Hunting Memories vm-2

by Barb Hendee

  He was walking the shortest route to a Hertz rental car office, and down a side street, he spotted a deep black doorway with a balcony up above it, creating darker shadows.

  "How do you know they'll get off?" Mary asked, floating beside him. She was fidgeting, as if anxious about something.

  He was too distracted to even find her annoying. "He is a soldier, from a long line of soldiers. He'll get off."

  She shrugged, looking down the street. "Shouldn't I get back to Jasper? He's all alone, and that Philip guy seems pretty mean."

  "Hmm?" Julian turned from the doorway. "No, leave him. I need you here." He paused, running possibilities through his mind. "All right, this is what we're going to do."

  Mary tilted her head, but thankfully, she just listened.

  Coming out of Robert's memories for a second time was even harder, and Eleisha had more trouble separating her emotions from his.

  She could still taste Jessenia in her mouth.

  Somehow, she managed to pull out right after Jessenia's death-before Robert drained the gardener. She would have stopped sooner, but he had such a tight hold.

  Once she was able to separate her thoughts and drives from his, she found him leaning forward on the floor, holding himself up by his forearms.

  Maybe she should have refused to do this for him? He'd just wanted it so much.

  He touched his head to the floor.

  "Rob… ert," she tried to say, her own voice sounding foreign. "Get up."

  He raised his head.

  "The train is pulling into Salem," she told him. "We have to get ready."

  Without a word, he climbed to his feet. They didn't speak for a little while. What else could they possibly say after reliving all that again?

  Eleisha got his coat and buttoned it over his bloody shirt. The coat's shoulder was still ripped, but it looked better.

  The cut on her hand had almost closed, and she washed off the dried blood. Her side still hurt.

  The tense, angry look he so often wore began returning to his face, and he picked up the long shoulder bag with his sword. Good. Maybe watching Jessenia die again might actually help. As long as he didn't get careless.

  "You make sure he misses," she said. The train slowed to a stop. As they moved out into the hall, she said, "What makes you so certain he'll be here?"

  "He'll be here. This is how he hunts."

  They moved down the hall and through the long aisles to an exit, stepping off into the loud train station. People hurried all around them, and no one even glanced their way.

  "Excuse me," Robert said to a young baggage attendant pulling a cart. "Where is the nearest rental car office?"

  "There's a Hertz about three blocks away," the attendant answered. "I think it's open until one a.m. Just go out the main doors, turn left, walk two streets down, and then take another left on Baker."

  "Thank you."

  They walked away, looking around.

  "Over there," Robert said, pointing to large glass doors across the station floor.

  She followed him outside into the darkness, and he turned left. But now anxiety was beginning to build inside her. If Robert was correct-and he probably was-Julian could be anywhere. The thought made her sick, and she hadn't expected that, or at least not to this degree.

  "Wait," she said.

  He turned around.

  "Give me a second."

  His brow wrinkled when he saw her face. "Can you do this?"

  She looked down the dark street, and all she could see were shadowy awnings and blackened doorways and the entrances to alleys. But she'd seen the sword coming back in the train yard, and she hadn't been expecting it. Now both she and Robert would be watching.

  "Yes," she answered. "Just don't walk so fast."

  "Stay right behind me. You know what to do." But he didn't move away yet, hesitating, and then he said, "No matter what happens, I'm glad you and Rose started all this. I'm glad she found me. I'm glad I came." His voice held no inflexion or emotion, but she believed him.

  "Let's get this done," she said. "We'll be home tonight."

  They were far enough from the station crowds now that he unzipped his bag and took out his sword, gripping the hilt.

  The sight of it gave her a jolt. Although she never would have admitted it anyone, even Wade, she was experiencing an unfamiliar scratching at the back of her mind every time she pictured herself helping Robert to kill Julian-as if some part of her rebelled against destroying her own maker.

  But she wouldn't let this stop her.

  Julian had killed his maker. So could she.

  They walked two blocks down, keeping an eye on all the doorways, and turned on Baker Street, which was dark and empty at this hour.

  Robert paused only briefly before beginning this final stretch.

  Up ahead, she saw a deep blackened doorway with a balcony above it, and Robert's voice flashed into her mind.

  There. Get ready.

  He didn't break stride or show any sign of having noticed a thing.

  She tensed, ready for Julian's swing… when Robert would swerve and she would need to get hold of Julian's mind in the same instant.

  Shaking inside, she cursed herself. She had not expected to be this frightened.

  She focused her thoughts, gathering a command to make Julian freeze, and Robert walked past the black doorway.

  Eleisha looked for the glint.

  And then someone screamed from the doorway. A brightly colored form blurred out from the darkness, screaming, and Robert stumbled back in shock.

  At the same time, something large dropped down from the balcony, landing behind him, and a glint flashed with a whooshing sound.

  Before Eleisha could even follow what was happening, Robert's head came off his shoulders, and his body fell forward. Julian was standing behind him, and the magenta-haired girl ghost was still screaming.

  She fell silent as Robert's body landed on the sidewalk.

  His psychic energy burst out and hit Eleisha. She didn't even remember falling beside him.

