Break of Dawn

by Chris Marie Green

  Images of the seer burying his face in flesh and blood nauseated her, weakening her knees to the point that she had to sit down again.

  No. There were way bigger issues than the Vampire Killer murders they’d already left behind. Besides, her boss probably knew about the newsflash since he was always one step ahead of the team. Still . . .

  She glanced at Kiko, who was sleeping away. When he woke up, would he have any more answers about Jonah or the dagger?

  Damn it, she couldn’t just sit here waiting to find out.

  Moving to the bed, she bent down, brushing a hand over his cooled forehead, then headed for the exit.

  In the shaded hallway, she encountered the scent of jasmine lingering near a picture that usually contained a woman soldier dressed in silver armor, her curly red hair flying away from her body in a paint-textured wind. Now, it was empty, except for a desolate background filled with craggy mountains.

  A Friend who had just awakened out of her portrait. Good.

  Quickly, Dawn told the spirit everything about Lee Tomlinson’s murder, hoping she would do whatever it was Friends usually did with the info. Then the perfumed cloud drifted away, leaving Dawn alone.

  She walked to the computer room to do another time-killing search about Jonah Limpet, but her encrypted cell phone rang. When she checked her screen, she knew she had to answer.

  Her last option was on the line.

  But what could she say to Matt Lonigan here in the Limpet house, where she would probably be monitored?

  Ah, screw it. What did she have to hide from Jonah? He knew how much she wanted to get Eva, and if he wasn’t up to joining Dawn in a search, he had to expect she would turn to other resources.

  She answered, telling herself to keep it cool because she still wasn’t sure where she stood with Matt after last night, when she’d actually drawn blood from him at one point, striking out in frustration when he’d tried to comfort her. The only thing she’d wanted to hear was that he would team up with her to find Eva, and he hadn’t come through.

  “You heard about Lee Tomlinson?” she said in greeting.

  “It’s all over the news.”

  “Yeah, say . . .” She ran a hand over the top of a computer. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner.”

  “You’ve probably had a lot on your plate.” Calm, rational, so levelheaded she didn’t know what to make of him. “How about we meet to talk about this?”

  The last thing she should do was go out of the house. True, Eva/Jac and her fellow Elites could walk around under the sun, but nightfall was different. It seemed to be the time when vamps didn’t give much of a doink about hiding anymore.

  Yeah, PM strolling wasn’t such a great idea, even if Dawn could wear Breisi’s locators, which would track her if she went missing. It was something they should’ve done before Breisi had been kidnapped. Stupid lack of foresight.

  “You’ll have to excuse me for not being all that excited about dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight,” she said, knowing he would appreciate the Batman allusion. He was . . . a big fan. “I’m on Severe Alert Level when it comes to vamps, Matt. You should be, too.”

  Then again, hadn’t Eva hinted that the Underground vampires wouldn’t hurt Dawn or Frank?

  Better to err on the side of caution and . . . Good Lord. Caution. If anyone heard her spouting stuff like that, they wouldn’t know who she was.

  Matt laughed, cocky. “There’s nothing to worry about out here. I can prove it. Why don’t you go on over to a window that faces the street?”

  Frowning, she nevertheless did exactly that. The Limpet house was a fortress that kept Jonah secure, so she was safe inside, too, especially since the team had found that their type of vamps needed to be invited into private dwellings. But this wasn’t even a guarantee with these freaks since they had different vampire levels and, hence, different strengths and powers.

  She found a good viewing spot past the stairway, near a front window that opened onto a small balcony. Pulling aside the heavy velvet curtain, she looked past the gothic iron window bars, knowing she probably resembled a ghost peering out of a wooo-eee-ooo mansion, what with the facade’s crumbling stucco face and sleepy-eyed splendor.

  It didn’t take her long to find Matt across the street where the only backdrop was a canyon. Under the brandy-hued streetlamp, he looked lethal: his long coat gunslinger mysterious, his posture wary and coiled.

