Midnight Reign

ONE

STARRING

WHEN Jessica Reese came home from her job at a Hollywood bar that night, someone was waiting in the bedroom closet.

Someone hiding amidst hanging party dresses and dry-cleaning wrappers that ghosted back and forth with every slight, controlled breath. Someone who sat patiently with a container of bleach and a long knife that would be used to slash the victim’s throat and quiet her before that Someone could tear the woman’s neck apart in leisurely delight.

Someone was going to become a star tonight.

The sheer plastic hangings leeched air out of the tiny closet, making the wait a humid, trembling vigil.

Patient, patient, wait, just wait.

From the kitchen, a set of keys jangled onto a countertop, a pair of high-heeled shoes hammered on the wooden floor.

Someone fought to breathe, running a tongue over the sharp points of fangs. Blood pumped like gun blasts, the resulting hunger pulsing like open wounds. Just keep remembering why you’re here. Remember how the Lee Tomlinson made himself a star through shock value, ripping out that other woman’s throat? You can do it, too.

Every night, entertainment channels and newscasts spotlighted stock footage of the Lee Tomlinson, the Vampire Killer, the accused murderer wearing a ten-yard stare, handcuffs, and a harmless smile as he was led into the courtroom for arraignment. While breathlessly speculating about the upcoming trial, the press relished the charges: Lee had torn a woman’s throat out with his bare teeth, then become a fugitive who hadn’t even made it out of the county, thanks to a stop at a seedy motel. There, after getting his head together with the aid of some marijuana, he was found: a stoned and peaceful martyr who hadn’t even questioned the anonymous tip regarding his whereabouts. He hadn’t even fought the cops when they’d hauled him out of the room. They said he’d gone willingly, with that same smile on his lips, that same perpetual look of lost innocence in his gaze.

He already had a growing entourage of adoring women wearing the same clothing, makeup, and cotton-candy hairstyle that his victim—what’s her name—had sported in the one headshot they always showed on the news. The fans camped outside of the bar where their idol used to work, holding signs proclaiming his hotness, his innocence.

A celebrity. That’s what the Lee Tomlinson had turned out to be. A hopeful, Brandon Lee–look-alike actor who had never been anything more than a face in a mouthwash commercial…

…Until the cops had uncovered witnesses who’d placed Lee near the scene of the crime, then harvested the DNA evidence that led to the arrest of the Vampire Killer.

But the press’s nickname for Lee would become a joke tonight, right after they saw what a set of serious fangs could really do.

Footsteps exploded closer to the bedroom. Closer.

Someone shivered. If great care hadn’t already been taken to shave every body part, the hair would be standing on end over each inch of skin, a body electric with skin-buzzing currents.

Tap, tap, tap went the victim’s last footsteps.

The sound grew muted as she walked onto the bedroom carpet.

Someone started to ache, aroused by the woman’s proximity.

Stay calm. If the Lee Tomlinson can carry this off, anyone can. Now it’s your time to shine.

The fact that murdering someone using the Lee’s same patterns didn’t register much. Killing this woman might cause reasonable doubt in a courtroom for him.

Instead, jealousy, even anger, twisted every heartbeat. Confusion and need pumped through each tangled vein like tainted blood.

You’re smarter than the cops, so you won’t get caught like he did. You’re smarter than the Lee Tomlinson, too. You can beat him at his own game.

The thought of sinking fangs into flesh warped into a fantasy, one in which each violent bite was a thrust into Lee, a furious victory.

Through the slit of the sliding closet door, the victim came into view, ambling into the brandied darkness on three-inch heels. The steady drip of the adjoining bathroom’s leaking faucet kept time with Someone’s strangled breathing as the light from a dying streetlamp outside suffused the room.

The victim was on the midnight side of thirty, shrouded with August sweat and a dark red dress. She bent to work off the thin straps of her heels, her hair frizzed from humidity, her bodice gaping to reveal most of her small breasts.

