Undying (16 page)

And had had no idea at that innocent moment in her life just what pain was.

“What is it about you that makes you think you can save people?” she whispered, half accusing, half desperate to believe in him.

He was silent.

“Please,” Macy whispered, blinking. “Just let me go.” She wasn’t sure if she meant it literally or emotionally. “There are things about me that you don’t know. That you wouldn’t like.”

She could feel his fingertips burning on the flesh of her arm.

“We all have secrets, Macy,” he responded. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of.”

“Not secrets like this.”

He let her go this time.

As she walked away, she heard a strange sound that she could have sworn came from Arlan. A growl? It so startled her that she turned around to look at him, to see Eva looking at him.

She walked out through the back gate, leaving her camera behind.

W
hen Macy arrived at Arlan’s just after midnight, he was waiting on the step for her. She took her time approaching the house, watching him. It was a hot, humid night and she could feel sticky tendrils of damp hair clinging to her temples. As she walked up the street, she could hear the hum of the air-conditioning units that protruded from the windows of the old houses. Singly, they would not have made much noise, but together, on such a quiet night, the sounds rose in unison, like the great buzz of a swarm of insects.

Macy sat on the step below Arlan, her back to him, and stared out at the street illuminated by the faint light of a streetlamp.

“You stole a dead woman’s identity?” His tone was terse.

“You talked to Fia.”

He didn’t answer.

“It wasn’t Fia’s place to tell you.” She still didn’t look at him. “What is it with the two of you? She in love with you or something?”

He didn’t answer right away. She could feel the heat of his body, though they were not touching.

“What would make you say that?” he asked finally.

She lifted one bare shoulder and let it fall. She was wearing a thin, sleeveless white T-shirt and gym shorts. She liked wife-beaters from the men’s underwear department because of the way they hugged her body, but were still cool on hot nights.

“I don’t know. Something in her voice. Maybe something in yours when you say her name,” she said, wondering if it was jealousy she was feeling. She had read about the emotion, seen it in movies, but had never really experienced it. Was she jealous that Fia could have something she could never have?

“Fia and I go back a long way.”

“You’ve said that before.” She watched a scrap of paper tumble down the middle of the street, caught on the summer wind. “I don’t know what that means.”

He closed his hand over her shoulder. An intimate gesture that brought a tightness to her chest.

“It’s too complicated to explain, Macy. But she’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“I’m not worried. Why would I worry?”

“You’re avoiding the subject of the stolen identity.”

“I didn’t steal it. I…borrowed it. If Fia told you about the social security number, she should at least have had the decency to tell you the whole story.” She rested her palms on her bare thighs. “I bought the social security number years ago. It was assigned to a girl who died at birth. Like I told Fia, it wasn’t like she was going to use it.”

“It’s illegal, Macy.”

“So’s burying people and then suffocating them. Hasn’t stopped him.” She rose, turned, and walked up the steps past him. At the door, she hesitated. “You coming or not?”

“Where?”

She heard herself laugh and the unexpected sound lightened her mood. “To bed, silly. Where else?”

He followed her inside, closing the door behind him. “You don’t think this is…I don’t know, odd?”

“What?” She walked toward his bedroom, stepping out of her gym shorts halfway down the hallway. “Two consenting adults having sex without commitment? I don’t think it’s odd at all. I don’t know who ever came up with the idea that people ought to be monogamous.” She turned in the doorway to his bedroom and rested her hand on the doorjamb. The white T-shirt rode up, revealing a curly nest of blond hair. “It’s not been true in my experience. Has it been in yours?” She looked at him, wide-eyed.

He stepped over her shorts, his dark gaze fixated just below the hemline of her T-shirt. She wondered if this was why she enjoyed sex with strangers so much. Because of the control she had over men. She might not be able to control anything else in her life, but
this
she could.
Here,
she had total power over the situation.

“No,” he said. “Yes…I suppose.”

“So which is it?” she asked, making her voice sultry. She touched his Adam’s apple with her finger and drew a line downward over his damp, hot skin.

