Broken (31 page)

With the hand that wasn’t holding the bag, she gripped the first stair, using it to bolster her.

Stacy asked, “Where are you going?”

“Where is there to go?”

Noreen said, “Anywhere. We can still go anywhere.”

But it didn’t seem as if Noreen believed this. She sounded just as stranded as Della.
None
of them knew how to be anything but a soldier vampire.

One of the recruits spoke. “I miss Wolfie.”

The three Queenshill girls rounded on her.

“Don’t ever say that name,” Stacy whispered. “Never again.”

Yet it was too late—Della was already thinking of how he had abandoned them even before he had been put down by the hunters. She thought of how her parents had left her, long before her master had done so, and how the days that stretched ahead of her would contain so many more desertions.

She couldn’t imagine enduring any more of them.

Turning away from the carnage, she wandered away from the station, into the lamp-lit streets that seemed to coat the buildings and pavements with an ill hue. Cut off from her higher sense of smell and hearing, she felt so very removed.

There were footsteps behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the others following, directionless.

But where
was
she off to? Home to her parents?

They wouldn’t want her.

Queenshill?

A misty dream of snuggling into her house bed then rising in time for classes smoothed over Della. But then she remembered how she had fed on Melinda, the classmate she’d always admired, and the blood seemed to run down into a pool that festered in the center of her.

There was no going back to anyone.

Della meandered up a hill, through an alley, which was darker, with its enclosed brick that scratched her as she brushed against it with her bare arm.

Nowhere to go . . .

She and the others walked out of the city, toward a stand of trees. Just beyond, train tracks slashed through grass while the sky slouched further to daylight. Belatedly, it occurred to Della that they hadn’t cleaned up their feeding scene.

Careless. But it didn’t seem to matter now.

When she came to the train tracks, she stopped, the cold air picking into her skin. She wasn’t used to being chilled, and she shivered, belly deep. Then she bent so she might rest her free hand on the tracks. She waited there until she felt the quiver of an approaching train. Glancing into the distance, she identified the shape of it coming, but it was only a blur.

Moving away from the tracks, she walked, then halted just before the trees, where she found Stacy inspecting her own aged skin as if seeing it for the first time, now that the light was coming.

This
is where we’re going,
Della thought at the tragedy of Stacy’s failing body. They would become old, but before that, they’d be actual women, with all the qualities Wolfie had rejected from everyone but Mrs. Jones.

She opened her fist, where she’d been carrying the bag of pills. As the recruits sat in the grass, pulling it out by the roots and madly trying to scrub their bloodied skin clean with it, Della opened the bag.

Nowhere to go but here.

She enjoyed the first lift of hope she’d felt in a while, then took one pill. Two. More.

As she lay back on the grass, the blades pricked at her skin, her fingers, and she looked at a sky that was warming with color.

She smiled, already drowsy. But perhaps that was because of everything but the pills. She was so very ready to sleep.

Noreen said, “Wolfie never cared what became of us, did he? If he were still here now, he would only replace us with others. More Queenshill classes, more recruits to take up our spots.”

Stacy had been watching Della with the pills, a sense of longing in her old, faded blue eyes. Della offered the bag to her, and she accepted it, taking her fill, too.

The train approached, and the recruits blankly watched as it streamed by. Stacy handed the bag to Noreen, who consumed the rest of the pills. Then she joined Della on the ground, linking hands with her and Stacy, friends until the end. This time, they wouldn’t lose each other to Mrs. Jones.

Sunrise burgeoned, even as the sky grew fuzzier in Della’s gaze. It reminded her of a pastel bunch of yarn unwinding from a spindle as she fell deeper and deeper into sleep. She thought she heard the recruits whining as they stood over Della and her friends, the three of them still holding hands.

Then the girls left Della, Stacy, and Noreen alone, running off, crying.

The final thing she remembered was the sensation of flying like a raven into the wide open sky, free and disembodied, before being swallowed by a black stain that hugged her in a floating, liquid peace that finally welcomed Della to the home she’d always tried so hard to find.

