Midnight Reign

by Chris Marie Green

  “I realized that day, too late, that you weren’t ready, Dawn. I wish you had been. I’ve been waiting so long for the moment you’d know who I was.”

  In Eva’s tone, Dawn heard truth. She knew that all the woman’s hidden lullabies, all the mockingbird comfort, had been real. That it’d always been there and Dawn hadn’t wanted to embrace it. Couldn’t handle it.

  Jac…Eva, she tried to smile through new tears. “You needed more time to accept what was happening. No matter what all the rest of them said, I know what’s best for my daughter.”

  Rest of them? And…daughter.

  Dawn was a daughter. She had a mother.

  The little girl inside wanted to run to Eva like a child welcoming a parent home from work. She wanted to bury her face against her dress and feel the give of skin under her cheek.

  “No matter what all the rest of them said?” Dawn asked instead, still quivering on the edge of denial. “Who are ‘the rest of them’?”

  Eva blew that off. “That day at the hospital, I knew I’d revealed too much too soon, so I toned down my Allure. I was able to get into your mind, just for a moment, even though I know you can keep us out. Just that one time, when you had your defenses down and you needed a mother to hold you, you were open to believing. You were ready to hope I was alive, and you set yourself up to receive me. Just that one day…” Eva’s voice broke to a halt. She closed her eyes, then opened them. “Everything was always planned—the moment I would finally tell you I was alive. I was promised I could do it when I felt it was right, but I couldn’t make it happen as quickly as they wanted.”

  “They” again.

  The defensive part of Dawn emerged to take over, sheltering her just as it had when she’d told herself over and over that vampires couldn’t possibly be real. “So when Breisi walked in, you had this…Allure?…under control.” Cope, cope with this.…

  Eva had brightened, clearly thankful that Dawn was actually engaging in a discussion instead of flying off the handle.

  So civil, this conversation. So smack in the ether of a nightmare.

  Mommy, you’re home…!

  Dawn shut the little girl down.

  “You’re right,” Eva said, “Breisi was never able to see my undiluted Allure.”

  “And what’s ‘Allure’?”

  Her smile dimmed. “I was hoping we could talk technicalities later—”

  Dawn burst out of her chair, but when a wave of imbalance swooped over her, she fell back down. Still, she didn’t let that water down her temper. “You of all people owe me the truth!”

  “I…I would do anything to make you see that all I did was make our lives better. You’ll realize that soon. I had to go to extremes, but you’re going to see how wonderful things can really be. I’ll show you.”

  “Because the second time counts more than the first?”

  “I tried to show you how much I care,” Eva said, “even in little ways, just to gently bring you around. Remember on the TV news, how Darrin Ryder got attacked the same night Tamsin Greene committed suicide?”

  Darrin Ryder, the actor who’d sexually harassed Dawn. “What’re you talking about?”

  “I heard that he’d been giving you trouble, and I…taught him a lesson after I was released. Just a good, fast mugging. He never even saw me.” Eva tilted her head.

  Something about her reminded Dawn of Robby Pennybaker, but she couldn’t…

  “I had to protect my baby girl,” the actress added.

  Dawn’s anger resurfaced at the daughter reminder. “Wow, that clearly makes you mom of the century. You mugged an asshole in my name, kind of like buying me a bracelet with ‘Dawnie’ etched into it for my sweet sixteen, or being there for the prom that wasn’t. That definitely makes up for leaving us.”

  “Let me—”

  “Explain? You found the fountain of youth, but it’s filled with blood. Is that what you want to ‘explain’?”

  Eva played with a seam on her dress, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I thought I had this worked out….”

  Dawn’s rigidity brought on all the questions the team had pondered. Concentrate on them, she thought.

  And when the little girl knocked at Dawn’s breastbone to let her run to Eva, Dawn was more determined than ever to keep her shut in.

  Question. Find a question. Okay. Think about, early on, when Jacqueline Ashley had started her campaign to win Dawn over. Because that’s what it all was, right? A scheme, a step-by-step plan to worm into her daughter’s heart by pretending to be a good-natured pal.

