A Drop of Red

by Chris Marie Green

His voice vibrated Dawn’s earpiece. “That common room is on the far side of the dorm, facing away from where you are now.” He was obviously using the map the team had drawn up for him so he could follow their progress. “The Friends will have time to warn you if the girls change position. You will need to stay alert once you draw close to those dorms.”

  “Gotcha.” It’d be bad enough to be caught by anyone, but they were being extra careful because, if the vamp girls just happened to recognize them from the school tour today, there’d be some major ’splaining to do.

  “Good luck,” said Natalia over the earpiece. She was also on the line back at headquarters because, without much physical training, she might have to be watched by the team, and that wouldn’t work at all.

  It’d been different with Dawn when she’d joined up last year. Because of stunt work, she’d been trained to use a revolver, to dodge and run and jump. Sure, her professional battles had been staged, but she’d been in fighting shape. Besides, she’d been “key” to the investigation, so she’d undergone trial by fire.

  They all thanked Natalia for her positive wishes, then walked toward the wall that divided the lane from the campus’s football field.

  “Luck?” Kiko asked. “We don’t need no stinkin’ luck.”

  Dawn motioned for him to start climbing the wall while, in the near distance, dogs barked, sawing at the nerves she’d already calmed.

  But she told herself to get in the zone again.

  Frosty. Ready.

  Knowing the Friends were already looking out for them, the team jogged, keeping their bodies low along the tree line as they aimed for a three-story stone house on the outskirts of the main campus.

  As Frank went inside, Dawn and Kiko covered him: her with silver throwing blades plus an ultraviolet flash grenade that Breisi and Frank had built, and Kiko with a revolver loaded with silver bullets dipped in holy water. Since they were trying to move around quickly tonight without being noticed, they’d left bigger attack toys, like the saw-bow, in their vehicle.

  The spirits had told them that this building was abandoned, but the team was still vigilant while Frank poked around, using every one of his increased vampire senses to ferret out any sign of an Underground entrance where the Friends couldn’t.

  Not finding anything on the lower floor of the building, which looked like it was used to store old school furniture, he moved to a higher one.

  But all too soon, Dawn’s earpiece came alive with her dad’s gruff voice. “It’s clean here. I’m ready to move on.”

  So Frank continued his bloodhound act around the football field, sweeping from one end to the other. But he didn’t find much besides goal posts and a few cigarette butts near a bunch of trees.

  Next.

  They headed toward the campus’s main buildings, with those chimera silhouettes etched against the night. Jasmine floated around the team on the surprisingly mild air while the Friends moved around, distracting an old security guard and keeping watch.

  Again, Frank found nothing.

  Nothing near the chapel, either, even though Dawn hadn’t ruled out the site for possible vamp activity. The community could very well be immune to holy symbols, just like the higher Hollywood creatures had been.

  The team rested against the chapel’s wall, eyeing the cluster of dorms in the near distance.

  “What’s the word?” Dawn asked the Friends, who kept coming and going.

  Mary-Margaret, a spirit with a Georgia-peach accent, filled them in. “The girls are still knocked out in front of the common room TV. But the frizzy-haired girl named Della is stirring every so often.”

  The team inspected the particular dorm that the Friends had fingered as the home of those four Queen Bees. Dawn pointed to a gathering of trees about eight hundred feet from the house, and Frank gestured that he wanted to go there next.

  Since the vamp girls were secure and the trees were a good distance away, they all moved to the new location, where Frank immediately started combing through the leaves while closely scanning and sniffing.

  As dogs still barked off yonder, Dawn and Kiko hunkered down by the tree trunks, fixing their eyes on the dorm windows. Some of them were black, but some were lit up, creating a light-dark jigsaw in the night.

  The girls were inside that puzzle, Dawn thought. And, damn it, she wished the team could’ve thought of a nonconfrontational way to arrange for her dad to look into a few of those vamps’ eyes for a mind search tonight instead of puttering around with this slow Frank-hound stuff.