Perspiration beaded above his upper lip. She spotted the large bulge in his cargo shorts. Macy suspected this conversation would be a short one.

“No, or yes, which is it?” she teased, catching his chin with her hand and guiding his lips to hers.

He took her hungrily, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as she slid her palm downward over the zipper of his shorts. He groaned.

“Macy—” He pulled back, looking down into her eyes. “You know what I’m talking about. You just showing up every night. Having sex and then just…leaving. You don’t think it’s…strange?”

She lifted up on her toes and nipped his lower lip playfully with her teeth. “You don’t want me to come over any more?”

He stroked her cheek. “No, it’s not that, it’s just that…” His voice was breathy. Already heavy with desire for her.

“How is it so weird?” She gave a little laugh. “I guess the question should be how it could
not
be weird? This whole town is weird. Like M. Night Shyamalan weird.”

“What?” He screwed up his face in a most adorable way.

“You know, the director. He does strange stuff in his movies.
Lady in the Water. The Sixth Sense.
”

He nodded, but didn’t quite seem to understand what she meant.

“From an outsider looking in, everything about this town is a little peculiar,” she explained. “The way you locals talk to each other, the way you seem to know things you shouldn’t know. The way you look at us—the tourists, the outsiders. We’re drawn to you, drawn here, and we don’t know why. You know, I’m not exactly sure how I got here. I definitely don’t know why I came.”

He broke into a sexy, mischievous grin. “Oh, you know why you came.” He grasped her waist with both hands and slowly lowered himself, dragging his mouth downward between her breasts, down to her belly button and then lower. “You came because you couldn’t get enough of me,” he teased.

Macy closed her eyes and threaded her fingers through his dark hair. Leave it to a man to end a conversation with a blatant sexual boast. Not that she really minded. She herself had used the technique on more than one occasion.

Macy’s eyelids fluttered shut and she gripped the door frame for support. She could feel her legs going weak.

From a weird little town or not, the man certainly knew how to use his tongue.

“Arlan,” Macy groaned. She clasped his face with both her hands and lifted his head until he was looking up at her. “You wanna move this to the bed, lover boy?” she whispered.

Arlan smiled up at her. The only light in the bedroom, the butter-soft glow of the moon, illuminated her long blond hair. She looked like an angel. So beautiful. So fragile.

“Come on,” she whispered, backing up.

She caught his hand and led him to the bed. She threw herself onto it and rolled over to look up at him. He was just lowering himself over her when he saw a flash of light in the back of his head. He heard a voice and he winced.

“Arlan? You okay?”

Had she seen it, too?

He sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. Painful light flashed again.
Arlan, I need you.

“Arlan, are you all right?” Macy’s gentle voice barely penetrated his haze.

His eyes were open, but he did not see his bedroom. He did not see the beautiful, naked woman beside him. He saw a tree with Spanish moss hanging from it. A stone crypt.

The light flashed again in his head. A painful, blinding glare. He smelled a foul scent. Mud. Rotting vegetation. Putrefying flesh…

Images burst in his brain. Burial crypts in neat rows. Iron crosses. A stone statue of an angel hovering over his head. A tall gate embellished with a simple iron cross. He smelled the cloying, thick scent of blooming crepe myrtle, so sweet that it was nauseating.

Arlan, come quick. A bit of trouble.

Regan’s voice rang as clear as if he were standing in the room.

Arlan saw a single flash of Regan’s handsome face behind the black wrought iron gate and the image vanished an instant later. Like that, Arlan was in his room again.

“Arlan?” Macy was standing in front of him, her hands on his face. She gazed into his eyes. “Arlan, what’s wrong?”

His mouth was dry. All Kahill vampires were able to telecommunicate with one another when in each other’s company, but Regan had the gift of being able to communicate telepathically from great distances. He was also able to speak telepathically to humans. Right now, Regan was communicating clearly with Arlan. He was in trouble.

“Are you sick?” Macy murmured, obvious concern in her voice.

