Trust Me When the Sun Goes Down (27 page)

Nope, not a word.  Of course not.  No one cared.  What’s another dead body in a sea of people who all exist as our own personal food bank?  It didn’t matter how much I tried to bring human rights to the forefront of the vampire community, when push came to shove, we were all killers, a slave to the call of the blood.  Rob had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

My phone buzzed with a text from Carter.  The last one he’d sent was a silly picture of a dog sitting at the front door, waiting for its master to come home.  This one read,
when you get back from your girly bonding, I’ve got another one
.

It was late.  The sun would be up in less than an hour.  What I should do was get some rest and hope that things looked brighter in the morning.  But I couldn’t stand to be there for one more day.  I couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping in the bed I’d shared with Rob.  More importantly, I didn’t believe in the position of Elder anymore, and I was tired of beating myself up over it.  If vampires didn’t want to change, fine, so be it.  I’d be the one to make a change.   

Moving fast now before I lost the courage, I gathered up the important things.  A few clothes, Mr. Buns, the thumb drive with
Anja’s Song
on it.  It took me less than ten minutes to pack up my old world and step into my future.  I considered leaving a note behind, a letter of resignation or some explanation for my disappearance, but in the end, I simply left my ring of office on top of my desk.  I’d contact Maggie later when I got to wherever the heck I ended up.  As an afterthought, I gathered up the stack of Bishop’s letters and tucked them away as well. 

My fingers closed over Rob’s silver locket.  It’d become such a part of me I hadn’t realized I still had it on.  I didn’t do that thing they do in the movies where they tug on it and it breaks free dramatically.  Instead, I very carefully unclasped the old chain, holding the cool metal in my hand.  The tarnished locket swung back and forth over the ring on my desk, the movements almost hypnotic. 

I shoved it deep into my pocket and left. 

Bishop started to think there was a very real possibility that Lodinn had been fucking with them and Carys wasn’t alive at all.  They’d been to six countries so far, with no success.  Each new lead only ended in disappointment and very frequently rage where Jakob was concerned.  Even the
Ellri’s
burning enthusiasm to find her was starting to wane. 

After the latest debacle in Bucharest, Jakob had sunk into a deep depression, not emerging from his room for days.  Finally, Bishop had had enough.  He entered without knocking, finding Jakob surrounded by discarded bottles of wine.  His golden hair in wild disarray and clothes stained and rumpled, the
Ellri
sprawled on the cold stones, gazing at the empty fireplace.  He neither looked up nor acknowledged Bishop’s presence in any way. 

“I think maybe we should call it quits and go home.”

“I have no home,” Jakob replied, his voice forlorn, and Bishop sank to the floor beside him, grabbing the bottle for a drink.

“Maybe it’s time you turned your thoughts to that then.”

Jakob snatched the bottle back jealously, cradling it to him.  “I will not rest until I find Carys.  I owe her this.” 

There was only so much time Bishop was willing to devote to futile pursuit.  “Maybe you should find someone else to help you then.  Nothing I can think of seems to do the trick.”

“You do yourself a disservice.  You have a gift for seeing patterns that I lack.  Indeed, you have proven most resourceful in our search thus far.  It’s only a matter of time until we find her, I am sure of it.”  He clapped his hand on Bishop’s knee. 

The rare words of praise caught Bishop by surprise, but more than likely it was just the wine talking.  “Careful now, I’ll start to think we’re friends.”

“Perhaps not quite that,” Jakob allowed.  “But I am coming to regret my earlier treatment of you.  Perhaps if I’d been a touch more understanding, we could’ve avoided years of discord.” 

“Why
did
you always give me such a hard time?” Bishop reached for the wine again and this time Jakob let him have it.  “Was it just jealousy or what?”

“I never liked you, Ulrik, not from the start.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I thought there was something lacking in you, but perhaps it was me who lacked the ability to see into her heart.”

He hadn’t expected Jakob to say anything like that at all, and the silence stretched between them. 

Jakob took the bottle back, tipping it back for a long drink as he stared at the cold hearth.  “It pained me to see her look upon you with such devotion and for that I couldn’t forgive you.”

