Break of Dawn

by Chris Marie Green

  Dawn glanced up at the empty painting, then back to the stranger. She didn’t want to keep him out of her sights. “Is that where you rest, just like any other Friend?”

  “Yes, but I am not so much like them under it all. Not remotely.”

  Maybe the pieces should’ve all fallen together at that point, but she didn’t get it. Didn’t get any of it.

  This lack of control made her feel more helpless than ever, especially when she realized that the room had filled with the scent of jasmine. Friends. A whole jury of them.

  One of their voices threaded through the air, feminine and song-like. “Toss ’er out. . . .” Dawn thought she heard the spirit say, even though she couldn’t be positive.

  Kalin?

  The stranger in the real Jonah’s body hadn’t moved a muscle, even when other Friendly voices chimed in to drown out the Fire Woman, to cover whatever poison she was trying to spew.

  “I hope you’re planning to tell us your real name now,” Dawn said to The Voice—because that was all he was to her again. Just a thing. To have him mean any more would remove the last stitch holding her together.

  Kiko fought to sit up, but didn’t move away from the arm she kept around his shoulders. She was pretty sure he hadn’t known about their boss. Hadn’t known any of it.

  “I can tell you more than just my name,” the stranger said.

  The Friends’ voices rose again, one emerging louder than the others. Kalin’s. “She’s trouble . . . too much trouble—”

  Cut off. It sounded like someone—maybe Breisi?—had shut Kalin up. Dawn took advantage of that.

  “Stop stalling.”

  The room seemed to go cold at the commanding tone she’d used.

  She thought she saw something sad in the stranger’s eyes, but he hid whatever it was by lifting his—Jonah’s—hand in a careless gesture. “Mr. Limpet is my gracious host.”

  She knew in her gut that he was referring to more than just living in this house. The Voice’s essence—the force that’d been inside her so often—lived in that fire-field portrait, and when he wasn’t there, he was in Jonah Limpet’s body.

  “You’ve taken him over?” she confirmed. “And he’s the one who told Kalin to bind me that day, wasn’t he? That wasn’t you at all. You . . . you stopped him from going any further. I remember how it sounded like there was a struggle, and then your voice—this voice—told me not to turn on the light. . . .”

  The stranger assessed her, narrowing his eyes. “Jonah tends to want whatever I have, so during one of his ‘breathers,’ he sought you out. It was inconvenient.”

  Good God.

  None of the agency’s other spirits—the Friends—had usurped a body. Not to Dawn’s knowledge. Then again, he’d already said he wasn’t like the Friends. So what did that make him?

  She wanted to know. And she didn’t. She really, really didn’t.

  He must’ve read the trepidation on her face, because he stopped watching her, as if finally seeing what he’d been expecting in her reaction all along. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Dawn? Do you have a better idea of what you are dealing with now, and will it finally put a stop to your invasive activities?”

  She held on to Kiko, just as he was holding on to her. The sweat from his body was making her arms slippery, dampening her shirt. Or maybe it was her own fear doing that.

  This wasn’t happening. She hadn’t seen into Jonah’s head, hadn’t made this discovery. Damn it, why couldn’t she blank it all out?

  “Don’t you wish to know more?” the stranger’s voice thundered. “Or have you had enough?”

  She flinched, but she didn’t back off. She just wanted to attack, to take back her mind and put it the way it used to be.

  “There’s more to tell?” She got to her knees, protectively maneuvering Kiko behind her.

  You work for a monster, Eva had told Dawn. Why hadn’t she listened, even to her mother?

  Jasmine started to press in around her and Kiko, as if flanking them. Dawn’s blood began to race, her hearing going fuzzy in panic.

  The stranger smiled that unfamiliar, vicious smile again. Where had her boss gone? Had he forgotten how he’d filled her last night? And didn’t he understand that Jonah, himself, had given her permission to see inside his head?

