Jessamine—back at the desk and mostly silent—laughed with me.
“It wasn’t confusing the way it probably should have been,” Archie said when I asked him what his first visions were like. “It seemed normal—I knew what I was seeing hadn’t happened. I think maybe I’d seen things before I was changed. Or maybe I just adapt quickly.” He smiled, already knowing the question I had waiting. “It was Jess. She was the first thing I saw.” And then, “No, I didn’t actually meet her in person until much later.”
Something about his tone made me wonder. “How long?”
“Twenty-eight years.”
“Twenty-eight…? You had to wait twenty-eight years? But couldn’t you…?”
He nodded. “I could have found her earlier. I knew where she was. But she wasn’t ready for me yet. If I’d come too early, she would have killed me.”
I gasped and stared at her. She raised an eyebrow at me, and I looked back at Archie. He laughed.
“But Edythe said you were the only one who could hold your own against her—?”
Jessamine hissed—not like she was mad, like she was annoyed. I glanced at her again and she was rolling her eyes.
“We’ll never know,” Archie said. “If Jess was really trying to kill Edythe, rather than just playing…? Well, Jess has a lot of experience. Seeing the future isn’t the only reason why I can keep up with Edythe—it’s also because it was Jess who taught me how to fight. Lauren’s coven all had their eyes on Eleanor—she’s pretty spectacular, I grant you. But if it had come to a fight, Eleanor wouldn’t have been their problem. If they’d taken a closer look at my darling”—he blew her a kiss—“they would have forgotten all about the strong girl.”
I remembered the first time I’d seen Jessamine, in the cafeteria with her family. Beautiful, like the others, but with that edge. Even before I’d put it into words inside my own head, I’d sensed there was something about her that matched up with what Archie was telling me now.
I looked at Archie.
“You can ask her,” he said. “But it’s not going to happen.”
“He wants to know my story?” Jessamine guessed. She laughed once—it was a dark sound. “You’re not ready for that, Beau. Believe me.”
And though I was still curious, I did believe her.
“You said humans were harder… but you seem to see me pretty well,” I noted.
“I’m paying attention, and you’re right here,” Archie said. “Also, the two-second head starts are simpler than the weather. It’s the long term that won’t hold still. Even an hour complicates things.”
Archie kept me updated on what was happening with the others—which was mostly nothing. Joss was good at running away. There were tricks, Archie told me. Scents couldn’t be tracked through water, for example. Joss seemed to know the tricks. A half dozen times the trail took them back toward Forks, only to race off in the other direction again. Twice Archie called Carine to give her instructions. Once it was something about the direction in which Joss had jumped off a cliff, the other time it was where they would find her scent on the other side of a river. From the way he described it, he wasn’t seeing the hunter, he was seeing Edythe and Carine. I guessed he would see his family the most clearly. I wanted to ask for the phone, but I knew there wasn’t time for me to hear Edythe’s voice. They were hunting.
I also knew I was supposed to be rooting for Edythe and the others to succeed, but I could only feel relieved as the distance between her and Joss got larger, despite Archie’s help. If it meant I would be stuck here in this hotel room forever, I wouldn’t complain. Whatever kept her safe.
There was one question that I wanted to ask more than the others, but I hesitated. I think if Jessamine hadn’t been there, I might have done it sooner. I didn’t feel the same ease in her presence that I did now with Archie. Which was probably only because she wasn’t trying to make me feel that way.
When I was eating—dinner? Maybe, I couldn’t remember which meal I was on—I was thinking about different ways to ask. And then I caught a look on Archie’s face and I knew that he already knew what I was trying to ask, and unlike my dozens of other questions, he was choosing not to answer this one.
My eyes narrowed.
“Was this on Edythe’s lists of instructions?” I asked sourly.
I thought I heard a very faint sigh from Jessamine’s corner. It was probably annoying listening to half a conversation. But she should be used to that. I’d bet Edythe and Archie never had to speak out loud at all when they talked to each other.
“It was implied,” Archie answered.
I thought about their fight in the Jeep. Was this what it was about?
“I don’t suppose our future friendship is enough to shift your loyalties?”
He frowned. “Edythe is my sister.”
“Even if you disagree with her on this?”
We stared at each other for a minute.
“That’s what you saw,” I realized. I felt my eyes get bigger. “And then she got so upset. You already saw it, didn’t you?”
“It was only one future among many. I also saw you die,” he reminded me.
“But you saw it. It’s a possibility.”
He shrugged.
“Don’t you think I deserve to know, then? Even if there’s only the slightest chance?”
He stared at me, deliberating.
“You do,” he finally said. “You have the right to know.”
I waited.
“You don’t know fury like Edythe when she’s thwarted,” he warned me.
“It’s none of her business. This is between you and me. As your friend, I’m begging you.”
He paused, then made his choice. “I can tell you the mechanics of it, but I don’t remember it myself, and I’ve never done it or seen it done, so keep in mind that I can only tell you the theory.”
“How does someone become a vampire?”