  Her breath came faster at the sight of him, the danger of him. In spite of how nice he’d seemed at first, he’d shown her a real different side a few nights ago when they’d been hot and heavy with each other. Just when she thought they were finally getting somewhere in the hubba-hubba department, he’d brought out the sort of dress Eva would’ve worn, then hinted that he wanted Dawn to put it on. The act had created such a doubt-ridden distance between her and Matt that she hadn’t wanted to see him ever again.

  But that had changed after Breisi’s murder and Eva’s part in it.

  “What the hell are you doing out there?” she asked.

  He held out his free arm in supplication, using his other hand to keep the phone to his ear. “I’m waiting for you.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “What if I told you I brought flowers? And they’re not daisies, either.”

  She cringed at the reference to Eva. Her mom had worn daisies in her hair during her most famous movie scene, and Matt had played upon that in his failed seduction of her.

  “Come on, Dawn.” His tone sounded injured. “I’m trying to make it up to you. I’ll even go so far as to say I deserved those scratch marks you gave me.”

  She leaned closer to the windowpanes, not caring how much of this conversation Jonah or the Friends could be hearing. “Stop trying to be sweet. It doesn’t really work on me.”

  “A man can only give his best.”

  A smile fought its way over her mouth. Damn it, both Matt and Jonah really messed her up when it came to men. Couldn’t she just go back to easy sex? It’d required a lot less fuss.

  But . . . a bland taste lined her mouth. Her old way of coping didn’t really appeal anymore. Other addictions, other wants and needs, had taken its place.

  With too much force, she closed the curtains, shutting him out. Dust swirled and she batted the motes away.

  “Dawn?”

  “I’m still sorting out what I need to do.”

  “And I’m here to help. Actually, I can’t stop thinking I’m the only one who can help you. Trust me. Let me take on some of your problems.”

  So tempting. She’d been weighing his offers since last night, when she’d all but stumbled into his house to see if his hunting services were for hire. He’d offered solace, commenting on how he’d seen the Vampire Killer broadcast and how he just might know what to do if she’d only give him more information about what was going on. . . .

  Dawn raised a hand to her head, trying to think. Something about what he’d said was niggling at her, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, even though she knew it had to be obvious. But there was too much debris floating around in her noggin to sort it out. Damn, was she going mental or what?

  “You still there?” Matt asked.

  Without answering, she peeked out the curtains again, just to satisfy the sadist in her that he was still hanging around.

  He was ambling past a parked Camaro. Almost absently, he slowed his pace, canting toward the window and pausing.

  Was he checking himself out?

  She closed the curtains, not wanting to watch. Some of the actors she’d worked with, narcissists, never passed up the chance to admire themselves in a mirror or anything that reflected their glory back at them.

  But she was overreacting. Years of hating the entitled golden boys and girls of Hollyweird had given her way too much attitude and it colored every second of her days. People were allowed to look at themselves every once in a while, right?

  “I’m still here,” she finally said. “
But not for long.”

  “Why? Is your boss spying on you?” He said it with an edge to his tone.

  “What’s it to you?” Just for good measure, in case Jonah was listening, she added, “I’m not on his leash. I’m not on anyone’s.”

  Matt went silent, and it made her bristle.

  “I’ll be in contact,” she added. “Count on it.”

  Just as soon as she got over her Hamlet act and decided how best to go about her business without getting her or Frank killed.

  A long pause arched her nerves until she quivered, fear stringing her together as she turned from the window to face the darkened hall and its empty portraits. Back to work.

  Back to Jonah.

  “I’ll be waiting for you then,” Matt said.

  Dawn thanked him, then hung up. But his last words dug into her.

  She couldn’t help wondering if, based on the obsession Matt had once confessed to having for her, maybe he’d already been waiting long enough.

  SEVEN

  THE BREISI VIEW

  No one in the Limpet house ended up remarking on her phone call with Matt. No one probably cared because, even hours later, Jonah was still sequestered, Kiko was still zonked out, and the Friends were still going about their weird, private business.

  In the meantime, the walls seemed to squeeze in on Dawn as she waited for something to happen.

