Vampire Babylon - Break Of Dawn Part 16

"I'm not talking about Mecurochrome, Dawn." His gaze was steady. "You know it's not beyond my experience to believe that you saw Eva Claremont outside. What's going on?"

Okay. She could start there. But how much should she tell him?

Why not everything?

A red light leeched of its vibrancy beat against her eyes, and she intuitively felt that she should keep Costin to herself. Or maybe not. She had no idea what to do. But Matt deserved to know the basics. He'd earned it with his patience and support.

"Dawn?" he said, tucking back a strand of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. He looked so sincere. "Whatever it is? It's okay to be angry about it."

He grinned, winning her over. Matt understood, even if he had no concept of what she'd gone through today. He was the only one on her side. At her side.

"Much to my pleasure," she said, throat raw, "I've discovered that Mommie Dearest is a vampire." A near-hysterical laugh quaked in her chest. "How's that?"

His hands paused as he bandaged one knee. His touch lingered, as if he was memorizing how her skin melded over bone, or how the bruised angles of her were pieced together. Or maybe he was just witnessing her becoming unhinged.

As his finger brushed her flesh, he shuddered.

"No surprise about Eva?" Dawn was positive that she'd never fully confided in him about what her mother had done.

He made an abrupt move away from her knee. "Sure, of course I am." His forehead furrowed. "I suspected it. . . ."

"And you didn't say anything?"

He touched her ankle. "Why worry you? I was just getting started on looking into it."

Okay. She could buy this . . . except for that one fleeting moment when he should've shown more of a reaction. Or maybe she was on such hyperdrive right now that she thought everything should be going kaboom around her.

"What do you know about these vamps?" she asked.

"Just a little about Robby Pennybaker." When she widened her eyes, he shrugged. "You weren't the only one following leads, remember?"

She didn't say anything, just tried to figure him out.

"Besides," he added, "I suspect that, next to you, I know nothing." He left that hanging, tending to her other knee.

Dawn allowed herself to relax at his care. At least, she tried. But something vengeful stirred in her as she thought of how Jonah slash Costin would feel if he saw her with Matt now.

See, she thought, I don't need you, whoever you are.

"My mother," she said, "decided that long-lasting youth and beauty were way more important than seeing me graduate from grade school or giving me advice on how to wear lipstick. She's part of this . . . network, you could say, of movie-star vampires. They're fooling us all."

Matt had finished bandaging, but he hadn't stood back up. Instead, he was running a hand over her calf. "A community. How do you think they stay hidden?"

She attempted to lose herself in his touch. Failing, succeeding, going back and forth. d.a.m.n you, Costin.

"They live somewhere underground," she whispered. "That's where they hide."

He didn't say anything, just rubbed her leg. Was he even listening?

"Matt?" she asked.

His eyes were a million miles away, seeming to fog with need for her. But he blinked, ending the illusion.

"Do you want to track down your mother?" he asked. "Is that why you're posting watch out my window?"

Reminded, she fixed her gaze there. An oncoming sunset b.u.t.tered the street, then burned it into an acrid stain.

"I'm . . ." Dawn leaned forward, fortifying herself. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do." Matt's hand traveled up her leg, and instead of getting turned on, her veins seized into themselves, hardening her, making her beat with a longing for payback.

Costin.

"Why don't we try to go underground?" Matt said. "You and me."

She forgot how to breathe.

"I know it's a big thing to suggest," he added, "but we can find your mom there and deal with her however you want."

On his knees, he seemed so devout, so worthy. But she'd been screwed over before, oh so very recently. She looked back at the window, and he apparently read her reluctance.

"I'm the best partner you'll ever have." He stood, taking her hands in his. "Or . . . maybe you need persuading. Shoot, if my own mom were here, she'd tell you what a stand-up guy I am."

"And what else would your mom say?"

He grinned. "She'd tell you that if the son she raised to be so justice minded and right seeking ever let you down, he'd never be able to live with himself."

"Now you're sounding like a superhero out of Kansas-not Gotham City."

His pupils expanded and, in them, she could see that he was taken aback by her observation.

"Just giving you a hard time," she said. "Go on. I won't impale you with any more sardonic-"

Something outside caught her jaundiced vision. A flutter of skirts, just like the ones Eva liked to wear. The material had disappeared in the direction of Matt's backyard.

He turned toward the window, too. At the same time, she slid down from the table, her biker boots thumping on the floor.

"It's her," Dawn said.

Matt grabbed her wrist. "She'll just go back to this underground place you were talking about. Are you prepared to follow her?"

"I'd prefer to keep the fight up here." She ripped her wrist away from his grip, striding toward her machetes. Sure, she was still kind of shaky from when her car kissed the streetlight post, but that wasn't nearly enough to stop her.

But Matt was enough. "You're going to end up down there one day."

When she looked at him, he seemed . . . off somehow. She couldn't put her finger on it.

"I mean," he added, "vamps haven't gone public for a reason. They like their privacy. Any heavy business will be conducted underground. Mark my words."

"Okay, then. Marked."

She fetched her weapons, heading for the cottage's rear screen door. Matt dogged her.

As she laid a machete-filled hand on the latch, she asked, "You going to back me up or not?"

He hesitated, then nodded. "I'll get my stuff."

"No." She lifted her other machete. "Eva's mine. If you see me get into trouble, that's when you intervene." "And what if it's too late by then?"

"She's not out to hurt me. She just wants to destroy Frank's life-and mine, too." Dawn unlatched the door. "I might be a while, so before you call for a car tow, could you get my knickknacks out of it? Thanks."

"Just a second . . ."

