by Hendee, Barb
“Can you see Eleisha coming back yet?” Philip said. “I can’t see her anywhere.”
Robert swiveled his head to look around, and just then, Wade was hit hard by what felt like a telepathic shout.
Rose is running! She’s in the ground floor parking lot. Hurry!
The shock made him buckle forward, tripping over two bags and falling to the floor. He caught himself on his hands.
“Wade!” Philip shouted, reaching to help, and people around them began to stare.
Wade grabbed Philip’s arm. “Go,” he managed to say. “Rose is running, and I think Eleisha’s chasing her. They’re in the ground floor parking lot.”
Robert was rushing toward the far exit doors before Wade completed his last sentence.
“Don’t leave that brown bag, Wade!” Philip called, running after Robert. “Don’t lose it.”
Only then did Wade think to reach out and try to contact Eleisha. But he couldn’t feel her anywhere. She just seemed to be gone—or maybe out of reach. He struggled to his feet, grabbed the brown suitcase with their weapons, and started running, leaving the other bags behind.
Eleisha ran after Rose, dodging between cars and debating on whether to call out or not. The parking lot was nearly empty of people, but she could see a family half hidden by a column about seven rows down, all climbing into an SUV.
Eleisha ran on, catching a glimpse of Rose’s black dress vanishing behind a white van up ahead, and she ran faster.
“Rose!” she called, throwing caution away. “Please stop. We’ll go back to the apartment!”
She would have promised anything in that moment.
The air in front of her shimmered, and a brightly colored form appeared from nowhere . . . a transparent girl with magenta hair, waving her arms and baring her teeth. Eleisha swerved and smashed into the side of a car.
She bounced off and hit the concrete ground, rolling quickly to try to get up. The girl ghost was coming toward her, making snarling sounds. Eleisha crawled backward in confusion and a surprised fear that made thinking difficult.
What was going on?
“Seamus!” she called.
He flashed into view beside her.
“Go!” he barked at her in his hollow voice. “Get to Rose!”
Then he focused on the girl ghost, his angry eyes narrowing. They were both transparent, but here in this modern parking lot, Seamus looked even more like something from a bygone era with his draped plaid, hand-sewn breeches, long shaggy hair, and the sheath on his belt.
The girl ghost drew back at the sight of him. She stopped snarling and waving her hands. Her eyes widened.
“Oh, geez . . . ,” she said. “No way.”
She vanished from sight. So did Seamus.
Rose screamed, and the sound echoed off the concrete columns stretching down the lot. Then Eleisha heard a loud clanking sound. She dashed forward, skidding around the back of the van, and she could not believe the sight before her.
Rose was crawling backward, trying to use one of the garage columns to protect herself . . . and a slender man in a long coat was chasing her with a sword. He swung hard but missed her by inches, smashing the blade against the column. Eleisha sensed no life coming from him at all.
He was one of them.
“Get away from her!” she yelled.
He stopped, letting the tip of the sword drop when he saw her. Rose looked lost and frightened, still crawling backward up against the column. Eleisha didn’t hesitate.
She let her gift flow and tried to permeate his mind. She didn’t know him. But if he was telepathic, he’d be able to resist the kind of attack she’d used on Julian, and he was standing so close to Rose that Eleisha didn’t want to take any risks.
She let her gift flow, and she worked to soak it inside of him. He shouldn’t hurt her . . . he should come to her . . . walk over to her . . . protect her.
His face went blank, and he took a few steps, dragging the sword. She had him.
“Eleisha?” he said.
He knew her name?
Suddenly, she felt something coming from him . . . a feeling of how tragic his life had been, and she could not help a wave of pity rising inside her. She wavered, and her connection broke.
He blinked, straightening and staring at her in shock. Then he saw Rose right beside him and he roared, raising the blade and swinging hard.
“No!” Eleisha screamed.
The tip of the sword sliced through Rose’s throat, not severing her head, but black blood sprayed out onto the concrete.
The strange vampire backed up at the sight, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. But then he drew his sword arm back again. Eleisha had no weapons and her gift had failed, but without thinking, she ran forward, getting him between him and Rose, shouting, “Don’t!”
He halted in midswing.
Philip’s voice rang out from somewhere behind them. “Eleisha!”
“Here! We’re here!” she called.
Rose was toppled to the side, bleeding from her throat. But at the sound of Philip’s voice, her attacker swiveled his head around desperately, as if he didn’t know what to do—or maybe he was expecting help. With one last wild look at Rose, and he turned and fled around the column, vanishing from sight. Eleisha dropped to her knees beside Rose.
“Philip!” she cried out.
He came running around the van with Robert on his heels. They both skidded to a stop, taking in the sight of Rose on the floor with her throat half-severed.
“It was one of us,” Eleisha began babbling. “With a sword. He cut her and ran. Oh, God, Philip, he tried to take her head off!”
“Where?” he asked.
“There,” she said, and pointed behind the column.
Philip held out one hand. “Robert!”
Robert threw him the long nylon bag he’d been carrying. Philip caught it and took off running again. But then Robert came over and dropped beside Rose—whose eyes were closed, the dark pool around her growing.
