Blood Memories vm-1

by Barb Hendee

  "If I had come to kill you, you would be dead," he said in a voice that sounded more sad than angry. Sorrow was no mystery to me, at least not anymore.

  Moving to the floor by his knee, I focused on his black Hugo Boss pant legs and not his face.

  Don't look at his face.

  "Odd little thing," he said. "More than I expected."

  "Do you remember the first night I saw you?"

  "No, have you seen me?"

  My words pleased him. He might have had some depth hidden away, but he thrived on attention.

  "Yes, at Cliffbracken. You came in with Julian and Maggie late one night, but that was a long time ago."

  "A long time ago," he echoed. "What happened to my Maggie?"

  "How much do you know? She said she called you once."

  "Only that Edward Claymore destroyed himself and mortal men chased you to Seattle."

  Part of me wanted to say anything that would make him leave. I wanted him to go away. Wade slept helpless in the next room, and I knew no way to protect him. But another part of me understood Philip's confusion, his pain. Maggie had been a deadly work of art, and she'd barely outlasted two lifetimes. She should have gone far into the future. And now it was as though she'd never been.

  "A policeman killed her," I said quietly, "named Dominick Vasundara."

  Starting with the first night at Edward's, I gave him my version of the past six weeks, letting him know the kind of hunter Maggie truly had been, so competent and skilled-and still graceful. No matter how sick it sounds, that was my comfort for his loss. Perhaps that's another gift I'd developed, instinctive recognition of what others needed to hear. I left out Wade's psychic ability, though, and played up Dominick's psychometry.

  "You cared for her?" he asked.

  "She was good to me… and to William."

  "I was close to the house when he died."

  His words startled me, leaving no response. For the first time since watching him step away from the curtain, I looked into his eyes. Reckless or not, it felt like the right thing to do. He was searching for words, like a computer accessing memory banks for a correct response and finding none. No residual trace of humanity remained in Philip.

  "It's all right," I told him. "You don't need to say anything."

  "Julian would think us mad, no? Like two old ladies sad for things past."

  I didn't know how to answer that, so I just sat there, looking at him.

  "Maggie's voice changed the last time she telephoned," he said abruptly. "You gave her something I could not."

  "What?"

  "You tell me."

  "Maybe she was just tired of being alone."

  "Our kind lives alone, hunts alone. It's the way."

  If he really believed that, he was as cracked as Julian. But Philip's expression reminded me of faces I hadn't seen since going to church as a child. Religion? Did we have a religion? If so, Edward certainly hadn't mentioned it.

  "Why are we supposed to be alone?" I asked.

  "Your maker once said we are the despised of God's children. We live in darkness and deserve no comfort."

  "That's ridiculous. We used to be mortal ourselves. If that's true, where did the first vampires come from?"

  "Spirits. Before the world was made, a mass of black clouds existed in its place. When God made the world, spirits rebelled and entered the bodies of dead mortals."

  What? Did Julian believe any of this? Maybe Edward had been some sort of heathen or atheist, because he had never talked like this-not that I was buying into it either. But does it make any less sense than other religions? Does it sound any less plausible than four billion years of evolution being condensed into six days?

  "So why did you make Maggie? Didn't you want her to stay with you?" I pitched my tone to suggest deference, childlike innocence. Challenging him would have been a mistake.

  The question threw him anyway. "A crime… but letting her beauty fade seemed a sin. Not before, not since, has anyone matched my Maggie." He smiled weakly. "Julian would think us mad."

  That was it. Possibly not even in life had Philip experienced true loss, mourning. Emotion confused him, and this kind of pain was new.

  "Why did you come here, Philip?"

  "For you. I came for you."

  The ambiguity of his answer brought fear rushing back. I rolled over and up, gauging the distance to Wade's door.

  "Worried about your pet?"

  "He's not a pet."

  "You should silence him, little one. He knows what you are, doesn't he?"

  I wanted to smash his face with a brass lamp, but I'd lose, and Wade would die. "No, please. He doesn't know much-just some guy I seduced for help. Don't hurt him."