Sex. I can smell the sex she wants so badly right on her skin. How will it taste?

Someone’s belly went tight, body tensing with the yearning to join with a counterpart.

Lee.

Someone craved to become him, to fuse with him again in this substitute act of connecting. An act of beautiful violence. An act of hating and worshipping a fallen hero.

Unaware of what was in the closet, the victim sauntered to the bathroom, slipping the tiny straps of her dress down her shoulders on the way.

The bathroom light swicked on, slicing over the floor.

It’s time. It’s my turn to shine now.

Carefully, Someone grabbed the knife, then opened the closet door and crept to the bathroom, fangs gleaming in the mirror during the impulsive emergence of a smile.

And when Jessica Reese looked in that mirror to see Someone behind her, it was already too late for her to scream.

TWO

THE PLAYERS

EVEN with her eyes closed, Dawn Madison was aware of a vague, lurking danger.

Dressed in basic street wear—a sleeveless white T, black jeans, leather bracelets—she crouched, waiting for the next attack, senses alive. She caught the scent of old wood, paint, and must that lingered in the corners of the room. She heard a reporter’s voice barking from the TV speakers her opponents had turned on in order to mask their movements. Her skin prickled as an air-conditioned breeze hushed over her.

But there was something else out there…stalking….

A pop from her right split the air, and a projectile whizzed toward her. With the well-trained moves of an athlete, she banked to the left, using her shoulder to cushion herself while rolling to her knees. Another object came at her from the opposite direction. She dropped backward, grunting, her spine hitting the floor, her bent legs splaying to give her leeway. Immediately rolling to her stomach, then pushing up to her feet, she landed in another crouch, her hands at the ready.

Not bad for the dead of night, yelled a tinny male voice that echoed off the windowless walls.

Heart pattering, Dawn exhaled, regulating her stress while keeping her eyes shut. She maintained her position, ready to withstand anything. You guys take forever to reload. Can’t you go any faster?

She heard Kiko Daniels make an okay-you-asked-for-it sound as he inserted another beanbag into his gun.

Dawn tuned her ears in to what was happening with her second opponent. Breisi Montoya. Kiko wasn’t very mobile with the back brace he was wearing, but his team member had been all over the room trying to whoop Dawn’s ass during this agility session. The other woman’s bare feet cushioned her stealthy attacks, aiding her in smacking Dawn with three damned bruises already.

The drone of the TV battled Dawn’s concentration as she tried to detect Breisi’s whereabouts. To the right? Left?

Temples throbbing, she stayed cool. She’d have no other choice if this simulation were real; although the three of them hadn’t faced any vampires for over a month, the monsters were still out there. In fact, The Voice kept telling them it was just a matter of time before the vamps reemerged from their Underground—or whatever it was the team had gotten wind of.

Dawn blew out a breath, picturing herself outside at night, the moon shrouded behind the tips of pine trees. This training session was supposed to simulate the threat of one vamp variety they’d uncovered. The subspecies was bald, pale, clawed, with iron fangs and attacks that came as fast as those beanbags, especially when they used whip-quick tails with bladed ends.

Red-eyes, the team had called them.

But, Underground, she knew the group was named something else. Guards. Robby Pennybaker had revealed this and more before he’d turned into yet another form of vamp, a creature way more powerful than a Guard or one of the basic silver-eyed Goths the team had also encountered. Terrible to look upon and deadly to fight, Robby had thrown diminutive Kiko across a room and into a wall, breaking his back. The creature had also mentally violated Dawn’s mind until she thought she would break, too.

And that’s just one of the reasons Dawn had killed him.

Now, she was preparing to function without ever having to look any of those creatures in the eye—she’d never get mind screwed by a vamp again. Wouldn’t ever allow them inside so they could see her weaknesses, especially her desperation to find her dad, who’d gone missing over a month ago….

She heard a pop from across the room, straight ahead. Responding by pure instinct, she launched herself sideways, forcing her mind to act as a weapon.

