Broken (36 page)

Dawn considered apologizing, but not now. Bringing up the subject with him would open a whole can of worms no one needed. Jonah would get over it. Everyone got over her.

Psychic #1 put his hands on the table, urging them all to do the same. Dawn took her arm out of its sling, bearing the ache and knowing it was a bad idea, but she needed to hear Costin again. To know he was fine.

Natalia gently took Dawn’s fingertips, and they all formed a circle.

“Never break the chain,” Kiko said. “No matter what happens, stay with me, okay?”

He sounded reassuring, and Dawn found herself willing to follow him into this, especially since she knew he hadn’t partaken in any Friend lulling since she’d gotten on his ass about it the last time. Still, her heart seemed to bubble in quick bursts, her veins popping with blood.

What if this didn’t work?

She wouldn’t think about it. Instead, she tried to clear her mind, to think of where Costin might be.

“Eyes closed now,” Kiko said. “Listen to me, but think of him, too. Really
think
.”

Dawn did as he asked, hearing everyone breathe around her as their rhythms fell into a linked pattern.

Quiet. Just the creaks of the building. Just the huff of the candle flame as it burned.

After Kiko meditated for a while, he finally spoke, his voice merging with the hush of the room.

“Costin?” he whispered. “We’ve been looking for you . . .”

He hadn’t truly summoned him yet, and Dawn wondered if this was just a warm up of some sort—Kiko’s own way of getting into it. Across the table, she thought she heard Jonah’s breathing outpacing the rest of theirs, as if he had invested more in Costin’s return than any of them.

“Costin . . .” Kiko said. “Costin . . .”

She heard the burning candle wick struggle under a wind and cracked open her gaze to see the flame angled, flickering, casting shadows on the faces of those around her. She tightened her hold on Kiko’s hand, but he didn’t react.

“Costin,” he said even more softly.

The candle flame contorted, and she saw it reflected in Jonah’s eyes as he opened them, a look of wondrous expectation on his face.

Then Kiko stiffened, crushing Dawn’s fingers.

She whipped her gaze over to him to find that his neck was bent, and he was breathing harder. Then he started to shake his head, but in a disjointed way that made her think his neck was growing or that something was trying to twist it off.

His hand began slipping from hers, but she held on to it.

She couldn’t wait anymore. “Costin?” she asked. Then with more urgency.
“Costin?”

Kiko’s head shot up, and Dawn squeezed his fingers, but not out of reassurance. Out of . . .

Oh, God.

As he opened his eyes and peered at the candle, she could tell that there was another entity in there and, for some reason, it didn’t strike her as being Costin.

Natalia spoke. “Costin?”

Whoever was in Kiko answered, and it was in the psychic’s voice . . . except not really. It was too serene, too . . .

Dawn wanted to describe it as “sonorous,” like an otherworldly tune being played on a familiar instrument.

“I am not Costin,” he said. “But I
am
visiting so I might stop any one of his team from completing the unthinkable and formally inviting him to come to you.”

Dawn wanted to pull away, but she held on to Natalia’s and Kiko’s hands for all she was worth, her pulse on overdrive.

Natalia asked, “Then who are you?” She wasn’t chasing this intruder away yet.

Not-Kiko smiled blankly. “You would know me as The Whisper.”

THE
first thing Dawn thought was,
He’s lying. The Whisper hasn’t been around Costin for centuries.

Then again, wasn’t this a perfect time for him to show up again, with things in such disarray?

Dawn told Natalia, “Don’t chase this one off.”

The new girl nodded.

Kiko—or Whisper Kiko—had relaxed in his chair, as if whoever was in his body had made itself cozy. He still held on to Dawn’s and Jonah’s hands, though, and when she gauged Jonah across the table, she saw that his cheeks were flushed.

Again, the memory of prevamp Jonah, with his face slashed by a razor he’d used to manipulate Costin into staying in his body, descended on her.

Kiko’s channeled voice sighed. “Ah, such a relief to root once again. I have not been in a human body for . . . I cannot even say.”

His tone had changed, but then Dawn remembered when Costin had allowed her into his mind to see his birth as a Soul Traveler. She’d witnessed how The Whisper had greeted Costin in the borrowed body of an old sage who’d been tossed in the same dungeon and labeled a “mad man.”

This sure sounded like the guy Dawn had heard. . . .

“If you
are
The Whisper,” she said, “what did you do with Costin?”

Whisper Kiko turned to look at her so deliberately that her skin chilled. And his eyes . . .

They were a bottomless gray: glassy, like deep mirrors that’d been covered by black shrouds until someone had been fool enough to expose them.

“Dawn,” he said, as if he’d been anticipating meeting her.

The chills folded into prickles over her.

He smiled again, the tips of Kiko’s mouth barely turning up. She’d never seen her friend with this kind of ominous civility in him before.

“Questions, questions . . .” he said. “I tend to forget how many you people have until I am required to mingle with you. I am here for my own reasons, not yours, and if a question leads to an answer in the process, then there it is.”

Dawn started to talk again, but Whisper Kiko stopped her.

“What games you play. You were on the edge of summoning Costin, and you have no idea of what you almost did to him.”

As The Whisper kept watching Dawn, she had a feeling she knew why else he was here. He saw the red splashes on her face, and he had to know what they were, what these new marks were doing in her.

Was he also here to take care of that because Costin couldn’t?

“When the dragon was slain,” The Whisper said, “
I
was not even certain that all his vampire line would turn human with his passing. He was a creature unlike any in existence. So, after Jonah’s body freed Costin, your ‘boss’ was delivered to me, where I had been waiting to receive him.”

