Broken (14 page)

“They will not come straight here. They are to hunt us only
after
they find a true Underground. I was adamant about that.”

It was the way of the quest. Undergrounds first, personal concerns second. If he should fall here, he would need a seasoned team to carry on; he couldn’t risk the death of them all, especially since Dawn was the key.

Sometimes, Costin wondered if she would be more important in winning back his soul—in securing the safety of them
all
—than even he was.

Jonah vibrated up the inside of their body, closer to taking over. “You think
Dawn
would leave you here to die? Right. Now, who do you think she is, Costin?”

He saw her as she was last night, rage transforming her into someone he hardly recognized. Saw the marks on her skin that were slowly taking her over.

As an answer eluded Costin, his gaze landed on the silver bars surrounding him and Jonah, and he felt more trapped than ever.

TO
look at them, one would think this was a celebration.

Della watched her fellow vampires—the recruited girls who hadn’t been in Southwark—frolicking about the Lion and the Lamb as the windows showcased a bruised sky readied for the sun’s climb. The pub’s country simplicity held court to the vampires masquerading as girls, some of whom had tucked flowers from the pots decorating the tables into their hair. The recruits provided stark contrast to the nine Queenshill schoolgirls who had only now trudged into the pub, their healing skin still burned in places that even the ragged strips of their coats and hoods couldn’t hide.

The owner of this establishment, who had clearly left the pub to them at this hour, had once struck a deal with Wolfie to ask no questions about the female patrons who attracted a young, male tourist clientele. And the vampires had clearly encouraged a great many to stay here earlier in the night; though the pub was technically closed, young human men still played table games such as snooker in one room with the stealth vampire girls while, in dark corners, they snogged with others.

Or, more to the point, the girls were discreetly feeding upon the prey, here above the ground. In a half attempt at modesty, instead of drinking in the usual way, they were taking blood through their skin, which mewed open into little mouths, just like the cat from whom they had inherited this ability.

The sight of the girls’ boldness startled Della, as they had always been instructed to take better care than to indulge in casual feeds without the benefit of running in a pack during their nightcrawls, where they would quietly hunt victims, feed in the dark, then bury the remains.

Then again, Wolfie had always looked forward to the day when vampires would have the freedom to show themselves in public. With the way the Western world was moving—one debauchery becoming commonplace this year, another more shocking one the next—he estimated that their kind would be at home among humans within the decade.

Clearly, his time spent here in the pub, more and more recently, was a part of his agenda.

Della and the other survivors found more girls gathered round him in a back room. With his hair brambled over his shoulders, his leather pants and poet’s shirt, he was sitting in a chair, a leg propped on a bench, one recruited girl under each arm. He spared a glance at the new arrivals and cocked his head, assessing their burns. He didn’t even care to touch-heal them as he used to.

They stared back at him. Della was hollowed out by the loss of her classmates. Shouldn’t he have felt the deaths of his half-offspring, too?

Out of the survivors, Stacy spoke, the older vampire’s once-long platinum locks in crisped clumps on her skull as she pushed back her hood. By now, they had healed enough for skin and hair to begin growing back. Otherwise, they hadn’t bothered to tidy themselves yet. It hadn’t seemed important.

“Sixteen of us, gone,” Stacy said, her voice flat, sounding for the first time as if she was truly far older than the teenager she seemed to be.

Wolfie blinked, his eyebrows knitting as if he didn’t quite comprehend what Stacy was telling him. It was at this instant that Della thought that perhaps he did feel the loss of his darlings.

But then his eyes seemed to glaze over. “Claudia—she’s still alive, yes? The cat’s abilities are still active in you. . . .”

He turned to one of the girls in his grasp, cupping her under the chin, angling her face this way and that, lovingly assessing her, obviously searching for signs of the cat in her.

The girl, with her short, curly black hair, dressed in knee- high socks and a miniskirt with a blouse, was reduced to a fizzy smile at his attentions. Being new to the main Underground, Della hadn’t met this recruited dear yet.

