Broken (32 page)

Dawn’s marks thudded, as if trying to answer her. As if trying to say, “You could be Della, too, if you’re not careful. . . .”

“I keep waiting for him to come back,” Jonah said, pulling her out of her mourning. He was talking about Costin now. “He’s out there somewhere, Dawn. He has to be, especially if there are remaining blood brothers to kill. That was part of the deal with The Whisper.”

If only she could be so optimistic. “We don’t know exactly what The Whisper had in mind when he recruited Costin as a Soul Traveler, so we need to be prepared for the worst. Maybe he really is gone.”

When she looked up at Jonah, she saw something in his eyes that she couldn’t grasp. An openness that had escaped her, even with Costin. So she glanced away. After all the fights she’d gone through and all the psychotic-ass things she’d seen, she had no idea how to handle this gash inside of her—a wound that made her arm and leg seem like pinches in comparison.

“Why didn’t The Whisper tell Costin it would happen so fast?” Jonah asked. “Maybe The Whisper wasn’t sure what effect the dragon’s death would have on his line, even though we knew their blood weakened generation after generation and we could’ve taken an educated guess that the dragon would have the biggest effect of them all.”

“So you think the blood brothers are dead, too, and that’s why Costin’s not around? Do you think that the remaining ones turned human and they just destroyed themselves, like the lower vampires tended to do? Masters have been vampires longer than their progeny, so if they found themselves without the talents they’d had for centuries, alone and isolated, wouldn’t they find a way to end it faster than anyone?” Then Dawn thought about how Benedikte had craved humanity back in L.A. “Unless they
wanted
to be human.”

But
none
of this explained why Costin had just . . . disappeared. He’d been taken faster than the time required for any blood brothers to even realize they’d turned human. Costin’s mission had seemed to end before any suicides could happen.

She tried to recall the last time she’d seen his topaz eyes, but she couldn’t. All her moments with him just jumbled together, and she couldn’t latch onto any one of them.

But something she could hang on to was the fact that it should’ve been
her
death that made Jonah’s body human again and allowed Costin to escape the undead matter. In a way, she felt cheated out of that.

Sick. A tiny laugh jittered out of her, even though this wasn’t funny. Maybe the pain from her wounds was screwing up her system. Or maybe she really
was
sick. Sick because she’d sunk so damned low since just over a year ago, when she’d met Costin. Sick because he wasn’t here anymore. Sick because everything seemed so abstract right now—an avant-garde painting under carnival lights.

“I guess,” she said, trying to end the discussion, “all that’s left of the dragon is our stains. Like a gift that keeps on giving from big daddy.
It
obviously doesn’t disappear with a higher vampire’s death, and that’s why me and Eva had it after Benedikte died.”

“That’s why we have it now.”

Hell, she had that and more, she thought as the dragon’s blood kept burning.

But what exactly brought the soul stain out on the skin? Dawn hadn’t been a vamp for very long and she’d had more problems with the stain than Eva. But did it have to do with the amount of time you were a vamp . . . or with the bitterness you had when you weren’t? Eva had tried valiantly to erase her old life and become “Mia Scott”—she’d found new hobbies, a new home. She’d tried very hard to keep any anger or despair at a distance. Dawn had let emotion fly. Plus, unlike the other vamps, Eva might have avoided suicide by submerging her real self in another identity. But was that a sort of suicide in itself?

As for Dawn, she wondered if she’d been running from death by causing it. . . .

“At least Costin wouldn’t have gotten a stain after the dragon died,” she said, wanting to move on. “Right?”

“Right. I was the one who lost my soul when I became a vamp. He was only along for the ride because he couldn’t get out of my altered body. He should be in his state of grace, wherever he is.”

Jonah sat on Frank’s bed next to her. It was strange, smelling his human skin—the earthiness of it. She missed the preternatural buzz of energy from his body.