  Wave after wave of memory kept hitting her, and she'd seen so many of them before. Thomas Howard. Battles in Scotland. Lady Elizabeth. Angelo. Countless feeding victims left asleep. Memory after memory of Jessenia and their journeys and the feel of her mouth on his.

  Then she saw Rose and Seamus and Wade… and she saw herself. Only in almost every memory of herself, she was with Philip, talking to him, borrowing his clothes, sleeping with her head in the crook of his neck on the train.

  The memories began fading. The agony of the onslaught was easing, and she was dimly aware of Julian standing over her with a sword in his hand. She couldn't move or muster any power. Robert's memories were weaker but still rushing through her.

  I'm going to die.

  She wanted to die. Robert was glorious, and she'd gotten him killed. She closed her eyes.

  The blow never landed.

  When she opened her eyes, Julian was gone. The ghost was gone.

  They had just left her lying beside Robert's headless body. She couldn't think or feel and got up on her knees. His head had rolled a few feet away, but the blood had already stopped pumping from the stump of his throat.

  She looked around in lost confusion.

  Why would Julian just walk away?

  The numb sensation was passing, and grief was flooding in to take its place.

  Robert was dead.

  She reached out to touch the back of his hand, and it was already beginning to crack. Leaning forward, she pressed her nose down on his chest, and she just stayed like that.

  If Julian came back to take her head, she'd let him.

  Arriving in Portland at one a.m., Philip knew he'd missed the train's arrival, and he drove their stolen car straight to the church. Wade was carsick, and Rose was gripping the handles of the back door, but Philip couldn't slow down.

  They'd lost too much time already.

  He had the car door half open by the time he squeale
d to a stop in front of the iron gates, and he jumped out, shoving the gates open and running for the front doors.

  "Eleisha!" he yelled, rushing through the sanctuary for the stairs to their apartment below, but he already knew she wasn't here. The place felt empty.

  "Eleisha!" he still called out once he reached the sitting room, and he turned a full circle in despair.

  She wasn't here.

  The next twenty hours were the longest of Wade's life.

  In an ugly scene, he'd managed to convince a hysterical Philip they had to remain at the church.

  They had no idea where to look at this point, and Eleisha had clearly told him they would all meet back at the church.

  Rose sent Seamus out, but he needed some general area to search, and after searching all around the train station, he had come back with nothing. Then she'd sent him to Salem, but again, he did not find Eleisha, and after that, Rose did not know where else to send him.

  Thankfully, Philip collapsed into dormancy shortly after sunrise, and Wade waited out the day, sitting on the floor of the sanctuary. But he had too much to think about.

  He couldn't stand the thought of Julian getting anywhere near Eleisha.

  And what if she didn't come back?

  What if… what if something happened to her?

  This church, their plan for the underground, the life they had been building together would be gone. Rose had the wisdom and the vision. Philip had the strength. Wade had the knowledge and ability to train telepaths.

  But Eleisha was the heart.

  This would not work without her.

  Selfish thought. Wade had never considered what he might do without her, and now all he could think of was himself?

  Bastard.

  He tried to focus on something constructive. What could he do to find her? He couldn't come up with a single thing. He didn't eat all day. He didn't sleep.

  At sunset, Philip came upstairs looking haggard. Rose came up a few moments later-she had slept in Eleisha's room. They still had no idea what to do. Philip opened the front doors and stood on the porch.

  Just past eleven o'clock, a taxi pulled up outside the gates, and Philip bounded off the steps.

  Then he stopped, frozen in place.

  Eleisha met him halfway, and Wade watched from the open doorway, trying not to gasp in relief. She did not run to Philip or grasp his hands or say anything. She was carrying Robert's sword case slung over her shoulder.

  Wade walked out to join them, and as he got closer, he saw Eleisha's face.

  It was pale beyond her usual ivory and completely empty-as if she had no emotions left. Philip was watching her in hurt confusion.

  "Where's Robert?" Wade asked, not certain he wanted to hear the answer.

  "Gone," she said with no feeling at all. "Dead. Julian jumped down behind him this time. He left me there on the sidewalk." She touched the case on her shoulder. "I brought back Robert's sword and some of his ashes."

  Finally, she looked at Philip. "I'm tired. I'm going to my room."

  She moved past them into the church, not even looking at Rose on her way through, and vanished through the door behind the altar.

  Philip stared after her, and Wade actually hurt for him.

  Chapter 16

  Julian went back to his suite at the Fairmont and waited.

  Jasper crawled in the following night with a hole in his forehead that looked about halfway healed.

  Julian wasn't angry. He'd finished what he'd set out to do. He'd taken Robert's head.

  And Jasper had managed to keep Philip away long enough.

  For now, Eleisha would hide out in the church, but in time-hopefully not too much time-she would begin to seek out others still in hiding.

  Julian could wait.

  He did not need to fear Eleisha's small group to the same degree he'd feared Robert: an elder who practiced the laws.

  In truth, Julian was satisfied enough with how things had turned out that he felt generous.

  "I'm leaving you here for now," he told Jasper. "You can keep the suite, and I'll set you up an account with Wells Fargo."

