by Barb Hendee
But then Philip spotted Eleisha on the ground, and his expression changed. He went white. “Eleisha!” Crossing the distance in four strides, he dropped down beside her and pulled her up into one of his arms. “Eleisha.”
Her right eye sported a dark bruise, and her body just hung limply over Philip’s arm.
“It’s all right,” Christian managed to say. “He just hit her.”
Philip’s amber eyes flashed up to Christian’s face, shining with open anger now…with an accusation. “What are you doing back here? You said you’d keep her under the lights!”
After the ordeal he’d just been through, Christian was in no mood to accept any blame for this from Philip.
Feeling spiteful, he summoned an impulse and sent it.
This is your fault, not his. You’re supposed to be protecting them both, and you left them alone. Now look what’s happened to her. You’re not fit to have anything to do with someone like her.
With substantial satisfaction, he watched Philip’s expression shift to guilt and suffering. Good God, he was easy to infiltrate.
But then Philip glanced around as if uncertain what to do. Still holding Eleisha with one arm, he dropped his machete, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a cell phone.
As Wade pulled into the garage at Vera’s mansion, he saw Ivory suddenly stiffen in the passenger seat.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“The Mercedes…the one Christian likes. It’s gone.”
Wade braked the BMW and followed her gaze. When he saw the empty parking spot, he wasn’t sure what to feel. For a few seconds, he was completely numb.
“No…they’d never take Christian out of the mansion to come look for us,” he said. “Eleisha wouldn’t do it. Maybe Vera just had Simmons take her out for—”
His cell phone rang.
Pulling it from his pocket quickly, he looked at the caller ID.
Philip.
This time, he answered instantly. “Philip?”
“Where are you?” Philip’s voice sounded strained and angry at the same time.
“At the mansion. Where are you?”
“Seattle Center. Julian attacked. Eleisha’s down. You stay right there.”
The line went dead.
“Philip!”
Wade just sat there, staring at his phone.
chapter fourteen
Christian drove back to the mansion amid tense silence.
Philip had carried Eleisha to the car and then climbed into the backseat, holding her against his chest. Christian found the whole display far too emotional for any semblance of good taste—and yet he’d wanted to kill Philip at the same time.
As yet, Eleisha’s eyelids hadn’t even fluttered.
However, Christian couldn’t stop reliving the memory of Julian coming at him with that sword over and over. It was branded onto his mind. After all these decades of hiding from a phantom, he’d finally seen Julian… He knew what Julian looked like.
By the time he pulled into the garage and parked the Mercedes, he’d reached a decision.
Eleisha moaned, and he half turned to look into the backseat.
“Eleisha,” Philip said, still holding her.
She opened her eyes and squinted in pain, looking up. “Philip…what happened?”
“It’s all right. We’re back at the mansion.”
She gripped the lapel of his coat. “I knew you’d come.”
That bothered Christian more than anything she’d said or done to date, and he tried not to frown. But then she struggled to sit up, looking frightened. “Where’s Christian? Is he all right?”
At least he was her second thought upon waking.
“I’m right here,” he said. “I told you I could hold my own.”
Her head rolled toward him in relief. “Oh…yes, you did.” Then her expression twisted into guilt. “I’m so sorry, Christian. I shouldn’t have stepped back into that doorway.”
He basked in her gushing apology, but before she could say anything else, Philip opened the car door and climbed out, still carrying her.
“I think I can walk,” she said.
Philip ignored her and headed for the stairs, leaving Christian to get out and follow awkwardly. He seethed in humiliation and fantasized about the sight of Philip’s headless body lying on the floor. But the next chain of events had to be set up carefully. At this point, he needed to kill three birds with one stone.
Wade was nearly sick with relief when Philip carried Eleisha into the vast, overstuffed living room and set her down on a couch. Christian followed a moment later, and although Eleisha was sporting a dark bruise around her right eye, everyone seemed to be in one piece.
However, Philip wouldn’t even look at him, and Wade had a bad feeling that tonight’s drama had just begun.
Christian stopped walking when he saw Ivory. He looked down at her cargo pants. “What are you wearing?”
She didn’t answer, and he took a step closer. Wade tensed, as he wasn’t about to let Christian bully Ivory even one more night. But he also realized that neither Eleisha nor Philip had a clue about the true nature of that relationship, and he had to be careful until they did.
Thankfully, Simmons walked into the room and addressed Christian directly. “Good evening, sir. Can I get you anything? Would you like me to have drinks brought in?”
Christian fell instantly into his lord-of-the-manor persona. “No, thank you, Simmons. Where is Mrs. Olivier?”
“Napping upstairs, sir.”
Christian nodded. “Very good. You may go.”
Simmons bowed and left.
For some reason, this brief but overly civilized exchange seemed to bring down the temperature in the room, and Wade walked over to check Eleisha’s eye. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Ivory needed to go hunting. I should have told you we were leaving, but I never thought… I never thought you’d come looking.”
She still seemed dazed and just blinked at him.
“She called you,” Philip said quietly. He still wouldn’t look at Wade. “And you didn’t answer your phone.”
