Her Vampire Obsession

by Richardson, Lesli

  “With who?” I study her expression, because there was a hesitation in her voice as she mentioned the name.

  “Zuzu.” A ragged laugh escapes her. “Damn, I’ve hardly thought about him in…years.” I hear a painful tightness in her tone and pay closer attention despite the late hour.

  “Who was he?”

  When her eyes drop closed, I give her a moment. “He was Dad’s best friend. I remember he was a lot shorter than Dad. Kind of slender. And he had beautiful lavender eyes.”

  “Lavender?” Again, a color not really seen in humans.

  “Yeah.” Her eyes open and she looks up at me. “Is it possible I’m misremembering that?”

  “Perhaps. What else do you remember?”

  “Earrings.” Her brow furrows. “He and Dad wore matching earrings. In their right ears.” She reaches up to her ear lobe. “Little gold balls. I once asked Dad if I could get one.” She pauses, her brow furrowing. “Holy crap, I haven’t thought about that in years, either.”

  “Anything you remember could be very important. Can you remember Zuzu’s last name? How long you knew him? Anything that might help us identify who he is or where he lived?”

  “He was always there. In my life, I mean. I remember that much. He lived in a strange house.”

  “Strange?”

  “Yeah. Different. Like it wasn’t…normal. And he always made me these cookies that were some sort of fruit, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what they were called. They weren’t anything we could get at home.”

  “Do you think you could find his house?”

  “I…” She blows out a breath. “I don’t even know if I could tell you where we used to live. We moved around, even before Dad died. And…” Her scowl returns. “Dad used to play a game with me all the time. From as long as I could remember. He’d blindfold me when we’d go into the woods, and before I knew it, we’d be at Zuzu’s. I remember we had this green checked scarf that I think Zuzu gave him. It was like we walked through a…”

  “A what?”

  She sits up. “The trees and plants would be different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Different. Like…different.” She stares at me. “You know how you can watch TV, and they’re trying to say the show is happening in one place, but you know it was filmed somewhere different because you know the plants don’t look like that there, because you’ve been there? I mean, does that make sense?”

  I nod.

  “That’s what it felt like.” Her gaze goes unfocused. “That’s something else I haven’t thought about in years.”

  “You were homeschooled, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah. When Mom had to leave for work, when I was really little, I remember if Dad had to go to work, he’d take me with him to Zuzu’s. Or, sometimes, Zuzu would come stay with me.” She frowns. “But that can’t be right. Dad said he worked where Mom did, but we’d sometimes go to Zuzu’s when Dad was working.” Confusion fills her expression, and I realize this literally is something she hasn’t thought about in years.

  I can imagine there are many reasons why that would be, and most of them are not pleasant.

  I’m trying not to get a bad feeling about someone I’ve never met before, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask. “Did Zuzu ever molest you?” Maybe that’s why she doesn’t remember him.

  “No!” She hesitates. “I mean, I don’t think so.” Another long pause, then she firmly shakes her head. “No. Zuzu never hurt me. I loved him, and he loved me like I was his daughter.” She blinks back tears. “Why didn’t I think about him before now? I remember when we had to leave his house after visits, I would cry because I didn’t want to leave. Sometimes, I’d try to run off and hide in the woods so they couldn’t find me and I could stay, but they always found me. Or if Zuzu visited us, I never wanted him to leave. When me and Mom left Cardiff, after Dad died, I cried because we couldn’t see Zuzu again or talk to him. I could never call him on the phone. Dad said our phones wouldn’t call him, even though I remember he had something like a phone at his house. It looked weird, too.”

  “Weird, how?”

  “I…’ She sniffles. “Weird. It was a phone, but it looked different. Sounded different, too. The tone was different. Not like an American phone, either, it was just different. I would sometimes pick up our phone and pretend like I was talking to Zuzu because we couldn’t just call him.”

