Break of Dawn (3 page)

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 years?” 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.”

Neatly printed words on the chart blurred in front of Dawn’s tired eyes:

• Elites can walk in the sun
  
• fire, decapitation, and stake or silver through the heart can kill them . . . silver in bloodstream weakens them, but they can drink blood to cleanse themselves
  
• can be seen on film and resist religious objects, even though they get confused by them at first
  
• can resist garlic
  
• can “mind screw”
  
• killing an Elite makes their immediate children mortal
  

 
Something popped into Dawn’s head at that, clarifying her gaze. A terrible idea took root.

Killing an Elite would free anyone they’d turned into a vamp. And Eva had turned Frank. . . .

But one more look at the chart showed her exactly what she was up against. And this was what she would face for Jonah, a man who had proven that he wasn’t beyond using her. Damn, she wished she knew what was in his head, who or what the hell she’d already helped.

Kiko had lost himself in staring at the chart, so Dawn let him be, knowing it was useless to bother him until he was done. She glanced back at the sleeping portrait of Breisi, then around the lab.

Quiet, everything was dead quiet with the countdown so close to zero hour.

Her gaze strayed to the darkness that hovered in an alcove near Breisi’s bed. That was where The Voice had emerged as Jonah. That was where he’d disappeared, too, never coming out again, not even to hear her sharing what Eva had imparted, even though she knew he’d been listening in.

With one last glance at Kiko, Dawn ambled toward the black.

Cool blankness enfolded her, and her heart began to beat in her ears. She blindly felt around the pitch space, coming up empty. She searched for a wall, a door,
something
. . . .

She crashed into a wall, sucking in a breath at the contact. Frustrated, she pushed at it, wishing she could just get to Jonah and continue where they’d left off when they’d been alone last night.

But she knew when she found him that it wouldn’t do any good, even if all she wanted was a little control, a little honesty.

At her wits’ end, she wandered back to the lab, into the light.

Not that it ever did any good.

THREE

THE HIDEAWAY

As
she entered Breisi’s lab again, she heard The Voice whisper to her from the darkness.

“Are you searching for me?” His old-world-accented words sounded weary; he was as drained as she was.

Heart in her throat, she gauged Kiko, who was still staring at the chart on the other side of the room. He hadn’t even noticed she’d returned.

Without hesitation, she headed back into the nothingness.

“What other kind of loon would be hanging out in these shadows?” she said. “Hey, where are you anyway?”

As usual, he didn’t immediately respond. His reticence was one of the things that drove Dawn ballistic.

“Jonah.” Her tone was final.

Another beat passed, then his resigned voice sliced through the void. “Follow me.”

He echoed all around her, his tone a tear in the fabric of blackness—a rip that separated her, too, reducing her body to a needful shiver. She was used to his power over her, and sometimes she wondered why she didn’t fight it more, didn’t use the control she knew she had over
him
.

His voice continued to waver through the air, pulling at her, guiding her through what must have been a tunnel.
Secret rooms in an old house,
she thought in her haze. Now the scent of something minty and unidentifiable beckoned her, too.

She parted the atmosphere, as if swimming through ink. It was only when she felt a shift in temperature—a chilled huff—that she blinked to alertness. Ahead, a vertical slit of light waited, and she reached for it.

A door. When Dawn opened it, dull illumination washed over her. Awakened, she scanned the area to see where she was.

Stark, monastically white walls where candle flames slanted shadows and angles. A plain bed, bearing only a pillow. A time-scarred wooden chest at the base of the mattress, locked tight. A low table boasting a single, lit candle and a standing silver crucifix—much like the iron one hanging over the front door of this Hollywood Hills house.

And near the crucifix, a man on his knees with his back to her, his midnight-hued hair curling near his shoulders.

Dawn couldn’t move. Besides the usual frenzy of cells crashing against her skin, she was afraid she would disturb his peaceful plotting. Oddest of all, he reminded her of . . .

Of a knight dedicating himself to the art of war.

He was wearing a long, black coat that covered his wide shoulders, hiding the rest of his body. But Dawn knew he was tall, whip-cord lean. Just the thought sent a new rush of blood blading through her veins, serrating her with a longing, a hunger so intense that she battled to overcome it.

This was his private domain, and she’d finally been invited in. No wonder Breisi had protected her lab door like such a bulldog—she hadn’t wanted Dawn to stumble across his sanctuary.

It made Dawn wonder what else Breisi hadn’t told her.

Jonah didn’t turn around. He kept his eyes on the crucifix, maybe because he was too ashamed to look at her after everything that’d happened. Or maybe because he’d tried so hard to hide what all his crusades had done to his face. . . .

“You wanted a word?” he asked.

