by Barb Hendee
And Wade carried his gun everywhere.
Tonight he was coming home with a full grocery bag in one arm and a bag of Science Diet dog food in the other. He had no idea what Mr. Boo might prefer, but he had a feeling the dog wouldn’t be too picky.
Strolling down the quiet street in front of the church, he shifted the dog food slightly to free one hand, and he’d just reached out and opened the wrought-iron gate leading into the garden when a voice sounded from behind him.
“Hey, man, any spare change?”
Letting go of the open gate, Wade turned. A down-on-his-luck type had appeared from nowhere and was standing right behind him. The man wore baggy pants and a shabby coat and was badly in need of a shower. His eyes were bloodshot, and Wade felt sorry for him. Normally, if Wade had cash, he never minded helping out the homeless, but tonight he’d used his debit card for the groceries.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t have any cash.” Most of the food in his bag had to be boiled or chopped or fried to be of any use, so he wasn’t sure about offering that either. “But I come this way a lot. Try me again.”
He started to turn away, and the man said, “No,” in a surprisingly hard voice.
Startled, Wade turned just in time to see something flicker across the man’s bloodshot eyes. Without waiting, Wade reached out telepathically and slipped into the man’s mind. A wall of rage and violence hit him so hard he almost backed up. He was normally a good judge of character, and this man had seemed so calm. Reading beyond the surface emotions, Wade saw that he was an alcoholic who hadn’t had a drink in two days, and he was desperate.
“Just give me your wallet,” the man said.
Still reading his mind, Wade then realized he had a knife hidden in his right hand. Of course, Wade was carrying a loaded automatic pistol under his jacket, strapped to his chest, but he’d need to drop either the dog food or the bag of groceries to pull the gun, and that would leave him wide open for a few seconds—long enough to get stabbed.
“Do it,” the man ordered.
Wade didn’t care about his wallet, but the rolling rage in the man’s mind made him careful. He wasn’t certain that just passing his wallet over would be the end of this.
“Okay,” he said. “Just let me put one of these bags down.”
His mind was still racing. He wasn’t exactly afraid. Anyone who’d face down Julian wouldn’t tremble too much over a homeless alcoholic, but the last thing he wanted to do was to shoot someone right here in front of the church. He didn’t want the police anywhere near their home.
“Now!” the man said, his voice breaking this time.
“All right. Take it easy.”
Wade began lowering the grocery bag, still wondering how this was going to play out, when a low rumble sounded from his left side.
He looked down.
Mr. Boo stepped out of the open gate. His jowls trembled, and his fangs were bare, and his low growling turned into a snarl as he stared up at the unknown man. Even though his ribs still showed, he no longer looked quite so thin. He looked more like ninety pounds of pissed-off bone and muscle.
The desperate man took a step back, and Boo stepped after him, snarling louder.
A second later, the man turned and bolted down the street.
Wade just stood there, looking down at the dog’s tattered ear. Boo stopped growling.
“Not that I’m not grateful, but how did you get out of the church?” Wade asked. Then he peered through the darkness to see Maxim coming toward him from the front doors. “Did you let him out?”
Maxim nodded. “He ask me.”
“He asked you to let him out?
Maxim nodded again. “He sense a bad thing out here, and he likes you. You feed him when he very hungry. When he sad.”
That last word made Wade feel like he’d been punched in the stomach. But the dog had sensed something and then asked Maxim to let him outside…to offer protection.
“I get it,” Wade said quickly. He hefted the bag of dog food over his shoulder. “Come on, Boo. Let’s see if you like this stuff. You can’t keep eating up all the hamburger.”
Once again, Mr. Boo just grunted and followed him into the church.
Eleisha was curled up against Philip on the living room couch. He’d been so unsettled by her forcing his memories to surface that she’d brought him out here and put Hard Boiled into the DVD player. For some reason, John Woo films always seemed to make Philip feel better.