Arlan blinked. His heart was racing, he was hot and sweaty, and he could feel the hair on his spine bristle—except that he was in human form so he possessed no hair along his spine at the moment. A small detail that he couldn’t explain, even to himself.

Regan was in trouble. Serious trouble. But where was he, where was Fin? They were supposed to have met up by now. They were supposed to be on their way home, together.

“I…” Arlan pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He had to be careful in Macy’s presence. Sometimes, when he was hit telepathically like this, it was difficult for him to remain in his human form. He
wanted
to be a lynx or a wolf. He yearned to become something simpler, more elemental.

He tightened his fists at his sides, fighting the urge to morph. He was playing with fire here with Macy; he had known that from the beginning. He couldn’t let her catch him off guard again. This morning in Eva’s garden he knew she had heard him growl. He just hadn’t been able to help himself. She hadn’t said anything, but she had heard him. Fortunately, like most humans, she didn’t trust her own senses.

But Arlan trusted his.

He could still smell the rot of flesh in his nostrils that had mixed with the sweet scent of the flowers. An old cemetery…

He had to try to get hold of Fin. Try to find out what happened. Where the hell were they? “A migraine,” he managed to say to Macy. “I’m sorry. They…they just hit me like this sometimes.” He squinted and lowered his head, hiding the lie in his eyes, feigning pain.

“Oh, God. Poor thing.” Macy sat down beside him on the edge of the bed and stroked his temple. “Can I get you something? Some aspirin? A glass of water?”

“Um…” He was trying to think on two levels and not doing so well on either. It had been a long time since he’d been hit so hard telepathically. It had rattled him. Regan had to be in serious trouble to send those kinds of images. “Water would be good,” Arlan told Macy.

“I’ll be right back.” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and hurried out of his bedroom, bare-bottomed.

Arlan lay back on the bed, his legs still dangling over the end. He lay there for a minute, trying to catch his breath, then sat up again. He slipped his hand into his shorts pocket and drew out his phone. Fin didn’t pick up and eventually Arlan got his voice mailbox. He didn’t leave a message. He dialed a second number. By the time it was ringing on the other end, he was halfway to the bathroom. Hearing Macy come out of the kitchen, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

“’Lo.”

Fia was still awake. He could hear it in her voice.

“Hey,” Arlan said, trying to be quiet. “You hear from Regan or Fin?”

“No.”

He could hear her tapping on her keyboard. She was still at work, probably. Or working at home. Not with the boyfriend. Her voice was different when she was with a human. Arlan knew it was wrong but he was glad there was trouble in Fia’s human boyfriend paradise. The guy was all wrong for her. There were too many secrets between them. It was too hard for her.

“What’s up?” Her keyboard grew silent.

“Arlan?” Macy called from the other side of the closed door. “You okay?” She tapped on the door when he didn’t answer right away.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Arlan called, lowering his cell to his side.

She was quiet for a second, but he could hear her breathing. He could feel her on the other side of the door.

“Why are you in there in the dark?” she asked.

Arlan reached for the light switch and flipped it on. He could hear Fia talking and lifted the phone to his ear again.

“Arlan, who are you talking to?” Fia demanded. “Are you calling me when you’ve got her in your bed?”

“No. No, listen, Fia.” He turned his back to the door and walked toward the shower, trying to get as far from Macy as he could. “Be right out!” he hollered. Then into the phone, “Regan just shot me a bad one. He’s in trouble.”

“Crap,” Fia breathed.

“I know.”

“And you can’t get hold of Fin?”

“Nope.” He put the lid down on the toilet and took a seat. He was sweating hard. He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back over the crown of his head. “I don’t think Fin is with him, though. He needs my help.”

“Where is he?”

Arlan propped his forearms on his knees and leaned forward, still a little dizzy. “I don’t know. A cemetery. Creepy mausoleums. An iron gate with a cross. Blooming crepe myrtle. I could swear I’ve been there before.” He lifted his head suddenly, snapping his fingers as it hit him. “New Orleans.”