TheSmallPrint (39 page)

He opened his eyes. Catch’s blond, tousled head lay on the far pillow, the duvet pulled up to his chin, his lips curved in a contented smile. No Matty between them. Turner sat up and scanned the bedroom, listened for sounds from the bathroom. Nothing. He shook Catch’s shoulder. “Where’s Matty?”

Eyes open and alert in an instant, Catch rolled out of bed and sprang to his feet.

They found her naked in the hall, running her hands over the wall.

“Sleepwalking. She did it once before,” Turner whispered.

Catch moved to her side and stared. “Is it safe to wake her?”

Turner slid to the other side and when Catch pulled one of her hands away from the wall, Turner took the other. Sandwiched between them, they kissed her, taking it in turns to twist her between them, sharing her mouth, neck, shoulders. Gradually Matty began to respond. Her eyes fluttered and she gasped.

“What did you bring me down here for?” she asked, looking peeved.

Turner’s laugh matched Catch’s.

Matty frowned harder. “What’s funny?”

“You brought us down,” Catch said. “You were sleepwalking.”

“Ooh, that’s a family trait. My dad did it and my grandpa.”

“What’s so interesting about this bit of wall?” Turner asked, and knocked it with his knuckles.
Ah, not solid.

Matty ran her fingers under the dado rail, a panel swung open and she crawled inside. Turner’s gaze followed her bare backside and he licked his lips.

“What are you doing?” Catch asked.

“Getting— Oh. There’s something else in here.”

Matty crawled out clutching a bunch of papers and a parcel wrapped in faded brown paper.

“I know it’s wrong to rip pages out of books but I figured you’d forgive me.” She handed Turner something he hoped he’d never see again.

“Oh fuck,” he blurted before he could stop himself. He’d thought they were safe but now Gabriel would come back.

Matty’s face fell. “I thought you’d be pleased he didn’t get everything.”

Turner ran his finger over her lips. “The thing is, sweetheart, I wanted him to.”

“Oh sorry,” she whispered.

“What else do you have?” Turner nodded at the parcel in her hands.

“I pushed those pages down a crack in the plasterboard, but when I pulled them out, I found this.” She turned the package over. “Oh, it has my name on it and my father’s and my grandpa’s and so on.”

There was a long list, each name crossed out with a single line until the last two—Stefan and finally Matty—with no lines through them.

“You know someone called Stefan?” Turner asked.

She shook her head.

“Going to open it?” Catch asked.

Matty pulled off the string. The paper was so brittle it cracked as she peeled it away. Underneath that layer of paper, was another with more names crossed out.

“Wow. This must be really old if all these people are my ancestors,” she said, her eyes opening wide. “Dad must have left it for me to find. I used to hide in here when I was a child.”

Turner’s undead heart began to beat faster.

“It’s a book.” Matty held it up.

Turner staggered into the wall. Catch grabbed his arm. She opened it and Turner wanted to scream at her to be careful, not to drop it, smudge it, tear it.
Don’t fucking breathe on it.
Oh Christ.
If it were possible for him to have a heart attack, this was enough to bring one on.

“It’s that same weird language as— Oh.” Her eyes opened wide. “Why would I have this? I don’t understand.”

Turner wasn’t sure he did either, but he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, moving to Milford had been the best thing he’d ever done.

“Maybe I can explain, but I need to start at the beginning,” Turner said. “Let’s go back to bed. Can I hold the book?”

Matty started to offer it to him and then pulled it back. “No. I…it’s mine to look after.” She pressed her lips together and looked at him in bewilderment.

Turner’s brain was ablaze. He’d never entertained the thought that a fourth book might be in Milford Hall. He’d assumed it had long gone or lay buried in the Vampire Archives, misplaced centuries ago. Turner was desperate to get his hands on it. Thoughts started to link up in his head, possibilities changing to probabilities which then lurched toward becoming facts.

He followed Catch and Matty upstairs in a daze. When she put the book on the bedside table, it was all Turner could do not to grab it. Catch pulled the duvet over Matty and tugged her back against his chest. Turner lay facing them, the book at the edge of his field of vision, the sight of it energizing.

