Immortal (24 page)

Katy rolled over on the bed. They had been watching TV, a movie from the rental store. “Who’s that?”

“I don’t know.” Kaleigh picked up the phone. Startled by the caller ID, she sat up in bed and hit the green key. “Peigi?”

“Sorry to bother you,” Peigi said crisply. “We have a
situation
. Gair has requested that you meet us at the museum.”

“Now?” Kaleigh asked, incredulously.

“Now.”

“What…what’s going on, Peigi?”

“We need our wisewoman. We believe we have our killer.”

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Kaleigh whispered, crossing herself.

“What’s going on?” Katy whispered, her eyes round with excitement.

“We’ll expect you in fifteen minutes,” Peigi continued. “We would prefer no one know.”

“My parents?”

“We would prefer no one know,” Peigi repeated.

“How am I supposed to get out of the house? It’s after midnight.”

“The same way you usually get out after curfew, I suppose,” Peigi said curtly. “We’ll be waiting for you.” She hung up.

Kaleigh slowly lowered the cell phone to her lap.

“What’s happening?” Katy demanded.

“I’m not sure,” Kaleigh murmured. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. All she could think was
thank God it wasn’t Katy
. If they did, indeed, have the killer in custody. “Peigi says Gair has requested my presence at the museum.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“Is it a High Council meeting?” Katy asked excitedly. “Have you been called to the High Council? Wow, that’s so cool.”

Kaleigh got out of bed and grabbed a pair of shorts off the floor. She dropped the boxers she slept in and pulled on the shorts. She grabbed a bra off her dresser. “I’m not supposed to say anything.” She felt shaky. Scared. But relieved, too. They caught the killer; the sept would be safe.

“Oh my God, they caught the killer!” Katy scrambled off the bed.

“Stay out of my head,” Kaleigh snapped. That didn’t happen often anymore. She’d gotten good at keeping up her guard, but when she was stressed, or emotional, the wall wasn’t all that strong.

Katy began to dress.

“Katy, you can’t come.”

“Oh, I’m coming.” She shimmied into a pair of jeans she’d picked up off the floor. They were Kaleigh’s. “There’s no way you’re leaving me here.”

“Peigi said no one was to know. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, not even my parents.”

“You’re not telling me.” Katy opened her arms. “I already know. Now you have to take me for my own good. To make sure I keep my mouth shut.”

Kaleigh exhaled.

“Come on,” Katy whispered. “I’ll walk you there, at least. I know they’re not going to let me inside.” She hesitated. “You know, it’s not easy being the wisewoman’s sidekick. No one ever notices that I can be of help to the sept, too, sometimes. Please?”

Kaleigh glanced across the bed at her best friend. She knew she should say no, but Katy looked so sad. And it probably was hard to be Kaleigh’s friend; she’d just never thought about it that way. “We’ll have to go out the window,” she warned. “You can either climb down or let me try to transport you to the ground.”

“Am I going to end up on a raft on Hilly’s ceiling?”

Kaleigh threw a flip-flop at her.

“B
ut why?” Fin asked in frustration. His heart was breaking for Elena, for her family. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why would you risk your life, the lives of those you love to do something like this?”

He stood on one side of the bars with Elena; Lia stood on the other. They were in a small room in the bowels of the museum. The room was soundproof, with reinforced walls and windowless. It had been built for emergencies such as this, when the sept did not want a prisoner in the holding cells in the police department’s basement.

Lia grasped one of the bars and glared. She looked like a kid in her tank top and shorts, not a cold-blooded killer. “You don’t understand what it’s like, living year after year, decade after decade, century after century where nothing changes. I am forever Celeste and Vittore’s
little girl
.” Her eyes shone with angry tears. “You understand what that means,
Zia
Elena? My mother still tells me what time to go to bed. After five hundred years!” She looked down at the floor. “This was one thing I could do on my own.”

Elena made a sound in her throat, something akin to a sob. Fin put his arm around her.

“You killed those boys because you were angry?” Elena asked, in disbelief. “Because you were disappointed by how your life turned out? They are not to blame for what happened to you.”

“Who
was
I going to kill? Grandfather?” Lia demanded. “Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me.” Her bravado was fast fading. “Probably to all of us.”

“But those humans had nothing to do with us or with your grandfather’s sins!”

“Neither did I.”

Elena looked up at Fin and he wished desperately that he could do something for her, somehow ease her pain.

She looked back at her niece. “When you killed those innocents, you became nothing better than the men who did this to us.”

“So now you’re going to kill me.” Lia stepped back from the bars, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re going to cut off my head and hurl my soul into everlasting, burning purgatory.”

“It’s not up to me. Fin says you will have a hearing before their Highest Council. They will judge you.”

