A Drop of Red (25 page)

Kiko looked at Natalia, who shook her head and indicated she wasn’t getting anything clear. Then he leaned over her to speak to Dawn.

“Know what we could use? A Ouija board.”

At the statement, Mrs. O’Connell’s eyes widened, her gaze drifting to Dawn’s crucifix necklace. She’d seen it earlier but hadn’t exhibited any major reaction until now.

Time to fib a little more. “We’ve used the Ouija before to get ahold of Sara, but she isn’t always available for whatever cosmic reason. Would you mind if we improvised and tried with Briana, if she’s around?”

Thing was, it was daylight, not nighttime, when Mrs. O’Connell usually heard her young cousin.

Or was the older woman only open to Briana at night, when a person was at their most vulnerable?

“My, oh, my,” the elderly woman said, still considering the Ouija option.

“If you want,” Kiko said, “we could attempt contact on our own and you wouldn’t have to take part in it. We could record the session for you to listen to later.”

“A Ouija board,” Mrs. O’Connell said, looking at them as if she was just starting to realize there was more to her guests than she’d first thought. But she did seem very interested. “Would we be inviting trouble?”

Dawn’s heartbeat was almost deafening. “If you want, we could get a professional to come in here afterward and cleanse the house.”

Since this wasn’t Kiko’s nor Natalia’s area of expertise, Costin would know the right place to contact—someone separate from Limpet and Associates altogether.

Kiko was already around the table and at Mrs. O’Connell’s side, holding the arm of her chair. This was a trick of his—seeming all innocent and boyish so he could persuade anyone who had a weakness for kids.

Just another role.

“Please?” he asked. “It’s just that Sara . . .”

He let their fake friend’s name linger, and Dawn saw Mrs. O’Connell’s soft heart beginning to tear away from her doubts.

“I am curious,” she said. “When Briana speaks to me, she makes no sense whatsoever. I thought perhaps it was only my mind playing tricks. . . .”

“You’ll know for sure now,” Kiko added.

Mrs. O’Connell pursed her lips, then nodded.

After that, everything seemed to speed up: Kiko asked their hostess for something like a small, clear dish that they could use for a planchette, then a piece of cardboard or large, stiff paper for the board itself.

Then, as Mrs. O’Connell collected the items, Kiko motioned Natalia and Dawn into a huddle while he held up a cross, just in case it would ward off . . . well, anything. Since they wouldn’t attract any suspicious stares here in private, Dawn and Natalia followed suit.

“Whatever Natalia’s been hearing in this room, we need to grill it,” he whispered. “Even if it’s not Briana. But no matter what happens, we’ve got to keep being these amateur Sara hunters and nothing more. Don’t let down your acts.”

Natalia lowered her voice, too. “
Would
we be able to contact a vampire through a board? If Briana is undead, what is the state of her soul?”

Dawn already had an answer. “If this is just about Briana standing outside at night and using her mind to communicate with Mrs. O’Connell, then my guess is that we won’t get the girl through the board.”

One of Benedikte’s memories, which he’d given Dawn when she’d exchanged with him, slid to the forefront of her mind, just as if she’d been the one to experience it.

It was that natural. And disturbing.

“What?” Kiko asked, seeing her expression.

Dawn erased it. “When the Master in Hollywood turned someone, he’d take their souls and store them in vials and imbibe them whenever he needed a picker-upper. That means a vampire’s soul actually
does
get surrendered when it separates from the body during the exchange. From Costin’s notes, we know that this has been at least one constant in every Underground—the forfeiting of a soul in trade for all the glories of vampirism.”

Kiko added, “And if
this
Underground doesn’t have a master who likes to keep the souls for himself, maybe Briana’s soul is wandering free out there.”

Natalia didn’t look happy. “And Briana’s soul is what might be contacting Mrs. O’Connell.”

“Unless,” Kiko said, “Briana isn’t a part of an Underground and we’re dealing with a different set of vampires altogether. Anything goes with this stuff.”

