Hunting Memories

Chapter 4

Two nights later, Eleisha sat between Philip and Wade as their plane approached San Francisco International. Wade had been unusually quiet for the entire flight, and Philip had been agitated-as he did not care for flying. Apparently, a few years ago, he'd gotten aboard a Boeing 747 that ended up being delayed for three hours, and as a result, he'd landed in Germany right at dawn. He'd managed to get off and hide in the back of a janitor's closet before falling dormant, but the experience had put him off flying, and he resented being asked to get back on a plane so soon after the recent flight from Seattle to Portland.

"See, it's all right, Philip," Eleisha said, pointing out the window at the city lights. "We're landing right on time."

She arranged their arrival for just past midnight.

He nodded once and didn't answer.

At least having to deal with Wade's and Philip's moods had kept her mind off tonight's impending meeting. She was well aware that she might be overromanticizing the «rescue» of Rose, and Eleisha was hardly a romantic. Although she believed Wade was becoming interested in her larger plans, she also knew that he thought she was only acting out of some sort of pathology because she missed William, but Wade was a professional psychologist, and he often tended to point to one main reason for someone else's behavior.

Yes, of course Eleisha missed William, but she longed to undo the damage Julian had inflicted on his own kind. She also wanted a community, and she didn't believe that any survivors of Julian's killing spree should have to hide alone. She didn't have just one reason. She had many.

"Flight attendants, prepare for landing," said a voice over the intercom.

Eleisha gripped the arms of her seat. She didn't mind flying, but she had never cared for landings.

"Do we find a hotel tonight or go straight to this address you have?" Philip asked. He always avoided using Rose's name.

"I think we should go straight to her apartment. Is that all right?"

"None of this is all right. I am only here because you forced me."

She looked the other way, but Wade didn't seem any happier than Philip. They would both feel better soon, once they had met Rose. Then they'd realize this was no trap, that Rose needed their help.

"The wheels are about to touch," Wade said. "Hold on."

Eleisha felt unsettled for only those few seconds right as the plane landed when suddenly everything felt too fast and loud. She closed her eyes and felt the plane begin to brake. After that, she was fine.

The plane rolled up to the gate, and soon after, everyone aboard filed out. Eleisha was annoyed that they still had to go to baggage claim. She had wanted to travel light with everyone bringing only a small carry-on. But Wade and Philip had both insisted on packing suitcases and checking them in. She might have expected this of Philip, but not Wade.

The airport wasn't too crowded, and they made their way to baggage claim fairly quickly. But once Wade had his suitcase in his hand, he looked around.

"I need to find a men's room," he said.

Philip lifted his own bag, tilted his head, and pointed back the way they had come. "I saw a sign by the arrival board. Over there."

"I'll be right back," Wade said. "You go outside and try to get us a cab."

He hurried away, carrying the suitcase, and Eleisha watched him go.

She didn't like this. "What is he doing?"

"I don't know."

Eleisha could always tell when Philip lied.

Other people from the flight were bustling around them, grabbing suitcases off the turnstile and then hugging friends or relatives who'd come to meet them. She decided not to press the point in the middle of baggage claim, and they walked out the nearest set of glass doors to the ground transportation area.

Philip approached a cab to see if the driver was otherwise engaged, and Wade came trotting through the doors. Without bothering to ask, Eleisha pushed her thoughts into his, and before he could stop her, she caught a clear image of him in a stall of the men's room fishing his Beretta out of the suitcase and strapping the holster under his canvas jacket.

He almost tripped at the sudden mental invasion. In seconds, she was at his side.

"Eleisha!" he said aloud. She was breaking their pact about asking permission first.

"You brought your gun?" she hissed in his ear. "In your suitcase?"

"They wouldn't have let me carry it on the plane," he answered dryly.

"You won't need it. Julian won't come anywhere near us."

"We don't know what we're walking into, and you seem to have lost some perspective."

She stared at him, hurt. Those were harsh words coming from Wade. Why couldn't he and Philip see that Rose was no threat… and neither was Julian anymore. Not to her. She had terrified him into leaving her alone.

She turned away from Wade.

Philip was motioning them over. They loaded their bags into the taxi and climbed into the backseat, suffering in the awkward silence. Eleisha handed the driver Rose's address.