But as Wolfie started raining kisses on her face, a jolt traveled through Della. And from the manner in which Noreen, Stacy, and the other survivors stiffened, she knew they had experienced the same shocking epiphany.

Were they all little mirrors of Mrs. Jones to Wolfie? Didn’t he love any of them for who they were and not what they carried over from his mistress?

And where
was
the sadness from Wolfie about his fallen vampire daughters as he continued kissing Mrs. Jones’s proxy?

Della heard herself speaking, her tone just as dead as Stacy’s had been. “Mrs. Jones was with a group of hunters, the same crowd who attacked us at Queenshill.”

“Hunters?” he asked, running a finger along the recruited girl’s cheek now.

Surely he cared about hunters more than he did about Mrs. Jones, especially since hunters could represent a rival blood brother.

“They must be that,” Stacy said, “based on their weaponry and expertise. And they’ve taken Mrs. Jones captive, unless she surrendered to them.”

When Wolfie finally turned aside from the recruited girl, his eyes were a livid gold under his thick eyebrows. “Claudia would never surrender.”

Della and the rest of them shrank under his statement, not daring to contradict him.

He dismissed his two fawning admirers by lifting his arms off them, and they sulked away, easily cast aside.

As any of them could be.

“Why didn’t you bring me back the heads of those hunters?” he asked with the same condescension they’d often heard from Mrs. Jones.

Noreen volunteered her only statement thus far. “It seemed they were ready for us, and they fought well. But they’re gone now.”

“Where did they go?” Wolfie snapped.

They all flinched, the other survivors cowering behind Della, Noreen, and Stacy, just as they had been doing since they’d entered the pub.

Della knew the only way to get through this was to get through this. “We don’t know where they went, but their building is deserted now.”

“Wonderful good that’ll do us,” Wolfie said. His fangs had emerged slightly to jut past his lips. “They still have Claudia.”

“Yes,” all the girls said.

“Then we shall continue tracking her.”

“But Mrs. Jones’s trail has disappeared,” Della said softly. “We have very little to guide us now unless we can find the route the group used to escape. They took care to mask their scents, and the jasmine stink from ghosts who help them confused our senses since many of them remained behind.”

Wolfie’s claws emerged, but then he seemed to come upon an idea that retracted them a bit. “My mobile and answering service. Perhaps Claudia left a clue to her whereabouts there. . . .”

Oh, no,
Della thought. Mrs. Jones had fled the Underground without her mobile; she had possessed nothing. Would she have stolen one? If so, who knew what Mrs. Jones might have said during a message?

As Wolfie wiped his palm down his face, laughing at such an obvious option, Stacy glanced at Della, connecting minds.

We must make certain he has no time to check messages
.

Her face purposely blank, Della gave no indication that she and Stacy had linked.

Meanwhile, Wolfie said, “Taking a master, right out from under our noses. I wonder if they even know what they have.”

A . . . master?

Della wanted to ask Wolfie how Mrs. Jones could be a master if she was a female. All the Underground blood brothers were . . . brothers.

But she didn’t enquire.

“Who are these hunters?” he asked, almost to himself. “Were there any powerful vampires with them?”

He was asking about a blood brother, and only now did he seem to recall how Della had mentioned that mean, dog- killing vampire after the Queenshill attack.

When they didn’t answer right off, he hit the table, shaking the flowerpot that served as decoration. It jarred the girls, causing them to stand all the straighter, but not enough to make them lose all the composure that Queenshill, good breeding, and the lessons of vampire life had instilled in them.

As Della waited for him to speak, she realized that they were more or less at attention, acting like the soldiers he and Mrs. Jones had raised them to be.

But she had never wished to be a soldier. Just Wolfie’s girl, forever and always.

He rose from his seat, hardly looking at them, his gaze focused inwardly, as if that was where he kept hope for the return of Mrs. Jones.

