Midnight Reign

by Chris Marie Green

  Benedikte crashed to the floor, rolling to his back in shuddering ecstasy. Eyes open, he witnessed the play of rainbows as joy literally emanated from his body, flashing over the walls, reflecting off the windowpanes.

  Then, when the soul allowed him to feel the sublime grief of the day Sorin had been tossed out of his home, Benedikte moaned, cried, became human again for one heavenly moment—

  Furiously, the soul ripped out of him, crazed and wailing, as frightened as always. It flew back into the vial, which the vampire had enchanted with a spell that told the soul this was home, this was safety.

  It clamored inside and, even while racked with agony, the Master plugged the vile, knowing he would be truly empty if he lost this one last possession, as well.

  Feeling as if each corner of the room was pulling and quartering him into pieces, Benedikte shivered on the floor, clinging to the aftermath, destroyed by it.

  Minutes, maybe hours later, the door groaned open. Still panting, Benedikte glanced in its direction. There, even in the darkness, he discerned the beating outline of his only surviving son.

  Sorin, his tattered clothing smoked with acrid memories of the battle, walked inside, closing the door behind him. “Here you are. I should have known you would be in your beloved sanctuary.”

  The Master rested in this place often. Normally it was after a picture show, with the grand piping of organ music still chorusing through his limbs, or after a night of visiting clubs, with their Harry Houdini imitators or flappers dancing to the jazz music.

  When Benedikte didn’t answer, Sorin tried again. “Your Awareness was closed off to me—”

  “We had no protection.” Benedikte pressed his hands against his face. “I’m not a leader—I never have been—and we were caught off guard because of it. If we’d only had some sort of defense….”

  Bonelessly, he allowed his hands to fall to the floor. He stared at the ceiling, much like the crucifix figure on the other side of the room, although there was an abyss of difference between them.

  Sorin slumped back against a wall, coming to sit. He’d battled valiantly, utilizing the magic he’d been born with—magic that had been honed through vampire talents, magic that he’d refined from country to country, border to border.

  But all the other young, jazz-baby children hadn’t been able to fight, thanks to Andre, the vampire Benedikte had once believed to be a brother in blood.

  Benedikte rued the moment he and Sorin had been lured outside by Andre’s cryptic presence. There had been a frisson splitting the air, a faint thrum Benedikte had not felt since leaving the old country.

  Unsuspectingly, they’d gone to investigate.

  Andre had been waiting, arm draped over a bench he’d been sitting on in Hyde Park. The emerging moon had made him more shadow than substance but, all the same, Benedikte had noticed that his brother’s beard had been shaved off, his hair clipped to accommodate today’s fashions, just as he and Sorin had done, as well.

  He hadn’t seen Andre for centuries, not since the brothers had discovered that each of them possessed diverse talents and had gone their own ways to revel in the discovery of how far they could take them. The others could perform feats such as commanding animals to obey or even affecting weather; Benedikte could do neither, although he was coming to believe that his immunity to religious objects might be a latent strength.

  The only other time Benedikte had even been close to Andre was during their father’s mental gathering of the blood brothers—when the great one had commanded all of them to begin separate communities and then had gone underground himself, gathering power until it was time to rise again. At that point, communication between the brothers had somehow stopped, cut off by the pursuit of their own quests, Benedikte had thought.

  But now, he knew he’d been wrong about that.

  Coolly, Andre sat back on the bench while a sense of disquiet gnawed on the back of Benedikte’s neck. It was sharp enough to keep him from greeting his own blood kin.

  “You never heard the rumors, my friend?” Andre asked.

  When Bendikte didn’t respond, the other vampire was more than happy to supply his own answers. “Takeovers among the brothers. Civil warring. Greed. You should’ve done better at keeping your perception open, Benedikte.”

  Before his brother could even fully explain, Benedikte suspected what might be happening Below.

  “All I want is what you already have,” Andre added, direct and businesslike. “And I’m in the process of getting it right now.”

