Vampire Memories #5 - Ghosts of Memories (27 page)

Once again, Eleisha felt diminished and “wrong” somehow. But she’d just hated wearing that evening gown and wished she had the courage to tell him.

Philip stood up and walked toward her. “You look fine,” he said. “Except for that eye.”

She smiled, keeping her gaze on him. He kept her grounded.

But then unbidden, ugly thoughts began rising inside her that Philip said such things only because he didn’t know any better. He was too simple to ever function in polite society, and Christian was much more aware, much more adept at this, and she should have remained properly dressed for an evening in the mansion.

The thoughts startled her, and she tried to push them away. Even if she had kept that dress on, it would be ruined by now anyway, since she’d recently been lying unconscious on the wet ground. But that was hardly Christian’s point. He’d simply been commenting on her ability to maintain a ruse, and he knew best here.

The air beside her shimmered, and Seamus materialized. He looked better than she’d expected, and his colors were bright. That was a good sign. They might need him here for a little while. But as soon as he saw her black eye, he frowned.

“What happened?”

“Julian,” she answered.

“He hit you?” Seamus asked angrily. “Was Mary involved?”

Eleisha held up one hand to stop him from talking. “Wait. I…we need you to try something, and it won’t be easy.” His transparent eyebrows lifted, but instead of explaining anything, she pointed to Christian. “Just listen to him now.”

Although she’d fully agreed that Christian should be the one to put this to Seamus, as it had been his idea, unfortunately, Christian assumed the same tone and posture he used while speaking to Simmons, and Seamus was no one’s paid servant.

“How well do you know this Mary?” Christian asked.

Seamus looked him up and down, and Eleisha could already see this was probably not going to go well. “Why?” he asked.

“Eleisha told me you think Julian has something he’s holding over her, some way to force her to do his bidding,” Christian said. “What makes you think that?”

Seamus glanced down at Eleisha, and she nodded.

“I don’t know…,” Seamus began, only now he was speaking directly to Eleisha. “She loved that vampire Julian killed in Oxford. I know she loved him, and I don’t think she’d go on serving Julian after that unless he had some hold on her.”

This was all news to Eleisha, but she didn’t remember that night in Oxford very well…as again, Julian had punched her in the face before the whole scene exploded.

“Is that all?” Christian said. “You must know more than that.”

Eleisha could see Seamus’ expression closing up, and she flashed into Christian’s mind,
Stop talking to him like he’s a servant.

She knew it was bad manners to send telepathy without asking permission, but this situation was serious, and he was handling it wrong. Christian glanced at her, but his tone changed.

“Forgive me,” he said to Seamus. “It has been a most unsettling night, and I am not myself. But I would like to speak with this Mary and see if perhaps we can assist her. If we can do anything to help her get away from Julian, she might be willing help us kill him.”

Seamus’ transparent mouth fell halfway open.

“It’s worth a try,” Eleisha said quickly. “Can you find her and get her to talk to Christian?”

“To Christian?” he asked.

“Yes.” She nodded. “Under the right conditions, he can be very…convincing.”

No one argued with her.

Seamus just stood there, apparently in deep but somewhat anxious thought. Then he looked at Eleisha again and said, “I’ll try.”

Seamus had a feeling he wouldn’t need to go far to find Mary, but he was still uncertain about this entire venture.

However…although he didn’t trust Christian, this was the second time Julian had left bruises on Eleisha’s face, and if Christian truly had an idea to both free Mary and rid the world of Julian, then Seamus wasn’t going to refuse to help.

He just needed to make sure Mary was protected in the process.

Materializing outside in the ornately bricked courtyard, he sensed outward into the night and felt something just on the other side of the main gate. Blinking out, he rematerialized a few feet behind Mary, pausing a moment to look at her slender back and mesh T-shirt.

“Mary,” he said.

She whirled. Apparently, she’d not been sensing for him or she would have felt him appear.

“Don’t leave!” he said instantly. “Please.”

He could see she was poised, ready to vanish, but for some reason, she stayed, just watching him.

“What do you want?” she asked. “We shouldn’t be talking to each other.”

