Darkness Before Dawn (16 page)

Michael wraps his arm around me. “You okay? You’re trembling.”

“I’m fine,” I say, snuggling against him, finding reassurance in his strength.

“What the hell did he want?”

“Agency business. I can’t talk about it.” And even if I did, what would I say?
There’s a rogue vampire out there
? I could tell the Agency about the theater, but I doubt Victor will be there tonight. All I can do is hope that the Night Watchmen are ever vigilant and Victor keeps to his no-blood-direct-from-a-human policy.

“Anything to do with last night?”

“No.”

He furrows his brow. “Lot of secret stuff goes on at the Agency.”

“Not really. Just seems that way.”

“I’m not judging. I guess I just never realized how much of a burden it is to be a delegate. Maybe we
should
have run off with that trapeze troupe.”

I laugh as Michael leads me back to the pool table, where Tegan and Sin are waiting.

“Let’s really kick their butts,” he says.

“You got it.” And I’m grateful for anything to take my mind off Victor.

Chapter 16

I
have a restless night, tossing and turning, waking up to every little sound. Expecting to see Victor hovering over me, coming for my blood. But my balcony doors stay closed.

The next morning I’m dragging as I get ready for school. When I go into the kitchen, Rachel is pacing the floor, phone to her ear.

“How could it have happened? You’re sure they’ll be okay? All right, yes, we’ll just have to deliver what’s left.” She snaps her phone closed, spins on her heel, and comes up short at the sight of me.

“Trouble?” I ask.

“Someone broke into blood site five and stole a dozen bags of blood. Had to be a vampire. The guards saw a blur just before being knocked out. They have a headache this morning, but that’s it. I guess the good news is that this vamp—whoever the hell he is—took legally obtained blood and didn’t drain the guards. Of course, the bad news is that you’ll have to explain to Valentine why we’re short.” In the long run, a difference of a dozen bags doesn’t mean much, but Valentine will make sure I hear about it—and demand reparations.

Rachel sits down and starts stirring her oatmeal like she expects to find some answers there.

I ease onto the stool in front of the bowl she set out for me. While she eats hers plain, I absently pour sugar over mine. It had to be Victor. I’d feared he would attack someone—and he had, but not in the way I’d thought. A thousand questions are running through my mind.

It’s hard to believe after everything that’s happened lately, but today is only Wednesday. “We have a little bit of time. Maybe we can get some additional donations by Friday,” I suggest.

“Yeah, maybe.” Her brow is so deeply furrowed that it has to be painful. “Makes no sense. If he was going to sell it on the black market, why take only a dozen? If he was that desperate for blood, why risk breaking into a guarded facility at all? And then why not take it from the guards themselves?”

The same questions occurred to me, only I know where to get the answers. And then I’ll make sure he understands I won’t tolerate his stealing blood.

Before I leave for school, I go back to my room and open the jewelry box on my dresser. It was a gift from my dad. When it’s opened, a tiny ballerina pops up and spins with the music. But what makes the box so special is that it has a little hidden compartment. My dad used to hide things in it for me to find. I never knew when he would or what it might be. Little things, silly things. A shiny penny. A stick of gum. A note that said,
I love you
.

Now it holds the key that Victor gave me to the theater the night he rescued Tegan and me. Then, with a deep breath, I pull open the drawer where I stashed the present he left me. For some reason, the stake looks much more lethal than the one I carry in my boot. I grab it and stuff it in my messenger bag. If he didn’t want me using it, he shouldn’t have given it to me.

I know it’s dangerous to even consider confronting him, but I’m tired of his games, of his constantly making me think that he’s something he isn’t. I know the smart thing is to alert the Agency about him and the theater, but Victor has made this personal. I want to be the one to bring him down, with no help from anyone.

All through my classes, the key burns a hole in my jeans pocket as I review my strategy. Tegan and Michael are still so enamored with Sin, peppering him with questions about his life in Los Angeles between classes and during lunch, that they don’t notice how distracted I am. Michael has practice after school and invites Sin to go with him. Tegan wants to hang out with me, but I tell her that I have Agency business. Which is true.