She reveled in a shiver, then fought it off by glancing around the room again. Actually, it was more of a cell. “Don’t you ever go crazy with boredom in here?”

A mirthless laugh. “Answering a question with a question. Breisi and Kiko taught you how to interrogate too well.”

“I’ve learned a lot of things in a real short time. And not all of them have been compliment worthy.”

Images attacked: hacking off Robby Pennybaker’s head; almost piercing an innocent bystander with one of her throwing stars and hearing the woman cry out in terror as she laid eyes upon Dawn . . .

She shifted, noticing how Jonah’s crucifix captured the darkness of her jeans and the white of her sleeveless tank top, then warped them in its silver. She looked away.

“So . . . this is where you live, huh?”

“Live. That’s a subjective word.”

“Listen, I didn’t come here to engage in philosophical riddles with you, Jonah.”

“Then what’s your mission, Dawn?”

Her name, saturated with his tone, did it to her every time. She sank to his bed, crossing one biker boot over the other to fight the ache between her legs. “You know what my mission is.”

That got a response out of him. He turned his head to the side, offering a vague profile, a candle-burnished hint of high cheekbone, soft lips, the violence done to the rest of his face.

“Don’t act surprised,” she said. “You know I’m not going to let Eva get away with what she did to Breisi and Frank.”

“When you finish with Eva, then what comes?” Jonah’s jaw tightened. “Are you planning to take on the entire Underground for seducing your mother and beginning the chain of events that has caused you such grief?”

“I’d love to.”

He turned toward the crucifix again. “You know that is out of the question.”

“Right. If you’ve told us once, you’ve told us a thousand times—
you’ll
do the dirty work after the team uncovers the vampire lair. Somehow, after you pinpoint where they are, you’re going to go into a community of vamps all alone and vanquish them. Sounds realistic.”

“Don’t doubt me.”

The words all but gleamed in the low light. They had an edge to them. A double edge, as a matter of fact, because Jonah wasn’t just talking about his strategies.

She blew out a frustrated breath. She couldn’t help doubting him and he knew it. Hadn’t he been the one who’d hired her dad in the hopes that he’d lure her back to L.A. to join the team? Hadn’t he believed in Kiko’s “Dawn is key” premonition to the point of forgoing any ethics while using
her
to draw out Eva? Where did his plans for Dawn end?

She realized that finding this out was almost as important as tracking down Eva and exacting vengeance. In the slowly approaching showdown between Jonah and the Underground, Dawn didn’t know which side she should be on: with the man who’d dangled her very life as bait? Or . . .

No. Siding with her mom, even if Eva said that all she wanted was to have her family back, wasn’t an option. Not after her mother had betrayed her so thoroughly, and not after this Master had plotted to take Breisi’s life.

Still, the reminder of what Eva had done to be with her daughter and husband kept shredding Dawn into pieces. And what Eva had told her about Jonah . . . That made it even harder to sort this out.

You work for a monster. Jonah Limpet wants to take over our Underground, and he’s using you to accomplish that.

Dawn’s worst fears embraced the memory.

She had to get down to the bottom of all this.
That
was her only option.

“Jonah?” she asked, testing.

“Yes.”

The candle wavered, making eerie objects come alive against the walls.

“If I nicely asked you to help me hunt down Eva, to get Frank back from her, would you do it?”

Pause. “Oh, Dawn . . .”

Tortured. She was putting him in an impossible spot, because they needed to be concentrating on just the Underground now. That was all that mattered—not her petty personal issues. He’d told the team time and again that he would only emerge from his sheltering house when they were sure an Underground existed, not before; secrecy and suspense were his best weapons.

Accordingly, he’d hired a team who would place blind trust in his plans. Both Kiko and Breisi were loyal to a fault, driven by notions of justice on a save-the-world scale, and that was what Jonah promised them.

So why would he sacrifice the high ground to right Dawn’s little wrongs?

“Doesn’t it bother you that you brought me back to this god-awful town to track Frank down and you aren’t willing to carry through with what you offered?” she asked. “Eva took him again, just when I found him. Do you seriously think I’m going to give up
my
mission for yours?”

“Getting back at this master does not sway you? Also—”

“I know, I know.” She didn’t even have to say it out loud:
the good of the many outweighs the good of the few
. She was sick of the justification.

What Jonah didn’t know was that he wasn’t the only one she might be able to turn to for help. So maybe there was another option, after all.

Matt Lonigan, a fellow vampire hunter and PI.

Last night, hurting and impulsive, she’d gone to him, trying to enlist his aid. He’d hesitated, but only because she had a misguided sense of her own loyalty to the team and hadn’t wanted to tell him everything that’d happened.

