by Barb Hendee
Eleisha was sitting on the floor in their adjoining cabins with her arms wrapped around her knees. She couldn't stop thinking about Philip.
Robert was pacing, but since the cabin was seven feet across, he could take only a few steps before turning around.
"You promised you'd stop making decisions for us," she said.
"I never promised you anything."
When she half turned to look at him, a stab of pain flashed through her side, and she winced. He came over and crouched down beside her.
"Did he break you?"
"I don't know," she answered.
"Let me see it."
He reached out to pull up the side of her sweater-Philip's sweater-and she didn't try to stop him.
A purple-black bruise covered her ribs, and he touched them cautiously. "I don't think they're broken, but you'll need to feed soon."
Suddenly, she wasn't angry at him anymore.
"I really thought he would leave us alone," she whispered. "What are going to do now?"
His face was so close she could see the shadow of light brown stubble on his jaw. She'd never noticed it before.
"We have to kill him," he said.
She sat up straighter. "What?"
"He won't stop, Eleisha. Now that you've been with me, he'll see you as contaminated." He hesitated and asked, "How did you run him off… before?"
She'd never talked about this, not really, but the words started flowing. "I got inside his head, and he couldn't push me out. I took control of his body. I showed him ugly images, anything I could think of: the vampires he'd murdered hunting him down, nailing him to a cross, Angelo lighting it on fire… anything. He was writhing, and he couldn't keep me out, and I told him if he ever came near me again, I'd lock him in a nightmare forever. He was so scared. Then Philip grabbed him and kicked him out a window. That was the last time we saw him… until tonight."
She'd never seen open shock on Robert's face before.
"You came up with all that? You? How could you have known what Angelo even looked like?"
"Philip showed me in a memory, like what I did with you. I saw Angelo die. It was awful."
Robert looked away. Was all this too much for him? He liked his battle tactics cut and dried. Maybe he'd never used his telepathy as a weapon.
She didn't have much else to use.
"All right," he said after a while. "He'll expect us to get off in Salem."
"Why would he expect that?"
"Because he knows I'd never lead him from an end point-and the train ends in Portland." Still crouched, he rocked on the balls of his feet. "We'll head for a rental car lot outside in the dark, taking the shortest route. He'll step out of nowhere and swing at some point. If I can make sure he misses, can you get inside his head before he turns on the fear?"
She couldn't believe what he was suggesting. "Bait? You're going to use yourself as bait? What if he doesn't miss, Robert? You'll be dead, and I'll be rolling around on the ground when your energy breaks, and then I'll be dead a second later!"
"What do you want to do? Go back to the church and lead him right to Wade and Rose?"
She stared at him.
"I won't let my guard down, and I'll make sure he misses," Robert said softly. "You get a hold of him, hit him with anything you can until he freezes, and I'll take his head. We won't be free until he's gone."
"What if he's not waiting for us?" she asked. "What if he doesn't attack yet?"
"I don't know. But I do know we can't lead him to your church, and I can't do this by myself."
She ran his scenario over and over in her mind, seeing various outcomes, and she was frightened. What if she failed? What if she couldn't make Julian freeze again? She didn't want to get Robert killed, and what would Philip do if she didn't come home?
But in the end, what choice did they have?
"We'll get off in Salem," she said. "But if he's there waiting, you better make sure he misses."
"Good." He leaned back against the couch, and he seemed to relax now that they'd come to a decision. His shoulder had stopped bleeding, but his coat was torn and stained.
"Let me try to wash that out," she said, climbing to her feet, "or people will look at you when we get off."
He nodded, slipped out of his coat, and handed it to her. Beneath, his shirt looked worse, but they could cover it once the coat was clean.
"We'll get you some new clothes in Portland," she said, determined to speak of the future as if it would happen.
He opened his mouth and closed it again. She wondered what he was worried about now.
"What?" she asked, turning on the faucet.
"You've said a few times that you're going to buy this church. How are you going to pay for it?"
"With money."
He frowned at her. "You know what I mean. Where are you getting the money? You and Philip both seem to have an endless supply. That coat he's wearing must have cost two thousand dollars."
"At least." Embarrassed, she focused on washing out the blood-stains. "I don't know where Philip gets his money."
Come to think of it, that was a good question. He must have inherited his family's wealth, but he had always made fun of her stockbroker, and she'd never seen him contact a bank.
The irony of her own wealth brought more discomfort, considering what she and Robert were about to do. "Julian always… He sent money so I could take care of William… a lot of money. We lived with Edward Claymore in New York for years, and back then he handled everything for me. But I wanted control of my own affairs, so I took William, and we moved to Portland. I started investing around 1954, and later, I just learned what to look for, and I made some lucky choices at a ground floor buy-in… Coca-Cola, Apple, Microsoft, Starbucks, Exxon."
She paused her scrubbing and glanced at him. He still looked troubled, but he also seemed interested in what she was saying.
"I don't have any money," he said. "I've been living night to night for a long time, just taking a few dollars from people I fed on, and I used almost everything I had left to buy my plane ticket from Russia."
