Vampire Babylon - Midnight Reign Part 24

The Friend swished away, screaming toward the ground.

Dawn should've taken that as a hint.

Because the next thing she knew, something pinched into her neck, and she only had enough time to collapse to her stomach, nails digging into the s.h.i.+ngles as she slid downward.

Her head got cloudy, fuzzed with heat and confusion.

Down, down, the world speeding by, flip-flopping, her fingers burning...

Before Dawn could register any more, a bed of jasmine softness scooped her up, hefted her to the ground, then winged away in a swish of speed.

Drugged, Dawn thought, the gra.s.s against one cheek, the trees and sky and house all blending together.

She started to lose consciousness, eyelids falling. But before her lights went out, she saw a tall woman with short, curly dark hair and a pistol coming around the brick corner.

Oh, fu- Just as the woman raised the weapon again, she got slammed to the ground by an invisible force.

By a Friend.And that's when Dawn went dark.

D AWN? ".

A female voice, flowing into Dawn's dreams like hot cocoa warming down a child's throat on a rainy day.

At first she felt achy-old injuries creaking and moaning, her body heavy and shaky. Then, pus.h.i.+ng open her eyelids, Dawn felt a crush of velvet against her temple. This wasn't gra.s.s. And when she saw walls and pictures through her lashes, she guessed that she wasn't outside at all anymore.

Falling, grasping, nails scratching over s.h.i.+ngles...

Woozy, she forced herself awake, feeling some medicinal goop on the tips of her fingers, then finding Jacqueline Ashley sitting in a chair across the living room. The painting of a jazz-age rake with his hair s.h.i.+ned back loomed behind Jac like a...

Friend. What had happened to Dawn's Friend?

In spite of her protesting body, she forced herself to sit up. Then she shook her head, bristling off the dizzy weakness with pure determination.

Through the visual dust bunnies, she saw that the portrait wasn't the only thing hovering over Jac's shoulder. The tall woman, maybe a Samoan, with short, dark curls, dark eyes, and a major-league scowl, was standing guard, too. She looked a little worked over with half her brown face scrubbed raw, and Dawn hoped her Friend had gotten in a few good bruises at least.

But where was she...?

"So the crack shot doesn't have a gun right now?" Dawn muttered, referring to the Amazon. She was surprised she could talk with all the cotton dryness in her mouth.

"Julia, could you please give her some water?" Jac asked, gaze still on her trespa.s.ser.

Unsteadily, Dawn moved to the edge of the settee, the movement driving home that her jacket was lighter now. Without even checking, she knew that her gun was gone, her other weapons taken, too. And her phone-not a chance. d.a.m.n it, she had to call Breisi, even The Voice. Someone.

"Julia shot me with a dart," Dawn said.

"She'll do that with any suspicious characters who creep around the property. If I'd gotten your message about stopping by beforehand, I would've told her to look out for you, probably not on the roof though."

Dawn eyed Julia as the Amazon reappeared and gave Dawn a bottle of water. "Is this your new bodyguard?"

As thirsty as sand, Dawn made sure the cap was already sealed, then undid it, taking a long swig.

"She's my servant, loyal to only me." Jac motioned Julia out of the room, but the woman lingered.

The actress coolly stared at the Amazon. "Really. Go."

Grudgingly, Julia left. Dawn took the opportunity to scan Jac, noting how pale she was, how she plucked at her fas.h.i.+onable summer dress.

"I didn't know you had a staff," Dawn said. "New hire. My producer says I won't have time to-"

"Why didn't Julia want me near the chimneys?"

The starlet paused, then laughed like her guest was crazy. "I told you-she thought you were maybe a stalker."

"You have that many excitable fans right now?"

Jac stopped plucking, folding her hands together instead.

All the stress and tension piled up on Dawn, all the lies and mysteries. Enough. "Where's my Friend?"

"Friend? There's someone else...?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

If possible, Jac went even paler.

Dawn's heart began to skitter, but not because she was afraid. Okay, maybe she was. "Tell me what's going on, Eva."

At first, Jac just shook her head, acting puzzled. Something hard behind Dawn's rib cage crumbled slightly, chisled by the thrust of so many emotions. She wanted Jac to tell her she was nuts, once and for all.

But even more than that, she really did want Eva.

Maybe Jac saw that last part more than anything else, because she lost composure. "I wish," she choked out, "you wouldn't say it like that. Eva."

Something boomed behind Dawn's eyes. In her blanked vision, all she saw was a white room, then a crimson flood cras.h.i.+ng in, painting the walls with blood and taking her under until she had to claw for breath and reality.

Da-dupp, da-dupp. Her pulse. A white-turned-red room inside her falling apart, piece by piece. It was unhinging her. It was opening her up, one wall tumbling down, then another....

She grabbed at the couch, clinging to what she knew: the blood on the sheets in Eva Claremont's crime-scene photo. All the years she'd thought her mom was dead, all the grief Frank had endured. And the hate. G.o.d, the hate.

That's what calmed her down. Maybe it even iced Dawn beyond shock at this point.

Weird, she thought randomly. My own mom looks even younger than me. Weird...

Jac...Eva...whoever must've seen that. A tear slipped down her face. "I didn't want you to find out like this."

"How did you want it to be?" Da-dupp. Da-dupp. "You weren't expecting me to rush into your arms, were you?"

"You almost did, that day at the hospital."

"That day..." Dawn swallowed. "Your eyes told me it was you, but I couldn't..." She glared at this stranger. "I thought I was going crazy. Literally. You made me doubt my sanity."

"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 s.e.xually hara.s.sed 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 a.s.shole 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 sc.r.a.ping the roof. Or maybe she was just tuning in to what pain really was.

"There was a time," she said, "in that Internet cafe...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 G.o.d knows, she wasn't open to her mother anymore. Eva sure as h.e.l.l 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. b.i.t.c.h 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."