Break of Dawn (16 page)

Anger surged, and Dawn blasted with her mind. Rea tumbled backward, feet over head, smacking against the dais steps.

Everything went silent. But after a splintered pause, the Elites began applauding.

When Dawn glanced up at them, she saw more than a pleased audience shouting, “Bravo! Encore!” She saw confusion and even a healthy respect because they weren’t sure what else she could do, if maybe she was even strong enough to take
them
on.

Dawn would just make sure they kept wondering.

Blood pounded through her and, out of a dumb, instinctive need to see what her mother thought, Dawn turned to Eva. But the vampire was speed walking out of the emporium.

As Dawn went to catch her, the Elites yelled for her to come back. She just sent them a shrug, then took off.

“What?” she asked, reaching Eva in the hallway.

Her mother kept moving at a rapid clip. “That was classy.”

“Hey, you wanted me to be a part of the Underground. Keeping someone from dominating me right away is a start, don’t you think? If she’s going to try to mark me with her piss, I’m going to deflect it right back at her.”

Eva kept zipping along.

“Wait!” When Dawn gripped her mother’s arm, swinging the vamp around to face her, she grunted a little, her neck and back reminding her that they were sore. She’d been too hyped up in the emporium to remember that.

Dawn was taken aback by the intensity in Eva’s gaze. Was it shame? No, not altogether. Was it . . . envy?

Wow. For once, Dawn had stepped out of Eva’s shadow. She’d been her own woman in the emporium, and maybe her mother couldn’t stand that.

“It was out of line,” Eva said. “Your lack of maturity is astounding sometimes.”

“Oh, lovely.
Who’s
talking about growing up?”

“No, you’re not getting it.” Her mother clasped her hands, put them, prayerlike, to her forehead, then calmed down. Music filled the hallway from about twenty feet down, coming from an ajar door that leaked stuttering blue light.

“Dawn, when I was your age, I had already been married with a child. I was
responsible
. I don’t know—maybe it’s because a lot of other people in our generations take their time growing up, but you’ve got to think things through around these older vampires. They’ll take your inexperience, chew it up, and spit out bone chips.”

Crazily enough, Dawn listened to what her mother was saying. Eva was right. At twenty-four, Dawn couldn’t even conceive of having a kid and settling down. She really wasn’t an adult in emotion.

“Okay,” she said, humbled. “Sounds like it’s time for me to go back to Matt’s.”

“No. What I mean is . . . you’re welcome here. Obviously.”

Sure, obviously.

“You know,” Eva continued, “deciding to bring you to the Underground reminded me of those days when I wondered if L.A. was a good place to raise you. So much temptation, so many things to teach you the rights and wrongs of.”

“I handled the city just fine.” There was a note of unmistakable pride in there.

“Yes,” her mother said. “You sure did.”

They stood, facing each other, but not meeting gazes. Finally, Eva began strolling toward the music, toward the slit-open door, and Dawn went, too.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Her mother made as if to walk on by. “A screening room. The Master loves to stage retrospectives of all our movies. Let’s keep on going.”

An extradeep flush had washed over Eva, and Dawn thought she knew why. She recognized the music from one of her mother’s films, a weepie in which she’d had a substantial role as the girlfriend of a small-town football player. Eva’s character had been the light of his life, his symbolic reason for staying faithful to the purity of the game.

Without a word, Dawn opened the door, then entered, knowing Eva would probably give in and follow.

It was a room of gigantic proportions, a yawn of a cave with a film screen and half-filled, plush seats. Asian trimmings flecked the outside of the screen, adding luster.

As Dawn slumped in the back row, Eva sat upright beside her. They’d walked in on the scene where the hero spots his girlfriend dancing on a bridge that leads out of town, right before one of those hayseed dances you could only find in Americana movies. He was about to leave for the big time, deserting all that was good in his life. But the sight of his girlfriend, so natural, so pure in the twilight, gave him pause.

Watching her mother on-screen, Dawn got lost in Eva’s way of moving: effortlessly, achingly unaware of being devoured by an audience. She was so young—younger than Dawn was now—but she had an eternal maturity that came with the mantle of a star.

Unable to help it, Dawn slid a glance to Eva. The expression on the vamp’s surgically altered, yet strangely similar, face almost killed her. Her mother had the look of a woman who’d lost a part of herself—more than a child or a husband, but something that had been robbed from the vault of her very being.

At that moment, Dawn realized just how much it meant to her mother to stay young, to always be Eva Claremont.