Push…out!

But the trick didn’t work this time, not like it had when she’d fought Robby. She’d accidentally belted the vampire with some kind of mental shove, and she didn’t know how to re-create it, even if she’d surprised herself by doing it a couple of times during this last month of training.

That made it an undependable tactical option.

Whap! The beanbag punched Dawn’s hip as she hit the floor. Shit. And ouch. Time for a new plan.

Before Kiko could get off a shot and Breisi could reload, Dawn opened her eyes and unwound a chain from around her waist. A nine-section whip chain, to be precise.

Holding the handle with her right thumb and forefinger, she coiled the steel-linked bars in her left hand. In a flash, she transferred the bundled chains to her right while securing her grip on the handle. Then, with a push, she sprung the whip outward.

Without pause, she was already cycling the weapon by her side, using a right elbow hook spin to create a blurred bubble around her body. The bars and links moved that fast.

Sure enough, Kiko’s beanbag glanced off the steel arc.

Dawn, Breisi yelled from the left. Her tone was laced with a heavier Spanish accent than usual, so she was clearly pissed. I guess this means we’re done.

Aw, no, I wanna see this, Kiko said. She’s been practicing hard.

Just to be an ornery hot dog, Dawn spun the whip once overhead, winding up, then launched into a butterfly kick, circling the links beneath her body while jumping. She landed on her feet, grinning at Breisi and slowing the whip down. At the apex of its spin, she allowed it to fall gently back into her hand. There, the weapon rested like a happy snake that had struck out to get the best of Breisi and her damned beanbags.

I thought I’d give my new toy a first run, Dawn said. She felt good about it, too, even though her right arm ached a little from the injuries she’d sustained during the throw down with Robby Pennybaker.

Breisi leaned against a mirrored wall, hand on one hip, beanbag gun at ease in the other. With her Louise Brooks–black hair, broad yet delicate features, and Mickey Mouse T-shirt—Dawn had just weaned the woman off those dorky teddy bear prints—you’d think she’d come off as some Latina cutie. But upon a closer look, she was more like an Aztec warrior ready to tear Dawn’s chest open. A more minute inspection also revealed the tiny signs of age that had ended her ingénue acting career.

Not that a thirty-one-year-old should be worried about being ancient. At least, not in the real world. But this was Hollywood, where logic feared to tread.

As Dawn faced Breisi, she could see her own image in the wall mirror. Not exactly an L.A. poster girl herself, with her extremely average face, complete with a lovely scar riding an eyebrow, courtesy of a stunt gag. But that was nothing compared to the scar on her cheek from the fight with Robby. She also had a sleekly muscled antiwaif body and a low-maintenance, low-riding ponytail that banded her brown hair together.

A special delivery full of attitude. She’d been maintaining the package for twenty-four years, ever since she could first say, Screw off. Ever since she realized that she would never live up to the gorgeous promises her mother, the famous Eva Claremont, had woven.

Mom. The name tasted bitter.

Breisi spoke, voice flat. Those are some clever moves, but I thought you’d left the stunt work by the wayside. Flashy show-off routines aren’t going to keep you alive with vamps.

Dawn negligently inspected the dull practice dart on the end of her whip chain. It’d be the real thing if she used it outside. Sharp, silver, and tipped with holy water. And I can use it to attack a Guard or maybe even one of those Goth Groupies. Blessed articles have an effect on both vamps, and we know silver slowly poisons at least some of them. If I could ward off spit with the chain’s speed and slice the dart into a red-eye’s tail or an exposed place—

"It is just like one of those Guard’s tails, ain’t it?" Kiko said, making his way over.