“How convenient. This way, you can walk away without my blood on your hands and tell yourself you’re better than the men and women who will judge me.”

Elena pulled away from Fin and grasped the bars, looking in on her niece. “How could you do this to your mother?” she admonished, fighting another wave of tears. “How could you break her heart this way?”

Lia’s gaze met Elena’s and for the briefest moment, Fin thought he saw a glimmer of remorse in the girl.

Lia turned away and walked over to the narrow bunk built out of the wall. She laid down and closed her eyes.

Elena stood at the bars for a moment, looking in on her niece, dabbing at her eyes with a Kleenex. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her, his chest tight with emotion. He was intensely relieved that the killer had been caught and aching for Elena at the same time. Of course, had it been one of the sept members, as he had suspected, would he have been any less heartbroken? He loved every man and woman in this town, just as Elena loved her family.

There was a tap at the door and then it opened. It was Kaleigh. She looked pale. “Gair needs to speak to you,” she said, not yet looking at Lia. “Both of you.”

Fin glanced at the cell. “One of us must remain with the prisoner at all times.”

“I’ll stay,” Kaleigh murmured. “You talk to Gair.”

As Elena and Fin walked past her, the two women met each other’s gazes.

“I’m sorry,” Kaleigh whispered. “I’m so sorry, Elena. We all are.”

“Thank you.” Elena squeezed Kaleigh’s hand. “That means a lot to me.”

Kaleigh waited until the heavy door swung shut behind Fin and Elena and then walked over and got a chair from a small desk in the corner of the antechamber. She carried it over to the bars and sat down in it. For a minute she just sat there. If Lia knew she was there, she gave no indication.

Kaleigh had spoken with Peigi and Gair and they told her what was going on. Kaleigh was shocked that the girl could have done such a thing, but relieved that the sept would be safe again. No more tourists would die in their quiet little town.

Kaleigh had been summoned by Peigi and Gair because they needed her to agree they were right to hold the accused prisoner, a practice that was always followed. Peigi reminded Kaleigh of the procedure in cases such as these. Kaleigh did not have to participate in the hearing that would follow to determine Lia’s fate. Peigi said it wasn’t even necessary for Kaleigh to see the doomed teenager, only give her approval for the incarceration and hearing. But Kaleigh had to see Lia. She knew they weren’t friends or anything; they had just talked that night on the porch at Tomboy’s. Still, she needed to see her.

“Why are you here?” Lia asked after a minute or two of complete silence. Below ground and well fortified, the room was like a tomb. “It’s not like I can escape.”

“I came to see if there was anything I could do for you,” Kaleigh said gently.

Kaleigh expected more sarcasm, more flippant words out of Lia. The tiny sob took her completely by surprise.

“What have I done?” Lia whispered. “How could I have killed those boys?” Still lying on the bunk, she raised her hands, staring at them. “How could I have ever thought I had the right to take a life? How could it have made sense to me?”

Kaleigh wiped at her own tears. She couldn’t help thinking that Katy might have been on the other side of these bars. Or any one of the other teens in Clare Point. Even herself, maybe. It was so hard being young. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be this age forever, like Lia. It was only by the grace of God and the love of their families that Kaleigh and her friends did not act on impulse and do something so irreparable as what Lia had done.

Lia sat up, wiping at her eyes. She glanced at Kaleigh. “Your uncle said you were the wisewoman of your family. That’s pretty amazing the way it works with you guys. You get to be young
and
old.”

Kaleigh didn’t know what to say; she just listened.

“I think it would be cool to be the wisewoman.”

“It is sometimes,” Kaleigh agreed. “But it’s hard, too. Especially now when I’m still young. I’m so conflicted so much of the time. Sort of an adult, a real adult. Sort of just a kid still.”

Lia walked over to the bars. “Tell me about it,” she joked.

“I wish there was something I could do to help you.” Kaleigh stood up and gripped one of the bars.

“It’s okay. I understand. You can’t have vampires running all over the earth, killing the humans. If people like me killed all the humans, how would vampires like you redeem yourselves?”

“You knew about us?”

“Every vampire in the world knows about the famous Kahills.” Lia smiled sadly. “I always wanted to be in your family. Imagined what it would be like, flying all over the earth, saving people.”

“That sounds more exciting than it is. Most of the time it’s just scary.”

“I guess.” Lia lifted a slender shoulder and let it fall. “So how long do I have?”

“A few days. The General Council will meet and make the recommendation that your case be submitted to the High Council. One of our elders will represent you. The High Council will hear your case and then vote.”

“And carry out the sentence,” Lia added, her voice sounding far away now.

Kaleigh stared at the pretty girl on the other side of the titanium bars. “And carry out the sentence.”

“How soon after the verdict?”