He said, “Have you thought that maybe Costin was pulled away to take care of loose ends for the other Undergrounds? All of their lower vamps might’ve gone crazy before succumbing to the stain—if all of them even do—and he could’ve been assigned damage control. Maybe he’s so busy he hasn’t had a second to contact us. You know how it is when you’re fighting vamps.”

“That task could take a long time to deal with.” But at least that’d mean he was out there.

She must’ve looked just as forcefully optimistic as Jonah or something, because he seemed pleased that she was going along with his theorizing.

But false hope wouldn’t do either of them good in the long run. “Wouldn’t it just be nice if that damned Whisper would give enough of a shit to drop us a line about it, either way?”

“Or to extend a bit of gratitude for saving the world?” Jonah added.

That got a self-aware smile from her. The good of the many outweighed the good of the few.

“If Costin would just come back,” Jonah said, “I’d even give up my body again.”

Surprised, she frowned at him.

“I know it sounds weird,” he said, “seeing as all I did was complain about being stifled. But now it’s like living in a really big house by myself. That was how I went through most of my life before Costin came into it, and I didn’t like it then.”

“Him being gone has made you a recluse again.”

He nodded, and the exact problem with Jonah became real apparent.

The grass was always greener, whether it was about hosting a Soul Traveler or wanting what someone else possessed. If he did get Costin back, he wouldn’t be happy for long.

“You think,” she said, “that having Costin here again would find you the peace you need?” To conquer the stain?

“Yeah. I’d do anything for what I had.”

Anything,
she thought. She’d said the same a year ago, when Frank had been missing and Costin had asked her what she’d do to find him.

“Careful what you say, Jonah.”

“Why—because I might get what I ask for?” Jonah smiled. “If only.”

She saw something off in his gaze—a gleam of the Jonah who had used a razor on his face once when Costin had said he was looking for a different body to inhabit.

This was the real Jonah.

He shifted next to her on the bed, and she realized that they were alone, sitting on a mattress. It was the way he’d moved that had clued her in to it, as if their situation meant a lot more to him than it did to her. Then again, Jonah had set his sights on Dawn because Costin had her.

Was that the only way he’d ever experienced intimacy? Through a Soul Traveler who shared his body as well as through his borrower’s relationship with another person?

Jonah touched Dawn’s face, where the dragon red marks splotched her skin in what seemed right now to be permanent, hideous splashes.

She tried to angle away from him, because she’d seen the medical professionals’ expressions when they’d inspected her skin at the emergency department. They’d tried to hide their curiosity, but Dawn still felt like she could’ve turned any one of them to stone with just a well-placed glare.

Jonah wasn’t deterred. He kept his fingertips against the splashes.

“Stop it,” Dawn said, and he took his hand away.

He kept sitting next to her, hardly chased off. She wished he wouldn’t keep looking at her.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“On the surface, not really. Just a weird burning. I suppose that it felt so good attacking the dragon that I got the best beauty mark ever.”

Not wanting this to go any further, she started to get up from the bed, but he grasped her good hand.

“Damn it, Dawn, you’re really one for taking it all on you, aren’t you? Blame, shame, responsibility.”

She pulled away, but she saw that openness in him again—a willingness to share everything, including what he’d learned as Costin’s host.

“Even going back to when you were a girl,” he added, “you had to assume care of Frank. When you got older, you rebelled against taking any more of that kind of thing on, but when a bigger situation called for you, you stepped up and took care of it in the only way you knew how. But if you’re going to find any kind of satisfaction with yourself, you’ve got to start letting go.”

He sounded like Costin in one of his psychiatry moments. No wonder Jonah had been chosen as a host.

“Enough.” She went for the door. “There’s too much to do and—”

“If he
is
gone, Dawn,” he said softly, “I’m not.”

His naked statement waited there, just like a ghost hovering to be noticed and acknowledged.

She wasn’t even quite sure he’d said it . . . or meant it. What was he thinking—that he’d step into the spot Costin had vacated if it came down to it?

