For a second, Claudius’s high-and-mighty expression had Dawn thinking he’d never reveal anything. Costin, with his hypnotic talents as well as the Awareness that blood brothers could have between each other—a thought link that either one could shut down under normal circumstances—might be able to dig real deep into Claudius’s psyche if he had all the time in the world. But in spite of what Dawn had just said to the master about his Underground not riding to his rescue, she did fear that she was wrong.
What if they came battering down headquarter doors tonight, if they were careless enough to chance the public exposure? They’d already done some pretty stupid things that had led Costin to them in the first place.
For some reason, Claudius was putting all the strength he had left into guarding his Underground when it had betrayed him. Dawn thought it might have something to do with the other master, Mihas, also known as “Wolfie.” He loved Claudius, but only when he was “Claudia,” in womanly form.
Was Claudius clinging to that, even though he actually wasn’t “Claudia” at all?
The very idea disturbed Dawn, but she wasn’t sure why it should.
“They’re not coming,” Dawn gently repeated. She was relieved that she had that kind of tone in her. “At least, not for you.”
The vampire’s face lost all arrogance. Dawn almost hurt for the creature, but she knew it’d be a mistake.
“I know this,” she said, “because your Awareness revealed a lot to Costin. Since he was already acquainted with you from back in the day, he’s been able to make an educated guess or two about your place in this Underground. You’re a second master, a lower one. Mihas is your superior. The main Underground is his, not yours. And those girls who fill the community—the ones you both created together? The ones who kicked you out? They adore
him
. Nothing really belongs to you down there.”
The vampire opened his mouth as if to retaliate, then shut it, probably knowing nothing he could say would change the truth.
Dawn continued, realizing that she was using a different kind of attack, and it was working even better than getting physical.
See, she
did
have a better part of her that worked just fine.
Just fine.
“Costin says Mihas was always a flake,” she said, “and this dates back to centuries ago, when you all fought together for the dragon. But you were always there for Mihas, even after the brothers went off on their own to test their vampire powers on the world. Even after the master commanded you all to form Undergrounds and build armies for the time he’d need them, after awakening from his long sleep. You were
always
taking care of business down below while Mihas would flit around above, enjoying what his vampiness allowed him to do. You were the constant one, helping him to build an Underground with girl vampire soldiers who would fight for the dragon’s takeover. I guess Mihas was there for you, but only when it suited him.”
Claudius pressed his lips together, his gaze on the ground. One of the Friends who was binding him shifted, pushing the blanket farther up, as if to cover his vulnerabilities.
“He thrives on his girls more than he does on you,” Dawn added. “And he’s got his girls right now, without you there to interfere.”
She was getting to him. She recognized the posture of hopelessness bringing down his shoulders.
After she waited him out, he spoke.
“So what I am to do?” he asked. “Turn on him?”
“If you plan on . . .” She was about to say “surviving,” but she couldn’t. If Costin wanted his soul back, Claudius would
have
to be terminated. All the blood brothers would. That was the vow Costin had made to that cryptic force that had offered the deal. The Whisper.
Dawn started again. “There’ll be a whole lot less awful complexity involved if you cooperate,” she said instead.
“Don’t you mean to say there’ll be a lot less pain?”
“I told you—I’m not here to hurt you.”
“But there’s always pain.” The vampire smiled vaguely. “And the thought holds no fear for me. Perhaps I exist for it.”
Another flare of impatience—and maybe even discomfort—got to Dawn, but she pushed it down before it went anywhere. There was just that sting on her jaw again.
Before she could think too much about that, Claudius added, “I have taken centuries of pain, and I’ve come to think that I might have even enjoyed it.”
A masochistic streak, she thought. She’d also seen it last night when Claudius had practically welcomed the cut of a machete against his neck. She’d sensed it in this relationship he had with Mihas.
And maybe she even recognized it in her own life with Costin and Jonah, as well her attempts to reconcile with Eva, the mom who’d deserted her for a vampire life of her own before she’d been turned back human with the death of the L.A. master.
