In Memories We Fear (2 page)

His skin was ivory, and his eyes were a shade of light amber. He wore his red-brown hair in layers down to the top of his collar, and he wore the long Armani coat to cover the machete fastened to his belt.

“I’m happy,” she answered.

And she was. Until last spring, she’d lived an almost completely solitary life as a caretaker for an aged, damaged vampire. But then everything changed, and now she was living in an old church with Philip, along with another vampire, Rose de Spenser, and a telepathic mortal, Wade Sheffield. She wasn’t alone anymore.

And they were looking for others like themselves, vampires in hiding, who didn’t want to be alone anymore either.

At first, this transition had been like a shock of cold water for Eleisha—almost painful—as it had been for Philip, and they’d not always been good company for each other, but that, too, had changed, and throughout the past month he’d become more and more aware of her loneliness, of her need to talk about the past . . . and he’d listened.

She loved him for it.

They’d come out here to feed tonight, and she knew this area was his favorite hunting ground. She hadn’t fed in more than a week, and she was hungry, but she also wanted to please him, to make their existence interesting for him. Philip was easily bored—one of his faults—so she tried to keep him entertained.

“Do you remember the game we played a few nights after moving here?” she asked. “Where we tried to outdo each other in the hunt . . . competed for whose prey was a bigger risk?”

“You hated that game. You argued with me.”

Yes, she had, but she hadn’t completely trusted him then. Back in their separate worlds, for nearly two hundred years, they had both killed mortals to feed. The rapidly turning wheel of recent events had taught Eleisha that she didn’t need to kill to feed, that she could replace a victim’s memories and leave the person alive—unconscious but alive. She’d taught Philip how to do this.

He was a predator by nature, and
this
had been the hardest adjustment for him. But he’d done it. He’d become so skilled with both his telepathy and his self-control that she never worried anymore. She trusted him now.

“Chicken?” she asked, teasing him like a mortal.

He raised his eyebrows.

“New rules,” he said, switching gears as quickly as always. “I choose your prey for you. You have to win with whomever I pick.” Philip lived in the moment. That was another thing she liked about him. She tended to dwell too much on the past.

“Done,” she said. “But then I get to choose yours.”

He flashed a smile—somewhat disturbing, as he did this so rarely. “Done,” he repeated.

Without another word, he turned and headed for Front Avenue, slipping around the far side of the Marriott. She followed, moving behind him, wondering what he was up to, but she took pleasure in his expression as he scanned the sidewalk. He was enjoying this.

Although it rained a good deal in Portland, especially in fall and winter, tonight was cool and clear.

Together they watched a wide variety of mortals walk past: groups of teenagers, old couples, young couples, and any number of people alone as they hurried by. Philip kept stock-still, just watching, until he suddenly pointed toward the exit from a parking garage.

“That one,” he said quietly.

A tall man with an expensive haircut and a tailored suit was heading across the street at an even but determined pace. He carried a computer case in one hand and a stack of enlarged cardboard charts in the other. Even from this distance, Eleisha could see his eyes were hard and focused, as if he were reviewing a speech in his head.

She wanted to groan.

She’d never been good with corporate sharks, and Philip knew it.

He turned his head and flashed another smile, trying to parody her voice. “Chicken?” When she hesitated, he said, “Better hurry or you’ll lose him before you start.”

“Pick someone else,” she urged.

“No.”

The man was halfway across the street, heading for the hotel’s glass doors. Eleisha’s sensible caution kicked in, and she wondered about the wisdom of suggesting this game for Philip’s amusement. In spite of her newfound sense of happiness, she took the cautions of hunting seriously, and there were several essential components that could never be forgotten. For one, the victim had to be left someplace safe, someplace where he could not be hurt or robbed while unconscious. Eleisha almost always lured the person into a car so she could lock the doors and let him wake up on his own in a secured place. That wasn’t an option here.

And for another, victims were always chosen with deference to the particular vampire’s “gift.” Within a few nights of becoming undead, a specific element of the vampire’s previous personality developed into an overwhelming aura, which could be turned on and off at will. Eleisha’s gift was an aura of helplessness. So now she always chose people who were either sympathetic or protective.

Corporate sharks were neither; they tended to care about only themselves and their bank accounts.

“Better go,” Philip said almost gleefully.

Eleisha wanted to kick herself. Creative thought and improvisation were integral components to winning this game. But where could she possibly take this man so they could be alone, and that she could still leave him in safety? She couldn’t just lure him into an alley and leave him there. If he was coming from the parking lot across the street, he didn’t have a room at the Marriott. He was probably here to give some kind of presentation.

Giving Philip an exasperated look, she headed out and, cutting the man off before he reached the doors, reached out with her mind to pick up any stray surface thoughts. She almost stumbled at the desperation hidden behind his impassive face.

She tried to unjumble his thoughts, realizing as she searched that he did have a room at the hotel, but he couldn’t afford valet parking—which was the only option at this hotel. He’d gone to his car to get a few last-minute items for a sales pitch.

Eleisha hurried toward him, knowing this was going to be impossible without leaning heavily on her gift, but she threw pride to the wind.

“Sir, please,” she said, holding up her hands and letting her gift flow. “Please help me.”

For just a second, she worried he wasn’t even going to stop—not even going to look down—but he did.

“I don’t have time for—,” he started, and his eyes locked on her face.

She was dressed all wrong, looking neither like a damsel in distress nor a pretty street urchin. For God’s sake . . . she was trying this in a pair of canvas sneakers and one of Philip’s old sweaters that hung halfway to her knees.

“Please,” she said again, turning up her gift and watching his expression alter slightly. He would see her as helpless, fragile, alone, and in desperate need of help. She clouded his mind, his judgment, and played upon any sense of humanity he still possessed.

