Vampire Babylon - Midnight Reign Part 19

"Who's your friend, Jacqueline?" Paul added.

Dawn wanted to be ornery and tell Paul Aspen straight out that she was about ten years too old for his tastes, but she shut up for Jac's sake.

Just about bursting with smiles, Jac made short work of the introductions, telling Paul about Dawn's stunt work and how she wanted to get Dawn on staff.

Was Jac just starstruck or was there some crushing going on here?

Dawn shifted around, refusing Paul's c.o.c.ktail offer. Jac took him up on it though, inspecting the red liquid in the martini gla.s.s before testing it.

"What is it?" she asked.

Paul sipped at the one Dawn had rejected. "Death by Sangria. d.a.m.ned if I know what's in it, but it's supposed to be the same old cla.s.sic with a twist."

"Mmm." Jac laughed and stopped drinking. "Good. Dawn, you sure you don't want one?"

"I don't drink, really." Frank had sworn her off booze.

"Well, I'll be..." Ever the social sentinel, Paul was watching the foyer and raising a welcoming hand to a well-known producer who'd just sauntered in. "There's Robert, so don't mind me while I pay homage. I'll see you girls later?"

"Definitely," Jac said.

Paul leaned in close to both of them. "Here's a tip. If anyone offers you a tour of the place, say no. We've already had one incident tonight with an anonymous supporting actress, a h.o.r.n.y director who shall go unnamed, and a secret room behind the fireplace. Beware of these old houses, ladies."

He winked and rushed off, Jac's gaze trailing him. Dawn got her attention. "Please don't tell me you're-"

"No. Oh, heck, no. It's just...I'm working with him, Dawn. I watched him on Co-Ed Nights when I was a teenager." She lifted her gla.s.s, but then lowered it when she caught something from across the room. "Oops-nine o'clock. Someone's checking you out."

Okay, it was beyond Dawn's power to resist, especially when she was surrounded by all these reminders of how she'd had to compete with Eva day in and day out. Yup, the old resentment was back and flourishing, so if a man was looking at Dawn and not Jac from across a room, that was a small victory. Disgusting, but pitifully true.

She glanced over and, what do you know. A typical pretty boy was indeed giving her the once over. But when he realized he had her attention, his gaze predictably shifted to the girl next to her.

Eva was winning again, even if she wasn't actually here....

"Go get him," Dawn said to Jac, fixing her attention elsewhere.

"No, that boy likes you. I can tell."

"Forget it."

Dawn saw a chest full of iced bottled water near a couch, so she went over to it. As she grabbed one, she tuned in to a conversation between two industry types sitting nearby.

The woman had a streak of white dust under her nose and was waxing on about how Hollywood would always be "in the know."

They weren't irrelevant at all, she kept saying, gesturing madly. f.u.c.k the red states. f.u.c.k the conservative press.

Dawn unscrewed her water and took a sip, hiding a laugh.

Jac was laughing, too, casting Dawn a knowing glance as she guided her outside, where it was much quieter. Jungle plants hovered over a glowing blue pool. Two women were skinny-dipping, watched over by a group of appreciative men discretely smoking weed.

"So how's work going?" Jac said, turning her back on the scene and taking the opportunity to make a can-you-believe-these- people face.

"Work is work. PI stuff. Top secret. All that."

"It sounds exciting."

"Not so much." Dawn took another drink. "Detecting involves lots of waiting around and running into barriers. And my boss..."

She shook her head. "He's..."

Whoa. Time to shut up.

"He's what?" Jac seemed ecstatic that Dawn was actually communicating.

Suddenly, Dawn wondered if she was actually a project for this girl. Some people were like that-they gravitated toward fixer- uppers. It drove them, just like fearful bitterness seemed to drive Dawn most of the time.

"My boss is uncommunicative," she settled on saying. It didn't give anything up. "He kills me."

"Aw, just let go of it. Negative feelings suck. Life is so much easier without them." "Is it?"

"Yeah, all the bad medicine you take in?" Jac made a dismissive motion, graceful, balletic even. "Who needs it?"

I do, thought Dawn.

Jac touched her arm, spreading a ray of comfort through Dawn's skin. Still, she couldn't help shirking away.

"Sorry," Jac said.

Dawn tried to make like she didn't know what the other girl meant.

"No, I am." The starlet tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry I look like her. I'm sorry I make you squirm."

What was there to say? Dawn took another quaff just to have something to do.

"Can I ask?" Jac said. "What was she like, your mom?"

s.h.i.t. "I don't know. She died when I was about a month old. I was raised by my dad because she wasn't around."

"You say that like she meant to abandon you."

Dawn gripped her bottle. "She didn't. Abandon me, that is. She's always managed to be with me."

Knowing she should be marking the other girl's reactions, Dawn locked eyes with her, but Jac only seemed confused.

"What do you mean?"

Dawn drank again, waiting. Baiting.

Finally, the actress's gaze broke away. "It seems like you don't like her much."

"Why's that?"

"Look at you." Jac held her hand out, chock-full of empathy. "You scream hatred, Dawn."

That was it-an invitation to say everything she'd always wanted to, whether or not Jac deserved it.

