Vampire Memories #5 - Ghosts of Memories (31 page)

Blinking out, she cautiously rematerialized on the patio and peered inside. There was no movement in the dining room, but a familiar black coat and a sword lay on the floor. She floated in and kept looking down.

Julian.

His body was beginning to dry out and harden and turn to dust. He was dead.

Good.

She’d held up her end of the bargain. Now it was time for Christian to hold up his. But where was he? And who had just left in that car? Focusing her senses again, she felt a presence—or lack of a presence, in the living room. Blinking out, she blinked back in to see Christian sitting on a couch in the darkness. He looked odd, almost ill.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He didn’t jump in surprise or alarm but simply raised his weirdly clear eyes to her face. He didn’t seem to recognize her—or even care that she was there. The first hint of anxiety began growing inside her.

“Where is everyone?” she asked, hoping to make him snap out of…whatever this was.

“Gone,” he answered.

“Where?”

He seemed annoyed now. “It doesn’t matter.”

Something was very wrong here.

Almost frightened, she floated closer, pitching her voice to sound matter-of-fact. “Well… Julian’s dead. I just saw his body in the dining room. So now you can send me back. I did what you asked. It’s your turn.”

She couldn’t wait to see Jasper, to assure him she’d been trying her hardest to reach him again.

Christian didn’t move. His eyes glowed in the darkness.

“My turn for what?” he asked.

Anxiety turned to fear. “Get up,” she ordered. “You promised you’d send me to the gray plane if I helped you kill Julian. Julian’s dead. So you send me back. Now!”

The expression on his cold, emotionless face shifted, and unfortunately, Mary had seen that look before…on her own face in a mirror back when she’d been alive. He was hurt and angry and alone, and he wanted to hurt someone else.

She knew that look all too well.

“You stupid girl,” he spat, standing up. “Do you really believe I know anything about the spirit world? I’d never even seen a ghost until your Scottish friend showed up a few nights ago.”

She went numb. “But the books… You said you’d read the books… You knew the—”

“The titles?” he sneered. “Of course I know those titles. I have to be able to talk the talk. But I’m a master of reading fools, of dazzling clueless mortals, not of dabbling in nonsense.”

“Nonsense?” she choked, trying to get her head around what he was saying. “So… Julian’s dead, and you can’t send me back?”

“Afraid not, my dear. But I do thank you for the assistance tonight. It was appreciated.”

“You bastard!”

Seamus had promised he wouldn’t let Christian use her, and then he’d agreed that Eleisha would never let Christian go back on his word. But they weren’t here.

She rushed at Christian, wanting to scream into his face, but he just stood there, watching her pain, enjoying the moment. He’d really wanted to hurt someone tonight.

And he had.

chapter eighteen

A
lmost four hours after they left the mansion, Wade watched the familiar street sign as Eleisha made the last turn toward the church.

He was weak from having fed Philip, but although Philip’s chest wasn’t completely healed, the wound had closed up, and he’d stopped bleeding. Wade was well aware they both looked like death warmed over, though, and Eleisha kept casting concerned glances at them in the rearview mirror.

“Philip’s going to need more blood soon,” she said. “I’ll figure something out. But, Wade, as soon as we’re home, I’ll defrost a steak and you can tell me how to cook it. You need food.”

He tried to smile at her in the mirror. He didn’t blame her—or any of them—for focusing on tasks at hand and for avoiding any open discussion of what they’d just been through.

That Christian had planned several murders.

That Ivory was gone.

That Julian was dead.

Wade leaned back against the seat, and his thoughts seemed filled with a mix of the trivial and nontrivial. For the former, about halfway home he remembered they’d left all their luggage behind at Vera’s. Everything. He’d lost his canvas jacket with the plastic buttons and his favorite Blue Öyster Cult T-shirt.

Eleisha was still wearing that pink evening gown—stained with Julian’s black blood—but she’d lost some of her favorite clothes, too.

In light of everything else, he had no idea why this would bother him.