Dawn flicked her gaze away from The Whisper long enough to measure her companions’ reactions. Natalia was studying Kiko, clearly taking notes on the stencil pad of her brain. Jonah was fascinated.

“Where did you receive him?” he asked.

“How shall I explain this element?” Whisper Kiko pursed his lips in reflection. Then he said, “I would call it a resort, in your terms. Very well outfitted with comforts that have kept Costin occupied while he lingers. I have been rather busy of late—this is the reason he has been on his own so long—so I made certain he had an upgrade.”

Dawn’s fears sped up.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “He told me that, after the dragon and blood brothers were taken care of, his soul would be whole, and it would be all his. He’d go to a permanent, better place and not the hell he would’ve been sent to if he’d failed—the perdition he’d expected from exchanging his soul for vampirism in the first place.”

“And his whole soul
is
his.” The Whisper sounded like he had all the patience in the world. “It is only that he has not traveled on. Not as of yet. And this is the reason his Friends have not journeyed to their ultimate resting place, either.”

Heart . . . beating even faster now . . .

Jonah leaned forward. “Why hasn’t he gone anywhere?” Whisper Kiko fixed his attention on the former host. “In earthly language, you would say that he has been reluctant to go into the light.”

This was all too lofty to absorb. But here it all was now, staring her in the face.

Costin . . . staying back from the light . . .

Natalia finally spoke, the representative of reason. “Who precisely
are
you to have such powers?”

“There is only one being here who needs to know.” The Whisper laid his gaze on Dawn again. “And it is housed in you. I was preparing myself to come and announce myself to your passenger, Dawn, before all of you gathered to summon Costin. You only saw to it that my arrival was scheduled earlier. Now, I should like to see how much has stayed with you.”

No one moved, probably because they were figuring out the secret Dawn had been keeping from them. The dragon.

Thank God The Whisper was here to see just how far the “passenger” had gone into her.

“I’m glad you’re going to come in and let it know you’re there,” she said, not knowing if she’d feel better or worse after The Whisper made his introduction to the dragon’s blood. But relief finally relaxed her shoulders, as if something had been partially removed from them.

The Whisper would get the dragon out of her. He could do that, right?

With Kiko’s hand, he gripped Dawn tighter, and a wave of airy energy flowed through her fingers, her arm, down her side, halting just short of where she felt the dragon’s blood beating, as if it was lifting its head to see what approached. It was like the serpent and The Whisper were assessing each other—one burning, one cool.

As The Whisper “introduced” itself, a flash took over Dawn’s vision, containing images almost like the ones Costin had given to her on the day of his confession in L.A., when he’d revealed who
he
was.

But this was more intense, and she rocked with the force.

A field of white, then lightning among the clouds, then a sound—a voice?—that registered only on the tip of her nerve endings until it became individual sighs that brought her back to the present as The Whisper’s energy began to retreat.

At the same time, the dragon’s heat in her flailed around, as if it was in shock at what it’d just seen. With every one of its thrashings, she flinched, but The Whisper’s energy remained in her, soothing, breezy, and within seconds her mind eased to a calm.

The voice of God,
she thought, hoping he’d hear.
Was that what the last sound was?

No, no, dear,
he said inside her. His own voice seemed to rotate, like the turning of endless time.
That was only me you heard, announcing myself
.

Are you an angel?
she asked.

Balance,
she thought, finally understanding this small part of it as The Whisper gathered its energies and then pulled out of her, leaving her cells feeling like they were sucking back together.

At his departure, the dragon’s blood seemed to shrink, too, but it didn’t entirely pull away from where it’d been headed—to her soul stain.

Dawn’s adrenaline pumped. The blood was still in her. The Whisper hadn’t banished it.

Why? Was it too strong?

As her vision put itself back into focus, she saw that Natalia and Jonah hadn’t moved a muscle since the last time she’d seen them, and she wondered if only a fraction of a second had passed. She tried to recall what The Whisper had told her when he was inside of her, but she couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said—only that he had told her something, and it’d left an impression of power.

He’d erased an explanation from her, the bastard.

Was this his fail-safe? she thought. After introducing himself to the dragon, had he taken answers away so no one outside of her would know them? Was that how his kind operated?

Part of her couldn’t blame him, because how else would he be able to move around the world in secret? But she still wanted some of those answers back, just like anyone would. Didn’t everyone want to know what really ran things, even though there were a million different theories that mostly depended on faith?

Maybe there was no one answer, but she used what she vaguely remembered from his visit inside of her to try to find it, anyway.

“You and Costin were both Travelers, but you aren’t like him at all, are you?”

The Whisper’s gray eyes reflected balance—not dark, not light. “I only loaned him a few of my skills for ease of accomplishing his mission.”

The others were following the conversation with frowns, because they hadn’t had The Whisper inside, and they seemed even more puzzled than she was.

“You used Costin to balance out what the dragon had planned,” Dawn said.

“Certain areas do require . . . adjustment. And I am afraid that the dragon was one of those requirements.” Whisper Kiko lifted an eyebrow. “There is no good without evil, and there are those who wander among you, seeking to sway one to the other. They know despair or ambition or blind greed when they sense it. They are drawn to it, and it is an entry point into the world for them.”

“Eva,” Dawn said, knowing he wasn’t only talking about the dragon.

The Whisper nodded. “All it takes is the trading of a soul for power. In the dragon’s case, he was always hungry for blood, and he received the ability to have it, both figuratively and literally. To feed off of it in the extreme. Thus, through giving up his soul, a vampire was created from his lusts; a vampire built to satisfy. He was one of a kind, though other vampires do exist in various other forms. But the dragon dealt with the very devil himself, whereas the rest strayed into the sights of lesser beings. Eva would be among those who greeted a lower creature.”