Undead for a Day (11 page)

“Because
we’re
evil and that’s what this lord collects during his hunt?”

“You said it, not I.”

Now Dawn rose up from the floor. “You can’t do that to Costin. First off, he’s not evil. He tried to cleanse the world.”

“So did the master. As I said, it’s all relative.” Amber reached into her robes and brought out the small box that had sucked Costin right into it. “Luckily, from what I gather, it seems that whoever does the summoning tonight is the one who gets to define evil.”

Dawn lunged at the bars, but Amber didn’t give any ground.

“Please calm yourself, Dawn. We don’t want you to be jumpy.”

She rolled up her robe sleeve to check a delicate jeweled watch. “The hour approaches. I really do suggest that you hydrate yourself. Take a drink.”

Dawn thought about opening the beverage bottle and tossing the contents in Amber’s face, but who’d be laughing at the end of tonight? Definitely not Dawn Madison.

Amber sighed, then slid the smooth silver mask over her face, dehumanizing herself with the absence of features—except for eyeholes and that open mouth. Then she pulled the robe’s hood over her hair.

“It was enlightening, Dawn,” said her somewhat muffled voice.

Then she left.

As Dawn sat down again, pulling her legs toward her body, hugging them, she closed her eyes, shutting out the bonfire.

Was it ridiculous to hope that the team was coming?

The only thing she could take comfort in was Costin’s future, because he did have one, no matter what Amber thought. Dawn hadn’t mentioned it, but long ago, he’d made a deal with an entity that not even he could explain, though Dawn suspected the spirit was some sort of celestial guardian who’d called himself The Whisper. Costin had vowed to destroy the dragon and his sub-masters in exchange for a peaceful resting place for his soul in the end. And Costin
had
technically slain the dragon—it’d just found a way station in Dawn. The Whisper hadn’t taken Costin’s reward from him, though, and the man she loved had come
this
close to eternal peace.

Except he’d come back because he’d wanted to spend the rest of Dawn’s life with her.

So hah—this so-called mythical lord that the Meratoliages were summoning wouldn’t be able to cancel The Whisper’s rest-in-peace contract with Costin. Titanic beings like The Whisper and a Lord of the Otherworld couldn’t interfere with valid contracts, as Dawn had discovered.

At least Costin would be safe.

But as far as
she
went...?

The sound of trampled dry grass outside of the cage made Dawn open her eyes, and she found her Best Buddy standing there, peering through the bars.

“Lilly,” Dawn said. “Gosh, I was hoping you’d drop by.”

The girl pressed closer to the bars, her open mouth moving.

“Really. Give it a rest.”

Out of nowhere, the girl reached between the bars, grasping Dawn’s leg, yanking her across the platform.

Dawn’s head spun and she tried to get away, but Lilly had already gripped Dawn’s hair with her other hand, bringing her face to the bars.

Then Lilly planted her lips on Dawn’s, just as she had years ago during one of their fights to toy with her.

But this kiss was different. It wasn’t playful or mocking.

It felt as if Lilly was pulling something out of her.

On Dawn’s right side, the dragon’s blood shifted, clinging to her as if it was holding onto a branch in a strong wind.

Shit—had an undead Lilly gotten some kind of power to magically claim the dragon all on her own? Had a magical retirement warped her that much?

More questions flew around Dawn’s mind as Lilly kept sucking: Was the girl pissed off enough at the family who had retired and betrayed her to take the dragon
from
them? Was she still trying to redo the Meratoliages’ keeper program, even after her retirement?

Was Lilly attempting to use the dragon so he might give her enough power to escape re-retirement tonight?

Everything started to go dark within Dawn’s head as she swore that she felt the dragon sliding out of her and into the rebellious, undead keeper.

And, before she could be sure, she went black for the second time that night.

The Moment of Truth

Dawn startled awake as someone gently shook her.

She sat up, cracked open her eyes, catching a glimpse of the open cage door and a robed Mertoliage wearing one of those gold masks. The person took out a second mask—this one totally white with eyeholes and a slit mouth—then put it over Dawn’s face, partially obscuring her vision.

