Hosts to Ghosts Box Set

by Lynne Connolly

  “I know.”

  She smiled, more relaxed. “You don’t wish to, do you? She’s a strange creature, all duty and honor. You have better things to do.”

  “If I have, I can’t think of any.” He could have bitten his tongue out. That careless remark had revealed what he’d tried so hard to hide for six months. She knew he still cared about his wife. He tried to mitigate his error. “Jealous, my sweet?” He narrowed his eyes and pasted on a lazy smile.

  “Yes, fuck you!” She turned away angrily, then swung back to him, her hair flying around her body. “Lovers are one thing, easily taken, easily discarded.” She snapped her fingers. “I’ve never bothered with jealousy of mere bodies. But the moment I saw you, I wanted you.” Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward into his space. “Why do you think you found it so easy to overpower Gillespie? Did you think you did that all on your own? He was a master vampire in his prime—if I hadn’t helped, he’d have broken you.”

  “I’m aware of that.” He should be—she told him often enough. “I never asked for any of this, Didiane. You thought you could control me better than you did my predecessor, didn’t you? I never loved you, and I owe you nothing. I didn’t ask to become what I am now, and I didn’t wish for it. I don’t want to resume our relationship on any scale, on any terms.” He watched her ease back, shock replacing anger in her eyes. “I can’t feel grateful toward you, because Cornell was a good man, and his loss is greater than I knew. He was a renegade, but he never brought harm to anyone who didn’t deserve it, and he was a benefactor to many.”

  “His foolish charities!”

  “Which I’ve carried on in his name,” he reminded her.

  She stared at him in silence, her mind completely cut off from him. “Then I’ll take the necklace and go home.” She turned her back on him. She walked away, her slim backside swaying in the gray silk sheath she wore. It engendered no desire in Jordan.

  Dread filled his heart. He shouldn’t have broken it off until they returned home, until he could put distance between Didiane and Karey. He needed to try to reconcile with Didiane for the time being. Otherwise she wouldn’t leave without killing Karey first. He knew Didiane through and through, and she didn’t have a bone in her lovely body that wasn’t vindictive and vengeful.

  He’d never regret making the break with Didiane. just the manner in which he did it. Over the last six months the woman he’d promised to protect had proved herself selfish, promiscuous and superficial. At first she’d claimed that Gillespie Cornell had victimized her, keeping her his fearful prisoner, but it hadn’t taken him long to see through that ruse. After that, she’d tried to keep him with sex, and while she had a great deal of sexual expertise, in the end any number of positions, any daring exploits meant nothing with no true feeling behind them. She’d banked on Jordan’s natural curiosity to explore this new gift, and it had worked, until recently.

  He didn’t care to pursue anything in her. He didn’t care about her dazzling beauty. It would never be enough, because she had very little beneath. How she could have lived so long—hundreds of years—without gaining any real wisdom defeated him, but it had happened. He’d take her away from this place and finish with her for good, maybe find her a new toy and persuade her the idea had originated in her own blonde head, but he needed to make sure Karey was out of the firing line first.

  Abruptly, Jordan turned away and re-entered Belle Sauvage, the pillared portico casting a possessive shadow over him. He closed the front door carefully and turned, heading for his room, where he could flash himself to New Orleans in privacy, only to walk straight into someone.

  With a muttered curse, he put his hands on a pair of narrow, feminine shoulders and held her steady. A sultry but young brunette gazed up at him, eyes wide, the heavy kohl rings around them making them appear even larger. He took his time looking her over, but didn’t probe her mind, not yet. Some vampires did it instinctively, but he preferred to give people their privacy whenever he could.

  She wore black, the lace from her long sleeves drifting over her thin cotton skirt. Red fingernails, pale make-up with blood red lipstick and a few silver charms around her neck convinced him that he was looking at a Goth. “What are you doing here? You know the hotel isn’t open, don’t you?” he demanded.