“What do we do?” Eleisha asked him. “I don’t know what to do.”
Wade hadn’t been far behind at first, but he couldn’t keep up while carrying the suitcase. He’d seen where Philip and Robert had run, so he came huffing upon the scene behind the van, unprepared for what awaited him.
The reality registered in stages.
It took him a second to realize the darkness spreading around Rose was her blood. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Eleisha hysterical before.
Robert was kneeling on Rose’s other side, his face emotionless.
“She needs blood right now,” he said.
“Blood,” Eleisha repeated in a whisper. “Would it heal a wound that bad?”
She put her wrist into her mouth as if to bite it, but Robert reached out and stopped her. “No, it won’t be strong enough from one of us. Her cut is too deep, and she needs pure life force from a mortal.” He didn’t even glance over but said, “Wade, hurry.”
Eleisha’s forehead wrinkled. Then she saw Wade standing there with the suitcase. “Wade? No . . . that will hurt him, drain him.”
“Get back,” Robert ordered her.
Wade rushed over, kneeling by Rose’s head. The sight of her up close left him shaken. Her throat was severed more than halfway through. “What do I do?”
“No—” Eleisha tried to say, but Robert cut her off as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Give me your wrist.”
“It’s okay, Eleisha,” Wade said, reaching out. She was beyond upset, and Robert could certainly be handling this differently—but he was right.
Maybe Eleisha realized that, because although the shock on her face melted into misery, she didn’t try to stop either of them. Robert took Wade’s wrist and punctured his teeth into a vein.
It hurt.
Wade didn’t wince, and he let Robert guide his wrist into Rose’s mouth, squeezing blood past her lips.
“What if she’s too far gone to drink?” Wade asked.
But then Rose opened her mouth and clamped down on his wrist. The pain of Robert’s teeth was nothing in comparison, and he couldn’t help crying out. His hand . . . his entire arm was burning as she drained life force away from him, sucking in savage gulps. He gasped a few times, leaning over her, and he could hear Eleisha making small strange sounds beside him. Then he felt Robert’s fingers on his throat.
“I’m sorry I cannot put you to sleep,” Robert said to him. “Eleisha, get ready to pull him back when I tell you.”
Wade’s head grew light, but he could actually see Rose stop bleeding, and although her wound didn’t close, the internal section appeared to be knitting together. He wondered if he was hallucinating.
He could feel his heart slowing down.
“Now,” Robert barked, pulling Wade’s wrist out of Rose’s mouth.
Rose snarled and snapped after it, but Robert held her down, and Wade felt Eleisha jerk him backward. Then he was lying on the concrete floor, and she was holding his head in her lap, rocking him back and forth. He was dizzy and weak, and his mind wandered. Rose had stopped fighting Robert and lay quietly now.
“God, I hope no one walks by and see this,” Wade murmured.
For the most part, they were hidden between the column and the van.
“It doesn’t matter,” Eleisha said, and she laid him down on the floor. She untucked his shirt and ripped a strip off the bottom, tying it tightly around his wrist.
“What the hell is going on?” a low voice with a French accent demanded, and Wade looked up to see Philip standing over them.
Eleisha didn’t answer and pulled Wade’s head back into her lap.
“There was no other way,” Robert answered, still sounding emotionless. “Where’s the vampire?”
Still angry, Philip shook his head once. “Gone. I lost him.”
Robert stood up. “We can’t stay here. Philip, find something in that bag to hide Rose’s throat and cover her dress. Anything will do,” he ordered. “Then get her on her feet. Wade, you’ll have to walk, too, but we need to board that train. Right now.”
When Eleisha looked at him, her expression was flat—almost bitter.
She had no reason to be angry. Robert was doing all the right things, and yet . . . even drained and weak and dizzy, Wade understood exactly how she felt.
Jasper was bleeding and groveling on the floor of the suite, but the sight of this didn’t make Julian feel any better.
He kicked Jasper’s side again, watching him roll hard against the fireplace.
“What do you mean, you think you took her head?” Julian demanded.
Jasper was gagging, black blood dripping down his chin, and he tried moving up to all fours. “I cut through most of her neck! I swear, Julian, her head was hanging by a thread!”
He crawled backward, and Julian was suddenly too disgusted to kick him again. Unless Rose’s head was severed, she would heal after feeding.
“You said Mary would help me!” Jasper shouted. “And you didn’t tell me Eleisha could make me see things . . . feel things!”
Julian put his fist to his mouth. Where exactly was Mary? This situation was bad, and he was completely in the dark. Jasper, the fool, had run from the station parking lot after botching up any attempt to decrease the numbers in Eleisha’s group. Then he’d left! Just left them there.
Julian ground his teeth.
“Mary Jordane!” he called.
Her transparent form stumbled as she appeared near the terrace.
“Hey!” she exclaimed. “I’d just gotten back to the station to look for Eleisha. Why’d you pull me away?”
“Where have you been?” Julian demanded. “Did you leave Jasper to fight alone?”
She crossed her arms. “They’ve got their own ghost. A big guy who looks like something right out of Braveheart. I had to take off.”
Julian lowered his fist. “What?” Another ghost? “Can he injure you? Do anything to harm you?”