“Are you talking about me and Carys or Anja?”  Bishop’s thoughts turned to Anja as they often did.  He hadn’t sent her a letter in a while, for some reason it bothered him to let her know he was out looking for Carys.  That, and it was a double edged sword getting emails from her in response.  While on the one hand he cherished every word from her, it hurt to hear about how happy she was with Rob.  Did Jakob feel the same?  He hardly ever mentioned Anja anymore.  Was it because he’d moved on over the past few months or was it self preservation? 

“It is the same,” Jakob shrugged.

“Carys doesn’t love anyone but herself.  We both should’ve realized that years ago.”

“Don’t be too sure of that.  I see now where I erred with Carys.  If I had it to do over again, I would tread differently.”

Regrets from Jakob?  This was definitely a new line of thinking for the
Ellri
.  “What would you do?” Bishop prodded. 

“Compulsion has not bound her to me as tightly as I’d hoped.  Perhaps freedom will yield different results when we find her?”

“If you love someone set them free, huh?” Bishop smiled.  “That’s my plan of action for now with Anja too. I guess we’ll both see how it shakes down for us in the next century.”  It still shocked the hell out of him that Jakob had left her with Rob without a single word of argument.  “I have to admit, it sorta surprised me when you didn’t blink an eye about her and Rob.  Doesn’t it bother you to see Anja in love with him?” 

“It won’t last.”

“You sound awfully sure of that.  I think you underestimate the effect Anja can have on a guy.  You didn’t stick around to see her declare her undying love for him.  I’d say they’re pretty attached,” Bishop added sourly and Jakob chuckled.

“Rob is many things, but well suited for Anja is not one of them.  He is a blunt instrument and Anja requires delicate care.”

He’d thought that before too, but he’d been wrong about what she wanted before.  “Maybe that’s what she needs?” 

“She is young, what she needs will change, given enough time,” Jakob replied with absolute conviction.  “That is the single hope that allows me to walk away.  It’s why I allowed Carys to leave and carry out her own machinations over the years.  It’s why I allowed you to live when I saw she’d formed such an attachment to you.  All needs change with time.”

It echoed his own hopes for the future and Bishop wasn’t sure if he should take heart that Jakob shared the opinion, or worry because most of his judgment was so flawed half the time.  “Carys didn’t live long enough for those needs to change though, did she?”  That was what kept him from sleeping some days.  What if playing the long game with Anja turned out to be a mistake?  What if, by not fighting for the woman he loved, he lost her forever?  Forever was a long time to live with that regret, he’d already learned that the hard way with Carys. 

“I believe she did, we have only to find her.”

Bishop tried to accept that confidence as more than Jakob’s flawed sense of entitlement.  There was one point the
Ellri
had yet to acknowledge though.  “You know, there’s no guarantee that Carys will want either one of us.  She might blame us for Lodinn’s treatment of her.”

“I’m sure she will,” Jakob smiled fondly.  “And her anger will be the stuff of legends, but in time she will return to me, she always does. As will Anja, I am confident.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Anja surprises the hell out of me half the time.”

“That is also true,” Jakob chuckled.  “I’m trying to give her the space to grow and become the woman she is destined to be.  There is a possibility that this destiny will not include me.  If that should come to pass, I will try to accept it.” 

Bishop didn’t want to think about a future without Anja, instead he took another drink. 

“If Anja is to be with another, I would rather it be you,” Jakob added when he accepted the bottle back, bringing a pucker of confusion to Bishop’s brow.

“I don’t get it.  If that’s the case, then why did you cave so easily when it came to her and Rob being together after giving me such holy hell?”

“And what would be gained by my separating them?  Let me ask you this, why did you walk away from her?”

He’d asked himself that far too many nights.  “Because I want her to be happy and right now, Rob makes her happy.”

“Exactly.”  Jakob wagged a long finger at him.  “Take heart, before too long she’ll seek the comfort of your arms.  Me, I fear, she will not willingly embrace for many, many years to come.”

Bishop didn’t know what to say to that.  “What will you do if we find Carys?”

Jakob was silent for long moments.  “I will see her made strong again and help her assimilate to this time if she’s been in torpor this whole while.  I will apologize for Lodinn’s treatment of her and try to make it up to her.” 

“And if she doesn’t want to have anything to do with you?”

“I will offer her my heart, and if she wishes it, I will set her free.”