  “You want to know how I came to take my host over, yes?” the stranger continued. “You and your endless nagging would perhaps cease to drive me mad if you knew my true name, my true self? Do you wish to see the darkest parts of me now? Will that make you happy?”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sure, they’d had their moments, but even in his worst hours, he was always respectful.

  “Ah, avoidance.” The Voice nodded. “Now that it comes down to it, you wish to shut out reality, just as you did with your mom’s death. Yet after hearing the truth of that, Dawn, all has not turned out so well, has it?”

  Bastard. “Why would you be so willing to blurt out the truth now instead of b—”

  Before she could finish, something unseen hit her, bowling her backward until her spine flattened against the rug. Gold—all she saw was the topaz of his irises, and the color, the heat, was sizzling her eyes. His essence had come inside her head, taking advantage of the door she’d always left open for him. He was searching around her brain, violating. . . .

  She screamed, pushing against him as he pummeled her memories of being kidnapped by Eva, of going to rescue Breisi, of seeing the woman who’d come to mean so much to her die—

  Then, just like that, it was over.

  Gagging, she rolled to her side, her shirt clammy, her skin filmy.

  “What did you do to her?” Kiko yelled.

  She heard his feet pounding the floor. He was charging the boss—the stranger.

  Weakly pushing to her elbows, she tried to get up, but she was too late. Just before Kiko jumped at The Voice, the little man was picked up by a whoosh of air, then pinned to an adjacent couch. There, he stayed, punching at nothing.

  “Breisi!” he yelled. “Let me go!”

  Breisi’s essence flew away while other whispers shot toward him, whispers Dawn had heard earlier when the collected Friends had put Kiko, then her, to rest.

  Within seconds, he closed his eyes, his head lolling to the side.

  Wait—Dawn could command the Friends. She’d forgotten because it was such a new power.

  She began to order them to leave Kiko alone, but the stranger quashed her hopes.

  “My commands take precedence over yours, so do not bother.”

  She almost preferred being put to sleep over this. Would the Friends be lulling her next? Then why was this stranger bothering to taunt her? What was happening?

  She got to her hands and knees, unable to stand because of her jelled legs. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Her guard slipped and, for one moment—just one—she didn’t want to fight. She wanted her mentor, her guiding force, back.

  She whispered the rest. “What are you doing?”

  At that, he seemed to wilt a fraction. But then he went rigid. “I’m being the monster you should have expected. Did your mother not warn you? Were you not paying attention to what she was trying to tell you?”

  “Shut up.” She almost put her hands over her ears but fought the urge. Blocking out her mother’s words from the outside wouldn’t do anything when they were already ingrained in her head. They were burning, scarring a message into her gut that she never should’ve ignored.

  A monster. One of them.

  Or maybe even worse?

  “What I find interesting,” the stranger said, his tone like a slight retreat, “is that you still don’t want to believe what Eva said about me. I saw that in your mind, as clear as day.”

  Confused by his change in voice, Dawn hardened herself, avoiding the stranger’s eyes now, vowing he wasn’t going to get inside her again. “I’m starting to believe what she told me.”

  “That’s because you will never trust me.” He le
aned forward. “No matter how much you learn about me, it will never be enough. In fact, it will be too much.”

  It was already too much.

  She tried to get to her feet, clawing at the rug in her effort.

  The stranger shook his head. “No sense in standing unless you wish to walk out the door.”

  She stopped at the return of his razored tone.

  “Go on, Dawn. You are free to leave.”

  Everything seemed to fall down around her. Wasn’t the team supposed to stay locked down? Wasn’t it dangerous for her to venture outside?

  Or was it more dangerous in here?

  “I . . .” she began.

  “Invading my host was the last straw. You clearly have no respect for my privacy, though, last night, I thought you might have cultivated some. But you are unwilling to accept my protection here in the house without causing distress, and you will need to leave us.”

  “But . . . I’m ‘key.’ ”

  It’d come off as pathetic. Dawn even cringed, but she recovered quickly, pissed off that he had the power to make her feel so insignificant.