  “Yes.” She pitched her soft, Southern voice pitched low. “I help in the kitchen.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Thalia.” Somehow Jordan doubted she’d been christened Thalia, then again, she might come from a family of Goths. She couldn’t be older than twenty. Looking down at this girl, slight, innocence radiating from her, despite the dramatic drapery she wore, he felt as old as the earth.

  She smiled at him, the red lipstick only emphasizing the perfect white teeth of the American beauty. “I’ve not seen you here before.”

  Jordan deliberately increased his accent. Although he’d grown up in and around New York, he belonged here, too. His father spoke with a Southern drawl to the end of his days, and Jordan had spent several weeks every year here, in the place he regarded as his other home. His peripatetic existence had given him a clipped Northern accent, a Southern drawl and a French lilt. All natural. Now he drew on the drawl. “I’ve not been home for a while. How did I miss you, sweet thing?”

  She tilted her chin, gazing up at him from under heavy-lidded eyes. “How did I miss you?”

  “Come nearer to the light and let me look at you.”

  He drew her gently to the side of the hall, near a soft couch. He didn’t need to go into town after all. He had his nourishment here.

  Jordan had done this every night for six months and now, like every night, he wondered how long it would take before he could fully accept it. He’d turned into a parasite, as much as any flea that fastened on to its host, although he didn’t need much blood to nourish the extra organ that required it, the one that made him vampire.

  In time he’d go longer between feeds. He looked forward to that day. Staring at her, Jordan mesmerized the girl for the few moments it took for him to unsheathe his fangs, slide them into her neck and take what he needed.

  He tried not to think as the hot blood flowed up the channel in his fangs and the metallic taste tainted his mouth. Only to wait until his body told him he’d taken enough. It was necessary. So necessary that it would be worse than death to do without. In the middle ages, vampiric monks had found exquisite torture in denying themselves the sustenance their altered bodies needed, but Jordan wasn’t a monk, although for a few years before Karey had walked into his life, his sexual experience had rivaled one. He took what he needed, and tried to give back what he could by way of thanks.

  The girl writhed in his embrace as though he’d locked their bodies together in a sexual embrace. He melded his mind to hers, appalled to discover just how young she was. She hadn’t graduated yet.

  Ignoring his human urges to protect the girl, he gave her his thanks in the form of a sparkling climax. The climax a vampire could give his prey was akin to a sexual climax, but centered in the brain. A seductive culmination, one that left the prey satiated and tired. They would sleep, needing to replenish the blood he had just taken.

  Truly, Mother Nature didn’t waste her gifts.

  Sick at heart for taking one so young, Jordan nevertheless gave her what the prey deserved to experience and afterwards laid her carefully on the couch to rest.

  “You are vampire.”

  “Jesus, fuck!” He spun around and faced the person who had effortlessly walked through all the protective barriers he’d put up, and saw an ageless African American woman, dressed beautifully but plainly in a dark green blouse and long, swirling skirt, the fabric settling around her long legs after her entry into the house.

  He retracted his fangs quickly before he spoke. “What are you talking about? The girl fainted.” He reached out to ‘persuade’ her that she’d seen Thalia faint, but met a barrier stronger than anything he’d come across before. The woman smiled.
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br />   “There’s no need to hide your nature. I’m a friend. My name is Sarah. I felt the stirring here, the entry of new Talents into the community and I came to investigate.” For a moment he caught a flash of something in his mind. An owl, a great white creature, dark eyes gleaming. Shape-shifter? His curiosity stirred. He’d never met one of those, not to his knowledge, anyway.

  The woman smiled. She regarded him sharply, head tilted to one side. He knew from the gentle telepathic greeting she sent that she was a Talent, so he was safe to talk with her openly.

  She communicated with him mentally, her voice elegant and effortless in his mind. “You are newly made.”

  He nodded. “I am. Six months ago.”

  “You’re coping well. It will grow easier, both the lifestyle and the feeding.” She stepped forward and touched him, her hand gently soothing to his skin. They exchanged a smile. “Who was your sire?”

  “Gillespie Cornell.”