  Jasper was easy to control and he wasn't afraid to throw himself into a fight-and both qualities made him useful.

  Jasper's mouth fell open, but he didn't say a word.

  Mary was floating by the fireplace, looking equally puzzled.

  Julian's work here was done. He was determined to wait and discover who else Eleisha might find… Perhaps an unlisted elder or the trained child of an elder who knew the laws and yet never gained Angelo's attention. Who else might have hidden themselves away all these years? Robert had most certainly told Eleisha of the laws, but simply knowing about them was a world apart from the vampires who'd practiced such an existence for decades or centuries.

  Julian had to be sure Eleisha exhausted all paths, overturned all stones in her search, before she lost her usefulness. Then he would reevaluate what danger she and her companions might pose to him.

  Until then… he would let her feel that the church was safe.

  He picked up his coat and the long cardboard box.

  "Mary, I'm returning to Wales tonight. I'll call you from there if I need you. Otherwise, just keep me informed on their movements."

  He didn't wait for an answer and walked out the door.

  It felt odd that he didn't want to go to his town house in Yorkshire. But no, he would wait this out at home… at Cliffbracken.

  He'd be hunting again soon enough.

  Philip was at a loss.

  Eleisha was not inside her body, but the shell was still walking around with her face. Even worse, Wade and Rose didn't seem to realize she was gone. They both kept saying pointless things like "give her time."

  How was he supposed to give her time when she wasn't even there?

  The shell began doing some of the normal things he might expect from Eleisha. She had her broker arrange to purchase the church. She helped Wade to sand and resurface the hardwood floor in the sanctuary. She helped Rose set up a bedroom in the second ground floor office. She murmured some approval when Wade set up the first office with a desk and a computer-although she never used it. She even walked at night in the garden with Rose.

  But she did not make a move toward searching for other vampires in hiding. She barely spoke.

  Because Eleisha wasn't inside this shell anymore.

  Philip paced a good deal. He was sick with fear that she might not come back. He tried talking to Wade several times.

  But Wade was useless. "She watched Robert die. Just give her some time."

  Eleisha's shell slept alone in her own room with the door closed. She would sometimes smile absently at Philip and even let him take her hunting once. But she did not speak much, and he couldn't see anyone behind her eyes.

  In agitation, he went out by himself one night and drained the life from a woman behind the Portland Art Museum-and then he dumped her body into a sewer grate.

  It didn't make him feel any better.

  After two weeks of this, he waited until shortly before dawn, and he went to Eleisha's room. Walking in without knocking, he found her sitting on her bed, gazing at nothing. Her hair hung loose, and she wore a white lace nightgown, as if she just waited for the sun to rise so she could slip into the oblivion of sleep.

  The shell smiled at him absently, and his fear only increased.

  He closed the door and locked it.

  Walking to the bed, he dropped down to kneel in front of her. He remembered the first time he'd met her, in a hotel room in Seattle, where she was protecting Wade. She'd used her gift that night to try to seduce him, to get him on his knees, and he'd found the action amusing.

  He wasn't amused anymore, and now he was on his knees.

  "Eleisha," he said, "we are undead, but we live. Robert didn't really live for the last two hundred years… He just got through his nights. You gave him something he could not give himself, no? A few nights of life."

  The shell's fac
e twisted into pained surprise, and she tried to stand up. He took hold of her arms.

  "Listen to me!" he said. "I know this because I wasn't alive either. I wouldn't trade the past few months for five hundred years of just getting through the nights. If we called Robert's spirit up right now, he would tell you the same thing. He would thank you-and Rose-for those nights when he came to life again, and he'd let nothing wash them away."

  Something, just a flicker, passed across her eyes.

  "I killed him," she whispered. "He's gone because of me." This was the most she'd said to him in two weeks.

  "No! He's dead because Julian is mad," Philip answered. "You gave Robert a gift and that's all." Her jaw was trembling slightly, but he couldn't stop himself. "And there are others out there alone, who would risk anything not to be alone anymore… if they just knew where to go."

  He took his hands from her arms, and she didn't try to stand up again.

  "I'll help you find them," he said more gently. "We lost Robert, but Rose is here with us. And now that we know Julian is hunting again, I'll know what to do. It will be different next time. I promise. Whoever we find, I'll get them home."

  Another flicker passed across her eyes. "You want to? You want to help us start looking?" she asked. "You'd protect whoever we found?"

  "Yes."

  He would have promised her anything.

  "Wade… he bought a computer," she said. "Maybe we could search for news stories when we wake up tonight. Like Rose did, only faster."

  It took every ounce of strength for him to keep his face still. He simply nodded. "We could start tonight." But his voice sounded weak and ragged to his own ears. He was so close, so close to reaching her that he didn't want to press this further-for fear she'd slip completely away again.

  He stood up.

  She touched his leg. "Don't leave. Would you sleep in here today? Like we did at Rose's and on the train?"

  He looked down into her face.

  Just like that, Eleisha was back inside her body.

  He didn't trust himself to speak and pulled his T-shirt over his head, dropping it on a chair and moving around to the other side of the bed. He lay back onto her pillows, and she crawled over to curl up against him with her head on his shoulder.