  “Kiko has been wrong before.” The Voice leaned back against the couch, bending a leg so he could rest his ankle on the other knee.

  Bullshit. Once The Voice had told her that he had a lot of faith in Kiko’s talents. That couldn’t have changed so drastically.

  She stood her ground. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m not leaving. This is crazy.”

  “This is necessary,” he whispered.

  Dawn’s toughness slipped a little. A chink in his armor?

  “Leave,” he said, “before you can never go back. Just leave, Dawn.”

  Leave? And go where? And do what?

  “Oh, how merciful,” she said, fighting oncoming tears. “Do you actually think I can ‘go back’ to walking around the streets without knowing what’s under them? Do you think I’ll ever be the same person again?” Her fingernails dug into her palms, clutching on to something since everything else was out of her grasp. Her nails broke skin but she still kept pressing.

  Once, when she’d first come back to L.A., Kiko had told Dawn that she’d never return to her old job as a stunt double. She’d thought he was full of it, but he’d been right.

  She’d always been wrong.

  Dawn forgot about protecting herself, allowing her gaze to meet the stranger’s. What she saw there made her want to cry out in frustration. It was the old Voice, the one who’d taken her under his wing and educated her, even while keeping her at an intimate distance.

  Then, as if he’d gotten caught, the stranger’s body seemed to steel itself, transforming before her very eyes into the thing she didn’t know anymore.

  “I cannot afford to care how life will treat you from this point on,” he said.

  But she’d seen that he still cared, somewhere in that body of his. She knew it, and this was all another one of his games.

  She gave it right back to him. “Okay. So when the Underground comes to get me for the part I played in hunting them down, you’ll just shrug and chalk it up to life as a Limpet PI. Is that how all your team members end up—deserted if they don’t become Friends?”

  He was clearly battling himself, like he wanted to argue but wasn’t going to.

  Unable to tolerate it anymore, she made a dismissive motion. “You are a monster—just not one to be that afraid of.”

  As she began to turn her back on him, her nape tingled. Chills.

  What’s he doing? What’s he thinking . . . ?

  Against her gut instinct, she looked back. He’d come to a slow stand, looming in a rage, his jaw and hands clenched.

  “Would you finally leave if you knew the true definition of ‘monster’?” he asked. “Is that what this will take?”

  She didn’t like the question, didn’t like his nightmare tone. And when he lowered his chin and offered a terrible smile, she regretted ever stepping into the Limpet house.

  In his hands, something was gleaming. The dagger—the simple tool etched with a C that had shown her the stuff of hell with Kiko’s help.

  No. No, he wasn’t saying what she thought he was saying—

  “The mark on this dagger stands for ‘Costin,’ ” he growled. “That is my true name.”

  Dawn’s blood hammered in her temples, her vision pulsing until her eyes hurt.

  Costin. C. Bloodlust. Monster.

  The seer in Kiko’s dagger vision.

  A wet stream slithered out of one eye, trickling down her cheek. “Stop saying things like that. You’re going too far.”

  He walked toward her, dagger outstretched, as if asking her to take it from him. On a different day, she might’ve thought he was begging her to remove a burden from his soul.

  “I was introduced into this new life through blood,” he said. “I know what it is like to thirst for it, to murder for it, to drink it until my every fiber sings with it. As you have seen, I have the potential to be a monster, like the vampire Robby Pennybaker who raped your brain.” His eyes heated. “Like the mother you claim to hate.”

  She tasted bile in the back of her throat. The stench of jasmine compounded her nausea. He’d been inside her, with her permission, caressing her, saturating unfilled holes where she hadn’t allowed anyone before.

  Her legs itched to move, but she couldn’t. Damn her, she did trust him, because she couldn’t believe what he was saying, couldn’t truly believe he could be evil, too.

  She barely got out her last question. “Are you one of the masters?”

  Another awful smile. “I should have been.”

  The sinister insinuation seeped into her until every last hope she’d been clinging to rotted away. He was just like the Master she hated. Just like a cold killing machine.