Instead of being angered by that, Dawn felt a tragic empathy that she couldn’t quell.

All of us want to be special,
she thought,
don’t we? Nobody wants to be set aside and forgotten.

Biting the inside of her bottom lip, Dawn tried not to lose it. But when she felt Eva’s hand resting over the top of her own on the shared arm of the chair, her eyes got wet anyway.

Yet she stared straight ahead until they went dry.

SEVENTEEN

THE WILD ONE

THE
following incident could have been avoided if Dawn hadn’t allowed Eva to complete the Underground tour. It wouldn’t have happened if Dawn had told herself that accepting an invitation to go back to Eva’s chambers couldn’t do any harm.

But everything that led up to “the incident” played its part, and in Dawn’s rootlessness, she found herself giving in to every bit of it.

After seeing more Underground highlights such as the movie-remembrance pavilion and the spa, they’d returned to Eva’s quarters. There, she’d prepared some sort of tea and was setting out the porcelain collection on a low table by her living room couches. Dawn didn’t intend to drink any of it, but it seemed to make her mother feel good to be serving company.

Since there was no way Dawn was going back to “her room”—that overdecorated brothel where the Master had first met her—she figured puttering around Eva’s for a little while longer was a decent option until she could formulate an escape plan. And it would give her time to figure out how she could overcome her mother when the time called for it.

Secretively, Dawn glanced at her machetes, which Eva had bundled into a far corner. Her mother had done the same thing back when Dawn had first uncovered “Jacqueline Ashley” ’s masquerade, and keeping the weapons out in the open hadn’t mattered a lick. Eva had smacked her around easily anyway.

“What’s your favorite part of the Underground?” Eva asked while pouring a stream of brownish red liquid into Dawn’s cup.

Um, barf? “Don’t have a favorite.”

Her mother smiled, then slid the cup and saucer over.

“What’s with the happy?” Dawn asked.

“It’s you.” Eva used delicate tongs to pick up a lump of sugar and offer it. When Dawn declined, her mother put two cubes into her own filled cup. “You act like none of it was the least bit impressive, but you liked it all.”

“Well, you vamps did put a lot of effort into things.”

Eva stirred her tea like she was Queen Duchess of Fangovia. “Just like
you
put effort into that showdown with Rea Carvahal.”

“You going to get after me about that again?” Throughout the tour, Eva had been dropping minor bombs about how to get along with everyone else. How to be
niiiiice
. Frank used to coach Dawn on that, too, not that it’d helped.

“Dawn, they’re already keen on you, thanks to the reputation you came with. You don’t have to labor for their interest.”

“Interest? They can all kiss my ass.” And that was why she’d felt so good about the applause after she’d put Rea in her place. Uh-huh.

As Eva lifted her cup and saucer, the steam from her tea wafted over her face, mysterious mist. She still hadn’t taken a sip. “Rea’s a Shakespearean clown—harmless. She wouldn’t have hurt you . . . especially not with me standing right there.”

Dawn shifted on the couch to accommodate her slight aches. “You know, Eva, I find it ridiculous that you’re lecturing me about schoolyard scuffles. You’re the one who mugged Darrin Ryder because the creep gave me a hard time on a movie set.”

“Just protecting you, honey.”

“No, no ‘honey.’ I can take care of myself.”

The testy comment made Dawn feel like crap, especially after having seen her mother looking so vulnerable during that movie screening.

Carefully, Eva set down her untouched beverage.

Almost against her will, Dawn offered a verbal olive branch. “I didn’t know vamps drank stuff like tea.”

“I have no taste for it, but I wanted you to feel relaxed.”

Ah. Eva had been
acting!

Dawn realized
she
had no taste for ripping into Eva now. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do what had to be done soon.

“Since we’re on the subject of porcine actors like Darrin Rider,” Eva said, “I should tell you something else.”

Was her mother trying to win Dawn over with a show of honesty again, just as she had with all those confessions earlier in the night?

“Fire away,” Dawn said.

“It’s about Paul Aspen’s party.”

“Yeah, the one where my mind got broken into. Good times.” Eva shifted in her chair. “I found out who took advantage of you, and I’ve been meaning to ask him about it, but, as you know, I’ve been a bit busy. Believe it or not, I was just as upset about this as you were.”

Actually, Dawn did believe her. After all, her mother had smacked that sexually harassing prick Darrin Ryder around for her daughter’s sake. Why not get upset about another assault?

“Do tell, Eva.” Impulsively, she scooted forward on the couch.

