by Barb Hendee
Here, Wade became aware of himself briefly as the clear images of Eleisha's story switched to flashes and impressions rapidly shifting past him like the pages of a book.
Yet he still felt what she had once experienced.
Upon arriving at Edward's "home," she was delighted with his lavish hotel suite, and the new world that he showed her. But no longer a servant, she'd had trouble at first adjusting to the hotel staff waiting upon her, laundering her clothes, lighting the fire, cleaning the rooms… changing her bedding.
Images raced by as time flowed on.
The next seventy years passed in a flash of scenes. Edward moved his little family to a new hotel suite about once a year, and Eleisha was glad to let him handle their living arrangements, their money, ordering their clothes… their entire existence. She always hunted with Edward. Otherwise, her only concern was to care for William, and she was content to let Edward take care of everything else.
Still half lost in her mind, Wade could not truly pinpoint when the change began.
But one night, she wanted to order a gown to her own taste-something simple. Then sometime later, she wondered why she did not have her own bank accounts for the money Julian sent.
She said nothing of this to Edward.
But their world was changing.
She started hunting alone.
The scene crystallized again, and Wade forgot himself.
Eleisha ripped the bastard's throat out and watched him fall back with a soundless scream. Pig. A nearly black Manhattan alley hid his flailing arms from the outside world, not that anyone cared. With one hand, she pulled up the torn shoulder of her red taffeta dress, and with the other, grasped the back of his head.
This time the blood tasted good through her teeth, over her tongue, dripping in warm rivulets down her bare shoulder. She saw pictures of rape and whiskey, a red-haired girl being beaten, the hanging of an Irish steelworker, no beauty, no music.
She finished feeding and dropped him, feeling less remorse than usual.
Wiping her face carefully, she slipped back out onto the street. A white-bearded gentleman in his early fifties stopped at the sight of her torn but expensive gown.
"Are you hurt, my dear?"
Human nature still escaped her. This man possessed kind eyes, his concern genuine. But had her face been painted and her dress cheap dyed cotton, he wouldn't have stopped to nudge her dead body. She didn't really want his gallant services, but walking around with ripped clothing would attract attention.
"No, sir. Thank you. I walked past an exposed nail." She glanced about in pretended distress. "Could you please hail me a cab?"
Pleased to be of assistance, he stepped toward the street, found her appropriate transportation, and lifted her inside the cab as though she were a kitten.
"You are most kind, sir."
"Not at all," he said, bowing slightly like a knight standing over a slain dragon.
The cabbie pulled out and followed her directions to Bridge Street, to Edward's hotel suite. She'd never stopped viewing any of their various residences as Edward's.
Apparently the aging Sir Galahad must have paid for her trip, because once she stepped down, the cabbie pulled away without a word.
Eleisha turned and headed up the stairs of the Green Gem Hotel to find Edward sitting on a velvet couch reading the newspaper.
"Hello, angel," he said over a cup of tea.
She smiled absently, noticing how comfortable he always appeared inside a lavish hotel suite they would simply abandon in another few months. Didn't he ever wish to stay in one place and make it a home?
William tottered out of his bedroom, messy silver hair hanging in his face. "Eleisha," he said, smiling in a moment of coherence. "Time for supper?"
He and Edward had begun avoiding each other of late. Instead of becoming accustomed to William's condition, Edward was growing more repulsed with each passing year. This bothered Eleisha.
"Yes, time for supper," she said. "Just let me change, and I'll get you a rabbit."
She'd arranged for a local butcher shop to bring in live rabbits-for a substantial fee. Money meant nothing. From what she understood, Julian sent them enough money to support ten people in style. Edward believed he was doing her a service by managing their finances. He supplied her with spending money, and he always told her, "You only have to ask."
But for some reason, lately, she didn't like having to ask.
"Why are you changing clothes?" Edward lowered his paper and looked up over the top of his teacup. He was especially dashing tonight in a brown silk waistcoat.
"A thief on the pier tried to rob me," she answered.
"Is he still with us?"
"No."
"Good girl."
He could still make her smile.
Two years later, Eleisha stood staring out yet another hotel window.
She didn't hear him approach, but wasn't surprised when Edward peered over her shoulder.
"See anything you like?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
"Shall we go to Delmonico's?" he asked in a bright but forced tone. "Have something upscale for supper?"
She tilted her head back to look up at him. His green eyes were sad.
Neither he nor she seemed able to speak of anything beyond the moment. They rarely hunted together anymore-or rather she rarely wished to hunt with him.
"Of course," she said, feeling guilty. "I'll get my cloak."
He nodded in relief, but his eyes were still sad.
Summer was approaching.
William was sitting on the velvet couch one night, carving a new set of checkers and talking quietly to himself. It troubled Eleisha that he only ventured out into the main sitting room now when Edward wasn't home… No, it more than troubled her.
Tonight, she wore a comfortable muslin dress-that she'd purchased herself-and was walking around the hotel room in bare feet.
"Are you tired of carving, William?" she asked. "Would you like to play chess?"