  “Then goddamn you, whoever you are,” she said.

  “Too late.” Costin stopped short of her, the dagger offered. It lay like a sleeping creature nestled in his hand.

  Just like the Master. She wanted to use the weapon on him so badly, but her confusion held her back. None of this made sense. His change in temper, his story, his holding out the dagger right now. He said he had feasted on blood, but why hadn’t he taken it lately?

  No sense, no sense . . .

  Jasmine stifled her, pressing in like the sides of a coffin. She struggled for pure air, but couldn’t get it.

  A stray thought parted the waves of nausea. Help. Who could help her? One person. One PI vampire hunter who’d told her he could take care of everything.

  The dagger winked as Costin shoved it closer. He kept watching her, the scars on his face livid. In his smile, she saw the hint of a Robby Pennybaker, of Eva herself, of a master somewhere Underground who had planned Breisi’s death.

  Monsters.

  Anger and terror exploded inside of her at the same time, and she lunged through the jasmine to grab at the dagger. But with heart-stopping speed, the stranger gracefully removed the weapon from her reach.

  “Thank you, Dawn, for making this easier,” he said, his lips twisting at her betrayal. “Now get out of my sight.”

  He’d set her up. The helplessness built in Dawn’s soured stomach, pushing up through her chest until it burst out of her head with a force she’d never been able to control.

  Until now.

  Zoom—she aimed her mind power at him, hitting him and thrusting him backward. He stumbled, then recovered his balance.

  For a naked second, she saw something like surprised admiration in his gaze before it went cold again.

  “It is going to end this way, then?” he asked, tucking the dagger into the back of his pants. When his hand emerged, it was fisted.

  “You don’t scare me,” she said.

  “No?”

  He wandered closer, his eyes like magnetic forces. Suddenly, she couldn’t move. Hypnosis.

  Her mind snowed as he stalked her, circling and maneuvering behind her, then pressing into her back. But she was in such chaos that her body d
idn’t know how to react, not even when she felt the tug of his fingers at her jeans waistband.

  “What would it take to scare you off?” he whispered, slipping a finger past the denim so that it brushed the small of her back.

  Her body, then her head, split into pieces.

  Blood thirst . . . Jonah . . . good guys and bad . . .

  Who was who?

  It was only when he backed off and came around to the front of her that she could focus again.

  Fight him off, her instincts shouted. Don’t let him near you.

  She used her own mind to pound away at the hold he had on her. Out, get out!

  Shoop—his mind sucked out of hers and she brought her fists up through the perfumed air, bending her knees in a fighting stance. She felt something pulling at her, as if the Friends were keeping her from their leader.

  So instead of attacking him physically, Dawn summoned her mind energy again, lashing out.

  It was as if he’d been slapped. His head whipped around and, when he faced her again, his hair stuck to his cheek.

  He stood strong, ready to take whatever she had to give.

  She let loose, pushing, pushing, forcing him back step by step until he was at the couch.

  “Save your strength,” he ground out. “Stop and leave now.”

  Like she was going to follow that advice, especially from . . . What? Who?

  Anger renewed by bewilderment, she struck out again, this time with a mental punch so forceful that he spun to the wall.

  As he smacked it, the portraits shuddered, and Dawn’s breathing almost stopped.

  Slowly, he turned to her again, his mouth red with blood. He licked his lips, as if tasting it. She thought she heard . . .

  A slight groan? Or was it the sound of a nearby Friend?

  “Last warning,” he said quietly. “Go before this continues in a direction no one wishes to see.”

  There’d been a sting of pain in his words, and that made her even more crazed. Anger took the form of heat, and it flared inside her. This time, when she pushed with her mind, the stranger reacted.

  Jonah’s body slumped to the ground, as if deserted and, before she knew it, Costin’s essence was behind her—smelling of that strange, exotic mint while wrenching her arm up between her shoulder blades until agony consumed her.