  With a blast of preternatural speed, Benedikte and Sorin had whisked back to their Underground, where they discovered Andre’s vampires holding the children captive.

  The youngsters had cocked their heads at Benedikte, their faces reflecting heartrending bewilderment: how can one of our own do this?

  All they’d wanted was an oasis. And, for good money, Benedikte had provided these heiresses and playboys a hedonistic refuge where they could indulge, where they could dance until dawn and the party would never end. Up until this night, the worst threat had been a fear of humans and their destructive tendencies when it came to matters they didn’t comprehend—matters such as vampires. But secrecy had kept that particular threat away.

  Who would have ever predicted that a brother vampire would be far worse?

  By now, Andre had solidified behind Benedikte and Sorin, blocking the Underground’s veiled exit.

  “Surrender,” the other said.

  “Are you daring to go against our father’s mandate?”

  Andre had laughed. “I am daring. And do you know why, Benedikte? Because I want to. It’ll be close to two hundred years before Father rises again and, by that time, I will be the one who welcomes him. I will be his right hand.”

  The vampire had been no such thing in the past. He had been a lower-ranked soldier for their master. Ambitious? Yes. But powerful? Not in his wildest dreams.

  Benedikte had refused to surrender, and that’s when Andre had declared war. But even before Benedikte could free any children, or before Sorin could use an ambush of violent magic to rip the hearts out of Andre’s vampires, or even before Benedikte could behead his bastard brother and his brood, a clearly immune Andre laid fire to a curtain, most likely planning to extinguish the flame once he’d driven out Benedikte from his own home.

  Now, here in this abandoned house where he’d shut himself off from reality, phantom cries of his still-bound children, burning in the inferno, tortured him.

  Fire. Why did it have to be one of his progeny’s only true killers, fire? He hadn’t even salvaged their soul vials from the flames….

  Coward, he thought, remembering how he and Sorin had fled before the humans could arrive to put out the flames creeping from the Underground’s hidden entrance near the park.

  They had separated in the gathering crowd, and Benedikte the Master—the master of nothing now—had crept back to his favorite haunt to wonder what had just happened.

  Lying prone on the hard, wooden floor, the seeds of destruction still weighed heavily inside of him—an instinct for isolation, the urge to make the world a mirror of what he’d suffered tonight.

  “Master?” Sorin whispered.

  Benedikte realized that his body had gone vaporous, reflecting what he felt: empty. A useless nothing who had no choice but to live out endless years unless he was destroyed first.

  Out of pure mortification at being so revealed, Benedikte sucked into solid form. Through the years, he’d practiced his talent for changing into other shapes, but he had lost control this time.

  Not that it mattered.

  “Master,” Sorin repeated, his tone careful, as if he were prodding a sleeping snake. “I am just as bereft as you, but we cannot stay here, not with all the human activity the fire has conjured tonight. We must go….”

  He trailed off.

  “Where, Sorin?” The Master’s voice was flat. “Where shall we go now?”

  “Another home belowground.” Hi
s son slid to his feet, vampire graceful. “We can find one. We will begin anew, perhaps in Edinburgh—”

  The Master stayed silent.

  “Or…” Sorin began, logical until the end, never giving up. “Or America, Master. You adored San Diego and Los Angeles.”

  “Never again.”

  Sorin stilled himself, Awareness vibrating, soaking into Benedikte. The older vampire batted his son’s optimism away, seeing no use for it.

  “I’m done.” The Master closed his eyes, willing darkness into every inch of him.

  “Master, I know we are at a low ebb, but there is so much more to discover in this world. Night by night, there are new inventions, new movies for you to see. Think of more films with little Mary Pickford.”

  Not even the lure of his favorite, an actress who smiled as Tereza had, could interest Benedikte.

  He shut down, a broken film flapping in a projector.

  Too weak to speak, the Master used his Awareness. I will never subject myself to this failure again, good soldier or not.

  Numb, he blocked out Sorin’s inevitable answer.