Dawn leaned forward, resting her forearms on her thighs. “Don’t you think it’s time for
Mihas
to feel
your
pain?”
Claudius looked her up and down, and Dawn wondered if she was really being as successful with this mode of questioning as she’d thought. Vampires, for all their supposed coldness and lack of emotion, could be the opposite: the condition brought out what was already in them, whether it was love, sorrow, rage, or remoteness. It was an extreme of the mind and of the body. It substituted excess for the absence of a soul.
“All my existence,” he said, “I’ve been what Mihas has needed. I loved him so completely that I obliterated myself, and it wasn’t worth it. Now, in what I realize might be my last hours, do you believe that I’ll become what
you
need?”
Dawn couldn’t find anything to say for a moment. Then she offered all she could.
“No, I don’t believe that.”
Then again, that’d been the story of her life. That was why she hadn’t needed anything from anyone, ever.
The vampire seemed taken aback by Dawn’s honesty. Maybe he even sensed the remorse in her for so many things, including how far she’d gone in striking at him earlier.
He reclined in his chair, observing her. “Well, now. You’re quite pitiful, aren’t you?”
She almost laughed.
Him
thinking
she
was a sorry thing?
He continued. “A hunter reduced to hanging her head in front of a victim who won’t give in.”
“Are you trying to goad me into attacking you again since you have such a yen for agony?”
“No, no. I could hardly stand another bout of torture.”
Dawn wanted to say it hadn’t been torture, but she wasn’t sure about that. Wasn’t sure about anything that’d happened last night. All she knew was that she had a mark against her, and it was there on her face for everyone to see. A non-scarlet letter that was bound to spell out what she’d become lately.
Claudius tilted his head, a vampire trait she’d seen in all of them. “What did it feel like . . . stringing me up and slicing into me with that mental power of yours? I must say, from a purely impartial point of view, it was an impressive show. You would have been quite a soldier in the Underground I helped to cultivate.”
Great. Complimented on her methods by a master vampire. Dawn was officially awesome.
“My actions were what I felt was necessary at the time,” she said. “And it helped you to get captured. I can’t say that the end didn’t justify the means.”
“If you mean to get every last answer from me, I would suspect you haven’t come to
any
end.”
Cute. “Then
Costin’s
going to get what he wants from you.”
“Maybe so. In time. But perhaps the time will be costly, and it will allow my Underground to mobilize against you. Perhaps my community
will
come for me, and they will track me here, where they can crush you during the witching hour, when most humans are too asleep to notice.”
“Eloquent,” Dawn said. “But, again, I suspect you don’t believe in that scenario one bit.”
The Friends—some of whom could be slightly less ruthless than Dawn, even though their spiritual state of grace didn’t allow them to kill—were getting restless. Dawn could see their invisible pressure pushing against the vampire, as if to impede his breathing. Even though Claudius was undead, the maneuver was working. The dragon’s line of vampires had bodies that functioned like humans in many ways, but during the exchange of blood and loss of a soul, something had happened to change their composition, their matter, spinning them into beyond human instead of just the norm. She knew this because she was familiar with Costin’s shared body.
She slid off her stool, her boots hitting the floor with a soft thud. A good cop would ease down with Claudius, begin again. Reset.
“You could ingratiate yourself with me by giving up a freebie,” she said. “What do you say? You start off small, telling me something like . . . Well, say, why London seems to attract Undergrounds more than the average place. With an answer to that, I’ll be in a much better mood. Maybe I’ll even ask the Friends who’re binding you to let up a bit.”
Claudius shrugged, like this one answer was some kind of olive branch he didn’t mind shedding. “I wish I had an explanation, but vampires aren’t sages. When we exchange blood and lose our souls, we aren’t given a secret handshake and the guide to solving all the world’s puzzles.”