  She wipes away tears. “I guess I must have blanked all that out. Mom was so scared when we left Cardiff when Dad died. I asked if we were running from Zuzu, and Mom said no, but we had to leave. I asked why we couldn’t go to Zuzu’s, but she said we needed Dad for that. And that Zuzu couldn’t follow us because Dad was gone.”

  “Are you certain Zuzu was real and not an imaginary playmate?”

  “He was real.” She stares into space again for a moment. “I know he was real.”

  “Do you have any pictures of him?”

  She sadly shakes her head. “I don’t even have any of my dad,” she whispers.

  I grab my cell phone and text both Kylie and John with what little I just learned, to see if they can locate anyone who might have gone by “Zuzu.” Kylie and my people have been trying to retrace Sorcha Connover’s history in Wales with patchy luck thus far, outside her tenure working for the BBC as a stuntwoman. They’ve confirmed Eilidh’s birth certificate is real, but have yet to track down any trace of her father’s existence beyond that slip of paper. Parxon Smith must be a pseudonym, but we’ve yet to track him down, either. His birth, or his supposed death.

  All this traveling is playing hell with my body, too. Exhaustion not quite as strong as my daily stupor is creeping in, so I cuddle Eilidh in my arms. “Rest, love,” I murmur. “We can talk later.”

  “I love you, Sir.”

  I kiss her one last time. “Love you, too, girl.”

  * * *

  Eilidh

  Long after Dexter falls asleep, I lie there wide awake and feeling like a shitty human being.

  Zuzu.

  How on earth could I ever have forgotten him?

  You were eight, dipshit.

  I mean, I didn’t forget-forget him, but I haven’t actively thought about him in years. Now, I silently cry and remember the man I loved like a second father for a good chunk of my childhood. He was never not in my life, just like Dad and Mom. I remember how I loved exploring his home, how he had pictures of him and of Dad all over the place.

  Pictures of my…

  Grandsire?

  Grandfather, right?

  No…

  Grandsire.

  That’s…weird, but that’s something now sticking in my head.

  How they sometimes spoke to each other in a foreign language I didn’t understand a lot of, even though I knew some of it.

  They were friends, like brothers, but…not.

  How we had the hiding game. If there were ever any visitors when I was at Zuzu’s, it was very important for me to hide in a closet or somewhere and remain perfectly still and silent until either Dad or Zuzu called for me to come out. Because they worried someone might take me away from them if I was ever discovered there.

  And Zuzu always gave me rhozhen candy after I hid, and told me what a good girl I was…

  My eyes pop open.

  What the hell is rhozhen candy?

  Except now I can taste them in my mouth, sort of like a cross between chocolate and fruit taffy, sweetly tart and lightly fluffy, like a truffle candy. My mouth even waters as I think about them.

  Candy I’ve never been able to find anywhere else despite now realizing I’ve spent fruitless years trying to find something to replicate them.

  Mazbushka. It’s what Dad called me.

  It’s also what Zuzu called me.

  The man who helped Dad with my schoolwork, but like he was learning along with me. Laughing as we played hide-and-seek in the woods and around a bunch of rocks and…

  The blindfold game.

  How ma
ny of my childhood memories are…gone?

  One of my earliest memories… A cold winter’s day, and we’d gone to visit Zuzu, which was odd, because usually we saw him at night. After the blindfold game, we’d met Zuzu in the woods.

  But then we heard voices, and Dad hustled us back the way we came and made me close my eyes as he passed me to Zuzu. Dad said something, the same phrase he always said when we played the blindfold game. And then…

  The sounds changed. We were back in the Cardiff woods, just me and Zuzu, without Dad, but Dad promised to return soon. We were near the rocks that were so familiar to me.

  I remember how Zuzu looked full of wonder as I named trees and animals for him, and he carried me, almost like he clung to me in his amazement. He usually didn’t get to see Cardiff’s woods in the daytime.

  His absolute terror, followed by child-like delight, as he stared up at an airplane flying overhead and I told him about planes. Like he’d never seen one before.

  Zuzu.

