Hunting Memories vm-2

by Barb Hendee

  "I'm so sorry…," Eleisha choked out. "Robert, I'm so sorry."

  He crawled toward her, wanting to get his sword and take her head.

  "If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it!" he spat.

  "Jessenia," she whispered, her eyes still lost. "I'm so sorry."

  He stopped.

  She covered her face with her hands. "Why did you show me all that? You said one memory."

  "Show you? You took it!"

  Then he wondered how. How could she make his life pass by to the degree of reliving it?

  "No, you went all the way back… Robert, you loved her so much. I wish you hadn't shown me…" She faltered and lowered her hands. "Angelo caused all this. Philip doesn't even know."

  Robert's rage began to fade. She was as distraught as him. Her blond hair covered part of her face, but he could still see her pained expression.

  "Oh, God… and Philip," she went on. "That's why you didn't know him at first."

  Crawling closer, Robert felt a strange release in talking of these things. He had never spoken about the past, but she knew it all anyway. Nothing would change that now.

  "At first, I didn't even recognize him in the park," he whispered.

  "But he looked more familiar when he walked into the kitchen with his hair a mess and his shirt off?"

  "Yes, and then I saw him again, and it all came back. I think he remembered, too."

  Her face was only a few inches from his, and he could see how rapidly her mind was working.

  "The laws," she said softly. Then she pushed herself to sit up. "None of us know anything. None of us were taught anything."

  "It's not your fault."

  Her voice was beginning to calm, and he still couldn't comprehend what she'd just done to him, but if she hadn't forced those memories, if she hadn't tried to invade his past, then she was taking in a great deal of unwanted information about a past that had spawned her existence.

  "Only the first one applies," she whispered.

  "What do you mean?"

  "That we don't kill to feed." She huddled against the bathroom door with her arms crossed. "I can see now… understand everything you've been saying since you found us. I swear, Robert, that I would help you teach those laws and live by them. But I won't ever make another vampire. Neither would Philip now, and Rose wouldn't even think it. Only the first law applies, and I've taught Philip how to hunt without killing." She paused. "I haven't talked to Rose about that, taught her anything. Have you?"

  "Yes, the first night I arrived."

  "Then we'll be okay, Robert… We will." Her face twisted in sorrow again. "I'm so sorry about Jessenia."

  Her sympathy was so raw. It didn't help. Nothing would help, but she mourned for his loss as if it happened yesterday.

  And yet she knew far too much about him. She even knew he'd killed the gardener to survive. He was not certain how he could come to terms with how much she knew.

  "That book on Angelo's table," she said. "Philip told me that Angelo taught him about you from a book, one that Angelo had written himself, called The Makers and Their Children."

  Robert tensed. "What?"

  "Yes, he told me that Angelo believed he and Julian should know about other vampires sharing their existence."

  A knock sounded on the other side of the inner door.

  "Eleisha," Philip called. "The sun will be coming up. Let me in."

  Philip had done exactly as Wade asked, and he left Eleisha to talk to Robert, but they'd been in the other cabin for a long time, and he didn't like it. He understood that Eleisha should be the one to tell Robert to stop ordering everyone around.

  He knew the others sometimes thought he was simple, but he understood.

  It's just that he'd expected a short conversation, and they'd been in there for hours. What could they possibly be saying all this time?

  Finally he knocked on the door.

  "Eleisha, the sun will be coming up. Let me in."

  Wade had already prepared the lower bunk for Rose, and he was in the process of pulling out the top bunk for himself.

  Eleisha slid the door open.

  She looked different. Paler than usual. Shaken.

  He didn't like this.

  He stepped forward into the cabin so she'd have to move back. "The sun is coming up," he repeated.

  "Okay," she answered. "We should get these bunks down." She sounded tired.

  "Philip," Robert said, "Eleisha told me Angelo was teaching you about the elders from a book he'd written."

  Philip glared at him. Is that what they'd been talking of? Hadn't Eleisha already been through enough tonight seeing Rose's throat cut and Wade having to feed her? Now Robert was bringing up ugly dust from a distant past that didn't matter anymore?

  "Why?" he asked, not bothering to keep the anger from his voice.

  "What was in it?" Robert asked. "Were there details?"

  Eleisha was looking at him, too, so Philip finally nodded. "Yes, places they lived, their makers, children, loves, hates, anything Angelo knew. But I didn't pay attention then. I was different."

  "Could Julian have taken that book?" Robert asked.

  "He could have taken anything. He cut off Angelo's head and told me to run. The house was empty."

  Eleisha looked down at the floor, and Philip had had enough of this.

  "None of that matters anymore," he said, folding the couch into a bunk. "We need to sleep."

  Whatever Robert was fishing for, he must have gotten it because he stopped asking questions. But something was still different-something between him and Eleisha. Philip could feel it.

  "Eleisha, I'll sleep on the floor," Robert said.

  There. It was in his voice. He spoke like he knew her. He'd never done that before.

  "No need," Philip answered shortly. He took his boots off and climbed into the lower bed, lying down, waiting to see what would happen. Eleisha knelt beside the bunk, looking so small and sad that he wanted to grab her, or maybe kick Robert in the face, or both.

