The card was plain white with black print. On it was a phone number with a 213 area code and nothing else.
“Your number?” I asked.
“Yes. If you need to go out, call me, and I will drive you. As long as we’re not sure whether the methods of transportation you use have been compromised, it’s better to be safe.”
I stared down at the card, feeling slightly flummoxed. What, so I was supposed to have Silas ferry me to the grocery store…to the movies…the hair salon? To my dentist and…shudder…my gynecologist?
“I really couldn’t impose on you like that — ” I began, but he shook his head.
“It is my duty to make sure you’re safe. It is not an imposition. It is an imperative. Do you understand?”
Did I? All that stuff about vampires and world domination hadn’t completely sunk in yet. However, it wasn’t too hard to understand that some bad people had apparently taken an unhealthy interest in me. Not after Monday’s attack.
Unless that had been an isolated incident, and Silas had stepped in to take advantage of someone who was vulnerable, who would believe his story because it was just plausible enough that it couldn’t be easily denied.
And the magical melting man? I asked myself then. That was a pretty good parlor trick. How do you explain that one away?
Well, I couldn’t. Yes, I lived in Southern California, the land of make-believe, where, not twenty miles from where we stood, the studios made movie magic every day. I supposed it wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility that the whole thing could have been some kind of elaborate special effects setup.
But…why? It seemed like a lot of work simply to go after one not particularly interesting female.
Silas stood and waited silently as I wrestled with myself. He had a quality of stillness that I hadn’t encountered in many people, the ability to be quiet and watch. But then, it sounded as if that was what he and the rest of the people in his organization did. Some kind of weird supernatural surveillance. Or was it? He still hadn’t said anything about who he was, where he’d come from. Something about the way he spoke sounded almost too formal, but he didn’t have any kind of an accent, nothing to indicate that he wasn’t a native of California, same as I was.
Nothing about his looks was out of the ordinary. Well, all right, he was far more attractive than the usual guy you’d see walking down the street, but still, he looked like a normal man. Surely I’d be able to pick up some kind of a hint if he wasn’t.
“I understand,” I said after a long hesitation. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but….”
“But you’ll do as I’ve asked.”
“Yes.” I gave an entirely unconvincing chuckle and added, “I don’t think you’ll be on call too much. As you might have noticed, I don’t get out a lot.” There was an understatement. But it was so much easier to hide inside, rather than go out where I might have a vision — a seizure, to someone who didn’t know better — in front of complete strangers.
“This is true. But when you do have to leave — ”
“I know.” I waved the business card at him. “I promise. I’ll call.”
“Good. Then I’ll leave you now.”
Why did I feel a pang right then? Was it just that suddenly being alone didn’t sound quite as appealing as it once had? Or maybe it was simply the thought of being by myself after spending this time with him.
No. I didn’t dare let my thoughts stray in that direction. Silas had a professional obligation to make sure I was safe, and that was all. I seriously needed a reality check.
“Thank you, Silas,” I said.
He nodded, and headed toward the door. Once there, he turned back toward me. “Take care, Serena.”
Then he let himself out, pulling the door closed with a solid thump. Obviously, he was making sure that the lock had engaged.
Not that I was taking any chances. I went to the door as well and turned the deadbolt.
After that, I leaned my head against the smooth wooden surface and closed my eyes, wishing more than ever that I could somehow undo the events of the past few days.
Silas had just pulled me deeper into the rabbit hole, and I had no idea what to do about it.
Chapter Four
Less than a minute later, my doorbell rang. I jumped, my heartbeat speeding up more than I wanted to admit. Had Silas forgotten something?
When I opened the door, however, I saw my neighbor Brian standing outside, one sandy eyebrow lifted at a quizzical angle, shirt untucked as usual in an attempt to hide the small paunch he’d begun to develop. “Who in the world was that?”
“Who was what?” I asked, even though of course I knew exactly who he was talking about.
“That piece of man-candy who just left. Have you been holding out on us?”
I shook my head, even as I opened the door all the way so Brian could come in. Once inside, he headed to the fridge, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of pinot grigio, the half-drunk one I’d put in there the night before. After setting the wine on the countertop, he went to the cupboard and got out two wine glasses, then poured some pinot grigio for both of us. He handed one of the glasses to me and said, “Spill it.”
“There’s nothing to spill.”
Another lifted eyebrow. Brian always had been someone who could use his eyebrows to ferocious effect. “You expect me to believe that? I haven’t seen anyone over here except your friend Candace or one of your family members for longer than I can recall. Now suddenly you’ve got someone who looks like he’s straight out of True Blood or something coming and going from your apartment? Details. Now.”
The True Blood comment shook me, although I knew Silas wasn’t a vampire. Or at least, I didn’t see how he could be, since he’d said that vampires couldn’t walk in the daylight. But then, maybe he was a different kind of vampire. Or a semivive. Maybe there were factions in the vampire world fighting with one another, and that’s what this was all about.