“I…” Then he was at a loss. How could he put this to her? “Is Julian forcing you to help him?” he asked. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“Forcing? No, not…really.” Her voice hardened. “Seamus, what do you want?”

He steeled himself. “I want you to talk to Christian.”

“What?”

“He thinks he can help you. He says that if you’ll help us, he’ll find a way to help you.” Seamus floated closer to her. “I won’t let him take advantage of you. I won’t let him use you. But if he can get you free of Julian…”

Mary started to shake her head, and her face was sad now. “No, I can’t get free until…” She trailed off and then looked at him sharply. “Wait, Christian is supposed to be some expert on ghosts, right? I mean, he’s running a scam, but even to fake it, he’s probably had to learn a lot about ghosts, right?”

Seamus had no idea where this was heading, but he nodded. “I suppose he would.”

She paused for a few moments, and then she floated closer. “Okay. I’ll talk to him.”

Almost the instant Seamus vanished, Christian excused himself to go up to his room, claiming he needed a few moments to himself.

But he was hoping that Seamus would zero in on him and bring the girl up here—as he wanted to talk to her alone. He had no idea if this venture would bear any fruit at all, but he strongly suspected it might, and he wanted full control of a polite interrogation.

Eleisha’s instincts down in the living room had been good, but he wanted no interference here.

If there was one thing Christian did well, it was talking to women.

The air shimmered by the bed, and both ghosts suddenly appeared. Seamus looked enormous beside the girl, dressed in his breeches, with his blue and yellow plaid across one shoulder.

The girl was a different story. Christian had seen only a glimpse of her at the Seattle Center, but now he took a good look and pegged her immediately. The cropped magenta hair and nose stud spoke volumes. She would be prickly and easily offended. But underneath, she craved attention and approval.

He smiled at her. “Thank you for coming.” Then he glanced at Seamus. “Thank you as well. You may go now.”

“No,” Seamus answered.

The tall, transparent ghost didn’t move an inch, and Christian realized—to his annoyance—that Seamus had no intention of leaving. Well, there was nothing to be done about that. Christian couldn’t make him leave, so he might as well proceed.

He smiled at Mary again. “Our Seamus here seems to think you are much too nice a girl to be working for Julian unless you were being forced.”

Mary blinked in surprise. “He does?”

Seamus started slightly, but Christian just kept talking. “Is that true? Is Julian forcing you, or has he promised something you want?”

Her face flickered at his second phrase, and he knew he had her. Christian had been connecting emotions to facial expressions for hundreds of years. He didn’t need to be able to read this girl’s thoughts. Her face was an open book.

“He’s promised you something?” Christian said. “Something important.”

She looked wary now, but her eyes were locked into his, and he was sure he could see a hint of hope beneath their surface. “Yeah…,” she began. “He pulled me out of the gray plane himself, so he’s the only one who can send me back. I want to go back, and he promised that if I helped him just once more, he’d send me.”

“Oh, Mary,” Seamus interrupted. “No. Why do you want to go back?”

“’Cause Jasper’s there. He must be. Seamus, I can’t leave him all alone.”

Christian just listened. Maybe having the Highlander here wasn’t such a bad thing. The girl talked to him more openly. But who was Jasper? Then he remembered Seamus having mentioned something about a vampire the girl had loved…a vampire Julian had beheaded.

Christian knew what she wanted.

“I can send you back,” he said quietly. Both ghosts fell silent and stared at him. “I’d be glad to send to you back if that’s really what you want.”

Mary floated a little closer. “You know how?”

“Of course. You both know I’m no expert in speaking to real ghosts, but I daresay I’m more educated than Julian on the matter. I’ve had to be. It’s my trade.” He tilted his head. “Mary, how did Julian learn to call you over in the first place?”

Her eyes were growing excited now. “He read books. I know one in particular helped him a lot ’cause he keeps it out on the table—”

“
Geister Aufforden
, by Gottbert Drechsler,” Christian suggested casually.

She gasped. “Yes. You’ve read it?”

“Of course I’ve read it, my dear. As I told you, this is my trade. I may not have been the one to call you over, but I can certainly send you back.”

Seamus was still silent, but Christian guessed that had more to do with Mary’s actual request than with any doubts he might harbor regarding Christian’s abilities.