  "Can I sleep with my back to your chest today?" she asked.

  And then everything was all right.

  He rolled and moved over so she could press her back up against him and he could hold her with his right arm.

  Robert watched this without a word. Then he pulled out the top bunk.

  Normally dormant the instant the sun came up, Robert lay awake longer than usual. Maybe Philip was right.

  Even if Angelo had a kept a book with details of places and habits and histories of all the vampires in existence nearly two hundred years ago, and Julian had used that book to find and destroy the ones like Demetrio and Cristina… did it matter anymore?

  Julian might even have used such a book to lie in wait at the villa for Jessenia, believing she would come to check on her friends. This thought made his chest hurt.

  But did it really matter now?

  Jessenia was gone, and decade upon decade had crawled past him.

  He was traveling in the company of vampires with either no training or a bizarre training from Wade that had given Eleisha abilities he'd never even heard of-and that she couldn't control. They were foreign to him, these vampires. A new breed.

  But Eleisha had given him a gift he'd never expected… a second life with Jessenia. He could still smell Jessenia's hair, feel her soft skin on the tips of his fingers, hear her laughter. His eyes drooped from exhaustion, but he feared going to sleep in case he could not still feel her when he woke up.

  With effort, he looked over the side of the bunk down at Eleisha, sleeping with her head pressed into the curve of Philip's throat below his chin.

  What am I doing here?

  But this small alien group stirred something inside him that he hadn't felt in a long time. He wanted to get them home safely.

  That meant some part of him must still be alive.

  Shortly after Eleisha woke up that night, everything seemed a little better.

  They'd left the door between the cab
ins open, and she looked inside the second cabin to find Rose and Wade already up. Rose's throat looked about the same, but Wade was moving around more easily and seemed to have some of his strength back.

  Eleisha moved in to join them while Robert and Philip were busy turning the lower bed in their cabin back into a couch and then securing the upper bunk into the wall.

  "Morning," Wade joked, and she smiled at him. He was still getting used to their upside-down world. But he hadn't seen her since sending her off to speak with Robert the night before. "Everything okay?" he asked.

  Everything was far from okay, but she knew what he meant. "I think so."

  Rose settled onto the couch again. She somehow looked smaller, and Eleisha realized she was wearing some of Wade's clothes, and her lovely streaked hair was tangled.

  "How long now?" Rose asked.

  Eleisha walked over and glanced down at Wade's watch. "In about an hour, we'll have to change trains in Eugene. But we'll make it home tonight." She crouched down. "I know it will feel strange at first, but you'll like Portland. You can even grow herbs outside in our garden."

  Rose didn't respond for a few seconds. The thought of a new home must be daunting. But the church was safe and solid, and she would see that soon.

  "And we'll start helping the others soon after?" she asked.

  "Yes. As soon as we're settled, we can start out the same way you found Robert, researching newspapers for similar stories."

  "We should just set up computer and Internet access," Wade put in. "I could research newspapers from all over the world."

  "Good." Eleisha nodded. "We'll use one of the ground floor offices behind the sanctuary."

  Rose was looking at them both oddly, as if they were missing something.

  "What?" Wade asked.

  "Well… we've already found one, or he found us," she said. "That vampire who attacked me was probably made in some random moment like I was. Eleisha, you said yourself he didn't seem to even know how to use his gift properly. But he could be as old as any of us, and he's struggled on his own for years without discovering enough of himself. He may need our help more than anyone."

  Eleisha was struck silent. Rose wanted to help the savage vampire who'd tried to take her head off?

  "What about the ghost?" Robert asked from the inner doorway.

  How long had he been standing there?

  "I have a ghost with me," Rose answered calmly. "And those two could have nothing at all to do with Julian. Philip once thought Seamus and I must be working for Julian, and neither of us has ever seen him."

  "You didn't attack anyone," Robert said.

  Eleisha was not at all sure about trying to help the vampire from the parking garage-as he seemed beyond help.

  "I'm just saying that if we encounter him again," Rose said to Robert, "you and Philip should think twice before pulling your swords."

  Robert raised his eyebrow.

  Eleisha wasn't sure what to believe. If Rose was correct, and this stranger had just been some randomly created vampire who'd been set adrift and ended up in San Francisco and attacked them out of fear, then they were hiding and taking great precautions for no reason. That thought was comforting in a way, and if true, it meant they would arrive home tonight with no further trouble.

  But Eleisha could not accept this explanation. He was at the station the same night they were trying to leave the city, and he appeared to be attempting to stop them, and the girl ghost's actions had been aimed at keeping Eleisha away from Rose. It just all seemed too… planned.

  However, Robert's insistence that Julian was behind it all seemed equally hard to accept. She had been inside of Julian and felt his fear. She believed he would keep the oceans between them.

  "Well, taking guesses isn't going to help," Wade said. "All we can do for now is get home and then make a pact that no one goes out alone at night for a while."

  "Except for me," Philip said, looking in from the other cabin over Robert's shoulder. "I can take care of myself." He glanced at Eleisha. "But no hunting alone for you."