  The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked, tocked. The house moaned under the night wind huffing against the windows. She wondered what was going on outside, got itchy because she was locked down in useless anticipation of a battle she supposedly wouldn’t be a part of. Supposedly.

  As she plopped down in front of a computer to return to her interrupted search on Jonah, Dawn kept thinking of Kiko’s “key” vision: her skin bathed with vampire blood.

  She shook it off, tapping at the keyboard. Oh my God, each page was taking forever to load. She wanted to scream.

  But even more, she wanted the mental images to stop.

  The dagger. Matt asking her to come outside with him to hunt Eva. “Key.” Frank, somewhere out there.

  Anger made her head go fuzzy and, absently, she tugged on the bottom of her sleeveless tank top, which had once belonged to Frank. For the past month or so, it’d become a habit; Kiko had discovered by accident that the material was a psychic link to her missing father, but it’d been useless the past twenty-four hours. Had the connection been broken?

  Dawn didn’t want to think about why, because it could mean her dad had ended up dead himself after Eva had taken him away from a dying Breisi. And she couldn’t handle any ideas like that now.

  Instead, she whipped out her phone. If she couldn’t go outside to find Frank and Eva, maybe she could do the second-best thing: hunt her mom down through the airwaves.

  While Dawn accessed “Jac” in her address book, she held back a grimace. Jacqueline Ashley was a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, and Dawn had actually bought into it. Idiot her.

  Voice mail answered.

  “Hi!” said “Jac”’s sunshine voice. “Sorry I’m missing your call, but I’m afraid that’s going to be happening for a while. I’m taking a communication hiatus due to some family problems.”

  Dawn almost retched. Family problems. How about family freakin’ nuclear disaster?

  The message continued. “Please call four two four, five five five, three eight five eight to get ahold of my personal assistant’s cell, and she’ll take care of what you need until I can get back to you. Thanks!”

  Dawn sure as sugar wasn’t going to get ahold of any P.A. The assistant was only going to be a Servant for the Underground anyway. Hell, why had she even called? Just because she wanted to hear Eva’s voice again?

  To the little girl who craved a mommy’s missing love, the sardonic thought rang too truthful for comfort, so Dawn hung up, pushed away from the useless computer, and headed someplace where she wouldn’t be alone with herself. She needed action to keep her company. Thinking was only driving her crazy.

  She hotfooted it downstairs to the foyer, intending to continue into the lab to see if the Friends needed her help in any way. Or maybe if she could even question their asses just like she’d done with Kiko . . . Yeah, good luck with that.

  When she tried to tug open the heavy lab door, she found that she was locked out. What?

  “Breisi,” Dawn called. “Come on now. Where are you?”

  Silence. Hell’s bells. She turned around and sent a disgusted back kick to the wood, then put her hands on her hips. Now what was she supposed to do?

  At the end of her rope, she called louder. “Breisi! Get your toilette-stinkin’ self over here!”

  She’d only meant to let off some steam, so when a thrust of jasmine brushed past her, she jumped back.

  “What is it?” Breisi’s ghost voice sounded rather put out.

  Dawn gave the air a sidelong look. Hey—Breisi had come flying at the snap of a command. Interesting. Dawn would have to file that away for when she needed immediate attention.

  “I couldn’t get past the lab door,” she said. “Am I locked out now? What’re you and your pals doing down there?”

  “Nothing that concerns you.”

  “Ooooh, no. Do not give me that.” Dawn spread out her hands. She came in peace. “What can I do? I’m like a damned pinball bumping against the walls.”

  “Rest.” Breisi’s jasmine began to shift, as if she were leaving now.

  “Don’t you go anywhere.”

  Her Friend’s essence stilled.

  Dawn lifted an eyebrow. O-kay. Things had been upgraded to “very interesting.”

  To test an emerging theory—and also because she was being a bored tool—she said, “Breisi, circle around me two times.”

  Right away, the jasmine zoomed, zoomed around Dawn.