  But again . . . what if these vamps were capable of recognizing a related creature like Frank? Would they welcome him or attack?

  And would the discovery of him put the girls and their possible Underground on alert?

  Dawn’s skin prickled just before a Friend whished by. Her voice was too excited for Dawn to identify her.

  “Vampire!” she said. “Della has come back to her room for a book, and she’s on this side of the dorm now!”

  Light filled one of the windows and, on a held breath, Dawn retreated back into the trees next to Kiko, putting away her weapons and taking out her small surveillance binoculars. She zoomed in while the Friend took the message to Frank.

  He went statue still, too.

  They all seemed to freeze their pulses as they watched the dorm, hoping the light would go dark. . . .

  But then Della with the frizzy hair appeared in her window, glancing around, wrinkling her nose and bending to the bottom of the frame.

  Where it was cracked about an inch.

  She sniffed at the opening, then bolted up and scanned outside.

  A current of terror zapped around Dawn’s chest. This Della’s sense of smell couldn’t be that good, not at over eight hundred feet, right? Dawn and Kiko had even washed with Breisi’s neutralizing soap.

  The girl opened the window the rest of the way and leaned forward, sniffing some more, then homing in on the trees.

  No. Way.

  When a second girl—Violet, the leader of the pack—came to the window, Della gestured toward where the team was hiding. Her mouth wasn’t moving, so Dawn suspected they were mind-communicating. No wonder Costin had sensed activity in London if these girls were so flagrant about it.

  But he’d sensed a blood brother, not just vampires. . . .

  Then, at the window, Violet said something out loud to Della and gave her shoulder an annoyed shove, pushing the weaker girl out of the frame.

  Arguing?

  Dawn’s first instinct was to grab the longest-distance weapon they had—Kiko’s revolver. If she fired away, plugging both girls, would the silver have the same destructive effect she’d seen on vamps before?

  Of course, spazzing like that would ruin everything, but her nerves begged her to do something instead of sit here with her heart gagging her.

  A third girl appeared in the window to join in the verbal argument—the one with blondish reddish bobbed hair. The one the Friends called Polly.

  Then the fourth came—the redhead named Noreen.

  The dogs in the distance started barking louder. It was almost like they’d even come together and gotten . . . closer?

  The group of Friends who’d been shadowing the team flew into the woods, flapping the tree branches. Breisi, herself, came over to Dawn and Kiko.

  “A pack of dogs,” she said on a wind-tunneled yell. “They were summoned . . . We’ll slow them down while you go for the car!”

  Summoned?

  Before Dawn could ask for more information, Breisi shot away with the other Friends.

  Frank commandoed his way over, murmuring to Costin at the same time. “We’re on our way back.”

  Shoving her binoculars into a pocket, Dawn stood and glanced at the window again—at the four silhouettes staring right at them. Adrenaline iced her.

  Underground vamps had developed different talents over the centuries. Had these little Queens summoned a court of animals to flush out what the girls had sensed in the trees?<
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  Had Della recognized their scents from their school tour?

  From this far?

  Beyond the dorm buildings, the dogs were barking like possessed beasts, and it sounded like they were gathering in number, in speed. Every once in a while, there’d be a yelp, and Dawn could imagine the Friends crashing against them, pushing and lifting them with their pressure to slow them down.

  The spirits wouldn’t be able to do away with the creatures—when the former hunters had agreed to stay with Costin after perishing, they’d been promised a continuing state of grace, their souls perpetually redeemed by their deaths. They could fight but they couldn’t kill.

  But couldn’t they at least lull the animals into complacency or cloud their vision?

  Wait—preternatural sight could usually cut through a Friend’s haze, according to Costin. But what about the lulling . . . ?

  Dawn grabbed a handful of Kiko’s jacket and took off with him in tow, but Frank snatched the psychic from her and gripped her by the arm as he accelerated, throwing caution to the wind and using his vamp powers.