Dawn didn’t look back as she went through the door, limping as fast as her injuries allowed her to while navigating the rest of the hallway to the stairs. From there, she headed for the sitting room, where she heard Kiko and Natalia listening to a TV.

She tried not to think of Jonah still back in that room, sitting on the bed, smarting from the callous way she’d left him. But he’d said the wrong thing. He had no right, even if she despaired of Costin ever coming back. Jonah had told
her
to let go, and he needed to, also. Now that he was human, he could go out into the world and find some nice, unscary girl who didn’t advertise her screwups so obviously. A girl with pretty skin and way fewer hang-ups who would give him a good reason to continue living.

Dawn got to the sitting room, and the hellhounds on the wall tapestries seemed to leer at her as she approached Kiko and Natalia, who were together on a rose-upholstered settee, tuned in to a BBC news station.

Or maybe it’d be more accurate to say that a slightly bandaged Natalia was diligently watching TV and taking notes while a more heavily Band-Aided Kiko was tapping his fingers on the settee, staring off into space.

Then his gaze zeroed in on Dawn as if she’d just—
pop!
—appeared. The first thing he looked at was the splotches of red on her face, and Dawn stopped herself from wincing.

It made her appreciate Jonah’s acceptance just a little, even if he was suspect.

Kiko said, “There you are.”

“What’re you up to?”

“Oh, just thinking.”

Natalia glanced at Dawn, blanching at the red marks and going back to the TV.

It was enough to drive Dawn out of the room. “I’m going to temp headquarters to see Frank. It’s been a while since Eva checked in, and even though she said things are okay and he’s just resting, I want to make sure.”

Kiko gave her a salute, but she could tell his mind was still elsewhere.

After grabbing her cell phone and stuffing it into the pocket of a jacket she wore over just one side of her body, she took the same doorway off the foyer where the Friends had ushered the team the other night, just before whizzing them away to temporary headquarters. When Dawn descended to the tunnel, then got into one of the railed carts, she realized that her trip there wouldn’t be as quick as it’d been when the Friends had pushed the team along. But the spirits who weren’t looking for Costin outside needed to recharge from the Underground attack, and Dawn wasn’t about to rouse any of them just to make her trip faster, so she accessed the electric motor and sailed along at a decent enough clip.

All the way there, she couldn’t shake off thoughts of Della laid out on the grass, that sweet smile on her face. Were the girls at least happier now?

Dawn hoped to God they were.

When she arrived at temp HQ, the shelter seemed filled with dead air.

“Eva?” she called.

All she heard was the ricochet of her voice off the concrete on its way down the length of the shelter.

She passed the spot where she’d slain Claudius, taking care not to look at it too much, then came to Eva’s room.

Which was empty.

She had a bad feeling about this.

When she opened Frank’s door, she expected to find him huddled under his blankets in the dimness, just like before when she’d first discovered he was sick. But, this time, she was pretty sure she’d find a humanized Frank because of the dragon’s death. She’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she wondered if his change would signal a return back to the “old Frank”—the drunk who’d never had his shit together.

Then again, Breisi was with him, and she’d been a salvation to him.

Dawn saw him in his bed, and she went to it. “Hey, I’m sure you already know this, but the dragon’s toast. That’s why you’re human again.”

Under the wool, his breathing seemed to be labored, but she couldn’t tell for certain with the lights off.

“Frank?”

When he turned away from the wall, he seemed to be caught in Dawn’s pained haze . . . or in scary-movie slow motion, where the nightmare had second upon dreadful second to permeate your head.

She stared at him—a freak from a painting called “The Scream.” A haunted being with a wide mouth, wide eyes in a skeleton of a face draped with wrinkled skin.

Dawn screamed, too, long and hard, and it didn’t stop even when she smelled a wisp of jasmine from the floor, where something felt like a pool dragging at Dawn’s boots.

Breisi?

Eva’s voice came from behind them, in a corner.

“Congratulations on your victory,” her mother said, just before Dawn turned around, another scream clogging her chest when she saw what Eva had become, too.