A pretty blond guy in his late twenties with a soul patch under his lower lip, he was a struggling actor of a certain stature, a little person who was proportioned just right—only smaller. Right now, he couldn’t audition because he was recovering from Robby’s beat down. With a still-healing back, he also couldn’t run, couldn’t lift heavy objects, and sure as hell couldn’t fight by Breisi and Dawn’s side if it came right down to it. But his brain was still running on all cylinders. His psychometric, telepathic, and precognitive senses would always be valuable, not that Kiko was happy about missing out on any expected calls to action. During this past month, during all the days of dried-up leads to her dad’s whereabouts and information about the Underground, Kiko had been in physical therapy, biting back the pain Dawn knew he wasn’t showing.

He reached for the whip chain, wanting to inspect it, and she made a big deal of pausing, then running a challenging gaze over him. Afterward she grinned, handing it over, as if he’d passed muster. She hoped he felt like that, anyway.

Those Guard tails kept nagging at me, she said. I wanted to level the playing field with my own version of a barbed whip. Now, I know it’s nowhere near as powerful as theirs, but what else am I going to do? Become a mutant monkey and grow my own freakin’ tail?

Not a far trip for a primate like you.

Kiko scanned the dart. It was the first time Dawn had brought out the martial arts weapon around her team, even though they knew she’d been practicing off property.

"You can attack with this and protect yourself?" he asked.

When the red-eyes spit at you, it will go right through that steel, Breisi said, referring to the Guards’ lovely habit of expectorating burning-hot fluids.

Your lab tests showed that the stuff isn’t composed of acid, right? Dawn asked. Remember how their spit just charred the silver arm bracelet I used to wear, and that was it? Maybe steel will go unaffected, too.

She knew Breisi wouldn’t refute her own scientific findings just to make Dawn put the whip chain away. Nope, not Miss Lab Rat, U.S.A., their appointed gadget wizard, the Bondian Q of their team. Which made Kiko their psychic Aragorn. Which made Dawn…what?

Memory washed over her: lifting a machete, hacking off Robby’s head. Putting a silver bullet through his heart, just to be sure.

Dawn was what her father, Frank Madison, had once been to this team. Muscle. And maybe even something else…

Before she’d joined up with Limpet and Associates, a vision had come to Kiko. He’d seen her, Dawn Madison, covered in the blood of a vampire.

It was the end of our struggles, he’d told her. "I felt that everything would be fine after that."

Supposedly, she was key to beating these vamps. That’s what Kiko and The Voice kept telling her anyway. Their reclusive, as-yet-unseen boss had even used his employee, Frank, as bait to get Dawn the Prophecy Girl involved with all this craziness. She’d rushed to L.A. to help find her father, of course, but they hadn’t met with success. Yet, according to the boss, whose agenda had more to do with the Underground than with Frank, the team was closer to both her dad and the vamps now more than ever.

She rubbed her arms, suddenly going cold…and way too warm. The Voice. The man who communicated with them only through speakers. The only entity the formerly oversexed Dawn had allowed inside of her lately in a strange lust affair.

When she held her hand out to Kiko for the whip chain, the psychic grudgingly gave it back.

Don’t even think about it, Kik, Breisi said.

He got a look on his face that Dawn had seen way too often lately. Hurt, resentment. Why can’t I just give it a go?

Because, honestly, Dawn said, "I shouldn’t even be messing with the whip chain."

Kiko looked doubtful, like he knew she was just trying to make him feel better.

I’m serious, she said. I know full well I might hurt myself, even though I’ve had martial arts training for certain movies. But technically, I still don’t have enough experience to master this. I’m just lucky I found an instructor, thanks to The Voice. He’d given her a lot of money to locate a teacher who would weigh her determination and knack for quick learning against common sense. And, lo and behold, it’d worked. Bribes could create wonders.

All in all, there’d been a lot of training this past month. A lot of healing, too. Kiko hadn’t been the only one to sustain injuries from vamp fights but, aside from some stubborn aches, Dawn’s wounds had been pretty well taken care of by a gel Breisi had concocted in the lab, as well as some rest and medical attention. But that didn’t mean Dawn had sat on her butt, waiting to get better. Hell, no. She’d been working on perfecting her mind blocks—keeping others out of her head—as well as those mind pushes. She’d remained in shape, training physically according to her healing progress, and she’d caught up on studying her monster lore, poring over type-written case files housed in The Voice’s library.

