Blood Memories

Chapter 14

Wade pulled out of my head and lay back on the carpet. Funny how he was always the one to jerk away first.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't look anymore," he choked out. "Need to stop."

"Are you okay?"

"It hurts."

My hands shook from intense emotion, and I realized why Wade asked so many questions after letting me read his memories.

"That old man downstairs is the same Lord William?"

"You know that," I answered. "You can recognize him."

"The memories are hard to take. What Julian did to him. What he did to you."

"It's more complex than that. The nobility labors under a pride you could never understand. Julian epitomizes that mental trap. He got lost in it."

"That doesn't make him any less of a bastard."

"No," I said slowly, regaining my composure. "It doesn't."

"I thought Dominick had lost his mind," he whispered. "You do live on blood, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Did Maggie?"

"And Edward Claymore."

Long-fingered hands drew up to cover his face. "Your thoughts were so different back then. You were so-"

"Ignorant? Naive?"

"Compassionate."

"That was a long time ago." I laughed. "Julian left us to fate, hoping we'd drop off the earth and fall into whatever pit waits for incompetent vampires. But we didn't. Edward showed me what my gift was, and I taught myself to use it."

"You'd do anything to survive, wouldn't you?"

"Probably. So would you."

He sat up suddenly and fingered the bottom edge of Maggie's satin comforter. "What do you want, Eleisha? Showing me that past was painful. I could feel how much it hurt. You never would have let me in without a reason."

"Could you feel everything as I experienced it? Like you were there?"

"Yes." The psychic in him canceled out morality for a moment. "Everything-fear, horror, love, pride-like being inside a movie, watching your life flow past me."

"Did you have any emotions of your own?"

His eyes dropped. "Pity. Frustration."

"Frustration?"

"That I wasn't there. That I couldn't do anything."

His reaction caught me off guard, as I wasn't emanating my gift. "You couldn't have helped us, Wade. No one can stop Julian."

"You still haven't answered my question about what exactly you want."

"I've changed my mind about leaving. I want to keep William in this house-moving terrifies him-and I want Dominick to leave us alone."

"He won't quit."

"Then make him think we've run. I can charge a set of airline tickets to Boston or Sweden or China. Pretend to track the charge card down like last time. Just help me convince him we're gone."

He stood up and walked over to the cherrywood vanity table, lifting a small crystal bottle of perfume. "How many people a month do you have to kill?"

"What?"

"How many?"

"Don't judge me. I didn't do this to myself."

His shoulders were hunched forward. I realized how torn he must feel. How would I have reacted in the same situation one hundred sixty-nine years ago? How would anyone react? "If it makes you feel any better, William lives on rabbits."

"Rabbits?"

"Yeah." I almost smiled. "Want to walk out back and see my hutches?"

The corners of his mouth curved up slightly, but no words came.

Maybe he felt it a split second before me. The world slowed down, and I watched his knees buckle just before the waves hit. Psychic energy cut off my own physical control and passed through my thought patterns in rapid bursts. It was not agonizing, not like the death of Maggie or Edward. The release was milder, yet more vivid.

Visions of green fields, pheasants, a young Lady Katherine, rabbits, chess pieces, wolfhounds, and most of all, myself… image after image of myself. I could see his dreams, the focus of his undead energy leaking out, dissipating into space.

No!

It went on for what felt like hours. I couldn't move. I couldn't get up. I cried without tears, caught in the choppy sequences of his confused, beloved mind.

"Eleisha." Wade's sweating face looked down into mine. He was gasping for air. His eyes were wild. "Dominick's in the house," he breathed. "William's dead."

We both knew it was true, but I still cried out, "No!" and struggled up on all fours.

"You can't help him! He's gone."

This was too much. Too much. I couldn't think or cope or even feel anger.

"Hide here. Stay here," Wade rushed on. "I'm going downstairs. Whatever happens, don't open the door."

I should be protecting him. Hiding him. Fighting his battles. But I didn't. My William was gone, murdered, and I'd been upstairs, sharing memories with a mortal.

Frozen in sorrow and guilt, I just crouched there and watched Wade walk out.

William. My William. What did his body look like?

A sharp confusion struck me, and I could see an aged, headless corpse.

I was looking through Wade's sight line.

Without conscious awareness, we'd slipped into each other's minds. He experienced my sorrow. I saw through his eyes. It didn't occur to me until later to wonder at how easy, how utterly natural this feat had been.

"Dominick?" he called.

"Where's your girlfriend?"

I found it difficult to shut out Wade's surge of pity when his muscular partner stumbled through the kitchen door, a bloody shovel in his hands. My thoughts got tangled up in Wade's memories. What a good cop Dom had once been. Now dried food and old sweat stained his T-shirt. His black hair stuck to his skull in filthy patches, and quick, china-blue eyes twitched back and forth, puffy from exhaustion, sunken by obsession.