Maxim had watched the first few scenes with them, and then he’d gotten up rather abruptly to take Mr. Boo outside. Eleisha assumed that Boo simply needed a little trip outdoors, and so she didn’t ask any questions—though she hoped he would not ruin any of her rosebushes.
But in what seemed like an awfully short time, she heard voices and footsteps on the stairs, and then Wade, Boo, and Maxim all emerged into the living room, passing through toward the kitchen. Wade was carrying groceries and a big bag of dog food.
“Come on, you,” he was saying to Boo. “I hope you like this.”
She wondered if she should try to get him off alone and tell him what she’d seen in Philip’s mind. She didn’t want to tell him right in front of Philip or the others.
On the surface, this night felt normal. Rose was in the kitchen, at the table, drinking tea and reading a novel, and Eleisha could now hear her speaking softly to Wade as he carried in the groceries. Maxim was speaking to Mr. Boo in one- or two-word sentences, and Philip was watching an action movie.
Yes, everything…seemed normal. But she couldn’t help feeling that they were all on the edge of something, and it wouldn’t take much to push them forward into motions that could not be stopped.
As if on cue, the air shimmered and Seamus materialized near the kitchen archway, but he was facing Eleisha.
“I found them,” he said immediately. “Two of them.”
Five minutes later, they were all gathered around the table in the kitchen listening to Seamus’ bizarre account of what he’d witnessed in the Seattle manor. Eleisha almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“You don’t really think this vampire was speaking to a ghost, do you?” Rose asked. “About a faked will?”
“Why not?” Seamus answered. “You talk to a ghost all the time.”
“That’s different,” she said, sounding slightly put out.
Wade glanced at Eleisha and held her gaze for a few seconds. “Which one did you say got dizzy?” he asked Seamus.
“Richard…the one trying to cheat his brother and sister.”
“Then it’s more likely that this Christian was just reading his mind and then telepathically sending information to his partner.”
Seamus blinked his transparent eyelids. “Oh, I’d not thought of that.”
Eleisha didn’t blame him. Seamus wasn’t telepathic, and he was such an honest soul that a scam might not occur to him. Frankly, the idea shocked Eleisha, too—but that didn’t mean Wade’s guess was wrong.
Philip was leaning up against the kitchen counter with his arms crossed. “Seamus, what did he look like, this Christian?”
“Tall, slender…with a young face, like maybe he’d been turned when he was twenty or so, but his hair was steel gray.”
Neither Philip nor Eleisha even glanced at each other, but in the moment, they both knew. They were dealing with an elder, and not just an elder, but one who was powerful enough that Angelo had called on him for help.
“The girl was lovely,” Seamus went on without being asked, “small like Eleisha but with lighter, straighter hair. He called her Ivory.”
“And they work as a team?” Rose seemed to ponder aloud. “I wonder how that came about.”
“Well, we’ll have to go and talk to them,” Wade said. “Tell them about the underground. Invite them to join us. I’m sure they’ve been on their own for a long time.”
Yes, that was true, but after these “report” meetings, once Seamus had found something, an uncomfortable scene
inevitably followed regarding who would go and who would stay. With Maxim in the mix, that issue had become more complicated.
As if reading Eleisha’s face, Rose said quickly, “I’ll stay with Maxim. We’ll be fine here.”
Whether or not they’d be safe was still debatable.
“Stay?” Maxim said, suddenly alarmed. “What mean?”
Was he asking what Rose meant?
Eleisha tried to answer as best she could. “Maxim, we need to go away for just a little while. But Rose will stay here with you.”
His alarm grew, and his dark eyes widened. “Leisha…Wade go away? No! No go away!” He started shifting his weight between his feet.
Eleisha jumped up and moved to him. “It’s all right. Seamus found two other vampires like you once were. They’re alone, and they don’t know we exist. We’re just going to go and get them…or at least see if they want to come here.”
His body stilled, and he looked into Eleisha’s face. “Like me?”
