Hunting Memories

Chapter 11

Right as the train began to move, Wade dropped to sit on a small bench-style couch against one wall of their cabin. His head was still light, and his wrist hurt, but otherwise, he was starting to feel better.

Once everyone was inside, Robert locked the door.

Rose eased down beside Wade, wearing his jacket, but when she moved, the collar slipped down past her shoulder.

To his amazement, her injured throat was almost healed, the wound appearing only as an angry red line. She was clearly shaken but conscious and fairly calm.

"Do you want me close that shutter over the window?" he asked.

"I'll do it," Philip offered, slipping past them.

Eleisha kneeled down on the floor beside the couch.

Rose's face twisted in a pained expression. "I'm so sorry," she said with a harsh rasp. "I don't remember very much after we walked into the station… until… I saw the sword coming at me and then I woke with Wade's wrist in… You know how badly I want us all to reach Portland. I'm so sorry."

"It's all right," Eleisha soothed her, touching her forehead. "I didn't realize how hard that would be for you. It's not your fault. Do you feel better in here?"

Rose looked around the small cabin, at the closed window and locked door. She nodded.

"Just exactly what happened out there?" Robert demanded, stepping past Eleisha and opening the adjoining door to their other cabin. He stood in the doorway to give everyone else more room.

Even so, the quarters were tight.

Still kneeling, Eleisha began to talk in short bursts, telling them about a ghost who'd flashed in front of her suddenly and how Seamus had then appeared, and they'd both vanished.

Then she described the vampire who'd attacked Rose.

"He seemed new," Eleisha whispered. "Like he didn't understand my gift or his own or how they work."

"Julian's behind it," Robert said. "He must be."

"We don't know that," Philip said, surprising Wade-as Philip always tended to suspect Julian. "He works alone. He doesn't make servants to help him."

"He made Eleisha," Wade said.

No one spoke for a few moments, and then Robert asked, "Was the ghost working with this vampire?"

Eleisha's forehead wrinkled. "I don't know. But it seemed like she was trying to scare me off, to keep me away from Rose. I do think the sight of Seamus frightened her."

The implications of this left Wade shaken. He had no idea why a ghost and a vampire they'd never met would go to such lengths to attack them.

Rose lifted her head weakly off the back of the couch. "Seamus," she rasped. "Are you there?"

A slight blur marred the view of the shuttered window close to where Philip was standing, and then Seamus materialized. His expression was troubled.

"Well?" Robert said, as if it was the only necessary word.

Seamus looked over at the couch. "Rose! What happened to you?"

She leaned her head back again. "I'll be fine."

"What happened?" he repeated.

"Did you find that… girl who jumped out at me?" Eleisha asked.

His transparent eyes narrowed. "No, I tried, but she moves so quickly, blinking from place to place like nothing I've ever seen."

"Do you… have you ever spoken with other ghosts?" she asked quietly.

He hesitated. "Yes, but they were like me, tied to a place or to someone in this world. This girl is different."

"Why would a ghost work for Julian?" Robert asked, not really speaking to anyone.

"We still don't know it's Julian," Philip answered. "We don't know if the ghost and that vampire are even connected. We don't know anything."

"Except that we need to get home!" Eleisha cut in, and the strain in her voice caught Wade's full attention. "Once we're back at the church, we'll be safe… and we can figure some of this out." She closed her eyes and whispered, "Let's just get home."

Rose reached out to stroke her hair. When Wade looked back toward the window, Seamus was no longer visible. Wade was beginning to suspect that he found engaging in conversation among their group to be unpleasant-or maybe it was still too new for him.

But Eleisha was right. They were now inside a cabin, with their weapons, heading for Portland. At the moment, they should keep their focus on getting home to the church.

Although weakened, at least Rose was behaving more like her calm self again, though she looked less elegant wearing Wade's jacket over her blood-crusted dress. He'd have to go through his suitcase and find something else for her to wear soon.

She looked around the clinical cabin. "This is so different from… You should have seen our cabin when we traveled here from the east."

Eleisha opened her eyes again, seeming relieved at the change of topic. "What was it like?"

"I had a bed and a porcelain basin for water. Embroidered curtains on the window… a satin comforter. It was like a little hotel room. Robert, did you ever travel by train in those days?"

"No."

"Times have changed," Wade said, also glad to be speaking of more mundane things. "But at least between both cabins we have four bunks."

He realized he was thirsty, probably feeling dehydration from losing so much blood, and he looked over at Philip. "Would you mind going to the food car and picking up a few bottles of water? And maybe Rose could use a cup of tea?"

"I don't mind," Philip answered.

"No," Robert ordered. "She's fine for now, and we should stay in these two cabins, keep together with our weapons. Wade, there's a sink right there if you need water, and a porter will come by in a few hours to take food orders. You can get anything you want then."

The cabin fell into a tense silence again. Philip pressed his lips together tightly, but he looked uncertain at the same time, as if unsure what he should do.

"Robert," Wade finally said, and he could not keep the edge from his voice. "I agree we should be cautious, but you don't make the decisions for any of us. Philip is going to walk out the door and go buy some bottled water and get Rose a cup of tea. He might even get me a ham sandwich. Do you understand?"

Robert's face betrayed nothing. No hint of emotion crossed his eyes. Then he stepped backward into their second cabin and closed the inner door.

Wade sighed, thinking he might have handled that differently. Philip looked surprised. Eleisha and Rose both looked uncomfortable. But something had to be done.

"You still don't mind going for the water and tea?" Wade asked Philip.

"No, I don't mind. I'm bored in here, and this trip will take forever. What will we do when I get back?"

"I'll think of something."