Oh, she had. Wade had forgotten about that, and the reminder made him feel even worse. What was wrong with him?
“Philip—,” he began.
“Don’t!” Philip snapped, and his vehemence surprised Wade. Had something else happened out there? Something worse than Julian attacking Eleisha?
“Bickering amongst ourselves is pointless,” Christian said. “From what I saw tonight, I believe we all have the same problem.”
Eleisha’s eyes cleared a little, and she wrapped her arms around her knees with a questioning expression.
Christian spoke directly to her. “Julian. If we simply take out Julian, the same threat to all of us is removed.”
Philip stood up and turned around. “How?”
Christian shrugged. “How did he find us so quickly?”
“That ghost you saw,” Eleisha said softly. “The girl.”
“She’s loyal to him?”
Eleisha blinked again. “I don’t know. Seamus seems to think Julian’s somehow forcing her.”
“Seamus? Your Highlander? He’s spoken to her?” He pushed his hair back and left his hand on his head for a few seconds. Then his eyes shifted back and forth. “Can he sense the girl…the same way he senses a vampire?”
Eleisha nodded. “I think so.”
“Get him here.”
For some reason she couldn’t explain, Eleisha wanted to conduct her next task alone.
Although she was committed to their mission—devoted to their mission—a part of her was beginning to wish they’d never come here. She didn’t feel like herself. Philip wasn’t acting like himself, and Wade, who’d always been their rock, was taking unnecessary risks and couldn’t seem to explain why.
She walked through the dining room, opened a set of large glass doors, and went outside alone onto the back patio, feeling the night air on her face and holding her cell phone tightly.
Then she lifted it and hit the button to call the landline at the church—located in Wade’s office. It rang four times, and to her surprise, Maxim’s voice sounded on the other end.
“Hello, Wade Sheffield speaking.”
It was an almost perfect imitation of Wade answering the phone, and she realized that since this was all Maxim had heard or seen of someone answering a telephone, he must think it was the proper response.
“Maxim? It’s Eleisha.”
“Leisha? You coming home?”
Just the sound of his voice filled her with longing. She wanted to leave this claustrophobic mansion behind and go home.
“Soon,” she said. “Are you all right? Is everything there okay?”
“I am here.”
“Yes, I know. How are Rose and Tiny Tuesday and Mr. Boo?”
“Good. Boo wants Wade to come home.”
“He does?” The thought of that tattered old pit bull missing Wade only made her more homesick. “Maxim, can I speak to Rose?”
“Yes, you know how to speak to Rose.”
Eleisha paused, confused, and then realized she hadn’t worded the question correctly. “Would you go and find Rose and ask her to come to the phone and speak to me?”
“Oh. Yes.”
The line went quiet for a little while, and then Rose came on. “Eleisha, are you all right?”
“Yes, we’re all right, but we need a bit of help.” She hated to ask this so soon. “Can you send Seamus back?”
As soon as Eleisha left the living room to go and make her phone call, Wade began searching for any reason to drag Philip off alone—that wouldn’t look suspicious—but nothing plausible came to him.
Ivory excused herself on the pretense of wanting to go and change her clothes. Christian had nodded his approval, but it seemed neither Christian nor Philip was about to leave this room until Eleisha came back.
Standing up, Wade went over to a little side table and found a deck of cards. Then he went back to a couch near where Philip was pacing, and he sat down again. “Come play a few hands.”
Philip looked down at him as if he’d grown two heads and then opened his mouth to speak. Wade could only imagine what was about to come out.
Shut up and play along, he said to Philip telepathically. I have to tell you something.
To Philip’s credit, the anger faded from his eyes, and he sat down while Wade shuffled. Christian glanced over from the fireplace, but he didn’t say anything.
Wade started to deal, and when he reached into Philip’s mind again, Philip had dropped any mental blocks and left himself wide open for conversation. Good.
Christian’s not what he seems, Wade projected.
I could have told you that, Philip answered, picking up his hand and looking at the cards.
No, listen to me! He’s dangerous. He turned Ivory against her will, and he’s kept her a prisoner for almost two hundred years. His gift is unusual, and he can send impulses in the form of emotions to manipulate people. Be on guard for any feelings or drives that don’t feel like your own.
Could he be doing this…sending impulses to Eleisha? Philip asked.
I don’t know. Maybe.
A muscle along the side of Philip’s face twitched as he reorganized his cards. If I kill him, Eleisha won’t forgive me, he projected. You know what she was like with Simone, and you saw her with Maxim. She only sees the good until she’s proven wrong.
Well, that was certainly true. Wade pretended to drop his cards, and he fussed about, trying to pick them up. Even if he told her everything he knew, she’d still want to believe Christian could be helped, saved, and brought into a community.
I do have one idea, Philip went on, but if Christian truly has a plan to kill Julian, we should follow through on that, and then—
Eleisha walked back into the living room. She looked to Christian. “Rose is sending Seamus.”
As Eleisha spoke this message to Christian, the bone around her right eye was pounding, making it hard for her to keep from squinting. But in spite of the pain, she could still sense tension in the living room, as if a great deal was going on beneath the surface, and she had no idea what.