"Why were you living in Russia?"
He shrugged. "It was just a place. I didn't care where I lived… but Jessenia and I never traveled there, and I couldn't stay anyplace where we'd been." He paused. "But I always pay my own way, so I'll start contributing as soon as I can pick up a few jobs. I just haven't cared enough to work for a while."
"Jobs?"
He'd been working? Doing what?
"I ran a small business in Moscow for a while where I found lost objects, stolen objects, for people," he explained. "More than half the time, one of their friends or relatives took it, and I just had to read the right mind."
He'd used his telepathy to earn a living? That was clever. She'd never thought of doing anything like that-but then she'd never had to.
His coat looked better. She wrung it out and laid it over a chair. "I've never used my telepathy for much of anything besides feeding or defending myself or reading memories."
At her last two words, he tensed up and then pointed at the floor right in front of where he was sitting.
She joined him, cross-legged, puzzled again. He was changing topics too fast tonight.
"How did you do that?" he asked. "Make me see and feel everything like it was happening?"
"I don't know. Wade taught me to guide the stream, but I can't control where someone chooses to start-like with you. I didn't mean to make you go through all that. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. That isn't what I meant."
He stopped talking, and she had no idea what he wanted, but she could see by the desperate look on his face that he wanted something, and he wanted it so badly he feared asking her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"We still have enough time before Salem," he said quietly. "Can you do it again?"
He wanted to be with Jessenia. He was addicted to someone long gone. If Eleisha did this for him once, would he ask her again… and ag
ain?
And could she ever say no?
She reached out and grasped his pointer finger to help make the connection stronger.
"Close your eyes and go back. Start wherever you want."
He turned his hand over and gripped down hard on her fingers. It hurt a little, but not much.
"Just think back," she whispered.
Chapter 15
As Philip bolted across the empty car after the strange vampire, Wade was once again hit by a sudden telepathic shout. Stay with Rose!
Philip's voice inside his head felt sharper than Eleisha's, but he was standing in the doorway, so he didn't buckle or stumble.
"Don't kill him!" Rose called after Philip. She looked outside as the train picked up more speed. "Those cars behind us are filled with people," she said more quietly.
Wade stood frozen, trying to take everything in. Philip's brilliant plan to jump off the train-which Wade had never been too sure about in the first place-was rapidly becoming impossible, and just like Philip, he was frightened at the thought of Eleisha getting between Robert and Julian.
Now Philip had gone running off after a vampire in a trench coat, and he was left here with no idea what to do. "Maybe we should go back to our cabin. At least we'll be hidden there."
Rose looked around the empty car with the short stairwell and the door leading outside. Her voice was calm. "No, Philip will come back here no matter what happens. You open the outer door, and we'll wait."
* * *
"You're not still planning on jumping?" he asked incredulously. "I think that ship has sailed, Rose. We're going too fast."
"Not quite yet."
For somebody pathologically afraid of sitting in an airplane with a hundred people around, she showed no fear of hitting the ground at forty miles an hour. But her words about Philip coming back to this car made sense. Just what did he plan to do anyway? Pull a machete and take that vampire's head off right in front of the passengers? Why did Philip always have to act first and think later?
"He had to go," Rose said, as if reading his mind-but he didn't feel her. Maybe she was reading his face. "He'd never jump with that vampire right behind us, so he had to least at chase him off. I'm just afraid Philip will catch him… and I hope he tries talking first."
"Talking?" Wade asked. "That thing tried to cut your head off, and now he's hunting us on a train!"
"We don't know what he's after."
Wade sighed and looked around. Pulling his gun, he motioned to the back of the empty car. "Okay, I'll get the door open, and you wait over there. But if Philip's not back in the next thirty seconds, we're going to need a new plan."
Although he didn't want to shatter Rose's hopes, he somehow doubted Philip would try talking first-and for once, he completely agreed with Philip.
But whatever Philip was going to do… he'd better do it fast.
Nothing that had occurred in the last few moments changed the fact that Robert and Eleisha were still alone with Julian coming after them.
Jasper jogged as quickly as he could down the aisles without breaking into a full run, just trying to look like a guy in a hurry. There were too many passengers sitting around.
But he was scared.
It never occurred to him that he might just walk into his targets like that-and now Philip was coming after him. He tried to remember everything Julian had told him about Philip.
Savage but not intelligent. He may have developed telepathy by now, but even so, I don't think he'd know how to sense for another of our kind in that way.
Could that be true? Jasper hoped so. Glancing back, he saw Philip closing on him, and he broke into a run without caring what the passengers thought.
Where was Mary? Couldn't she try to blink in and scare Philip for a moment? Just to clear a few seconds of time?
Jasper remembered he'd passed the dining car on the way in, and he ran toward it, passing though doorways and trying to get out of Philip's sight line for just an instant. He could run pretty fast as a mortal, and now his speed made the aisle seats blur past.