Normally, Eleisha liked to look out the window at new places, but the ride was so tense, she simply sat there, dwelling on unpleasant possibilities. If Wade was carrying a gun, what might Philip have in his suitcase? At least he hadn't stopped in the men's room, too. But she was beginning to wish she'd left both of them back home at the underground.

For such a long ride, the time seemed to pass quickly, and before she knew it, they were stepping onto the curb of Jones Street on the outskirts of Chinatown.

Philip looked about with unguarded interest. Even this late, the streets were alive with lights and people. Eleisha stood facing a decaying apartment building, but an Asian shop owner just down the block was signing for a delivery of open boxes of bok choy. At this hour?

"There," Wade said, pointing at the apartment building. "We need to go to the second floor."

This was the first thing he'd said since leaving the airport, and his voice was tight. Eleisha moved to block both her companions from moving forward. At this point, she would have preferred them to stay out here, but Philip would never agree. So she said, "Rose is a lot more scared than either one of you, and we're walking into her home. You remember that."

Philip glared at her but didn't answer.

She walked into the building and up one flight of stairs. If Wade pulled that gun, she'd knock him unconscious.

Moments later, they were standing in front of apartment 2-A. The hallway smelled stale and brown paint peeled in flakes off the outer frame. Eleisha raised her hand to knock and then suddenly lost her nerve. With no phone number, she hadn't been able to call. How would Rose feel about the three of them just… arriving here.

Another thought occurred to her. "Wade, don't try to reach out telepathically yet. If she doesn't know about our abilities, you'll just frighten her."

Philip reached past her head and pounded on the door.

"Philip!" she said. "Stop it." Then she leaned closer to the door. "Rose, it's me. We've come to get you."

Nothing happened for almost a minute. What if she had gone out? She wasn't expecting them.

Then a calm voice, with the hint of a Scottish accent, said, "What is your name?"

"It's me. Eleisha."

The door cracked and then opened.

And Eleisha was finally face-to-face with Rose. After all their letters, they were standing two feet apart. The first thing she felt was surprise. She did not know why, but she had pictured Rose as petite with gray hair. The woman before her was slender but nearly as tall as Philip. She had long brown hair with a few silver streaks. Her eyes were deep brown with flecks of yellow. She wore a white sleeveless rayon dress that reached the floor and silver hoops in her ears.

"Eleisha?"

The second that word left her mouth, Eleisha knew everything was as it should be. Rose was wise and truthful and needed their help.

Rose looked out past Eleisha to the two men.

"This is Philip and that is Wade. I told you all about them," Eleisha said quickly.

"Yes."

Stepping to the right, Rose allowed them inside her home. Eleisha glanced back to make sure her companions weren't going to do anything stupid. But Wade's tense caution seemed to have vanished. His eyes followed Rose with an expression of astonishment.

Philip looked puzzled but not dangerous.

"You are real," he said.

Rose closed the door as Eleisha took in the sight of the apartment. Although the walls were badly in need of paint, the main room was filled with polished antiques: low tables, porcelain lamps, and several Victorian couches with wooden arms and burgundy upholstery. The lampshades were covered with sheer pieces of silk materials. Small crystals hung down the walls, creating prisms of colored light. A small television sat upon a 1930s radio cabinet in one corner.

The living room ran directly into the kitchen, separated only by an archway, but the counters sported brightly colored pots of every herb Eleisha could remember from her youth in Wales: lavender, oregano, basil, parsley, thyme, sage, valerian, yarrow… She lost count of the pots.

"I am real," Rose answered Philip, "and we must make plans."

Again, Eleisha was hit anew by the certainty that anything Rose suggested would be the correct decision.

Wade reached out to steady himself on the arm of a Victorian couch, but Philip shook his head-hard-and snarled. "Turn it off!"

"Philip?" Eleisha asked. What did he mean?

"Now!" Philip ordered Rose.

Rose watched him for a long moment and then took a step back. The feeling of absolute certainty inside Eleisha faded, and she found herself looking at nothing more than a handsome woman with long brown hair.

"Wisdom," Wade whispered. "Her gift is wisdom." He studied Rose. "Your victims have faith in your judgment?"

Philip shook his head in what seemed to be derision.

But Rose flinched at the word "victims," and Eleisha hurried toward her. Many of her feelings over the past few weeks were beginning to make more sense now, but she didn't care if Rose instilled false faith. They all wielded their gifts like weapons. Philip was no one to judge.

"Eleisha, stay back," he ordered.

She froze in place, fearing he would take action if she ignored him. This was not going at all as she'd hoped.

