“What made you turn around?” Josephine said into my tear-filled silence.
I blinked at her, my eyelashes wet. “What?”
“What made you turn around?” she repeated. “Was it a sound, a movement, a . . . feeling?” The way she said that last made my nose wrinkle.
“Why?” I asked.
She shook her head delicately. “Nothing,” she said, like giving up. “Nothing. If you don’t know what I mean, it’s not important.”
I pressed my lips together, but didn’t ask. If she didn’t want to say, pushing her wouldn’t help.
“Anyway, there was this woman, and she had Kent leaned up against her shoulder –” I choked again. That would always be my last memory of him. The sickening way his head flopped forward. He’d probably already been dead.
Red dropped onto my jeans: tap, tap, tap.
Sebastian leaned across the space between us and very carefully set one hand on my knee. It was a rough gesture, uncertain. But it softened the rock in my belly. I relaxed and he sat back, taking his cold, hard hand with him.
“I think it’s safe to assume that whoever took Evan took Kent,” Josephine said, her voice low. “Though I’m inclined to believe for different reasons.”
Sebastian nodded. “I agree. Kent and Ian seem to be the objective here. Whoever took Evan has not made the same vigorous effort to come after either you or Emily. I believe it might have been to throw pursuers off, or simply entertainment.”
Emily let out a small cry. I turned to look at her, but she had gotten up to leave the room, hands over her face. Josephine watched her go with a worried pucker on her forehead. She turned to Sebastian, making helpless gestures.
“No apology necessary,” he said. “It is never easy for one so young to hear such things.”
“No,” she agreed. “I don’t believe it get easier with time, just . . .”
Sebastian inclined his head.
“So what information do we have so far?” Josephine said with a heavy sigh. She snuggled smaller into her corner of the couch.
“We know what these women look like, and what they want,” Sebastian said.
“You said you saw the one drive away from Ian’s house. Did you see the license plate on her car?”
“043-CHI,” Sebastian recited. I looked at him from the side, eyebrows raised. He ignored me.
Josephine narrowed her eyes. “Ian, how are you with computers?”
That didn’t take any thought. “Lousy.”
Her mouth tightened in disappointment. “That license number would be handy if we knew a hacker.”
Sebastian’s eyes went dark and thoughtful.
“It’s getting late,” Josephine said before he could say what he had on his mind.
The darkness left his eyes as he looked up. I checked my wrist. It was close to six. Getting late.
“What if Emily and I came back tomorrow night?” Josephine said, stretching, though still cautious of taking up space.
“Midnight,” Sebastian said at once. “I have some things to do tomorrow evening.”
“Midnight,” Josephine agreed, and stood. She started towards the door Emily had vanished through, then paused and turned to me. “Ian, do you know if Kent had other children? Any other family he might have spoken of?”
I stared at her, feeling dumb.
Other vampires, she meant. Other family like me. I shook my head no, but I wasn’t sure all of a sudden. It stood to reason Kent had a maker – he never told me who. I never asked. He might have had other children. Not that I knew about them.
I thought him telling me he was a vampire was honesty, that the mortal mask he’d worn with me was the falsehood. I didn’t like being wrong about that.
“If he had any, they are in danger,” Josephine went on. “I wish we had a way to find out.”
It almost relieved me that I didn’t know how to contact any children Kent might have. I didn’t know if I wanted to know about them. “What are we going to do about this?” I asked in a rough voice.
“That is what we will meet tomorrow to decide,” Sebastian said. Josephine nodded, as if they had it all planned. I felt a little left out, but really, what good could I do? They were both older than me. They had a better grip on this.
That said, Josephine followed the way Emily had gone out of the room, worried frown back in place.
I still didn’t know what Emily and Evan meant to each other, but she obviously cared about him. It seemed to me that Sebastian and Josephine were presuming him dead. That had to be hard. Especially not knowing why.
Entertainment, Sebastian said in my mind. I shivered. That had to be harder.
But Ian appears to be the objective.
That wasn’t real easy for me.
Josephine came out with Emily in tow, both women’s eyes wet, arms around each other. I gave Emily what I hoped passed for a sympathetic nod. She gave me a shaky smile back, so I couldn’t have done too bad. The elevator came and took them away.
“You should not have let her in.”
I raised an eyebrow at Sebastian. He had his eyes on the elevator, chin rested on one hand. “Neither you nor the lobby attendant knew whether she was really Josephine. Kent’s killer could have used Josephine’s name to reach you.”
My eyebrows shot up. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Sebastian inclined his head. “You cannot change it now. Be sure you think of it next time.” He stood up without looking at me and left the room.
Left in silence, I stayed in the chair, thinking over the night. Emily; Evan and Kent; listening to them try to work this out. One thing Sebastian had right: I couldn’t change any of it now. I sighed.
Well, now what?
I needed to do something else. I shoved myself out of my chair and padded back to my room to work on my drawing.