  Her toes dragged on the ground while she tried to keep up, branches snapping under their feet, popping like gunshots, and her lungs sharpened with cold gasps as they approached the speed-fuzzed edge of the woods, where the open grass would reveal them.

  But they didn’t stop.

  Neither did the barking: louder, closer, more ferocious than before.

  The pack couldn’t have been more than one hundred feet away now, and Dawn was flailing with Frank’s speed, unable to get her balance—

  Until she felt a Friend taking up her back and pushing her.

  “It’s me,” Breisi said, just as cool as always, while Dawn found her feet and got into a rhythm.

  More barks behind them—closer, fifty feet?—but there were more yelps because the Friends were still slowing them down.

  Dawn pumped her arms as Breisi pressured her along, her feet barely even skimming the grass.

  They were coming upon the stone building where they’d stopped earlier. Beyond it was a wall, trees, their car, which was outfitted to protect them from vampires if they could just get to it—

  She heard babbling, Friends talking to each other, then suddenly, she was pushed up at an angle, the stone building rushing toward her face as her feet cycled in the air.

  “Breisi!” Dawn yelled, seeing in her peripheral vision that the spirits had also elevated Frank and Kiko.

  Just before they all smacked into the building, the Friends pushed them straight up, making it look like the wall was pouring down in a tumble of stone.

  “Climb!” Breisi said, and Dawn and Frank pedaled their feet, reached out with their hands, connecting with each jutting stone, up and up, supported by the Friends.

  The spirits were losing energy—the chase had taken too much out of them—so when Dawn reached the roof, she put all her might into running up its shingled incline, then grabbing the chimney so she wouldn’t fall back down. Kiko, propelled forward by Frank, also latched on, followed by Frank, himself.

  While one Friend spun away from the team to go down and face the dogs again, Breisi guarded them as the pack—five vicious beasts—rushed the house. Some of them began rolling over, engaged in a seemingly one-sided tussle with Friends, but others were barking, still charging, foaming at the mouth, their eyes pale with crazed obedience to the vampires who were obviously commanding them.

  Demon dogs, Dawn thought, catching her breath at the sight of their empty, reflective eyes. There was some Dangerous Dog Act here in the UK, so she wondered if maybe these weren’t strays so much as a collection from a rebel owner in the area.

  “Breisi,” Dawn said, turning away from the chimney while still holding tight. “Why didn’t we go to the car?”

  Her Friend’s voice was reedier than usual, sucked of her usual energy because of the exertion. “Minutes ago, we found animals there, too, somehow waiting for you. We’re clearing them out so you can run to it.”

  “Animals?” Kiko held up his revolver, clasping the chimney with his other hand. “Let’s have at them. First these hellhounds and then the ones at the car.”

  Costin had gone silent, giving control to the team and lying low, but Breisi probably spoke for him when she said, “No, Kik, not while you can still hide our purpose in being here. If we show weapons or special powers, they’ll suspect hunters. Besides, the car is being guarded by feral cats and foxes—about thirty altogether, and even a vampire and guns aren’t going to get them before they lay teeth to your throats or give you rabies, and we can’t afford to risk that before getting a better bead on any community locations.”

  “Thanks for the consideration,” Kiko said.

  Bresisi circled them. “The vampire girls are even now still at the dorm, letting the dogs chase you off, and they don’t know why you’re here or even that we Friends have intercepted their animals. They’ve scented us, but they have no idea what we are. It doesn’t even look like the girls can see through their animals’ eyes—it’s only a command mind-link, so we’re still in decent shape as long as they stay in the dorms.”

  “You couldn’t lull the animals?” Dawn asked.

  “No—they’re already being commanded.”

  So much for music soothing the savage beast. “Then we’ll just wait here for a few minutes.”

  “That’s right,” Breisi said. “But if Greta, who’s watching the girls, sees them leave the dorms, she’ll tell us while attempting to divert them. Meanwhile, we’ll play it safe since we still have a chance of preserving surprise for the ultimate attack.”

