A Drop of Red

by Chris Marie Green

  “I cannot imagine,” Natalia said, “how anyone could remain unaffected by this job. Perhaps this was a reason the boss switched employees in the past?”

  “What do you mean?” Dawn asked.

  Kiko paused midchew.

  Natalia seemed surprised that they hadn’t thought of this.

  “Perhaps the boss saw early employees break mentally,” she said. “He could have learned to retire the members before they . . .” She made an exploding motion near her head.

  Dawn and Kiko just locked gazes. It’d taken a near stranger to see it, maybe because Natalia had been the first intimate member to get a good look at what an Underground hunt had done to a team that was entering an unprecedented Round Two.

  But had they already crossed lines and maybe even gone over edges that previous team members had avoided . . . ?

  Acrid smoke drifted over to their table, and Dawn cuffed it away from her face.

  The guy across the room had lit up a cigarette.

  Natalia didn’t seem to care, but Kiko muttered, “I thought there was no smoking in pubs anymore.”

  “There’s not,” Dawn said, eating the last tasteless bites of her meal. With what Natalia had just pointed out, she only wanted to get out of here.

  Yet as the smoke kept coming, she got frustrated—and maybe it wasn’t even just because of the stench. Sure, she’d spent a lot of effort keeping healthy for stunt work and now for fighting, but . . .

  She just wanted to leave.

  Natalia wasn’t in as much of a hurry. She was probably used to smoke overseas, where it seemed to be more of a regularity than in California.

  Irritated, Dawn waved more smoke away. And, as one second passed, then another, it started to take the very real form of everything else that had been invading her this past year.

  Benedikte. Eva. Frank. Costin.

  Instead of asking the man across the room to put out his ciggie—Dawn was afraid of what she might do if he said no—her frustration grew.

  And that frustration built like more blocks teetering on a crooked pile.

  She thought about Kate’s head . . . the possibility of team insanity . . . the fact that Costin refused to talk about Jonah taking over his body last night, as if he was such a he-man that it mortified him more than anything—

  Fury, always so close to the surface, cold and rumbling, gathered in the center of her chest. It rolled, white sharp, nicking her, growing, pushing, pushing—

  As the energy rushed out of her, Dawn pictured the scapegoat smoker.

  Then, just like she was watching a fuzzy dream, she saw his hand jerk up to his mouth and yank the cigarette away, then crush it to the table where he smooshed it into the wood.

  “Yessss,” she heard Kiko say.

  His voice tweaked her, but before she fully realized she was doing more than just fantasizing, the rage took her over, reddening her gaze.

  Benedikte. Costin. Both liars, both users—

  Boom—another pulse of energy joined the first, and in her mind, she saw the smoker get yanked out of his chair by her mental grip, felt her somehow forcing his arm up and down, up and down, in a parody of a person lifting his hand to put a cigarette into his mouth then take it out.

  She watched the film in her mind’s eye, fascinated. Relieved, because she wasn’t being yanked around anymore. Someone else was.

  In the back of her consciousness, she heard a chair crash to the ground, a woman yell.

  Felt hands shaking her, shaking her, then—

  Smack!

  Dawn sucked in a breath, gaze clearing on the sight of Natalia, who was drawing back her hand as if horrified at what she’d done.

  Cheek stinging, Dawn glanced across the room to where the man had fallen to the ground, shaken up, his girlfriend bending down to him and asking what had happened. She was so afraid for her partner that she didn’t seem to have witnessed the slap across the room.

  My God. My God.

  Head fuzzy, Dawn stood, grabbing her jacket and reaching into a pocket for money to settle the bill. After she tossed it on the table, she glanced at Kiko, who was surveying her with a mixture of awe and fright.

  Unable to endure either, she looked to Natalia.

  “Thank you,” she said, the words too calm, too level.

  The new girl stayed quiet, and Dawn backed away from the table, then turned around to see the smoker getting to his feet.

