Bring Out Your Dead (4 page)

“
Yes.”

“
How do you know
that?”

“
He said so.” Damian stood
back and admired the wood he’d nailed across his windows for a
moment. He nodded, then gathered his tools and headed for the next
room.

For someone riddled with paranoia, he seemed
oddly unconcerned. I couldn’t help wondering whether this was an
attention-getting device, but that wasn’t my major concern at the
moment.

“
Is there anyone else
here?” I asked as he proceeded to nail a board across another
window. “A…a housekeeper? Or sitter? Anyone?”

“
Just Abby, but she’s
left. I’m glad. She didn’t believe Sebastian was coming. She said I
was…” He paused a moment to recall the word.
“…delusional.”

“
Hmm. Well, here’s the
problem—I’m a tutor, not a nanny. I have my own home to go to, and
other work I must do, so I can’t stay here to take care of
you.”

“
I can take care of
myself,” Damian said matter-of-factly. He nailed up another
board.

“
I’m sure you can.
Regardless, I believe it would be best if I spoke with your
parents.” I sat on the edge of the bed, next to a cordless phone.
“Do you have their number?”

“
My mum is on a cruise.
You can’t talk to her unless she calls. My dad and Nell are in
Heidelberg. But there’s no phone because they’re building a new
house.”

It took some doing, but after fifteen or so
minutes, Damian was persuaded to hand over a slip of paper with his
father’s mobile phone number on it. Two minutes after that, I found
myself talking to a pleasant American woman who identified herself
as Damian’s stepmother.

“
I’m sorry, but I just
can’t stay,” I said after explaining what happened. “I have many
other clients, and although Damian seems like a delightful
child”—Damian huffed and puffed past me hauling a handful of
cobwebby two-by-fours from the basement, shooting indignant looks
at my lack of helpfulness—“I simply cannot put it all aside to take
on a nanny position.”

“
I wouldn’t ask you to do
so permanently,” said the woman named Nell, a distinct note of
pleading in her voice. “But we would be so very grateful if you
could stay with Damian overnight. Just overnight. I will call the
agency right away, but I know for a fact they won’t be able to send
someone out until tomorrow morning, and we can’t possibly get away
until after that. I realize this is a great deal to ask you, but if
you could see your way clear to just staying with Damian until
morning, we would be happy to pay you a bonus on top of your
regular fee.”

I bit my lip, swayed
against my will by the word
bonus
. “I hate to appear mercenary,
but I’m a bit tight right now financially, so it really does matter
when I ask how much this bonus would be.”

Nell was silent for a moment. “How does a
hundred pounds sound?”

It sounded like heaven, but I had enough
presence of mind not to blurt that out. Evidently Nell took my
momentary silence as disapproval, because she quickly added, “I’ll
make it two hundred if you can stay until the new nanny
arrives.”

My hesitation wasn’t due to greed. I quickly
ran over a mental list of everything that I needed to do in the
next twenty-four hours. “I will agree if you don’t mind my clients
coming here to see me.”

“
Your clients?”

“
I’m a counselor,” I
answered.

“
Oh. Occupational?
Emotional?”

“
Sort of a cross between
the two. I counsel people who’ve undergone a major change in their
life and need a little help to get going again. I have three
appointments tonight, and a handful more in the
morning.”

“
Ah, I see. Well, so long
as no one unbalanced or dangerous is brought into the house, I
don’t see any objection. Thank you so much for doing this,
Ysabelle. Adrian will be relieved to know his son is in such
capable hands.”

The son in question chose that moment to
stalk by me with a fistful of kitchen knives.

“
Erm…yes.”

After a few basic instructions on where
things were located in the house, and promises that a new nanny
would be on the doorstep bright and early, Nell hung up. “Anything
else you need, Damian will help you. He’s very precocious,” she
said before she disconnected.

Precocious
was one word for it. I promised to call if there
were any problems, after which I set the phone in its cradle and
watched with interest as Damian bustled around the room arranging
knives, electrical tape, and more wood.

“
Your bag is
talking.”

“
Hmm? Oh. Erm…” My wits,
somewhat shaken with the events of the last half hour, attempted to
pull together an explanation of why a spirit was in my purse.
“Damian, have you ever wondered what happens to people after they
pass on?”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“
Ah. Sometimes people who
pass on unexpectedly are a bit…well, confused is as good a word as
any. Many of them don’t realize that they’re dead. Some do, but
they might remain behind in spirit form for other reasons—there’s
something important that needs to be done, amends to be made,
revenge, that sort of thing. What remains of those people after
their bodies fade are often called ghosts or spirits—”

“
Sally speaks horrible
French.”

I did a quick mental double-take, upping my
estimation of Damian a smidgen. “Ah. You chatted with her?”

“
She asked me to let her
out.” His eyes narrowed for a minute before he dismissed me and
turned back to his work. “I figured you had her trapped in there on
purpose, so I didn’t.”

“
Thank you, but she’s not
actually trapped…One second, I’ll let her out and see if I can
explain a bit.”

It took a few minutes to smooth Sally’s
ruffled feathers, but at last she settled down enough to listen to
me while I told her of our change of plans.

“
What about
votre
clients? You
know,
les
zombies
that you are supposed to see?”

I shot a glance at Damian, but he didn’t
seem to be listening, instead happily pounding planks over the
window. “I’ll just have to see them here instead of at home. There
are only three more tonight, aren’t there?”

She nodded.

“
Excellent. I’ll just deal
with them and send them on their way. That should be the end of
it.”