NIGHTFALL
Sebastian opened his eyes on his room and remained still, listening. He could hear the sounds of traffic outside, the tapping of rain on the window panes. Ian’s cat padded by outside his room. Nothing that didn’t belong. He allowed himself to stretch before getting up. A comfortable habit he had permitted himself to get into. Awakening in the midst of the pack had not allowed for such leisurely moments. When they did not immediately begin training or missions, they fought amongst themselves, and a vampire lying still when the fists started to fly was counted as fair prey. Sebastian had found, on leaving them, that he’d missed not worrying about losing his head as soon as his eyes opened.
Ian would not have awakened yet. The younger ones needed so much more sleep. Convenient, tonight. He had some things he wanted to look into, and she would be awake by the time he returned.
He dressed and left the penthouse. The apartment, while not impenetrable, would take knowledge and patience to break into – something he did not suspect either of these women had in abundance. Even if the apartment security guard were killed, the elevator could not be sent to the penthouse without either the key or permission from the penthouse. Sebastian felt secure leaving Ian while he went out.
Josephine had surprised him with her perceptiveness. A pleasant surprise. She had suggested exactly what Sebastian already planned – use the license number from the car to track his prey. Josephine had suggested using a computer expert.
Sebastian did not have access to a computer expert – a hacker. He supposed they could be found, if the correct contacts were made, the right arrangements agreed upon. He did not have time for that. He did, however, have something else. It took him perhaps a total of fifteen minutes to reach the local police precinct house.
He entered a plain, functional lobby, inhabited by two people in hard plastic chairs and a rack of informational pamphlets. Across the lobby sat a woman at a desk, behind a shield of some sort of shatterproof material. This was meant to prevent anyone from reaching her. Physically.
Behind the desk he could see another room that did not connect to the lobby. Uniformed officers wandered in that room, more people at de
sks. This would require caution. Sebastian walked up to the front desk and cleared his throat quietly. The woman behind it looked up and met his eyes.
“I need some information from you,” he told her, holding her gaze.
Her face jerked, then tensed, as if in pain. She didn’t answer. They usually didn’t when they attempted to fight the compulsion.
“I want you to look up the owner of a car,” he went on, more firmly. “A black BMW with the license 043-CHI.”
Her hands clicked over the keyboard of her computer without her eyes following them. Her face stayed tight. Sebastian waited patiently, ignoring the querying expression of those passing by.
“Sally Resnan,” the woman said at last, her eyes dashing across the screen. She said no more.
“Where does she live?” he coaxed, fighting the urge to punch the plastic between them. Frightening her would make controlling her much easier. It would also, however, earn him more attention than he wanted.
“1012 Old Creek Road. Seattle.”
He sighed. In times past, he could have forced the information from her in so many different ways – but those times were past.
“Do you know anything else about her?” Using only his voice against her will. She would not win. She just needed some time to realize that.
She read the list monotonously, her voice acting against her mind. “Husband, two children, full coverage insurance, one moving violation. Reported missing last week. No leads yet.”
He should have guessed. Sally Resnan was dead. The car was stolen.
“Do you know where she is?” the woman asked, narrowing her eyes at Sebastian.
“No,” he said. “You need not recall this conversation.”
He turned on his heel and left, letting the woman return to herself. She paused, then called after him. He let her. He had what he needed. Once, he would have forced the information from her and left her dead, feasting on her blood. Here, now, leaving her alive would cause less trouble. He did not follow Ian’s edict of hiding, but murdering a policewoman in full sight of her peers would only bring problems. Sebastian had survived much, but he did not know if he could survive the wrath of many armed and angered police officers.
So much has changed, and so quickly. He held in a soft sigh.
So much. How to track a vampire in this urban mess? They no longer left trails that were easily followed. No strings of corpses, no hidden lairs deep in secret forests. Only stolen cars and missing people who would never turn up. The time when humans lived or died by the whims of vampires had ended. They had found ways to protect themselves with their technology and their society. And if a vampire could hide successfully from human hunters, he stood a better chance of eluding other vampires.
Sebastian’s fists clenched tight while his lips twisted into a small smile. This could prove quite interesting. Quite interesting indeed.
He got into the Vector, started it, and left for Sally Resnan’s home.
IAN
When I woke up, I was alone.
I got up, fussed with my outfit for the night – trying to put on something nice, eye-catching, but that wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard. I settled on a tight-but-not-too-tight pair of jeans and a midriff-baring sweater, then put my hair up.
When I left my room, I didn’t see any sign of my host. No lights under any doors. No sounds from other rooms. My footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor.
“Sebastian?” I yelled, figuring he would at least answer, let me know where he was. Gypsy purr-meowed and trotted out from a room, but no Sebastian. I scooped her up and kept looking.
Knocking on his bedroom door didn’t bring him out. The practice room was empty. No one on the balcony, either. No note anywhere in the place.
I wanted to say, “Well, great, he’s off having fun and I’m stuck here,” but instead I hugged Gypsy and worried. Oblivious to how I felt, Gypsy wiggled in my arms until I put her down. She vanished around a corner, leaving me totally alone.
Wait, he said he wanted to do a few things before Emily and Josephine came over tonight.
