Promises to Keep

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  “Hi, this is Jay Marinitch.” Instead of referring to the party, he said, “I’m in the hospital, and I need to get in touch with Xeke, but I don’t have his number with me. He can call me at …” He looked over and read out the number posted next to the phone. Hospital was a bit of an exaggeration for Haven #2’s clinic, but if anyone looked up the number, at least it would come up as a medical facility.

  Jay hung up the phone, discovering in the process that his arm was incredibly heavy. He was exhausted. It was time for some good old-fashioned non-coma-style sleep.

  He closed his eyes. What should he be? Kitten? Squirrels and bats slept well, too.

  Jay couldn’t find the energy to shift his mental state to anything other than “bed-bound, injured human-shaped person.”

  And so as such, he drifted back to sleep.

  Not here again.

  The brambles and branches menaced, grabbing at him with their needlelike fingers. As he struggled to focus, to become something that would be safe in this hell, the world around him went soft, like a video blurring out of focus.

  This is just an echo, he thought. He was in his own mind. That meant he could control it, explore it. Understand it.

  He slipped through the brambles like a shadow, drawing no attention, and at last found himself outside a tall black fence with iron ravens on the top. He should have been able to see through the gaps in the fence, but there was nothing but darkness.

  He walked the length of the fence, trying to find an opening, but there were no corners or gates, no matter how far he walked. He turned around, but instead of the forest, the fence was behind him as well. No matter how he turned, he faced cold iron, blocking his way.

  He woke to find Xeke sitting in the chair by his bed, reading a celebrity gossip magazine dedicated to the most ludicrous lies imaginable. Xeke didn’t give the tabloids a lot of credit for accuracy, but they certainly were entertaining.

  Oh, good. Jay’s empathy was starting to come back.

  “Good to see you awake,” Xeke said. “I was surprised when my secretary passed on your message.”

  “You have a secretary?”

  “I have several.”

  “I can’t remember the name of the town where Kendra’s gala and your apartment were,” Jay said. “Or how I got back.”

  “How odd,” Xeke said, in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t odd at all.

  His mind told Jay why. The town was spelled. Not all of it; normal humans lived in enough of the town that it would be terribly awkward if they couldn’t remember how to get home or to work or how to give people directions to visit them. But crossing certain boundaries would trigger the spell, which was powerful.

  “You seem like an interesting guy,” Xeke said, “but I’m surprised it didn’t give you even a moment’s pause that I would willingly bring a hunter to a place where I routinely work and sleep. You were on your best behavior at Kendra’s, and I know we’re safe here in SingleEarth, but I don’t know where you draw your lines.”

  Fair enough.

  “So the spell is to keep people from finding your homes?”

  “More or less,” Xeke answered. There was a lot more to that “more or less,” but Xeke’s mind skipped over it, not forming the images clearly enough for Jay to pick them out. “So tell me: Should I be flattered you were looking for me, or nervous?”

  Oh, right. He had a reason for wanting to find Xeke.

  “I went into the woods, behind your apartment.”

  The words triggered something in Xeke, but again, Jay couldn’t focus well enough to pick up on all of it. There was something about an arrangement. Politics, and a disgust of politics. Walking a tightrope.

  “Did you have a nice walk?” Xeke asked.

  “I found a woman, a shapeshifter, unconscious,” Jay answered. “She still hasn’t woken. We’re not sure what’s wrong with her. The doctors here think that maybe if—”

  “You want to stop talking now,” Xeke interrupted, with a spike of nervousness.

  “Could you look at her, and let me know if—”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “But—”

  “Call me if you’re interested in a night out on the town,” Xeke said. “I’ll leave my phone number at the front desk. But I’m not having this conversation with you.” With that, he disappeared, too wary to even take the time to leave his number in person.

  Jay scowled. He didn’t like mysteries. He really didn’t like it when people kept things from him.

