A Drop of Red (11 page)

Be careful,
Della thought, trying hard to keep the others out of their link. If she had still been human, she would have been sweating, but she only felt the memory of panic all over her skin.

Careful?
Blanche asked.
Violet’s no stronger or better than you or I.

Della shot a subtle glance to her friend.
Briana thought the same before she left us last year. And so did Sharon just after she deserted us, as well.

Blanche halted.
What are you saying, Della?

But she merely traveled on, shutting her mind altogether.

Even so, the recollection of the old group members’ names surrounded Della as she caught up to the rest of the crowd. Aside from the fact that Briana had run away after the death of her guardian sister and Sharon had been taken out of school by her parents, no one knew what had become of either girl. Sharon had promised to e-mail from her new school in the north of Scotland where she had found another vampire group who had taken her in, but the communication had recently dwindled to nothing. And Briana? She had turned her back on them altogether.

Losing them had pained Della, but that wasn’t the only reason their absences disturbed her.

It was only that, every time their names surfaced, Violet would get that little feline smile on her face, as if she knew the reason Sharon had stopped writing and Briana had truly run away from school. However, she had locked the answers away in her own mind, out of the reach of the others.

As the group passed an open door marked, “Housematron,” they called out to the woman who sat at her desk, her dull hair latched into a bun at her nape, her skin sallow, her body frail.

“Hello, Mrs. Jones.”

“Feeling chipper today, Mrs. Jones?”

“We do hope you improve, Mrs. Jones.”

“You do seem better, Mrs. Jones.”

The housematron shuffled her paperwork but didn’t glance up as she spoke in a voice that seemed husky with a constant cold. “Off to concentrate on your prep time? There’ll be no tutors today since most students are going home this weekend.”

Blanche had joined them by now. “Certainly, Mrs. Jones. We have our A-levels to contend with, after all.”

Shortly after the mention of the advanced-level exams, they separated, stopping in their single rooms only long enough to fetch their books and materials. Then they strolled to the common room, which truly was empty for the weekend.

They seemed to be the only ones who hadn’t been called home by their distant parents, who traveled for business or took holidays overseas or went about their everyday human lives while never knowing what their daughters had become.

They completed their studies, returning to their rooms only after they had finished. Terribly hungry by now, they left notes on their doors for Mrs. Jones’s sake in particular: “Taking a snack in town.”

Then, on alert for anyone who might catch them, they dashed outside, skimming the grass, combing over a green hill, down its slope. Farther, into the darkening woods, where under a cushion of crimson and gold leaves, they stopped at a chained door.

Once they lifted the bindings off, they entered the hole, secured the hatch behind them, then zipped through the tunnel until they arrived at a fall of red and orange beads marking the entrance to their very own underground common room.

Parting the barrier, they headed for their own plush fur divans, then plopped to the cushions in this hidden place where Thomas Gatenby, the school’s long-dead benefactor, had kept his . . .

Well, Della supposed they might have been called “household staff,” but the leftover iron chains and shackles on the walls hinted at something more.

The beads parted again, and the girls watched quietly as a thin gray cat slunk inside, then crept to a corner. There, it curled itself over a nest of blankets near a lava lamp that Polly had nicked from her aunt’s house.

When the cat closed its eyes, the girls relaxed. Violet even rubbed her face against the zebra-striped pillows positioned beneath a framed poster of Orlando Bloom. He, and other heartthrobs, decorated the rock walls, which were connected by strings of fairy lights that beckoned like far-off stars.

“Where shall we hunt tonight?” Violet asked.

Next to her, Polly reclined on the divan’s cushions while leaning against Violet. “I don’t want to go anywhere in St. Albans, even if it is the closest. It’s such a tired spot. I prefer the thick of London, where the runaways are easy to find.”

“I prefer it, as well,” Violet said, “and it was time for a change anyway. The same routine was stultifying.”

