Break of Dawn Read online

  “Dawn . . . ?” the Friend whispered, her tone troubled now.

  Dawn felt Breisi—her good friend Breisi—hush over her skin, then rest on her shoulder like a comforting hand. Mental agony lanced her at the touch. Last night Dawn had seen Breisi choking on her own blood. Murdered. Yet—

  A sense of joy twisted into the strands of her pain. Dawn swallowed, trying to contain it.

  Yet here Breisi was again, one of the guardian Friend spirits who helped the Limpet and Associates team in their quest to find the vampire Underground that haunted Los Angeles.

  “I’ll get back to practicing with the bow soon,” Dawn said, reclining her head against the wall and regulating her breathing. It was the only way she could control her emotions right now. But at least she was able to force a grin, mainly for Breisi’s sake. “You watch—I’ll be better than you ever were with that snaggle-toothed contraption. Vamps are gonna shiver in their boots when they know I’m coming.”

  Her bravado sounded empty in the face of reality, because soon, there really would be a fight. Jonah Limpet, the boss of this operation, had promised that much, and based on last night, the dogs of war had been unleashed. It was only a matter of who would be attacking whom, and when.

  In simpatico, Breisi’s essence sank against the wall next to Dawn. She had no words of wisdom this time.

  Why? Hadn’t Dawn’s book-smart Friend learned the ropes of the spirit world yet? Or did it take a lot longer to acquire all the answers Breisi’s new state of being required?

  The question beat against Dawn’s temples. New state of being. Dead. Murdered. Breisi . . .

  As tight emotion welled in Dawn’s chest, traveling upward until it choked her, Breisi’s voice soothed.

  “Lo siento. . . . I’m so sorry this had to happen, Dawn.”

  “What, it’s not your fault you went and died.” She’d tried so hard to be more open to what she was feeling, but it was too hard. Hurt too much. “If Cassie Tomlinson were still alive, I’d kill her myself.”

  Last night’s horrors had been waiting for this kind of invocation. They attacked Dawn again with slashing memories of the Vampire Killer. Limpet and Associates had sought the culprit because Jonah had believed that the serial killer might lead to the Underground. So the team had investigated, never knowing that one of their interviewees, the sister of an already-jailed suspect, was their quarry. When they’d discovered the murderer’s identity, it was too late, because Cassie Tomlinson had already captured Breisi, taking her to a remote camper in the woods, intending to publicly broadcast the murder and make herself a celebrity in the process. To make matters worse, Cassie had been in cahoots with the Underground, working with their red-eyed Guards.

  Before Dawn and her father, Frank, had stormed the killer’s hideaway to get Breisi back, someone had tipped them off about the unholy alliance. The same informant had also detailed how the murders fit into the Master’s plans, goddamn him.

  And that someone had been Eva Claremont, Dawn’s vampire mother.

  But all the helpful information in the world wasn’t enough to endear Eva to her daughter now. Not by a long shot. Even if it was possible that the Underground vamps had witnessed Eva going turncoat when she’d helped her daughter and husband rescue Breisi, even if Eva had chosen family over the interests of her Underground, there was no room for forgiveness.

  Because not only had Eva most likely turned Dawn’s father into a vampire himself.

  She’d also allowed Breisi to die.

  That was right—Cassie Tomlinson wasn’t the only one responsible for the death. When Eva had refused to stop Cassie from killing Breisi, she’d made herself a murderer, too. She’d sacrificed Breisi—the woman Frank Madison had fallen for during the years Eva was Underground—for a second chance to win her husband back. Then she’d captured Frank and stolen him away from Dawn again.

  Anger seethed through Dawn. Still, in spite of herself, she wondered if her hell-spawn of a mother had already been punished by her own kind—the Master.

  The big vampire responsible for everything.

  She calmed down, because the reminder of the Underground leader pointed to even bigger issues: what would the Underground do now? What was their next move?

  Actually, what was Dawn’s next step?

  She wasn’t sure how to hunt down her mother and father, how to bring this Master to justice. She had no idea who her real allies were and weren’t. She wasn’t even sure she could turn to Jonah, her own boss, for aid, because he’d done his own share of hurting Dawn in the past.