“Oh, is that all?” Jessamine muttered behind me. I’d forgotten she was listening.
I waited.
“As predators,” Archie began, “we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal—much, much more than we need for hunting easy prey like humans. Strength, speed, acute senses, not to mention those of us like Edythe, Jessamine, and me who have extra senses as well. And then, like a carnivorous flower, we are physically attractive to our prey.”
I was seeing it all in my head again—how Edythe had illustrated the same concept for me in the meadow.
He smiled wide—his teeth glistened. “We have one more, fairly superfluous weapon. We’re also venomous. The venom doesn’t kill—it’s merely incapacitating. It works slowly, spreading through the bloodstream, so that, once bitten, our prey is in too much physical pain to escape us. Mostly superfluous, as I said. If we’re that close, our prey doesn’t escape. Of course, unless we want it to.”
“Carine,” I said quietly. The holes in the story Edythe had told me were filling themselves in. “So… if the venom is left to spread…?”
“It takes a few days for the transformation to be complete, depending on how much venom is in the bloodstream, how close the venom enters to the heart—Carine’s creator bit her on the hand on purpose to make it worse. As long as the heart keeps beating, the poison spreads, healing, changing the body as it moves through it. Eventually the heart stops, and the conversion is finished. But all that time, every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death—screaming for it.”
I shuddered.
“It’s not pleasant, no.”
“Edythe said it was very hard to do… but that sounds simple enough.”
“We’re also like sharks in a way. Once we taste blood, or even smell it for that matter, it becomes very hard to keep from feeding. Impossible, even. So you see, to actually bite someone, to taste the blood, it would begin the frenzy. It’s difficult on both sides—the bloodlust on the one hand, the awful pain on the other.”
“It sounds like something you would remember,
” I said.
“For everyone else, the pain of transformation is the sharpest memory they have of their human life. I don’t know why I’m different.”
Archie stared past me, motionless. I wondered what it would be like, not to know who you were. To look in the mirror and not recognize the person looking back.
It was hard for me to believe that Archie could have been a criminal, though; there was something intrinsically good about his face. Royal was the showy one, the one the girls at school stared at, but there was something better than perfection about Archie’s face. It was totally pure.
“There are positives to being different,” Archie said suddenly. “I don’t remember anyone I left behind. I got to skip that pain, too.” He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed a little bit. “Carine, Edythe, and Earnest all lost everyone who mattered to them before they left being human behind. So there was grief, but not regret. It was different for the others. The phys-ical pain is a quick thing, comparatively, Beau. There are slower ways to suffer.…”
“Royal had parents who loved him and depended on him—two little sisters he adored. He could never see them again after he was changed. And then he outlived them all. That kind of pain is very, very slow.”
I wondered if he was trying to make me feel bad for Royal—to cut the guy some slack even if he hated me. Well… it was working.
He shook his head, like he knew I wasn’t getting it.
“That’s part of the process, Beau. I haven’t experienced it. I can’t tell you what it feels like. But it’s a part of the process.”
And then I understood what he was telling me.
He was perfectly still again. I put my arm behind my head and stared up at the ceiling.
If… if ever, someday, Edythe wanted me that way… what would that mean for Mom? What would that mean for Charlie?
There were so many things to think about. Things I didn’t even know I didn’t know to think about.
But some things seemed obvious. For whatever reason, Edythe didn’t want me thinking about any of this. Why? It hurt my stomach when I tried to come up with an answer to that question.
Then Archie sprang to his feet.
I looked up at him, startled by the sudden movement, then alarmed again when I saw his face.
It was totally blank—empty, his mouth half open.
Then Jessamine was there, gently pushing him back into the chair.
“What do you see?” she asked in a low, soothing voice.
“Something’s changed,” Archie said, even more quietly.
I leaned closer.
“What is it?”
“A room. It’s long—there are mirrors everywhere. The floor is wood. The tracker is in the room, and she’s waiting. There’s a gold stripe across the mirrors.”
“Where is the room?”
“I don’t know. Something is missing—another decision hasn’t been made yet.”
“How much time?”
“It’s soon. She’ll be in the mirror room today, or maybe tomorrow. It all depends. She’s waiting for something.” His face went blank again. “And she’s in the dark now.”
Jessamine’s voice was calm, methodical. “What is she doing?”
“She’s watching TV… no, she’s running a VCR, in the dark, in another place.”
“Can you see where she is?”
“No, the space is too dark.”
“And the mirror room, what else is there?”
“Just the mirrors, and the gold. It’s a band, around the room. And there’s a black table with a big stereo, and a TV. She’s touching the VCR there, but she doesn’t watch the way she does in the dark room. This is the room where she waits.” His eyes drifted, then focused on Jessamine’s face.
“There’s nothing else?”
He shook his head. They looked at each other, motionless.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
Neither of them answered for a moment, then Jessamine looked at me.
“It means the tracker’s plans have changed. She’s made a decision that will lead her to the mirror room, and the dark room.”
“But we don’t know where those rooms are?”