I pushed those frenzied thoughts away and took a sip of my pinot grigio. “There aren’t any details, Brian. Sorry. His name is — ” I broke off there, because I had a feeling that Silas wouldn’t be too thrilled to have me bandying his name around, even if I didn’t know anything except his given name. “His name is Sam Willis. He’s a friend of Candace’s. We met him after lunch today as we were coming out of Lucky Baldwin’s, and he offered me a ride home. That’s all.”
There. That sounded plausible enough. After all, Candace knew people all over town because of her work. It wasn’t so strange that she’d have a friend whom Brian had never heard of.
“Oh, really?” Brian drank some of his wine, his skeptical expression telling me exactly what he thought of that story. “And came up to your place afterward? And stayed for half an hour?”
“Well….” Time to pile more lies on top of lies, since of course I couldn’t tell him the truth. “Turns out he works for the L.A. Times. It wasn’t exactly a chance encounter. He’d heard rumors about Jackson getting ready to announce his candidacy, and he wanted to get a statement from me.”
Brian’s sharp features shifted from skeptical to concerned. “I hope you told him to get lost.”
“I did. Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
I lifted my shoulders. After all, I knew I couldn’t entirely close the door on this “Sam Willis” person, if only because of the very real possibility that Silas might be returning at some point for Driving Miss Daisy duties.
“I get it. He’s a hottie, and you’ve been going through a hell of a dry spell.”
Right then I pondered the drawbacks of having a neighbor who knew a little too much about your personal life. I loved Brian, but sometimes a girl needed her space. “No, really — ”
Brian raised a hand. “Serena, you don’t have to make excuses. It’s worried both Lewis and me. There’s something not right about a girl like you living like a nun.”
“I’m not a nun,” I protested.
“Well, I’ll admit you
r cell is a little nicer.” His gaze flicked from me to the living room and back. “And your wardrobe is better…marginally…but otherwise?” It was his turn to shrug. “If it walks like a duck, it’s a nun.”
“Not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. But I’d watch out for this Sam Willis guy. I’d hate to think he’s acting interested just so he can try to pry information out of you.”
“He can try. But he won’t get very far.”
“Good girl.”
We both fell silent for a moment as we drank some more of our wine. Actually, although some people might have been annoyed at the high-handed way Brian had come in and commandeered the pinot grigio like that, I was actually relieved. I needed a drink more than I’d realized, and somehow he’d understood. He was like that.
Actually, in a lot of ways, he was much more of a big brother than Jackson had ever been.
“How’s work?” I asked, and Brian raised another eyebrow at me.
“Talk about your obvious changes of subject.”
It was my turn to lift an eyebrow at him. “All right, yeah. But I don’t have much more to contribute on the subject of Sam Willis, so I thought I might as well be polite.”
He chuckled then. “Work is…fine. Busy. You?”
“The same.” Actually, it wasn’t the same at all. Just another polite lie. Brian always seemed to be taking on new work, whereas I wouldn’t be getting my next project until the middle of the following week. But that was fine. I usually took advantage of breaks like that to binge-watch a show I hadn’t seen before. Up next was Westworld.
By the way his mouth curled at my reply, I could tell Brian didn’t believe me. We’d known each other long enough that he had a fairly good idea of my workload…or lack thereof. But it was something we really didn’t discuss, because talking about my work in any great detail would bring up the sad fact that my parents were really the ones who made sure I had a nice roof over my head and health insurance and everything else I needed to get by. What I earned from my editing jobs was barely enough to keep me in groceries and cable.
“Well, then,” Brian said, and put his now-empty glass down on the counter. “Speaking of work, I’d better get back to it. I need to deliver some comps to my client by noon tomorrow. But if you do end up on a hot date with this Sam Willis person, I want to hear all about it.”
“You’ll be the first to know,” I promised. A promise I’d never be able to fulfill, because of course Silas and I were never going to be connected intimately. Or in any other fashion, except in a decidedly odd bodyguard kind of way. But I couldn’t tell Brian that.
“I’d better.” Those were his parting words, because he shot me a final grin as he let himself out and closed the door behind him.
Once again, I found myself turning the deadbolt, followed by activating the alarm system. This time I didn’t stay over by the door, but went to the kitchen so I could pick up my glass and finish the last of the wine it held. As I set it down, I found myself thinking about Silas, trying to figure out where he had gone after he’d left me. The area code of his phone number indicated that he must live in the heart of Los Angeles somewhere, or possibly Hollywood. Then again, these days, area codes didn’t matter that much, since people held on to numbers for their cell phones long after they’d moved out of a particular city. He could be anywhere.
Well, maybe not anywhere. His comments about coming up to Pasadena to drive me around made it sound as if he wouldn’t have that far to go. The distance from downtown to where I lived didn’t look that far on paper, but traffic could be hideous on the 110 Freeway, depending on the time of day.
I should have asked him where he lived.
Right, like he would have told you that, I mocked myself. The guy wouldn’t even give you his last name.
True enough. I finished the last mouthful of wine, then rinsed out both glasses and put them in the dishwasher. As I did so, I wondered if Silas drank wine…or anything at all. He didn’t seem much like the type.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t find out anytime soon.
