They shed their drops of blood into the soil, taking strength and energy from the power that shuddered from the long box, and Lilly stole an extra moment to gaze down upon their dirt-covered charge.
What sort of face was under there? She had seen portraits, of course—a long nose, green eyes, an arrogant heavy- lidded bearing—but no
custode
ever dared brush away the soil from the visible nose and mouth to see for themselves.
Even so, she longed to do just that, witnessing another patch of pale skin, paying more homage to the object of her devotion . . .
A piercing beep sounded, and the
custode
s bolted to their feet. A breach?
Had the hunters already come?
No words were even needed between her and Nigel as they bolted back to the monitor room, where they saw how the camera that covered their caged vampire had been altered to another position, the view featuring the rock of the opposite wall now.
Another “malfunction.”
Breathing deeply in order to tame their pulses, just as if they were commandos, Lilly and Nigel took up their ghost warding materials along with weapons, then brought everything to the well-protected Relaquory room, which had been prepared over the years by other
custode
s. Its surprises should prove fatal to even the best of hunters.
But defending it was Lilly and Nigel’s first priority. More to the point, it was the one and
only
job of a
custode
now.
DAWN
knew that once they breached this entrance, there was a good chance the vamps would know the community was under attack, especially if this did lead to the Underground itself. She was only hoping that the creatures would be so thrown off guard that it would take longer for them to get organized than it would take for the team to infiltrate and destroy.
But would Dawn and her crew be attacking vampires or rescuing Costin?
They were about to find out.
Friends had discovered a grassy, doorlike shape etched into a slope nearly one kilometer northwest of the New Gilby Hotel in a darkened, isolated area of the heath. Instead of using explosives, the team had opted for a quieter break- in as Dawn used her acid gun to trace the door. Then she’d pulled her mental energy together, shaping it inside of her, making it boil, and she punched out, knocking the door away and opening a hole.
The spirits rushed through it, clearing the clouds of dirt as some went off to scout, some to find any and all cameras.
Outside, Dawn, Kiko, and Natalia waited for a report, and it came an instant later via Kalin, who’d insisted on accompanying them, even though she could’ve used more rest.
“Found the trap! Jonah, in a cage, no way out! Friends, on the ground, useless . . .”
She zoomed ahead.
“Go, go, go!”
Costin . . . He
had
been hoodwinked by Claudius’s false information, but he was here, just seconds away.
But was he animated or . . . ?
A bang of dread and adrenaline pushed Dawn forward. Kiko and Natalia moved, too, their mini flamethrowers and silver- bullet-filled revolvers drawn. The lights they wore on their heads made crazed squiggle marks on the darkness in front of them as they slid down one decline, then another, deeper and deeper, farther below than anyplace Dawn had ever been, where the only sound seemed to be a pulse tearing through her ears.
Don’t be hurt,
she thought to Costin, even though she doubted he would hear her mind.
Don’t you dare be deader than you already were. . . .
Then her headlight caught the glint of silver.
A cage—
When she saw a flare of blue eyes behind the square bars, her heart jumped, hitting the walls of her body and trying to spin its way out. She didn’t care if the blue gaze belonged to Jonah and not Costin himself. The flash of them meant they were both still around.
She ran to him, crashing into the cage and holding its bars, and Jonah rushed her, too. But he didn’t move as fast as usual.
“Knew you’d show up,” he said, his skin really pale in her headlight. “We’re both safe, but time was running down.”
ThankGodthankGodthankGod . . .
Dawn couldn’t stop smiling. Alive. Safe.
She didn’t tell Jonah to let Costin out, because she knew the host was only sheltering him. Plus, this wasn’t the moment to be all emotional about a reunion. Having him here and in decent working order was good enough.
Fumbling, she took out a small cooler flask of blood from a bag she wore over her shoulder, handing it to Jonah by sticking her arm through the bars. She’d give him a bit of a live nip when she got inside, but it wouldn’t be nearly as intense as their usual feedings. They didn’t have time for anything major.
