Curse the Dawn

They rattled in the strong breeze coming off the lake as the door opened and Rafe came out. "No phone," he told me. I shrugged. I hadn't really expected one. He had a large yellow and white bottle in his hand that turned out to be sunscreen. "I left some money on the counter," he told me, as if worried that I might think less of him for stealing.

"Blocks eighty percent of UV rays," I read. I looked at him skeptically. "Think this is going to help?"

"At this point, I am willing to try anything," he said, slathering the milky stuff all over his face and hands. Despite the fact that most of the dust had washed off on the way here, Rafe was still bright red. Noonday sun is hell on vampires.

"Here." Pritkin poked his head out of the trailer and handed me a bottle of warm water. Since I'd already swallowed half a gallon on the swim to shore, I passed it to Red, who was looking a little shaky. Pritkin's shot might not have been fatal, but the guy had lost a lot of blood. He needed medical help and we all needed to get out of the heat.

Tremaine emerged a minute later, carrying some plastic deck chairs. "I'm going to hike up the road to the ticket office, see if they have a working phone," he a

"You going with him?" Caleb asked Pritkin as Rafe and I got Red off the concrete and into a chair.

"Hadn't pla

"He's a convict. None of this changes that."

"Cassie and I also have warrants out for our arrest," Pritkin pointed out. "Are you pla

"I'm pla

"You know what he did."

"And I know what they say you did."

"And I thought you knew me better than to believe it." The two men stared at each other for a long minute while Red and I watched and Rafe smeared himself with more SPF 80.

Caleb swore. "You have to go in. You have to end this. If there's been a mistake and she really is legit, people need to know."

"Then tell them," Pritkin snapped. "Not vague rumors or memos from higher-ups, but what you heard, what you saw, what you experienced. But don't be surprised if you end up in a prison cell for your trouble."

He and Tremaine took off without another word, and Caleb settled against the trailer, arms crossed and a dark frown on his face, watching his prisoner. I don't know why. It's not like any of us were going anywhere.

Rafe went back inside and emerged a few minutes later with a couple of white sheets that he proceeded to wrap around himself. With his riotous brown curls and easy smile, he looked like a particularly charming bedouin. A bedouin with a face full of sunscreen and a pair of designer sunglasses.

"Where'd you get the shades?" I asked.

"Rome. They're Gucci."

"Very nice." I glanced at Red. "Vampires have coagulants in their saliva that aid in healing. If you're still bleeding, Rafe could stop it."

Red gave Caleb a panicked look. "You keep that thing away from me! I know my rights! You can't let him feed!"

"He's offering to help you," Caleb said mildly.

"Yeah, help me out of a few pints! I know how they are!"

"I believe the bleeding has stopped, mia stella," Rafe said wryly. "And I do not normally feed from, ah, that particular region."

"What region?"

"Pritkin shot him in the ass," Caleb said bluntly.

I looked at Red with more sympathy. I could relate.

A small gust of wind blew some sand in our faces, making me cough and settling onto everyone's hair, turning it vaguely pink. I lifted my sweaty hair off my neck and wished for a headband. God, it was hot.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before Pritkin was back, along with an older man in a golf cart. He seemed to be under the impression that we'd been in a boating accident and needed transport back to Vegas. He had already called us a cab.

"Where's Tremaine?" Caleb demanded.

"Waiting for the cab," Pritkin said blandly.

Caleb scowled, but he kept his comments to himself in front of the norm. He and Red got into the back of the golf cart, and Pritkin got in front. Leaving me and Rafe to follow on foot.

"That wasn't very gentlemanly," Rafe noted, watching them drive off.

I didn't say anything.

It took us five minutes to make it out of the campground, up a small hill and down the road to the ticket booth. We found Pritkin outside, leaning against the booth. Caleb and Red were in the golf cart, taking a short nap. The ticket taker was inside, apparently fascinated by his shoelaces, which he'd knotted into some pretty intricate shapes. Tremaine was nowhere in sight.

"Do I want to know?" I asked.

"We have perhaps half an hour before they wake up," Pritkin informed me. "Peter has gone to the highway to arrange transportation."

"I thought a cab was coming."

"We can't afford to wait that long. McCullough is wearing a tracker; all prisoners do as a precaution. The Corps is preoccupied at the moment, which doubtless explains why a team has yet to arrive to pick him up. But with our luck, they will be here any moment."

The Corps was the military arm of the Circle; i.e., war mage central. I was definitely in favor of moving on before any more of Pritkin's old buddies showed up. But something else he'd said caught my attention.

"A tracker?" I blinked dust out of my eyes. "You mean, if he goes anywhere, they know it?"

"Essentially."

"I don't see it on him."

"It's a spell, not a physical device," Pritkin said impatiently. "Is there a reason for your interest?"

"Yes. Can you check to see if I have one?"

He handed me a bottle of water from the ticket taker's fridge and splashed his face with another. "You have three." He started down the road at a fast enough clip that Rafe and I had to hurry to keep up.

"Wait a minute. How do you know?"

"One of them is mine."

"You bugged me?"

"It isn't a listening device, Miss Palmer. It merely records your location. Which, considering how many people wish to kidnap and/or murder you, is a reasonable precaution."

"If it's so reasonable, why didn't you mention it?" Water and perspiration had turned his usually pale eyelashes dark and clumpy, emphasizing the color of his eyes as he rolled them. "Because I wanted it to work! Something it would not have done had you persuaded the witch to remove it."

"Her name is Francoise and you're damn right she'd have removed it!"

"Which is why I didn't mention it."

If I'd been less exhausted, I'd have been livid. As it was, the best I could manage was disgusted. "When I was growing up at Tony's, I was followed everywhere," I told him. "By bodyguards, by my governess, by someone all the time. I had zero privacy. But even Tony didn't go so far as to put a spell on me!"

"He doubtless didn't have anyone competent enough to cast it," Pritkin said, striding ahead.

I shouted after him. "You said one was yours. It doesn't worry you that two other groups are tracking me?"

Rafe cleared his throat. "Ah, Cassie. ."

"Mircea bugged me?" I guessed.

"And Marlowe, I believe."

"Why? Was he afraid Mircea might not tell him everything?"

Rafe looked shocked. "We all have the same desire, mia stella: to keep you safe. And a new version of the spell was recently perfected. It is much harder to detect, even by mages."

"Then why not remove the old one?"

"We were not aware that the mage was also pla

"So the original was left to give them something to remove, in the hopes that they wouldn't look any further."