  Yow. But, now that Dawn really thought about it, things made lots of sense: how the Friends followed orders, as if compelled. She just hadn’t realized until now that Jonah wasn’t the only one who could give directions to them. Dawn, herself, had never tried.

  “Do you have to do everything I tell you to?” she asked.

  If spirits could give a reluctant grunt, that was how Dawn would’ve described Breisi’s response.

  “Cool,” Dawn said. “Imagine the possibilities for amusement here.”

  “See, this is the reason you weren’t told you could command Friends—not unless the boss became desperate.”

  “You mean, we were only supposed to discover this nugget of information if Jonah got blown to smithereens or something? Then we could take his place?”

  Breisi launched into some Spanish that Dawn couldn’t translate, but she thought it might involve bleeping and cussing. Still, even before her Friend broke into an English lecture about abusing powers, Dawn got a few ideas. This opportunity was being handed to her on a silver platter.

  Jonah had been smart to withhold the information.

  Raising her hand to stop Breisi’s diatribe, Dawn felt a tremble in her stomach. Nerves.

  But . . . hell for leather. This was it.

  “Tell me the honest truth about the dagger Kiko showed you in the weapons room,” she said.

  Breisi’s essence seemed to settle down. “I did not see his entire vision.”

  Kiko had told Dawn as much, and what Breisi was saying had to be the truth, since she was being commanded to be forthright. Dawn pushed on anyway. “Did you or Kiko know who the seer in the dagger vision was? The truth, now.”

  “We had no idea.”

  She’d answered in the past tense, as the question had been framed, but Dawn was too busy feeling relieved to note it right away. She’d always believed that her coworkers knew everything about Jonah and had just been keeping the details from her. A big conspiracy theory with her as the dim bulb. Clearly, Dawn had been wrong. Then again, they were only talking about the dagger vision here, not the bigger picture.

  She took a deep breath. Here it went. “Tell m
e what you do know, Breisi. About anything that has to do with our boss.”

  The air around Dawn quivered, as if her Friend was fighting the command.

  “Breisi!”

  The jasmine began to swirl, agitated. There was a low moan, pained, as if her Friend were being sawed apart.

  Breisi, gurgling on blood, throat slashed, eyes wide in the face of oncoming death . . .

  “No,” Dawn said quickly, unable to stand the thought of her companion in more anguish. “Don’t answer that.”

  Perfumed air calmed in a sigh, and Dawn’s heartbeat smoothed out. She hadn’t meant to hurt Breisi again.

  Finally, her Friend said, “I’m sorry. That’s one order I can’t obey.”

  “Telling me about Jonah? Why?”

  “His rules. A security measure. But, as you can tell, resisting takes a lot out of us—more than we regularly expend.”

  “Figures. He’ll take any opportunity to screw all of us in some way or another.”

  With a mock growl, Dawn paced away, coming to the grand fireplace. Her gaze rested on the empty Fire Woman portrait as she gathered her wits.

  Then . . . eureka.

  Once, Jonah had taken her with him into an empty painting during an intimate session. A beach picture, relaxing, sensually soothing, with the water lapping at her skin as he’d entered her.

  Two thoughts crashed together in her head: going inside the portrait. Commanding Breisi.

  “Can you take me inside a picture that’s not your own?” she asked her Friend while nodding toward the Fire painting.

  Breisi didn’t respond. Dawn took that as a yes.

  Her pulse picked up speed again. Another piece of Jonah’s puzzle. A clue as to which side she should be on in this war.

  And, after this, she could enter every picture. . . .

  Without thinking of the consequences, Dawn ordered, “Put me in this painting, Breez.”

  Clearly this wasn’t deemed off-limits by Jonah, because before Dawn could change her mind, Breisi surrounded her in an exotic cloud, lifting her until she was a mass of weightless nothing.

  The color red melted into Dawn’s vision as she entered the portrait. Heat blazed through every limb, swallowing her as if it were a cloak wrapping around her body. Even her hair felt on fire, prickling her scalp and eating away at her addled brain.