Obviously ticked, Kiko looked away from Breisi and Dawn, shutting them out. He fixed a gaze on the TV. To Dawn, the volume seemed to fill the room, emphasizing the awkwardness of having to leave Kiko in the dust when it came to fighting.

Not knowing what else to say, she glanced at the screen, too. It featured FOX News, where the entire day’s coverage was devoted to Lee Tomlinson, a killer Dawn and the team knew all too well. They’d been keeping constant tabs on any updates: besides being a probable Servant to the Underground, Lee had murdered the woman who’d given them information about Robby, who was part of the Underground himself….

On the TV, the reporter enthused about the career Lee could’ve had, how he might’ve been the new Brandon Lee.

Only on the surface, Dawn muttered, tucking the whip chain into her pocket and crossing her arms over her chest. She glanced at Kiko, hoping to draw him out with a conversation guaranteed to turn his attitude around. "There’s a difference between people like Lee Tomlinson who just look like a famous celebrity and people like… She swallowed, not wanting to mention the next name but, then again, sort of needing to if she was ever going to grow up and get over her neuroses. …Jacqueline Ashley."

There.

Kiko perked right up at the magic words.

Dawn blew out a breath. Kiko’s crush, their new friend Jac, had gotten a makeover that had changed the faceless starlet into an Eva Claremont throwback, a bloodcurdling almost-double who was persistent about becoming Dawn’s buddy. She was continually calling with invitations to spar at the fencing studio where they’d met, but Dawn hadn’t taken her up on it yet. Someday she would, just to get past the fears Jac’s resemblance dredged up. Maybe.

I guess, Dawn said, there’s something different about Jac when it comes to the hype. You can tell she’s the real star and Lee’s a poseur.

Catching on to Dawn’s protective arm cross, Breisi rose to a stand and came over from the mirrored wall to pat her coworker’s shoulder. The other woman had been in the room the day Jacqueline Ashley had revealed her Eva makeover. Just recalling the moment made Dawn dizzy, ill, longing for her mom to come back while, at the same time, hating her for leaving. Hating her for being so beautiful and perfect while Dawn was neither.

Have you talked to Jac? Kiko asked, all puppylike. Is she still doing that ‘buccaneer boot camp’ for her movie?

Yeah.

That’s my girl. He performed his rendition of Happy Kiko, reveling in a geeky glow. Her first big gig.

She’s trying to get me a job on the set, but…

They all nodded. Even though Jac’s movie wouldn’t shoot for another month, Dawn had been forced to call all her industry contacts to tell them she’d be out of commission for a while. Did that finally make her an ex-stuntwoman?

Once again, she felt the machete in her hand as she winged it down to terminate Robby.

With one final squeeze to Dawn’s upper arm, Breisi handed her gun over, dug into her cargo pants pockets for beanbags, and gave them to Dawn. What do you say you muchachos take a run at me now?

Kiko scrunched his nose. I’ve gotten into a mental mood with this break, Breez. Unless you and Dawn want to go at it. I’d love to see a good catfight.

Gross. Dawn made as if to punch him, and he flinched, even though he knew she wouldn’t go there.

I’m just being honest about my all-American, red-blooded maleness. He grinned.

Kik, Breisi said, business in her tone as she moved to the opposite side of the gym. You want to work or not?

Okay, okay.

As he left, Dawn busied herself by loading a beanbag into Breisi’s gun. By chance, she glanced over, catching sight of Kiko by the far corner, turning away from her. He inspected his gun, slipping a hand to his back, holding it like it was paining him. But in the next second, he was loading a beanbag, acting as if everything was normal.

