Break of Dawn

by Chris Marie Green

For the next few hours, The Whisper laid out the rest with the care of a battle well planned. Costin put aside any thoughts of madness, and he found himself believing. Completely, desperately believing.

  Costin would be a “traveler,” The Whisper explained. A traveler just as The Whisper itself was. He must leave his vampiric body behind, because their captors would never unleash a beast like Costin from its cell, so he would have to discover another way out to begin this quest—a quiet way.

  “This requires,” the old man said, “you to be loaned your own soul so that you might use it in another body since you will never see this old one again. Yet do not think that this soul is yours just yet.”

  And there were rules for “traveling,” Costin discovered. So many rules. Still . . .

  “I accept,” he said, out of need, pure and all-consuming.

  With the words, his abandoned soul awakened from the flame-ridden prison it had been in. It rushed and joined with his thoughts to cleanse him out of this sin-ridden body, like water through a bloodied valley.

  Reborn.

  He left that other deadened body behind. Then he flew, flew around the cell unrestrained, in joy, consciousness rejoined with his true spirit. He slipped through the hole in the wall, then arrowed down to the body of the old man who had been deserted by The Whisper traveler and was sitting against the stone with his arms spread open to welcome his new traveler.

  With a shattering crash, Costin took refuge, blackness exploding as his soul expanded to fit its new body, pushing the old man’s own being down as a fellow companion in this new crusade.

  Then Costin opened his eyes to the dark of the old man’s cell and held his hands to his withered, tear-stained face—

  DAWN came to reality at the same time Kiko and Frank did. They found Costin facing them, arms resting on his thighs as he sat in a chair. He was fixated on Dawn in particular, scars angry, eyes golden.

  His intensity didn’t do anything to make everything she’d seen coalesce into rational thought, into a firm opinion of what she should think about him now.

  “Years later,” he continued, just as if he’d always been narrating in this way to them, “the old man—I—was released from our prison. There was no explanation as to why we were being set free, but the castle had changed hands, so I suspect that was a reason. At any rate, the dragon was said to have died, but I knew better. I found my dagger, which had been taken from me, in a pile of rubble. It was a reminder of what I once was—and will never be again. A talisman that I have kept in my collection of war relics, a rather random gathering that keeps me grounded. And then I began.”

  Dawn licked her lips, feeling as if she hadn’t spoken for hours. “So you took over that old man’s body, just like you did with Jonah Limpet?”

  “Dawn,” Kiko said, “just listen.”

  There was definitely some slurring from Kiko.

  “Yes, Dawn,” Costin answered anyway. “And it was not long before I searched out my next willing body, one that was not as frail as the old man’s. Yet one who was just as interested in justice as this volunteer host. When I parted with him and assumed my new form, the old man died shortly thereafter, blessing me in my journey.” He stared at the ground. “But I never knew who The Whisper traveler was or how he could possibly have arranged this offer. He would only tell me that there would be answers in the end. So you see, Dawn—you are not alone in wondering because of a Whisper . . . or Voice.”

  That really shut her up.

  Costin leaned back in his chair. “In this younger, fight-worthy body, I was naïve. I did not put together a team because I did not have the experience to know I would need one. And I went after the dragon first, even after he was assumed dead.”

  Frank grudgingly laughed at that—alpha male to alpha male. Costin smiled slightly.

  “Ballsy, as they might say today.” He tempered his humor. “It was a near-fatal showdown for me. My maker was more amused than anything, I believe, though I was disguised in another body and he could only sense that perhaps one of his own soldiers was trying to assassinate him. After I managed to survive, I guess you could say that I ‘went underground’ myself for a time, gathering my strength, my wits, recovering from my close call.”

  “So the dragon was still running around after that?” Kiko asked.

  Dawn shot him a look now, and it wasn’t just because he’d interrupted. If he was on pills . . .