"She's dogged me my whole life, and not in the way a mom should. It was always, 'Why aren't you as pretty?' 'Why aren't you as talented?' 'Why aren't you as sweet?' And you know what? I went the other way in every category. I got tired of competing with her as soon as I was old enough to feel inferior, and that was real early, believe me."

She felt so much better now that she was directing her wrath at the proper place, not inwardly, not at every other person who happened to cross her path.

Jac's voice quavered. "She wouldn't...I mean, don't you think she would just want you to be happy if she were alive? Don't you think she'd do anything to make that happen? Just...you've got to stop competing with her, Dawn. I'm sure that would've made her so sad."

Throat closing with heat, Dawn held up a finger. "There's no way I can compete-do you know why?"

"Why?" Jac said, eyes getting watery.

"Because Eva Claremont is the big winner." Dawn was shaking now. "She took the top prize in the Desert Your Family Sweepstakes, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if I ever compete for that t.i.tle again." If Jac were the real Eva, she'd understand that. Eva hadn't ever died. She'd literally left her family to go Underground.

Jac's empty hand covered her heart for a second, her gaze exploding with such emotion that Dawn nearly went into defensive mode, ready to fight and bring it all down.

But then, just as if the girl's response had only been subliminal-a vision spliced between the frames of a filmstrip-it was gone.

Instead, she was shaking her head, holding her drink to her chest like it was a comfort object. "Dawn, poor Dawn."

Squeezing shut her eyes, Dawn fought-what? Was it disappointment that she hadn't flushed out Eva? Or was it bottom-sucking disgust at not wanting to admit that her mom really was dead?

G.o.d, dead...

"Why don't you sit down, Dawn."

She felt Jac guiding her to a chair, felt the give of wicker at her back and the softness of a cushion at her bottom. She buried her face in a hand. Above her, Jac hesitated, probably knowing Dawn wasn't going to talk anymore right now.

"I'll get us something else to drink, okay?" Jac said, stroking Dawn's hair from her forehead. "I'll be right back, and we can settle in for a long chat."

As she left, Dawn intuitively knew that Jac was letting her regain composure. Wasn't that the sign of a friend? And didn't that friend deserve to be treated better?

She opened her eyes, leaning her head back, taking in the stars that blurred in the sky with the heat of oncoming tears.

I don't want to be this way anymore, she thought. I can't keep being this way.

She evened out her breathing, focusing on the sky until it cleared.

You've got to make things right when she comes back. Apologize and move on- A dark, blurred figure suddenly filled Dawn's sight. Before she could react, a glowing gaze locked her in place, eyes blazing and swirling into a whoosh of indescribable colors. It felt like a burning fist was breaking into her, slicing through her pliant body, drawing her up to the edge of her chair.

Mind screw?...just like Robby when he attacked?...block it, stop it....

Dawn pushed out with all the inner energy she could muster. It wasn't fast enough- But it was good enough to smack the attacking mind halfway out of hers, good enough to keep the other out of her deepest memories and thoughts.

Still, her limbs were pinned to her sides, not because her strength was gone, but because she couldn't think of how to move.

Where was her Friend protection? Dawn realized she hadn't smelled jasmine for a while. Had her defense somehow been driven away?

"Just relax," said the unknown a.s.sailant, the hypnotic voice becoming Dawn's everything. "Allow me to come in."

No, she thought. Never.

The other's power seeped into her, turning muscle and bone to stilled liquid. "There..."

The tone, so gentle and warped, dragged her down into a watery limbo where sounds became m.u.f.fled and slow, where heaviness pushed at her from every side.

Falling, floating down until she didn't have the strength to even think of driving him out anymore.

Too lazy, too surreal...

Triumphantly, the creature stepped forward, light from the reflecting pool below casting blue wavers over his stunning face.

"I'd like you to accept my drink invitation this time," Paul Aspen said, "but now, I'll be the one who's imbibing."

FIFTEEN.

THE BIG DRINK.

I guarantee," the actor added, "that a drink will make you feel better."

Weightless, stretched from all sides, Dawn didn't answer. She only had enough energy to push away- Stay out. Don't come in....

Her strength ebbed, and she plunged back into his sway.

"I won't do anything you don't want me to." As his eyes glimmered like a hypnotic object waving back and forth, Paul Aspen flashed that eternally boyish smile. Persuasive, trustworthy. "I only want to taste you. You're notorious in the Underground and, as you might know, I've got a yen for breaking in new girls. You'll never remember a thing afterward. No pain, just peace."

Somewhere, the phrase "mind wipe" bobbed by like an irrelevant cartoon object in a fragmented river. But she was too enthralled by what he had said to pay attention.

No pain, just peace. What she would give for some of that....

Right now, as he stared into her, warming her like a fire in the cold, she believed he could give it.

But...Old habits...

She tightened her mind block, straining at him....

Then lost it again.

Paul Aspen, waving up and down in his own dreamboat, sighed, slid his arms under Dawn, and lifted her. The world slanted while he carried her off, through the swollen foliage to a clearing under the same stars that had been keeping her company only minutes ago.