Friday, March 27, 2009

A Drop Of Red by Chris Marie Green

Chris Marie Green brings us the fourth book in the Vampire Babylon series A Drop of Red. Dawn, Kiko and Frank are back again this time they are in London England, on the trail of the next vampire underground, and to find out why some girls have been disappearing. Dawn is still struggling with her new life and how it has changed. Their Boss is actually two beings in one Costin who is a soul traveler, Costin needed a healthy host to survive. His arrangement with Jonah had gone awry when Dawn decided to save Costin’s life and trap him in Jonah’s body. Costin is in a constant struggle with Jonah to keep him at bay. This is something else Dawn must struggle with since she made him this way, since it was the only way she could save him was to turn him and when she killed Benedict it changed her back to almost human again. Costin brings in a new person to the team as sort of a replacement to Bresei, who is now one of their spirit friends due to an accident in the previous underground hunt. Dawn doesn’t know quite what to think, but Kiko doesn’t like her at all and perceives her as a threat to him & his job since she is a psychic as well. Although her field of expertise is tailored to hearing, and sensing spirits, and Kiko’s is seeing visions through touch of objects or people. Through Kiko’s vision and some of the sounds that Natalia was hearing they are led through a few interviews to an all girl school. They get a tour of the school by pretending they are scouting schools for their sister for when they move to England from the United States. They bring the friends with them to keep an eye out for vampires or a possible underground entrance. The friends’ find four vampire girls and Kiko doesn’t get a reading off of the ones he bumps into as they are walking down the hall. They planned a reconnaissance mission for that same night to the school. Frank, would scout ahead using his vamp senses for danger and any underground openings, Dawn & Kiko would bring up the rear, and Natalia would stay behind monitoring with Costin since she had not been trained in combat fully yet. Costin has them start at a vacant building as an easy access point to the campus. Frank clears the building first while they have the friends keeping an eye on the girls; which are napping in a common room. The team started moving slowly up the tree line when they were notified that Della had gone to her room to get a book. Della looked out the window which was cracked sniffed and then opened the window sniffed again and looked directly in the team’s direction which was over 800ft away. The other girls joined her in the room she was gesturing and pointing in the team’s direction with no lips moving denoting that they had telepathic abilities. The team started hearing dogs barking in the background when they did one of the friends told them that the needed to get back to the car as soon as possible that the dogs had been summoned. They didn’t get to get back to the car they made it back to the abandoned building and Breisi helped them to the roof letting them know that there were feral animals at the car. A friend then lets them know the girls have left the dorm room and that they couldn’t slow them down because. The girls stopped ten feet from the building and started questioning the team, Frank played it off as if he were the teams master and they were the servants. He was an American vampire looking for others of his kind. The girls still didn’t like them being there and there was a small argument among the girls and then one of the girls starts to change into something tailless sphinx cat-wolf like creature. Dawn mind pushed her and bound her hands above her head. Natalia broke the communication silence saying she heard the front door but it was shut but the house alarm was disarmed. This alarms Dawn thinking about Costin, and what could be going on now. Chris Marie Green will have you riveted to your chair with this book in the Vampire Babylon series. You won’t realize you have read as much as you have until the book is done. This was a great addition to the series and I cant wait for the next book in the series if there is going to be one.

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