I have a vague idea of where the theater is, and I hop on a trolley that runs through that neighborhood. I have a stake hidden in my boot and Victor’s gift in my bag, but the sun is still out, a much more effective weapon. I get off the trolley and start walking through the maze of abandoned buildings in this part of town. Hearing a sudden clang, I spin around. Rats scurry away from a Dumpster as a cat stalks them from its edge.

I don’t know why I’m so jumpy. I continue on. A few minutes later, to my immense relief, I spot the theater.

It looks different during the day. It’s lost its romance, its majesty. Instead of an ancient relic fighting against the sands of time, it seems more like a hollowed shell supported by broken frames and broken dreams. I imagine the owner, fifty years ago, smiling at the giant lettering and the glass cases that hold posters of movies long erased from memory. He had no idea what it would become.

Yet the theater is just like me. Something different at night. It transforms with the setting sun, just as I transform into a delegate, into someone who has to put the citizens’ needs above my own wants. Glancing around, I don’t see anyone. I take the key from my pocket, slip it into the padlock, and—

To my immense surprise it opens and the chains roll out. I was worried that Victor would have changed the lock by now. I shove open the door and walk through into the quiet. My heart is thundering. I should have a cadre of Agency guards with me—but my encounters with Victor flash through my mind. Maybe I want to give him one more chance to prove he is different from the others.

I pull out my flashlight, click it on, and pluck the stake from my messenger bag. The weight of what I’m doing settles on me like a heavy stone as I strap on the holster. I’m not even sure why I put it on. All I care about is the stake, and right now I’ve got a death grip on that. I walk through the lobby and turn down the hallway. He could be anywhere, but I suspect the room where he placed Tegan on a bed is his nest, the place where he sleeps during the day.

I creep up the stairs and stop outside the door; just beyond it is the room where we waited out the vampires when I thought he was a Night Watchman. When I thought he was human. When I … liked him.

Slowly I open the door. Victor is right where I expected him to be—stretched out on the cot. The slumber of vampires is so deep, it’s one of their only weaknesses. Even with my flashlight shining right into his eyes, they don’t open. His chest doesn’t move. He’s like the dead.

Do vampires dream
?

Why do I care? I move over to the small refrigerator that had housed the canned drink he gave me. I open it. It’s stuffed with blood bags.

The disappointment that ricochets through me is astounding. Until that moment, I didn’t realize how desperately I wanted to be wrong about him. In my heart, I didn’t want him to be like other vampires. But here’s the proof. Greedy, selfish, caring only for himself and his never-ending quest for blood.

I walk back over to the cot. He’s so gorgeous, but it’s just a facade to hide the monster that lives within. I want him out of my city—him and all vampires. And if he doesn’t leave—

The sun must have set, triggering Victor’s internal clock, because his eyes spring open. No, it isn’t the sun, it’s too early for that. It’s something much more inescapable: the blood running through my veins. Even in his deep slumber, he could scent it.

The Old Family vampire stares at me now, the beautiful blue of his eyes capturing me. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me; in fact, he gives no reaction at all. Just studies me.

“I see you got my gift,” he finally says.

My anger spikes and I can’t keep it out of my voice. “I don’t understand you, Victor. You seem … almost nice, but then … you stole blood from the blood site.”

He rolls into a sitting position. “You left me no choice.”

“I didn’t tell the Agency yet, because I owe you for saving Tegan’s life and mine, but I’m taking the blood—”

“No, you’re not.” He brushes past me to the fridge as though I’m simply a fly that’s irritating, no real threat.

Livid, I glare at him, unsure why I haven’t plunged the stake through his heart. He snatches up a backpack, opens the fridge, and starts stuffing the blood bags into his pack. “I have to get these delivered tonight. It was too risky last night.”

“I can’t let you take them.”

He stands up, shrugs the pack onto his shoulders. “You can’t stop me, Dawn.”

“Vict—”

“So come with me and see why I had to take them.”

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I accepted his invitation. Maybe that I would learn more about this illegal operation and could provide the Agency with names and vamp hidey-holes. We waited in silence for nightfall before leaving the theater. Now we’re maneuvering our way through the darkness over debris, slipping through alleys. I stumble.