  He had never had an adolescent’s panic over what other people were thinking, or whether they were thinking of him, or that sheer certainty that everyone was thinking about him all the time that most young teens had. No, from the start he had known when they lied; when they were pretending to be macho while scared; when it wasn’t quite true when a mother said, “No, of course I’m not mad,” when her young child accidentally broke an heirloom piece of china; and when people weren’t thinking of him at all, even when they were in the middle of a conversation with him.

  He understood. Everyone needed little lies to get them through the day, false courage to make them find real courage, and false comfort when something couldn’t be repaired. Their minds were so complicated and their lives so intense that who could blame them that most of the time they weren’t thinking about anything but themselves?

  People were fascinating to Jay, but they weren’t mysteries. That was why Xeke had fled. For some reason, he needed to be a mystery.

  Jay could spend lazy hours as a cat basking in the sun, or as a lizard on a rock, or as a sparrow singing for the pure joy of the day. Others of his line used their empathy to become powerful healers of the body and mind, or to help them mediate conflict. Those who chose to go into human businesses made staggering amounts of money as psychotherapists, lawyers, marriage counselors, or industrial psychologists.

  Jay had chosen the path of a hunter because whether he was a songbird or a kitten or a koi in a pool, there was one thing that could always pull him back: the challenge of a hunt.

  He had been challenged, and like a bloodhound, he was now committed to this mystery. Damn you, Xeke.

  CHAPTER 9

  FIRST, HE HAD to get out of bed. He had recovered enough of his power that he could start focusing it on healing his wounds. Whatever foreign magic had kept Caryn from healing him while he was unconscious gave him no problems now.

  He stood, and again sought the kitchen. He needed protein to make up for the power burned, and the blood lost.

  Leftover fried chicken was a good start. He ate it cold, enjoying the grease, the crunch of the skin, and the softness of the meat beneath. He carried a leg bone with him as he walked through the parking lot to get a not-blood-covered shirt from the car. He also hoped he could find the directions he had used the night before.

  Unfortunately, he would still have to backtrack all the way to the highway, and then follow the directions the bloodbond had given him, in order to figure out where Kendra’s Heathen Holiday had been—and from there, Xeke’s apartment and the strange forest.

  It was a reasonable plan.

  First, he wrote the directions onto a piece of SingleEarth stationery and left that next to the unconscious shapeshifter, with a note saying, This is near where I found her. Some kind of memory spell alters the ability to recall where it is. I will call if I find it again.

  He had to hold on to the doorjamb for a minute as a dizzy spell took him.

  It was probably too soon to hunt, but he didn’t need to fight anything yet. He could just go back to the party.

  He would need to get dressed up again first, wouldn’t he? Hmm.

  Jeremy looked confused when Jay stepped in on him in the middle of his last intake for the day and asked, “Do you have an extra tuxedo I could borrow?”

  “I’m a little busy, Jay.” He had to finish up with this patient, then change, pick up Caryn, and get to the much-dreaded gathering at his parents’ house.

  “So am I,” J
ay retorted. “And I need formal wear, quickly.” He wanted to get there before midnight so he would be able to get a sense of how things were going and where he was, and then get out before the Devil’s Hour. He couldn’t afford to lose any more blood.

  Jeremy apologized to his patient and pulled out his wallet. He handed Jay a business card and said, “This is where we’re getting our tuxes for the wedding.”

  Good enough. “Do you need the card back?”

  “I have extras.”

  Great. Jay called as soon as he was back in the parking lot. Thankfully, Nikolas had forced him to be measured for the tux he had worn the first night at Kendra’s gala, so he was able to give the store the exact size he needed. They had a few styles available for rental that evening and offered to have them ready for him to try on and choose from when he arrived at the store.

  Wonderful service. No wonder Jeremy and Caryn were using them.

  Within an hour, he had a tuxedo and was ready to return to a fabulous Christmas party filled with psychotic vampire artists who might or might not want to eat him come midnight.