  That was a bad play, and Philip knew it. Vampires don't worry about each other, much less about one insignificant mortal.

  "You are a curious thing," he said. "But when Julian comes, your pet will die anyway. Come with me, and he might live."

  "Why would you want that?"

  "Maggie helped you. Edward helped you. At the beginning, they were on the brink of despair. Oh, don't look so shocked. I know more of Edward than you think. He'd have jumped off a porch a hundred years sooner were it not for you." His handsome face grew intense. "What did you give them?" he demanded.

  "Nothing."

  "Come, tell me. I am more than Edward was."

  Bastard. He was taking me whether I wanted to go or not. Defeat ebbed my power, faded my gift, brought anger to the surface. "You're nothing compared to Edward. Would you take in an orphan and a half-mad undead? Bathe them? Feed them from your arm? Don't compare yourself to him."

  I might as well have slapped him. Perhaps no one ever spoke to him like that. He took a step toward me and stopped. "Odd thing. Cold without your gift."

  "As you."

  Gazing down, his eyes reminded me of Maggie's again. Did he have any of her fire for living? For hunting? Compassion for old cripples like William? Or was he empty?

  And then it occurred to me that everyone else was really gone-except Julian, who didn't count. If I wanted companionship from my own kind, Philip was the last boy in town. Sorry thought.

  "Come with me," he said. "Your little friend will live."

  Wade deserved to live, more than the rest of us. But what would he think upon waking? That I'd deserted him? It didn't matter. Maybe he'd go back home and be safe.

  Stopping only to pick up Maggie's wool coat, I got up and followed Philip.

  Chapter 19

  Do you have a car?" I asked as we stepped outside the hotel.

  Instead of answering, he looked up and down the street, then walked to an early-eighties, dirty-blue Camaro and climbed in the driver's side.

  He couldn't possibly have rented this. What a piece of junk. Hardly his style.

  "You should lock your doors down here anyway," I said. "Somebody too drunk to see might steal it."

  His answering laugh made me nervous. The interior looked even worse. Marlboro boxes, Hershey bar wrappers, and Big Gulp cups covered the backseat and floor. As I slammed my door, Philip reached up with both hands and jerked the steering column five inches out of the dash, exposing red, black, and green wires.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Rewiring the ignition," he answered casually, as if we were talking about fall fashions.

  Later I felt ashamed of my own reaction. "You can't do that. It's illegal."

  Laughing again as the engine roared, he squealed the tires while pulling into traffic. "You are too tame. Or is this your gift again, eh?"

  "Philip, stop the car. If the police catch you, they'll lock you in a cell."

  Doing seventy-five as we hit the southbound on-ramp for Seattle, he glanced at me warily. "What are police to us? They are too slow to catch us. Bullets don't hurt us."

  "So what do you do when you get pulled over?"

  "I don't pull over unless I'm hungry."

  He started weaving through traffic, the needle peaking ninety. Steerin
g with one hand, he fished around on the dashboard, found a crusty Black Sabbath tape, and slammed it in. Ozzy's voice screamed out two rear-window speakers. Whoever owned this car really needed to be told what year it was. I hadn't seen a cassette player in years.

  "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Seattle Center. This city is new to me, but Maggie said hunting in the center was good."

  "You want to hunt now?"

  "Don't you? We just woke up." His accent seemed to be getting worse instead of better, making me wish I spoke French.

  "No, I fed last night."

  "So don't feed." He shrugged. "Just hunt."

  Maybe Maggie had been right about me. Maybe I hadn't seen enough in my one hundred and eighty-six years. "You just want to kill someone?"

  He took his eyes completely off the road and stared at me. "Is this for real or are you playing? What do you do all night if not hunt?"

  "Take care of William, read books, settle the bank accounts, talk to my investment broker. I don't know, just things."

  "No?" Amused, almost pleased, he pushed the needle up higher. "William is gone. You are immortal, with no need for books and investment brokers."