Dawn didn’t protest—not even as her heartbeat robbed her of breath and words. Through the eyeholes of her mask, she saw another gold-faced Meratoliage appear, but this one had the broader shoulders of a man. He raised up a length of chain, then wrapped it around Dawn’s wrists. Both of them led Dawn out of the cage and onto the ground, walking her toward the bonfire.

All the while, Dawn’s pulse skittered.

She didn’t feel the dragon in her. Had Lilly gotten it out?

How?

Mentally pressing down on her rising panic, Dawn thought about how the dragon would sometimes play possum, as if biding his time, knowing that it drove Dawn a little crazy. Was that what he was doing to her now? Or was bitter, betrayed Lilly running around with the world’s most dangerous weapon in her?

Dawn didn’t want to think about what that could mean, because based on what Kiko had said earlier and what Amber had revealed, Lilly had evidently been retired with a lot of anger in her—a darkness that might even compete with Dawn’s soul stain—and it would feed him. Feed him
real
good. Lilly probably wouldn’t even need an extraction ritual for her to
become
the dragon—a possible catastrophe Dawn had been fighting for years now. The big master might just take over a willing host, and that was one thing Dawn had never been.

The Mertoliage couple escorted her to the other side of the bonfire as her mind kept tumbling with latent explanations. Now that she wasn’t passed out, she realized that Lilly probably hadn’t sucked the dragon out of her earlier because she hadn’t been able to get close enough to Dawn. Plus Dawn had been armed.

As her captors brought her to a cushioned pallet, she calculated the odds of getting caught if she just ran, heading for the nearby trees. But as she took in all the Meratoliages near the pallet, she was sure she wouldn’t gain two steps without getting tackled.

They laid her down, positioning her bound wrists over her head and connecting the chain to the pallet. Then they clamped her ankles, too.

Should she tell them that the dragon might not be in her anymore? Would it save her ass?

Doubtful. She only wished she could see her face to know whether the dragon’s blood marks were still there....

Amber, with her silver mask, stood above her now, the flames from the bonfire a backdrop of seething light.

“Where is Lilly?” she asked Dawn’s captors.

Should
she tell them about Lilly and the dragon now?

The male gold-face spoke. “I haven’t the foggiest.”

Amber’s voice took on a perturbed clip. “Perhaps you would like to find her? She’s still rather valuable to us.”

The man grunted in acquiescence, and Dawn couldn’t help sliding a smart remark in. Nerves—and the possibility of dying—were making her reckless.

“You worried about Lilly?” she asked, her mask making her mumble.

Amber seemed to comprehend her all the same, and she fixed that anonymous gaze on her. “She bears watching. But, don’t fret—she won’t interfere with your purpose in being here.”

You don’t say?

Dawn tested Amber further. “What if I told you that the dragon wasn’t in me anymore?”

When Amber laughed, just as if she’d expected some fast talking from tonight’s victim, Dawn turned her face back toward the sky. It was the faintest bit lighter, but still dark enough.

So this is how it ends
, she thought.
Going out as a weenie
. Never in a million years had she believed she would take death literally lying down.

As Amber gathered the robed and masked Meratoliage women around her, Dawn’s mind raced. She could still get out of this. Without the soul stain, anything seemed possible.

There had to be a way.

The women began to chant in some kind of dark-arts language. Were they beginning to summon the dragon out of Dawn? Or maybe they were inviting that Lord of the Otherworld to collect Dawn’s and Costin’s souls just like garbage left over from a party.

It was only when all the women stopped and glanced toward the trees that Dawn decided they were checking to see if the Lord of the Otherworld had appeared yet.

One of the women only confirmed her guess. “Where is he?” she whispered to her neighbor.

“Don’t know,” she said, an old woman’s voice.

Amber shushed them, keeping her composure. “This is a busy night for Gwyn ap Nudd. He’s sure to be along, especially with the caliber of souls we’re offering him.”

Another woman said, “We’ve been summoning him for hours.”

“Patience,” Amber said, her words biting.

So biting that Dawn wondered if the leader was beginning to get anxious about her lord guy showing up.

