Deep In the Woods Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE - ALREADY IN DEEP

  TWO - THE MASTERFUL INTERROGATION

  THREE - THE BOSS

  FOUR - LONDON BABYLON, CUSTODE MONITOR ROOM

  FIVE - LONDON BABYLON, “THE PIRATE SUITE”

  SIX - THE THERAPY CANDIDATE

  SEVEN - THE SHADOWS KNOW

  EIGHT - ABOVEGROUND, I

  NINE - ABOVEGROUND, II

  TEN - LONDON BABYLON, THE LION AND THE LAMB PUB

  ELEVEN - THE NEW DIGS

  TWELVE - DEEPER

  THIRTEEN - THE NEW LEAD

  FOURTEEN - NEAR THE LONDON BABYLON, ANSWERING THE CUSTODE ALERT

  FIFTEEN - THE GREAT ESTATE

  SIXTEEN - THE JACKPOT

  SEVENTEEN - LONDON BABYLON, COMMON AREA MAZE

  EIGHTEEN - BELOWGROUND, I

  NINETEEN - BELOWGROUND, II

  TWENTY - LOST

  TWENTY-ONE - THE LAIR

  TWENTY-TWO - ONCE A KEEPER

  TWENTY-THREE - FAREWELL TO BABYLON

  TWENTY-FOUR - THE SOUL-SEARCHING

  TWENTY-FIVE - THE WHITE LADY

  TWENTY-SIX - THE ART OF PLAYING WITH FIRE

  TWENTY-SEVEN - THE REPLACEMENT

  TWENTY-EIGHT - THE DRAGON WAITS

  TWENTY-NINE - FOUND

  THIRTY - THE ETERNAL

  PRAISE FOR MIDNIGHT REIGN

  “A dark, dramatic, and erotic tone . . . Fans of Charlaine Harris and Jim Butcher may enjoy.”

  —Library Journal

  “An exciting, high-tension horror thriller with enough unresolved trust and family issues to make it credible, a hint of romance for spice, and a bit of black humor to lighten up the often dark tone, this is a nicely conceived modern vampire tale that will keep readers guessing.”

  —Monsters and Critics

  “Green writes a complex story featuring well-defined characters and more than enough noir mystery to keep readers enthralled.”

  —School Library Journal

  “An intriguing world that becomes more complex with every turn of the page . . . kick-butt action.”

  —Huntress Book Reviews

  “Green has given her fans an inside look at the Underground culture and social class system, from the powerful Elite, bitten by the Master, to the lowly Guards, bitten by the Groupies . . . [a] fun urban fantasy mystery.”

  —Alternative Worlds

  “A fast- moving urban fantasy filled with murder, mystery, and a large dose of the supernatural. The vivid characterization and danger at every turn will keep readers engaged.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “A dark, edgy, and complex series.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A dark and thrilling paranormal tale . . . a gritty and suspenseful ride.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  PRAISE FOR NIGHT RISING

  “A book to die for! Dark, mysterious, and edged with humor, this book rocks on every level!”

  —Gena Showalter, author of Twice as Hot

  “If you like your fantasy with an edge, then you’ve struck gold. There is a ring of truth to the biting—no pun intended—allegory. This is a fantastic start to a new series.”

  —The Eternal Night

  “Chris Marie Green does a wonderful job of bringing this gritty, dark novel to life . . . I can’t wait to see where [she] takes the rest of the books.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “An exciting, action-packed vampire thriller. A fantastic tale that . . . provides book lovers with plenty of adventure and a touch of romance.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Dawn makes a spunky vampire slayer.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An interesting take on the vampire world . . . well written and exciting. I look forward to the next book.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “A killer mystery . . . Bring on book two!”

  —Kelley Armstrong, author of Frostbitten

  Ace Books by Chris Marie Green

  NIGHT RISING

  MIDNIGHT REIGN

  BREAK OF DAWN

  A DROP OF RED

  THE PATH OF RAZORS

  DEEP IN THE WOODS

  Anthologies

  FIRST BLOOD

  (with Susan Sizemore, Erin McCarthy, and Meljean Brook)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by Chris Marie Green.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace trade paperback edition / March 2010

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Green, Chris Marie.