  He just wished he had enough hate to keep himself going.

  With one last attempt, he tried very hard to conjure it, to summon some emotion that would spark the will to continue. And, miraculously, his form turned from this sad lump of cynicism to something he’d never experienced before: an awful monster he should be—the picture of horror. Yes, yes…

  The materialization of the hatred he wanted to feel.

  He reached his zenith, rising in the air and growing, seething, baring his fangs to the emptiness that this world had become.

  The door creaked open again.

  Two men in military uniform stood in the entrance, and Benedikte—the godforsaken Master—reared on them, hissing as he stretched himself wide.

  With only a gasp of terror, the men’s eyes bugged out, as if witnessing hell frozen over.

  Benedikte laughed and laughed, finally triumphant, until he glanced in Sorin’s corner, where his son was hiding his face.

  Turning away from the horror his father had become.

  FOURTEEN

  THE OTHERS

  THE next day, the horizon was just bleeding into dusk when Dawn drove Kiko back to the office after a bout of physical therapy.

  She was tuckered out. Not only had she conferenced with the therapist about Kik’s progress (“We’ll keep an eye on that medication,” was the only lame solution for now), but earlier, the whole team had brainstormed and individually trained. Dawn had made sure that her own workout had been especially grueling.

  After telling the team about Matt’s take on Jessica Reese and that’s all (right, like Dawn was going to mention Eva’s damned dress to anyone, ever), she’d gotten out the old whip chain. The goal had been to stay frosty with her newly acquired skills, but the exercise had gone beyond that: Dawn had worked until the sweat washed off last night’s stinging disappointment.

  (The cleansing hadn’t lasted long.)

  After getting showered, she met Kiko in the computer room, having decided to follow up on those links about Lane Tomlinson, Lee’s brother.

  “Crap,” she said, clicking back to the search engine’s home page when she saw that there was nothing worth noting. “Sometimes I think the only thing that’s going to give us the big lead is another murder.”

  “Don’t jinx anyone.” Kiko was settled at a smaller table, ramrod straight with his back brace. “But…okay, I’ve thought about that, too, especially if the copycat killer starts getting cocky and careless. That’s when we could get a break.”

  “Man, I’d hate to rely on another woman getting killed.”

  Her cell phone rang. When she looked at the screen to find Jacqueline Ashley’s name listed, Dawn’s blood pressure shot up.

  They’re calling me a throwback, Jac had said that day in the hospital before taking off her ball cap and revealing blond hair just like Eva’s, forcing Dawn to focus on a face that seemed to conjure her dead mother’s.

  Jac had been excited, yet wary, about Dawn’s reaction to the makeover. They say that, even though I don’t look exactly like her, I remind them of your mom….

  Mom. Dawn had only known her from pictures: giddy wedding photos of Eva’s ill-advised marriage to everyday-average Frank. Publicity stills of a rising movie goddess. The crime-scene photo tinted with blood.

  Now, as the phone rang again, Matt’s betrayal from last night lent new life to the Eva bitterness, snaking into the old fear and confusion Dawn had nurtured year after year.

  Hush, little baby, don’t say a word….

  “What’s wrong?” Kiko asked.

  Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird….

  “Jac.” The name was nothing more than a painful croak.

  Kiko bounded over to Dawn. “Aren’t you going to answer?”

  When Dawn didn’t make a move to do so, he grabbed the phone.

  Immediately, he began chirping away, happy as can be. Dawn recalled that Jac had sort of made her feel that way, too, once upon a time before this whole makeover thing.

  She needed to stop freaking out. For the last time, Jac was Jac and nothing more. Hell, if that wasn’t true, The Voice would’ve stepped in already, pinpointing Jacqueline Ashley as a masquerading vamp.

  Feeling her sanity whirling down a black hole, Dawn fought back, holding out her hand to Kiko for the phone. When he didn’t give it to her right away, she tugged it from him.

  “Party,” Kiko said sotto voce. “She wants you to go out tonight, you lucky dog.”