Would Dawn get that lucky? The Meratoliages had already proven they knew what they were doing over the centuries while keeping the dragon safe, plus tracking down the person who’d been internalizing the dragon these last few years. But still...

Hope running through her chest, Dawn slyly tested the restraints at her ankles, but they were firm.

There was a loud clapping sound from the trees, and the women turned toward it.

Was it the lord and his hunters from the Otherworld?

Dawn’s team?

Or was it Lilly?

Dawn took advantage of the distraction to tug at her wrist chain but it held fast, too.

Amber directed some of the women slightly away from the pallet. “Keep summoning the lord.”

From about ten feet away, they chanted anew while Amber and the rest of the women surrounded Dawn. But, this time, Dawn could see through the spaces between their bodies, and it was obvious that all of the other Meratoliages—men?—were waiting around the bonfire for the Lord of the Otherworld.

Amber reached into her robes, pulling out a big, gleaming knife.

It took everything Dawn had not to scream and plead. Dammit, she was going to go down like a hunter.

As Amber lifted Dawn’s shirt, then started to slice through the material from the bottom up, she took up a different chant—the same type of strange language the other women to the side of the pallet were using, but with different words.

The dragon’s summoning?

Dawn braced herself.
Are you still there, Dracul?

She never spoke nicely to the monster in her, but this was a good time to start. Unfortunately, she got no answer.

Lilly does have him
, she thought.

Amber spread apart Dawn’s shirt, as if peeling her open, and when she rested the rough, cool edge of the knife against Dawn’s stomach, Dawn did something she rarely ever did.

She began to pray. Not for herself, but for Costin.

For everyone in this world.

“
Dracul
,” Amber said, and the rest of her women spoke the name while the females who were summoning the Lord of the Otherworld provided a counter-chant.

“
Dracul...Dracul...Dracul
...”

Amber slid the knife up Dawn’s body, over her neck, then to the bottom of the mask, flipping it off of her face.

The plastic clomped to the ground, and Dawn had a clear view of Amber’s expression as the woman focused on Dawn’s right side, where the dragon’s blood marks should be.

Were they still there for Amber to slice off?

The woman’s silver-masked expression never changed as another sound came from the trees.

A gunshot?

Whatever it was, another one came right on its tail.

The team? Were they here?

Or did the Lord of the Otherworld carry some major side arms with him?

By the bonfire, the men began to scramble. Amber raised her voice to her women as she pressed her knife against Dawn’s cheek.

“Keep summoning!”

The chanting for the lord recommenced, louder than ever as the men yelled in the background and more gunshots followed.

Amber began to cut into Dawn’s cheek, and just as Dawn realized what this meant for the dragon blood marks, one of the men screamed, “Get her!”

Another gunshot banged.

The woman next to Amber jerked and fell to the ground as Amber ducked down. There were screams of other types, too—pained noises, death throes.

“Stop her!” Amber was yelling.

That’s when Dawn put a sure-shot, mental bet on what was happening—Lilly, who still had some brainpower left, had chosen this magically powerful night to get her revenge while she could.

The female Otherworld chanters stopped their summoning and ran toward the men, pulling blades out of their robes. Amber stood and brandished her knife, getting another one out of her robes, too, as she joined the others in the rush toward the bonfire.

No time to waste for Dawn. She faced the sky, which had turned a lighter shade. Sunrise, the end of Samhain and the Meratoliages’ window for more powerful magic, was almost here.

But she couldn’t depend on that to save her.

Dawn pulled with all her might at the chain above her head, yet it’d been fastened on but good. She thought of breaking her thumbs—would that help? No, the chain was too tight, damn the Meratoliages.

As chaos roared around her, she turned her head to the side. Lilly was all over the place, using her family members as human shields as they tried to shoot her. She was also breaking arms and legs, quick-as-lightning killing them as they descended on her.

Amber was yelling at Lilly in that strange language, no doubt commanding her to stop. But was her magic already losing its power with the coming of sunrise?

Dawn could feel the seconds ticking by with every frantic heartbeat. Even the sky had seemed to suspend its journey toward the break of first light.