  Deep in the woods / Chris Marie Green.—Ace trade paperback ed. p. cm.—(Vampire Babylon ; bk. 6)

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18573-5

  1. Madison, Dawn (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women stunt performers—Fiction. 3. Kidnapping—Fiction. 4. Vampires—Fiction. 5. Americans—England—Fiction. 6. London (England)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.R4326D44 2010

  813’.6—dc22

  2009047797

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Here’s to Elvira,

  who haunted my Sunday evenings with Movie Macabre

  and made me into the horror-loving fan that I am

  Much appreciation goes to the hardworking staff at Ace. Thank you also to the Knight Agency, plus Sheree Whitefeather and Judy Duarte for the sweat and blood that have gone into this series. For inspiration, thanks are owed to the works of Marie-Louise von Franz and the books Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power, by Mary Valentis, PhD, and Anne Devane, PhD, and Queen Bees & Wannabes , by Rosalind Wiseman.

  Once again, I acknowledge all errors as my own. Any skewing of locations or historical details has been done for the benefit of increasing the
drama in this story.

  Have fun during this part of the hunt, guys. I’ve had a blast on my end. As Angela Carter wrote in “The Erl-King”: “It is easy to lose yourself in these woods.”

  ONE

  ALREADY IN DEEP

  ONCE there was a body sprawled under a set of night-darkened, raised train tracks in south London.

  The body, a nearly lifeless shell, had eyes sunken into a withered mask of a face, his mouth shaped into a pruned O, as if his lips were on the edge of a cry that would have only been drowned out by a train, should one clack by overhead.

  Morbid, indeed. But the curious thing was that his mouth was not preparing for a useless scream at all. The body was trying to smile while his breath wheezed in, wheezed out, his thoughts a blissful blank as the night wore down to the emergence of a chilly November dawn.

  Buried amidst a fall of paper and refuse, he slumped against a support pole, just as if it were a leaf-spilling tree to nap against. He was trembling, numb, and so outrageously happy that his mind didn’t grasp the fact that he was dying. Yet, he didn’t care that he was fading away, unnoticed and left behind. Didn’t care that he was so weak he would never even be able to crawl the few centimeters it might take for him to get out from under the debris so his fellow tourist friends—or anyone else—could eventually find him.

  All he knew was that a final farewell should be just like this: satiated and complete.

  Another breath whistled out of him. His chest, covered by a UCLA sweatshirt, had caved in, suctioned to a collapse. His form resembled a wiry experiment of arms and legs that had been sucked to thinness. His jeans were soaked through with ejaculate from the orgasm that had so recently torn through him.

  As a train did approach, rumbling above, casting revolving shadows over the peek of moonlight through the bridge, he tried to remember how he’d gotten here. But all he could grasp were fragments: An almost ethereal whisper that had called for him as he’d come out of a nearby pub, stumbling drunk. A flash of the white dress that had lured him away from his friends toward the dark, mysterious expanse underneath the tracks. The hungry touch of lips over his mouth and the light pressure of fingertips over his zipper.

  There was a stirring to his right, and as the train abandoned the space above him, once again allowing full slats of illumination, he used the remainder of his strength to glance over.

  He saw the white dress, the slim body of her.

  An angel, he thought. A figment of death, or at least of the best sex he’d ever had, even though he couldn’t remember actually doing her.

  He tried to say something, to thank her in a way that almost struck the part of his mind that was still working as perverse. But he couldn’t manage any words.

  Meanwhile, his skin puckered to his bones, bringing him closer to his end. The suddenly unbearable weight of his head was too much for his neck, and his chin dropped forward, his skull pulling at his spine.

  He heard her move toward him, and through the descending mire of his consciousness, he realized that whatever she was, she couldn’t just leave him here like this. Still, he didn’t care what happened from hereon out. He only wanted her to touch him again.

  And she did, though he barely even felt it when she easily picked him up and cradled him in her arms. The contact of her body against his brought one last convulsion, one last spurt from his cock before his vision and mind went black.

  Time must have passed, because the next thing he knew, he was lying on his back, the hint-of-dawn sky rolled out above him while the harsh sounds of a shovel sliced into dirt. He instinctively knew that she was preparing his grave.

  That was when it hit him. He was dying.

  He tried to move, to ask her to stop this from happening, to touch him and make him feel another anesthetic, blissful rush. But he couldn’t even open his mouth. He didn’t have the strength.

  She stopped digging and came to him, just as he’d wanted. She stood above him, the flow of her light hair and darkened face covering his view of the sky. Then, as he tried to take in one last breath, she bent to press a tender kiss on his forehead. She lingered, her hair brushing his face, and he spasmed one last time, his hips lifting, wet warmth coating him.

  As life seeped out of the rest of the body, he felt the white lady’s lips curling into a smile against his skin.