  Maybe there was no next step.

  A clang and a clutter sounded at the top of the stairs.

  At first, Dawn’s body electrified, anticipating Jonah. Before last night, she’d called him The Voice, because that was just about the only thing she’d known of him. He’d always given instructions via speakers, staying out of sight. He was a shut-in, never facing his team . . . until Dawn had called him out for all his hidden agendas and manipulations.

  Even now, hours after he’d finally revealed himself to her, she still couldn’t measure her response. She hated how her body reacted around him—blood vibrating through every limb in sharp awareness. They’d known each other in a carnal sense many times, with his essence entering her, fulfilling her, but it wasn’t until last night that she’d looked into his tortured gaze, seen the angry wounds slashing over his face. . . .

  As footsteps descended the staircase, Dawn held her breath, in spite of all the distrust she still felt for her boss.

  But when Kiko Daniels, little-person vamp hunter extraordinaire, popped into sight, she sank back against the wall. In relief? Or . . . ? God help her if it was disappointment at not seeing Jonah. She was one pant away from being the guy’s sex slave.

  “Hey, Kik.” She went to him, intending to help with the massive picture frame he was struggling to carry.

  He nodded back to her, watching his step as he hit the floor. Since going upstairs earlier, he’d put on his back brace under a dark T-shirt. He had to wear the gear every so often, seeing as a vampire had once thrown Kik against a wall. But his injuries were healing on schedule, and everything was improving except for the pills the Limpet team’s psychic had been downing. He’d claimed he was going off of the medication, but Dawn had her reservations.

  As she reached for the frame, he maneuvered it away, frowning. Oh, yeah. The chip on his shoulder. Offering to help him nowadays was like brandishing a castration knife, so Dawn backed off.

  But he recovered pretty quickly, offering a tired smile that told her how much he was hoping she wouldn’t comment about his ’tude. And, damn it, it just about broke her heart. He was good at making people forget he was in his late twenties while working the little-boy-charm angle; the trick caught their interviewees off guard, persuading them to believe Kiko was harmless. Even Dawn was susceptible every once in a while.

  Breisi’s exotic scent grew stronger as she whisked past Dawn to her other coworker. His smile widened in greeting, then he moved toward the bed, expending a lot of effort to cock the picture away from Dawn’s gaze.

  “All the rest of the Friends are napping,” he said. “Breisi probably needs more rest than they do, even if they’re working overtime out there.”

  It was true that Friends had been exhausting themselves while helping the team; they were trying to cover for their missing numbers. Friends had been disappearing at an alarming rate, and Dawn had discovered why: Elite vampires were captivating the spirits.

  “So,” Kiko continued, “it’s bedtime. Right, Breez?”

  A soft sound of acknowledgment brushed the air.

  Dawn couldn’t stop herself. “And the boss? Where’s he?”

  “He’s still holed up, planning strategy, trying to ‘logic out’ the vamps’ location.”

  A tremor edged Kiko’s small voice, probably because he knew this was it—the calm before the storm, the fading of the lights before the projector flickered on and the action began. The V
oice had always told them that once a vamp lair was discovered, the team needed to leave it alone because it was his domain from there on out. He would be the one to crush the Underground, not the team. Too dangerous, he always said. Too unnecessary.

  It was just another sign of Jonah’s maddening secrecy. But Dawn just wanted to know how the hell he was going to attack an entire community of bloodsuckers all on his own.

  Or did he have something other than vanquishing in mind?

  Her betrayed instincts soured once again, making it easy to conjure up scenarios of The Voice using his team to usurp this Underground. She hoped she was wrong.

  Kiko added, “The info you got from Eva is what he seemed to need before starting to figure the rest out.”

  “My mom’s a savior all right.”

  Obviously Kiko didn’t say anything because he knew Dawn would just jump down his throat.