  Costin responded. “It took centuries before I tracked my maker down again, only to discover that he had already been buried, for his rising in a hidden location, by an anonymous brother. So every time I face a master, I’m sure to ask them where I must look now. As you can imagine, they have not been so . . . helpful.”

  They all lapsed into quiet, questions almost palpably dotting the walls.

  His soul. How many times had Costin told her how high the stakes of his hunt were? She’d gotten the “saving the world” part, but she’d never realized it was so personal for him.

  Wouldn’t she do anything it took to get something so vital back? Hadn’t she?

  She made the best choice she could come up with under the circumstances, finally taking a side. She just hoped it was the right one.

  “These brothers,” she said. “Do you know which one you’re dealing with now?”

  Her boss shook his head.

  “It’s the one,” she said, “named Benedikte.”

  Whatever color was in Costin’s face drained away.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE UNTANGLING

  BENEDIKTE,” Costin repeated, destroyed.

  Frank and Kiko watched him in sympathetic curiosity, but then turned their attention to Dawn, as if asking what else she hadn’t mentioned about the Underground yet.

  “You had to know he was going to show up one day,” she said to Costin.

  “Yet I had hoped I was wrong when I thought it was this day.” He bent his head, his hair masking any more emotion.

  Just a few hours ago, Dawn would’ve taken great satisfaction in seeing him so injured. But now . . . ? No. Not after knowing full well what he was fighting for, even if he’d used her to get at it.

  But, again, she would’ve done the same damned thing, and knowing this made it easier to give him the information he would need before going off to fight because, in some deranged way, she realized this was her battle, too. This was everyone’s battle. After what The Whisper in Costin’s story had said about “the dragon’s rising” . . . ?

  Jesus. It finally gave “saving the world” a definition. Thanks to Costin’s dagger vision, she’d seen his maker in action, and the bastard wasn’t fooling around.

  She eased into more of an explanation for him. “Benedikte more or less took off his ‘Matt’ costume and revealed himself to me when I was Underground, so I recognized him from your dagger vision. He was pretending to be Matt Lonigan this whole time—”

  Kiko bolted out of his chair. “What? When you and Matt had lunch at Chez Rose, I shook his hand and there was no sign. . . .”

  “Shielding, Kiko.” Costin raised his head. “You would not get a reading. As ‘Matthew Lonigan,’ Benedikte would have been shielding against us all. If done well, shields are hard to detect. Also, the effort would not have allowed him to search into us at the same time.”

  Throughout this, Costin had exhibited no reaction whatsoever on his haggard face, and that was when Dawn knew.

  “You realized the entire time that ‘Matt’ was the Master?”

  “No, Dawn.” Voice flat, emotionless, drained. “At first, I only suspected ‘Matt’ was from the Underground, perhaps just a spy. Soon afterward, I began to entertain the concept of him being a master.”

  She should’ve been floored, should’ve gotten angry at being kept out of the loop once again. But she was impervious to that now, just like someone whose face had been punched so many times it was numb putty.

  Frank busted in. “Hold on—I know I’m behind with the headlines, but it sounds like Dawn and
this Matt—”

  “Not now, Dad—”

  “—like the two of them were . . .” He was waving his hands around. “And you let her see him?”

  “I did,” Costin said softly.

  When Frank began to get out of his chair, Dawn threw an arm over his chest to stop him.

  “I’ve waited a long time for this,” she said. “Save the demolition for later.”

  With a measuring glance at his daughter, her dad nonetheless got the rest of the way up, moving to the back of their chairs so he could pace in agitation. He was obviously going nuts because of Breisi’s captivity. Kiko remained standing, too. Ironically, Dawn seemed like the only one in the room besides Costin who could manage to sit still.

  “Now,” she said, absently mimicking Costin’s posture: forearms on thighs, wilted. “Go on.”

  He locked stares with her, and an indestructible bubble seemed to fill the space between them, pushing them apart.

  “We decided to see what this ‘Matt’ had in mind in his attempts to know you,” he said.