“Twenty years ago I was a renowned expert on ancient worlds, the development of vampiric language one of my specialties. Gabriel hired me to translate three books, but the money fast became irrelevant. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, I believed I held the key to vampire origins in my hands. The books contained explanations of vampire society, how they arrived on Earth and the way they married their unique circadian rhythms with this planet’s diurnal patterns.”

“You’re from outer space, not descended from Dracula?” Matty asked.

He smiled at her. “I found a similar name in the books so maybe we are. Gabriel had set up Purelight Calling and preached that vampires not only came from the stars but once walked happily under a sun. He promised he could make that happen again—provided people paid him enough.”

“He started the organization before he gave you the books?” she asked.

Turner nodded. “The hypothesis we come from another planet is an old legend Gabriel latched on to. The bastard strung his followers along for a while, I suspect rather amazed at his success, but his words were eventually no longer enough. He wanted old books that supported the myth and he paid someone to create them. Except the guy he approached, who was in charge of the Vampire Archives, was not only corrupt but lazy. He located books that fulfilled Gabriel’s requirements and handed them over, little realizing they were the real thing. Or maybe he did and didn’t care. He’s dead. We’ll never know.”

“Fuck me,” Catch muttered.

“Gabriel’s motive was always the money, but others in the shadows saw how he pulled vampires in and were more interested in the power his organization could bring them, perhaps through revolt and chaos once the word got out that we could stand the light.”

Turner brushed a curl of hair from Matty’s wide eyes. “Gabriel’s agenda was to tempt as many as he could to join Purelight and relieve them of as much money as possible. In a way I was as greedy as him, too desperate to keep translating the diaries to do anything about it. He kept the books in a special box, made it look like they were the most valuable things in the world even though he thought they were fakes. People even paid to file past and watch me working on them. And all the time, more and more joined Purelight to hear him preach salvation from darkness.”

“Like a false religion,” Matty whispered.

“Exactly. Gabriel might have promised the light, knowing the books had no real answers, but I thought they might have. There was some hint that the original vampires had arrived with a method of surviving in our sun. Plant material that they chewed. Gabriel probably thought the books had been forged by someone with a brilliant imagination, but he pretended to get all excited and I heard him talking to Dava about the plant angle being a way to get more money. When he told me instead of translating the books exactly, he wanted something added, a reference that would trace his sire back to the captain of the craft that brought our ancestors here, I’d had enough.

“I told him I wouldn’t change the books, and he made it clear if I didn’t, I’d never utter another word to anyone. So I decided to add a few sentences of my own and laid a false trail inside the translations just in case.”

“And lied to me,” Catch said.

Turner nodded. “I needed everyone to believe I’d translated exactly what the books said.”

Catch bristled. “Even me?”

“I thought you’d be safer. Just as you thought keeping me out of the loop would protect me twenty years ago.”

“You’ve lost me,” Matty said.

“Catch was working undercover inside Gabriel’s organization. When everything fell apart, he convinced me to maintain my belief in the books, even when the Vampire Council and the Court declared they were fakes. The fact I’d been duped kept me out of prison but ruined my reputation. I claimed that the books had been destroyed, but I should have realized someone would figure out I’d kept the translations. However, after the trial, I was approached by a vampire I believed to be Nathaniel Golding, the head of the organization Catch works for and also a member of the Vampire Council. He asked me to continue with my research. He said if I didn’t,” Turner looked straight at Catch, “he’d let it slip to Gabriel in prison who in his organization had betrayed him.”

Catch’s jaw twitched. “We’ve both been played.”

“I
continued researching but moved away from history toward botany. I’ve been trying to identify the plant that might have provided protection from the sun.”

“Did you get anywhere?” Catch asked.

“Here.”

Matty crinkled her brow. “Milford Hall?”

“It took me a while but hidden inside the books I found coordinates that led me here. I think this is where the spaceship landed.” Turner swallowed hard.

“But the house isn’t that old,” Matty said. “They couldn’t have hidden the books here.”