  Her beautiful actress mama had supposedly died when Dawn was just a month old: Eva had been murdered, martyred, held up in the Tinseltown heavens as a legend. But over a month ago, when Dawn had been called back to town to find her missing father, Frank, Eva had insinuated herself into Dawn’s life as sweet, innocent “Jacqueline Ashley,” an emerging starlet. When Jac had revealed herself to be Eva, a product of the vampire Underground, Dawn also discovered that the bitch had abducted Frank in a warped effort to get the family back together.

  Touching.

  But Dawn hadn’t so much gone for it. And now, after Eva’s refusal to save Breisi’s mortal life . . . no way.

  Kiko had reached Breisi’s bed and was staring at the picture, face arranged in silent devastation.

  She knew, even before he propped the frame on the mattress to lean it against the wall, what his painting would show.

  The background featured this very lab, with its stoic walls and sky blue ceiling. But there was nothing else in the frame. Not yet.

  “I’ll hang it later,” Kiko said. “It’s not like I won’t have enough time during this lockdown.”

  “How did it get painted so quick? Don’t these take . . . well, longer than we’ve had?”

  Kiko scratched at the soul patch he was growing; he’d shaved it off for a recent assignment and wanted it back. “The boss did it. Don’t ask how.”

  “He probably, like, mind printed it onto the canvas or something.” It was kind of a joke, but the fact that it rang true just went to show how bizzaro things were.

  “However he did it, it’s perfect.” Kiko blinked. “He said he wanted to welcome her home as quickly as possible.”

  Dawn heard a laugh. A jasmine breeze flowed around the room, as if Breisi were running around in excitement at the thought of finally being able to rest. Then the scent burst toward the frame, and the portrait began filling with a familiar shape.

  Moment by moment, Dawn’s throat ached more.

  Ghostly brush strokes painted a petite Mexican woman in her early thirties. Her dark eyes were wide, her lips caught in a gasp, her black, bobbed hair carefully styled. She looked surprised at how the world looked from this vantage point.

  As Dawn noticed the Nemo clownfish on her shirt, she almost lost all composure at the Breisi fashion signature.

  She’d seen other Friends in their portraits. She’d even seen one bloom into color and form like Breisi just had. But now, witnessing her coworker doing it was too much.

  Kiko was clearly undergoing the same anguish. He clenched his jaw and marched to a butcher paper chart attached to another wall, hiding his face.

  “Sounds like everyone in this haunted house is asleep or at rest but us.” Her voice croaked as she tried to give Kik some comfort by diverting him.

  He had his back to her, inspecting the chart instead. They’d created it hours ago, back when Dawn had revealed to the entire household, including the eavesdropping Jonah, what she’d found out from Eva. When her mother had kidnapped her, she’d attempted to win Dawn over by melding minds and arrogantly sharing how much of the Underground worked: it’d seemed to be more of an orientation than a breach of secrecy, since Eva explained that the Master was bent on getting Dawn Below, too. Even at that unsettling news, Dawn had retained all of Eva’s mind meld: the levels of vampires, what killed them, how they functioned. Many, many details that would come in damned handy.

  However, Dawn realized now that Eva hadn’t colored much in when it came to the Underground’s actual location or even its Master. Was that last part because the head vampire wanted to tell her everything about himself when he welcomed her?

  He and Eva seemed so confident that Dawn would give in to them. But the Master had been the one who’d planned to kill Breisi by using Cassie Tomlinson as their assassin.

  I’d love to meet the prick, right along with Eva, Dawn thought. Bring him on.

  She took a step toward Kiko and the chart. “Have you gotten enough rest to function? The boss is probably going to use us as advisers before he goes off on his lone crusade.”

  “You’re not my nurse.” He’d picked up a marker from an art supply box on the ground, opening and poising the implement as if to write something. “Besides, I don’t see you making yourself at home in some bed here.”

  The Voice had commanded them to move into the Limpet house for security purposes, and Dawn couldn’t argue the wisdom of it, even if she would’ve loved to face off with him again.