Unfortunately, that made sense. Not even Costin was all knowing. In the beginning, Dawn had thought that just because these creatures were older than the hills, they’d have more of a clue than the rest of the general population. But no. Besides, if any of the blood brothers
had
formulated theories over the years about global warming or the end of days, they probably wouldn’t have shared, seeing as all the dragon’s progeny had drifted apart, growing greedy and paranoid about takeovers, and cutting themselves off from interacting with each other when possible. Mihas and Claudius seemed to be the exception.
Dawn said, “You can’t even tell me why you and Mihas settled here?”
Claudius shook his head, and it almost seemed like he wanted to add a feisty little tsking sound, too.
“I suppose,” Dawn added, “that would veer disturbingly close to talking about the dragon, wouldn’t it. Maybe your big master just wanted to settle here in London, along with you and Mihas. Maybe he had the same plans and whims as the so-called fictional count in
Dracula
did. He has a real thing for this area, and you guys inherited that from him.”
“You assume the dragon is with our Underground, and you know what they say about people who assume.”
“It makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.’ ” Obviously, he was so old he didn’t have any new jokes.
“Besides, if you’re depending upon a work of fiction—one that’s been said to not be based on Vlad Tepes at all, in spite of all the speculation—you’re even more pitiful than I suspected.” Claudius sucked in a breath as a random Friend took exception to that and pushed the blanket around his neck against the healing wounds.
Dawn watched her fellow hunters, even though she couldn’t see them. Did any of them
want
her to whip out her mental persuasion tools right about now?
But she wouldn’t do it. She could be just like the other members of the team, who’d been recruited because of a true-blue streak of justice that Dawn had always doubted she possessed, too. Yet, she did have it, didn’t she? She wanted more than anything to get Costin’s soul back for him.
Wasn’t that kind of a noble cause?
The thought weighed on her, because sometimes she wondered if she did it all
for
him or because it was the only way she’d ever feel redeemed for turning him into a vampire.
“Okay then,” Dawn said. “Looks like we’re done here. I’ll just wait for Costin to roll out of bed again. He’ll know how to get the dragon factoids out of you.”
Claudius just smiled enigmatically, reminding Dawn of a sphinx.
But Dawn didn’t leave just yet. She moseyed toward the vampire. “Too bad you can’t call anyone else to your aid. Costin’s only going to get more and more persuasive.”
The creature swallowed beneath the blanket, not knowing that Dawn was only being optimistic about the extent of Costin’s remaining powers.
“Those shadow things?” she said. “Guards? Whatever they are? Why aren’t
they
here to help you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hah. Dawn gestured toward the fridge/freezer, where the team had stored the corpse of a young man. A little over a week ago, they’d encountered him lurking around a vampire remains burial site, and he’d fallen from a building to his death before they’d even been able to question him. They hadn’t known who or what he was until the other night when Dawn had encountered a female dressed in all black techno ninja-type gear, just as he’d been.
Shadow things, Dawn had been calling them. And the team didn’t know whether the things were tracking vampires or if they were barring intruders from finding the Underground . . . or anything the vampires might be hiding down there.
Like the dragon.
Just as Dawn was about to pursue the subject, Claudius sat up straight in his chair, then bolted backward, as if mentally attacked. But Dawn hadn’t done anything—hadn’t thrown any mind punches or pushes.
His gaze had frozen on something behind her, and before she even turned around, she knew who’d entered.
THREE
THE BOSS
SHE
pivoted to find Costin standing at the foot of the stairs that led to the main rooms, and her pulse caught in her throat, in her veins. She was his master, and they were connected in so many ways when they were open to each other: mentally, physically through the blood he thrived on when he sipped from her.
But, again, that was only when they were open to each other, which hadn’t really been the case lately.
Her heart twisted in her chest as he glanced at her, but when she discerned the blue in his eyes—not the topaz color that denoted Costin’s dominance in the body he shared with Jonah—she knew that the other entity was in charge right now.