Sally had a few choice
things to say about the change of plans, but I pointed out to her
that we needed money to live. By the time I was finished with her,
Damian had used the electrical tape to attach a couple of knives to
each window. Sally took one look at the knives and headed for safer
ground. “I will go leave
une petite
note on our door for
les
zombie appointments.”

“
Revenant appointments.” I
waited until Sally left for our flat before saying to the
industrious boy in front of me, “Um…Damian…”

“
Just in case,” he said,
not waiting for me to finish my question.

A few minutes of close scrutiny of his
handiwork made it clear that Damian was not a stupid child. He
handled the knives carefully, respectful of their ability to cause
injury. I debated making him take the potentially lethal booby
traps down, but decided that so long as he was not harmed—and did
not harm anyone else—the rest was an issue for his parents or his
nanny.

“
I see. As fascinating as
that is, I’m here to give you lessons, and even though your
stepmother has asked me to spend the night here just to make sure
all is well, I think we should proceed with the original plan and
take a few lessons in English and history.”

“
I’m busy right now,”
Damian answered, not even looking at me as he went into a room made
dark by more boarded-up windows. He selected two skinning knives
and arranged them on each side of the window. “Why do you have a
spirit guide?”

“
She…er…was a bit of a
gift. And just so you know, attempting to distract me isn’t going
to work. There are many other things I would like to be doing at
this moment as well, but tutoring is what I’m being paid to do, and
do it I will.”

“
Protecting us from
Sebastian is more important than lessons,” he said with a
black-browed scowl in my direction. “My dad would want me to save
your life over learning some stupid dates and writing
compositions.”

“
I don’t even know this
Sebastian person,” I pointed out. “Why do you think he would pose a
risk to
me
?”

The look the boy gave me was rife with
irritation. “You’ve got a double soul.”

I swear, my mouth hung open for a moment at
his statement. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about. People
don’t have two souls,” I said slowly, a chill running down my arms.
How on earth could a mere child see my handicap? “Everyone is
granted one soul only when they are born.”

Damian shrugged and said nothing.

“
What does Sebastian have
to do with souls?” I couldn’t keep myself from asking. “Is he a
demon?”

“
No. He’s a Dark One.” He
looked up and grinned, two pointed canines clearly visible despite
the gloom. “Like my dad and me.”

I took a couple of steps back, a hand at my
heart. I’d heard of Dark Ones—vampires, tainted by the dark powers,
parasites who preyed on the lives of mortals—but I’d never seen one
in person.

“
I think…I don’t know…I
think I need a little air,” I said, stumbling backward as my words
jumbled together. Blindly, I made my escape, clutching the banister
as I ran downstairs, aware now what it was that Abby had found so
wrong with Damian.

I wanted to run away, to
go home and hide, to forget I’d ever been here, but as I stood with
my hand on the front doorknob just about to bolt, my conscience
took that moment to kick in and remind me that although Damian
might be a vampire—
vampire!
—he was also a child. I
couldn’t just leave a ten-year-old alone.

“
I’m hungry.” Damian’s
voice drifted downstairs. “Do you have any blood?”

A flight instinct I didn’t know I possessed
kicked in. I yanked the door open, a survival instinct overriding
my better sense into running. But a dark shape looming in the
doorway had me shrieking instead, stepping backward in horror as a
familiar man—tall, built rather solidly, and covered in
blood—staggered through the door.

“
You, woman, give me the
ring!” he demanded in an authoritative voice that was immediately
contradicted when his eyes rolled up and he collapsed at my
feet.

I stared down at the man in shock, a
thousand questions racing through my mind. What on earth was the
kissable Good Samaritan from the alley doing here? Had he followed
me? Was he a stalker rather than a lifesaver? How could anyone who
kissed the way he did have harm on his mind? And what on earth was
he babbling about? “What ring? Who are you? What did you have to do
with those demons? God’s mercy, you’re bleeding! Are you all right?
Should I call the paramedics?”

“
Oooh,” Damian’s voice
said from where he stood on the stairs, looking down at the scene
before him. “You let Sebastian in. That isn’t good. Now he’ll try
to kill us.”

Chapter Three

“
Who are you?” The voice
was as rough and low as I remembered. “You are not the charmer. You
cannot be. What are you doing in this house?”

Sebastian was bound to a
chair, held by a thin nylon laundry line Damian had found in the
basement. Before I could answer, Sally, only just returned from a
quick trip to my flat, gasped and floated over until she was
directly in front of him. “
Elle est
very charming! You, however, are
tres, tres
rude!”

“
He said charmer, not
charming,” I said slowly, racking my brain to dig out information
on charmers. Fleeting thoughts skittered away as I was swamped with
the memory of Sebastian’s mouth on mine.

“
So?” Sally contined to
stand with her hands on her hips, glaring at Sebastian. He glared
right back at her.

“
A charmer is someone who
can unmake curses,” he said, turning his gaze to me. I felt it as
if it were a physical touch.

“
That’s right—they lift
curses and wards and things. You are quite correct; I am not a
charmer. My name is Ysabelle Raleigh. I am tutoring Damian. I take
it you are Sebastian?”

“
Yes. Where is Adrian?”
His brows pulled together as he looked down at himself, noticing
that his arms had been tied behind him. When he looked back up to
me, his gray-blue eyes were flashing with indigation and just a
smidgen of disbelief. “You think to hold me prisoner?”

Sally’s form shimmered
indignantly. “
Oui, vous êtes
dérangé
man! And there you’ll stay
until
vous expliquiez
why you’re attacking poor Belle!”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed at her for a
moment. “You are aware, are you not, that you are not speaking
actual French?”

“
Le
gasp!” Sally said, following word by deed and gasping in a
thoroughly shocked manner. “
Je suis
too!”