Dawn groaned.

But Natalia was acting like a downer for a different reason.

“Might Briana’s soul be in a sort of limbo?” the new girl asked. “Or, if vampires are indeed damned, would we be contacting her someplace else?”

You could’ve heard a fang drop.

They were talking about Hell, here. Talking about contacting an entity from the charred beyond.

But she’d told herself she’d do anything for Costin.

“Sounds like a part of the job description, all right,” she said.

Kiko had come to grips, too. He’d seen too much already in his short life to be afraid. “I’m ready.”

Yet Natalia didn’t commit, even when Mrs. O’Connell returned with the glass dish and a piece of cardboard that could’ve been used as a backing for printed artwork.

Thanking her, Dawn took a marker and created an on-the-fly Ouija board by writing “Yes” and “No” in opposite upper corners. Then she positioned a curved line of the letters
A
through
M
, and
N
through
Z
below that. Then came the numbers one through nine, plus a zero at the end of the straight line, and finally the word “Farewell” on the very bottom.

Mrs. O’Connell pulled all but one curtain closed, leaving a lighted crack overlooking her garden, as if that one spot of beauty would be their reminder of brightness.

Then she turned on a stained-glass-shaded lamp that cast muddled colors over the walls.

Kiko took the clear dish and placed the makeshift planchette on the board.

But when Natalia breezed right by him and took a seat at the table in front of the Ouija, Dawn gaped.

Boy, when Costin had said that the new girl was totally disturbed by all those voices, he wasn’t kidding. She was their champion, for sure.

“Hey,” Kiko said.

“You know I’m the best source for channeling what I’ve already detected in here,” Natalia said, pushing up the sleeves of her wool suit.

Kiko got ready to deny that, but Dawn guided him to his spot on the love seat, bending down to whisper in his ear.

“She’s been hearing that murmur all this time. If her channeling doesn’t work, then it’ll be your turn.”

He gave her a defensive look as she went to Natalia’s other side and sat.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Dawn asked.

Blowing out a breath, Natalia placed her fingers on the board, as if to greet it. “I believe with all my heart that we’re doing this for rightful reasons. It will work.”

She didn’t say she was doing this for Kate, but Dawn knew it all the same.

“Does it begin now?” Mrs. O’Connell asked. Her cheeks were flushed even beyond the regular pink she’d sported before.

Dawn gave their hostess a thumbs-up as Natalia moved her fingertips to the glass planchette, which rested between “Yes” and “No.”

Then the group slipped into a silence that was diluted only by the humming air and the protesting creaks from an old house.

Briana,
Dawn thought,
come out, come out, wherever you are.

“Briana,” Natalia said, echoing Dawn. But her voice was soothing instead of challenging. “We would like to talk with you, if you please.”

They waited, and nothing happened except for the creaks, the wood-beam groans, the taut anticipation of stepping into a dark place.

At the lack of response, Kiko sighed, and Dawn resisted the urge to reach over and twist his ear.

Then Mrs. O’Connell spoke.

“Briana?”

The planchette jerked under Natalia’s fingertips, then began to circle the board with such violence that one of the new girl’s hands fell from the glass. She caught up with it.

“Is this Briana?” Natalia asked, her accent thicker than usual, maybe because of barely contained fear.

The planchette zigged to the upper left of the board.

YES.

Then it began circling again.

“Welcome, Briana,” Natalia said, clearly making an attempt to level out her emotions. “Thank you for joining us.”

Mrs. O’Connell was scanning the room, as if expecting to see her younger cousin. Her stiff posture belied the fact that she’d been hoping Briana would stay away.

The planchette was going nuts—it landed on the letter
T
, then
W
.

“What is she telling us?” Mrs. O’Connell asked, her lilt ragged.

The planchette continued its course, stopping on
A
.

Then
T
.

The elderly woman pressed a hand to her opened mouth, then stood. “Perhaps I’ll wait in the yard.”

Dawn got up, just to lend an arm, but Mrs. O’Connell waved her off as they walked toward the entryway.

