Vampire Babylon - Night Rising Part 23

Where were Breisi and Kiko?

Accessing her cell phone, she headed toward the street, finding a message from them. Nearby, a large dog barked behind a dilapidated fence. As she dialed Kiko's number, Matt's words hammered into her.

I won't turn you down on that.

Was that some kind of snide comment on what she had already been offering him? He could turn down her body but not her help, huh? a.s.s.

Yet what niggled at her even more was his talk about The Voice. How could she check into him? Where would she even start?

d.a.m.n it, she was really some detective.

Behind her, a scream of tires signaled an approaching vehicle. She saw headlights making their way toward her. When she realized it was the 4Runner, she disabled her call to Kiko and waved the vehicle down.

It heaved to a stop.

Through the open window, Kiko yelled, "Get in!"

And she did, without question.

Which bothered her a whole lot more than it had earlier tonight.

EIGHTEEN.

THEBAIT.

BREISIwas making record time through the streets as Kiko leaned over the seat, asking Dawn what happened to her.

"Lonigan," she said. "We had an intense tete-a-tete behind that wall. He was hanging out there."

Her coworkers exchanged a significant look.

"What, it's not like I was making out with him in our special hidden spot." Dawn hesitated. "Did you...I don't know...ever wonder if the guy is just after the same things we are? Or if he's following the trail of vampires and not just Frank?"

"Wondering about it now," Kiko said.

"He wasn't happy to see me...us...there. Not even remotely."

Kiko raised his eyebrows. "Hey, maybe he's a PI who has a bit on the side, one of them mercenaries who doesn't want the compet.i.tion. You know, Breisi, those people we've heard about who travel the world bagging vamps for big cash? There's this website where you can contact them. I've been on it."

"It's possible." Breisi kept her eyes on the road. "You should've heard this story he told me about his parents." Now that Dawn wasn't near Matt, caught in the mind-spinning web of his proximity, she suddenly got a strange sense of having heard the details of his parents' deaths before. Weird. Why? "He saw them murdered by what he thinks was a vamp, and that's what drove him to PI work. And you know what else? If he's, like, this 'hunter,' what the h.e.l.l does that make the client who hired him?" She didn't dare ask what that also might make Frank himself....

Instead, she forged ahead. "If I do the math, it adds up to trouble. If Lonigan is involved with the paranormalandhe's investigating Frank, it sounds like he might know more about Robby's case than we first suspected. Things you guys might not want public."

"Could be," Breisi said.

"And Lonigan said...more."

Kiko waited for her to go on. Serious Kiko.

"He pretty much said it's a bad idea to trust Limpet," she said, watching her psychic coworker just as closely. "Said I should be investigating his intentions."

"That's not a good way to spend your time," Breisi said.

"Why?" Dawn scooted up in her seat. "How much do you two really know about your boss?"

Kiko faced front, like he was hiding his reaction. "We know enough."

She wasn't going to get anywhere when it came to The Voice. Kiko was loyal to a fault, even if Dawn suspected he wanted to take more of a lead when it came to hunting monsters. But Breisi...? Her face was still emotionless as the streetlights whisked over her broad features.

Behind that facade, was she actually p.i.s.sed at Dawn for doubting the boss? Or was there something much deeper going on: resentfulness about Frank's disappearance-maybe because of something The Voice had ordered him to do?

"So," Kiko said, "I a.s.sume Lonigan got a load of Klara, too. He must've been doing his detective thing before we got there. I wonder who he pays off in the department."

At the mention of the victim, jabs of red taunted Dawn. She slammed them away.

"Me and Breisi barely got out of there with the telephoto pictures," Kiko added. "Burks helped when that detective started hara.s.sing us, but he caught a glimpse of Breisi's digital camera and told us to hand it over. That's when we made a run for it.

Luckily the 4Runner is outfitted to flip its license plates, so it'll be hard to trace us. Needless to say, we got real worried about leaving you, Dawn, but we called to see where you were so we could pick you up."

"Sorry for the trouble."

Breisi shrugged. Wow, she clearly gave two s.h.i.+ts about Dawn, didn't she? Yup, they'dreallybonded last night.

"Klara's neck," Kiko was saying. "It was like some kind of frenzied animal got to her. No punctures, like vamp bites in the movies."

"You said that we can't depend on a certain set of vampire rules," Dawn said. "So it's par for the course."

"That's what the boss tells us."

Matt's last words came back.Demand some answers.Good advice. So why wasn't she being more aggressive about it?

Red, blood, an image turned to a slab of white nothingness... Dawn cleared her mind.

"By the way, we talked to the boss," Kiko said. "I sent him those cell phone pictures already. He's wondering if Klara got caught by one of those red-eyes with the iron teeth."

"What if Klara is just some unfortunate soul who crossed paths with a random cretin on a regular L.A. night?"

Even as Dawn asked, she knew it sounded foolish. The fact that n.o.body answered just proved it.

G.o.d, you knew your s.h.i.+t was messed up when a vampire attack turned out to be a more logical explanation for a violent death than regular old murder itself. After all, they had just interviewed the actress about Robby. And vampires had been loitering around Robby's old property.

One plus one equaled a connection. Not a satisfactory answer, but a definite coincidence.

