In Memories We Fear (6 page)

No, she couldn’t tell him.

She clipped a lavender rosebud, its dying petals curling outward.

“Eleisha,” Wade’s voice called from somewhere.

She looked around, feeling weak and wondering what was wrong with her hearing. Then she saw him walking toward her. He’d changed a good deal since last spring, for better and for worse. Although he would never be bulky, his obsession with the weight room had thickened his arms, especially his forearms, and his white-blond hair hung down the back of his neck. His clothes fit him much better now. But his eyes had become harder than those of the Wade she’d first met; they were more guarded, more quietly angry.

“I thought I’d find you out here,” he said, coming over and crouching down beside her. “I wanted to see you alone and get a few things straight before Seamus comes back.”

She blinked. “Like what?”

“Like no matter what he reports, I’m not staying behind this time.”

Eleisha looked at the ground. They hadn’t spoken of this very much, and the topic was painful to them both. At the inception of their last mission, she’d decided the situation was too dangerous for Wade to get involved, and she’d gone alone with Philip. The result had been disastrous, and later, Eleisha wondered how things might have turned out had Wade been there to help assess the vampire they’d located.

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry about the last time.”

“Yes? Well, being sorry doesn’t . . .” He trailed off, dipping his head to try to see her face. “Look at me. What’s wrong with you?”

She didn’t look up.

“Eleisha?” He reached out to touch her shoulder, and suddenly the old Wade seemed to come back, the gentle, concerned Wade she remembered. “Talk to me,” he said. “Your skin is almost white.”

“I’m hungry,” she said as quietly as she could. “I haven’t fed in more than a week.”

“No, you just went out last night.”

“I didn’t feed.”

Slowly, in halting sentences, she told him what had happened. When she finished, he didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t need to. That was one thing about Wade. He understood Philip almost as well as she did. Wade didn’t need her to explain the dilemma.

“I can’t go to London like this and start a search,” she whispered.

He crouched there in silence for a few moments. Then he reached over and took her hand, standing and pulling her to her feet. “Come on,” he said, starting for the back side of the church.

“Where are we going?”

“Just come on.”

 

Wade led Eleisha into the darkness behind the church and down a short flight of moss-covered stone steps leading to the back door. They were hidden from sight here, and he crouched again, pulling her down with him.

“Lean against the wall,” he said, and he positioned himself with his back to the stairs.

She looked at him in confusion, and her face glowed white in the darkness. No wonder she’d been outside in the garden. She probably hadn’t wanted Philip to see how white her skin was turning.

“Just feed on me,” he said.

Reacting exactly as he expected, she tried to jump up. “No.”

But he was ready and gripped her arms, holding her down, surprised by how easy it was. He knew vampires in general were stronger than mortals, especially vampires like Julian and Philip, but he’d always wondered about Eleisha. She kept this aspect of herself a secret, and now he knew why.

He didn’t like having to hold her here, but it wasn’t difficult.

“Just listen!” he said. “It’s all right.”

She wore a sky blue flannel shirt over a long skirt—her usual gardening clothes—and the material of her shirt felt soft under his hands. Her expression began to crumble when she realized she couldn’t push him away.

“Wade, please don’t ask me to—”

“It’s all right,” he said again. “You can’t go out, and I know why you can’t tell him. But you
have
to feed before we go to London. I’ll just wear a long-sleeved shirt for a while. Nobody else needs to know.”

He gave her a few moments to allow his words to sink in. He was right, and she knew it. When she didn’t speak again, he let go of her with his left hand and moved his wrist up to her mouth.

“It’s all right,” he whispered one more time, hoping she’d believe him.

He was ashamed of the excitement building in his chest. He could finally give her something she needed. She was starving, and she couldn’t just walk away.

Slowly, she took his wrist in both her hands. “I’ll be careful.”

“I don’t care.”

He shivered when she put her mouth over his skin and bit down. A flash of pain shot up his arm, but he didn’t even flinch and pushed his wrist deeper. She was swallowing his blood, drinking him in, and he didn’t want her to stop. They huddled in the stairwell, entangled with each other, and he was lost in the moment, almost not able to believe that her mouth was finally pressing against his body.

But he’d forgotten one element of this act, and his small oversight changed things between them forever.

Just a few seconds after she started, his most recent memories began to flow. When a vampire killed while feeding (and he’d experienced this many times while reliving their memories), the victim’s entire life poured out. But when feeding like this, Eleisha would see only bits and pieces and shadows, and Wade’s most vivid memories of the past weeks involved him standing over Eleisha and Philip while watching them sleep on her bed.

As she swallowed mouthfuls of his blood, she experienced the raw, unexplainable feelings of being “shut out” that he suffered while looking down at them. She felt his internal struggle over trying to stop and being unable to overcome the compulsion.

Panic hit him.

She drew down hard once more, swallowed, and disengaged her teeth, staring at him. Her eyes looked so large in the darkness, but her skin had a hint of color now.

“Wade . . . ?” she stammered.

“It’s not how it looks! I just like to check on you.”

They both knew that was a lie. She’d been inside his head for only a few moments—but it was enough.

Blood from his wrist dripped onto the lowest stair.

“Eleisha!” Rose called from above. “Are you out here?”

Eleisha’s eyes widened farther, but she managed to call back calmly. “Yes, I’m here. Coming, Rose.”

She got up and opened the back door, which led into Wade’s makeshift gym. “Can you bandage your wrist alone?”

“Yes,” he answered stiffly, wondering how she could say anything so mundane after what they’d just been through together.

“Then go. I’ll go up and meet Rose.”

He moved to slip through the door.

“Wade?”

He paused.

“Nothing,” she said.

