by Barb Hendee
Cecil wasn’t like that. He treated the people in his life as if they were precious to him. He had warm eyes, strong hands, and excellent taste in clothes and wine. He could talk about baseball and French literature with equal ease.
When Maggie looked at him, her face always softened.
The first time Simone saw them together, she knew the game had begun.
She’d come at him first by letting him explain several of his paintings to her—the motivation behind them. Like any artist, he did love to talk about his work, and she played the captivated audience. After that, it had been easy to draw him off alone.
Once she could see his affections switching from Maggie to her, she’d played the reluctant friend, falling madly in love with him yet unable to betray Maggie. Her girlish loyalty drove him wild. Last week, he’d lost control of himself for a moment and kissed her in the hallway of a nightclub.
At that point, she knew the end was getting closer.
He would break it off with Maggie, and Simone would win. In truth, it had all been a tad too easy.
But maybe that was for the best. She was sick of Seattle. She was leaving. First, though . . . first Maggie had to know who had won.
Simone had lost the game only once in her life, and she would never lose it again.
However, after the kiss, Cecil began acting strangely. He seemed far too concerned about Maggie’s feelings—even voicing this concern aloud. His behavior stunned Simone. No man had ever done that before.
And now, tonight . . . he was suggesting they leave the house and go meet Maggie at the Showbox?
What was happening?
She turned back to the mirror, examining her reflection. The girl in the mirror was perfect. Tonight, she wore a gauzy purple dress that showed off her slender curves and pale arms. Her china blue eyes were glowing, and her black hair swung when she moved.
Cecil didn’t seem to notice.
Maybe she’d been wrong to bring him into Maggie’s bedroom. She’d thought seducing him in here would only add to the excitement, but now she second-guessed herself. Maybe she should have drawn him to her own room.
She stood up.
No, she’d rather win in here, surrounded by Maggie’s things. Tonight, she’d get him to promise he would leave Maggie—and that he loved only her.
She took a step toward him, tilting her head again. When she got close enough, she reached out and touched the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers. He looked down. His eyes filled with longing . . . and something else. Sorrow? Regret?
“Simone,” he whispered sadly, and the word spoke volumes.
She had seen that look on the faces of countless men. She’d seen it on Pierce McCarthy’s face when he stood by the fireplace of her parents’ house holding Kristina.
She froze.
“We never should have started this,” he said softly. “I can’t . . . I can’t hurt Maggie.”
Her entire body felt paralyzed. This couldn’t be happening.
Then she found her voice, and she fought down the rising panic. “Isn’t it better to hurt her now than to let this go on and on?”
“Maybe it shouldn’t go on and on.”
Something clicked inside her, like a switch. She had only two options: win him over or remove Maggie.
There was no third option.
Maggie could not be allowed to win.
She moved closer, brushing the front of his suit with her slender body. “You don’t mean that,” she whispered. “How would you feel next week without me?”
He winced at the image, and the longing on his face increased. He did want her. He loved her. She just had to make him see that he loved her more than he loved Maggie.
Simone turned on her gift.
“You want to be with me,” she murmured. “You want to live like me.”
Waves of envy passed around him, through him, and his eyes waxed hazy.
“Yes,” he mouthed, leaning down.
She had him.
“You’ll tell Maggie it’s over?”
He wavered for the span of a breath, and then whispered, “Yes.”
His hands closed around her arms, and his mouth pressed down over hers. She wanted to sing.
“Here,” she said, pulling her mouth away and taking his hand, letting the power of her gift flow outward. “Come in here.”
Still holding the mirror, she led him to Maggie’s closet and opened the door. He followed her without question. She set the mirror on the floor, then drew him down, kissing him, running her hands under his jacket. Slowly, she pushed him back and moved on top of him, loosening his tie, unbuttoning the top of his shirt.
“You love me?” she asked in his ear.
“Yes.”
“Only me?”
“Yes.”
Without warning, she sank her teeth into his throat, just below his jawline, ripping and drinking. His body bucked, but she held him down, sucking mouthfuls of his blood as the memories surfaced, passing before her eyes.
She saw an easel and brushes and canvas.
A short professor with glasses and a beard.
She saw a palette smeared with oil paints.
She saw Maggie in a tight black dress.
Finally, she saw herself as he saw her, lovely, young, sweet, full of life. This was what she’d waited for.
Then . . . she saw Maggie again, beautiful, mysterious, exotic, intelligent. . . .
His heart stopped beating, and she stared down into his dead face. Blood still ran freely from his torn throat onto the floor. His last memories had been of Maggie.
Simone jerked away and stood up. Then she calmed. In the end, he had still chosen her. He had still promised to leave Maggie, and he had chosen her.
She’d still won.
That was all that mattered.
Leaving him there, she shut the closet door and went back to the dressing table, sitting down and gazing at her own reflection. But she shouldn’t sit here too long. She needed to pack.
Maggie would be home soon.
Rose gathered the conscious will to drop the mirror.
She was choking.
Glass shattered around her, but she barely noticed. Struggling to her feet, she stumbled toward the door. By the time she reached it, she was gaining control of her body. Grabbing the knob fiercely, she shoved outward with enough force that it flew from her hand and slammed against the wall.
