Follow Me When the Sun Goes Down (13 page)

“Attacked?  By who?”

“I didn’t see. I only know my horse was perfectly calm before he threw me, but I’m an excellent horseman.  It would take nothing less than a suddenly riotous animal to unseat me.”

My head swiveled first one way and then the other.  Besides
us there was nobody within spitting distance.  “Well… okay… but, there’s no one else around here.  If someone attacked you, where are they?  And why didn’t they finish you off once you were on the ground?”

“It’s difficult to know the motivation of the truly evil, but make no mistake, they are after me,” he replied, looking over his shoulder. 

Rob had dismounted, but remained by my side for the strange turn in conversation.  “Maybe I shouldn’t leave you unprotected,” he frowned.

“Oh
, come on, I’ll be fine.  His horse is right over there, I’ll be in plain sight the whole time.”

“You’re very trusting, Miss Gudrun,”
Jean Pierre said once Rob reluctantly approached the runaway horse. 

“Anja, please,” I corrected him.  “And I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.  Rob will catch your horse, and we can all ride back together and get that leg looked at to make sure it heals up right.”

“I only wish that were true, Anja.  But there is a plot against me, of that I’m certain.”  He shook his head sadly.

“What makes you think so?”

“Because this is not the first attempt on my life.  I have been ever watchful and wary, but I can’t safeguard against everything.  No, someone is definitely out to ruin the House of Toulac.  Mark my words.”

I wanted to believe him, but the undercurrent of persecution to his voice and the way hi
s eyes opened a shade more than they should be had me thinking the guy was Looney Toons.  “Why didn’t you bring any security with you then?”  Even Corley had a couple of guys riding behind him the last I’d seen his red coat bobbing in the distance. 

“I couldn’t know who to trust and who might have been compromised.  The troubles have not been confined to this visit, but extend back a few weeks ago.”

“I’ve got your horse, sir,” Rob appeared, guiding his horse by the reins.  “He’s all calm now, I think you’ll be alright.”

“I thank you,”
Jean Pierre smiled, limping slightly to take the reins from Rob’s hand.  “I should return to the mansion.  But please, continue your ride.   You shouldn’t let my mishap ruin your night.”

“No, hold on a sec.  I want to hear more about this attack business.  What other troubles have there been?”

Jean Pierre looked like he might have said more, but a pair of riders approached, and he took advantage of the distraction to vault back into his saddle again.  “Perhaps another time.  Thank you for your assistance.”  He tipped his hat to Rob, and then rode off as Aubrey and Macallister reached the clearing.

“Uh oh, somebody eat dirt?” Macallister called out, his head tilted to one side, and I knew he was able to scent the traces of
Jean Pierre’s blood left on the dead leaves. 

“He’s
fine.  Just fell off his horse is all.  Not everyone’s cut out for this kind of exercise.”

“Maybe he couldn’t get used to that sorry piece of shit they call a saddle around here,” Macallister muttered, and I noticed for the first time that his saddle was completely missing.  He sat bareback on his horse, the reins held lightly in his hands.  I could imagine the pain in the behind it was going to be for some poor groomsman to track it down in the woods
later. 

“I think I’ve had about all the fresh air I need for the night.  I’m going to head back to the house now, if you gentlemen will excuse me.”  I decided I wanted to hear more about what
Jean Pierre had to say, even if I was half sure it was all in his head.

“I’ll ride back with you then, if you don’t mind, sister dear,” Aubrey volunteered.  “I’d love to continue our conversation.”

Only one thing could distract me from the lure of possible intrigue on the Jean Pierre front, and that was the promise of some answers from Aubrey.  “I’d like that very much,” I smiled back at him.  “Will you be joining us, Mac?”

“Nah, I reckon I’ll check the rest of this place out while I’ve got the opportunity.  I’ll see you folks back at the homestead later.”  Mac tipped his hat and then set off at a full gallop, the thunder of hooves echoing across the clearing as he disappeared from sight. 

“Here, let me help you,” Aubrey offered, assisting me up onto the horse again.  Not that I needed the help with my vampire reflexes, but from the way his hands lingered at my waist, I suspected he had another reason for touching me.  I pretended not to notice as he mounted his own horse, nor the glower on Rob’s face as he was forced to bring up the rear of our little procession back to the house. 

Aubrey didn’t immediately volunteer any conversation, despite saying he’d hoped to renew it, and I filled the silence by humming along to the soundtrack in my head. 

“That’s lovely,” Aubrey complimented after several bars.  “I don’t recognize it, what is it?”

“Oh, it’s something a friend wrote for me once.  He called it
Anja’s Song
.”  Would I ever be able to think of Evan without a pang of regret?  Probably not. 

“I’d love to hear more.  I don’t believe I said so last night, but you have an ang
elic singing voice.  I dabble myself.”

“
Really?  I’d love to hear you sometime, I’m a sucker for a good song.”

“You have truly embraced the American idiom, haven’t you, sweets?” he said with a shake of the head. 