Della glared at him—a prince on the outside, a prat underneath. He had promised them such happiness, but he had lied, hadn’t he?

Lied
.

Shame covered her inside and out. Shame at having been fooled so easily.

As a tremble began to shift under her skin, Wolfie addressed them as if they were a team of assassins. The finely trained, elite Queenshill girls. The dirty less-than-a-dozen, now that their numbers had been so chiseled down.

“Sunrise is near and you’re weary. So before you go back out there for Mrs. Jones . . .” A small smile took over his mouth. “. . . Claudia . . .” The correction seemed to make him feel better. “. . . you will need sustenance and rest. Tomorrow night, when our powers are high again, you
will
succeed in tracking her and bringing her back to where she belongs. With us.”

With you,
Della corrected him in her mind. The tremble was turning into a quiver.

Wolfie gestured to the remaining human males round the pub—boys who would be mind-wiped, no matter the risk, and taken care of so they would think they had only massive hangovers and a developing further illness come morning.

“Drink up,” he told his girls, “then it’s to rest.”

“Yes, Wolfie,” all of them said.

From the way the survivors voiced it, Della knew that they
all
had realized they were his soldiers, not his darlings. Not any longer.

And she knew that they, too, felt just as much shame as she did for being taken in by Wolfie.

DAWN
stood in the center of their new headquarters, her hands on her holstered hips.

“What a
dump
,” she said, and it wasn’t for the first time. They’d been here a few minutes now, and she still couldn’t believe this.

Their temporary HQ looked like one of those deep level underground shelters used during World War II. Dawn had heard most of them were being utilized as bureaucratic storage chambers now, but this one seemed to have been forgotten by society altogether. It stretched for what looked like a half mile, and an iron spiral staircase led up to another level, where there was probably a shaft. Along the concrete walls, there were lines of bunks, only a few of which had mattresses, pillows, and blankets. But the ventilation was good, and it’d been outfitted with a kitchen, foodstuffs, computers, and weapons lockers.

Still, it was bare bones. And, since the heater had just been activated, it was colder than a witch’s tit.

Dawn had cozied her way into a down jacket and gloves while getting used to the degraded conditions. Not that she was high maintenance, but . . .

Jeez, maybe she’d gotten used to the luxury of Costin’s homes. Maybe she
had
become a frakkin’ princess lately. And this, coming from a stuntwoman who used to crash at buddies’ houses instead of getting a place of her own.

A jacketed Kiko stood right next to her with an equally bundled Natalia, who was plugged into a portable scanner radio and earbuds. He wasn’t complaining about their new HQ, probably because he blamed himself for putting them here since he’d been the one to let in the first vampire. Plus, he was still dragging around because he wasn’t so happy about Costin just taking off for the Underground without a word to most of the team.

“It’s good enough for temporary,” he said.

The blanket-wrapped Claudius spoke from one of the bunks, where Friends were binding him, pushing him against the wall. “What I enjoy most about it is the knowledge that the vampires put you below the ground while they were last seen above. It begs the question of just who the hunters really are.”

Kiko pointed at the vamp. “Shut it, Fangoria.”

Frank, who’d been inspecting some private offices that contained single beds and doors, came out of one. Dawn supposed he’d claimed that particular room as his, since it’d be darker and better for vampire resting. Eva had settled in another of those closed-off rooms, and Dawn had yet to check in with her since her mom had arrived before the team. It was even possible that, by now, with all the bed rest, her mom should be taken to a doctor to see if there was something wrong.

Just another thing on the to-do list.

“Yeah, how about you shut your mouth up, Claudius?” Frank said, sauntering toward the group. He was dressed in layer upon layer of clothing, although Dawn doubted it was because of the cold. That amount of protection could only mean he wanted to block his skin from the sun.

“My, my,” Claudius muttered in that hoarse voice before closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the concrete. It was about thirty minutes away from sunrise, but if he was thinking of falling into some rest, Dawn had news. She wasn’t letting up on him.