But she was already outside. The yard was almost empty, except for an old slab of wood hanging by two ropes from a small oak tree. Maybe it was a toy from a previous tenant, or maybe there was something Matt wasn't telling her about his personal life. At any rate, as it swung in the wind, the rope creaked. The near death of day had left the air warm, but it was cool enough to sc.r.a.pe over Dawn's skin with a chill.

Behind the tree, she caught the wave of a flowy dress peeking out.

"Eva," she said, machetes at the ready.

And just that simply, her mother sidled away from the back of the oak, her dress tickling her thighs.

"Good," her mother said, utterly ignoring Dawn's weapons. "I'm glad you've finally come to your senses."

FOURTEEN.

THE FAMILY WAY.

DAWN almost laughed at Eva's ridiculous comment. "You think I'm here to entertain more of your c.r.a.p?"

Her mother ran a look over the machetes in Dawn's hands. Then, clearly on purpose, she leaned against the tree trunk, as if declaring defeat. The swing's ropes continued to moan.

Dawn's chest seemed to bend inward, deforming whatever had been holding her up. It felt good to wound Eva, to make her lose hope, to one-up the mother who'd always been better even in death. But it also went against every dream Dawn had nourished of having a mom.

Perversely, Dawn sc.r.a.ped the machetes together: the lyrics sang about what was right, what was just.

"Eva, what could you possibly tell me that I haven't heard before?"

Her mother didn't react to the machete sc.r.a.pes. "There's a lot to clear up. Last time you were with me, it wasn't exactly under ideal conditions, and I'm afraid I didn't get my true message across."

"Oh, I think you did. You took me captive and threw me in a hidden room with Frank. And let's not forget the part where you chained me up. That was the biggest true message of all."

"I knew you'd fight before you became rational. You would've chained you up, too, in my place."

"I always fight." The machetes seemed heavier now, almost like Dawn should just drop them and walk away. She could, too. But in which direction would she head?

She thought of what was waiting for her in the Limpet house. It was the same as what was here with Eva. The same as what was waiting for them all everywhere, except few normal people knew it.

"You don't have to fight." Eva had taken hold of the swing with one graceful hand, silencing its groans.

Wrong. That was all Dawn knew. She'd just taken fighting to a new extreme lately. "What if," her mother added, "the two of us called a truce for now. Even the most ferocious foes would meet on battlefields to attempt an understanding." Eva smiled and ran a hand down the swing's rope. "At least, I think I remember hearing that in some history cla.s.s I daydreamed my way through."

A school-despising tweak of empathy manipulated Dawn. Like mother, like daughter. But she murdered the emotion.

"I was under the impression that we were talking just fine right now." Dawn could just about feel Matt behind her, watching through a window. Maybe that was why it was so easy to be a smart-a.s.s.

Eva shook her head. "There are ears tuned in to what we're saying. Someplace more private would be better."

"The isolation of a backyard isn't good enough?"

"No."

Dawn barely caught Eva's glance skimming the cottage, and she understood. Matt was a hunter, and Eva might've known it.

Dawn's heart was fisting, squeezed by that little girl within who'd cried in the corners of playgrounds after the other kids had taunted her about having no mother. In a way, Dawn wanted to give in to the fantasy of Eva-the runaway returned, the caretaker resurrected and dedicated to her family. It was all Dawn had ever wanted, especially now, after being turned out by the group she'd considered to be her family.

"If I had a sit-down with you," Dawn said, making sure Eva knew how unlikely it was, "where would we go? A coffee shop . . . ?"

"I can't be in public." Eva tucked a blond lock behind an ear, like she was fl.u.s.tered. "You have to understand, with everything that's going on, the community has retreated Underground. In fact, my big comeback movie with Paul Aspen and Will Smith? Is on hold. Some non-Servant producers are up in arms, thinking that Paul and I have run off together because we haven't shown up for work. Our publicists made up a cover story about how Paul got sick and I've checked him in to a private clinic and stayed by his side because I'm so smitten."

Dawn frowned at the name "Paul Aspen." She'd met Eva's costar at a party he'd thrown. There, her mind had been entered and partially wiped. Costin had yelled out in a rage when he'd discovered it.

Sloughing off the memory of his protective response, Dawn said, "It must be killing you since you bought that movie with your soul."

"You're right. It wasn't in my plans to saddle Jacqueline Ashley with a bad work reputation." Her mother wandered away from the swing, close enough to lower her voice. "I know this is asking a lot, but there's a place where we don't have to worry about any interference. Somewhere that's been deserted since I moved Underground for security." She flicked a gaze to Matt's house, her meaning clear. "Come with me?"

More out of curiosity than compliance, Dawn asked, "How do you propose to get anywhere . . . ?"

Her car was wasted, and walking was out of the question. But she had an idea about how Eva, who didn't want to be seen Above, would get her to this private place. It'd probably be the same way the vamp had taken Frank and Dawn to Breisi that night. . . .

Her mother held out a hand. "Just this once, don't resist for the sake of being difficult."

"You need to tell me where we'd hypothetically be going." Dawn hadn't made a move toward Eva's hand.

"My house."

Oh, this was rich. "Really. The place where you stuck me in a dungeon and had a Servant guard me."

"Julia is Below now, and the house is vacant." When she looked into her daughter's eyes, her face went sad. "All this pain I've brought you, Dawn. I'm so sorry."

Thing was, Dawn thought her mother meant it. But maybe it was acting! Or maybe it was just what she wanted to see in Eva.

Dawn clutched the machetes. "If you think I'm going to have a slumber party with you, you're on crack. All I see when I look at your face is the traitor who let Breisi die and then made off with my dad for a second time."

Her mother bent her head. Nodded. Guilty?