ADDLED
by discomfort, Dawn cradled her sling-bound, cast-covered broken arm while wandering down a hall in the old headquarters, passing the paintings that had been refilled by the Friends hours ago. The spirits rested peacefully in sleep mode, the portraits reflecting beautiful women from various locations, from a fifties-inspired diner to a log cabin in the woods to a tepee.

It’d only been about fifteen minutes since Dawn had gotten back, having taken a cab from the hospital emergency department, where she’d told the docs and nurses that she’d been a victim of a hit and run on a deserted lane—hence the broken arm, the gouge in her thigh, and the various cuts all over her. No one from her hunting team had been there to see the med professionals be all “hmmm” about the gouge in Dawn’s leg in particular; Dawn had insisted that Natalia and Kiko take Jonah straight to headquarters after they’d stopped chasing the humanized vamp girls and picked her and Jonah up in one of their modified Sedonas.

Of course, Dawn’s ER car-accident lie hadn’t explained the mass of red markings on her face, either. She hadn’t been able to wipe off the splashes of dragon’s blood that seethed from the side of her face opposite the beauty spots, but she’d told the staff it was only a birthmark.

Yet Dawn knew it had to be worse. Much worse. She just wasn’t sure why right now.

After passing Mary-Margaret’s Savannah sunset portrait, Dawn entered her dad’s room, finding it empty. She didn’t know why she’d even come here, because Eva had left a landline message telling the team that Frank was still resting from his sickness in the temporary headquarters. Based on Breisi’s empty portrait, Dawn expected the Friend to be with him, especially since he’d probably needed comfort after being turned human again and getting the soul stain. She only hoped that Breisi had found a little time to recharge in her picture before she’d gone to Frank.

Dawn came to stand in front of Breisi’s picture, which featured the lab in L.A. where she’d been so at home. What would her Friend think about the splashes of dragon blood on Dawn?

It charred below her skin, not so much on it. In fact, the blood seemed to be inching farther
into
Dawn, encroaching like a mini army.

But that had to be in her mind, which she was definitely losing now that Costin wasn’t here.

She leaned against the wall, against her good arm. She’d taken some Tylenol, but the injury that had needed the most medicating had been Costin’s disappearance, because he’d been gone so suddenly; she’d always thought that, when his mission was done, she’d have time to say whatever it was she’d never been able to say to him, before he got yanked off the earth and put into that “better place” he’d earned.

Even though she’d been trying to fend off the panic of not knowing where he was or how he was doing, Dawn found it hard to concentrate now. And she kept looking at Breisi’s empty lab portrait, wishing for a sympathetic ear for probably the first time in her life.

When she heard someone come into the room, she perked up, hoping Breisi was back. But she turned to find Jonah, bandages marring the skin that had once been so smooth and vampire perfect after Jonah had become a vamp and his body had healed from the self-inflicted facial scars he used to have as a human the first time around.

Now, he had a slightly rosier human color back in his face, and he moved without the ease of a preternatural. He wasn’t even dressed in the “I must look like a cool vampire” way he’d adapted, instead wearing a pair of faded jeans and a long-sleeved blue top under a cable-knit sweater. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his dark hair hiding his brow.

He was . . . just a guy.

“I could’ve picked you up at the hospital if you’d called,” he said.

She couldn’t get over the lack of ethereal glow about him. Relating to his normalness was . . . awkward.

“I used a cab.” She hadn’t wanted him to go far from Kiko, so she’d taken care of herself. She’d asked the psychic to watch over Jonah, based on his returned, tainted soul.

“I’m surprised you haven’t launched a full- out search for Costin in every nook and cranny of London,” Jonah said.

If she thought Costin might still be in the city, and not someplace far out of it, she might’ve been out there, injuries and all. The Friends were already doing their best to try, anyway, as they combed London for any clue of him.

“Where would I look for a Soul Traveler?” She wasn’t sure if she meant to lighten the mood or really ask him, in case he had any ideas.