That seemed to get through to him, but it made her feel guilty. He was so grateful that they’d found him and brought him here that he would not begrudge them going after someone else. However, the situation of this Christian and Ivory didn’t sound anything like Maxim’s.
Suddenly, watching Maxim, Wade seemed to waver. “I don’t know, Eleisha. I need to come with you, but if I’m gone, who’s going to watch over them during the day?”
Well, what was the alternative? Take them both along? What would Maxim do all night in a hotel room in Seattle? And would he and Rose be any safer there in the thick of things?
“Not worry,” Maxim said quietly. He pointed down to the dog. “Mr. Boo be awake. He protect Rose during day.” He paused. “You go and get vampires who are alone.”
While he did not look happy about the situation, he seemed to understand the importance of this mission. But Eleisha didn’t think Wade would agree to letting a tattered old pit bull take his place.
To her surprise, Wade was watching the dog thoughtfully, and he nodded. “Okay. I think he can protect you.”
“Good,” Philip said, cutting off the discussion, but his voice was strained. “Then it’s just you, me, and Eleisha. Let’s get packed.”
Poor Philip. Too many times now, one of these missions had led him right down a memory lane he desperately wanted to avoid, but he always kept on going.
“I’ll book the plane tickets,” Eleisha said.
Philip shook his head. “No, Seattle’s only a three-hour drive. It’ll take us longer than that to get through airport security. Just rent us a car.”
She wanted to groan but stifled herself. Seattle was only a three-hour drive if Philip drove eighty miles an hour the entire way…and she knew he would insist on driving.
But she wanted to make this trip as easy on him as possible. “Okay,” she agreed.
Wade didn’t bother to stifle his groan.
Julian was alone in his study. He was agitated—and he hated feeling agitated. A part of him longed to drag one of his new housemaids off alone and feed on her. But he managed to refrain.
He’d looked through The Makers and Their Children three times in the past few hours, searching for any hint, any reference to the name Christian, but he’d uncovered nothing.
Now he was just pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, as there was no telling when Mary might have something to report.
To his surprise, the air shimmered and she materialized by the table.
Although he rarely noticed her demeanor, she seemed agitated to him as well. Her transparent magenta hair glowed in the firelight.
“Seamus found two of them in Seattle,” she blurted out, “running some kind of scam together.”
Julian froze, taking in only a few details of her rushed words.
“Stop,” he ordered. “What do you mean ‘two of them’?”
Her eyes narrowed, and the hatred he’d come to expect glinted out. “Two vampires, a man and a woman, named Christian and Ivory. They’re both in Seattle.”
“Are either of them telepathic?”
“Yeah…or I think so. Seamus was there, so I couldn’t stay long or get too close. He’s sensing me pretty fast these days. From what I picked up, this Christian does séances, but Wade thinks he’s just reading minds, not really talking to ghosts.” She paused. “So that means he’s probably old, right? He’s the elder Eleisha was talking about?”
Julian turned away. Yes, he knew by now they were dealing at least one elder: the man. He didn’t recognize the name Ivory either, so he wasn’t sure about the woman, but earlier, Mary had recounted a verbatim statement from Eleisha. At least we know. We know there was an elder named Christian…who wasn’t listed in the book.
Somehow, this Christian had escaped being listed in Angelo’s book.
“So are you buying a plane ticket or what?” Mary asked harshly.
Startled by her manner, he turned back and glared at her. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know what you’re waiting for. You’ve got a target and a location. Get your sword and buy a plane ticket. Let’s get this done.”
For the first time since swearing to her absurd bargain, he felt uneasy. He’d thought that once she was working with him again, once some time had passed, she’d realize how fortunate she was to be on this plane, in the world of the living. Not only had that not happened, but she actually seemed to want him to accelerate the hunt.
Well…in truth, she was right. There was nothing left to wait for.
“Meet me in Seattle,” he said coldly.
“Where?”
“The Grand Hyatt.”