Greedily, he uncapped the flask and drank her stored blood while she looked and looked at him, unable to get enough.
She’d almost lost him. So close. But this was a second chance, right? As soon as they got out of here, she’d make all her shortcomings up to him. Each and every one.
She heard the murmurs of the Friends trading information, the old guard catching the new one up with the tunnel’s layout and also how two different
custode
s had already approached the boss, failing to get to him. Then Jonah was done drinking, and he gave back the cooler, which still had some of her blood left in it. She reached through the bars again to get the object so he could avoid the silver.
“Friends have been guarding us,” he said. “They’re in bad shape without being able to recharge.”
“Figured as much.” Dawn secured the flask in her bag and got out the acid gun again. It would work through silver, too.
“Those
custode
s have been dying to get at us,” Jonah said while she applied the acid to the cage, “but the Friends kept pushing them away. They never give up, our girls.”
The bars began to dissolve enough so that she was confident her psychokinesis would allow her to bang the rest of the way through.
Meanwhile, she could hear the Friends murmuring and, using her prerogative to command them—they’d follow orders from the team unless it meant hurting Costin—Dawn said, “Old guard, you should get on out of here and go home. Who knows how long this battle’s going to last.” They could recharge and then come back here if it came down to it, but Dawn prayed there wouldn’t be a long-drawn-out battle that would require the spirits to return.
None of the Friends stirred.
“Get your asses gone!” Dawn yelled.
Unable to resist the more strongly worded command, the Friends’ jasmine blew back the stray hairs from Dawn’s braid as they wound toward the exit, their essences like a breeze instead of the usual stronger wind. But Dawn could feel one Friend hesitating, shivering in rebellion, her own essence all but dissipated.
Breisi. It had to be. No one was this damned stubborn.
“You, too,” Dawn said, backing away from the cage and motioning for Jonah to take cover on his side.
“Where’s Frank?”
Breisi asked in a fragile voice.
“Under the weather.” She only had time to be blunt. “He’ll be okay but he’s holding down temp headquarters. Now get, Breisi. I mean it.”
Dawn almost expected Frank to pipe in from the earpiece, but as she’d suspected, they were down too deep for her to get an outside feed.
Breisi began to inch away, as if compelled, but she managed to say,
“I saw a
custode
using a trapdoor to get out of this tunnel. I think it leads to the Underground. I can show you.”
Well, crap. Breisi had something good to trade on after all. “Okay,” Dawn said, rescinding the command. “You can show one of the fresh Friends where it is while I hammer on this cage. Then you leave—no more ifs, ands, or buts about it.”
“Dawn . . .”
It had to be killing Breisi to be so weakened during this big moment. As a hunter, she also wanted to thrash the Underground, and Dawn knew she’d do anything to be here for it.
Damn it, Dawn had to be the world’s biggest soft sell. “Then show us the trapdoor yourself, Breisi. But Frank’s waiting for you back home, you know.”
That seemed to work, but if a Friend could trudge, that was what Breisi would be doing as she slid through the cage to wait on the other side of it.
Dawn was so eager to get past the bars and closer to Costin that she had no problem conjuring enough power for a mind blast.
“Fire in the hole!” she yelled. Then she banged out a mental punch against the acid-eaten silver.
Bam!
That got her partway there. A yawning, ragged hole provided a half entrance, the bars gnarled inward, and Dawn slammed out again to create a wider opening. Then, without waiting, she ran toward it, kicking out with her foot, crashing the bars aside as she landed in the cage, then sprang toward Jonah, throwing her arms around him. She didn’t care who was dominant right now as she held him close.
“They didn’t get you,” she said.
“No.” Jonah held her tight.
“Costin,” she said, ignoring Jonah’s embrace and appealing to the man inside, hoping that Costin felt the strength of her arms, that he would forgive her for being the one who’d had to rescue him again.