  “Hey,” Dawn said to Jac. She kept looking at Kiko, as if he was some kind of stabilizing force that would keep her from gurgling down the drain.

  “There you are.” Jac’s voice, bright and sunny. “I was thinking you were avoiding me.”

  “Been real busy, that’s all.”

  “Tell me about it. Buccaneer boot camp just ended, but we’ll be shooting at the studio now. Maybe I’ll get some time to start fencing at Dipak’s again. We’ll have to do that soon, before I go on location, all right? Boot camp made me a lot better. And wait ’til I tell you about all the gossip. Dawn, do you know that movie people actually call each other ‘darling’? I can’t get over that.”

  “You will.”

  All the golly-gee-whiz talk drove home that Jac really was a small-town girl who’d come to Hollywood via some modeling contest. Or…

  Dawn stopped. Even Breisi had said the starlet was only a Tinseltown carbon copy of Eva and no more. Breisi, the steadiest person Dawn knew. So why was Dawn still thinking the worst?

  “What are you up to tonight?” Jac asked.

  “Work.”

  Kiko shot Dawn a look, probably knowing she was making excuses not to see Jac again. He’d crawled back into his chair, leaning on an elbow propped on a bigger table, lovestruck and all Bye Bye Birdie–ish.

  “You work too much.” Jac laughed. “I’m going to kidnap you. There’s a party Paul Aspen is throwing, and I’m not really comfortable enough with the cast yet to show up by myself.”

  Paul Aspen, prince of the heartland. In twenty years, he’d be remembered as an actor who built his fortune on flag-waving movies, but he had recently branched out. Hushed gossip said that his worst vice was “deflowering” young girls on the set and off, but Joe and Phyllis Matinee didn’t know that.

  “Be my bodyguard?” Jac added kiddingly.

  “Industry parties aren’t really my scene.”

  Kiko lightly hit her.

  “Wait, Jac.” She held the phone to her shoulder.

  “Call back,” Kiko said.

  Slightly annoyed, Dawn returned, then promised the actress she’d get back to her in a few minutes. A weight dropped off Dawn as she hung up.

  Wow, she could breathe again.

  But Kiko robbed her of that real quick. “You should go.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’d kill to see her, and I’m not going to let you cut off my
Jac connections just because you hate the Hollywood status quo.”

  At the notion of seeing the girl again, panic welled. Foolish or not, it was time for Dawn to lay it on the line.

  “Remember a few days ago when the possibility of Underground vamps having plastic surgery came up?”

  Kiko looked at her sidelong.

  “I can’t help thinking,” Dawn continued, “what, with the things we found out about Robby Pennybaker’s own faked ‘murder’ and planned ‘comeback’ that…”

  Kiko finished for her. “You think she’s Eva with plastic surgery, and that Jac could have been Underground, just like Robby.”

  Dawn had refused to talk about that day in the hospital, but she knew Breisi had filled in Kiko and The Voice. She was glad she didn’t have to go through all the details again.

  “Here’s the thing,” Kiko said. “I don’t think you should worry about Jac. She’s actually been under watch, just like a lot of people we’ve been in contact with. So far, she’s clean.”

  “Jac was under Friend surveillance…?”

  “Uh-huh, and the Friends are spread thin. We don’t exactly have a surplus, and they need to get back home every once in a while to sort of refuel, know what I mean?”

  “Gee, Kik, thanks for telling me about this before.”

  He shook his head, as if she should’ve learned better by now. “You’re never going to know everything that happens around here. Not unless you need to, Dawn. I’m used to it by now.”

  So just accept it, he didn’t have to add. Just know that you’re doing your part to save the world, Prophecy Girl.

  “Obviously,” Kiko continued, “Jac isn’t a concern, or else the boss would’ve had us follow up on her.”

  Yeesh, maybe it wasn’t obvious, but at the hospital, Dawn had almost broken down at the thought of a resurrected Eva.

  Couldn’t they see what she was seeing—?