"You killed this old man." Wade took in the sight of William's burgundy smoking jacket, wrinkled hands, head lying two feet from his body. "You murdered him. Does that get through to you at all?"

"He's been dead for years. Jesus Christ, Wade, you still don't get it, do you? How many people do you think this ‘old man' murdered?"

"None. He fed on rabbits."

"Did she tell you that? She's lying. Remember her painting? The one you kept. I got sick touching it. That pretty face is a joke. It protects her, like a gun or armor. She'd rip your throat out in a second."

"That doesn't make you judge and executioner. Remember? You wouldn't even shoot at a fleeing criminal. You were good at what you did. Everybody wanted to be you."

Recognition, pain, flickered across Dominick's unshaven face. "This is different. Rules don't work." He walked over and looked down at William's body, as the flesh was just beginning to crack. "These things look at us as cattle. They butcher us to live."

This was war. And what if Dom was right? What if the last semblance of sanity still dwelled in him? Wade thought of Eleisha's tiny face, her frightened eyes, and his own growing fascination with her. What if he was wrong, the police were blind, and only Dominick fought on the right side anymore?

"She's not what you think," Wade said. "Her whole existence surrounded that old man. Now that he's dead, I don't know what she'll do. You have to report this, though. You've killed someone."

"No, I don't. In a few minutes there won't be a body."

"Where did you learn so much about these people?"

"Touching things. Her things and Claymore's. His house was a memory smorgasbord."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Wade asked.

"I didn't think you'd believe me."

"You could've let me in."

"My head? No." Dom's expression grew sad. "You're my friend. Trust me on this. My head isn't someplace you want to be."

"If you could just see her, talk to her-"

"Is she here?"

"No."

"Where is she, Wade?"

"I'm not going to let you hurt her."

"You can't stop me." Dom turned away from William's body and locked eyes with Wade. "What is going on here? You're on my side, remember?"

"You're out of control, killing people."

"They aren't people! Whether you understand this or not, I'm going to wait here until dawn and then search the house. She has to come home before it gets light. When she does, I'm going to cut her head off and this will be over."

"Get out."

"What?"

"You heard me. Get out. This isn't your job." Before his partner could speak again, Wade pulled the 9mm Beretta from the back of his jeans and pointed it.

Dom's eyes widened. "You won't kill me."

"No, but I'll blow a hole in your leg and then call an ambulance. By the time the paramedics get here, I'll be long gone."

"Why are you…?"

Wade pointed the gun straight at Dominick's thigh. The burly man stepped back toward the door, his blue eyes narrowing.

"You don't want to take me on. You'll lose."

"Just get out," Wade repeated.

Dominick slipped out the front door, and Wade bolted it behind him.

I pushed myself up from Maggie's bedroom floor, removing my thoughts from Wade's, seeing through my own eyes again, and stumbled downstairs to the foyer. William's body was already turning to ash, the tiny cracks in his flesh spreading.

Wade dashed about, checking window bolts. "Did you see? Did you hear all that?"

"Yes," I whispered tiredly. "Through you."

"We've got to run. He's right. I can't take him on. I wouldn't even know how."

Sinking to my knees, I fingered William's smoking jacket. I couldn't bring myself to look at his severed head… across the floor. "It doesn't matter now," I whispered.

"Get up! Change your clothes."

"Dominick is nothing now."

"Twenty minutes ago you were begging me to get him off your back."

"Julian's coming."

Wade froze. "What?"

"You and I felt psychic waves only because we were so close. Julian made William. I think even halfway across the world… he felt it. He'll be coming."

"That doesn't change what's happening right now!" he spat. "We've got to get out of here."

"He'll find us."

"I just aimed a gun at my best friend for you!"

He had, hadn't he? I'd dragged him down into moral hell and now had probably killed him. No one could stop Julian.

"Where should we go?" I asked.

"Anywhere away from here," he said. "It'll be light soon, so catching a plane is out. You go upstairs and change clothes. We'll have to hole up in a motel for a day or two and figure something out." He knelt down next to me. "I don't mean to sound like this. I know what William was to you."

People say those words all the time-almost a cliche. But Wade really did know.

My torn, bloody tank hung at an odd angle over one shoulder. Knowing he was right about changing clothes, I stumbled back up to Maggie's room. Would it be the last time? Would her lovely room pass out of my life as she had?

Numbly, I got undressed and then pulled on a clean pair of jeans, and a long, oversized T-shirt. Then I found a knee-length wool coat, black but thin and lightweight.

A drawer slammed downstairs. I heard Wade's feet shuffling about rapidly, as if he was in a hurry. After saying good-bye to Maggie's room, her creation, for the last time, I went back down to find my companion stuffing a small box inside his sweatshirt.

"What's that?"

"Nothing. I'll show you later," he said.

Ashes floated up from William's body, like dandelions gone to seed.