  She should apologize. But . . .

  What could she possibly tell him? Don’t wig out, but that was just me losing it. Sorry.

  Instead, she climbed the stairs, intending to catch their server in order to pay for the smoker’s meal, too.

  And with every step she took, she packed in the rage so it couldn’t possibly get out again. Forced it lower, where it kept stretching like a dark thing that’d just fully woken up from a long, hard nap.

  SEVENTEEN

  LONDON BABYLON

  The Same Night

  WHEN the girls had gathered to walk to class this morning, Blanche had not emerged from her room to join them.

  When they’d checked her bed, they’d found it empty, the room stripped, save for some padded blue hangers left in the wardrobe and a computer-printed note.

  I’ve been taken out of school. Since I was woken up while the rest of you were resting, there was no time to say my farewells. But here I go to Bali to be with my parents! It’s the last scenario I ever expected, yet who knows how long this holiday will last before they grow tired of me. Perhaps we’ll return to London soon. Until then, expect e-mails.

  And then a smiley face below her name.

  It didn’t seem fair, with Blanche leaving them so quickly and without even a personal farewell. So Della had spent the school day attempting to mind-contact her, yet to no avail. She should’ve known her friend would be far out of range.

  But why had Blanche’s parents taken her out of school now, during this final year? It made as little sense as when Sharon’s parents had taken her away.

  All day Della had wondered . . . and wondered.

  And she had kept wondering while trying not to be distracted by Polly and Noreen scratch wrestling in the underground common room, where the group had fled immediately after completing their school duties.

  The weaker girl didn’t have a chance with the more athletic one’s quickness and strength during the swiping. Hence, three matches into it, Noreen was coated with abrasions she wouldn’t heal until Polly counted them up, then added them to her ongoing tally.

  It seemed to Della that the two girls were taking out their frustration on each other during this playtime. They missed Blanche, yet they felt betrayed since they’d been such a family themselves for over a year now, banded together after being so set aside. Knowing that Blanche seemed so happy to be claimed by her absentee mum and dad hurt all of them.

  Well, almost all.

  Violet was gleefully cheering Polly on, swinging her legs on her divan, acting just as unconcerned about Blanche as she had when Briana and Sharon had left.

  Casting her a disgusted glance, Della continued pacing the fringes of the room.

  It was only later, when Wolfie arrived to fetch them to the main Underground as he’d promised, that she realized she’d forgotten about the treat.

  Within an instant, he’d noticed that Della, more than any other, was affected by Blanche’s departure.

  “You miss her,” he said, loitering near the beads of the tunnel entrance. “Believe me, I feel the same, but her parents wanted her, Della.”

  She didn’t wish to cause a disturbance, yet . . . “How could you let Blanche go so easily, Wolife? She wanted to be a part of the main Underground, just as much as the rest of us. She might have told her parents to rot if she’d seen it.”

  Then she added silently, How could you let any of us go?

  “My sweet girl,” he said, “it breaks my heart to see any of you leave. And I agree—if she had witnessed her future home, she might have stayed. You’ll
find that everyone stays once they get there. It’s so wonderful that not even a parent can drag a daughter away. However, Blanche was no doubt blinded by the fact that her parents expressed interest in her.”

  Wolfie crooked his finger for Della to come away from the outskirts and join the rest of them. She inched forward.

  “After Blanche gets her fill of her parents,” he added, “she might want to return for an even better life with her friends, so don’t despair, Della. I, too, very much wish she could come back to us one day.”

  For a naked instant, Wolfie’s gaze showed more than his constant good cheer or hunger. There was . . . sadness?

  Yet when Violet slid off the divan, clearly more excited about their Underground excursion than the hope that Blanche might return someday, he assumed his usual Wolfie expression once again—a master, not the mastered.

  “We’re still here,” Violet said to him. “Tell us about the Underground. Please?”

  He flicked a glance over the girl, and she smiled at him.

