Redlisted (11 page)

“It’s
not. It’s modern. Master Julian has only lived in the South for
about a century.”

I frowned. He’d
said he was old. How old was he? How old was she?

“So how long
have you been living here?” I asked.

She paused for a
few moments, considering. “Twenty... no, twenty-five years
now,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes.

“Working for
Julian?”

“No. Well,
not that entire time, anyway. When I first came here, I wasn’t
in any condition to assist Master Julian with much of anything.”

My throat started
to tighten. My eyes burned. For a moment, I thought I might cry. Why
was I upset over this, of all things? A glance back at Aya answered
my question: It wasn’t me who was upset, it was her. I was
having some sympathetic reaction to her emotions.

“I didn’t
mean to upset you,” I said.

She laughed. “No,
no, it’s fine.” She stopped at a stone bench and sat
down, crossing her legs at the ankles.

“Why do you
work for him, anyway?”

“I owe him a
debt of gratitude.”

“For what?”

“My line,
the Line of Thalia, is different than yours. We have different
abilities. One is the ability to assume false personae—to
deceive others into believing we are someone we aren’t.”
She looked up at the sky. “My real father—the man who
initiated me—used our line’s powers to alter my mind. And
he hired someone from your family—a renegade, I guess—to
do something to my memories. It’s all still a mess, really.
Thankfully the Wardens found me and brought me to Master Julian. He’s
helped me through the worst of it.”

Maybe
you can help me with the rest,
I heard her think to herself as clearly as if she had spoken the
words aloud. She bit her lower lip.

“I don’t
know how to help you,” I said, regretting the fact.

“Oh God, I’m
sorry. It’s not easy for me, I’m not used to dealing with
telepaths—“

“You mean
Julian’s not a telepath?”

“No.”

“Wait. So
how can I...? I don’t understand.”

“Sometimes
manifestations of the blood skip generations, so to speak.” She
shrugged. “But honestly, I feel terrible. You’re so
young. I should be helping you, not the other way around.”

“I’m
thirty-eight.”

A patronizing
smile flickered across her face.

“I’m
sorry,” I said. “You don’t look any older than
twenty.”

“Thank you,”
she said, smoothing out her skirt.

“So how old
is Julian?”

“He was born
on the thirty-first of December in the year sixteen-hundred, so...”

“Are you
serious? He’s three hundred and ninety two years old?”

“Three
hundred and ninety-one,” she corrected me with a tiny,
self-satisfied smile. “Wait, no, I’m mistaken. December
thirty-first was the day he was initiated—he only celebrates it
as his birthday. I imagine he’s some twenty-five years older
than that.”

“Once you’ve
passed the hundred-year mark, does it really matter anymore?”

She tilted her
head to the side, shrugged. “You’d be surprised. He’s
one of the youngest leaders of a sanguine house. His age is difficult
for him at times.”

“Oh.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “Okay.”

“I might be
older than him, actually,” she admitted. “I can’t
remember.”

///

When I got back to
my quarters, I tried to sleep. Given what Julian had told me, I
thought that perhaps I could dream something that would buy me my
release. I didn’t know what he wanted me to discover; he hadn’t
elaborated on that. I hoped I’d know it when I saw it.

I took a shower,
shaved, brushed my teeth, turned off the lights, and climbed into the
four-poster bed. I closed my eyes and lay still underneath the duvet
cover. The sheets gradually grew cold as my body cooled to room
temperature.

I listened to the
clock ticking on the bedside table until the sound started to
irritate me. I got up and put it inside the wardrobe, wrapping it
inside a sweater. I got back into bed.

I told myself to
relax and just sleep. I was awake for hours telling myself that:
just
relax and go to sleep.

It wasn’t
working.

I’d had
insomnia before. Whenever it was this bad I’d take sleeping
pills. Would they do anything for me now? Could my dead body
metabolize medicine? It seemed doubtful.

Two or three hours
passed, than four or five more. I started to worry that, having
fallen out of the practice, I’d somehow lost the ability to
sleep.

Then I heard the
phone ring.

I climbed out of
bed and turned on the lights. I walked through the sitting room and
into the office. A few seconds later, the answering machine picked
up. “You’ve reached the office of Adam Fletcher,”
it said in my own voice. “Please leave a message with your name
and phone number at the tone.”

The tone sounded,
and then another familiar voice began to speak.

“Whoever
this is, we need to talk,” said Elena. “I don’t
know how you got my phone number, but—“

I picked up the
receiver. “Elena?”

“Who is
this?” An accusation, not a question.

“It’s
Adam,” I said. “Adam Fletcher—“

“Adam
Fletcher is dead. Adam Fletcher was dead when you called me three
days ago. Who the hell are you?”

“I can
explain—“

“Is this
Jason?”

