The Path of Razors (22 page)
Read The Path of Razors Online
Authors: Chris Marie Green
She waited until they passed. Then, not hearing anything else, she accessed her earpiece.
“Were you listening to Eva, too?” Dawn quietly said to whoever was on the other end: Frank, Natalia, or, God help her, even Jonah.
But it turned out to be Natalia, probably because Frank was talking to Breisi. Jonah was probably trying on bitchin’ clothes or something, and Kiko was likely sleeping, lulled by a Friend.
“I heard everything and noted it,” the new girl said.
Good, dependable Natalia. “Where’s Jonah?”
“He was getting ready to run out after you.”
Aw, how devoted. Yeesh. “Tell him not to even think about taking unnecessary chances.”
“He discovered that on his own after hearing you with Eva. So he turned his attention to Frank and Breisi. He’s mediating, you could say.”
Dawn didn’t know how to react to that. It was actually a pretty constructive thing for Jonah to be doing.
She decided to get going, but first it’d be smart to report the thump on the roof. Sometimes it was the little details that counted the most in hindsight.
“Natalia, just FYI, I heard something on—”
Dawn started backward as a
thing
with red eyes and a black-masked face appeared in the window, hanging upside down.
thing
with red eyes and a black-masked face appeared in the window, hanging upside down.
With a spurt of adrenaline, she took aim with her revolver, hardly caring if a blast from the illegal firearm would draw the attention of the entire neighborhood.
But the thing—the shadow, the twin of the dead boy the team was keeping in the lab freezer—disappeared from view.
Dawn’s limbs were frozen as her mind took a second to race with possibilities: what she should do, what she shouldn’t do, what needed to be done.
Vampires.
Save Costin....
But before she geared into motion, the glass shattered, and the dark thing crashed through the window, kicking the revolver out of Dawn’s hand, then grasping her wrist to flip her to the floor.
The oxygen slammed out of Dawn, and the communication device flew out of her ear. As the shadow thing got into an intimidating hunch, its boot crunched down on the earpiece.
Even out of breath, Dawn had just enough clarity to grab a silver-bladed knife from her jacket, and she back-stabbed toward the shadow thing.
It arched backward, out of the way, and Dawn used that split second to bound to a crouch.
As they faced off, reality set in: the red night-vision eyes right here in front of her, the figure suited in black from head to toe. It was about Dawn’s height, just like that dead boy in the freezer, but Dawn could already tell the shadow thing was quick and strong.
One heartbeat passed ... another ...
Neither of them moved as the shadow thing just stared, like it was getting some kind of read.
Dawn’s pulse kicked, hammering away at rational thought.
“What the hell are you?” she found herself asking on an escaped breath.
The shadow thing looked sidelong at her, as if amused by the question, and that bought Dawn just enough time to come to her senses and reach for her pocket-bound mini flamethrower.
Yet as she brought it out, she raised her finger off the trigger when she saw that the shadow thing had a flash grenade in its own hand.
Prickles gnawed their way up Dawn’s skin at the sight of the box. The shadow boy from Billiter Street had been carrying one, too, and the team had analyzed it after his death.
But could the device do more than temporarily blind an opponent? Had Breisi and Frank found out everything they could about it?
The stare down continued as Dawn wondered if she could fire at the shadow thing—or even chuck the knife in her other hand at it—before the intruder activated the blinding box then darted out of the flames’ way to come behind Dawn and inflict some major hurt.
Maybe some defense-lowering bullshit wouldn’t be amiss right now ... ?
“Listen,” Dawn said. “I’m not out to piss your kind off. Whatever you are. I’m just looking for someone I know here in this flat.”
The shadow thing hunched a little lower.
Then it talked, its voice electronically mangled, and in all the temple-pounding confusion, Dawn could only think of the sound of snakes slithering out of Medusa’s head.
“Attacker,” it said.
“No, not at all.” Dawn clutched her flamethrower. “I didn’t attack you. You came here.”
“Last night. Queenshill.”
Dawn tried not to change expression, because the moonlight was going to show any cracks in her poker face.
Even so?
Fuck.
Fuck.
Had all the clouded cameras from Billiter to Queenshill to Southwark finally led this thing here, near headquarters, and it’d been watching the area before picking up the sight of Dawn running around in the streets?
She’d have to divert this intruder from headquarters, have to make it think that she didn’t want anything to do with hurting vampires at all and that it should just go on its merry way.
The shadow thing started to circle her, but Dawn didn’t allow that. She stalked it, too, still face-to-face.
And with every step, she prepared a different weapon—accessing her inner darkness, feeding it with thoughts of Jonah, Costin ... everything that was wrong with this world that she couldn’t set right.
The anger rolled, gathered.
“I have a few questions for you,” the shadow said in that eerie voice as it stopped circling.
British accent, Dawn thought while the thing’s finger moved, as if to activate the box in its hand.
With a desperate push, she blasted out with everything she had, her power licking around the thing’s wrist and yanking it.
The untripped flash grenade flew into the air, and the shadow figure jumped backward, trying to get away from whatever Dawn was wielding.
But she wasn’t done throwing down just yet.
Dawn gave as good as she’d gotten earlier, pushing with her mind, connecting, then flipping the shadow thing over and slam ming it to the floor.
Yet what it did next broke her concentration, broke her mental hold altogether.
It ... laughed.
Laughed.
By the time Dawn processed that, the shadow thing had levered itself off of the floor and sprung to its feet, ready to grapple.
Fight?
Dawn thought.
You want a
fight?