As he neared the kitchens, he dashed into a large storage area, hoping Philip hadn't seen him, and ran for an industrial walk-in refrigerator. Once inside, he pulled the door closed and then crouched, using the newfound strength in his legs to jump to the highest shelf, where he crawled behind several large boxes of unsalted butter.
He waited, forcing his mind to be still, not allowing any of his gift to seep out, just playing dead behind the butter.
Nothing happened for a few moments, and he started to think maybe Philip had kept running all the way to the dining car-bypassing the storage room.
Then he heard the sound of the fridge door being jerked open, and he lay completely still. Hidden like this, he couldn't see anything, but Philip wouldn't see him either.
He heard footsteps and a crashing sound as something was knocked over.
"Where are you?" a low voice with a French accent called out.
Jasper fought down the panic, and he lay completely still.
The footsteps echoed away from the fridge and back into the storage room, moving farther away. He only waited a little while and then jumped down quietly, seeing the fridge door open. Philip was gone, and Jasper slipped over the door, peering out.
He could see Philip down the hall, heading toward the back of the train, into the dining car.
And then Jasper realized he'd done exactly what he was supposed to. Philip was off in one direction, and Wade-a mortal-and Rose-who seemed incapable of defending herself-were alone in a car with a doorway to the outside of the train.
Well… awesome.
If he could take out at least two of them, he'd have a success here, and he saw all the things awaiting him: cars, clothes, hotel suites, feeding on girls who'd never have looked twice at him before.
He wasn't going to fail Julian again, and he headed back toward Rose and Wade.
Wade got the outer door open, and he stood on the steel steps, watching the world blur past for a few moments.
"This isn't going to work, Rose," he said. "Even if I could survive the jump, we're too far from Eugene, and all I can see is a line of trees. I don't think Philip's going to find a car out here. We'll have to wait for the next stop and see where we are."
"Do you know the next stop?" she asked.
"No, I'm not even sure where this train is headed now. I think Eleisha said it would turn east."
Rose was standing near the back of the car, and he was just starting to climb up the metal stairs when her expression shifted to fear as she looked to the right, toward the door Philip had run through. Wade couldn't see it from his position, but he raised the gun.
"Wade!" she called out.
He heard the upper door being opened, and he tried to jump up the last three steps, holding out his Beretta. Something arced down out of the air, and the tip of a blade sliced the back of his hand. He cried out and dropped the gun.
The trench-coated vampire kicked it away, and Wade dodged to one side as the sword came back, crashing into the stairwell's corner.
"Stop it," Rose called out. Her voice was smooth and clear. "That will not serve you, and you can come with us. You'll have a home with us."
Even Wade saw the wisdom of what she suggested. To stop fighting. To go home.
The vampire held his sword in midair. He looked younger than Wade first realized. His blade was slender, more a saber than a sword-but the edge was sharp.
"It's all right," Rose said, taking a step toward him. "Put down the sword and come with us."
The vampire's face wavered, and then somehow he seemed to throw off Rose's aura of wisdom, and in one split second, he snarled, pulling his blade back, about to rush her.
The air shimmered, and Seamus appeared directly in front of Rose. He swung with his fist as if aiming a hard blow.
The transparent fist passed through the vampire, but he still flinched and ducked, as anyone would, and Wade used the only weapon he had left… Fo
rming an image of Philip running toward them down the aisles, he drove this picture directly into the vampire's mind.
He's coming now, Wade projected. It's safe outside in the dark. Jump. Jump out the door and you'll be safe. Or he'll take your head and turn you to dust.
The vampire's eyes widened in terror, and he looked down the stairwell to the open door and the world rushing past.
Hurry! He's coming. He's almost here! He'll take your head. You have to jump.
The vampire moved past Wade, to the top of the stairs, lost in the vision Wade kept pressing on him.
And then to Wade's despair, he felt something pushing back, and he heard hazy thoughts.
No… no, he can't be there yet.
This creature was pushing him out, fighting his suggestions.
Yes! Wade projected. He's almost to the door.
The vampire's expression altered, and fear turned to rage. He half turned, raising the sword, snarling and aiming at Wade.
An explosion sounded, echoing off the metal walls.
Black blood sprayed from the vampire's chest, and he stumbled down three steps, choking in shock. Another explosion rocked the car, and blood sprayed from his forehead as he fell back through the outer door and vanished from sight.
Wade rushed down the steps and hung out the doorway. He could still see the body lying on the ground, growing smaller and smaller until the train passed him.
The vampire never even moved.
Panting from what felt like emotional exhaustion, Wade looked up into the car. Rose was standing in the middle, holding his gun with both hands. Seamus was still beside her.
"Philip should be back soon," she said calmly. "We'll get off at the next stop."
Still looking at his gun, Wade had no response.
Maybe Rose's wisdom could adapt to any situation.
Julian walked the dark street outside the Salem Amtrak station. The express train was due any moment. He was worried Eleisha might talk Robert into waiting inside the station and calling for a taxi.
But he was also counting on Robert's instinct for complete independence in a dangerous situation. Angelo had known Robert very well-and now so did Julian.