Frowning, she took off the rubber-soled work boots she’d been wearing for the gym floor, then her socks. Kiko was a big boy and she wasn’t going to tell him to take a rest; she knew damned well that bringing up the subject would only encourage him to prove her wrong by playing that much harder. The best thing would be to keep an eye on him, and that was that.

Waiting until Breisi closed her eyes and settled into a defensive hunch, Dawn changed position, ready to give the other woman a few karma bruises.

But before the first shot could be fired, the TV blipped off, the room going quiet.

Her body readied itself, pounding, heating, because she knew what was coming next.

The Voice eased through the speakers, low and rough, still-of-the-night lethal.

I need all of you in my office, he said. We’ve finally got something.

THREE

THE LEAD

IF there was one way to describe the joint that housed Limpet and Associates, it was Vincent Price on mescaline.

With its grand staircase edged with gargoyle-decorated balustrades, its creaky hardwood floors, its knight-in-creepy-armor sensibilities, the place floated in the twilight area between kitschy and truly haunted. Dawn wasn’t sure which was more accurate because, based on what she’d seen so far, anything was possible.

As the team walked from the back of the house to the front, they passed under a massive iron chandelier that resembled a claw topped by melted candles. Then, while everyone climbed the stairs, she couldn’t help eyeing a painting that hung over the granite fireplace mantel and dominated the room.

The Fire Woman, Dawn had started to call her. A seduction-postured temptress wrapped in a flame-red robe.

Dawn felt watched, just like she always did around The Voice’s collection of portraits.

There was a good reason for that, too.

They made their way down the dark hall to The Voice’s office, where the door stood open in dubious welcome. Inside, velvet curtains blocked the windows, books stood sentinel on the floor-to-ceiling shelves, and a magnificent TV surrounded by speakers reigned. There were portraits here, too, but oddly, one of the baroque wood frames enclosed a permanently empty field of fire. The rest of the pictures held the images of females, each of them looking like they’d been caught sliding their clothes off while webbed in an erotic fantasy.

Friends, Dawn thought. That’s what Breisi and Kiko called the women in the paintings. She’d discovered they were spirits, that the portraits were something like beds where they rested. Where they watched. Always watched.

As Dawn took a seat in a velvet-lined chair, the faint scent of jasmine crept over her, the perfume of these ghosts who had fought Robby Pennybaker right along with Dawn and Breisi that horrible night.

Skin alive with sensation, just as it always was in The Voice’s office, Dawn tried to relax. So many things confused her about being here: this new preternatural world, the raging impatience to find her missing dad, the strange ecstasy of what The Voice could do—and had done—to her body and mind.

Who was this man? she asked herself for probably the one thousandth time.

After the Robby incident, she’d done research, visiting an Internet café to bring up articles and images of Mr. Jonah Limpet—The Voice’s real name. She’d found rare photographs of a young guy who held a hand over his face to avoid being caught by the cameras. He had short, dark hair that curled slightly at the ends. His body looked tall and wiry under long, untucked shirts and khaki pants.

Wanting more, Dawn had delved further, finding out that he was the reclusive heir to a medical supply fortune, that he never left any of his houses except to travel between them under a veil of secrecy. His aged parents had passed away years ago, but he’d held the funerals on Limpet property, being so wealthy that he’d never even needed to step foot into the actual world.

How had Jonah Limpet gotten this way? And why had he closed himself off from everything but the Underground?

Dawn crossed her arms over her chest, preparing to block out his well-established hypnotic powers before he could get the jump on her. He liked being inside her, liked solving her, too, bringing her to physical climaxes while lapping up her emotions.

Thing was, she liked it. Hated it. Loved it.

Realizing that she was getting all repressed again, Dawn sighed, resting her hands on her lap. All her life, she’d shoved her emotions into an inner box, but lately, she’d been trying hard to keep herself more open. She needed to face what The Voice was, and more important, what he’d become to her.

Nearby, Kiko arranged himself on a settee, sitting bolt upright because of his brace. The sight pinched at her. She was used to seeing him plop into chairs, then collapse into a sprawled mess