Noreen was in front of a mirror, arranging her red hair into a Nicole Kidman-type style, even though she had more of a Sarah Ferguson face and figure. However, whenever she danced, she did it like Ann-Margret, as she had proven the other night while Della had watched and wondered if she should join.

“We could try that new club in Soho,” Noreen said, turning this way and that to take in her reflection. Hardly pleased, she allowed her layered hair to whisk back down to her neck.

From Blanche’s spot in the corner, where she was reclining on a netted hammock, she said, “No ideas of your own, Vi? I was quite looking forward to being ordered about some more.”

Nothing in the room moved.

Not unless one counted the shooting daggers from Violet’s gaze.

She’d been waiting, Della knew. Measuring out the moments until she could get revenge on Blanche for poaching that young man, Harry, the other night. No one took the first sip after Wolfie but Violet; the rest of them always waited to feed on what was left. It’d been their unspoken rule ever since being turned just over a year ago: the most dominant went first, the weakest went last.

It was a wonder Della survived on leftovers, just like the head and arm she’d been given with Kate after they’d lured her to Wolfie’s flat. Unbeknownst to the others, she’d packed away the head in the tote she’d been carrying, thinking to save her spoils for later. She’d been working up the bravery to defy them for the last couple of months, but that night, she’d lost her courage and disposed of the head at the dumping ground instead. There, she’d made certain no one else saw that she hadn’t picked it clean, fearing what might happen if she were to be caught squirreling away food.

She glanced at the cat, seeing that it was sleeping deeply, and Noreen broke the tension by adopting a chuffed tone.

“I don’t much mind where we dine tonight. I’m famished.”

“We’re always famished by this point,” Polly said. “I’m completely knackered from daylight.”

Violet stroked Polly’s neck. “We’re fortunate to walk in the light.”

“No complaints.” Polly sighed and closed her eyes, anticipating what was bound to come next with Violet.

Della couldn’t stop watching. She was only happy she wasn’t Vi’s favorite.

As Noreen crawled onto the divan next to Della, she said, “No complaints here, either.” She put on a smile, knowing her every word and movement was being monitored. “I certainly don’t mind our routine, even if it destroys the weekends because we have to rest.”

Among their talents was the ability to play hard, then binge rest on the weekends plus the few hours they had before class began and after they had got in from their nightcrawls. Della enjoyed rest—it allowed her not to think.

A pleasured-pained sigh came from the other side of the room as Violet bit into Polly’s neck.

It was just an appetizer since Polly had taken most of that girl’s blood the other night, sharing Kate with Violet only after Wolfie had finished dining.

“Let’s leave for some fun now,” Blanche said, standing, the hammock swinging behind her. She gave a pointed glance toward the feeding Violet, then headed for the bead-covered tunnel.

Creak
,
creak
went the hammock’s boltings in the walls as no one moved to follow her.

Polly moaned as Violet continued sucking.

Blanche blew out a breath, then changed direction, walking over to the stereo system, where she plucked out a CD from the wall holder and stared at the song list.

In the meantime, Violet fed, her fingers slipping to Polly’s breast.

As Violet caressed it, the other girl shifted her hips, biting her lip until a squiggle of blood trailed down her chin.

Della’s belly went tight at the scent of the blood.

Hungry, so hungry. But she never went first. Always last.

Always.

At another of Polly’s moans, Blanche put the CD into the player, cranking the volume. A thundering techno beat covered the feeding noises.

Unable to resist a good rhythm, Noreen stood and immediately swayed into a dance.

In its corner, the cat blinked awake, then hefted out a sigh and put its head back down.

Della came to focus on the ceiling, the fairy lights sharpening to white points in her gaze. But the whiteness pained her, so she looked away to see Blanche joining Noreen.

They danced away as Violet raised her blood-soaked mouth from Polly’s neck, her fangs shaded red.

“Mind the volume,” Violet said, her command vibrating over the music.

