“Okay, the taskmaster wants us to get back to the objective,” she said, still keeping him at bay. “Maybe talking about the vamps’ characteristics will connect this murder and the Underground.”
“Excellent,” Breisi said. “Let’s start with our first set of vampires. The Guards. Red-eyes. We’ve seen that they can die from decapitation or a silver bullet to the heart. We don’t know yet if other vamp lore staples like fire or stakes work. But garlic does repel them, and crucifixes. Silver anywhere else in their body might weaken them—”
Trying to top Breisi, Kiko fired off his own list. “You and Dawn know from experience that Robby’s kind of vampire—if there’s more than one of him—gets slowly poisoned by silver anywhere in his body. You said that he was begging for blood to cleanse the stuff out.”
“So, silver?” Dawn said. “Bad for these vamps. And that means…What? How does this relate to Jessica Reese?”
She could almost feel The Voice’s approval. It made her bristle.
“It doesn’t relate so much,” Kiko said. “But at least I can imagine a Guard tearing out a throat more than I can Robby’s type of vamp. Animal wasn’t his style—he had to ask Dawn’s permission to drink blood, even though he didn’t get it.”
“Little prick,” she said, recalling how Robby had trespassed into her mind instead. She still had nightmares about it. “But why would Jessica give permission, and then why would a vamp just leave her body out in the open when secrecy seems to be so vital to their existence?”
Breisi was giving Dawn a measuring gaze, as if she was checking her over for buried Robby wounds. “Good question.”
Kiko went on. “Back to Robby—he had two forms, right? In human guise, he could pass for any Joe Blow walking the street, except for those eyes. He could mind screw you with them, even worse than those red-eyes do. But when Robby went all death-angel vampy…shee-it.” Kiko started counting his fingers with every checked-off attribute. “Robby looked like a creature of the Rapture and was stronger than Godzilla. Oh, and the change brought on the fangs.”
“As far as similarities to the Guards go,” Breisi said, “Dawn killed Robby using decapitation, too, but we don’t know if her follow-up silver-bullet shot to the heart was effective. Differences: garlic didn’t work on the Robby type and neither did the crucifix—they only gave Robby pause and didn’t repel him. And he hinted to us that he could tread on holy ground.”
“Also, he can be seen on film,” Kiko added. “But does this obviously higher-class vamp murder like a rabid wolf?”
“Hmmm.” Dawn leaned forward, forearms on thighs. “Nathan Pennybaker ordered those Guards around like he’d captivated them, and he wasn’t able to do that with Robby. That gets me to thinking….” Nah, it was a weird idea.
“What, Dawn?” Breisi asked.
Okay, her life was all about weird nowadays. Might as well go for it. “Mind suggestion. Could the weaker vampires be open to some other commanding creature that wanted Jessica dead? Could the other party be, like, a puppeteer?”
“Excellent point,” The Voice finally said. “This would leave us with Guards or silver-eyes as the most likely vampire suspects, excluding Servants.”
“Silver-eyes,” Kiko said. “Robby called them Groupies. We know they can try to mind screw, too, and that crucifixes, at least, fazed them. We haven’t killed one, so we can only guess what would work best, if it came down to violence. I could see their type turning almost as feral as the Guards.”
Dawn nodded. “But I’d never forget about the possibility of another Servant, like Lee Tomlinson. A human who gets off on being bitten, one with no obvious powers, could resort to using their own teeth to become a vamp. Remember how Lee dressed like he wanted to be one? Maybe this murderer wants to make himself into the real thing by just copying vamp habits?”
Kiko looked up at the TV. “You getting any ideas about how we catch the killer, then have them lead us Underground?”
“Not as of yet,” The Voice said.
As his tone shuddered through Dawn, they all sat motionless, allowing everything to coalesce. Breisi got out her phone and dialed.
Okay, Dawn thought. Underground. Was it a literal reference to where the vamps lived? Or could they be housed in some old decrepit hotel, or even in plain sight?
She didn’t think so, because at one point during Robby’s death night, he had tricked his father into revealing too much to Dawn and Breisi. The vamp had been hoping to trap Nathan into coming Underground with him because there was some penalty for saying too much. That spoke of the importance of secrecy, and Dawn imagined vamps needed that to survive. Living in plain sight might be a clever upset of expectation, but she doubted vamps would be that brave. But, again, who knew?
And who knew why The Voice demanded the same secrecy?