Without another word, she blinked out. Still feeling uneasy, he headed for his room to pack and get his sword.
chapter four
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
As Eleisha nearly fell through the door into a suite at the Renaissance Hotel in Seattle, she was just glad for the prospect of not moving for a few minutes, and she dropped onto the closest couch.
“Good idea,” Wade groaned, dropping beside her. “I have to use the bathroom, and I don’t even want to get up.”
Philip came in behind them, set down his suitcase, and closed the door.
“What’s wrong?”
Eleisha couldn’t bring herself to look at him, even though he wasn’t to blame for all the difficulties she’d been through tonight. Back at the church, they’d managed to pack quickly enough, but then Wade spent nearly forty-five minutes going over several lists with Rose regarding how to properly care for Mr. Boo and Tiny Tuesday…down to his preferred method for cleaning the cat box and how to warm a bowl of wet cat food for ten seconds in the microwave. By the end of this, Philip was ready to jerk him out the front door.
Once Philip decided to go someplace, he had a penchant for wanting to get there as fast as possible.
Eleisha had been able to find only one car-rental facility open this late at night, and they’d had to take a taxi to reach it. By the time Philip was finally behind the wheel, he was in so much of a hurry that he’d raced straight to Interstate 5 and then gone eighty-five miles an hour all the way from Portland to Seattle while Eleisha clutched the backseat, expecting to hear police sirens at any moment. He’d refused to stop for anything, including a bathroom break for Wade.
By some miracle, they’d not been pulled over, and at least for now they were safe inside a hotel room. But dawn was not far away, and although there wasn’t much they could do tonight, she couldn’t help pondering their next step.
“So where do we start?” Wade asked aloud, as if reading her thoughts. He hadn’t been reading her thoughts—or she would have felt him—so her face must have been an open book.
“What do you mean?” Philip asked. “We’ve got an address. We just go and talk to them tomorrow night. These are not like Maxim or Simone. They live in secrecy among wealthy mortals. They would not do anything to jeopardize their position.”
Eleisha watched him as he finished. That was qui
te a speech for Philip. He’d been unusually quiet, even for him, since that ugly scene in their bedroom earlier, but he seemed to be recovering. At least she hoped so. As yet, she’d not been able to tell Wade what she’d seen in Philip’s memories.
“Well…yes,” Wade answered. “But I already checked, and Vera’s phone number isn’t listed. Seamus said the house was in a wealthy neighborhood and it was heavily gated. If we just drive up and introduce ourselves at the gate, no one’s going to let us in. And even if we just climb over, we have no idea what kind of security is in place. If Christian decides he doesn’t like us, he’d be well within his rights to suggest having us arrested for breaking and entering.”
Philip frowned. Normally gates and locks didn’t stop him from doing anything he wanted, but perhaps even he could see the sense in what Wade was saying. And this wasn’t like “the old days,” when Philip would just kill any arresting police officers without a second thought.
“Besides,” Eleisha put in, “if we’re trying to win Christian and Ivory’s trust, the last thing we want to do is break into the house where they’re staying. No, we’ll need to arrange a proper invitation…or get them to come out and meet us somewhere.”
“How?” Wade asked.
The air beside the couch shimmered, and Seamus materialized. But his normally vivid colors were faded, and Eleisha could see he was exhausted. “You need to get back to Rose,” she said.
“I’ve got a phone number,” he answered. “I was just at Vera’s house. Of course the vampires are still up, but so is Vera. I overheard her leaving a message on someone’s answering service, and she gave her home number. You could try calling and asking for Christian. If you can get him to come to the phone, maybe he’ll listen to you.”
Eleisha looked at Wade. “It’s a worth a try,” she said.
He nodded. “You do it.”
Suddenly nervous, she stood up. Everything just seemed to be moving too fast. She hadn’t planned on launching into making contact tonight, but if she could get him to listen, perhaps they could go and see him in person tomorrow night.