* * *

Despite Jakob’s faith in his abilities, they were no closer to finding Carys a few weeks later.  After Romania, they’d gone to Slovenia, and now found themselves in Germany, where another disappointment had sent Jakob storming off into the night.

Bishop turned to Carys’ diary, which he’d been working on translating from more than a half dozen languages.  When Karr had first given him the diary, he’d been convinced it held the secret to where she was being kept by Lodinn.  But a quick study of the last few entries made no mention of the
Ellri
.  After that, the diary had become less of a priority, and he only brought it out when he found himself with spare time on his hands. 

It’d given him a fascinating perspective of the girl she’d been and her first years with Jakob, a time she’d spoken of very little in the past.  And then even more insight into her mind at reading her first impressions of meeting him as a human.  His own memories of that time were fogged with age.  He remembered it as a whirlwind romance, but his experiences since had jaded his mind into thinking it all calculated on her part.  Here he could read that she’d been as taken with him as he’d been with her. 

The words flowed easier as she switched to Italian, influenced no doubt by their time spent in that country together.  Something was bothering her, but she seemed too afraid to come right out and write about it.  It troubled him too when he realized he had no memory of the incidents she described. 

Bishop read on faster and faster as he came to understand what was going on, reeling over the revelations within the pages.  It changed everything.  All their years together, the addition of Aubrey into their lives, the choices he’d made both before and after her supposed death – everything had been based on certain assumptions he now knew to be a lie. 

Hours later, Bishop heard Jakob come in and it stirred him from his chair.  Without stopping to think of the consequences, he burst into Jakob’s room.  His anger bubbling over, he took a swing at him, his fist connecting in a satisfying crack against Jakob’s jaw. 

“You son of a bitch.  You did it to Anja too, didn’t you?”

Jakob recoiled, his movements hampered more by surprise than the reek of alcohol that surrounded him.  “What do you mean?” he demanded, too astonished to be angry over the hit.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he bit out, tossing the diary at Jakob’s chest.  “That’s why you said it wouldn’t last with Rob.  You knew he’d die the moment she declared her love for him.”

The
Ellri
had only to flip through a couple of pages before he realized what he held in his hands.  All at once Jakob’s face changed as understanding dawned, surprise giving way to an inhuman coldness.  “What of it?”

“How could you not tell her?”

“And ruin the time they had left?”  Jakob shook his head.  “I would not do that to Anja, she is too sensitive.”

Bishop ran a hand over his scalp, at a loss for Jakob’s cavalier attitude over what he’d done.  “You unbelievable bastard.  She has to know about this, they both deserve to know the truth.” 

Jakob could only shrug.  “Perhaps it is unimportant.  They are not together.  Perhaps he is no longer in danger.”

“They’re not?” Bishop blinked, taken aback.

“She has left San Francisco these weeks past.”

“Unbelievable,” Bishop repeated.  “Where is she?”

“That I do not know.  She left rather suddenly.”

Bishop’s eyes narrowed.  That didn’t sound like Anja at all.  “Why would she do that?”

“There was something of a betrayal on his part from what I gather.  I expect the need to feed overrode all else.”

“Then it’s already started.” 

“I told you they would not last.”

They might’ve been talking about the football scores for all the emotion Jakob drummed up.  Didn’t he care about the pain and suffering he’d caused?  “You have no shame, do you?  Tell me you can undo it.  Can you?”

“No.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“It is the same.”  Another shrug was given.

Regardless of whether or not they were together, Bishop knew he had to at least tell her, and that kind of conversation shouldn’t be done over email or even the phone.  “I’m going to find her.  She deserves to know.”

“Knowing or not will not alter the facts.”

That was it.  “We’re done here.”

Now Jakob roused himself to care about the conversation.  “You haven’t found Carys yet.”

“And there doesn’t seem much point in my finding her anymore after what you did to her, does there?” Bishop glowered.  “You’ll set her free, huh?  Isn’t that what you promised you’d do if you found Carys?  What kind of freedom is this?”

Jakob bristled, his chest swelling as he drew himself up.  “I order you…”

“Compel me then, otherwise I’m not helping you.”

“I thought you wanted me to compel you.  I thought you wanted to forget her,” Jakob taunted and Bishop could only scowl. 

What did he want now that Anja was free?