  Eleisha ground her teeth. How had this conversation suddenly turned to her?

  He seemed about to say more and then stopped when he saw her face. To his credit, he glanced away as if realizing how condescending he sounded, and her anger at him faded. He was just being overprotective, and he had a tendency to say whatever came into his head.

  To make matters worse, she realized that she didn't want to go hunting for a while without him, and considering his more limited telepathic abilities, she didn't want him going hunting without her. She feared either one of them being without the other's protection. Did that make her a coward?

  She felt him inside her mind.

  Sorry.

  Her eyes flew to him in surprise. Was he apologizing?

  It's all right, she flashed back.

  Then he pretended that nothing had happened.

  "Wade, you should eat food," he said, "and we should play at cards again. You still owe me money from last night."

  "That's because you cheated and tried reading my mind on the last hand. I don't owe you anything. And I think you still owe Rose forty dollars."

  Had they been playing cards? That seemed a good way to pass the time. Robert stepped aside to let Philip pass into the cabin.

  A few moments later, Rose, Wade, and Philip were engaged in a game of poker.

  "Full house, aces high," Rose said at the end of the third hand. "You're right, Wade, this was an easy game to learn."

  Philip dropped his cards in a huff, and Robert actually laughed. Eleisha had never heard him laugh before.

  "I didn't know you liked games," Eleisha told Philip. "Do you know how to play chess?"

  "Chess? Ugh," he answered. "Angelo tried to teach me. Boring."

  "Do you own a set?" Robert asked her.

  "Not anymore, but we could get one in Portland."

  "I'll play it with you."

  As Eleisha settled back on the couch, she almost forgot why they had run for this train in the first place. They almost seemed like friends on a holiday. Robert's promise to play chess with her brought up more unbidden fantasies of their future at the church, living together, drinking tea in the kitchen, playing board games in the sitting room… just like everyone else.

  "Philip! Stay out of my head," Wade snapped, holding his cards closer. "You know I can feel it when you try that."

  And the hour rolled by.

  Wade had a decent dinner-chicken breast, rice, and salad-which an attendant brought to their cabin, and after eating, he acted as dealer for a round of blackjack. Before Eleisha knew it, they were pulling into Eugene.

  "Everybody, get ready to move," Robert ordered, and for once, nobody seemed to notice or mind.

  A knock sounded on the outer door.

  "Porter," a man called through.

  Robert slid open the door. "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry, sir, but we've had an overbooking on the Express to Portland. All the cabins are filled except for one small half cabin, and I'm not certain it would accommodate your needs."

  Rose looked up in alarm, and Eleisha moved quickly to the door. "I paid for two adjoining cabins on that train," she said around Robert's shoulder. "We have a traveler in our party with… special needs. You'll have to bump somebody else."

  The porter looked at Rose settled on the couch with a blanket across her lap. He ignored Eleisha and spoke to Robert. "We still have ten minutes to departure. Would you like to come and examine the half room? Perhaps it might be suitable?"

  "It's only a three-hour trip," Wade said. "But I don't want make Rose move until we know where we're taking her. Just go and make sure we'll all fit." He looked at the porter. "If not, you'll have to make other arrangements for us."

  Robert picked up his long nylon bag and slung it over his shoulder, following the porter out into the hall.

  "I'm coming, too," Eleisha said. She had made certain Rose would have comfortable accommodations in a setting where
everyone could stay with her. This was unacceptable.

  She glanced over to Philip. "We'll be right back."

  He nodded, and she knew he'd keep watch over Rose and Wade.

  After sliding the door closed, she followed Robert and the porter only a few cars down, and then the porter led them down a set of metal stairs outside.

  That was the first action she found out-of-place. She'd expected him to lead them into the station where they could board the Express from a well-lit, cavernous area and take a quick look at the cabin.

  But they were outside in the night, gazing across multiple sets of tracks.

  "That one," the porter said, pointing to the left up ahead.

  He led them along their own train, and Eleisha suddenly didn't care for all the shadows and black spaces in between the cars. Was it common for Amtrak personnel to escort passengers right along the tracks like this? The situation felt wrong. She took her first close look at the porter. He was thirty years old, average in weight and height, wearing a wedding ring and no coat. The night air was cool… and he was sweating.

  They were almost to the front of the train they'd come in on. The Express to Portland was one track over, just up ahead.

  She reached out and tried to pick up any surface thoughts coming off the porter, and she almost tripped upon feeling the waves of fear inside him.

  At least I can make the house payment. Laura won't even know I lost the money. I couldn't just pass up two grand.

  Someone had paid him two thousand dollars? For what?

  They were passing the front of their own train.

  The night air by the first car seemed to move, and she saw the glint.

  "Robert!" she called in warning.

  He was directly ahead of her, and she shoved him. The blade slashed down, catching the back of her hand and the top of Robert's shoulder in the same swing. He cried out as he fell sideways. Eleisha fell to the ground on the momentum of her push.

  She rolled, looking up in disbelief and shock to see Julian standing over her in a long black coat with a sword in his hand.

  A wall of fear hit her with full force.

  Wade looked down at his watch and shifted uncomfortably.