Kaleigh didn’t want to answer, but she felt like she owed it to Lia to be completely honest. “Immediately.”

“And my family?”

“They’ll be permitted to leave as long as it’s determined they didn’t play a part in what happened.”

“They had nothing to do with it!” Lia grasped the bars, her hands touching Kaleigh’s. “They knew nothing about it. You have to let them go back to Italy.”

“I’ll do what I can to make sure that’s clear.”

The door opened behind Kaleigh and she saw Fin.

Kaleigh looked back at Lia. “I have to go, but I’ll come back tomorrow.” She started to move away and Lia laid her hand on Kaleigh’s.

“Please come back.” Lia’s voice trembled. “Promise me?”

“I promise.”

Kaleigh left her chair where it was. As she went through the door, she grabbed Fin’s sleeve. She looked into his eyes. Kind, sad eyes.
Isn’t there anything we can do? She’s just a kid. I really don’t think she realized what she was doing
, she telepathed.

She killed three innocent young men and put our sept in danger. We have rules. She won’t be treated any differently than one of our own.

But she isn’t like us
, she countered.
She never had the benefit of having an adult mind, adult emotions.

I’m sorry, Kaleigh. There’s nothing that can be done.

Kaleigh glanced back at Lia, who still stood at the bars. “You’ll make sure she’s not mistreated?” Kaleigh asked aloud.

“I promise.” He offered a grim smile and kissed her on her forehead. “Go home, get some sleep.” He winked. “And be careful getting back in that window.”

“You wanna play air hockey?” Rob asked. He and Kaleigh were standing under the arcade’s awning, next to the photo booth.

“Nah,” she said glumly.

“I’ll let you win.”

She cut her eyes at her boyfriend. “You don’t have to
let me win
. I can beat you on my own. I just don’t want to.”

“Skee ball?”

She gazed out at the boardwalk, watching people walk by. Nothing had changed since last night, as far as the human tourists knew. But every vampire in town knew that the killer had been apprehended and the humans were now safe. Peigi had contacted all the Council members early that morning and the good news had spread. The sobering good news. Everyone was relieved the killer had been caught, but no one was looking forward to the hearing or the inevitable finale.

Kaleigh watched a mother with a baby in a stroller go by. “I don’t feel like playing any games.”

“You didn’t want to go down on the beach. You didn’t want to watch a movie.” Rob exhaled. “I’m outta ideas, Kaleigh. I’m sorry you’re upset about your friend, but—”

“She wasn’t my friend.”

He stepped in front of her and looked into her eyes. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset, K. This wasn’t your fault.” He touched her cheek.

She closed her eyes. “I know. But I still feel bad for her. It’s not like she’s an awful person. She just…she got lost somewhere along the way.”

“There have to be rules. There have to be consequences.”

“I know that.” Kaleigh opened her eyes and rested her foot against the photo booth. “But all I can think about is, what if she was one of us? Wouldn’t we try to help her? What if it was me? What if I’d been held accountable for the deaths of Bobby, Mahon, and Shannon?”

“Entirely different circumstances. You didn’t
kill
them.”

“What if everyone hadn’t seen it that way? What if I’d been accused? Wouldn’t you have done anything you could to save me?”

“Of course,” Rob agreed. “But I don’t think there is any way to help her. She confessed her guilt.”

“You’re probably right.” She leaned back, her foot still resting on the photo booth. “Why don’t you go play some air hockey? I’m sure you can find someone to play with.”

“I can hang here with you.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “I don’t mind.”

“Here comes Katy.” She motioned with her chin. “She can commiserate with me. Go on. I’ll be fine.”

“All right, I’ll be back in a few.” Rob gave her a quick kiss and walked away.

Kaleigh watched Katy walk toward her, carrying an enormous tub of fresh boardwalk fries. She could smell the vinegar.

“Hey,” Katy called.

“Hey,” Kaleigh answered without much enthusiasm.

“Want a fry?” Katy held up one of the hand-cut fries.

“Not hungry.”

“Jeez, mopey.” Katy leaned against the photo booth beside her and ate the fry. “I don’t know what you’re so miserable about. I’m the one who ought to be miserable. My BFF in the whole world thought I might be a serial killer.”

“I didn’t
think
it was you. I knew it wasn’t. I just…” Kaleigh halted, then started again. “You have to admit, you were acting kind of weird, talking about wanting to move. And you were able to open that jar and move that cooler, only you didn’t say anything about the increase in your strength.”

“Sorry I didn’t tell you about that. I just felt uncomfortable about it. You know, like being the only girl in gym class with boobs. It hasn’t happened to most of the guys yet. I didn’t want to be the only one bench-pressing three hundred pounds.”

Kaleigh chuckled. “You worry about the damnedest things.”