  Dawn folded her arms over her chest, gelled fingers just now starting to throb from the pain of scraping the roof. Or maybe she was just tuning in to what pain really was.

  “There was a time,” she said, “in that Internet café…Kiko shook your hand. He should’ve been able to read you.”

  Eva seemed eager to provide this simple answer. “Controlling the Allure. Years and years, I’ve trained to master it. Even though Kiko couldn’t come into me, I could draw him in enough to win him over. I charmed him. I charm everyone into believing that I have what Eva had.”

  “You are Eva, so of course you have what she did.” Now her vision was beginning to seep red, the color filming down like a livid, sheer curtain. “But you still haven’t told me why you did it. Why you gave up your own family to be a vampire.”

  She noticed Eva was trembling. She looked strung out.

  Mommy, what’s wrong? How can I help you…?

  Again, Dawn resisted her own neediness, instead focusing on how Eva got up, paced to a window, and pushed her fingers through her blond hair. A wink of something silver, something tucked in a corner, snagged Dawn’s attention.

  Was that her whip chain…her weapons? Why had they all just been thrown aside? Were Julia and Eva so arrogant that they thought Dawn couldn’t do any damage?

  Careless, she thought, steadily averting her gaze from the pile while still keeping an eye on it.

  “I’ve had enough of never being answered—” Dawn grated.

  Eva spun around, her eyes swirling, but Dawn threw out a mind block before the other woman could get to her. She’d been expecting this, and God knows, she wasn’t open to her mother anymore. Eva sure as hell wasn’t getting in this time.

  Immediately, the vamp covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I just wanted to stop all this.”

  “But you can’t. You said you were going to tell me everything, so start.”

  Eva raised her tear-ridden face, holding her palms up to Dawn in supplication. “Unlike your boss, I want to share everything.” She tried to smile. “That’s who you’re also thinking about, right? The boss who doesn’t communicate?”

  Dawn still felt a probe at her mind, even though Eva had apologized for trying before. Bitch or not, Dawn had to respect the persistence. “I’ve got nothing to give you about my job, so stop trying to interrogate me. I’m just your everyday, average Josie Blow with a dysfunctional family. That’s it.”

  “You wouldn’t share, even if I could tell you what happened to your…Friend?”

  On a bolt of rage, Dawn’s energy blasted outward, shattering a vase on the table near Eva. The actress jumped back, mouth agape.

  “Just think,” Dawn said softly, trying to hide her own astonishment, “what I could do with a relic like you.”

  Bluffing. It was all she had.

  Mommy…

  Dawn smacked the little girl quiet.

  “Your Friend isn’t hurt, I swear.” Eva glanced at the vase and…smiled? “I was already home when the spirit attacked Julia, so I…Let’s just say I’ve very recently been trained to captivate. We’ve all been instructed in how to do it because of the party last night.”

  So that’s what’d happened to the first disappearing Friend. At least Dawn knew now. “Since we’re being honest, were you the one who put me under by the pool?”

  “No.” Eva looked angry, or at least she was pretending to be, because
maybe that’s all a vamp could do—act. “And I’m going to find out who did it. Believe me.”

  Dawn did, and for a forbidden second, she welcomed the mama-bear protectiveness, grasped on to it until she was holding on so hard she had to let go.

  She retaliated. “So you still haven’t told me why.”

  “My handlers,” the actress said, backing off of the mind screws. “They told me that, when I lost my youth someday soon, the roles would dry up. I was lucky to be in the flush of beauty now and wouldn’t it be nice if that could last forever? I got scared. I panicked. Frank couldn’t hold a good job and he spent money like a madman, so who was going to take care of the family if I couldn’t? I didn’t know it at the time, but my managers had…connections. They figured out a way for me to keep my career successful: my life insurance and residuals would provide for you and your dad while I waited Underground to make a comeback and earn a lot of money again. A lot more since my legend would pave the way. I wanted to always provide for you, even if I had to make a sacrifice to do it better.”

  “A sacrifice.” Such a harmless word coming out of Eva’s mouth. “You did this for your own ego. You and Robby Pennybaker and Lord knows who else.”

