, so she diverted it. “If you think I’m not going to grill you about what you’ve been doing for the last several hours since the team returned, you’re wrong. Coming over here with your shirt off will do no good.”

  A low laugh acknowledged her directness.

  And her emotional dodging.

  “Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, plus our databases,” he said, obliging her, “I have been able to construct a list of every missing ‘Kate’ or ‘Katherine’ or other variations in the area. It is not a long roll call since crime over here is nothing compared to what we are used to in America. Plus, we know Kate was a British local, so that has narrowed down our names, as well.”

  She wanted to ask about the night-vision boy who’d tracked them at the dumping ground, but first things first. “Sounds like the Scotland Yard cops didn’t give you any help.”

  “Since this burial site was within what they call ‘the City,’ I contacted an old acquaintance in the City of London police. I have an . . . understanding . . . with Detective Inspector Norton. He’s discreet, passionate, and very open to alternative explanations for unexplainable crimes. However, he is protective about open cases and will not share details.”

  “Can a Friend be assigned to look over his shoulder?”

  “Done. However, our lot is not made easier by the fact that the press has already gotten ahold of the Billiter story. The police do not have many details, but if our Underground vampires are indeed responsible for this burial ground, then we can expect them to be less careless from now on.”

  “Do you think they could’ve been warned by that boy who was hanging around Billiter even before the press came into it?”

  “That is a distinct possibility, as well.”

  Goody. “So are the cops going to give us any help?”

  “We shall see. A Fri
end told me that Norton personally went to the burial site an hour or two ago. He already seems committed to the victims.” Costin sat on the mattress. “Yet even though he may be open to strange explanations for a crime, the rest of his department might not be so inclined.”

  “So the dumping ground is a crime scene now,” she said. “Do you think we can try to send Natalia back there, just to see if she hears anything else?”

  “We can. I will also see if Norton will at least chat with the city coroner. If Natalia could be near the bodies again, she might discern any last whispers there, as well. However, as I said, Norton will most likely prefer to keep us out of an investigation.”

  “I can understand why. He probably doesn’t want to come off like the department whack job. But maybe his keeping us out of it is for the best. More secretive that way, and we can continue doing our own thing.”

  In spite of the topic, Dawn’s blood seemed thick in her veins. If she scooted over a couple of inches, Costin would be close enough to touch.

  “Are you going to persuade the cops or the coroner to cooperate?” Dawn asked.

  “That’s chancy. They have to answer to many more people than a private citizen such as Natalia does.”

  “Right.” Dawn was losing steam, but she wanted to know more. “What else is up?”

  “After you returned, and while you were calming Natalia, I assigned Kiko the task of researching our list of Kates. He is priori-tizing based upon the information Natalia was able to hear and from what we were able to see of Kate’s corpse. We will arrange interviews with any acquaintances and possible family based on his recommendations.”

  The heater kicked on, and Dawn huddled under the quilt. “He’ll do a decent job?”

  “Kiko is suddenly very motivated.”

  She laughed. “Anyone ever tell you how sly you are?”

  “You never fail.”

  His compelling gaze lured her, but she wouldn’t rest until her questions had been smoothed under the weight of answers.

  “And the boy?” she asked.

  Costin’s chin went up a defensive notch, and Dawn sensed that he was about to block her out.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said.

  He held up a hand. “Instinct.”

  She tried not to take it personally, because he’d lived hundreds of years waging his own private war.

  “Costin.” She reached out from under the quilt, but didn’t touch him.

  He waited one more second, then finally said, “After you brought the boy here, Breisi joined me in the lab.”

  On the ride back over, they’d wrapped the kid in a tarp since he actually hadn’t been all the way dead—he’d still had a faint pulse, and Dawn had thought Costin and Frank might be able to do something if they both tried to vamp-heal him. Frank, who’d walked to headquarters on foot instead of being tempted by all that blood, hadn’t been powerful enough to help the boy at the site, and even the usual healing goo had been useless for the kid’s extensive injuries.

  He’d died minutes into the ride, but instead of returning him, they’d decided to “question” him through other means.

  “What did you find?” she asked. “Why did Frank think the kid wasn’t quite a vampire or even human?”

  A glow lit Costin’s eyes. “His blood. Breisi and I found an unidentifiable element in it beyond any of our experiences, and Breisi is well versed in science. And his heart . . .”

  Costin met her gaze, his own flaring with so much more than basic hunger. It was the craving to win this war.

  “His heart,” he said, “was oriented on the right side of his body.”

  It took a few seconds for her to absorb this. “Are you sure? I mean, how? Why?”

  “Breisi tells me that there is a condition—dextrocardia—in which the heart may be flipped. But then again, there is the matter of his blood. We cannot identify that abnormality yet.

  “And then there is this: we had brought Kiko into the lab to see if he could perhaps get a reading from the boy’s clothing. Even though Kiko did not sense anything we did not already know, he had an interesting observation. One of his comic book connections.”

  “A . . . comic book connection.” Detecting at its best.