Dawn thought.
You want a
fight?
The dark spot in Dawn expanded, folding outward into a different shape that boxed her and squeezed her temples, warping her judgment and causing her to raise the flamethrower.
She didn’t care what kind of damage the weapon would do to Eva’s place or even to this thing that might be a decent prize to capture alive for questioning.
Dead, was the only thought she had.
Gone.
Gone.
Kill them all.
Just as she was about to pull the trigger, the figure kicked out at her, a dark streak, and the weapon spun out of Dawn’s hand, leaving her fingers numbed. Then, in the next heartbeat, the shadow thing swept Dawn’s legs out from under her and she crashed to the ground with a chest-punching grunt.
Her knife jarred out of her other hand and rattled to the floor, and her brain scrambled as the shadow thing braced itself on top of Dawn, pinning her to the ground.
Dawn prepared for the worst, but when the shadow didn’t make another violent move, she realized that it wasn’t going to kill her. Not yet.
Like it’d said before, it had a few questions, and Dawn wondered what kind of persuasion it might have in store if she didn’t feel like answering any of them.
Rage—at being used, just like she’d been so often—balled up.
As the shadow thing laughed again, Dawn ripped out with her mind to tear at its face, and the force caught its goggles and mask.
The items flew through the air, clattering to a landing, but the thing kept laughing, this time in surprise.
“Feisty,” it said in that same altered voice.
Dawn just stared, because the thing wasn’t an “it.” It wasn’t even a boy like the shadow figure from Billiter.
It was a young woman with light brown hair that came to her neck. A girl whose light green eyes were wide and thrilled with this playtime Dawn was providing.
Channeling her shock, Dawn punched out again, this time launching the shadow figure high enough so that she stopped laughing just before thumping back down to Dawn’s stomach.
As Dawn heaved out a pained breath, the female jammed an elbow down.
Dawn ducked it, but the shadow was so fast that within a blink, she was already plastering Dawn to the floor again, her hands on Dawn’s arms, shins pressing down on Dawn’s legs.
Both of them were panting now as Dawn tensed under the woman’s hold.
Strong,
she thought.
she thought.
Almost vampire strong.
But the boy in the freezer hadn’t been a vamp. He’d had physical irregularities, like a heart on the wrong side of his chest....
The female hovered over Dawn. “Now. Time for those questions.”
No,
she thought, on the edge of panic. She’d let every bone in her body be broken before she gave in to any kind of torture and gave up Costin’s secrets.
she thought, on the edge of panic. She’d let every bone in her body be broken before she gave in to any kind of torture and gave up Costin’s secrets.
Her anger was like a creature raising its own head to show a face so ugly that it was unbearable to look at.
The female lowered herself closer, and Dawn noticed that she didn’t have a scent.
With a lethal whisper, the shadow said, “Mind powers. You do have them, don’t you?”
The young woman bent even nearer, her lips against Dawn’s own.
A shock lit through Dawn and, instinctively, she tried to turn away.
But the female kept her lips against the corner of Dawn’s mouth.
“Just what sort of servant are you?” the shadow asked.
Dawn’s heartbeat pistoned, punching against the dark spot, pounding....
Then her mind shattered into a thousand pieces, forcing out more energy than she’d ever experienced—enough to push the woman off of her in a spinning arc.
But the shadow managed to land on all fours, smiling, as if she’d been looking forward to a test like this and nobody had ever given it to her.
Just as she looked ready to spring again, she froze, then righted herself and glanced toward the window.
Then she went for her mask and goggles, scooping them up as she lunged toward the exit, easily tossing aside the chair with one hand before yanking open the door.
Once she’d slipped through it, she slammed it hard enough so that it actually closed all the way.
Dawn got to her hands and knees. What the hell had just happened ? Had the female gotten some kind of call or—?
Not taking the time to figure it out, she dove for her flamethrower at the same time she heard something that resembled a scream of air.
Jasmine, she thought, just as a flood of it entered through the broken window.
“There!” Dawn pointed her flamethrower toward the door. “One of those shadows!”
She heard the Friend bash against the wood, but there were no open spaces to get through.
“Bleeping ...”
Dawn heard the Friend say, and she knew it was Breisi from the thwarted attempt to cuss.
Dawn heard the Friend say, and she knew it was Breisi from the thwarted attempt to cuss.
She’d come, Dawn thought. It’d been too late, but she’d come, probably after Natalia had finally figured out that Dawn’s earpiece had been debilitated.
Dawn ran toward the exit and braced her foot on the wall as she pulled at the door. It protested, then opened, and the moment there was a larger crack, Breisi darted through in hot pursuit.
Dawn joined in, but before she’d even climbed down the stairs, through the pub—with its patrons standing up and wondering what the hell was happening—and gotten thirty meters into the cold streets, Breisi had already circled back.
“Gone,”
the spirit said, disbelief winding through her voice.
“I never even picked it up to track the thing.”
the spirit said, disbelief winding through her voice.
“I never even picked it up to track the thing.”
But Dawn had the feeling that they hadn’t lost the shadow girl at all.
That, in fact, she was somewhere on a rooftop, watching them even now, still laughing.
FIFTEEN
DRINK TIME WITH EVA, II
EVA folded shut the mobile she’d used to call Dawn and handed it back to the barman who was wiping glasses behind the mahogany counter.
“Thank you,” she said.
As he accepted the phone, he smiled, teeth white and a little crooked, but still, a charming gesture. “How’re you getting on then?”
“I told my daughter to pick me up when she could.”
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