“Well, you spend enough time someplace, it starts to become the norm.  I don’t even have the right accent anymore when I try and dig out the old German.”  All too late I realized my mistake, and spent the next five seconds repeating ‘please don’t let him say something in German’ to myself over and over again in my head.  Grabbing the bull by the horns to take charge of the conversation, I decided to go all in.  “Listen, Aubrey… I know we don’t know each other very well yet, but I don’t suppose you want to tell me why Bishop hates you?  He won’t talk to me about it at all.”

Surprise registered over his features for a moment before the smirk returned to his lips.  “I thought everybody knew.  I’m the black sheep of the family.”

“How so?” 

“It’s a boring story really.  Every love triangle has a bad ending, ours just ended worse than most.”

“You loved Carys then?” 

“Too much, perhaps,” he nodded faintly, as if he was reluctant to admit to the feeling.  “It… bothered me that she chose Ulrik over me and didn’t bother to hide it.  I’m afraid I didn’t handle it well.”

“We are all fools in love,” I quoted Jane Austen again.  It’s funny how the words kept cropping up at the appropriate moment.  Maybe I was the biggest fool of all?

“Just so,” he smiled, before the wry twist returned to his lips.  “The curse of immortality is, we have eternity to live with our mistakes.”

“What did you do?”

“She never told you?”  His brows nudged together.

“We didn’t talk much about the past, especially when it came to men,” I hedged, hoping he didn’t press for more details on my supposed relationship with our Sire.  Aubrey was too preoccupied with his own past to worry about mine though.

“It doesn’t bear repeating.  Suffice to say, I gave her more than enough reason to regret turning me before the end.”

Something about the way he said it – like a lost little boy too proud to cry for his mother – made me want to say something, anything to give him a verbal hug.  “I don’t think
Carys thought so.  She wouldn’t have chosen you if there wasn’t something worth saving.”  Was it true?  Who knew?  But if it brought him a little peace, what would it hurt?

“I had the right of it whe
n I called you sweets.”  His voice was soft, almost reverent as he studied me in the moonlight.  The sound of our horses’ hooves echoed loudly, but I could hear shouts in the distance.  Nothing to be alarmed about, just people having a good time and being too noisy in general. 

“Why do you call him Bishop?” he demanded suddenly, drawing me out of trying to hear those remote voices.   “Surely you knew him as Ulrik, same as I did.”

“
Like I said, when you spend enough time somewhere or with someone, you start to go with the familiar.  Ulrik’s been known as Bishop in the West for a long, long time.”  Hopefully that made enough logical sense that he’d drop it. 

“How is it that she never mentioned you to me?”

Frak!
  “Well… I didn’t know her for very long really.  She turned me only a couple of years before she died.  She probably just didn’t get around to it.  Carys didn’t mention much about you to me either,” I shrugged. 

“That must have been when I was in
Spain for a time,” he said, a pensive furrow appearing on his brow.

“Yes, I think that’s right.”  At least it sounded good, and I was grasping at straws.  “I think she made me as kind of a pet for Ulrik, to keep him occupied.  He was there for me from the start, got me through the transition.  I don’t know what I would have done without him.”  Now that, I could say in all honesty. 

“Ulrik did always like a good project.”

“Yes, well, I think
Carys thought it would be more like having a live doll to dress up and play with.  She didn’t like it when I turned out to have my own personality and opinions and stuff.  She was kind of pissy when I didn’t want to play lady’s maid for her all the time.  You know how she was,” I guessed, going on what I’d learned from Jakob and Bishop’s stories about her.  “We didn’t part on the best of terms either.  I always thought I’d have time to work it out with her, but then she was gone.  She probably thought there was more time to bring us all together.  But there is no tomorrow, only today.”

Aubrey nodded slowly
. “I might have to borrow that.”

“Feel free, I did.”

“Who from?”

“A vampire hunter.”

“You are the most interesting girl,” he grinned, before correcting himself.  “Woman, rather.  Sorry, appearances and all.”

“It’s fine, I’m used to getting carded after all these years.  A woman’s only sensitive about her age when she doesn’t feel she looks her best anymore, that’s not something I have to worry about,” I lied glibly, going on to tell him about my encounter with the hunter the last time I visited Vetis.  I was careful not to tell him too many incriminating bits, though I could practically feel Rob’s disapproval over talking about any of it from his position behind me. 

“And he just left town when you asked him to, easy as that?” Aubrey asked when I was through.

“I can be very convincing when I want to be,” I replied with a secretive smile.

“I’ll just bet you are.”  His eyes glowed with warmth. 

Uh oh…
  Did he think I was flirting with him?  Before I could rein that back in, the horn sounded in the distance. 

“They’ll be headed back now,” Aubrey reported.  “I’ll race you the last part of the way to the house.”

“You’ll win.”  He was a much better rider than I was and we both knew it.

“That’s the best time to race, when I already know the outcome,” he winked, taking off for the house like a shot.  I considered riding after him, but I decided to hang back and Rob trotted up to my side.