“No.”
“But we do know that she won’t be in the mountains north of Washington, being hunted. She’ll elude them.” Archie’s voice was bleak.
He picked up the phone just as it vibrated.
“Carine,” he said. And then he glanced at me. “Yes.” He listened for another long moment, then said, “I just saw her.” He described the vision like he had for Jessamine. “Whatever made her take that plane… it was leading her to those rooms.” He paused. “Yes.”
He held out the phone to me. “Beau?”
I yanked it out of his hand. “Hello?”
“Beau,” Edythe breathed.
“Oh, Edythe,” I said. “Where are you?”
“Outside of Vancouver. I’m sorry, Beau—we lost her. She seems suspicious of us—she stays just far enough away that I can’t hear her. She’s gone now—looks like she stole a small plane. We think she’s heading back to Forks to start over.”
I could hear Archie filling Jessamine in behind me.
“I know. Archie saw that she got away.”
“You don’t have to worry, though. You’ve left no trail for her to follow. You just have to stay with Archie and wait till we find her again. Archie will get a bead on her soon enough.”
“I’ll be fine. Is Earnest with Charlie?”
“Yes—the male’s been in town. He went to the house, but while Charlie was at work. He hasn’t gone near your father. Don’t worry—Charlie’s safe with Earnest and Royal watching.”
Somehow, Royal’s presence didn’t comfort me much.
“What do you think Victor is doing?”
“Trying to pick up the trail. He’s been all through the area during the night. Royal traced him up to the airport in Port Angeles, all the roads around town, the school… he’s digging, Beau, but there’s nothing to find.”
“And you’re sure Charlie’s safe?”
“Yes. Earnest won’t let him out of his sight. I’ll be there soon. If the tracker gets anywhere near Forks, I’ll have her.”
I swallowed. “Be careful. Stay with Carine and Eleanor.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I miss you,” I said.
“I know, believe me, I know. It’s like you’ve taken half of my self away with you.”
“Come and get it, then.”
“As soon as I possibly can. I will make this right first.” Her voice got hard.
“I love you.”
“Could you believe that, despite everything I’ve put you through, I love you, too?”
“Yes, I can.”
“I’ll come for you soon.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
The phone went dead, and a sudden wave of depression crashed over me. Jessamine looked up sharply, and the feeling dissipated.
Jessamine went back to watching Archie. He was on the couch, leaning over the table with the free hotel pen in his hand. I walked over to see what he was doing.
He was sketching on a piece of hotel stationery. I leaned on the back of the couch, looking over his shoulder.
He drew a room: long, rectangular, with a thinner, square section at the back. He drew lines to show how the wooden planks that made up the floor stretched lengthwise across the room. Down the walls were more lines denoting the breaks in the mirrors. I hadn’t been picturing them like that—covering the whole wall that way. And then, wrapping around the walls, waist high, a long band. The band Archie said was gold.
“It’s a ballet studio,” I said, suddenly recognizing the familiar shapes.
They both looked up at me, surprised.
“Do you know this room?” Jessamine’s voice sounded calm, but there was an undercurrent to it. Archie leaned closer to the paper, his hand flying across the page now. An emergency exit took shape against the ba
ck wall just where I knew it would be; the stereo and TV filled in the right corner foreground.
“It looks like a place where my mom used to teach dance lessons—she didn’t stick with it for very long. It was shaped just the same.” I touched the page where the square section jutted out, narrowing the back part of the room. “That’s where the bathrooms were—the doors were through the other dance floor. But the stereo was here”—I pointed to the left corner—“it was older, and there wasn’t a TV. There was a window in the waiting room—you could see the room from this perspective if you looked through it.”
Archie and Jessamine were staring at me.
“Are you sure it’s the same room?” Jessamine asked with the same unnatural calm.
“No, not at all. I mean, most dance studios would look the same—the mirrors, the bar.” I leaned over the couch and traced my finger along the ballet bar set against the mirrors. “It’s just the shape that looked familiar.”
“Would you have any reason to go there now?” Archie asked.
“No. I haven’t been back since my mom quit—it’s probably been ten years.”
“So there’s no way it could be connected with you?” Archie asked intently.
I shook my head. “I don’t even think the same person owns it. I’m sure it’s just another dance studio, somewhere else.”
“Where was the studio your mother went to?” Jessamine asked, her voice much more casual than Archie’s.
“Just around the corner from our house. It’s why she took the job—so I could meet her there when I walked home from school.…” My voice trailed off as I watched the look they exchanged.
“Here in Phoenix, then?” she asked, still casual.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Fifty-eighth and Cactus.”
We all stared in silence at the drawing.
“Archie, is that phone safe?” I asked.
“The number just traces back to Washington,” he told me.
“Then I can use it to call my mom.”
“She’s in Florida, right? She should be safe there.”
“She is—but she’s coming home soon, and she can’t come back to that house while…” A tremor ran through my voice. I was thinking about Victor searching Charlie’s house, the school in Forks where my records were.
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