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His eyes glazed over for a second, as though he was listening to someone inside himself, and not to me. “We’ll find out soon enough,” he answered slowly.
I felt whatever it was, too. Like I’d just let the last bit of sand fall out of my hand, or let go of a bird I didn’t know I’d been holding. Like a piece of me that had been mine was gone.
“It’s always a little bit like dying when the sun goes down,” Jackson said. “You’d think it’d be the reverse, but it’s not, not for us.”
“Are they up now?” I lowered my voice without thinking about it, and he nodded.
“Yeah. Raven will know you’re alive and where you are, but he’ll want to see you, to make sure you’re still in one piece. We’d best go present ourselves,” he said, and started leading us back down into the actual catacombs.
* * *
It was easier to pass by the door to the outside world at night. While I missed fresh air, it didn’t tempt me like the thought of sunlight did. We put our supplies back into the closet and then started our trek below.
“Who built all these tunnels, anyhow?”
“Don’t know. There’s a huge network of them underneath LA, though. Most of them collapsed during assorted earthquakes, but apparently the ones we’re in are stable. We’ll know an earthquake’s coming when all of our Masters run out the door.”
“What if it happens during daylight?”
“Then we’ll all die, and they’ll slowly crawl their way out at night.”
“Awesome.”
“I try not to think about it too much.”
He led us through to the chamber where I’d been introduced the morning before. Everyone else was already waiting. Celine was again impeccably dressed, this time in club wear, a tight-fitting red dress with holes cut out to show expanses of white skin that somehow managed to stay classy. She was behind her Mistress, whose name I hadn’t learned yet, and who was dressed in a long skin-fitting white dress that flared at the neck and knees, intentionally modernizing a queen’s silhouette, with high hair and an oversized beauty mark to match. The male vampire whose name I didn’t know was dressed in leather pants with a fitted black shirt and a suggestively buckled collar. I assumed Celine would be in Hell, her Mistress in Heaven, and the unknown vampire in Perg, based on clothing alone.
Wolf was still Wolf, though, in a leather vest and T-shirt, more muscled than manly, and Raven was still Raven, lounging on his couch in head-to-toe purple-black—the shade certain bird feathers took on under the right light. He wore a coat that would have been a costume on anyone else, swirling down to his knees. Jackson nudged me forward to stand by Lars, who was dressed in a black business suit, hovering by Raven’s side.
Lars didn’t look any worse for our fight—and neither did I. He was still angry at me, I could see it in his eyes, and almost feel the hate radiating off him. I wondered if he was worried that I would rat him out to our shared Master.
“Who put her in that?” Raven asked aloud as I took my place. I noticed he wasn’t asking me.
Jackson stepped forward. “There wasn’t any other clothing around, Master.”
Raven’s thin lips puckered in distaste. “She can’t attend the bathrooms in that. Not even on the first floor.”
The queenly female vampire looked to Celine, who bowed apologetically, while gesturing to her more petite form. “I don’t have anything in her size.” It was hard not to roll my eyes, but I managed.
Raven sighed as though my fashion troubles ought to be beneath him. “Jackson—”
Jackson stepped forward at the mention of his name. “If I may, Sire’s Sire—”
Beside me, Lars tensed. Maybe he thought Jackson would be the weak link. Raven waved his hand in the air. “By all means,” he said as ironically as possible.
Jackson went on, seeming used to being ironized. “I don’t think she should be upstairs at all. She was a nurse before she came here.” It was my turn to tense. I hadn’t considered that Jackson might rat me out, instead. “It is possible that she may be of use to Natasha.”
Raven made a thoughtful noise as I looked around the room for a person I hadn’t met yet. And a cruel smile parted Raven’s lips as he looked toward the door behind me, and I looked over my shoulder at the girl walking through. “Speak of the devil.”
Her black hair was pulled into a high ponytail, which then spilled down her back in a thick wave. She had her father’s ice-blue eyes and his widow’s peak and his same aquiline nose, and was wearing an oddly modest black turtleneck—which I realized hid her neck—and jeans. A simple bracelet hung at her right wrist, charms dangling. Despite her youth and her casual-Friday outfit, I recognized her instantly—she looked exactly like her father, Nathaniel, the psychopath who’d infected and then sunk the Maraschino. He’d sacrificed four thousand innocent people in his attempt to raise a monster to obliterate the vampires that’d kidnapped her.
When she saw Raven she broke into the world’s hugest smile. It was completely disconcerting.
“Hey baby,” she said, and walked across the room to him as if the rest of us weren’t there.
“Dear one,” he replied, reaching out for her. She hopped onto the couch and folded under his arm and he held her the exact way Asher held me sometimes, closing his eyes and pulling her close.
I had no idea what to make of that. Her resemblance to her father was chilling—and he was why I was trapped here. But watching her snuggle with Raven—and him snuggle back—was like watching a nature program, viewing the intimate habits of an unknown beast, being both aghast and unable to look away. Beside me, Lars tensed. I wondered if Lars had known her father—or if he’d ever tried to kill her, too.
“How’s work tonight?” Raven asked her solicitously, stroking a hand through her hair.
“It was good—I’m close, things are almost done,” she told Raven, pulling back to smile up at him. “I just need two more test subjects. I want to be sure.”
“Of course. I appreciate your thirst for perfection.” And he smiled down at her, amused, showing teeth. It was as if the rest of us weren’t even in the room anymore. While he couldn’t give her warmth or real love, I realized he could give her his completely undivided attention, a particular talent of vampires—and she basked in it like a flower does the sun. I looked around quickly, and saw the male vampire I didn’t know grimace.
Jackson did more than that. He groaned. She turned from Raven’s shoulder to look at him with an irritated frown. “I wouldn’t ask for them if I didn’t need them.”
“You said that last week,” Jackson said. Wolf subtly moved his hand to stop him from speaking further, and I could almost see Jackson biting his tongue.
“Jackson’s just
upset that you’re making so much extra work for him,” Wolf apologized, as though Jackson were incapable of speaking for himself.
“Good. I would hate it if we no longer shared the same goals,” Raven said, thin lips pulling into a dangerous smile above Natasha’s head. He glanced at me again, then squeezed her, and pointed his chin at me. “Could you use the services of a nurse in your lab?”
She shrugged. “I could use-use her,” she said, “and then lazy Jackson would only have to find me one more—”
“No, I need her alive, for now. I meant to help you. I worry that you’re working too hard.”
“Of course I am. I want to make things perfect for you,” she said without the slightest hint of guile.
“I know. But maybe if she could help you some, you’d have more time to spend with me.”
The look on her face was meltingly sweet. “I’d like that.”
“It’s done then.” Raven looked over to me. “You will do whatever Natasha tells you to,” he commanded. I could feel the order go through my body, as if he’d just chiseled it into my bones.
Natasha turned to regard me as my pulse began to race. I knew every vampire in the room could smell my fear—because I’d just been given over to a psychopath’s daughter like some baby bunny to a toddler on Easter. Fuck you very much, Jackson.
She didn’t catch my horror, though—or perhaps, she was so used to seeing people afraid of her that she was oblivious to it, even taking it as some sort of tribute.
Raven smiled indulgently at her, leaning forward, rubbing his cheek against her hair, before turning to regard the rest of us in the room. “We should be open already—unless there’s anything else to deal with tonight?” No one moved or made a sound. “Let’s get on with it then. And speaking of extra work, Jackson—I’ve left some trash at the crossroads for you to dispose of, although you should make sure to blame that on Lars.”
