Broken by Shiloh Walker Page B

with booby traps and everything. “Hey, Natalia, you’re in the communications room now, right?”
    The new girl came on, her voice frazzled. “Just as the boss said I should be in this situation, Dawn.”
    “Tap into the anonymous, nontraceable computer call program.” Breisi had installed it ages ago. “Report a drunken riot a few blocks over—but don’t give our own location. We can’t afford to have the law snooping around too close.” Costin was as eager to avoid the public limelight as any vamp. His operations depended on secrecy and ease of movement. “If the vamps are smart, they’ll hear the sirens a long way off and call away their charmed people. Vamps won’t want to be discovered, either, I’ll bet.”
    “Copy,” Natalia said.
    Dawn heard Kiko on the earpiece. His voice still carried that cosmic-ranger floatiness she’d noted earlier from being lulled by a Friend, but he was in ass-kicking mode.
    “I’m in Dawn’s room,” he said, updating his position.
    There was actually a window up there, unlike the blocked ones downstairs. Thanks to Breisi, it was shatterproof, so Dawn wasn’t worried about anything busting it open. But Costin did use it occasionally to receive any psychic vibes from the Underground, and there was a chance other vibrations might come through. If the lower vamps’ charming techniques were anything like Claudius’s, Dawn didn’t want to take a chance.
    “I can see some activity down below,” Kiko added. “Not sure what it is though.”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t stand so close to that window, Kik.”
    “Backing away, right now.”
    “Okay. Are any Friends with you?”
    “Nope. They’re all in more important places. That’s why I came up here—so I could keep watch from this position. I’ll scoot downstairs, if needed. But I think I see something . . .”
    “Keep us posted.”
    “Will do.”
    Things seemed ready to go, and the most important element was that Costin wasn’t in-house. That meant the vamps wouldn’t get to him.
    At least not here . . .
    Don’t think about him in that Underground, she thought. You’ve got a job to do yourself .
    But as Dawn reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Claudius waiting there in his chair, a smug smile on his mouth, she wondered if maybe Costin wasn’t as safe as she’d hoped.
    The vampire spoke, calmly, surely, while a Friend bound him. Dawn knew it was only one spirit, because the rest of the headquarters’ guard had been called to defend the building.
    “I told you they would come,” he said in that damaged voice. His throat had stalled in its healing.
    Was it a sign of his continued weakness?
    “They’re not gonna get closer than they are now,” Dawn said.
    “Are you here to kill me, before they arrive down here to take me back?”
    She wouldn’t reveal that Costin had ordered her to keep Claudius alive, just in case.
    God, where was he? In the midst of an Underground fight? Couldn’t he have spared a Friend or even a damned phone call to let them know how it was going? It’d be nice if she had permission to get rid of Claudius, if Costin didn’t need him alive anymore.
    Dawn held her stake in front of her, but the vamp seemed to know it was an empty threat.
    “You’re too afraid that I’ve misled your sweetie with bad directions to the Underground, aren’t you?” Claudius made a pseudo-sad face. “Not a wonderful position to be in.”
    Over Dawn’s earpiece, she heard some shouting, and her gut told her to stay here, no matter what was happening up top.
    When would the bobbies respond to Natalia’s call? Even a hint of sirens should be enough for the vamps to wave off their humans— if they were interested in not getting caught out there.
    “ Did you mislead Costin?” Dawn asked.
    Claudius laughed, and it reminded Dawn of a witch who was presenting a riddle. She had the horrific feeling that Claudius hadn’t been so mentally weak after all, that he had been playing Costin.
    Her temper