And that meant...Klara could very well have been killed because she'd talked to them. Dawn leaned her head against the window. It was cool against her skin.

So what exactly did that mean? Was there some greater power-a vamp who had ties to Robby-who needed to shut Klara up?

And what did Robby and Frank have to do with it?

In the back of her brain, on the white, white screen of thought, a film reel spliced itself together and flickered to life: Robby inDiaper Derby, a kid who hadn't aged in twenty-three years.

The packed box of her mind blew open, setting free an obscene possibility that had been lurking for days. A possibility she'd fought tooth and nail.

"Robby's a freakin' vampire," she said.

With a guffaw, Breisi held her hand out to Kiko. Muttering under his breath, he dug into his pants, fished out a twenty-dollar bill and gave it up.

"Excuse me?" Dawn said.

Kiko smiled at her, as if welcoming her to a rite of pa.s.sage. "Breisi said you'd admit what was going on in under a week. I told her you were too bullheaded and it'd take at least two."

"Nice." Dawn shook her head. "Thanks for sharing all your theories with me, guys."

"It wasn't about theories. Remember when I told you that you'd have to see to believe? That's what it was about, Dawn.Tellingyou that Robby might be a vamp wasn't the point. Part of your training is to come to accept what's happening, and that's not easy. But you're getting there, even if we have no proof about what Robby is or isn't."

"Hopefully Marla will follow your lead," Breisi said.

Dawn wanted to lay into him, but he had her nailed. It was true that she'd scattered all the pieces of Robby's story in her mind, never allowing them to come together. Not wanting them to, even after everything she'd seen, experienced.

Demand some answers, Matt had said.

Trouble was, she was pretty sure she couldn't bear any more of them. Robby was hard enough. What was she eventually going to find out about Frank...?

She told herself not to think about it.Dawn was still unnerved when they arrived back at the office, where she decided to go ahead and approach Breisi instead of Kiko. Five-to-one that his unswerving devotion to the boss would make him a harder person to question.

Or maybe Dawn knew that strong-and-silent Breisi would actually be the last person to give up answers, and that's what shereallywanted-to remain clueless.

In the foyer, she pulled the older woman aside. "Can we chat?"

Since Breisi was all but rolling back and forward on her heels, raring to get to her dungeon, Dawn predicted the answer. The ma.s.sive door of Breisi's private domain loomed behind her, like a black hole she was only too happy to be sucked into.

"Maybe later," the other woman said, gravitating toward the door/hole, caught in its pull. "All right?"

Dawn followed her. "Can't I just talk to you while-"

"No," Breisi snapped. She placed a proprietary hand on the door's iron entrance handle.

As Dawn gave Breisi a please-extract-that-pole-out-of-your-a.s.s look, the other woman deviously relaxed most of her body. But Dawn could tell Breisi was onlyacting!again-she was still white-knuckling the handle.

"I'm sorry." She worked up a smile...or whatever. "Dodgers lost, Klara's dead...my conversation is not flowing right now."

"Got it." Dawn backed off, hands up in the air. "Thought we could talk about Robby-like how him possibly being a vamp means that they can be seen on film and all. You know-just want to continue the education."

"Later then."

Breisi didn't move. Dawn didn't budge, either-not until she realized that the tech geek wasn't going anywhere until Dawn herself took off.

Foiled again. As she moved toward the stairs, she risked one look back over her shoulder, finding that Breisi was still guarding the door.

Man, what was down there?

On her way up the stairs, she ran into Kiko.

"Hey," he said, "grab a mattress. I know it's late, but I've got a million things to do before we head out."

"Who can sleep right now anyway?"

Demand some answers.

Even if she didn't like what she heard. And, truthfully, Limpet wasn't the only person she needed to know about.

There was still something about Lonigan's parent story that was nagging at her. Something that she wasn't necessarily hiding from, either.

They reached the second-floor landing. The soft hush of an old house at rest mingled with the shaded hallway, making Dawn a little cold, inside and out.

"Are there any computers with Internet access?" she asked. "I wanna look up a thing or two."

"You're kidding, aren't you?" Kiko led her to the right, down a part of the hall she hadn't explored yet. He pushed open a door, revealing dark wood, the ticking of a small Swiss mantel clock, and a bank of computers lining one side of the room. All of them stared out with black gazes, like the eyes of carnival dolls.

"No paintings of wanton women in here?" Dawn asked.

Kiko laughed, showing her to the first computer. "Nope."

"What are those about anyway?"

He used the keyboard to wake up the system. "They're just portraits that the boss collects."

Portraits. "They must be worth a lot. Some look old."

"Some of them are."

"And...?"

"And what? They're pictures."

Whatever. They were more than that. And she'd find out what, even if she had to take one apart.

As she sat down, Kiko gave her a push to her bare arm, just for kicks. Unfortunately, it was exactly where her burns were still healing. She gave a tiny grunt, but only because she was remembering how much the wounds used to hurt. Really.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said. "I have impulse control issues, I think. I need to talk to my therapist about it."

"That won't be a short conversation."

Giving a fake laugh, he motored to the door. "Just click on Firefox. No pa.s.swords needed for the Net around here."

"Thanks."

He took off to do his thing, and Dawn followed directions, navigating to Google for a search. Meanwhile, snippets of Lonigan's story pinched her.