  “I always meant to come back to you.” Eva inched closer, seeming so much like young, fun-loving, kindhearted Jac that Dawn almost bought it. Almost. “Please. I was just released, and it’s the first thing I’m taking care of, besides getting resettled in my career.”

  It’d be so nice to just accept everything Eva was saying and offering. Imagine, righting all the wrongs between them, starting over again as mother and daughter. Could all the empty nights of hearing Frank play old records be erased? Could Dawn even be a better person with her mom to guide her now?

  So easy to fall into this emotional seduction.

  Dawn’s neck throbbed, still tender from whatever had happened last night.

  Something deep inside warned her not to fall. To hold on.

  “We’re not bad.” Eva stopped, tilting her head. “All we’re looking for is a good life. Every single one of us.”

  Dawn didn’t want to start wondering if creatures like Eva considered her, Breisi, and Kiko to be the bad guys. That would muddle all the righteous anger, all the justifications for vengeance.

  Instead, Dawn summoned her Eva bitterness. Easy. Adrenaline surged, canceling her exhaustion.

  Pretending to break down under all her mom’s tempting words, Dawn wiped the medicinal goop off her fingers as she walked toward the vampire. After the gel was gone, she opened her arms as if to suddenly embrace everything Eva had to offer.

  Probably because she wanted it to happen so badly, Eva’s ageless face lit up at her daughter’s approach.

  Abruptly, Dawn dodged around Eva, diving for the first weapon she could—the whip chain. Within a second, she had it unfurled, spinning at her side. The silver could poison Eva.

  The vamp seemed to sink into herself. “Oh, Dawn.”

  Heart fully hardened, she struck at her enemy, the silver dart on the end of the whip slicing through the air.

  With mind-bending speed, Eva avoided the attack.

  Dawn jerked in surprise, the flow of her chain interrupted. Annoyed, she got back into her rhythm.

  “I’m telling you to put it down before you get hurt,” Eva said, sounding so much like a mother that Dawn almost did stop.

  But it didn’t really work with a middle-aged woman bitching at her from a young girl’s body. “What’s the Underground, Eva?”

  The vampire looked heartbroken.

  “Where’s Frank? Do you know where the hell my dad is?”

  “Please put that down….”

  Dawn spun the whip backward so it slowed at the apex of the spin, then allowed it to fall back into her hand. But just as Eva looked relieved, Dawn quickly stepped forward, skip-stepping into a tornado kick, releasing the whip and going into a right elbow hook spin to gain enough speed to strike.

  Slowly, Eva nodded, then sighed into Danger Form.

  She whirled, ghost tendrils in misty motion, then snapped into a cloud of breathtaking angel-featured splendor. Before Dawn could maneuver the chain around again, Eva had zipped under the arc of the whip’s spin and flashed up to Dawn’s hand, jarring the handle away.

  Aghast, Dawn could only watch as the vamp masterfully manipulated the handle, circling the whip and dervishing her own way across the room. When she released the chain, it cut into a wall, spitting plaster, then died to the carpet.

  As if to punctuate the finale, Eva popped back into human form, wisps of silver streaming from her body like iced smoke.

  “That’s so not going to work,” she said, sounding like Jac—naïvely disappointed.

  For the first time, Dawn felt truly beaten, having no options. Her pulse vibrated, turning her stomach.

  “I guess it’s time to prove,” Eva said, “that my intentions aren’t that bad at all.”

  Out of nowhere, someone gripped Dawn’s arm. She glanced up to find Julia shaking her head at her. Bad dog, she seemed to be saying. Bad daughter.

  A rumbling filled the air, and Dawn glanced at the fireplace, which was moving away from the wall, exposing a slat.

  Before she knew what was happening, Julia and Eva had taken both her arms, forcefully ushering her through the dark space, down some stairs….

  Toast, Dawn thought. I’m toast. No one will ever know what happened to me.

  But when a door opened at the end of a tunnel, she saw a light. They shoved her into it, and there, in the blinding flash, she saw a well-kempt man in a T-shirt and jeans, chained to an overstuffed couch.