  She studied him anew, her dark gaze sparkling with interest. “Ah. The Cornells are powerful. Don’t they resent you for killing their brother?”

  Jordan shrugged. “Gillespie Cornell was a renegade, an outcast. They’re content to keep their distance.”

  She frowned. “Gillespie Cornell was never a renegade.” She spoke with familiarity, fondness, even.

  Shock lanced through him. “You knew him?”

  “I met him once or twice. He allowed you to kill him, because he wished it. I know because the last time I saw him, he was very weary, tired of life, and it wasn’t depression or any temporary condition. He must have deemed you worthy. Who told you he was a renegade?”

  “Didiane Merchand, his wife.” He bit his lip. “I’ve begun to suspect she told me less than the truth.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “That he was preparing to reveal forbidden secrets on the open market. Was that not true, either?”

  She studied him for a long moment before she spoke. “No. Cornell’s death was mourned by many, but I’d heard that tale before from Didiane. Few people put credence to it. Gillespie Cornell was well respected, and his desire to go public well known, but he wouldn’t have done it on his own, he’d have consulted with others, gained general agreement before he did anything. It seems Didiane has been telling false tales, spun stories of her own making.”

  Didiane’s perfidy angered him. “She fooled me, didn’t she? I didn’t care much what happened to me after my conversion. I just accepted what she told me. I’d have welcomed death.”

  “You’ve accustomed yourself to the most distasteful part. Now you’ll live for hundreds of years, appear young for most of that time, and belong to a powerful community with all the support you need. What is there to hate?”

  He didn’t shy away. He had to tell someone, and the power emanating from this woman told him she was being polite. Had she wished, she could have plundered his mind and discovered what she wanted to know. “I must leave the woman I love behind. My wife.”

  “Ah!” The woman smiled gently. “We all have our troubles. I’ve loved someone I couldn’t have. You can’t convert her without finding your death in her. If you stay you’ll have to watch her age and die.”

  He nodded, not hiding the tears forming in his eyes. Sarah had gone right to the heart of his anguish. “I can’t take her with me. I’m powerful, ageless, and yet I can’t have the one thing I yearn for. I’ve told her I want a divorce, and I’m taking steps to destroy any feelings she has for me.”

  She touched him again, and the warmth of companionship passed between them. “Don’t do that. She may find comfort in remembering you as a friend.”

  He dropped his chin, avoiding her direct gaze. “It might be too late for that. She’ll forget me, I’ll forget her.”

  “If you love her you won’t. Neither will she. The love will melt into a gentler remembrance. It won’t hurt this way forever.” Jordan met her compassionate gaze. “But love is the one emotion that endures. Hate, passion, desire, all these fade, but love remains.”

  He took her hand in his and squeezed it gently, needing he contact of another person. “I was afraid of that. I won’t spend the rest of my existence pining for what I can’t have. Thank you.”

  Thalia began to stir, and he drew away to check her condition. Although she was pale, much of this was due to her heavy make-up, and the contrast between the blacked and mascara’ed eyes and her pale cheeks. She opened her eyes and stared at him, clearly not sure where she was. “You fainted,” he said gently, giving her a small push toward sleep. “Rest here for a while.” Thalia nodded and closed her eyes again.

  “You have another problem,” the other woman declared. Jordan turned back to her. “I can sense it.”

  “Yes. There’s some trouble here at the house. I am—was—a psychic investigator, and the owner of this house is my cousin. He called us in to cleanse the place.”

  “Troubled spirits. And vodun. Bad magic, not good. I’ve sensed stirrings.” She regarded him without speaking for a moment, and Jordan chose not to break the silence. “I’m a mamba, a priestess you might say. I follow the right hand path, but not all do. Call me if you need my expertise.”

  She reached inside her skirt pocket and drew out a card. “I can detect bad spirits, but I may not be able to help you get rid of them. It depends what they want. They may be bound here until something is discovered. An object, perhaps, or a secret.”

  “The Blue Star,” Jordan said grimly, taking the card. “A sapphire necklace.”

  The woman nodded. “I’ve heard of it. That may not be the only reason the spirits are restless.”