Her mother inched closer, too, and suddenly they were as close as they’d been while writing those notes earlier.

“I can’t get into the why of things, but what this ‘friend’ of mine did to you was out of spoiled greed. We don’t mind wipe unless the circumstances are dire, and for him to bite you . . . He disrespected me. Your reputation down here—as my daughter and as a hunter—made you too desirable for him to pass up.”

Violated, defiled.

“Who is it?” Anger began to purr in Dawn, a started engine.

Eva seemed to be just as riled. “Paul Aspen, also known as Edward Waters in his former incarnation.”

Dawn’s head squeezed together, as if trying to recall his attack. But she couldn’t, and the clamping sensation traveled to her body.

Paul Aspen, the boyish charmer she’d seen earlier in the emporium. The vampire who’d invaded her.

She stood. “You said you’ve been meaning to talk to him about it, Eva?”

At first, her mother just sat, posed in something like indecision. But then heat seemed to fill her eyes—maybe because of ire, maybe because she wanted to prove to Dawn that she was truly willing to do anything to make up for Breisi and all the rest of her choices.

Eva rose from her chair, too. “One thing?”

“What?”

“We talk to him my way. I don’t want another Rea Carvahal incident.”

“Sure, whatever.”

And that was how it started, over tea and sympathy. It continued with a knock on Paul’s chamber door.

The actor, who would be in his late thirties for a long time to come, answered the summons in a natty Chinese-embroidered robe. Since he was playing hooky from his and Eva’s movie production right now, his sandy hair had quickly grown back to a conservative cut without frequent shaving. His hazel eyes glimmered just as jauntily as the earrings he’d gotten for the part of a cinematic buccaneer.

“The party has come to me tonight!” He held open the door, seeing only Eva. “I was just preparing to go out again.”

Her mother strolled inside. “We’ll be enough entertainment for you, I think.”

Dawn felt herself falling into the part of an actress, too. She grinned in greeting as she followed her mother.

At the sight of Dawn, the actor seemed caught in a net, as if he knew that he’d been revealed in taking advantage of his costar’s daughter. But when his guests didn’t let on that this was why they were here, he stuffed his hands in his robe pockets and playfully bounced up and down on his bare heels.

“It’s grand to see you, too, Dawn. We’ve all been waiting for your anticipated appearance. Eva hasn’t been able to talk about anything else for years.”

Her mother sent her a sly look, almost as if this were some kind of bonding moment. Unthinkingly, Dawn returned it. Her juices were flowing at the thought of teaching this dick a lesson, just as she’d taught Darrin Ryder what it felt like to have his balls nestled in his chest from a good kick. Power-hungry jerks—male, female, vampire, whatever—were one of Dawn’s pet peeves, and since she had nothing to lose now, she didn’t mind investing some time and effort in rehabilitating them.

“Care for a beverage?” Paul asked, heading for what seemed to be a fancy cappuccino maker.

“Please,” Eva said, going over to his white-on-white living room. Overhead, a massive chandelier tinkled, lending the area a retro-elegant sheen. “But I’m not sure Dawn will join us.”

“I understand.” Paul went behind the bar and filled two mugs with red liquid. “Rumor has it that you haven’t been turned yet, Dawn.”

“Rumor’s right.” Dawn remained standing after she gravitated to the living room, too. “Blood’s not my thing.”

“Not yet anyway.” Paul chuckled and came over with the mugs, handing one to Eva, then sitting on a white leather couch. “Is there something else you’d like instead?”

This guy was either real forgetful or terrifyingly arrogant, Dawn thought. “Last time I got served a drink at your place, it was spiked with some junk that turned me fifty ways up and down. Or . . .” Dawn put a finger to her lips, tapping them. With every beat, her fury turned up. “Oh, yeah. It wasn’t the drink, was it, Eva?”

Paul slowly set his mug down on a glass-topped table.

“You are correct, my dear,” Eva said, mocking Paul by setting down her own mug. Now that they were committed, her mother seemed to be having a ball, excited about costarring with her daughter. “Paul, with everything that’s been going on, I haven’t had a moment to really sit down and chat with you.”

Even just watching the actor was bringing Dawn’s body to a boil. She felt a pressure at her temples, heating, thrusting.

Paul cleared his throat. “Chat?”

“Hmm, maybe that’s the wrong word for it,” Eva said.

Pump, pump . . .
Dawn’s head was about to burst.