She started running.
Images of Simone’s drives, of Simone’s thoughts, crawled in her mind like tiny spiders.
She ran up the stairs, not even caring that her silk bathrobe exposed her legs.
“Wade!”
He wasn’t in the office, but then she heard a distant clinking sound downstairs and realized he was using his weights. She didn’t bother shouting for him again, but turned in a circle, looking all around at the messy desk and the maps and the atlas.
She put her hand to her mouth, then took it away and looked toward the ceiling.
“Seamus!” she shouted. “Please, Seamus. If you can hear me, let me see you now.”
His colorful, transparent form did not appear.
Rose had always considered herself well in tune with her gift—a woman of wisdom. But at that moment, she had no idea what to do.
Leaving the office, she walked out through the sanctuary, past the couches and bookshelves, out the front doors of the church, and before she realized where she was going, she found herself outside in the garden, standing by Robert’s grave, looking down at his headstone.
Eleisha talked to Robert all the time.
“Robert,” Rose whispered, “what should I do?”
But kneeling down, not caring that she ruined her silk robe, Rose knew that talking to him wouldn’t do any good. He was beyond talking back.
chapter 14
Full of self-doubt, Eleisha left the bookstore with Simone, walking all the way to Sixteenth Street. Too many elements about this situation felt wrong.Too many elements abou
t this situation felt wrong.
First of all, back home, she’d sworn to Philip that she wouldn’t go hunting without him, and now here she was in a strange city—with another vampire he was supposed to be protecting from Julian—and they were strolling down a busy street. But maybe “busy” was the optimal word. The tall lampposts and all the pedestrians would keep them safe from Julian coming out of the shadows. She ground her back teeth and forced herself to believe that. As long as she saw him coming, she could defend Simone.
But second, she was rushing Simone’s entrance into their world, and she knew it. This was too soon to be teaching her how to hunt via telepathy. Simone needed at least a few nights to adjust to all the epiphanies and rapid changes invading her existence. Yet, Philip had already started this chain of events, somehow botched it, and in the back of her mind, Eleisha understood his reasoning.
It was possible that he’d simply wanted to see if Simone was willing to try to feed without killing. If she even entertained the idea . . . then there was hope. Philip wouldn’t bring her anywhere near Wade unless she’d proven she could be trusted.
No wonder he’d been in such a hurry. Wade would be offended by the extent of their concern. He knew perfectly well what he’d signed on for when he agreed to help.
But while Eleisha tended to side with Philip on this issue, she also couldn’t help feeling an almost crushing disappointment that he’d given up so easily. Wade would never have given up. He’d never have abandoned Simone, and he certainly wouldn’t have just left her here to continue killing mortals.
Eleisha just wished she knew what had gone wrong last night. But if she even approached the subject, Simone grew agitated.
So she stayed with safer subjects.
“This isn’t at all what I expected,” Eleisha said, looking at the street around them.
“What did you expect?” Simone asked.
“I don’t know. I guess something more rustic.”
Simone laughed, and again, Eleisha had to fight down the illusion that she was out with Maggie.
Most of the buildings around them had recently undergone a face-lift. Nearly all large cities sported an uncomfortable mix of the affluent and the poor. Denver was no exception, but the people were more multicultural than she’d expected. She’d envisioned Colorado as a bit more . . . homogenized. The size of the homeless population also surprised her. By the time they’d gone three blocks down Sixteenth Street, she’d been asked for money four times.
“Stop giving them cash,” Simone said. “They’ll just buy booze.”
“They might buy food.”
Eleisha expected Simone to frown in disagreement, but Simone’s expression remained pleasant. Come to think of it, Eleisha had never seen her frown.
But then, suddenly, Eleisha was faced with the choice of what to do next. A dark parking lot was the best choice for hunting, but she didn’t want to take Simone anyplace with blackened shadows—as that’s where Julian always hid.
His method of killing other vampires was simple and straightforward. He would keep hidden and wait. Then he would swing from the darkness and slice off their heads before they could attack him telepathically. When vampires died, their psychic energy burst out, momentarily crippling any other telepath around them. As Julian was not telepathic, he was not affected.
Eleisha paused. “Is there a parking lot with decent lighting anywhere around here?”
Simone stopped walking.
“A parking lot?” she repeated.
“Yes, of course. Where did . . . ?”
They always started teaching a new vampire in a parking lot. That’s how she taught Philip. What in the world had he tried last night? But as she started the question, Simone seemed to grow anxious again, and Eleisha didn’t finish.
“Yes,” Simone said, glancing away. “Beneath the indoor mall, over there.”
“Okay.”
As they continued to walk, Eleisha’s spirits rose slightly. This was going much more easily than she’d anticipated. Simone was willing to listen and willing to learn. She was no lost, frightened vampire as Rose had been, so as yet, she was certainly not ready to leave her home and go back to the underground. But she’d listened to Eleisha explain the history of their own kind and the reasoning behind the laws.