  And, by “we,” Dawn knew he meant himself and Breisi, maybe even other Friends, too.

  “We kept close watch, though,” he added, his tone taking a turn for the dark. “Very close.”

  That familiar scratch of jealousy abraded his words, but Dawn doubted he felt much. Warriors could have only one main passion, one dedicated cause, and she clearly wasn’t it.

  She shouldn’t want to be “it” anyway. She didn’t want that.

  “But even though you eventually suspected ‘Matt’ could be the Master,” she said, “you had no idea that he was your friend Benedikte. Your companion.”

  “Only now do I know this for certain.” In an unguarded moment, the ghost of a smile tilted Costin’s lips. “He was always good at ignoring the pain, good at hiding what was truly going on inside of himself. Yet I could always tell. . . .”

  Even in the dagger vision, she’d seen that Benedikte had influenced Costin; maybe he had even been more like a true brother rather than a blood one. Maybe.

  “I think,” Kiko said, “you need to be telling Dawn why else you let her hang out with ‘Matt.’ ” He put his hands on his hips as he glanced at Dawn. “This is something I do know.”

  He’d said it accusingly, and it made Costin blink only once, slowly, in acknowledgment.

  Then he began. “Months ago, Kiko had his ‘key’ vision. You have been privy to that much: the image of you covered in the blood of a vampire, victorious. What I never elaborated on was that we interpreted this to mean you would find this master and symbolically be the key to besting him. Sometimes when Kiko has visions, they might not be literal.”

  She recalled the prediction Kiko had gotten about “red fingers” and how it had led to finding Frank. Since the fingers had turned out to be the chimneys on Eva’s rooftop, she bought what Costin was saying.

  “What we didn’t reveal to you,” he added, “was the second part of the vision.”

  “A feeling, really,” Kiko said, breaking visual contact.

  She couldn’t blame her friend for not telling her about this before now. Secrecy was how Limpet and Associates thrived. Every step had been a part of strategy, where no one was a person—they were only markers on a map, being moved around by the general in this war.

  And she’d wanted to find the Underground just as badly.

  “What else?” she said to Costin.

  “Kiko felt that this master would be lured out of his Underground because of a fascination with you.”

  Something Kiko had said to Dawn from his hospital bed after he broke his back got to her. Bait. That was what he’d whispered, but she’d thought he meant Frank. Or maybe even all the other times Costin had used her.

  But this? She’d been bait for the Master himself? That was why Costin had hired Frank and eventually gotten Dawn to join them due to her father’s accidentally fortuitous disappearance?

  Costin clasped his hands together. It looked like his fingers were trying to strangle one another.

  “I was a decoy,” she confirmed. “A worm on a hook.”

  “More like an irresistible temptation,” Costin added, his voice cracking.

  Dawn’s chest collapsed, but she held herself up before any damage could register.

  Then he sighed. “It was a catch-22 situation. You were to flush the Master out, but Kiko also felt that just by being around you, this vampire would regain an interest in life and grow in strength. We debated about what to do: lure him out with a woman who would increase his powers? Or should we go on without you, knowing we would be forgoing a gift and perhaps losing precious time?” He shook his head. “The answer was easy. As you know, I was certain there was a master in the area—I sensed him almost a year ago and immediately began shielding so there would be no chance of him discovering me before I did him—and he must have shielded at the same time. We only hoped you would draw him out before he grew too strong. In any event, I knew he must be destroyed before he held any advantage over me.”

  Destroyed so Costin could get his soul back. It was all finally making sense, as much as it could.

  “At first,” he continued, something like self-disgust sharpening his tone, “I was truly reluctant to take you on. My difficulty in sending you out with Kiko and Breisi to the Pennybaker mansion on the night you joined us was not feigned. I knew you were to be bait, but there was no avoiding it.”

  “At least I had my uses,” Dawn said.

  “Don’t say that.” Costin’s gaze burned. “You are . . .”