  The directions he had been given used landmarks instead of street names, and seemed to suggest going in circles. Nevertheless, Jay followed them to the letter, and once again traveled up the half-mile-long private driveway that led to Kendra’s manor. Each window held a real flickering candle, and the trees out front sparkled with silver-blue lights. The front yard was decorated with elaborately carved white marble reindeer in various poses of grazing and leaping.

  Before Jay passed through the entryway, he mentally reviewed his plan: walk in, get the lay of the land, establish clearly where he was, and write that information down. Meanwhile, he would try to find out why there was such a powerful spell on the area, and how great a range it covered. SingleEarth had some of the most powerful localized spells he knew of, but none of them approached the strength necessary to mess with his mind the way this one had.

  As expected, Kendra’s gala was still in full swing when he arrived shortly after ten. As much as he could without crashing his car, he had focused on his power and sense of magic along the way there, but he hadn’t sensed anything that would indicate crossing the boundary of a spell.

  Perhaps the spell itself wasn’t around the town or the houses but around the woods? It might have bled out a bit to protect the houses closest to it.

  If the spell didn’t protect the vampires’ dwelling areas specifically, then it might protect something hidden in that forest. He could check that out after he did some reconnaissance.

  “Oh, you’re back!” Brina exclaimed as soon as she saw him.

  If he hadn’t recognized the jewel tone of her mind, Jay never would have guessed that this was the same woman who had madly destroyed a series of paintings with her bare hands and nails an evening prior.

  Dressed in an emerald-green gown with a plunging neckline and layers of soft skirts, Brina was resplendent. Her black hair shone, highlights reflecting all the colors around her, like a raven’s feathers. It had been styled into an elaborate cascade of ringlets, pinned half up with mother-of-pearl combs and otherwise falling around her face and teasingly brushing the bare cream-colored skin of her shoulders.

  Jay’s mouth went dry, and for a moment every word and thought went out of his head.

  She smiled and held out a hand gloved in white lace. He took it and kissed the back.

  Her smile felt good, like sunshine.

  He tried to remind himself that this woman was nuts, but part of that madness was a beautiful purity of thought. When she smiled, she emitted perfect joy. There was still sorrow like a quiet, deep pool in her mind, but she was determined to rise above it.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her forever, protect her and cherish her and sculpt her and … These were not entirely his thoughts.

  He didn’t fight them, though. He had enough self-preservation not to sell himself into slavery or let her damage him, so he might as well enjoy her presence.

  “I wish I knew how to dance,” he said aloud. “If I did, I would ask you to join me.”

  “Sweetheart,” she purred in response.

  Don’t forget why you’re here, he reminded himself.

  He debated broaching the subject of the shapeshifter with her, but something warned him off. Brina obviously didn’t like focusing on anyone besides Brina.

  He still wanted to dance with her.

  “Brina, exactly the lady I was looking for.”

  The voice that cut between them was connected to a mind that instantly made Jay’s proverbial hackles rise. There was something dark and calculating about it.

  “Oh … you came,” Brina answered, turning with a strong dash of irritation and a feigned smile.

  The new vampire wasn’t an artist, but there was something artistic about his spiderweb of a mind. Where Brina’s mind put out waves of color and emotion, this one’s mind was tightly woven, designed to be studied and approached, until Jay feared he would find himself ensnared.

  Despite the distaste reverberating in her mind, Brina greeted the newcomer warmly, stepping forward to put herself into his embrace. He kissed her cheeks before moving back. “I have your portrait,” she said. “It’s in the gallery now. I do hope you don’t need it until after the holiday is over? It’s—one of my best works this year, and I would hate to take it off display so soon.”

  The other vampire heard as well as Jay did the telltale hitch in her voice as she described one of her “best works,” but neither man challenged Brina on the untruth. Her best works had been destroyed by her own hands.

  “Far be it from me to deprive you of such a joy,” the other vampire replied.

  Liar! Jay wanted to shout.

  He drew back mentally and tried to put a face to the mind.