“Are you certain that Julian means to keep his promise?” Christian went on. “You trust completely that as soon as you help him finish things up here, he’ll hold up his end of the bargain?”

She didn’t answer, but he could see from her face that she didn’t.

“Let me pose another offer,” he said. “If you help
us
to…shall we say, ‘finish things here,’ I can promise that we’ll free you of Julian forever, and I’ll send you back to the gray plane myself.” He paused for effect. “You may not know me, but I think you do know Eleisha, and she’d never let me break a promise.”

Mary’s eyes flooded with hope. “No, she wouldn’t, would she. Eleisha would never…” She glanced up at Seamus, who still didn’t look happy, and then back to Christian. “What is it you want me to do?”

His heart soared. That had been easier than he’d expected, but then again, he was a master at telling people exactly what they needed to hear. But now he needed a few things from her.

“We’ll chat about that soon enough,” he said. “First, I need to know a bit more about what we’re up against. For one, why did Julian knock Eleisha unconscious instead of taking her head when he could have?”

“Oh, he doesn’t want to kill Eleisha yet, not unless he has to. He wants her to keep finding more vampires like you.”

That made sense. “What about Wade?”

“No, probably not—again, unless he had to. Wade’s the one doing the searches, and Eleisha’s the one you guys all seem to trust. Julian needs both of them. But I think he’d cut Philip’s head off in a heartbeat now.”

That
got Christian’s full attention. “Really?”

“Yeah, these hunts would be a whole lot easier without Philip in the mix.”

Goodness. This meeting was turning out to be far more of a treasure trove than he could have imagined.

“All right,” Christian said. “I want you to wait until dusk tomorrow night. Then I want you to go to Julian, and this is what I want you to tell him…”

chapter fifteen

T
he following night, ten minutes after waking up on Philip’s chest, Eleisha found herself alone in their guest room, as he’d gotten dressed quickly and gone downstairs to help Wade set up their trap.

The plan struck her as complex and simple at the same time, but much of it depended on Mary. Eleisha still had no idea how Christian had managed to win her over to their side, but the remainder of the previous night had been short and rushed and absorbed by the rapid formation of this plan—and everyone had been concerned about different aspects.

Eleisha was most worried about Vera being kept far away from Julian, and frankly, she wasn’t keen on Ivory getting anywhere near Julian either, as Ivory appeared to have no real defenses. Christian backed her up in both these concerns.

But this then created an unfortunate role for Wade in tonight’s events, which he’d opposed vehemently. But after a somewhat heated argument with Christian, in the end, Wade finally agreed to play guard dog to both women in an upstairs room.

Eleisha, Philip, and Christian would handle the fight downstairs…by using Christian as bait.

But far worse than the prospect of a battle with Julian, Eleisha was left with the unfortunate task of deciding what to wear. They were going to have a short stint of playing the socialite spiritualists for Vera before the main event was set in motion, and then more important, later tonight she’d need to fool Julian into thinking she was Ivory—at least from the back and under dim lighting.

For both these reasons, looking the part was important, and except for her sleeveless linen blouse, she had nothing in her suitcase but jeans, T-shirts, and broomstick skirts. Maybe she could wear the blouse with a skirt.

A knock sounded on the door, and Christian said, “Eleisha, it’s me,” from the other side.

Hesitantly, she opened the door and peered out.

He was a holding a light pink evening gown and a cosmetics bag. “We need to hurry,” he said without his usual polite greeting. “I’ve asked Vera to meet me up here in a few minutes. You’re certain you can put her to sleep for several hours?”

“Yes.”

But before she could say anything else, he pushed past her inside the room, dropping the gown on the bed. “Get the dress on. There’s no séance scheduled for tonight, and she thinks we’re all going out for drinks at the Belmont.”

“That’s what you told her?”

He shrugged. “She’ll want to do whatever we are doing tonight, but I needed a reason to give Simmons and the maids a night off. I arranged symphony tickets for all of them, and I told Simmons that Vera would be going out with us. He’ll be gone for hours. Now, you get changed and let me take a crack at hiding that black eye.” He turned around and started pulling small bottles from the cosmetics bag.