And now she was already exploring methods of learning to feed without killing. Wade was much better than Eleisha at teaching someone else how to hone and control telepathy in the early days, but Simone’s abilities seemed to be waking quickly.
What more could Eleisha have asked for this soon?
“There’s the door,” Simone said, pointing toward a stairwell.
In spite of herself, Simone couldn’t help her curiosity from rising as she followed Eleisha into a large underground parking lot filled with cars, but nearly empty of people.
Eleisha’s long wheat gold hair bounced against her back as she moved quickly down the stairs, and Simone had to admit that, if nothing else, this entire experience was something . . . new.
Is that how Eleisha had managed to trap Philip? With the promise of something new? Simone could at least understand that. Years and years of monotony became a kind of personal hell for someone who never aged. While Eleisha herself was a tedious crusader, Simone was beginning to see how Philip must have become entangled with something, anything, that was different from two hundred years of routine.
But now he had another life waiting, a better life.
Simone had a clear—fairly simple—plan in mind as long she could keep Eleisha with her until dawn. But there were two main obstacles to overcome: (1) For her idea to work, she had to gain Eleisha’s complete trust in a matter of hours; and (2) she had to be able to block a telepathic attack.
Eleisha had been more than willing to wake up Simone’s psychic abilities, as apparently they were necessary for this method of hunting. But in the few moments of practice at the bookstore, Simone had found “blocking” somewhat difficult.
She needed more practice.
What better way to begin winning Eleisha’s trust and gain more experience with telepathy than by seeming eager to learn “the first law”?
“For now, just watch me,” Eleisha said, scanning the parking lot. “Get in the car when I do, but if it’s a truck, let me get in first.”
She continued scanning, and her gaze stopped near a Dumpster. A jagged piece of the hinge was bent outward.
A few moments later, the elevator doors opened, and a young man got off. He was Asian, wearing expensive jeans and a loose white shirt buttoned just below his collarbone. The top of his hair was gelled into small spikes, and Simone could smell CK One cologne all the way from the stairwell.
Eleisha watched him closely as he headed toward the Dumpster and used his keychain button to unlock a black, four-door Mazda.
Again, Simone’s interest rose at both the unfamiliar staging and the potential victim. She would not have chosen this man for either the game or any necessary feeding in between conquests.
He wasn’t upscale enough for the game, and he was far too upscale to just feed on and dump. If he turned up dead, somebody might investigate with a passion.
But Eleisha moved forward, heading toward the car, and the strangest feeling came over Simone.
As waiflike as Eleisha looked normally, she suddenly appeared even smaller, helpless and lost and pretty. Simone took a step forward to comfort her, to assist her, and then stopped cold.
Eleisha had just turned on her gift.
The strength of it was almost overwhelming, and Simone had to fight to keep her head clear.
“Excuse me,” Eleisha said softly, and the young man stopped in his tracks, staring at her.
Simone came up behind, just watching how this would play out.
“Our car won’t start,” Eleisha went on, her voice hesitant. “Could you help us?”
The need to help her began increasing, and Simone wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep herself in check. This gift didn�
�t affect her to the level that Philip’s did, but it was much stronger than Maggie’s.
The young man took a step toward Eleisha, his face awash with concern. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “Do you need me to call a tow truck?” Up close, he was handsome, with artificially whitened teeth.
“No ...” Eleisha faltered. “I couldn’t afford a tow truck. Could you just drive us home? My brother can check the car tomorrow.”
This surprised Simone more than anything else Eleisha had done so far. She wanted him to give them a ride somewhere? But then she remembered Eleisha’s earlier words: “Let me get in first.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll take you,” he said, as if her request was commonplace.
Get in the back, Eleisha flashed. Then read my mind.
Fascinated, Simone climbed into the backseat of the car.
Eleisha was in the front seat by the time the young man ran around the car, got in, and slammed his door. Her gift was still flowing, and Simone was having trouble concentrating.
“Where do you live?” he asked, still watching Eleisha as if he didn’t believe she was real. Even in the moment, Simone could not help feeling a jolt of rage that he hadn’t even noticed her. Just as he was moving the keys toward the ignition, Eleisha reached out and touched his hand.
“Wait. You’re too tired to drive. You should rest. Sleep. We’ll leave soon.”
Simone slipped inside her mind, and she could feel Eleisha putting him to sleep. His head lolled back against the seat, and his eyes closed. Eleisha scooted closer and lifted his wrist, putting it to her mouth. With what appeared to be great care, she punctured his skin with her teeth and began feeding.
Simone saw a barrage of images of a large family, of dinners with numerous dishes of colorful food, of his father’s disappointment that he was not going to study medicine, of a job selling memberships at a local health club, of confusion about the future. . . .
Eleisha stopped feeding. Using one of her eyeteeth, she connected the holes on his wrist. Simone continued to follow along inside her thoughts, and then realized they were both inside the young man’s mind. Eleisha took him back to the moment he’d walked out of the elevator. He’d seen no one. While walking to his car, he’d passed the Dumpster. He’d tripped and fallen, cutting his wrist on the jagged, protruding hinge. Without realizing how badly he’d been cut, he’d gotten into his car, still bleeding, and passed out.