Deep In the Woods by Chris Marie Green

Author:Chris Marie Green
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Ace Trade
Published: 2010-03-01T07:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

THE JACKPOT

ABOUT forty-five minutes before dusk, Dawn sat herself in a chair in front of Claudius at temporary headquarters with the Meratoliage pages in her hands for the vampire to gawk at.

He must’ve recognized the scent of evil paper, but way worse than Dawn had, because he recoiled from those yellowed pages. Or maybe he was just shocked that she was holding them like a revealed full house in a poker game.

“You have no right to those,” he said, recovering enough to act like he was royalty again, even though he’d been transferred to the throne of a plain wooden chair, his robe the same blanket he’d been wearing since his capture, his courtiers the same Friends who’d been binding him for most of the day.

Dawn realized she was holding her breath, and she let it go. She’d half expected Claudius to smack out with any remaining powers he might have, because this would be the time to lay all his cards on the table, with her, here, holding this all-important information.

But she really must’ve disabled him that first night when she’d mentally roughed him up. Costin’s constant Awareness attacks had also done him further damage.

That would only help their cause now though. After returning from Menlo Hall—where she’d rushed to dress the maid back in her uniform so the girl would wake up thinking she’d just taken a nice nap—Dawn had scanned the evil pages, even while trying to drive back. Then she’d brought Kiko and Natalia far down in the shelter away from Claudius, where he shouldn’t be able to hear them talking, especially with his hearing muffled by a Friend. The psychics had told her that they hadn’t made any progress with the master vampire themselves, so after chatting about what Dawn now had in her possession, they’d formulated a new approach to questioning him.

They probably could’ve used Frank’s help—he would’ve been some pretty intimidating muscle to back them up—but Dawn’s dad was still resting in his private room, and she thought it best to let him snooze because he’d be that much fresher if they had to head out at dusk.

But to where? She didn’t know yet.

She glanced at a digital clock on the wall. Still a little time left . . .

Folding one leg over the other, she rested the fragile pages on her thigh. Unfortunately, she’d managed to pull some pretty useless stuff from the book: history about the dragon, which Dawn was already pretty well acquainted with, thanks to Costin.

She just wished she knew more about the custodes than a vague idea of what Relaquory was or that a keeper’s anatomy was screwed up because of the all the black magic and genetic tampering that’d gone on with them.

“A treasure trove of information,” she said to Claudius, nonetheless, acting like she had more than she really did. Bluffing at its finest. “Surely you don’t mind my borrowing pages from one of your custode’s library books? Sharing what you learn is a part of any great society.

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