“Sometimes,” Dawn said, “they get dirty mouths. If it’s Briana, she might be trying to scare us, just like she probably tries to scare
you
at night, knowing you’re alone in the dark.”

“I’m hardly surprised at such language. Young people use that word quite frequently. And I believe Briana might be the type to employ it, especially if she believes I could have done more to prevent her death.”

If
the girl was dead, Dawn thought. “Is there anything you want us to ask her or tell her?”

“Yes, dear.” Their hostess reached out to take Dawn’s hand in hers. “If you would, please tell her to leave an old woman in peace.”

And, with that, she patted Dawn’s hand and wandered toward the rear of the house.

After watching the lady leave, Dawn headed back to the proceedings. Somewhere, she heard a door close and, minutes later, she could see through the crack in the curtain that Mrs. O’Connell had entered her happy garden.

Even though the flower petals around her stayed still, her cottoned hair fluttered, so Dawn knew that the Friends were surrounding Mrs. O’Connell and offering invisible, jasmine-scented solace.

As she went back to her seat, she wondered if the spirits knew just how bad Briana might be, and that’s why they were leaving the girl to the team. Once, before becoming a Friend herself, Breisi had told Dawn how spirits tended to “travel in their own realms,” so maybe they knew Briana was here, but they weren’t able to do much more than the team itself could do.

Or maybe the team could even command Briana to talk whereas the Friends couldn’t. Heck, the Friends, themselves, could be ordered around by the team.

Dawn sat down to the tune of the dish scraping circles over the cardboard. “What happened while I was gone?”

“More cussing,” Kiko said. “Briana’s got a bunch of smut synonyms.”

Well then, maybe they could do some communicating.

Dawn focused on the board. “Briana, are you, at this time, a soul that was cast out during a vampire birth exchange?”

The planchette picked up speed, then flew over the letters.

 

“Good,” Natalia said, “but you didn’t quite answer.”

You go, Nat,
Dawn thought.

Then Briana lashed back.

 

Dawn’s sight went black for a shocked moment—a moment of truth?

She sucked in a breath. And when her vision came back, it seemed to be tinted by red rage.

“She’s screwing around,” she said between her teeth.

“
Briana’s
screwing around?” Kiko asked, out of patience.

He got up, then returned with his scarf that Mrs. O’Connell had hung with their coats on the entry rack.

And when he wrapped it around Natalia’s head, covering her eyes, the plachette spiraled out from under Natalia’s fingertips as she reared back to pull the scarf off.

“What’re you doing?” Dawn asked.

“Briana hasn’t told us anything
Natalia
couldn’t say herself.”

He came back around the couch, obviously intending to take over the board.

“Kiko—” Dawn said.

But Natalia interrupted. “It’s no matter.”

As she calmly straightened her new blindfold, Dawn asked, “What’re you talking about?”

“I’m not manipulating the planchette,” she said. “And Briana is eager to start again. I hear her murmurs, and they’re louder. She very much wishes to talk.”

When Natalia felt around the board, determined to locate that planchette again, Dawn refrained from helping her. Kiko had called her out, and she was proving that she wasn’t any gypsy con artist.

Natalia found the planchette and took up position again, but what she didn’t know was that Kiko had very, very quietly turned the board upside down.

As he sat, resting his chin in a palm and clearly expecting to expose her, the planchette started to swirl again.

“Briana?” Natalia asked.

The dish swerved down to the “Yes” in its new location at the right-hand bottom of the board.

Dawn did a mental “Yessssss.” Unless Natalia had somehow known that Kiko had turned the board, this was for real.

Kiko even shrugged. For now.

“Briana,” Natalia continued, “answer truthfully. Are you, or have you ever been, a vampire?”

The lamp in the corner of the room flickered, and the planchette took up even more speed as it spelled out two words.

 

Natalia could hardly keep up, her body jerking with the ferocity of the planchette.

The light in the corner sizzled, then began to strobe—on, off, on, off.