Wade and Philip seemed engaged in a card game, which was certainly out of place at the moment. Christian was standing well away from them by the fireplace in what appeared to be self-imposed isolation, and Ivory was missing.
“Where’s Ivory?” she asked.
“She went upstairs to change her clothes and do her hair,” Christian said, glancing in disapproval at Eleisha’s T-shirt. “In a setting like this, appearances mean everything.”
Once again, Eleisha felt diminished and “wrong” somehow. But she’d just hated wearing that evening gown and wished she had the courage to tell him.
Philip stood up and walked toward her. “You look fine,” he said. “Except for that eye.”
She smiled, keeping her gaze on him. He kept her grounded.
But then unbidden, ugly thoughts began rising inside her that Philip said such things only because he didn’t know any better. He was too simple to ever function in polite society, and Christian was much more aware, much more adept at this, and she should have remained properly dressed for an evening in the mansion.
The thoughts startled her, and she tried to push them away. Even if she had kept that dress on, it would be ruined by now anyway, since she’d recently been lying unconscious on the wet ground. But that was hardly Christian’s point. He’d simply been commenting on her ability to maintain a ruse, and he knew best here.
The air beside her shimmered, and Seamus materialized. He looked better than she’d expected, and his colors were bright. That was a good sign. They might need him here for a little while. But as soon as he saw her black eye, he frowned.
“What happened?”
“Julian,” she answered.
“He hit you?” Seamus asked angrily. “Was Mary involved?”
Eleisha held up one hand to stop him from talking. “Wait. I…we need you to try something, and it won’t be easy.” His transparent eyebrows lifted, but instead of explaining anything, she pointed to Christian. “Just listen to him now.”
Although she’d fully agreed that Christian should be the one to put this to Seamus, as it had been his idea, unfortunately, Christian assumed the same tone and posture he used while speaking to Simmons, and Seamus was no one’s paid servant.
“How well do you know this Mary?” Christian asked.
Seamus looked him up and down, and Eleisha could already see this was probably not going to go well. “Why?” he asked.
“Eleisha told me you think Julian has something he’s holding over her, some way to force her to do his bidding,” Christian said. “What makes you think that?”
Seamus glanced down at Eleisha, and she nodded.
“I don’t know…,” Seamus began, only now he was speaking directly to Eleisha. “She loved that vampire Julian killed in Oxford. I know she loved him, and I don’t think she’d go on serving Julian after that unless he had some hold on her.”
This was all news to Eleisha, but she didn’t remember that night in Oxford very well…as again, Julian had punched her in the face before the whole scene exploded.
“Is that all?” Christian said. “You must know more than that.”
Eleisha could see Seamus’ expression closing up, and she flashed into Christian’s mind, Stop talking to him like he’s a servant.
She knew it was bad manners to send telepathy without asking permission, but this situation was serious, and he was handling it wrong. Christian glanced at her, but his tone changed.
“Forgive me,” he said to Seamus. “It has been a most unsettling night, and I am not myself. But I would like to speak with this Mary and see if perhaps we can assist her. If we can do anything to help her get away from Julian, she might be willing help us kill him.”
Seamus’ transparent mouth fell halfway open.
“It’s worth a try,” Eleisha
said quickly. “Can you find her and get her to talk to Christian?”
“To Christian?” he asked.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Under the right conditions, he can be very…convincing.”
No one argued with her.
Seamus just stood there, apparently in deep but somewhat anxious thought. Then he looked at Eleisha again and said, “I’ll try.”
Seamus had a feeling he wouldn’t need to go far to find Mary, but he was still uncertain about this entire venture.
However…although he didn’t trust Christian, this was the second time Julian had left bruises on Eleisha’s face, and if Christian truly had an idea to both free Mary and rid the world of Julian, then Seamus wasn’t going to refuse to help.
He just needed to make sure Mary was protected in the process.
Materializing outside in the ornately bricked courtyard, he sensed outward into the night and felt something just on the other side of the main gate. Blinking out, he rematerialized a few feet behind Mary, pausing a moment to look at her slender back and mesh T-shirt.
“Mary,” he said.
She whirled. Apparently, she’d not been sensing for him or she would have felt him appear.
“Don’t leave!” he said instantly. “Please.”
He could see she was poised, ready to vanish, but for some reason, she stayed, just watching him.
“What do you want?” she asked. “We shouldn’t be talking to each other.”
“I…” Then he was at a loss. How could he put this to her? “Is Julian forcing you to help him?” he asked. “Is that why you’re doing this?”
“Forcing? No, not…really.” Her voice hardened. “Seamus, what do you want?”
He steeled himself. “I want you to talk to Christian.”
“What?”
“He thinks he can help you. He says that if you’ll help us, he’ll find a way to help you.” Seamus floated closer to her. “I won’t let him take advantage of you. I won’t let him use you. But if he can get you free of Julian…”
Mary started to shake her head, and her face was sad now. “No, I can’t get free until…” She trailed off and then looked at him sharply. “Wait, Christian is supposed to be some expert on ghosts, right? I mean, he’s running a scam, but even to fake it, he’s probably had to learn a lot about ghosts, right?”