  The vampire was dressed in a modern tuxedo. The shirt was a cream color that sat better against his burnt-sienna skin than classic white would have. His hair was long and dark, though it had been tied back out of the way.

  He looked at Jay, his mind clinically analyzing him in a way that was cool, cautious, and utterly unconcerned as he noticed the aura of a witch and the smell of a recently oiled blade in a leather sheath, and instantly deduced, Hunter.

  “And who is your companion?” the vampire asked Brina.

  “Oh,” Brina said. “This … Hmm, I’m not sure. But he’s pretty, isn’t he?”

  “My lovely lady, it looks like you have a companion better suited to dancing than I am, so I will leave you to that,” Jay half rambled, trying to take his leave of Brina gracefully, without attracting the further interest of this predator. Jay hadn’t studied all the collected sketches and photographs of known vampires as much as some of his kin had, but he was pretty sure he was looking at one of Midnight’s infamous trainers.

  He knows what I am, Jay thought, forcing back the itch to try for a kill he knew was impossible. He’s prepared. Even if he were alone, it would be a long shot. Many had tried, but in Midnight’s entire history, there was no record of a hunter ever getting a knife into one of the trainers.

  “Don’t go!” Brina cried like a child at a tea party, grabbing Jay’s wrist before he could take more than a step. Her sudden intensity was unsettling, and brought to mind Xeke’s warning that this was not a woman who distinguished what or whom she did or didn’t have a right to possess.

  Jay gently but firmly extracted his wrist. “My apologies, Lady Brina, but I need to tear myself away from your company for a moment.”

  “Jay.” Arms wrapped around him from behind as a familiar mind and body snuggled against him. “Dear Brina, you don’t mind if I steal Jay for a while, do you?” Xeke crooned. “I’m sure he’ll have time for you later, but you know how boys are.”

  Brina bit her lower lip, then said, “If you insist.”

  Xeke looked at the trainer and nodded a cool greeting.

  Something passed between the two men, something Jay almost wanted to analyze further, before he realized t
hat Xeke felt he was protecting Jay from a double threat.

  “Jay here is one of Kendra’s guests,” he said to the new vampire. “He was invited, with the full knowledge of his pedigree, and has behaved himself perfectly well. And now we’re leaving.”

  With an arm firmly around Jay’s waist, Xeke led him away, thinking furiously, What kind of idiot are you, witch? Do you want to be her lapdog?

  “She can’t—”

  “Witches are freeblood,” Xeke hissed, “as long as they violate none of Midnight’s rules. Hunters are an entirely different matter, especially once they put themselves in our territory. You were invited here and weren’t shy about what you were, so you’re marginally safe, but if Jaguar had decided you were a threat to Brina, he could have handed you over to her in a heartbeat, and not a person in this house would have objected.”

  Why does he have so much power in Kendra’s home? Jay wondered, just before Xeke swatted him upside the head, in a semi-playful yet very serious fashion that distracted him from pursuing the thought.

  “What are you doing back here?” Xeke asked.

  “Why shouldn’t I be here?”

  Xeke gave a long-suffering sigh before saying, “I don’t think you came back to see me, and I hope you didn’t come back to see Brina, which means you put in a great deal of effort to find a place that you’re not supposed to find.”

  “Who is the woman from the woods?” Jay asked.

  Xeke turned around and, in one smooth movement, slammed Jay up against the wall hard enough to knock his breath out, effectively distracting him from hearing Xeke’s first-thought response.

  “I don’t know,” Xeke answered honestly while Jay’s eyes were still wide with surprise, “and I don’t want to know. And you shouldn’t want to know. If she’s unconscious, maybe she’s better off that way. If she wakes up and she wants you to know who she is, she’ll tell you. So drop it, okay?”

  “And if I won’t?” Jay asked.

  “Then I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Xeke said, words clear and precise, “and remind you that a hunter who trespasses on our land violates his freeblood privilege. I don’t think you’re crazy enough to risk that.”