The Path of Razors (39 page)

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Authors: Chris Marie Green

BOOK: The Path of Razors
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Jones stirred under the machete, probably because of Kalin’s ethereal voice. Dawn took a moment to scan him: shining brown hair, his nudity showcasing a long, sinewy, smoothly pale body.
“So we’ve got us a shifter,” Dawn said. “I’ve encountered a vamp before who was real good at that, and things didn’t turn out too well for him.”
Benedikte.
Dawn’s pulse began to echo in the darkness at the center of her, and adrenaline made each breath tight and laced with an excitement that had, somewhere over this past year, mutated from a healthy fright into this.
There was a kicking sound from the bathtub.
The victim. Dawn had been watching Jones, so she’d almost forgotten, but not quite.
Without being told, Jonah went to the woman, gently scooping her into his arms before rushing her out of the bathroom. Dawn wondered if he was going to soothe her, then have a Friend lull her to sleep just until a spirit could see her safely home after they took care of matters here. Maybe he’d even mind-wipe her, even though the Hollywood line of vampires only did that under dire circumstances.
But this would count, Dawn thought.
The vampire moved under her machete again.
“Not if you want your head to stay attached,” she told him, her tone sharp and icy. “We’ve got other blades ready to go, too, so don’t think you’ve got room to maneuver on us.”
Dawn could hear Kiko readjusting his grip on a saw-bow—a mix between a crossbow and cutting machine that was generally too big for him. But he’d insisted on bringing it up here from the car because it offered coverage at a distance. He had good enough aim to swipe off any vamp’s head if Dawn were to get out of the way in time, so she hadn’t argued.
As for Natalia, she’d chosen a machete just like Dawn‘s, even though the new girl had been directed to stay out of things unless the team got desperate.
“Who are you?” the creature asked from his lower position. His accent carried only the barest indication of the East in there, much, much less than Costin’s. Dawn might not have been able to pick it out if she hadn’t been so used to the hint of it.
She still hadn’t seen the vamp’s face because his brown hair was covering most of it.
“I’m afraid that you misunderstand how this all works, Jones,” she said. “You’re going to be telling
us
who you really are, and what you have to do with those schoolgirls.”
The vampire started laughing while raising his hands in a mild surrender. His shoulders shook, so Dawn pressed the machete blade harder against his neck. She wouldn’t kill him because there were too many questions that needed answering.
Well, she wouldn’t kill him
yet.
A line of blood appeared as Jones kept laughing, sawing his own flesh under the blade as if he didn’t care about wounds at all.
Masochist, Dawn thought, even though the slice was already starting to heal.
But just as she was thinking it, the vampire whipped around with such speed that she barely had the machete raised before he smacked her across the room.
No
—
She zoomed through the air, slammed against a wall, her head thunking against the tile. Her wig was only a slight cushion, sending her brain to reeling as she slid down to the floor while hearing the grinding
swick
of Kiko’s saw-bow, which he’d aimed only to disable the vampire.
She tried to get a grip on herself as the metallic blade winged across the room, moving lazily in her dizzy perception.
Costin’s soul,
she thought, and it sounded like a tape that’d been left in the sun for too long.
Helpless anger gathered, mostly at herself for being taken out so easily and so early.
She couldn’t have failed him again....
Then a flood overcame her—the blackness, filling her with strength and drive, slowly pushing her to her feet with such looming rage that all she saw was the color red bathing everything: the once-white room, the saw-bow blade as it took its time in sparking and spinning toward Jones, who was already calmly stepping out of its path.
While anger loaded itself into Dawn, as if she were a weapon herself, the saw-blade flew past the vamp and ricocheted off the wall, flailing into a corner where it bit into the floorboard.
Jones leveled a long, fiery look at Kiko, who had dropped the unloaded saw-bow and was standing in front of Natalia, guarding her, drawing a gun loaded with silver darts—the better to stun and poison the creature for questioning.
The anger was still bringing Dawn to the point where she’d be able to do some damage, clarifying her sight and thoughts. But before it all came together for her, she blinked, bringing everything into better focus while Kiko fired.
The dart
thwacked
into the vampire’s pulped neck.
Jones only flinched with the contact, then curiously plucked out the silver with two delicate fingers.
Silver ... It’d poisoned the Hollywood crowd, but it was no good on this one.
Laughing again, the vampire began talking—his voice a limb-melting lull.
“Come here, little one. Come, all of you.”
The darkness tugged Dawn toward itself—herself—but she found her body disobeying her mind, and she took a leaden step forward, just like Kiko was doing, too.
Couldn’t she fight it?
And, God ... where was Jonah? What was keeping him out of the room—a struggle with Costin for dominance?
Was Costin refusing to come out?
“You’re the attackers from Queenshill,” the vampire continued with its charm-laden tone. “I can put two and two together because there aren’t many little men interested in my kind in this area—”
As Kiko and Dawn took another step—damn it, why couldn’t she stop herself?—Natalia leaned forward into Jones’s words, too.
But then she lifted an arm, aimed her wrist, and sent a stream of holy water at the vampire from one of the team’s Spidey bracelets.
Was she ... immune?
How?
On contact, the water singed the surprised vamp, and he lost his power over Dawn as puffs of smoke curled from his bare skin. He cried out and attempted to shift into another form, his eyes slanting, his body growing dark gray hair, his teeth needling, leaving him looking only half-human now.