He walked inside.

chapter three

O
n the second night of his search, Seamus materialized in an alley near King’s Cross Station in London, making certain he was alone in the darkness. After being away from Rose so long, he wasn’t up to full strength anymore, but he was still strong enough to search, and he’d finally sensed the hint of an undead signature . . . for a black hole in the fabric of life.

A presence, or perhaps an absence, hit him almost right away, close by, and he blinked out, rematerializing in another alley off Belgrove Street, casting out with his senses again and becoming frustrated with his inability to track down this presence.

He had come looking for this vampire twice before, and he didn’t want to fail Wade a third time.

Seamus had spent nearly two hundred years alone with Rose, never letting her see how a part of him longed for true death, how he’d suffered through the empty nights, one after the next, where nothing ever changed. But another part of him could not bear to leave her all alone. She was his blood and kin, and he endured the endless nights for her sake.

Wade and Eleisha had changed all that, and now he was a part of something much bigger. The underground wouldn’t even exist without him. He was their seeker, their searcher, the one who brought everyone together. They could never have found each other without him.

He’d also not realized how hungry he’d been for friendship, and Wade had proven himself a true friend. Eleisha had won Seamus’ affections as well, for she was always gentle with Rose.

At first, Seamus had hated Philip, but his feelings were more conflicted now. Since returning from Denver, while Philip had not exactly been kind to Rose, he had not been unkind either, and he’d succeeded in helping hone her telepathy in areas where Wade had not. Yet . . . some of Seamus’ instincts still screamed that this new side of Philip was nothing more than a facade to hide the killer he’d always been—always would be. Seamus would never completely trust him.

Although the alley was dark, he could see numerous people walking down the street just past the entrance. This was a busy part of the city, but quite shabby, with many decaying buildings and a large homeless population.

He drifted closer to the entrance, reaching out with his senses and feeling himself growing even weaker. This was the cross he bore in order to be useful to his companions. Shortly after being separated from Rose, he began losing his hold on this world, and the greater the distance, the more rapid the process. All ghosts on this plane were tied to a place or a person. Their spirits remained here due to strong—overwhelming—emotion at the time of death. Seamus was no exception. He’d told Wade that being away from Rose simply weakened him. But this was not the complete truth.

Rose was his only reason for remaining here, and whenever he left her, he could feel himself slipping away and being pulled to the other side. While away from her, he had to constantly fight back, using all his strength to remain.

He’d now been away from her—across an ocean—for more than twenty-four hours, and he was working harder to keep from succumbing and being pulled from this plane to the other side. The effort to remain was agony, but he fought to stay.

He was onto something. He was sure of it.

Last summer when he’d hunted this presence, it had been much fainter, almost imperceptible, but this time he could sense it more clearly—just not as clearly as he’d sensed all vampires in the past.

He focused all his remaining energy on the signature and blinked out again, rematerializing inside a dark, abandoned building just off Euston Road. He could see movement and hear shuffling behind some rotting wooden boxes, and he froze.

But he wasn’t prepared for the scream.

A sound like a wailing animal exploded around him just before a figure shot out from behind the boxes. Nothing in this world could hurt Seamus, but he flinched and floated backward anyway.

Then he saw a young man—a creature?—crouched down on all fours across the room. It—he?—hissed sharply, exposing long canine fangs, and Seamus cursed himself for having fully materialized. But he didn’t blink out. There was no point now.

The man, hissing and spitting, never stopped moving, shifting about on his hands and the balls of his feet. He was slender, with shocking white skin and black eyes. His blue-black hair was filthy and hung jaggedly around his narrow face. His clothes were in tatters, especially the remnants of his shirt, which exposed the white hairless flesh of his chest and shoulders. His feet were bare.

Seamus looked around, wondering if this place was some kind of “home,” and if so, whether he could lead Eleisha back here. But there were no blankets on the floor, no flashlight, no sign at all that anyone had been staying here.

The man hissed at him again, and then he bolted, moving faster than Seamus could see toward a small hole in the wall. Seamus started after him, hoping to learn more, when a large orange cat jumped from the darkness onto a box near Seamus and slashed at him, spitting and snarling in an eerie echo of the man. Again, Seamus pulled away out of instinct rather than any necessary fear, but the action broke his concentration. A sleek gray tabby jumped to the box on his other side, snarling and slashing from the right.

Seamus blinked out, materializing back in the alley on Belgrove. He reached out with his senses again, but he could no longer pinpoint the signature, and the experience in the dark room had further weakened his hold on this plane. He felt himself slipping.

He’d seen enough here. It was time to report. It was time to get back to Rose.

 

Eleisha sat on the couch, watching
Psycho
with Philip. She could hear Wade in the kitchen helping Rose learn to control her telepathy. He was a patient teacher, and his low voice carried through the archway.

Everything seemed normal.

But it wasn’t.

Eleisha kept her expression calm, glad that Philip had become wrapped up in the film quickly. She knew he’d like this one, and he sat riveted during the famous shower scene and the detailed cleanup scene afterward. He even commented on how unusual it was for a film to follow a character for so long—Janet Leigh’s, in this case—before the story line completely changed. This was fairly analytical for Philip.

But Eleisha’s mind wasn’t on the movie. It was on their impending journey. It was on her having just swallowed blood from Wade’s arm. It was on the clear memory of his leaning over her and looking down as she and Philip slept. It was on the loneliness he never expressed.

She had always viewed him as so . . . solid, the rock of their team. Now she would forever see him differently.

She wasn’t angry with him; she was worried. She’d picked up enough to see he was fighting a compulsion that consistently left him feeling more and more isolated, yet the thought of his standing over her and Philip while they slept—every morning—made her shiver. Should she start locking the door? Worse, she didn’t even know how to help him. If she tried to spend more time with him now, be more intimate with him, he’d interpret it as pity.