“I’d be careful with him if I was you,” he said not two minutes after Aubrey raced off. 

“Why?  What do you know about him?”

“It’s not what I know about him, it’s the feeling I get when he smiles.  It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention,” Rob scowled. 

“Are you sure you’re not jealous?” I teased, amused to see this side of him. 

If anything, his scowl deepened even further.  “I know just how useless an emotion jealousy can be.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

There was no more talk on the ride back, but the mansion loomed up ahead before too long.  As much as I’d enjoyed the outing, it was good to have solid ground beneath my feet again, and I was glad for the added vampire resilience, or I think my backside would have been a little worse for wear.  As soon as I handed over Cinnamon, with some added words of praise for the beautiful animal, Tucker pressed his cold nose to my hand. 

“Thanks for coming along with us
.” I smiled down at him, resisting the urge to scratch him behind the ears.  “I don’t think we could have found Jean Pierre without you.”  Now that we were back, I wanted nothing more than to find the solitary Frenchman and see what he was so worried about. 

Tucker chuffed once, and I gave him a helpless shrug.  “Sorry, I don’t speak werewolf,” I teased.  To my surprise, he crouched low to the ground, the air around his body shimmering as bones shifted and reformed.  Fur gave way to pale skin in a matter of seconds and he straightened to his full height, as naked as the day he was born.

“I s-said, you’re welcome,” he smiled, completely at ease with his natural state.

“Oh, um… right,” I replied, trying to look everywhere but at him.  “Well, thanks again.  But ah, you should probably put some clothes on, don’t you think?  It’s pretty cold out here.”

“Not to me, shifters run h-hotter than normal f-f-f… people.”

“I think you’re offending the lady’s delicate sensibilities.”  Rob rescued me from my discomfort.  “Go on and change, there’s a good lad.”

Tucker turned and loped away, but not before I got an eyeful.  I mean, how do you
not
look?  I tended to think of him as a boy, but his lean body was all kinds of grown up underneath the ill-fitting clothes. 

“So… um…” I turned to Rob, having completely lost my train of thought.

“Yes?” He waited patiently, more than a little amused at how flustered I was. 

“So, so naked…” I let out a long breath trying to push the image out of my head by acknowledging it.  “Anyway, I um, wanted to find
Jean Pierre and talk to him some more.  Did you hear what he said about being attacked before?  I think maybe we should talk to…”

“Hey, how was your ride?” Felix interrupted, emerging from the house with Gunnar by his side. 

“Can you maybe find him for me?” I said to Rob, not wanting to drop it altogether before acknowledging Felix.  “It was fun.  You should have come with.  We could’ve put training wheels on your horse or something,” I teased. 

“That’s cute, boss.  You’re a real riot
,” he smiled good naturedly.  “I’m glad you made it in one piece though, it sounds like more than one person out there took a nasty spill.”

“Oh?  Like who?”

“Ah, Severine hit the ground, and so did Khalid, which is weird.  Those guys spend half their lifetimes on horseback.”

“Huh, that is weird.”  I traded a look with Rob and he gave a short nod.  I knew he’d check into it on his own.  “Maybe I should talk to
Jean Pierre and see if he’s alright?”

Felix checked his watch, his lips curving in speculation before he gave a short shake of the head.  “That’d be swell of you, but for now you’ve got to hustle it up to the room and change.  We’ve got a meet with Corley set up in half an hour.”

“A half an hour?  Why such short notice?”

“Is that a problem?” 

“Well, no, I just had something else in mind.” I looked to Rob and I think Felix took it the wrong way.

“You got a date?” he grinned.

“No,” I smiled, “nothing like that.  But you’d better fill me in on what we’re supposed to be meeting about now, don’t you think?”

“Sure, I’ll talk, you change.”

“Maybe I’d better stick with and see to that other matter later?” Rob said, but I waved him off. 

“No, it’s better if you go while everything’s fresh in their minds.  I’ll be fine.  I’ll have Felix and Gunnar with me the whole time.”  He looked like he might argue for a moment, but then slipped off to go check things out.  “Okay, you’ve got my undivided attention.  What is it that Corley’s so eager to negotiate?”

“I’ll sum it up for you in one word,” Felix replied, leaning close as we ascended the stairs.  “Canada.”

“Seriously?” I blinked in surprise.  Sure, nearly three quarters of
Canada fell under the West’s jurisdiction, but from the numbers I’d seen, there weren’t that many vampires in the country.  “What does he want with Canada?”

“Beats me,” he shrugged.  “Maybe he wants to try and build the Vetis Empire back up to its glory days?  Alls I know is, he’s offering an obscene amount of money for it.”

“How obscene are we talking about here?  Like Dane Cook obscene or Deep Throat dollars?”

“We’re talking
Lenny Bruce obscene here.”  He wouldn’t say more about it until we reached the suite, only then whispering the amount of money Corley offered.

“
Holy buckets, Felix… Are you serious?”  I didn’t know what the going rate was for territories, but it seemed like such an amount would bankrupt Vetis.  How much money did they have at their disposal?