“No, Elena,
look—calm down. He doesn’t have any idea how to get in
touch with you. I don’t even think he knows who you are,”
I said. “This is Adam. I swear.”

“That’s
impossible.”

“I know
that, but... I can prove it.” I was aware of how ridiculous I
sounded.

“What do you
mean you can prove it? You’re dead. He’s dead.”

“Ask me
something.”

“This is
ridiculous.”

“I’m
serious. Ask me something.”

She was silent for
a full minute.

“All right.
You want to prove something? Tell me where Adam and I went on our
first date.”

“We never
went on a date, not unless you count...” I furrowed my
eyebrows, thinking. “It’s a trick question. We never went
on any dates.”

“Tell me the
first place we went outside of school, then.”

I racked my memory
for the answer.

“I met you
at the hospital,” I finally replied. “In the waiting area
of the cancer ward. I asked you a bunch of annoying questions about
your research.”

She didn’t
reply.

“I brought
you a cup of coffee, but you don’t drink anything with
caffeine,” I continued. “I didn’t know.”

She was still
silent. I wondered if the line had gone dead.

“Elena?”

“I... I’m
sorry, I don’t understand,” she said in a faint voice. “I
need to go. Please don’t call me again.”

“Wait—“

I heard a dial
tone.

{Anonymous}

I wake up in the
back seat, Adam sitting next to me. He has a bag of fast food in his
hand.

“We stopped
while you were still asleep,” he says. “I got you some
food. Hope it hasn’t gone cold.”

I accept the bag
from him and open it. A cheeseburger and fries. I pop a fry in my
mouth; it’s cool but it’s salty and it tastes all right.

“We’re
halfway to Kentucky,” he says as I unwrap the burger.

Great
.

“Tara’s
a potent healer. If anyone can help you, she can.”

I take a bite of
the cold cheeseburger.
That’ll
be nice.

“I also got
you some coffee,” he says, handing me a Styrofoam cup.

I give him a
half-hearted smile.

He stares out the
window as I eat. I finish about half of the burger and a third of the
fries before I begin to feel overfull and a little carsick. I wrap
the burger up in its foil and roll the top of the bag closed.

“Is that all
you’re going to eat?”

I’m not
hungry any more.

He frowns.

I put the bag on
the floor of the car and take a long sip of coffee.
What’s
Julian like?
The question pops in my head randomly, for no particular reason.

Adam considers.

“Erratic,”
he says.

So you were
initiated in 1992?

“Yes.”

Have you lived
with him since then?

“No,”
he says. “No, I moved to Atlanta a few months after my
initiation.”

He looks out the
window. I get the distinct sense that he doesn’t want to talk
about this.

“It’ll
be a while before we arrive,” he says. “If you’d
like to try to recover another memory...”

I hug my knees in
to my chest. After the last one, I don’t know if I want to see
any more.

“They seem
to be going in reverse order. If we want to find out anything about
your personal life we might have to endure some more like the last.”

I sigh. I would
like to know something about who I was. My name, something about my
family, whether or not I was in a relationship...
All
right. I’ll try again.

“Now?”

Now is as good
a time as any.

He nods and takes
out his folding knife.

Does
it hurt?
I
ask.

“It does.
But not much.”

Our little ritual
has already started to feel familiar. I don’t watch him make
the cut; I don’t see it until he puts his wrist under my eyes.
I bring it to my lips, knowing what to expect. His flesh is cool, as
is his blood, and perhaps that makes it easier in a way, more
businesslike.

I swallow. The
floating sensation overtakes me, and I am subsumed in memory.

///

I am wearing a
hospital gown, seated on a bare examination table in a harshly-lit
room with green walls and a black tile floor. In front of me is a
cart on casters, on top of which rests a tray full of surgical
implements and a manila folder. The air is cold and nearly silent. I
can hear, very faintly, footsteps approaching the single door to the
examination room.

The door opens.

In walks a woman
possessed of a preternatural level of physical beauty. Her skin is
flawless, with no visible pores or blemishes, no errant hairs. Her
features are completely symmetrical and perfectly in proportion. She
is tall and slender, with an hourglass figure that flirts with the
edge of human biological potential. She has strawberry blonde hair,
wide blue eyes behind dark lashes, and radiant sun-kissed skin. Her
smile reveals immaculate teeth.

“So you’re
Ms. Radcliffe’s new assistant,” she says.

I smile at her
reflexively—it’d seem impolite not to—but I have no
idea what she’s talking about. “I, uh... sure,” I
reply.

“Oh, that’s
right. Sorry, it’s so weird dealing with her sometimes.”
The woman sighs. “So, in any case, I’m here for your
aesthetic consultation.”

“Yeah, uh,
my what? I’m sorry...” I can’t remember signing up
for anything like that, which makes me feel foolish and more than a
little nervous.