  Dad bought Cat and Dog for me, but it was Zuzu who picked them out for me in the shop.

  My heart races as I remember that afternoon, when Dad played the blindfold game with me. But instead of going to Zuzu’s, when I opened my eyes, Zuzu was there, and he came with us back to town. I remember showing Zuzu my favorite places, going shopping, stopping at a chip shop for lunch. Like he was seeing things he’d never seen before.

  Zuzu picked out Cat and Dog at one of the shops we visited. Cat and Dog are currently safely packed in my luggage, along with all my other clothes. Everything else is safely stored in my 4Runner back in Chaldis’ garage. We’ll retrieve all of that later.

  I remember taking Zuzu back to our apartment, his wonder at watching TV, Dad saying things to him in a sweetly teasing tone in that strange language they spoke, me chiming in, too. How we all cooked dinner together, and it was like Zuzu had never tasted those foods before.

  Is he even alive? Does he miss me? Does he remember me?

  How the hell would I even go about finding him again?

  I’d planned to sleep during the flight over, while Dexter was asleep, but now that Zuzu is fully in my mind and heart again, I sit up, thinking about him, unable to sleep.

  What if I can’t remember him again?

  How could I have ever stopped thinking about him? He was such a huge part of my life before…

  Before Dad died.

  But what if Dad’s not dead?

  Mom liked Zuzu, too. I remember that. Except Mom never went with us to visit Zuzu, although Zuzu frequently came to the apartment when Mom was there. He’d stay with me if Mom and Dad were both gone. Sometimes, he’d come back with Dad after Dad had gone away for a while for work. Once, Zuzu stayed with us for a whole month, sleeping in my room while I stayed on the sofa. But I didn’t mind being out of my bedroom, because every day, Zuzu was there, and he was part of our family.

  I was his daughter, too.

  No, Zuzu never hurt me, even though I understand why Dexter asked me that.

  I’ve had no sleep by the time Dexter awakens not long before we’re supposed to land. It’s not quite safe dark yet, but the plane is wheeled into a hangar and the doors rolled shut.

  Dexter pulls me aside. “Are you all right, love?”

  “No.” I slowly shake my head. “What else have I forgotten if I forgot Zuzu?”

  He sadly sighs and cups my face. “Let’s tackle one thing at a time. After we deal with this stone ring, and dispatch your gwyllgi, you and I will sit down and see if I can possibly find any other lost memories that might help us find your father.”

  “But you can’t thrall me.”

  “I know. Maybe we can find a way I can access your mind. Perhaps hypnosis. Once we’re both able to relax and focus.”

  I’m willing to try.

  His people have already purchased everything we’ll need to prepare the hotel room and stowed it in a rental car, which is also ready for us in the hangar. While we wait for it to get dark enough we can leave, I eat dinner on the plane, and our luggage is loaded into the car. Once it’s safely dark, we set off with Dexter driving, because like hell am I going to try driving a right-hand car for the first time tonight, especially when I’m this brain-fried and exhausted and jet-lagged.

  And heartsick.

  The hotel is over an hour away from the airport. I wish I could look at the landscape and see if anything is familiar, but it’s dark, and I’m too…overwhelmed. Too exhausted and wired to even sleep now.

  We get checked into the hotel, and Dexter won’t let me help him unload the car. While it’s a new hotel, the room is smaller than the one he had in Tucson and the one we had in Atlanta. As I help him tape the tarps to the inside of the windows, he chuckles.

  “My people here are good, but they don’t know I’m a vampire, just that I have a severe sun allergy. It’s easier to do this ourselves.” He told the clerk at the front desk that we’d be blocking the windows because of his “sun allergy” and used his thrall to make it sound like the most natural thing in the world.

  I step back and check our handiwork. “How do we know we didn’t screw up?”

  “I don’t die.” I know he’s joking, but I’m so exhausted, mentally and physically and emotionally, and overwhelmed, that I burst into tears.

  “Oh, love.” He pulls me into his arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was joking.”