“I need a place to hide, just for a few hours,” she said, moving closer, pitching her voice to a tone of fear, hoping Philip could see how difficult this was from where he stood.

“Hide?” the man repeated, his eyes glassy now. Up close, his suit looked cleaned and pressed, but not new. She normally didn’t require anywhere near this much influence over a victim—and it was hardly sporting—but she didn’t have a choice here.

“Just for a few hours,” she said again. “Someplace no one will find me. Can I stay in your room?”

This was lamest thing she’d ever suggested to a victim, and any sane person would have told her to call the police and walked right past her. But at the moment, he wasn’t sane. He wanted only to protect her. He’d do anything she asked.

“All right,” he said, sounding dazed. “But I have a pitch to make. I can’t miss it.”

“When?” she asked, surprising herself that she cared.

“Half an hour . . . in the Klamath room.”

Half an hour? He wasn’t going to make that.

He led her inside the hotel and to the elevator, as if taking a strange girl from the street to his room—just because she wanted a place to hide—was the most normal thing in the world, and Eleisha began feeling uncomfortable about the whole situation, again wishing maybe she hadn’t suggested this.

He led her to the sixth floor and used his key card to open the door to his room. They entered, and she closed the door. At this point, she would put him to sleep, feed, and then alter his memory so he’d have no recollection of ever having seen her.

But she looked at the printed charts and the computer case, and she remembered his stray thoughts about losing his house and how his nearly maxed Visa card could barely cover the price of this room.

“Okay, you’re safe here,” he said, readjusting the charts. “I have to go.”

She reached out and touched his face. “You’re tired. You need to sleep.”

Like a clock stopping, his eyes closed, and he fell back onto the bed, with the computer and charts beside him. Eleisha looked at his wrist. She was hungry, but she couldn’t do this. If she fed, he probably wouldn’t wake up soon enough, and he’d still be weak.

Instead, she reached inside his mind and took him back to the moment he’d crossed the street. She put in a different memory. He’d found the charts in his car, but he’d forgotten the computer in his room, and he’d hurried back up to get it. He never met anyone. He never saw anyone on the way up. Then stress and exhaustion had overtaken him briefly.

“You’ll wake up in forty seconds,” she whispered. “Do you understand? Forty seconds.”

She slipped out the door. He would make his presentation.

All the way back down in the elevator, through the lobby, and into the street, she wondered what on earth had possessed her to instigate some game that played with people’s lives—just to entertain Philip.

But when she came around the building and saw his face, she knew why. He looked animated, interested . . . amused.

“That was tragic,” he said. “No style. No improvising. You just used your gift. I can do better wearing a gunnysack without any pants. I can do better without even turning on my gift.”

But his voice held no cruelty. He was having fun.

“Really?” she said. “Have you forgotten that
I
get to choose the target?” She started walking, glancing back. “You just wait.”

 

Wade Sheffield was on the bottom floor of the church, doing curls with a set of free weights he’d bought last month.

He’d been living here, since the previous spring, with three vampires and a ghost. He was probably the only mortal in the world more comfortable with the undead than he was with normal people, but he’d been able to read minds all his life, and “normal people” did not enjoy his company.

So now the five of them were trying to make this old brick church into a home. They nicknamed the building “the underground.”

The main floor comprised a large sanctuary, complete with stained glass windows, and two offices. Wade had refurnished one office, and Rose had turned the other into her bedroom.

The upstairs was not currently in use, but it sported six rooms that had once been engaged for Sunday school classes, and later, these would be used to house any lost vampires they found.

The basement consisted of a three-bedroom apartment where Wade, Eleisha, and Philip lived, and an industrial-sized kitchen that the old congregation had once used for potluck dinners. But over the summer, Wade had been turning this area into a home gym. He’d started with a simple weight machine and then moved to free weights.

In the early days of their mission, he’d believed that being educated, telepathic, and competent would be enough to make him indispensable to the group.

He’d been wrong.

Now he was working out twice a day, and Philip was teaching him how to use a sword.

After finishing a second set of curls, he was sweating, and he dropped the weights into their rack, half turning to look at the doorway; tonight he was feeling anxious, even frustrated.

Their last attempt to locate a lost vampire in Denver and bring her home had ended in complete disaster, but after a few weeks of mental recovery, Eleisha had seemed ready to “get back on the horse” and try again—or so Wade thought.

Again, he’d been wrong.

Their strategy was for Wade to search out any online news stories of homicide victims drained of blood or of living people checked into hospitals with cuts or gashes that did not warrant an unexplained amount of blood loss. He’d once worked as a police psychologist, and he knew a good deal about
where
to search for such stories. Then, they would attempt to make contact, travel to meet the vampire, and try to bring him or her safely home to the church.

Since the end of the summer, Eleisha had always expressed polite interest in any possible stories he mentioned, but she didn’t press him, and she didn’t seem eager for him to find a new lead. He wasn’t sure why. She should be pushing him, even working with him, doing everything she could to launch a new mission. This entire underground had been her idea, her vision, in the first place.

Had her last failure shattered her confidence? Was she afraid to try again?

To make matters worse, lately, she seemed interested only in spending time with Philip.

Well . . . Wade didn’t know why that made matters worse. He just knew it bothered him.

Grabbing a towel, he wiped off his face and arms and headed back toward their basement apartment. He didn’t stop there and went straight to the stairs, half jogging up to his office on the main floor.

He liked this room with its old, used desk he’d picked up in downtown Portland. He liked the bookshelves and all the maps and his computer. The walls were cream, and the window overlooked Eleisha’s rose garden.