In less trivial matters, he thought about Vera, whom he’d left in an unnaturally induced sleep on the top level of the mansion in an art storage room. But he knew she’d be all right. Christian was no danger to her, and she’d eventually wake up confused but safe.

Far less trivially, he wondered where Ivory had gone, and then he closed his eyes, trying to stop wondering.

“We’re here,” Eleisha said, pulling up to the curb right in front of the church. “Philip, do you need help?”

“No,” he answered sharply.

They all climbed out of the car, and Philip glanced at Eleisha’s stained dress, but she still hurried to see if he needed help.

“I’m all right,” he said, his voice softer this time.

She opened the gates, and the church loomed ahead of them. “Thank God,” she whispered.

For some reason, Wade found this an overly ironic thing for her to say.

But just then, the church doors banged open and a slender figure jumped off the steps, nearly flying toward them. He stopped about two inches in front of Eleisha, his face alive with eagerness, like he wanted to grab her but didn’t know how.

“Maxim,” she choked, and then she gripped the sleeve of his shirt, briefly touching her forehead to his shoulder. “You look just like home to me.”

“I am home,” he said.

“Yes, you are,” she whispered.

Right on his tail came a heavy trotting sound, and Mr. Boo came straight to Wade. Dropping to his knees, Wade reached out and scratched behind his tattered ear. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I missed you.”

Boo grunted.

The air shimmered and Seamus appeared. Without even a greeting, or noticing what a mess they looked, he blurted out, “You’re here? Where’s Mary? Did Christian send her back?”

Wade had no idea what he meant, but he said, “I don’t know.”

“You’re home,” a breathy voice called from the front doors. Then Rose was hurrying toward them, taking in the state of them all. “Eleisha, are you injured? What are you wearing? Oh, Philip, you’re so pale. Wade, did you cut your wrist? Come inside.”

She didn’t ask why they were alone or why they’d brought no lost vampires back, and Wade felt a quick rush of gratitude. She simply ushered them all inside.

They were indeed home.

Wade glanced back once into the empty night, wondering where Ivory had run.

A week later, Eleisha knelt by a white rosebush in her garden, pulling weeds and still trying to process what had gone wrong—what she’d done wrong—up in Seattle.

Their mission had been a failure.

Or had it?

Christian had no place here, but he knew the laws and fed without killing, so they hadn’t left some untrained vampire murdering mortals in order to go on existing. She felt no guilt about leaving him behind. Because of them, Ivory had managed to break away from him, and although they hadn’t been able to convince her to come back here, at least she was free.

And Julian…

She knew that outcome was the only one possible, and if she had to do it over again, she’d still help kill him. Yet she couldn’t close her eyes and see his headless body there on the floor without a flash of sadness.

But tonight she was dressed in a long cotton skirt and a gray T-shirt. Her feet were bare, and she was pulling weeds in her own garden.

That was something.

The back door opened, and she looked over to see Wade coming toward her with Mr. Boo at his side. She couldn’t help smiling at the sight of them, Wade with his long strides and Boo trotting on his shorter, stocky legs. She was glad Mr. Boo kept him company. She knew this time around Wade was the one who felt he’d lost something on the mission, and she knew he was still thinking about Ivory.

“I thought I’d find you out here,” he said.

His wrist was bandaged, but he tended to heal quickly for a mortal.

“And how did you know that?” she asked, still smiling.

“Because this is where you spend most of your time after we get back from a mission.”

“Is it?” Perhaps it was. “Do you need me for something?”

He shook his head. “No, but now that we’ve all had a little time at home, I wondered if something had occurred to you yet.”

She raised one brow and just watched him.

“With Julian gone, everything has changed,” he said. “Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we can look for lost vampires with having to worry about protecting them now. We never have to look over our shoulders again. We’re free.”

Seamus was downstairs in the kitchen when the presence hit him with a jolt. Rushing to blink out, he rematerialized outside in the garden on the north side of the church.

She was standing there, looking up at the stained-glass windows, just as he’d seen her a few months back that night in the rain. She looked sorrow laden. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so forlorn.

“Mary,” he said.

She turned toward him.

“Don’t go!” he begged.