Victor grabs my arm, stops me from landing with a splat.

“Sorry we can’t use the flashlight,” he says. “It’d reveal our location to any watching eyes. Just stick close and I’ll guide you.”

He takes my hand, threads our fingers together. Vampires can see in the dark. I realize now that the first night he brought Tegan and me to the theater, he used a flashlight for our benefit. And as just another layer to disguise what he truly is.

We don’t talk. Another method to keep our movements undetected. What amazes me is how quiet Victor is. Wearing black, he’s lost in the night’s shadows. If his hand didn’t grip mine, I might think he wasn’t even beside me anymore. He makes no sounds at all, steps cautiously to avoid landing on anything that would give away his position. My father once explained to me that not all vampires exhibit this kind of stealth. It’s limited to Old Families, the ones who are born into a vamp’s body, and are comfortable with all its capabilities. Those who are turned very seldom completely assimilate into the vampire form. At their core, they’re human—they’ve just acquired an invincibility, an agelessness, and a craving for blood.

I’m not even sure where my father got all of his information. But as a scholar, he was always scouring through ancient texts and documents.

It seems like we’ve been walking forever. I can see why we didn’t drive here. It’s so run-down, so littered in these narrow streets. My imagination is running wild, and I can envision all sorts of illegal deals going on here. Blood for money, blood for drugs, blood for food. The precious crimson that runs through my veins has become the currency of the new world.

Eventually, he stops at a building and opens a door I hadn’t even noticed. We slip inside.

“Stairs,” Victor whispers.

Reaching out with my free hand, I grab a banister. It makes going up easier. I count the steps, count the flights, just to keep my mind occupied and away from the fact that I’m in the middle of nowhere with a vampire.

At the fourth floor we start walking straight. I hold my hand out and feel it brushing against a wall. We’re in a hallway, one that hasn’t seen the light of day in quite some time. Bumps and bruises cover the wood, water damage from years of rain seeping down, rotting the building from the inside.

Victor stops and I hear a quiet knock. A door creaks.

“Victor,” a soft feminine voice says. “Thank goodness.”

Victor brings me inside. When the door closes, a light comes on. I see the flashlight in Victor’s hand. He releases his hold on me and sets it upright on the table. It fills the room with a weird glow. I see a woman who must be the one who opened the door. She’s slender. Her eyes are hollow.

“Martha, this is my … friend Dawn. How is Justin?” Victor asks.

“He hasn’t moved all day. If it were possible for him to die, I think he would have by now.”

Shrugging off his backpack, Victor walks through an open doorway, the broken hinges the only evidence that a door ever hung there. I glance around and decide to follow.

The light from the flashlight creeps into this space and casts an eerie glow on a young boy of about nine lying beneath the blankets on a bed.

“Hey, Justin,” Victor says, opening the backpack. “I brought you something.”

He takes out a bag of blood and presses it to the boy’s mouth. Without hesitation, Justin’s fangs emerge and pierce the bag. The coppery scent of blood wafts up as he greedily devours the contents. I watch his throat working to swallow the lifesaving fluid, knowing I should be repelled. But instead I’m fascinated. With just a few ounces of blood, Justin already looks worlds better. Never before have I understood the full extent of the miracle of our blood. Now I understand that they need it to live—in some weird way, maybe even more than we do.

“His father turned him, turned us both,” Martha tells me, her voice quiet, as if she might disturb them. “He returned from the war a vampire and couldn’t stand the thought of facing eternity without us.” She sighs, looks at me. “You’re the delegate.”

I nod, not sure why I’m uncomfortable with her scrutiny or feel as though I’ve let her down.

“I know we’re not supposed to be in the city, but I don’t like it beyond the wall. This has always been our home.”

I’m at a loss for words. The apartment, the vampires, it’s all very surreal. Like something I would’ve seen on television and then had a dream about.

Given where I am and what surrounds me, I should be afraid. But I’m not. These are the kinds of vampires Victor was telling me about the other night: the ones not much different from me.