  That's the first time the word «immortal» sounded absurd to me. Webster's unabridged defines it as "not mortal; deathless; living forever." I know. I looked it up once. What a crock. We may not get any older, but the body count hit three last night. Sounded pretty mortal to me. Maybe Philip wasn't keeping score.

  Watching him drive-his long hair flying out the window, his head bobbing to the music, his face sporting an adolescent grin-made me try to see beyond his gift. What was he besides beautiful and careless? His black Hugo Boss pants and Calvin Klein shirt suggested his taste was not only good, but up-to-date. Edward always bought Savile Row and Christian Dior, which worked on him but was sort of "older crowd"-sort of.

  Philip also cared what Julian thought. Why? Why would Julian's opinion matter?

  "Turn down the Mercer/Fairview exit," I said.

  Downtown Seattle is a mass of one-way streets, confusing signs, and heavy traffic, but my too-happy companion drove as if he were on a backwoods dirt road.

  "Where'd you learn to drive?"

  "Paris," he answered. That figured. He found a pay-by-the-hour parking lot near the Space Needle and jumped out. "We ditch this car now."

  "Whatever you say." Instinct screamed that it was time to ditch golden boy. But I didn't. Maybe he was the only true vampire among us-cold and fast and wild. Maybe Edward and I struggled too hard to hoard little bits of humanity and somehow never quite fit into either world. Philip didn't feed just on blood. He seemed to feed off the world, draining life and power and material wealth from anything unlucky enough to cross his path. And he did it without thought or remorse or pity-a purist in the true sense. Fascinating. Frightening.

  "Look, a roller coaster," he said, smiling. Canned carnival music and bright lights flooded the scene. He bolted toward the bumper cars, and then stopped, looking back for me. "You like rides?"

  "No… I don't know."

  He jumped the few steps back to me, looking confused, as if he wanted to grab my arm but didn't know how. Again, his expression reminded me of a computer accessing data it couldn't find. Perhaps he'd forgotten how to touch someone he wasn't murdering.

  "Come, Eleisha. Come on."

  "How long has it been since you've hunted with someone else?"

  His eyebrows knitted. "What year is it?"

  What year? How could he be so up on fashion and not even know the year? "Don't you read the newspaper?"

  That annoyed him. "Newspaper? For sheep and puppets. You start to believe your own gift."

  "And you don't?"

  The night lights and black corners pulled at him. I could see it in his eyes, and in spite of myself, it called to me as well.

  "Too much talk," he said. "Come."

  Changing his mind abruptly, he steered away from the carnival and headed down toward the fountain. I followed about a half step behind him, watching a wide variety of people pass us. Philip ignored all of them like an overfed cat turned loose in a science lab. We reached the huge round fountain in Seattle Center's heart. Four teenage kids sat on the lawn, smoking and talking. Philip headed straight for them.

  A tall boy, about sixteen with a shaved head and two pewter skulls hanging in the same ear, took a long drag and noticed us. Apparently he didn't want extra company, because his lips tightened angrily at our approach, and then Philip smiled. All four of them smiled back. Too weird.

  "Bum a smoke?" my partner asked, pointing to the cigarette.

  "Here." Pewter Skulls held out the pack. "Where're you from?"

  "France, but I like your city."

  Philip's communication skills with the kid actually surprised me. I don't know what I expected. But the sight of him sitting on the grass smoking and making small talk didn't fit my mental image. Pewter Skulls introduced himself as Culker. The rest of the group included a boy named Scott with a green mohawk, a blond girl named Becky with small eyes and a blue leather miniskirt, and an African American girl named Jet in a pink, tie-dyed dress under a loose jean jacket. They were all about the same age. I thought the mohawk was passe. Becky seemed to have about four working brain cells, but Jet's face caught my attention, clean and straightforward. Part of me actually wanted to talk to her, but that wasn't my place here, not my gift. Philip had them eating from his hand.

  He leaned back on his elbows. A mass of silky red-brown hair hung to the ground.

  "Who's that with you?" Culker finally asked him.

  I'd been sitting quietly behind Philip, hiding in his overwhelming shadow. A safe place, almost pleasant.

  "Eleisha, say hello to our new friends."