"No, no. I'll stoke up the fire," he said.
"All right."
She knew this was his answer for when he was content with his current activity. So she looked about the suite, wondering what to do with herself, trying not to let herself think. Lately, all she could do was think-to mull doubts and questions over and over again.
She had longed to ask Edward for the answers for years now, but at the same time, she resisted having to accept anything from him, to need him, to depend on him.
And so a few weeks ago, she'd gone to a library to do research on the undead. The wealth of material astounded her. She was bursting to know…
Turning her head, she heard Edward's light footsteps on the stairwell, and a moment later, he swept in through the front door with a «Tallyho» and a bottle of red wine.
"Hello, darlings," he called. "Daddy's home. Look what I've found. A bottle of 1865 cabernet sauvignon. We should celebrate."
"Celebrate what?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Think of something. You're the clever one." He frowned, staring at her. "Good God, what are you wearing?"
William stood up and quickly shuffled toward his room.
Suddenly, the whole facade of their existence came crashing down around Eleisha. She wanted to scream but did not know how. She whirled to face Edward, and his cheerful expression shifted to caution.
Her feeling of hysteria faded, replaced by a cold sense of calm.
"Edward, how many of us are there?"
He put the wine down on a polished table. "Well, there were three of us the last time I counted. Has someone come to visit?"
"That isn't what I meant."
"I know what you meant. Why on earth would you ask me that now?"
"Because there should be more. Because we had to come from somewhere. Who made Julian?"
This conversation was difficult for both of them. But she had to know.
He looked older somehow, almost defeated, just standing there, locke
d in her eyes. Finally he moved over to the fire and sat down in a mahogany chair. "I thought you might ask me where I came from… a long time ago. But you didn't. Did you never wonder who made me?"
"Julian did."
"No."
Eleisha froze, still staring at him.
"Don't look at me like that," he snapped.
She didn't speak, and he glanced away.
"Where do you want me to start?" he asked.
"The beginning." Her voice sounded cold to her own ears.
"I don't know anything about that." He ran a hand through his slicked-back hair. "I only know of a Norman duke from the twelfth century who was turned. Nobody knows who made him, but in the early nineteenth century, he made three sons: Julian, Philip Brante, and a young Scottish lord named John McCrugger."
Now that he was actually speaking of these things… of things that mattered, she didn't want him to stop. She walked over and sat on the floor beside his chair.
"Which one made you?"
"McCrugger." The tight tension faded from his face, as if he too suddenly wanted to talk of the past. "I was just an ignorant young man looking for work-and failing. He came to London on business, and I tried to pick his pocket. He took me back to Scotland and gave me a job as his manservant. Later I took over the house accounts, and finally, he turned me out of convenience."
"What?" she gasped.
"Sounds coldhearted now, doesn't it? I don't know. Maybe he just wanted to experiment with his power, but he said that he'd trained me well and never wished to go through such training again."
"What happened to him?"
"Julian hunted him down and killed him… and I think he killed the old Norman lord as well. I don't know why. To the best of my knowledge, neither one had wronged him. He seemed to be going on some sort of murder spree, but he never went after Philip or Maggie."
"Maggie?"
"Margaritte Latour? Philip's whore? Did you never meet her?"
The memory of Maggie remained vivid. "Yes, once. She's not someone you'd forget."
"She's the final player. There are only six of us left as far as I know."
"As far as you…" She trailed off as something he'd said struck her. "Why did you say ‘murder spree' if he only killed two other vampires?"
Edward paused for a long moment, as if deciding how much to share. "Because later, Maggie and I corresponded out of… concern for ourselves, trying to figure a few things out. She hinted there were others."
"What others?" Eleisha asked in fascination, moving closer.
"I don't know!" He closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, trying to calm himself. "Remember I was only a servant. Except for Maggie, the others were noble. I was certainly not in the loop."
"You said Julian left them alone, but he left you alone, too?"
His face grew pained. "Yes. My master had gone to Harfleur that winter, and I was managing his French villa in Amiens… He owned homes in several countries. He showed up one night with no warning and told me to pack, that we were going back to Scotland. We went down together to give instructions to our grooms… and Julian came out of the shadows by the stable. I watched him cut McCrugger's head off and then he just turned around and said, ‘Go, like some homicidal, self-important god. I ran like a coward for America and never looked back."
Eleisha's mind raced.
"But I've read… Edward, don't be angry with me, but I've been reading at the library. Some of the accounts suggest larger numbers of us across Europe."
His green eyes widened. "You've been…?" He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "I know those old stories, too. All myth and folklore. We each feed at least once a week. What if there were even twenty vampires living in Manhattan? Twenty deaths a week? We'd depopulate the area too quickly for secrecy."
He was right, of course, but the picture still didn't make sense. Those written accounts couldn't all be fictitious, could they? Mass hysteria?
"What if-"
"Enough!" he snapped, and then his expression softened. "Enough for one night." He looked down at her simple dress and bare feet in disapproval. "What are you wearing?"