  “Tonight is all about discovery, my dear,” he said. “You shall see for yourself soon.”

  Violet pouted, and he seemed to enjoy that, as always.

  “Ah, how proud I am of this lovely class of girls,” he said, gifting them each with a grin. “To the world outside, Queenshill has a reputation for developing women who are fit to guide the lower echelon, whether it’s in business or social endeavors. But by being selected for this particular, oh-so-secret class, you and your friends have become vampires who will lead in surface feedings and in Underground life. All your instruction will indeed be useful.”

  Overjoyed, Violet clasped her hands. “We’ll be like you, Wolfie? Leading nightcrawls?”

  “If you wish. You’re our brightest and best in the Underground, and although we are equal in that we’re one big happy family, everyone adores the Queenshill girls.”

  Long-living princesses, Della thought, captured by the notion. In real life, she would’ve never got the chance to feel like one.

  Still, she was worried about her friend, out there in the world, all alone now. “Blanche . . . How will she feed without you and us?”

  The other girls were surprised that Della, out of all of them, was asking so many questions of Wolfie.

  Yet he was pleased with her emergence from the edge of the room. “I’ve taught you girls quite well, so she’ll be able to hide her true self even as she mingles with humans. Blanche will do fine on her own.”

  Della wouldn’t accept that. “We were a group. She’ll be lonely.”

  “Perhaps she’ll find other vampires to associate with,” he said. “Girls who must leave us often do find others out of necessity. You know from Sharon’s e-mails that she identified another group, and perhaps this is the reason she doesn’t contact us anymore. Trust that she will be safe for the rest of her nights.”

  He was winning Polly and Noreen over—Della could see it in the way they tilted their heads at him.

  “Della, I know the real reason for your sorrows,” Wolfie said, his voice a caress. “The bottom line is that you cannot believe Blanche or Sharon or even Briana broke their loyalty to you.”

  She held back tears. Wolfie knew how each girl in the group pretended not to treasure the occasional holiday phone contact their parents deigned to make. How the girls told each other that they would be friends through it all and that they didn’t need anyone but their new family. How, by leaving, the other three had betrayed that bond.

  He always knew.

  “If I suggested,” he said, “that this is the reason Blanche chose not to awaken you this morning before she left, would that help? Perhaps she didn’t wish to see your faces as she betrayed you, and I’m certain Briana also didn’t wish to endure that before she ran off.”

  Della was beginning to understand. At least Sharon had said good-bye before she’d gone.

  He leaned back against the wall, his long, wild hair brambled over the rock. “Think of it this way. If your parents came back for you, would you turn down the chance to be with them again? I imagine Blanche is ecstatic at this moment. You wouldn’t deny her that because you believe she should have stayed here. That is not the act of a true friend.”

  At the impossible thought of her parents calling the office to ask that she be sent to them, Della’s chest balled into itself. All she’d wanted was a minute of attention from them.

  But to have hours? Weeks?

  Della felt the same wistful reverberations from Noreen and Polly . . . and even Violet.

  Wolfie rose, all grace and lean muscle, but Della thought she detected a flash of that sadness in his eyes again.

  He missed Blanche, his recent favorite, just as much as Della, Polly, and Noreen did.

  Then, as if he couldn’t stand even a second of unhappiness, he clapped his hands, then rubbed them, back to being the one who always turned a bad situation into good.

  After so many centuries, he’d once told them, you must allow water to flow under all bridges. That was a reason he didn’t like to be the one to punish them.

  He went to the beads. “In spite of it all, I still have you, my darlings.”

  Violet clamored to be first out. “Will we stay with you in the Underground tonight? After all, it is a special occasion.”

  “No, I must have you back just before classes begin tomorrow.”

  Violet pouted.

  Yet with dashing flair, he turned away from her and parted the beads for the rest of them.

  And, for the first time since Blanche had left, Della allowed herself a nudge of excitement.