Holy items were obviously the ticket, so Dawn mentally pushed the darkness through her, clearing herself. Then she targeted the thing with her own bracelet, and when the bolt of water sizzled into the vampire’s flesh, she felt the resurgence of dark joy giving her power. Control.
As Jones’s yells of pain grew louder, she increased the water’s pressure, wanting the agony to go on and on....
“Stop, Dawn.”
It was a voice she’d never thought to hear again, and the sound of it jerked her out of the murky stupor.
Costin. And he’d said her name like
she
was the bad guy here.
She glanced at him, and with the way Jonah—no, Costin,
Costin—
was looking at her, Dawn knew he’d only stopped her from utterly losing control and tiptoeing into a place she shouldn’t be going.
But she also saw a personal accusation in his gaze, too, and she knew why.
The almost-bite, back in the car with Jonah.
Yet this wasn’t a therapy moment; Costin had already turned toward the creature, and Dawn realized that the boss would have dared to go closer to the vampire for only one reason.
If he had sensed a master from the other room.
But this couldn’t be a master, she thought, her core still swirling with the craving to hurt. This vampire didn’t seem even half as powerful as Benedikte had been.
The cat thing was staring at Costin, his arms shielding his face as he stayed caught in a stage somewhere between human appearance and full vampire.
“That voice,” he said.
“You recognize me, Claudius?”
Claudius. During the past year, Costin had shared the names and traits of his former blood brothers with Dawn. He’d told her that Claudius had been the brightest of them all—the planner who used his brain rather than brawn. Costin had even predicted that Claudius, whose thirst for violence was relatively lacking on the battlefield, would never have survived on his own all these centuries.
But he was a master vampire now, and the smart creature had been masquerading as Mrs. Jones.
As the master vamp shook his head—he didn’t recognize Jonah’s body—Dawn churned inside, raging to get at him, to get to the question about the dragon’s location so they could tear this thing apart and be that much closer to winning. Killing Claudius would hopefully turn his own progeny human again, his termination restoring his children’s souls, and that would disable the Underground until the team could go to it and clean it up.
But was that how a joint Underground would work, too? Costin had never told her. ...
Dawn fisted her hands, her short nails digging into her palms.
In the meantime, Claudius’s flesh was already healing from the holy burns Dawn and Natalia had inflicted.
“I only recognize that you’re the vampire who tore at the dogs and went after the girls that night at Queenshill,” he said to Costin. “You match what I saw in Della’s report. Am I supposed to recognize more about you?”
Costin smiled, almost sadly at having to take responsibility for Jonah’s bloodlust.
“Not yet, Claudius,” he said. “But you
will
recognize me.”
Dawn moved forward to help him, but he violently held up a hand to her. The ferocity of his gesture halted her more than anything.
But she couldn’t stop what had obviously repulsed him in the first place—the brutal longing inside of her.
With a swish of jasmine, Breisi arrived to stand by Dawn, as if she’d sensed her turmoil, yet it only got worse as Costin fully focused on Claudius, who seemed so quiet—too quiet—in his corner.
The enemy was about to throw all he had at them, Dawn thought. And what if Costin, who didn’t have access to his greatest powers while locked in Jonah’s body, couldn’t defend against it?
She kept her inner fires burning, allowing the ire to consume her.
She’d protect him, even if he was momentarily pissed at her.
“You’re open to holy weapons,” he said to Claudius, tilting his head, a fellow, curious vampire. “There are other masters who aren’t. Perhaps you carry some guilt about a sin or two, and memories of your upbringing—the beliefs that you once held dear—consume you?”
Claudius tightened his lips, and that’s when Dawn knew the creature wasn’t going to spill any information whatsoever.
She mentally sidled up to Costin’s consciousness, throwing caution about using their connected powers to the wind. There could be no holding back now because they were so close to getting somewhere.
At first, he barred her, but she pressed harder, and he finally allowed her in.
Yet she could tell he was guarding everything from her.
Let me make him talk,
she thought.
You can’t go out of that body to best him anymore.
I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, he answered. I need you to restrain him, Dawn, and that’s all. Do you understand?
She felt leashed, and the darkness ate at the restraints.
Trust me,
she thought.
That’s all you have to do, Costin.
But he blocked her out of his head, leaving her in a cold place.
Alone.
Yet then the darkness reared up to swallow her, letting her know that
it
wanted her.
That it would never let her down.
By the door, Kiko had abandoned his dart gun in favor of his mini flamethrower, covering Natalia, who was holding her machete like it was a crucifix.
Costin stepped closer to his old blood brother.
“Talk to me, Claudius,” he said, a deeply hypnotic sway to his tone. “Tell me everything, including where the dragon is.”
Since the persuasion was targeted at Claudius, it didn’t affect the team, and the other vampire, still in half-cat form, closed his eyes, resisting. His claws grew, his sharp, thin teeth pushing over his bottom lip.
Still not talking, Dawn thought.
Well, they’d see about that.
A black rush ripped through her, then out of her, pushing out toward Claudius. It wrapped around his neck, digging into the exposed tendons and meat with nailed force while sliding him partway up the wall.
She heard Kiko and Natalia gasp, then smelled jasmine surrounding her as Breisi whispered,
“Careful, Dawn!”
Careful of what?
Hurting a master?
Going soft on a thing that wanted to wipe out humanity and keep Costin’s soul from him?

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