  “B-but what if you do explode?”

  “Shh.” He gently rocks me back and forth. “I have survived this long. I think I have it well in hand.” He kisses my forehead. “Let’s take a shower to freshen up and then head to the stone ring for a look around, hmm? Full moon is in three days.”

  Just under an hour later, we’re on our way again. As he drives, I keep one hand on his thigh and hold the ring in my other. This…

  Feels right?

  Which is weird and fucked up. But it’s like even the air smells right.

  Maybe not perfect, but it seems less wrong than the rest of my life has.

  He navigates with the car’s GPS and, eventually, we’re parking off a quiet country lane, next to an iron gate. It’s almost two a.m. local time. We have three hours before we need to return him to the hotel before local sunrise.

  “It’s down this way.” He picks me up and literally jumps over the gate as if it’s not even there.

  “That’s handy,” I snark as he blurs through the woods. We’re at the stones seconds later.

  You ever have déjà vu so strong that it nearly knocks you over?

  Yeah, that. I literally have to cling to Dexter’s arm as I stare at the stones, because…

  I’ve been here before.

  How could I not have remembered this?

  “Love, what is it?”

  I swallow hard. “You’re…you won’t believe this.”

  “Believe what?”

  I look around. It even smells familiar here, and I don’t mean faint whiffs I’m getting from Dexter’s previous visits. The trees are different, obviously—some taller, some small saplings that weren’t here before, some missing that used to be here. But there are several rock piles scattered around the outside of the stone ring, and I know I’ve seen them before.

  When I was a child, this ring sat within the middle of dense, thick woods. Some of these rock piles weren’t even visible then, where they lay just outside the standing stone ring. Dad always parked on a little dirt track on the other side of the woods from where we’re parked now, because we came in from the other side of the ring, but this is the place.

  I close my eyes and softly clap my hands a couple of times as Dexter keeps a steadying grip on my left shoulder, letting me walk as I listen.

  The acoustics.

  Unbidden, I remember a Welsh nursery rhyme Mom and Dad and Zuzu used to sing to me, and I start singing it.

  “Heno, heno, hen blant bach…”

  I freeze, listening. Then I turn, close my eyes, and sing the first verse again, my bearings now solid. Opening my ey
es, I zero in on one of the rock piles just outside the ring, where I drop to my knees and wrestle one of the larger stones out of its place. Reaching into the void behind it, I feel around…

  Sobbing, I pull out the tattered remains of the green checked scarf Dad always used to blindfold me.

  “I’ve been here,” I sob as Dexter drops to his knees next to me, his eyes wide with shock. “I’ve been here. This is where we used to play the blindfold game. This is where we used to come so we could go see Zuzu!”

  33

  Dexter

  Stunned, I stare at the scrap of fabric in Eilidh’s hands as she literally crumples to the ground sobbing.

  This is the first shred of hard proof we’ve had tying her to her past with her father besides the ring.

  I gather her into my arms, her ragged crying ripping my soul to shreds. I instinctively know we are about to reach the heart of whatever that thing is pursuing her, and perhaps it will intersect with the mystery about her father.

  “How could I have stopped thinking about Zuzu?” She gently fingers the ragged scrap of fabric that time and moisture have done a number on. “How could I not have thought about him in so long? They called me Mazbushka. Zuzu said it meant ‘sweet little angel.’ He said I was his little angel, like a daughter to him. How could I have forgotten the stones? Dad always said it was special magick. That when I was older, he’d teach me.”

  “The mind has ways of protecting us, sweetheart. Maybe it was so painful to you, to lose your father so suddenly and then lose his friend, that it shut things out that hurt too much because you missed them so keenly. Your mother was scared, you had to move, you ended up in the States. It’s not surprising. Survival mode took over.”

  She stumbles to her feet, the fabric clutched in her hands and a wild look in her eyes. Then she closes her eyes and starts whispering to herself in a language I don’t recognize. She turns, changing directions, until she stops and stares at me. “I need you to hold me.”