“Now, ladies,” the vampire actor said in a smooth tone, “let’s—”

A flare of heat made Dawn’s head feel like it was shattering. She even heard the sound of glass, but when her vision cleared, she saw that it wasn’t her mind bursting to pieces at all—it was the chandelier.

A few crystal droplets had zoomed down to pelt Paul, who was raising his arms to cover his precious face. “Wh—”

“You want to see into my mind?” Dawn yelled. “Then take a look!”

Zweek, zweek, zweek
—more chandelier shards speared the air, this time embedding themselves into Paul’s shielding hands. Blood spurted from his wounds, beading the white couch and carpeting with crimson.

He stood, uncovering his face and revealing a misty grimace. Dawn recognized the signs of impending Danger Form.

“Paul!” It was Eva, who was standing, too. “You turn;
I
turn. And, believe me—I’m going to trump you.”

The actor shook like an old machine that’d been unexpectedly shut down. Just for good measure, Dawn shot another drop of crystal at his cheek. He startled but didn’t do anything because Eva was watching.

But, after a moment, he did turn to Dawn in a visual threat. That was how bullies operated, even if they knew they’d been beaten for the time being. Blood graced his hands and face like grotesque gems.

“Didn’t you always want to wear Swarovski?” Dawn asked.

Eva broke in, shooting a shut-up glance to her daughter. “Paul, those wounds are going to heal before daylight comes, so don’t get upset.”

What her mother didn’t say was that the actor’s humiliation would last longer. That was what mattered, and that was why he wouldn’t tell anyone what had just happened.

As Eva took Dawn by the hand to lead her out of the room, Dawn dug in her heels, still ready to throw down. She wasn’t finished, and she had enough fuel in her hatred to go as many rounds as it took with him.

“Stop it,” Eva hissed, crushing her daughter’s hand in hers until the pain woke Dawn up.

They left the actor standing in the middle of his room, blood splattered and lancing a glare at Dawn.

His former victim.

 
 
As soon as Eva closed Paul’s door, a rush of adrenaline lifted Dawn so high she could’ve walked on air.

“Sweet revenge,” she said while Eva pulled her along the hallway. “Funny how the tables can be turned like that, huh?”

Her mother stopped, her look hard enough to make Dawn feel like she’d just smacked into a glass door.

“You feel good about what just happened?” Eva asked.

Heartbeat pistoning, Dawn thought about it. But only for a second. “Yeah. Yeah, I feel
great
about it.”

Eva resumed towing Dawn. That was when she realized she was holding hands with Mommy. She shook off the connection.

“Where’re you headed?” Dawn asked.

“While we were in there, Benedikte summoned me. He’d like to see you in a half hour.”

Dawn hadn’t noticed Eva getting any Master messages. Then again, would it be obvious? Also, she’d been pretty occupied.

“You’re at his beck and call like that?” She laughed and started moving in the opposite direction. She hadn’t felt this powerful in . . . ever. “I don’t think your master is going to order me around the same way.”

“Dawn.” Eva’s voice required attention. “You do realize Elites like Paul could kill you, don’t you? You’re not indestructible. Not even close.”

A stirring of doubt settled in Dawn’s lower stomach. Sure she’d realized it, yet the crystal illusions had overwhelmed her. Still . . . you know what? She’d gotten him, and he could never reverse his punishment.

“And
you
realize,” Dawn said, “that I’ve killed a rogue Elite before.”

At the reminder of Robby Pennybaker’s fate, Eva stiffened. They’d been costars, friends, just as Breisi had been Dawn’s friend.

“I assume killing Robby makes you proud,” her mother said.

Not at all, and it made Dawn even bitterer to think that Costin had made her into . . . this. Into something that
had
killed. It made her furious that she’d allowed it, herself, and that she was allowing something even worse to creep up on her now.

Reality cloaked her, then a defensive resentment. Eva seemed to notice.

“You could be so much more, Dawn, if you’d only—”

“If I wanted to be one of you, I’d already have done it, okay? I’m not as desperate about my looks as you are.”

Eva reacted as if bitch slapped. Well, she had been, verbally.

Caught up in her black mood, Dawn pressed her advantage. “What are you going to do if the Master gets slain, Eva? Will you finally look your age? I’m not talking about losing your career or providing for me, but becoming just as unspecial as the rest of us.”

Eva went stony.

Down the hall, a bunch of vampires emerged from another chamber door and headed toward them in the direction of the emporium. Dawn recognized a bare-chested Jesse Shane along with the silver-eyed Groupies who were flanking him, wearing nothing but delicate chains. His long golden hair made him look like a prince among jewels.