At the other name, Jonah tensed, and Dawn pulled back in time to see his eyes change from blue to topaz.
Every part of her flamed up as Costin smiled that world-weary smile, but it was tempered by something even more profound when he rested his palms against her face, as if seeing it for the first time.
She didn’t want to be without him. Couldn’t imagine what her future would’ve been like without him in it.
But she’d have to get him out of here now to tell him all about it later.
Would she even be able to do that if they killed the dragon and Costin’s quest came to an end? How long would it be before he was taken from her to rest in a better place, as he’d been promised upon the completion of his journey?
“Hate to do this,” she said, the sentence snagging in her throat, “but if Breisi thinks we’re close to the Underground, we’ve got no time to hang out.”
She took her machete partway out of its holster, pushing up one of her tight black sleeves and nicking the back of her arm. When she pressed it to his mouth, he sipped at the slight cut.
He only took enough to revitalize himself all the more from the live contact, but that was all they could do for now. As she took her arm away from him, frustrated at the surge of desire that she couldn’t satiate, he used his thumb to stroke her face. He knew what was at stake, so he slipped back into Jonah’s body, summoning his host to dominance again.
Dawn already missed him, and out of an awful, ridiculous feeling that she might never see him again, she almost yelled for him to come back.
Then Kiko and Natalia passed on their way to the other side of the cage, bringing Dawn back to reality.
“What’s the hold up?” Kik said, in total demolition mode.
Dawn backed away from Jonah, reaching into her bag for healing gel and a bandage, both of which she used to dress her minor wound. Costin was gone for now, and there was no help for it until they were done here.
Jonah’s hold had lingered until she pulled away altogether to follow her teammates. Kalin did a flyby, whisking over Dawn’s shoulder. Based on how she hadn’t tried to knock Dawn over, the Friend must’ve finally understood that Jonah wasn’t the one Dawn was here for, and the spirit joined her cohorts—all the strong, refreshed spirits—who would be fighting by the team’s side.
Dawn went about using the acid gun on the other wall of the cage since the silver spanned the hallway and they couldn’t use the first opening to get out. She quietly asked for more updates from Jonah, lowering her voice even though the Friends were manipulating the sound on the cameras.
“Has he been out of body much?”
“He was out for a little bit,” Jonah said.
“Was he able to track the dragon with his senses?”
Jonah shook his head. “We’re probably still too distant from an Underground to detect the big guy.”
Dawn put the gun away while the acid did its thing. “When the time’s right, we’ll use Awareness to track him. In the meantime, Jonah, you’re still on sheltering duty, got it?”
“Yeah.”
She lowered her voice even more. “The dragon
is
here. I’d bet my life on it, so if we run into Mihas first, there’s no need to question him about the big master’s location. That means Costin can go at Mihas without all the fancy hypnosis and just terminate him. From what I already know, Mihas will be depending on his physical skills, not so much brainpower, so he might not bring his Awareness into an attack—not if he doesn’t know that Costin’s a fellow blood brother. The vamps might’ve already guessed that he is, though, so be prepared.”
“Noted,” Jonah said, picking his long black coat up from the ground and putting it on. His sinuous, casual movements reminded Dawn that Jonah was still the one who was here, present, dominant.
She shook all of that off, instead thinking of what would happen if they
did
get the dragon tonight. Would Costin have to go after the remaining masters, even though they should be humanized by their creator’s death, according to what the team knew about how the dragon’s vampire line worked? That was how it’d been before with these Undergrounds: the direct descendants got their souls back with a bit of damage attached to them.
Or maybe Costin would have to tie up the loose ends with all the vampire children who were orphaned by their masters. . . .
Who knew? Although The Whisper had been forthcoming with most of his plans, he obviously couldn’t tell Costin—who’d accepted the deal out of pure desperation—every single detail. The entity hadn’t given out a manual or anything. It could be that Costin would receive an extra special message after the dragon was destroyed.