“I wasn’t looking for the book. I assumed the last one had been with the others and somehow misplaced. They weren’t destroyed. They’re back in the Archive, hidden.”

Catch sighed. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. It all sounded too convenient with the guy who’d burned them no longer around.”

“William’s alive and well and living somewhere in Scotland.”

Catch laughed. “That
is
a surprise.”

“So you bought the house because of your research,” Matty said. “George thought he’d persuaded— Never mind.”

Turner brushed Matty’s lips with his. “Finding you in this house is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” He squeezed Catch’s hand.

“Not me unwrapping that book downstairs?” she asked with a smile.

“You feel you have to keep that book safe, whatever happens?” Turner asked.

“It’s something that’s been entrusted to my family, hasn’t it? For years and years.” Matty stared at him. “You think it holds the secret of how you can walk in the sun?”

“Maybe,” Turner said.

“I’m worried,” Catch said, and nibbled Matty’s shoulder. “Will Gabriel be able to work out there’s a book missing?”

Turner shook his head. “I doubt it. I made the third book look like the final one.”

“Except Matty ripped out the pages,” Catch said.

Matty wanted to scream. She’d messed everything up.

“You think he’ll come back?” she asked. ”We could just give him those pages, couldn’t we?”

As she finished speaking, pain seized her heart and locked her lungs. It served her right. She was so stupid.

“Matty, what is it?” Catch asked.

She opened her mouth to speak and couldn’t.
It’ll pass.
Turner’s eyes narrowed in concern. Catch stroked her arm.

“It’s not letting up this time,” Catch whispered.

I don’t need to breathe. I don’t need to breathe.
So why did she feel like she did? Matty started to shake and pressed her lips together.

Turner kissed her, teased the rigid seam of her mouth with his tongue.

“Matty, come back to us,” Catch whispered.

She gasped and the pressure lifted. This time it had lasted longer. This time, the pain hadn’t entirely gone.

The phone beside the bed rang and Turner reached for it.

“I’m not happy.”

Matty heard Gabriel’s voice.

Turner’s face hardened. “Why’s that?”

“You fucking well know why,” Gabriel shouted.

“Matty ripped out the pages. She just told me,” Turner said. “You can have them.”

“Of course I can. You’d better bring them to me fast before she finds breathing on her own too much of a struggle.”

Matty gulped another anxious mouthful of air. How did Gabriel know she couldn’t breathe?

“One hair on her head out of place and you’re dead. We’re on our way.” Turner slammed the phone down.

“The prick’s at the hospital?” Catch asked. “How?”

Turner rolled out of bed. “Her uncle called me but Gabriel spoke to him. Matty, you need to put the book somewhere safe.”

He yanked two pairs of pants from his closet and threw a pair to Catch.

“Turner.” Matty tugged at his arm. She held out the book. “You should take it. If anything happens to me…”

With infinite gentleness, he pushed her hand away. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. Put it someplace safe, and much as it distresses me to ask, please put some clothes on.”

She ran upstairs to the attic and pushed the book in with hers. It looked wrong so Matty pulled the cover off the cowboy romance, slotted the book inside and tossed the coverless book behind the others. As she dressed, her fingers fumbled with the buttons on her shirt.
I might not come back.
This could be the last time she was in this house.

Had that fourth book been the reason she’d managed to separate from her body? Because she was some sort of guardian of the truth? But then that only made sense if she knew about it, and she hadn’t. Maybe her father had been supposed to tell her but he’d died before he could. Hers was the last name. She had no name to write underneath. But who was Stefan? His name hadn’t been crossed out either. A brother she hadn’t known about?

Matty ran down to the landing. Catch and Turner looked up at her from the hall.
Oh God, I love them.
Turner stood all worried with his thumbs twitching, and Catch was smiling. One understood and the other didn’t. Once she went into the hospital, she might not come out.

She slung her leg over the banister and slid down into their arms.

“Got you,” they said together.

Yep, they had. And if her life ended today, they’d made it worthwhile.

“Have you had Plasmix?” she asked.

“Yes,” Turner said. “Catch doesn’t need it.”