“I don’t know! I wasn’t waiting around to find out. He can’t travel as easily as me, so he must be tied to one of their new vamps.”
Eleisha’s group had a ghost? This unsettled him. It leveled the field too much. “What do you mean, ‘right out of Braveheart’?”
“You know: his clothes, his hair. He looks about eighteen, but he’s old. A lot older than the earthquake ghosts here in the city.” As she said this, she noticed Jasper bleeding onto the carpet. She frowned. “Geez, Julian, you didn’t have to do that.”
He focused his cold anger upon her.
“You left Jasper,” he said.
“I had to, but I went back as soon as I could. Did he nail one of them? I found a big pool of blood on the parking lot floor.”
Julian turned away, fighting to keep himself from slicing off Jasper’s head and banishing Mary tonight. “Where are they?” he asked softly.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. They probably just got on the train.”
“No, they couldn’t have made their train,” Jasper choked, trying to stand up. “I had ’em scattered for too long, and that Rose woman was a mess.”
Julian looked at him.
Although Jasper’s words made sense, he did not yet know enough about his own kind. Julian tried to think like Eleisha—what she would do. She was a survivor by nature . . . but she was also flawed by her obsession over taking care of others. He believed her capable of finding a way to board that train in time, whether Rose’s throat was half-severed or not.
Yes. He almost nodded to himself. She—and her companions—were most likely on the train to Portland.
Unfortunate, but not a complete loss yet.
“Mary, check the apartment, just to be sure they haven’t gone back.” He walked toward the telephone on the end table. “Jasper, go clean yourself up,” he said, picking up the phone and hitting zero.
“Front desk,” a professional-sounding woman answered.
“Yes, I need an Amtrak schedule sent to my suite. Then arrange for a rental car. I’ll want it within the hour.”
chapter 11
Right as the train began to move, Wade dropped to sit on a small bench-style couch against one wall of their cabin. His head was still light, and his wrist hurt, but otherwise, he was starting to feel better.
Once everyone was inside, Robert locked the door.
Rose eased down beside Wade, wearing his jacket, but when she moved, the collar slipped down past her shoulder.
To his amazement, her injured throat was almost healed, the wound appearing only as an angry red line. She was clearly shaken but conscious and fairly calm.
“Do you want me close that shutter over the window?” he asked.
“I’ll do it,” Philip offered, slipping past them.
Eleisha kneeled down on the floor beside the couch.
Rose’s face twisted in a pained expression. “I’m so sorry,” she said with a harsh rasp. “I don’t remember very much after we walked into the station . . . until . . . I saw the sword coming at me and then I woke with Wade’s wrist in . . . You know how badly I want us all to reach Portland. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Eleisha soothed her, touching her forehead. “I didn’t realize how hard that would be for you. It’s not your fault. Do you feel better in here?”
Rose looked around the small cabin, at the closed window and locked door. She nodded.
“Just exactly what happened out there?” Robert demanded, stepping past Eleisha and opening the adjoining door to their other cabin. He stood in the doorway to give everyone else more room.
Even so, the quarters were tight.
Still kneeling, Eleisha began to talk in short bursts, telling them about a ghost who’d flashed in front of her suddenly and how Seamus had then appeared, and they’d both vanished.
Then she described the vampire who’d attacked Rose.
“He seemed new,” Eleisha whispered. “Like he didn’t understand my gift or his own or how they work.”
; “Julian’s behind it,” Robert said. “He must be.”
“We don’t know that,” Philip said, surprising Wade—as Philip always tended to suspect Julian. “He works alone. He doesn’t make servants to help him.”
“He made Eleisha,” Wade said.
No one spoke for a few moments, and then Robert asked, “Was the ghost working with this vampire?”
Eleisha’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know. But it seemed like she was trying to scare me off, to keep me away from Rose. I do think the sight of Seamus frightened her.”
The implications of this left Wade shaken. He had no idea why a ghost and a vampire they’d never met would go to such lengths to attack them.
Rose lifted her head weakly off the back of the couch. “Seamus,” she rasped. “Are you there?”
A slight blur marred the view of the shuttered window close to where Philip was standing, and then Seamus materialized. His expression was troubled.
“Well?” Robert said, as if it was the only necessary word.
Seamus looked over at the couch. “Rose! What happened to you?”
She leaned her head back again. “I’ll be fine.”
“What happened?” he repeated.
“Did you find that . . . girl who jumped out at me?” Eleisha asked.
His transparent eyes narrowed. “No, I tried, but she moves so quickly, blinking from place to place like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“Do you . . . have you ever spoken with other ghosts?” she asked quietly.
He hesitated. “Yes, but they were like me, tied to a place or to someone in this world. This girl is different.”
“Why would a ghost work for Julian?” Robert asked, not really speaking to anyone.
“We still don’t know it’s Julian,” Philip answered. “We don’t know if the ghost and that vampire are even connected. We don’t know anything.”
“Except that we need to get home!” Eleisha cut in, and the strain in her voice caught Wade’s full attention. “Once we’re back at the church, we’ll be safe . . . and we can figure some of this out.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “Let’s just get home.”