  Maybe someday Blanche truly might join us, she thought, allowing the others to hear.

  Noreen and Polly sent Della agreeable yet tentative smiles while Violet darted past them, saying, “Can’t you even offer a smidge of what to expect, Wolfie? Please, please, please?”

  “Such enthusiasm,” he teased, allowing Polly, then Noreen, then Della through the beads before letting them slap back to place. Then he led the group through the tunnel. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have raised your hopes about this old, stuffy place. I do hope there won’t be any postvisit comments about how decrepit your Wolfie is.”

  In spite of his jesting, they all knew he was terribly ancient, and it’d actually been just over a century ago that his own master had instructed him to build an Underground. Yet even as the other blood brothers separated and grew more isolated as they constructed their own communities, Wolfie had been too enamored of using Thomas Gatenby’s inheritance while exploring the world to settle down so soon. Hence, like a stubborn playboy, he had only committed to his own Underground in the nineteen thirties, long after Queenshill had been established.

  The part of the story that always interested Della the most whenever Wolfie told it concerned those other blood brothers—the master vampires who’d exchanged at the same time as he. Wolfie had told the girls about the hideous rumors from other traveling brothers—more carefree creatures such as he—who had not yet built their own communities way back when.

  Some masters, they had told Wolfie, were taking over existing Undergrounds. This was the reason they had bided their time in creating their own.

  The news had been no shock, Wolfie had told the girls. The blood brothers had been raised and trained as warriors, and this habit had obviously carried over into vampire life, although when the dragon awakened . . .

  Wolfie always trailed off ominously here, making the girls squirm because they could guess there would be awful consequences for the disobedient blood brothers.

  When the story continued, Wolfie would always mention how he and his companion had been significantly drawn to London for years, and they had settled here only after he’d sensed the aggressive vibrations from another blood brother depart the area. During one of his roams about town, he had even discovered the remains of a series of burned-out subterranean rooms that had been situated in deserted construction areas for the tube.

  Remains from the master who had l
eft London?

  Wolfie believed so, yet he had still set down roots in this city with such wonderfully open parks, high living, and mystical anchorings. And even though he ruled an Underground, he’d vowed never to hide down below. After all, he hadn’t sensed another master since finding evidence of the departed one.

  Yet, most importantly, he had no doubts that this Underground was the strongest of them all, and this was the reason other masters had no doubt stayed away.

  Even so, Della couldn’t help but recall what she’d accidentally heard in Wolfie’s mind last night.

  And what if another blood brother is . . . ?

  Nearby?

  As they arrived at the surface door, she told herself that if a master such as Wolfie wasn’t visibly concerned about the possibility, she, the lowest of the low, certainly shouldn’t be.

  Wolfie made a show of listening for vibrations above, then he winked at them as he crouched, then zinged up to the door and blasted through it, springing into the open.

  For a beautiful moment, he was suspended against a brittle night sky until he landed, then hunched over the opening to watch the girls follow.

  Beginning with Violet, each of them imitated his exit, bouncing upward, then thudding to the crunchy leaves.

  Once Della emerged, she immediately helped Noreen chain the door and cover it with dead leaves just before Wolfie whispered, “Follow me,” and gave a howl as he zoomed into the darkness and through the thick, scraggly woods so far from the school.

  Pulse spiking, Della and the rest leaped to a gallop, falling into his very steps as they bounded over grass and hills and railway tracks, streaking through the moonlight and leaving only a blur for any human eye that might catch their progress.

  Della was never happier. Running in her humanlike form. Wind in her hair. Away from her old life and toward the new.

  They shot up more hills, then through branches that grabbed for their hair and clothing but couldn’t hold on because they were moving so fast and—

  They sensed that Wolfie had stopped at the cusp of a hill, and they did, as well, halting in front of a grass-camouflaged door. They panted softly as he motioned to the entrance, causing it to yawn open in the flowing rise.