Mocking the beat, Blanche shook her head.

In a brutal flash, Violet sprang out of her seat, flying across the room, crashing into Blanche with enough force to smash the black-haired girl against the rock wall.

In response, Blanche’s fangs shot from her gums while Violet hissed in her face.

Noreen dashed over to turn the stereo off, glancing toward the cat, her fingers fidgeting into a tangle. Then she looked at Della.

What should we do?
she asked.

Violet’s voice shivered the fairy lights. “Why can’t you obey?”

Shadows jittered over the walls.

Blanche’s eyes slanted, then went an electric blue, her hair receding back into her head, making her bare and ugly. Yet even as her face changed into something feral and catlike, her ears extended to points, like a wolf’s.

Not to be outdone, Violet altered into the same full vampire form, as well. Then, opening her mouth all the way and brandishing her long fangs, she swiped at Blanche’s face with fingers that had extended into claws, leaving deep, bloody gouges in the other girl’s cheek.

Della’s stomach tumbled.
Hungry.

The black-haired girl fought back, raising her foot to lever against Violet’s stomach. The force lifted the brunette off her feet, and she landed on her bum with a grunt, then bounced right back up, her spine arched, claws outstretched as her hiss lowered to a screeching growl.

The blood, the frenzy . . . Della couldn’t take any more.

“Don’t!” she yelled.

As the two fighting creatures whipped their gazes over to her, she pressed her lips together.

She should’ve stayed quiet. Why hadn’t she?

When a louder, angrier hiss filled the room, they all froze.

For against the rock wall behind Blanche and Violet, a shadow was growing, expanding, finally settling into the form of a humanlike being.

Della felt as if needles were being shoved under her skin, and she cowered.

“You fight even as our carelessness causes trouble aboveground?” the shadow’s owner said from its former sleeping spot behind Della. Its voice sounded like steam rising through the cracks of hell. “I was waiting to see if you appreciated the reprieve I was extending.”

Violet and Blanche both cringed, their fangs receding and their eyes going dull as they lowered their gazes. They should have known punishment was coming. They had all known.

On the wall, Della could see the shadow crooking a finger at the two girls.

Summoning them for an even worse scolding.

SEVEN

AT
sunrise, Dawn had met Costin in their bedroom.

She was already in her nightgown—he liked the elegance of them, he’d always said—when he entered and shut the door behind him. The curtains were closed, and a sanguine light suffused the room from a lampshade decorated with red velvet swirls, just like blood curling in water.

“You showed,” she said, getting under the sheets and quilt. “I almost thought you might stay locked up tight from now on.”

Costin stood by the walk-in closet, shedding his roomy white shirt. Dawn couldn’t help lingering over the streamlined beauty of muscles under pale skin.

Then she remembered that this was really Jonah’s form, not Costin’s. That she would never get to touch her lover’s original body. Ever.

He left his torso bare, coming to stand at the side of the bed in his loose black trousers. She could see his topaz eyes shining through the sheer draping.

“You are concerned that I will be distancing myself?” he asked, his voice like a scratching caress over her skin.

Her belly heated. “It did cross my mind.”

He leaned down, hands on the mattress. “It is nice to see that you care.”

The last word rattled her. She’d never allowed herself to care about anyone, and when she’d let down her guard enough to try, she’d been burned. By “Matt.” Even by Costin.

She didn’t like where this conversation was headed, so she diverted it. “If you think I’m not going to grill you about what you’ve been doing for the last several hours since the team returned, you’re wrong. Coming over here with your shirt off will do no good.”

A low laugh acknowledged her directness.

And her emotional dodging.

“Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, plus our databases,” he said, obliging her, “I have been able to construct a list of every missing ‘Kate’ or ‘Katherine’ or other variations in the area. It is not a long roll call since crime over here is nothing compared to what we are used to in America. Plus, we know Kate was a British local, so that has narrowed down our names, as well.”