  Maybe it just had something to do with his refusal to ever tell her what was going on. Even last night, when he’d been on such a roll in revealing information, his answers had been vague. In fact, she had more questions than ever, especially now that she knew Limpet and Associates existed only to find this particular Underground. He’d led other teams to hunt down various Undergrounds in the past, but the only reason he’d given for doing it was that he couldn’t stop himself.

  Cryptic. And typical. Damn it, Dawn had taken just about enough of—

  The clock on the nightstand began to shudder. Next to it, Breisi’s broken grandma picture tinkled in shattered-glass discord.

  Dawn closed her eyes, and it all stopped.

  When she opened them, she found Breisi’s painting staring at her, but then her Friend’s eyes closed. Freaked out, Dawn faced Kiko, and she suspected he knew what’d just happened. Another unexpected mind push—a so-called talent she hadn’t been able to master yet.

  Keeping an eye on his coworker while turning back toward the butcher paper, Kiko said, “When you sleep, I’ll sleep.”

  “I’m not the one under doctor’s orders.”

  “Come on. What good is rest gonna do me if these vamps end up beating us? Sleep ain’t gonna matter.”

  “We can’t fight them without sleep.” Listen to her. Kettle, did you know you’re black?

  “Okay, okay,” Kiko said. “How about we both get some shut-eye after tying up a few loose ends. Then I’m sure the boss is gonna wake us up when he’s ready.”

  Sounded reasonable. “So what’s keeping you awake?”

  He pointed to the flow chart, where the title Elites reigned near the top, above Groupies, Guards, and Servants. Under every heading, there were lists of their many differences. So damned many. Different ways they could die, different ways they could survive.

  Unfortunately, right above Elites was a nearly empty space topped by Master. All it said was “Dr. Eternity, plastic surgeon and resurrector.”

  No written advice about how to kill the bastard or what else to expect. Hell, Jonah had even told the team that all masters had different talents, based on individuality.

  “That blank spot is really bugging me,” Kiko said.

  “I guess we should be grateful for what Eva did tell me.”

  At the name “Eva,” Kiko dropped the marker. He didn’t bother to pick it up.

  “I know,” Dawn said. “I thought she was pretty decent, too. When Eva was pretending to be Jac, I mean.”

  “I can’t believe we go to watch movies with them as stars. How many Elites have I accidentally idolized over the year
s?” Kiko looked like he wanted to puke. “I tell you, if Foxy Brown is a vamp, I’m going to fall on a sword.”

  “I know. I don’t think I can ever watch a film the same way again.”

  “I said it before—don’t trust what your eyes tell you.”

  “What do we trust then?”

  Dawn caught a glimpse of remorse from him. Since one of his premonitions had been the reason she was lured to L.A. and recruited on this team—supposedly she was “key” to them beating these vampires—he felt guilty about his part in keeping information from her.

  “I got a nightmare when I tried to sleep this morning.” Kiko said it so softly, she wasn’t sure he’d talked at all. Then he spoke louder. “All this stress brought back what happened with Robby Pennybaker back at the Bava nightclub. I keep seeing him before he threw me against that wall. Jeez, Dawn, I know you saw Eva all vampy and tempting, so maybe you’re getting used to it, but I’m not. I mean, what if the boss can’t even beat them?”

  She hadn’t gotten used to anything. Elites were far worse than their lower counterparts. When they were in human form, all you knew was that you wanted to be them so badly. You wanted to be touched by them, accepted, and nothing else mattered.

  She cut herself off, realizing this was true about her own relationship with Eva at the core.

  Kiko faced the chart again, as if it was some oracle. “Their Allure is what scares me, when they let it loose, like Robby did. He went from being a boy with funny eyes to something so beautiful it went beyond imagining. He was like . . .” Kiko searched for words. “An angel in a mist. And in that mist, they can show you everything you want; they can lure you with it.” He didn’t tell her what he’d seen.

  But Dawn remembered how Robby Pennybaker had tempted her with her heart’s desire. He’d shown her Frank and Eva reunited, the happy family she’d always craved. Then he’d attacked.

  “But they don’t always stay in that beautiful vamp mist.” Her voice was garbled.

  Kiko rubbed his hands over his arms. “No, next comes Danger Form.”