He’d questioned both Eleisha and Wade about what had become of Mary, but they hadn’t known.

She just floated there, with her sad eyes, until he asked, “What happened? Why didn’t he send you back?”

“He couldn’t,” she whispered. “He lied. He didn’t even know how.”

“Oh, Mary.”

But his pity for her was mixed with a guilty belief that maybe Christian’s ignorance wasn’t such a bad thing.

“You don’t belong there anyway,” he said. “You belong here, in this world.”

“Here?” she asked, incredulous. “Seamus, I have nowhere to go.”

He shook his head. “You could stay here with us, help us look for lost vampires. You’re not tied to Rose like I am. You can go hunting for a signature and keep looking as long as you like.”

“Stay with you?” Her expression of incredulity only increased. “Are you serious? You don’t really think Eleisha would agree to that, do you? I’ve been
helping
Julian. She’s watched vampires die because of me.”

Seamus frowned. “If that’s what you think of Eleisha, then you haven’t been watching her close enough this past year. She knew Julian better than you, and she’d served him herself once. She’d never hold that against you.”

Mary went still, but he thought he saw some of the desolation in her transparent eyes fade and a spark of hope ignite. “You really think that? You think she’d let me stay?”

“’Course she would. You’ll be more use to her than I am.” With his own sense of hope growing, he floated a few feet toward the church. “Come on inside with me.”

She hesitated just a few seconds, and then she floated after him.

Wade was walking though the sanctuary, heading for his office, when a knock sounded on the front doors. He tensed.

It was nearly eleven. He hadn’t ordered any pizza, and the only people who ever knocked on the door were deliverymen.

He was alone, and his gun was in the office. Even Boo was downstairs with Maxim. But the knock sounded again. Bracing himself, Wade walked down the long sanctuary floor, gripped a handle, and opened one of the doors.

His heart nearly stopped.

Ivory was standing on the other side.

She looked a little bedraggled, still in the red evening gown, which was a bit worse for wear, as if she’d been hiding too deeply to find money or go shopping for anything else. But he still wondered if he was imagining the sight of her until she spoke.

“Did you mean what you said back at the mansion? That you and Eleisha could keep Christian away from me?”

His mind went nearly blank, but he knew the right answer—and he wasn’t lying. “Yes.”

They both just stood there. Then she said, “I don’t want to be alone anymore. Can I come in? Could I stay for a while?”

He didn’t trust himself to speak, but he stepped back instantly and held the door wide open. Then he managed to say, “Stay as long as you like.”

Epilogue

T
wo weeks later, Eleisha came in from the garden and walked into the sanctuary to find Rose curled up on one of the couches reading
Great Expectations
aloud to Maxim. Mr. Boo was lying at their feet—which probably meant Wade was in his office with Tiny Tuesday, as Boo tended to avoid the cat.

“All right,” Rose said, “now you try reading this paragraph to me.”

Rose had a new theory that if she could reteach Maxim to read at his previous level, some of his gift might begin coming back. Eleisha couldn’t fault her logic…and marveled at her tenacity. Also, Maxim seemed eager to master the books, so neither Wade nor Eleisha had interfered.

They made a pretty picture, sitting there with Charles Dickens shared in their laps and a dog at their feet. Eleisha walked past quietly so as not to disturb them, and she moved behind the altar, opening the door to the hallway behind it.

Almost immediately, she heard Wade and Ivory arguing about desk placement in the office, and she tried not to smile. Ivory had quickly revealed herself as a woman who did not enjoy being idle. At the same time, she had zero interest in gardening or reteaching Maxim how to read.

No, she preferred Wade’s job, and she’d made it clear that her place in the household would be in his office, researching news stories and checking up on possible leads. Since he had no intention of giving up his own position, they’d ended up jockeying for time on the computer, and then finally, last night, Wade had ordered her a desk and a notebook computer.

However, rather than feeling threatened, he was quite taken with the idea of the two of them sharing an office, even though she argued with him openly and sometimes called him names when she thought he was paying too much or too little attention to a story he’d read online.