  Fuck, six months ago he’d have dismissed this as mumbo-jumbo, but now he welcomed her help. “I’d like to do this on my own,” Jordan said, his voice pitched low. “I want to do this for her before I leave her forever, but it helps to know I have a friend. Be sure I’ll call on you if I need you. Thank you, Sarah.”

  The woman nodded and got to her feet. A tall, slender woman, hair braided back from her face, with the nobility he had seen in the statues from Benin in the Metropolitan Museum. “I will be waiting.” She moved away, and the front door closed almost silently behind her.

  Jordan turned his attention to the young woman he’d just fed from. After a few moments, when he assured himself she’d come to no harm, he left her to rest.

  Urgency seized him, grabbing at his senses. Something was wrong. She was in danger.

  He had to find Karey.

  * * * * *

  After finding Bernard’s note, telling her he’d taken Didiane into New Orleans, Karey toured the building, turning on the equipment and angling the cameras and microphones for the best reception.

  Nothing so far, although she’d recorded a few odd occurrences. Nothing definite, nothing she could base a study on. The decorators had started on the rooms down here and the East Wing smelled of fresh plaster and paint, mixed with the headier aroma of varnish. Upstairs they were still working on the electric fitments and some rebuilding. In places the floors were still unsafe.

  Auguste had sent detailed instruction for the redecoration. The decorators were restoring the rooms to their original Plantation splendor. Not a style Karey was particularly fond of, but the guests would like it.

  In the newly restored lounge on the first floor in the East wing she paused and studied the portraits of Susannah and Thomas Sharman. Susannah posed in the style of the famous Winterhalter portrait of Elizabeth of Austria, in a gown with a huge, spangled skirt, white, the sleeves confections of cloudy gauze. Unlike Elizabeth of Austria, she wasn’t smiling, even a little bit. She stared at Karey, her expression solemn. Karey couldn’t detect a smidgeon of madness in the expression. Susannah looked grave, wistful even, but her gaze was steady.

  Thomas posed in typical planter gear of white suit and straw hat, his arrogant slouch displaying his arrogance. He’d been a handsome man, tall, if the portraitist hadn’t exaggerated with a pencil moustache that gave him a Clark Gable air. T
o unknowing eyes they appeared the perfect couple, not the angry, domineering man and the scared, haunted woman Karey had researched.

  Auguste had left her some of Susannah’s letters, and although on the surface they read mundanely, underneath, she detected disturbing undercurrents. Thomas sounded like a control freak, always insisting everything ran just so. She guessed he used it as a way of controlling his wife, always having something to punish or criticize her for. He threatened his son at one point, a subtle paragraph in which he hoped his son had learned his Scripture quotation this week, because otherwise he would be very sorry to have to punish him.

  An arrogant, handsome man, in control of his environment. Who did that remind her of? No, it wouldn’t be fair to compare Thomas Sharman and her soon-to-be ex-husband, however hurt he’d delivered to her personally. While keeping ultimate control, Jordan always listened to his employees and took their opinions into consideration. He was paying for their expertise, he said, so it made sense to listen.

  Karey, recruited for her success with the machines that were having such poor results here, worked as his PA before he’d made her partner. He appreciated her organizational skill, he’d said, but occasionally he’d closed the office door so they could enjoy each other in a different way. She’d believed he meant it when he’d told her he loved her and said she was all he wanted. Karey’s lip curled. That hadn’t lasted long.

  Perhaps he had more in common with his distant ancestor than she’d first thought. She could see the family resemblance. They had the same lean features, the same sharp nose, contrasting with mobile lips that invited kisses. Karey tore her thoughts away from Jordan’s sensual lips and what he could do with them.

  Then the call came from Paris. They’d chased vampire stories for years, a personal obsession of Jordan’s. Karey had almost ceased believing such creatures existed. Jordan’s dog-eared copy of “Dracula” had graced their bedside table, and it was the first thing he’d packed when he’d shoved a few belongings into a case in preparation for his hasty departure.