“I wish I knew.” He paused, then said, “Kiko took Costin’s old field of fire portrait out of storage and put it in your bedroom. He was hoping that Costin might’ve landed there, just like he used to when he would take rests from our body before we were a vampire.”

The painting had been a way station for him during the agreed upon free time he used to give Jonah, back when Costin could move in and out of the body for short durations. But he had needed to root to humanity, so he couldn’t stay away from Jonah for long.

“Maybe he’ll find the portrait,” Dawn said, but she was lying to herself. Costin was more than a Friend. He’d always been more, and he’d made a deal with The Whisper to be rewarded accordingly. A fire-filled painting wouldn’t be his ultimate prize.

Jonah took his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms in front of his chest, where she guessed he felt the heaviness of a soul stain. It was telling that the former vamps who managed not to go nuts or commit suicide right away were the ones who seemed to have more to come back to, like Dawn with her need to make up for what she’d done to Costin, Eva with her longing for a second chance with Frank, and now Jonah with what Dawn suspected was the yearning to find Costin again. She’d bet that Frank’s true love for Breisi was keeping him sustained, too.

They had each other. They had purpose. And she’d never known how important that was until now.

“Who wants to go outside, anyway?” Jonah asked, reverting back to the earlier topic as he stood there, looking awkward, too. “Did you hear any newscasts on the way back in the cab? Things are dicey out there.”

“No, I didn’t.” She went to Frank’s bed to sit on it, too tired to stand anymore.

“There’re extra cops on the streets because of ‘terrorist rumors.’ ”

“Rumors that could’ve stemmed from those reports about the charmed humans the girl vamps used the other night?”

“That’s probably a part of it. But Natalia also heard some chatter on a police scanner. There’re girls in custody, and they’re wearing torn, bloody clothes and babbling to the cops about fire and hunters.”

Sounded like the Underground girls hadn’t all disappeared into obscurity like Dawn had hoped. “Any talk of vampires from them?”

“Not yet. I wonder if they were trained to keep quiet about their own roles, and even in their craziness they’re obeying.”

“It’d be great if they
kept
quiet.” Still, the team needed to think about getting the hell out of London before heat came from any authorities who might connect them to “terrorism.” Detective Inspector Norton would probably do his part to shield them—Costin had trusted their ally to that extent—but who knew what might happen with other cops?

Yet she didn’t want to go anywhere. What if Costin did return and he couldn’t find them . . . ?

“Also,” Jonah added, “there was the explosion near Highgate last night.” He cleared his throat, an acknowledgment of the Underground victory. “It scared the people around the area, but the authorities haven’t found a cause for it yet.”

“Hopefully they won’t because the Underground’s gone.”

As Dawn’s dragon’s blood marks seemed to flare even lower into her, she thought that, wiped out or not, nothing could erase the image of the dragon’s final smile.

But she
made
herself forget. At least for as long as she could.

“The other big story of the day,” Jonah said, “is a trio of suicides, plus some murders up in St. Albans.”

“Girl vamps?” Dawn said.

“Yeah.” He stared at the carpet. “A group of Friends reported that the vamps we met on the Queenshill campus, Della and Noreen, were two of them. Not sure who the third was, but they were laid out in the grass near some train tracks, just like they’d fallen asleep with these sweet smiles on their faces. Friends think it was due to overdoses.”

Oh, God.

It was one thing to kill vampires, but another to hear about the suicides of humanized vamps. And young girls besides.

Dawn rubbed at her face. Della and Noreen. Especially Della. Even though Dawn didn’t know how old the girl had really been, she had the feeling Della was really just a kid inside. Someone innocent who’d gotten caught up with these damned dragon vampires.

Had the girls taken their lives because they thought no one would care enough to stop them? Dawn remembered being a teenager, too, and a lot of times, she hadn’t even needed a soul stain to hate the world around her. But with these girls, had it been impossible for them to live with all the bad things they’d done as vamps? Had the stains taken every last bit of hope and persuaded those kids that there hadn’t been any way to face life with such darkness in them?