  She widened her eyes, and he trailed off. In the resulting quiet, Dawn knew she couldn’t compete with regaining his humanity. As if in understanding, her earlobe burned, a phantom throb marking the spot where she used to wear the old Dawn’s earring.

  Behind her, Frank cleared his throat. She didn’t look back at her dad. Couldn’t.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know all this from the beginning,” she whispered to Costin.

  Damn it, that sounded pathetic. So, in defensive reaction, she shrugged and acted like she was okay with it all. It felt better that way, even though she and everyone else in this room knew it was a put-on.

  Her next words were just as careless. “I mean, I might not have been such a brat if I knew you were in this soul tug-of-war. Then again, if I knew everything, I suppose I wouldn’t have been good bait anyway.”

  “I told you as much as I could.”

  That chisled at her. “You didn’t tell me squat. But now . . .” She exhaled. There was nothing she could do about anything. Her part was finished. Might as well let it go.

  “Dawn . . .”

  Her name from his lips. So many times he’d undone her with just that one syllable. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Why’re you telling us everything at this point?” she asked, taking over. “Because you think if you’re going to die, you want to do it with a clear conscience? Or because your story would persuade me to tell you what happened Underground?”

  He looked bereft at having been robbed of the power to say her name and have it mean something. Then he got back to business, just as she had. It was so much easier that way.

  “Untangling a burden is part of this confession,” he said. “But, know this—I have not told you enough to endanger myself. Still, none of you is to leave this house after I am gone.”

  Once again, thoughts of Breisi niggled at Dawn.

  “Then I guess with the vision of Jonah earlier,” she said, “you just showed us enough to drive me away—so you could find the Underground with the locator on my jeans.”

  As he nodded, she remembered the night of his last feeding, in the guest bedroom, right before all hell had broken loose and he’d kicked her out.

  Whatever happens in the future, he’d said, know that I am sorry for it.

  Now, Kiko pointed at Costin. “Wait—you always told us that you were keeping us safe by withholding information. What’s changed?”

  Costin’
s grip on his own hands tightened, as if shame was devouring him. Dawn squirmed because the gesture made her so reluctantly mortified for him.

  “There are actions we can never redeem,” he said, “and I knew I would be committing quite a few of them. The less you knew, the better. That is what I believed. I thought that I could postpone the hatred you would inevitably have for me, righteous hatred. That is the reason I would not tell more than what was necessary at the time.”

  The lining of Dawn’s stomach trembled. What was he saying? She knew that he’d been expecting her before she even arrived in L.A., and he’d immediately lied to her. But he couldn’t have gotten that strongly attached from just one of Kiko’s visions. Or had he become attracted to the idea of the power he kept telling her she possessed?

  “You manipulated us,” she asked, “because you wanted us to like you?”

  “I never wished for you to hate me, Dawn,” Costin whispered. “There is a world of difference.”

  At this naked admission, Kiko glanced back at Frank, as if asking if they should leave.

  “Stay,” she said, fighting off what Costin’s words were doing to her. “You need to know everything.”

  “Yes,” Costin added, “you need to know why I have been so . . . monstrous.” He sent a look to Dawn, as if asking her to validate that, as if hoping she wouldn’t.

  Something caught in her throat, making it impossible to agree or disagree.

  “Often,” Costin said, still watching her, “I wonder if my quest has built me into more of a beast than ever. I remind myself of what is really in store for the world if the dragon rises, and that alone seems enough to justify what I have done. I remind myself that when The Whisper cleansed me of that vampire body, I became another type of being. I became something much different than a member of the brotherhood.”

  Even as he said it, Dawn could tell his doubt was growing, that he questioned the choices he’d made with every breath. That, even now, he was attempting to convince himself that he really was more than a damned being whether it came in the form of a vampire or another unnamable creature.

  But, as a vampire, he would never have a soul. He probably told himself over and over that he would never be one of them; he would distance himself from their evil while hunting them down. Yet he didn’t seem sure of that, and it got to Dawn.