  “Breez,” Frank asked, “why’re animals at the car? How would they know to go there?”

  “Greta heard Della say after she caught scent of you in the trees that she instructed the ferals to find any strange vehicles near the school. She recognized you and Kiko from the tour today and wondered why you might be here. She was afraid for some reason. Violet, the leader, wasn’t quite as worried about your presence outside—more curious, actually—but she definitely wasn’t happy about Della calling the animals.”

  As the dogs rolled and barked below, Dawn recalled the argument she’d seen between the girls in the window.

  Breisi continued. “Violet reacted in a way I would have never predicted. Instead of wondering why you were here, too, she said that maybe they could have some fun with you before going on what they called a ‘nightcrawl.’ ”

  Fun? Dawn thought of Kate Lansing and Justin’s Posh Spice girlfriend. Had these dead and missing girls been victims of nightcrawls?

  Below, one of the dogs tore free from a Friend and ran toward the building, scrabbling up the stone before being pulled back down.

  Good God, when would their car be ready? Dawn guessed they might be able to run away from the school without a vehicle, what with Frank’s speed and a few Friends, but how far would they get before more animals caught up or until Frank and the spirits lost speed because of the extra load of Dawn and Kiko?

  “Three of the girls were excited about beginning this nightcrawl early,” Breisi added, “and they argued with Della in favor of it. But Della told them they must ‘be good’ and they all took that into serious consideration. Then Violet yelled at her for calling the dogs, and Della told her that she only did it because she wanted to see if she was right about your identities . . .”

  “Did they actually confirm who we are?” Dawn asked.

  “Friends tried to camouflage the girls’ view of you by pushing nearby branches over their line of sight, making it look like a gust of wind was moving the trees. I’m hoping that worked.”

  Hoping . . .

  “You know what?” Kiko said. “I think this Della is way more cautious than the others. But why?”

  Hoping Frank might have something to contribute to the conversation, Dawn turned to him. He was on one knee, looking in the direction of the car, just like he could hear the noises from the standoff there, even over the barking.

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sp; Kiko had more to offer. “If we ever get a shot at these girls, Della would be the one to isolate. Frank could look into her mind to see what she knows.”

  “It might be too chancy for Frank to come back on campus for a mind-reading after this,” Dawn said.

  Kiko was clinging to the chimney, revolver still in hand. “You think we could ambush them during one of these nightcrawls then? The Friends can tell us when the girls leave the dorm, and maybe Frank can get to Della tonight and then split before she knows what hit her. We might even be able to get locators on their clothes to help the Friends with tracking them.”

  “Not bad, Kik,” Breisi said.

  Dawn looked at the ground, where the dogs were head-butting the air—the Friends—and baring their teeth at the spirits.

  She glanced back in the direction of the dorm. What if the girls decided to begin that nightcrawl before the team got to the car?

  Just as she was about to address it, Costin activated their earpieces, his voice sounding rough.

  “Clear or not, I want you to go ahead and use whatever means necessary to get to the car before those girls decide they do want a nightcrawl.”

  Dawn held a hand to her ear, almost thinking she hadn’t heard him right. “You want us to expose our real selves?”

  “I want you to return to me, Dawn.”

  Her body seized. Did he want her back because he . . . ?

  No, Costin wouldn’t indulge any soft feelings for her right now—not with the fate of his soul at stake. He just wanted his “key,” and she knew that. God, she knew that.

  The dogs were obviously sick of waiting, too, as they proved by backing up, then running at the building, one by one.

  She watched, realizing that maybe, just maybe, she could use a puppet move on them. It’d be silent enough and probably wouldn’t give off any weird vibes to a vamp. Maybe.

  Costin broke in again. “Return to me and we will consider that ambush Kiko mentioned. At the same time, the Friends will stay on the girls and keep reporting in—”

  Then something—a gasp?—filled the earpiece.

  Trepidation marched up Dawn’s spine. “Hey, are you . . . ?”

  “I’m fine . . . Dawn.”