  “He maintains that in a graphic novel entitled JLA: Earth-2, a plane crashed. It was filled with deceased passengers whose hearts were in the same location as this boy’s. In the course of the story, we find that these people were from an antimatter planet—a parallel Earth where everything is the same, yet different from what we know.”

  Dawn stared at Costin. “So this kid is part of the DC Comics multiverse?”

  “Dawn.” He sighed and lay back on the bed.

  Even from a few feet away, she pulsed with his proximity.

  “I’m just wondering what sort of conclusions we can draw from that,” she said. “Are these alien vamps? Because that’s a whole other ball of wax.”

  “Unless a blood brother exchanged with an extraterrestrial, it’s unlikely. We were all quite human when we started.”

  “You never know.” She pulled the covers up higher. “At least Kiko’s mind is churning. Maybe there’ll be some kind of beneficial vision that comes out of it next.”

  “I only hope.”

  He folded his hands behind his head, and Dawn stopped herself from touching him—his chest, up and under his arms.

  God.

  She got it together. “I’m assuming you’ll have Natalia try to listen to the boy’s corpse after she wakes up?”

  “We will try.”

  “And how about the box the kid was holding? Did Breisi and Frank tool around with that?”

  “Frank easily found that it was a flash grenade the boy might have used to blind you and the others as he escaped.”

  “So it wasn’t some kind of Friend capture box? They were freaked out that it might be.”

  “They recall being contained by the Elites.”

  Once bitten, twice shy, Dawn thought. She knew the story.

  “Was it ultraviolet?” she asked.

  “No. Aside from the boy being at the burial ground, there was nothing to indicate he was a vampire fighter . . . or even a protector.”

  Things weren’t ever straightforward in this biz. “Where is he now? I can’t imagine you turning him over to the authorities with all that exploratory stuff you must’ve done on him.”

  Costin kept his gaze on the bed’s canopy. “We have put him to temporary rest in the lab’s refrigerator/freezer. Even so, I am hoping his fingerprints will be of use, though they did not register in our database. I’ve sent them to a contact in Interpol who has helped me in the past.”

  “Should I ask if you also sent a sample of the kid’s blood for possible ID?”

  “I refrained from that. I would like to see what the prints reveal first.”

  Good move, Dawn thought. If the boy’s blood was that strange, there’d be questions to deal with, secrecy to risk.

  “Then we gear another search to a missing boy with sandy hair, green eyes, and terrible judgment,” she said.

  “The sooner we find his identity, the better. Among other matters, I would like to offer him a proper resting place.” Costin still didn’t look at Dawn as he started firing off questions now. “So tell me—how is Natalia?”

  Dawn bristled. He sensed it and frowned, so she assumed the usual who-gives-a-fig demeanor.

  “Aside from seeing her first disembodied head tonight?” she asked. “Natalia’s fine. She took a while to come down from her wig out. When we got back, I had to sit there in the extra bedroom with her while she tried to sleep, but then a Friend came in and lulled her. That did the trick.”

  “Her family in Slough knows she is somewhere safe?”

  “Yeah, I called them.” The light bled over his profile: the straight nose, the full lips. Control, Dawn, control. “Natalia agreed to go home today to pick up clothes and necessities. We’ll see if she comes back here.”

  “She will.”
>
  “You’re pretty cocky.” Dawn leaned on her elbow. “I know you’ve seen into her psyche and all, but what if she surprises you by deserting? What happens to the information we gave her?”

  “Dawn, she is going to stay. None of my hunters have ever chosen to leave.”

  “But how many of them really knew what was going on?”

  “A few.” Costin finally faced her, removing one of his hands from behind his head to catch a strand of her hair between his fingers. He tested it, just like he was feeling the texture for the first time. “In the past, I have dispensed information merely on a need-to-know basis. I felt it necessary to withhold information so you would stay on board with me. But there is no need with Natalia. She is here for those voices because their pain disturbs her more profoundly than you will ever know. All her life she has wondered if there was a way to save them, and now there is. Have faith in that.”

  She hesitated, then nodded, even while noting that his hand emanated coolness where there should’ve been warmth. In Hollywood, Benedikte, when he’d been disguised as Matt, had had the ability to give off the perception of normal skin. But Costin wasn’t as strong as a master, wasn’t as powerful.

  He brushed his fingertips over her jaw, and she shivered, her skin tingling.

  She almost asked him the next question mind-to-mind, but didn’t want to open herself up. “Costin?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t help thinking that maybe she’s your new . . . whatever.”

  “Who, Natalia?” He dropped his hand to the mattress.

  Dawn wasn’t going to throw around accusations; she only wanted to be clear. “Just give me the facts, without me having to dig. What are your intentions toward this girl?”

  Costin wiped his hands down and up his face, planting his fingers in his hair, and if Dawn didn’t know better, she would’ve said it was a very human male gesture of frustration.

  “I forget,” he said, “that you are unlike any other hunter I have had before. And exponentially more maddening.”