The moment Philip slipped out, Eleisha turned toward Wade. "You're starting to handle him pretty well."

"I watch you do it enough," he said.

"What's wrong? You sent him off over more than just a bottle of water."

"I think somebody needs to talk to Robert… before we get home," he answered, "I don't think he'll listen to me, and Philip would just make things worse."

Eleisha glanced away. "I know. I've been thinking the same thing. I'll do it."

Wade was almost embarrassed by the relief he felt. She'd already had a long night, but they had a long way to go, and something had to be done right now. She had a way of making people see reason. It was a gift she never quite recognized.

"Keep Philip out if you can," she said, standing up.

Rose reached out to touch her arm. "Robert is just following his nature, Eleisha. Remember that."

"I will, but if we're all going to live together and look for others to bring in, he's going to have to understand…" Eleisha trailed off. "I'll go talk to him."

She knocked softly on the connecting inner door, opened it, and slipped through.

Wade closed it securely behind her and looked around the small cabin that he and Rose now occupied alone. Then he went back to sit with her.

She seemed all right as long as they were locked away by themselves with the window covered. "You should get some rest," she said.

She sounded sad and a bit lost again, and he remembered that no matter how badly she wanted to begin a new existence with a new purpose, she was still leaving her home of a hundred years. Perhaps he should distract her.

"Rest?" he answered. "I don't think so. We need to think of some way to entertain Philip. Have you ever seen him when he's bored? It's not pretty." He pulled a deck of cards from his bag. "Do you know how to play poker?"

Julian gripped the steering wheel harder.

He'd rented a new Ford Mustang and pushed the needle past seventy, racing up Interstate 5. The Amtrak schedule lay on the seat between himself and Jasper, who was staring out the window. It had been a quiet trip so far-thankfully.

Before leaving San Francisco, they had taken the time to break into an antique store and steal Jasper a trench coat and his own sword. It was not exactly a quality blade, but it would work.

Once on the road, Jasper had fallen silent. His face was still cut, but he'd stopped bleeding.

Finally, he asked, "What makes you so sure they're on that train anyway?"

Julian looked into the rearview mirror and into the backseat as he saw the air blur, and Mary appeared.

"You were right," she said. "I hid behind some shelves near the dining car and Philip walked right past me. They're on the train."

Jasper turned from the window and looked at Julian in astonishment-almost respect. "So how far are we going tonight?"

"As far north as we can get before dawn," Julian answered, glancing down at the Amtrak schedule. "We'll take cover and sleep out the day. Then we start again. But between all their stops and one layover, they're on a twenty-two-hour route, and they'll have to change trains in Eugene tomorrow night. We'll be waiting." He paused. "But we need to find some way to keep Robert from getting off inside the station. We need to get him outside. A train yard is a good place, an excellent place, for our needs. It's full of nooks and shadows."

"And then what? You just step out and cut his head off?"

Jasper still didn't understand the difficulty of this or the need to strike from the darkness at the perfect second. But Julian had no doubts now. He had been an unstoppable hunter once, and the memories were all coming back.

Eleisha slipped into the second cabin to find Robert standing by the window and gazing at the landscape as it raced by. Everything about him looked so hardened, from his lean face to his worn boots. He struck her as lonely yet inaccessible at the same time.

"I'm sorry about that… that moment with Wade," she said. "But we all managed to survive for a long time before meeting you."

"You're too young to know anything."

"Philip and Rose are over two hundred, and I'm not far behind."

He moved toward her, and the tense expression on his face eased a bit. "Rose told me that until just recently you've spent your entire existence taking care of Julian's father."

She nodded. "Yes, but I didn't mind. I loved William."

"That's why you're so different, not like one of us at all."

In spite of everything they'd been through tonight, she couldn't help smiling. "Maggie used to say that all the time."

"Maggie?"

"Philip's lover when he was first turned. Then he turned her, too."

His jaw tightened, and his eyes clouded with anger again. "Oh, her." He walked back to the window.

Eleisha worried that she might never understand him, but she had come in here for a reason. "We're glad to have you with us, but you need to stop behaving as if you make our decisions. Can you do that?"

He nodded once without looking at her and then said, "I know you can't help what you are, but you don't understand anything. There are laws we have to exist by… that we did exist by. Julian's maker, Angelo Travare, broke two of those laws, and a nightmare started that hasn't stopped."

"What are you saying?"

He dipped his head, looking so unhappy that she felt sorry for him.

"I don't know how to tell you," he whispered. "I don't think I could make you understand."

Words were not certainly Robert's strength, but he seemed desperate to convey the meanings of these "laws." She was drained and tired, and dawn was still hours away. The last thing she wanted to do was share consciousness with Robert. But once home, she wanted them all to be able to start moving forward-and that would take mutual understanding.

Reluctantly, she sat down on the floor. "Close the window shutter. You don't have to tell me anything. Just show me. Take me back."

He frowned. "Take you back?"

"Don't you know how to share memories?" she asked, puzzled. "You must. We've all shared our memories, even Rose. Come sit here. You just think back, and I'll follow inside your head."

Still uncertain, he sat on the floor in front of her. "I just focus on a memory and you can see it?"

How could he not know this? He was five hundred years old.

"Yes, go back as far as you need to go."

"I only need to show you one."

"All right," she answered. To the best of her experience, none of them had ever shown each other a single memory-as the flow always started in one point and just continued until it finished or somebody managed to pull away.

"Just relax and think back," she said, closing her eyes.

She reached out for his thoughts, stretching her consciousness into his.

Think back, she projected. As far back as you need.

She felt a moment of panic inside him as her consciousness meshed with his, and then his memories began to surface, and then she lost awareness of herself, falling into his past.