  TWO

  THE MASTERFUL INTERROGATION

  Morning

  DEEP within the lab of the vampire hunting team’s headquarters, Dawn Madison stood over one of the two London Underground masters as he sat propped in a chair.

  At first glance, her stance in front of the staring, captivated vampire would’ve seemed casual to any observer—her hip cocked, one arm hanging loose at her side as she faced Claudius. But then came the most telling detail.

  Her other hand was hidden behind her back, where her fingertips lightly rested on the weapon in her jeans pocket: a crucifix that she was ready to draw at a split second’s notice.

  However, this master didn’t seem to be aware that she was even in the room. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, his gaze stupefied. Dawn didn’t know if he was resting, open-eyed, during the daylight, which only weakened the powers of these vampires, or if he was just acting like he was too out of it to respond to her entering the lab only moments ago.

  Since he wasn’t giving her much of a clue as to where his head was at right now, she took an extra sec to assess him: a tattered, brain-fried former warrior, with his long brown hair falling over a face boasting strong, refined features; his pale, otherwise naked body bundled in a blanket. He hadn’t changed into the female or catlike forms that he could shift back and forth from at will. The glaze in his eyes was thanks to Dawn’s regrettably rough handling last night, after she’d tried to extract the Underground’s location from him. More recently, he’d also been subjected to a round of much gentler questioning from Costin, who’d eventually decided to rest before confronting Claudius again. It’d been after sunrise when the boss had retired to bed, leaving the master vampire alone, finally giving Dawn the opportunity to sneak out of their room while avoiding any of the other team members. She’d come here, not caring that she and the rest of the hunters had been banned from the lab.

  Yup—screw it. She was tired of these games, waiting for Claudius to shuffle out the information that would lead to exterminating this newest Underground. There were so many other vampire communities to take care of besides just this one.

  She waved her hand in front of him, but nothing changed. Was he faking her out by pretending to be hazy?

  Willing him to move, she tugged at his blanket, which wasn’t the only thing binding him. Dawn’s coworkers, the invisible, deceased former-hunter spirits called “Friends,” were also wrapped around Claudius with their jasmine essences, making sure he wouldn’t be able to strike out physically if he was awake. The blanket was some sort of humane treatment that Costin had insisted on, something to show the master that, if he started spilling the beans about the Underground, there’d be other nice things in store for him.

  If he talked.

  “Hello, in there,” Dawn said, giving one last wave in front of Claudius’s face.

  Blank-o.

  She didn’t let down her guard, because this vampire had some major charming abilities. If he was playing possum right now, hoping to lull Dawn and surprise her by lashing out with his controlling voice, he had another think coming.

  She was hardly comforted by the fact that she’d kicked his ass last night, after he’d almost enchanted her. Actually, while she’d been going to town on him, doing what she thought a hunter should do to overcome a vampire who’d just as soon kill her as look at her, she’d broken something in Claudius.

  Had she turned his brains to mush?

  Just the thought of it got to her—a shaded, bladed delight, a sense of victory screwing through her. But, God, it was wrong. She shouldn’t feel any kind of triumph after what she’d done, so she shut it out. Costin would be appalled
if he knew that she’d even entertained an instant of gratification.

  She felt the dull pounding of the dark mark that had shown up on her face last night. A black crescent, the world’s ugliest beauty spot, on her left cheek. She’d noted a tender patch on her skin at the end of her encounter with Claudius—and it hadn’t been any kind of bruise or injury, either. Why or how it’d gotten on her, she didn’t know. It could’ve had something to do with what she’d become over a year ago when she’d saved Costin during the Underground siege in L.A., when she’d needed to succumb to the bite of another master vamp in order to become a vampire herself, exchanging blood with it and, in turn, preserving a dying Costin so he could exist to fight more Undergrounds—the only way he could gain back his soul.

  For a short, incredible time, she’d been one of them. But she’d had to kill that master vamp to destroy the Hollywood Underground, turning herself human again in the process, although something had remained behind on her soul. A heaviness. A stain that she didn’t have to see to know it was there.

  Was it coming out on her now, in a very real way?

  Had she somehow earned this mark by whaling on Claudius last night?

  She walked around the master vamp, still scanning him while the lab’s fridge/freezer hummed, sawing over her nerves as she touched that crucifix in her back pocket. Holy items didn’t get to all the vampires she’d ever confronted—the dragon’s line seemed to have different talents and weaknesses, based on the personality traits they’d brought with them into the afterlife. But she knew this piece would work on Claudius since he’d been a religious man before going vamp all those centuries ago.

  “Claudius,” she whispered.