  I fell into my routine and focused on the ground. "Hi."

  Scott turned to Philip. "Hey, if we give you the money, will you buy us some beer?"

  "Where did you plan to drink it?"

  "At Becky's. Her folks are gone. You want to come?"

  This was too easy. Although if we trotted down to the nearest 7-Eleven, picked up a case of cheap beer, and then headed to Becky's, how would Philip manage to get someone off alone?

  As we fell into step toward a store, I noticed Jet walking beside me and gave her an honest smile.

  "How old are you?" she asked.

  "Seventeen."

  "How old is he?"

  "Twenty-nine."

  She wasn't dumb. Due to our unnatural skin tone, our ages are often difficult to place. But Jet's questions struck a little deeper. Why would an incredibly beautiful, well-dressed, adult Frenchman want to hang with them when he had a pretty, seventeen-year-old girlfriend for company? It didn't make sense.

  "You going out with Culker?" I asked to change the subject.

  "Culker? No way. These guys are just my friends. I like your coat."

  "Oh, thanks… Did you dye that dress yourself?"

  "Yeah." She seemed pleased. "I do all kinds of stuff. Sell clothes at the Folklife Festival."

  "What's that?"

  "You don't know 'bout the festival? Where're you from?"

  I smiled. "Portland."

  She smiled back, and we talked all the way to a run-down mini-mart. Philip glanced back at me once. He went inside and came out with a case of Henry Weinhard's Ale that must have cost twice what Culker gave him. Didn't this situation seem unusual to any of them?

  "Awesome," Scott said. "My car's two blocks south."

  Becky kept moving closer to Philip. I'm sure he noticed.

  We all piled into a rusted Buick Skylark with cigarette butts falling out of its ashtray. We ended up driving to Capitol Hill, but Scott spent twenty minutes trying to find a place to park.

  Piles of dirt and garbage had been plowed to the sides of the road. One decrepit apartment building melted right into the next one. Every available parking space seemed filled with a dented Volkswagen Golf. Babies cried through open windows, and some guy down the block kept
yelling, "You bitch!" over and over again.

  I wanted to go home, but we didn't have one.

  Scott finally managed to squeeze the Skylark between two cars, and everybody climbed out. I'd figured out by then that Becky's parents didn't live in a house.

  "We can't be too loud," she said. "The guys below us are crack dealers. One of them gets mad easy."

  Charming.

  Something about her apartment's interior touched more sorrow than its outside. Small arrangements of dried flowers sat on paint-splattered tables. An old mattress was covered by a hand-stitched quilt. Cheap lace curtains blew out from chipped windowpanes. Someone cared about this place enough to try to make it a home.

  Culker broke open a Henry's. "We should've bought some chips or M amp;M's."

  "Order a pizza," Philip said. "Isn't that what you Americans do?"

  "Can't, I'm almost broke."

  "I'll pay."

  Could they possibly be this blind? Jet sat alone. What was she thinking? It's funny how Wade had given me a different perspective of mortals. On impulse, I reached out and touched her mind-as I would have with Wade-not expecting to get through. Psychic pictures come to us only when feeding or when another vampire dies. But to my surprise, her immediate thoughts flowed into me as though she were speaking.

  Philip was the most perfect thing she'd ever seen, and she usually didn't go for white guys. But what was he into? Why was he here? If he was looking for some kind of threesome, he'd pick Becky. That was obvious. Not that Jet cared. Her baby boy was with a sitter, and she ought to get back soon, anyway. His ears were bothering him, and she'd need to take him to the doctor tomorrow.

  I pulled out, reeling internally. How long had that taken? Had she felt me? Only seconds seemed to have passed, and she continued watching Philip with the same cautious curiosity. She had a little boy? I wanted to know more but didn't know how to deal with the moment's revelation.

  Was I more like Wade than I realized?

  Philip caught my attention suddenly by sitting down next to Becky and touching her bare thigh. I hadn't seen him touch anyone yet, and the movement of his hand was slow, light, gentle. That's why he hadn't grabbed my hand in the carnival. Touching was only for victims.