  Dawn fell to her knees, then sprint-crawled toward him, choking on happiness and fear.

  As she jumped up and collided into his chest, his beefy arms wrapped around her, cutting off what little she had left of her breath.

  Then the door behind Dawn and her father crashed shut.

  NINETEEN

  THE RED FINGER

  DAD!” Dawn cried into Frank’s brawny chest, clinging to him. His familiar scent—the musk of car grease, a hint of old beer days gone by—washed through her.

  He was real. She held him tighter. He was here.

  For his part, Frank was squeezing so hard Dawn thought she’d pop. The pressure brought on a flash of memory: Daddy, I can’t breathe, she’d said once after coming inside the house after school. A neighbor had dropped her off from gymnastics practice because Frank had forgotten to pick her up again. You’re too strong, Dad….

  Big-girl Dawn pushed away to get some oxygen, but also because she wanted to see that it was really him and not some damned vampire joke. Reaching up to hold his grizzled face in her hands, she laughed a little hysterically.

  “You’re okay,” he said. “I knew the last thing she’d do was hurt you, but…”

  He shook his head, out of words.

  Dawn kept drinking him in. Deep lines emphasized his smile, and his green eyes were clear of their usual hangover fuzz, a sheen of what seemed like relief washing over them instead. His steady gaze was surrounded by crinkles, his skin so leathered it looked like some treasure map that might actually pay off. His dark hair resembled the usual wild-grass clearing, but it’d receded more than she remembered.

  She’d missed him; she hadn’t realized just how much until now.

  They hugged again, and she noticed that, in spite of his brawn, his tummy was slightly rounded. Eva had kept him fed.

  “You are okay,” he mumbled against her hair, “right, Dawnie?”

  “Okay” was such a relative term. “I’ve found you, and that makes me more than okay. Now…” Ignoring her aches and pains, Dawn squeezed him one more time, then quickly reached down, testing one of the long chains shackling his arms. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  “Whoa, whoa…” Frank smoothed back her hair with both hands, then kissed her forehead, pressing her to his chest until she was gasping again. “I almost want to think that this is one of Eva’s m
ind tricks.”

  Like father like daughter. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, but…” She backed away, tugged at his chains anchored against the wall. They held like a mother, but Dawn wasn’t exactly at her strongest right now.

  “Ain’t these somethin’?” Frank yanked on one, too. No give from its base. “You don’t know how I’ve fought ’em. They’re some kind of impossible silver. Only the best from Eva.”

  Was he actually joking around? That took her aback until she realized that Frank had found ample opportunity to get used to this captivity, that he was probably able to yuck it up all he wanted because it’d become so real to him. Yup, just a part of his everyday life, being chained to a wall by a vampire, aka his wife come back from the dead.

  She glanced around the room, noticing how nice it was. A fireplace that probably hadn’t seen flames for years, the type of couches and chairs you’d find in an L.L. Bean catalog, a door halfway open to expose a clean toilet and shower, a mini refrigerator, a television.

  “I get to watch all the sports I want,” Frank said, touching Dawn’s head again, “and no one nags at me about it.”

  He jerked his chin up to one of two cameras perched in the corners.

  “Ah,” Dawn said. “That’s how she keeps tabs.”

  “I think my audience is Julia, mostly. You get a load of her? Every once in a while when she brings a meal, she’ll tell me what an honor it is to have Eva chain me up. Batshit bozo.”

  As Dawn’s heart rate began to smooth out, she marveled at Sober Frank. She wasn’t used to complete sentences or articulate thoughts from him.

  She’d think about all that stuff later. Right now, she just wanted to stay glad to see him and figure out how they were going to get out of here.

  He motioned to a couch. “Looks like you need to sit. It’ll be a while before the welcoming committee comes through that door again.”

  Was he kidding? “There’s got to be an exit somewhere, and I’m going to find it.”

  “Hell, if you wanna crawl up the fire chute, give it a go. It’s blocked off except for a tiny hole in the center.” Frank shot one of his patented charming/cocky glances at her. “I’ve tried everything else.”