* * *
That night, I had a vision. It had been a while since the last one…almost a month. Problem was, they never came on any kind of schedule. It wasn’t as if I could look at my calendar and think, Oh, it’s the second Wednesday of the month— time for a vision!
No, it was definitely not that easy. I never knew when one would strike, hence the nun-like lifestyle that Brian had been giving me grief over earlier. It was just easier to stay home whenever possible, rather than risk losing contact with reality in such a visible fashion. A near car accident and an incident at the local Ralphs where the manager was about to call the cops because he thought I was drunk or high or both was enough to convince me that it was better to limit my exposure to the outside world.
At least this time I was sitting down. I’d just finished my dinner — salad and a few strips of cold chicken breast, penance for the fish and chips I’d had with Candace at lunch — when the familiar, and hated, hazy pearlescent glow descended on my field of vision. At once my living room disappeared, and instead I saw a house.
Well, a mansion, actually, if you wanted to get technical about it. The place was huge, the sort of faux chateau-style that you might find out in the upscale San Rafael section of Pasadena. Or in my hometown of San Marino, but if that were the case, then I should have recognized the building. But I was sure that I didn’t know this house.
It stood on the edge of a cliff, overlooking an arroyo. Actually, it was the arroyo, the one that sliced through the western edge of Pasadena. Although even a decent-sized lot in that location had to be worth over a million, this house sat alone, with a large wall surrounding it and trees crowding on every side. In fact, a normal observer would never have been able to see the house itself because of the heavily wooded lot, but of course I wasn’t a normal observer. It was almost as if I hovered, drone-like, over the property, looking down at it from a height of fifty or sixty feet.
But I wasn’t a drone, and so I didn’t see anything in exact detail, instead getting a hazy impression of gray stone and multiple chimneys…a flash of color that might have been stained glass. I couldn’t tell for sure, because the light shifted and warped, harsh and dark gold in my eyes, as if I was staring directly into the sun as it set.
The wind rose, cold, pulling at my loose hair. For the first time, I realized I was present in the vision, which had never happened to me before. Always I’d been a sort of bodiless observer, but this time I drifted on the wind, floating over the treetops. All around me there came a cacophony of harsh caws, crows rising up from the trees to surround me, their heavy wings churning at the air, chilling it further. So cold, the kind of ice that went straight to your bones. I’d never felt that kind of cold before. How could I, when “cold” in Southern California usually meant temperatures in the low fifties at most?
And then I saw those eyes. Cold as the chill that penetrated me, glinting silver-gray, like chips of ice. I had thought I was cold before, but now my entire body was wracked by shivers. Frantic, I paddled at the air, as if I could swim through it like water. But of course that maneuver didn’t work. The wind’s current carried me closer to the house, closer to a dark doorway. Standing in it was a shadowy figure shaped like a tall man, but I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t see anything except those eyes.
I put up my hands to shield myself. What exactly that gesture would accomplish, I didn’t know, but I had to do something. I had to defend myself.
It felt as if I was drowning, as if his eyes were growing larger and larger, not eyes at all, but a swirling vortex of freezing water moving up to swallow me, to pull me into its depths. Once when I was a little girl and was swimming at the beach, I’d gotten sucked into a fierce undertow and dragged along the bottom, heart pounding and lungs aching as I held my breath, knowing that if I opened my mouth to scream, the water would rush in and choke me.
That was what it felt like now as I strug
gled against that inexorable force. I pushed and pushed, trying to break free, and the cawing of the crows in my ears changed to mocking laughter.
The sound of that laughter made me want to scream. It tore across my eardrums like nails on a chalkboard. At the same time, however, a burst of rage shot through me, bringing an impossible heat with it. I was not going to drown. I was not going to fall into the darkness. I’d survived three days in a coma. I could survive this.
A cry escaped my lips, one that contained no words, was only a long, drawn-out wail of negation. And then suddenly I was back to myself, back to the couch and the television blathering away in the background.
I gripped the sofa cushion and drew in deep panting breaths, as winded as though I had fought against that undertow in real life, rather than in the most horrifying vision I’d experienced to date. My heartbeat didn’t have much time to calm down, though, because in the next instant someone was knocking on the door.
“Serena? Are you all right?”
Brian. So had that scream been real, rather than something uttered only in my vision? I didn’t know. But I did know that Brian wouldn’t go away, not until I went and reassured him that everything was fine.
Not that it was fine, of course. But I’d gotten pretty good at pretending.
My legs shook as I got up from the couch and walked over to the foyer. I gulped in some air, told myself that I needed to get it together, and then opened the door. Arranging an expression of innocent surprise on my face, I said, “What’s the matter?”
“‘What’s the matter’?” he repeated, eyebrows working overtime. “You were screaming bloody murder!”
“I was?” Then I gave a silly little giggle and said, with a lift of my shoulders, “Oh, there was a spider.”
“A spider.”
“Yes. A huge one. It was in the bathroom when I went in and turned on the light. So I guess I might have screamed.”
“‘Might have screamed’? It sounded like you were getting axe-murdered.”
Falling Dark Page 5