"It's comfortable." She paused. "And I would like to buy a few more-just for evenings at home." Her jaw clenched. "I'll need some money."
"You only have to ask."
She looked over to note that William had not come out of his room.
Less than a year later, Edward came home to find her standing by the window again.
She was holding an envelope in her hand, the address written in a familiar black script of blocky letters and numbers.
"A love letter from Julian?" Edward asked flippantly. "What does the old boy have to say?"
Then he saw her face, and he stopped walking. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She held up the envelope. "He's agreed to begin sending our stipend to me directly… in Oregon."
Edward blinked, as if she were speaking a foreign language.
"I'm taking William, and we're leaving," she said.
His mouth fell open in shock. He dropped into a chair, his dark eyes shifting back and forth.
"William's grown afraid of you," she rushed on. "Admit it, Edward, the sight of him makes you ill. I've arranged to buy a house in Portland, Oregon. We need to start over… someplace new."
"You can't be serious," he choked. "You're just doing this to frighten me, to make me treat the old nutter more kindly. If that's what you want, you could have just said so."
"I am serious. We leave next week. I've booked a private car on a westbound train."
Edward stood up stiffly, slowly, and walked past her, even closer to the window. He was composed now, unable to express himself, trapped by his own facade. They were both quiet for a moment, and then he said, "I'm keeping the painting."
In the early 1870s, he'd befriended a visiting French Impressionist named Gustave Caillebotte. They shared several weeks of intense conversation-typical of Edward-and in the process, Caillebotte made a portrait of Eleisha sitting on a green velvet couch. She found it vain. Edward adored it.
Moving up beside him, she wanted to comfort him, but didn't. Neither one spoke. They had nothing more to say.
Chapter 17
This time I broke off first.
"Don't stop," Wade said, grabbing my hand.
"No more. When you're inside my head, I see his face like he's in the room."
Visions of Edward hurt far more than I'd imagined they would. He'd been so alive, so original.
But Wade's questions kept coming. "So, you went to Portland?"
"Yeah," I managed to answer. "Edward followed two years later. He stayed in different hotels until 1937, then bought a house. He'd just grown too used to company."
"You lived with him in New York for seventy-three years?"
"I'd almost forgotten. Seems like another lifetime."
I needed to stop talking about this, and I noticed Wade's eyelids flutter. How long had it been since he'd really slept? The previous night he'd been up playing Superman, and then he probably stood guard over me all day.
"Maybe you should rest."
I thought he might argue-still burning with curiosity-but he pointed to the door. "Not yet. There's another whole room out there."
"What… You rented a suite?"
"Seemed appropriate."
Walking out into the living room of a modern hotel suite surprised me, as if Wade had been kidding and I'd find myself in a hallway. The decor was sterile, predictable: a gray sleeper couch, dried blue flowers in a vase from Tiffany's, two assembly-line paintings of seascapes. But this probably cost six hundred dollars a night. Why would Wade spend that kind of money? To impress me? Maybe he just thought I was used to places like this? What a guy.
My mind needed a break. How long had it been since Edward jumped off his porch? Only six weeks. Couldn't be. The memories shook me more than I wanted to admit. That's why I pushed Wade out of my head. What if the three of us had simply stayed in New York?
Would Edward still have lost it? He'd never liked Portland, but his attachment to me kept him from being happy alone in Manhattan. Was it love? Maybe. He could have cut and run that first night in Southampton, left us to die in ignorance, but he didn't. How much did we owe him? I didn't even have a photo, not even a photo.
And my William…
Stop it.
I wasn't ready to deal with his death. I wasn't prepared to mourn. Trying to mull over that loss and figure out my next move would only bring hysteria. What was my purpose now? Even if I did escape Julian and manage to live-which was doubtful-what was I supposed to do?
"We need to go out for a little while," Wade said from behind me.
"Aren't we supposed to be hiding out?"
"We're in Kirkland-miles from Seattle, and we'll go on foot. It'll be okay."
"I think you need some sleep. What's so important?"
"You'll see. First I want to go someplace and get a hamburger."
"Really? You always sort of struck me as the health-food type."
He smiled slightly. "Used to be. Back at the institute they served whole grain and greens three meals a day. Dominick got me hooked on beer, pizza, and burgers."
The mention of Dominick sent my mood into the shadows again. Wade turned away. "Sorry, I just don't have any other friends. Kind of sad, huh?"
"No, I don't have many friends either."
Getting out of the hotel turned out to be a good idea. The night was clear and cool. We walked in comfortable silence to a small diner called Ernie's and slid into a cushy booth where a matronly waitress who bore an astonishing resemblance to Alice on The Brady Bunch took our order.
"I feel like a kid on my first date," Wade said, holding his cheese-burger in one hand.
"Really? Maybe I should giggle a lot?"
He threw a French fry across the table. "Hey, is the room okay?"
"Room? The suite? Of course, it's fine." Why would he worry about something like that? "Listen, you should let me pay you back for all this. The hotel. The rental car. Everything."