Ironic, huh? She’d done to Matt what Jonah had been doing to her for over the past month: keeping her in the dark.

Should she go back to her PI, even though he’d done his share of making her distrust him, too?

Jonah slowly rose, looming before the low table and blocking out the candlelight. Dawn hitched in oxygen, her pulse snagging on the mere sight of him coming to his full height. Every movement, every word . . . He owned her.

Disgusted with her lack of control, Dawn used her mind to push at him, to keep him out of her head and body. It was like punching at a rock wall.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not asking to enter you.”

At his rejection, she snapped, giving one last mental shove.

Something crashed in front of Jonah, and he defensively stepped to the side. The candle’s flame jerked.

She saw that she’d knocked over the crucifix.

Troubled, Dawn rose from the bed, moving toward the object with her hands outstretched.

“No.” Harsh, protective.

Dawn halted, palms raised helplessly. But she wasn’t religious, so why did she care about what’d just happened?

Yet she did. In fact, something like despair made her back away as Jonah cradled the crucifix in his hands, then set it upright once again. With one last caress, he let it go, turning all the way around.

His eyes, a topaz gleam, caught hers in his quiet fury. She barely had the presence of mind to see the rest of his ravaged face: the scars mapped in terrible welts, making him so much older and more pained than a man in his tender thirties normally was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just another thing I . . .”

She faltered, finishing the rest of the sentence silently.
Just another thing I can’t control.

“I’m not . . . angry.” He’d started to tremble.

“If you’re not pissed at me, then why do you look like you want to maim me?”

He bowed his head. “Leave, Dawn. Please . . . leave now.”

Suddenly, she knew. He wanted her,
needed
her, as he’d admitted before. But he didn’t like it.

“Do you need to enter me?” She was shocked by how gentle she sounded. It’d occurred to her that whenever Jonah came into her body with his essence, he seemed to be feeding. Made sense, since she was an expert at sexual feasting, too. That was how she used to endure her days on movie sets—by filling herself up at night with men and their satisfied responses. She used to compete with Eva with every thrust, every climax, because at that point, Eva had been dead and she wasn’t around to please men like Dawn could.

Jonah was shaking his head, in denial.

“Is that how you survive?” she asked bluntly, wanting to hear him say it. “Is that another reason you’ve kept me around, because sex is what fuels you?”

“Dawn—”

Instinctively, she blocked against any entry. “I thought you weren’t one of them!”

He raised his head, his eyes flaring golden heat and hunger. “Go!”

At the horror of his low, mangled voice, she stepped backward, caught off guard. And when he began to quake in earnest, sinking to his knees, she reached out a hand again, just as she’d done with the crucifix.

I need you,
he’d told her, but now she saw just how much.

“Jonah, you can come—”

What happened next occurred before she could suck in a breath: his body flattened against the floor. Immediately, something invisible slammed against
her
. She felt the weight of it, the hard lines and demanding length. An unseen mouth went to her neck, pressing against her skin.

Dawn shifted, spreading her legs to accommodate him. He hadn’t come to her this way since the night they’d fought about Jonah using Frank as bait to get her here. . . .

Without warning, the essence pulled away.

“Jonah?” Dawn reached for him, grasping air.

He returned to her with a crash, soaking into every pore with orgasmic heat. His essence, inside of her now. The force of him laid her out on the ground, panting, open.

In spite of all the ill will between them, she welcomed him, clinging to the addiction of him, knowing she couldn’t get enough . . . would
never
get enough.

He felt hot, like bubbling oil. He simmered everywhere: against her skin, under it. On the tips of her breasts, in the pit of her belly, in between her legs. Physical and not physical.

She groaned, pushing a hand against the center of herself as if to bottle him in.

Burning, burning from the inside out, feeding on her until she was raw, gnawing at her like an unseen wild thing.

Too soon—too late—with a blast of ripping heat, he exploded within her, catapulting her, forcing her to rise off the floor and land on her hands and knees with one tight scream.

She clutched the sheet off his bed and grasped for air as she pressed her face into the linen. Minty smell . . .

Her body pounded, still wet and swollen. It’d never been this primitive between them; he’d never used her so quickly. . . .

She leaned forward, cheek against the mattress, depending on the bed for balance as she sought him with her gaze.

What she saw froze her.

From his prone spot, Jonah—the body itself—was smiling, obviously having watched his separated essence as it fucked Dawn. Obviously having enjoyed it.

Yes, he was smiling, and his eyes were . . .

... blue.

Before Dawn could blink, he heaved in a breath, arched his back, closed his gaze, and wrenched to a sitting position. When he opened his eyes again, they were topaz.

He rapidly turned away from her, body canting toward the crucifix. “
Now
go,” he roared.