That had to be where he went. Nothing dangerous. Nothing where he might not come back. The thought of him not coming back made me swallow and rub suddenly misty eyes – I hadn’t expected that. The man didn’t exactly give me warm fuzzies inside, and up until that moment, I probably wouldn’t have said I even liked him . . . but I realized right then that I thought of him as a friend. A friend who’d gone off into dangers untold without leaving me a note.
Looked like my job for the night was to wait. I flopped down onto the couch. I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to know where Sebastian had gone and if he was okay.
“So now what do I do?” I asked the empty apartment.
My voice echoed. The place seemed so empty, for all its heavy furnishings. I wondered if Sebastian had friends. I wondered if he’d ever had anyone else in his home before me. I doubted it. The guest room was sparse, but completely unlived in. Why he kept one at all, I didn’t know. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to call up a friend and say “hey, wanna stay over a couple days? We could hang.”
I wondered what he did all night. The only thing I’d seen him do that even resembled a hobby was in the mirrored room, swinging a staff around. That couldn’t take up all his spare time. I took a good look around the entire living room, hoping to see something that might tell me what he was into . . . I didn’t see anything. He had expensive taste in decorating, but I didn’t learn anything else. He had said he was on some sort of personal quest – maybe that took up his nights. Really, I wondered if he just sat in this apartment alone and stared at the walls for nights on end.
Probably.
Why?
Three nights in his company, and all I knew was that he scared me and he was unhappy.
Why?
Gnawing my lower lip, I glanced around again. I might find answers in this apartment. A diary. Photos.
Before I could decide not to – or he could come home – I jumped up and ran down the hall to his room. It wasn’t right, I shouldn’t snoop – but I wanted to and if I waited, I would realize I shouldn’t.
Quickly, I promised myself. I won’t pry real bad. No touching, just looking at whatever’s out. That’s all.
For a second the whole thing reminded me of a murder mystery show, where the girl goes snooping through her boyfriend’s place and finds out he’s a psycho killer just before he walks in the door.
Except he wasn’t my boyfriend and I already knew he was a psycho killer.
I pushed the door to his room open gently, almost afraid of tripping some kind of alarm or something. The door opened smoothly. No bells or whistles went off.
The room was tidy, like the rest of the place. I couldn’t picture Sebastian doing housework, imagining instead that once he decided a thing had a place, he always put it back as soon as he was done with it. Hardwood floor, again, with a heavy rug in the center. Beautifully woven in blues and golds. It looked antique. I stared at it for a while, wondering how old it was, where Sebastian would have picked it up. But the rest of the room waited, promising to be more interesting than a throw rug.
In the middle stood a huge four-poster bed, with a down comforter and soft, clean sheets. Made, of course, all in dark colors. Was that practicality or preference? Did he ever cry in here, get his pillowcase all bloody? I couldn’t quite picture it, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe he never got misty-eyed.
A large, old dresser sat against another wall. Intricately carved vines and leaves covered it, with heavy brass handles on the drawers. A big mirror sat on top, right behind a tray of surgical equipment. Not what I expected. I took a step closer to examine it, hands behind my back. Not an extensive set: scalpel, forceps, catgut thread and needle. What in the world could he need this stuff for? Doctoring himself, apparently . . . I stopped thinking about it.
This didn’t tell me anything about him.
I opened the drawers to his dresser, almost but not quit
e breaking the no-touching rule. I didn’t intend to rifle through his clothes, just look at the ones on top. I didn’t see anything special. Jeans and slacks, underwear and socks. I reverted to the age of three long enough to giggle at his undies, even though I couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t have any.
His room had an attached bathroom, like the guest room. I stuck my head in, but other than being larger it wasn’t any more interesting than the other one. The only thing left was to check the closet. For the sake of thoroughness and because the rest of the room was such a loss, I went over to it and threw the doors open.
Shirts.
Mostly the same kind he always wore, dark, button up. Some Walmart specials, others obviously tailored and pricey. A lot of black ones. Black seemed like a color he would find very efficient. Hard to stain, especially with blood. I shuddered.
No – I shivered.
I looked at my arms. They had goosebumps all the way to my shoulders. Another chill went though me, raising the tiny hairs more. I frowned. A stray breeze wouldn’t make me shiver anymore, but I checked for windows and vents anyway. Nothing. This was an emotional reaction. To what, though?
I found myself pushing the clothes back, sliding the bunch of them along the rail until I had them out of the way. Something else in here waited for me to find it.
When I saw it, I pulled my hands back, afraid to touch.
On a shelf, all alone, sat a small wooden box with a glass lid. Inside, I could see a small, tattered piece of . . . well, I didn’t know what kind of cloth it was. My only fibers class had been a while ago. Wool, maybe? A rough weave of wool. Plaid, and so worn out and faded I thought it probably would have disintegrated by now if it hadn't been in the box. It didn’t look like any particular sort of thing. Not a shirt, or a hat, or a kilt. Just a scrap. Had it been something like that?
Very slowly, I unlatched the box and lifted the lid. I slipped my fingers inside. Despite being terrified the fabric would crumble, I reached out and brushed it. When I pulled my hand away I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t know why. It just made me sad, the lonely scrap in the closet of very practical clothes.
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