“I’m telling you to put it down before you get hurt,” Eva said, sounding so much like a mother that Dawn almost did stop.
But it didn’t really work with a middle-aged woman bitching at her from a young girl’s body. “What’s the Underground, Eva?”
The vampire looked heartbroken.
“Where’s Frank? Do you know where the hell my dad is?”
“Please put that down….”
Dawn spun the whip backward so it slowed at the apex of the spin, then allowed it to fall back into her hand. But just as Eva looked relieved, Dawn quickly stepped forward, skip-stepping into a tornado kick, releasing the whip and going into a right elbow hook spin to gain enough speed to strike.
Slowly, Eva nodded, then sighed into Danger Form.
She whirled, ghost tendrils in misty motion, then snapped into a cloud of breathtaking angel-featured splendor. Before Dawn could maneuver the chain around again, Eva had zipped under the arc of the whip’s spin and flashed up to Dawn’s hand, jarring the handle away.
Aghast, Dawn could only watch as the vamp masterfully manipulated the handle, circling the whip and dervishing her own way across the room. When she released the chain, it cut into a wall, spitting plaster, then died to the carpet.
As if to punctuate the finale, Eva popped back into human form, wisps of silver streaming from her body like iced smoke.
“That’s so not going to work,” she said, sounding like Jac—na?vely disappointed.
For the first time, Dawn felt truly beaten, having no options. Her pulse vibrated, turning her stomach.
“I guess it’s time to prove,” Eva said, “that my intentions aren’t that bad at all.”
Out of nowhere, someone gripped Dawn’s arm. She glanced up to find Julia shaking her head at her. Bad dog, she seemed to be saying. Bad daughter.
A rumbling filled the air, and Dawn glanced at the fireplace, which was moving away from the wall, exposing a slat.
Before she knew what was happening, Julia and Eva had taken both her arms, forcefully ushering her through the dark space, down some stairs….
Toast, Dawn thought. I’m toast. No one will ever know what happened to me.
But when a door opened at the end of a tunnel, she saw a light. They shoved her into it, and there, in the blinding flash, she saw a well-kempt man in a T-shirt and jeans, chained to an overstuffed couch.
Dawn fell to her knees, then sprint-crawled toward him, choking on happiness and fear.
As she jumped up and collided into his chest, his beefy arms wrapped around her, cutting off what little she had left of her breath.
Then the door behind Dawn and her father crashed shut.
NINETEEN
THE RED FINGER
D AD!” Dawn cried into Frank’s brawny chest, clinging to him. His familiar scent—the musk of car grease, a hint of old beer days gone by—washed through her.
He was real. She held him tighter. He was here.
For his part, Frank was squeezing so hard Dawn thought she’d pop. The pressure brought on a flash of memory: Daddy, I can’t breathe, she’d said once after coming inside the house after school. A neighbor had dropped her off from gymnastics practice because Frank had forgotten to pick her up again. You’re too strong, Dad….
Big-girl Dawn pushed away to get some oxygen, but also because she wanted to see that it was really him and not some damned vampire joke. Reaching up to hold his grizzled face in her hands, she laughed a little hysterically.
“You’re okay,” he said. “I knew the last thing she’d do was hurt you, but…”
He shook his head, out of words.
Dawn kept drinking him in. Deep lines emphasized his smile, and his green eyes were clear of their usual hangover fuzz, a sheen of what seemed like relief washing over them instead. His steady gaze was surrounded by crinkles, his skin so leathered it looked like some treasure map that might actually pay off. His dark hair resembled the usual wild-grass clearing, but it’d receded more than she remembered.
She’d missed him; she hadn’t realized just how much until now.
They hugged again, and she noticed that, in spite of his brawn, his tummy was slightly rounded. Eva had kept him fed.
“You are okay,” he mumbled against her hair, “right, Dawnie?”
“Okay” was such a relative term. “I’ve found you, and that makes me more than okay. Now…” Ignoring her aches and pains, Dawn squeezed him one more time, then quickly reached down, testing one of the long chains shackling his arms. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Whoa, whoa…” Frank smoothed back her hair with both hands, then kissed her forehead, pressing her to his chest until she was gasping again. “I almost want to think that this is one of Eva’s mind tricks.”
Like father like daughter. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, but…” She backed away, tugged at his chains anchored against the wall. They held like a mother, but Dawn wasn’t exactly at her strongest right now.