"You are working for Julian," Philip told Rose. "I know it."

For just a blink, Rose's serene composure flickered. "Working for… How dare you?"

"Then how did you know of Maggie's address in Seattle?" Philip demanded. "How did you know Eleisha was living at that house? How did you escape Julian in the first place? I don't know you, and I have never heard of you." He moved closer, his eyes narrowing. "You serve Julian, don't you? You are his slave."

"Philip!" Eleisha gasped. Is that what he'd been thinking all this time?

Without answering him, Rose looked down at Eleisha. "I was not expecting an interrogation." Her voice was calm, but her eyes gave away her fear. Truly, after the letters they shared, she had not expected Eleisha to bring a hostile male vampire inside the apartment.

Eleisha did not know what to say, and so she fell back upon honesty. "He's only trying to protect me and Wade. Just tell him how you found us… how you found me. Then everything will be all right. He'll be on your side, and trust me, you want Philip on your side."

Rose blinked. If she'd been living alone since Julian's killing spree in the mid-nineteenth century, this whole scene must feel like foreign ground.

But she seemed taken back by Eleisha's blunt outburst. "You have shown trust in me," she said. "I will show trust in you."

Then she looked upward and said, "Seamus, show yourself."

The room grew cold. The air near Wade shimmered, and a transparent young man appeared from nowhere. Wade jumped backward in alarm. But the young man was glaring in open hatred at Philip.

"You bastard," he said in a thick Scottish accent.

He had the look of someone from the distant past, like a painting in a museum, with shoulder-length brown hair and wearing a loose hand-stitched shirt over black breeches. But he also wore a plaid blanket over one shoulder, held fast by a belt. His knife sheath was empty.

A ghost?

Wade's mouth hung open in shock, and Eleisha stumbled backward. A real ghost? She had come to view the reality of vampires as a fact of life, but it had never occurred to her that other forms of the dead might exist here as well.

"Seamus is my nephew. He found you," Rose said, her serene composure returning. "It is a long story… hours in the telling, but I can swear that neither one of us has ever even seen Julian, much less done his bidding."

Philip wavered, watching the ghost. He did not seem stunned by this revelation. He looked back at Rose. "Who made you?" His voice was not so threatening.

She drew herself up to full height. "Edward Claymore."

Eleisha grabbed the back of a couch, her head spinning. "Edward? No, that isn't… He would have told me."

Regret colored Rose's pale face. "Oh, my dear, I did not mean for any of this to spill out on the floor tonight. I did not expect… I was not prepared to…" She trailed off.

Then Wade finally said something. "You don't have to talk at all." He appeared to still be recovering from the sight of Seamus.

Philip glanced over at Wade. "Too soon."

"No," Wade answered. "I don't think you'll trust her until you've seen her past."

Rose was watching them both in cautious puzzlement. "My past?"

"Whatever they want, don't do it. We don't need them," Seamus said. "Any of them."

Eleisha was shaken by Rose's claim about Edward. It couldn't be true, but why would Rose lie?

"What are you suggesting?" Rose asked Wade.

Eleisha agreed with Philip that it was much too soon to expose Rose to telepathy, but she also agreed with Wade that this standoff would not end until some foundation of mutual trust was established-and she had to know about Edward. He could not have kept such a great secret, not from her. Could he?

She reached out and grasped Rose's hand. "Come and sit on the carpet with us. If you think back, all the way back, and then begin remembering your own life, we'll be able to see your memories. No, don't be scared! It's all right. Just sit here." She drew Rose over to an open space in the center of the room. "Philip, come sit down. Wade, can you act as her guide?"

"Rose, no!" Seamus shouted.

She held her free hand up to silence him and sank down beside Eleisha, her eyes searching Eleisha's face. "You can see my memories?"

"If you drop any mental barriers and think back, remember what happened, we can all see them. After that, Wade can keep your memories linear. But… it can be painful, like reliving it as it happened. Are you willing to try?"

Rose offered one slow nod.

Wade dropped down on the floor, cross-legged, and then Philip finally joined them, glancing a few times at Seamus. But Philip's expression was curious and intense, and he seemed to be losing his conviction that Rose was working for Julian.

"Just think back," Eleisha said softly, "as far as you can."

Carefully, she reached out with her thoughts and connected to Rose's mind, finding access easier than she expected. Then the room dimmed, and that was the last conscious act she remembered for several hours.