Undying (6 page)

Much in the same way Macy had adapted.

On the far side of the grassy dune, the beach stretched out to the north and to the south. As she had promised Fia, the moon was glowing bright over the ocean. But it was no longer full. Teddy had missed his mark. She crossed the clean beach, walking toward the water. She was early. It would be a few minutes before the FBI agent arrived.

Macy had checked into a hotel earlier and sat on the edge of the bed with a yellow bedspread and contemplated what she would say to Fia. She had no real information to provide. All she had was this feeling of being on a high-speed train, rushing forward. A train with no brakes. A train about to derail. So why was she here? Did she really think she could stop the train?

Could she and Fia do it together?

Macy had an idea that Fia understood something about Teddy. She had picked up on the fact that this was too soon for the killer to strike again. Not enough months had passed. She seemed to sense that some sort of urgency was building in Teddy.

Macy stopped at the water’s edge and contemplated taking off her shoes to feel the wet sand between her toes. She stared down at the frothy water washing up on the shore, then at the waves, then beyond the breakers to the rippling expanse of the Atlantic seeming to move as if it were alive.

She walked south, keeping an eye on the parking lot. She had not heard Fia’s car yet, or seen the headlights. It had to be near time for their meeting.

She’d be here. Macy knew she would come.

Just as Macy was about to turn around and head north again, movement caught her eye at the woods line. She stopped and stared into the darkness. A pair of glowing eyes—light reflected from the moonlight—stared back.

She felt her mouth turn up at one corner in a half smile. It was a gray fox. A rare treat. Gray foxes were native to North America as was not the case with the more often seen red fox, which was brought to the continent by colonists wanting to hunt them. Macy stood still, staring at the fox. The fox, poised to run, every muscle in his sinewy body tense, stared back. Should she move, she knew he would startle and lope off into the darkness.

Macy, at once, felt a kinship to the woodland creature. She understood perfectly his flight instinct. It had been her modus operandi for the last fourteen years.

A
rlan stood beneath the prickly low-hanging pine bough as he stared at the woman on the lonely stretch of beach. She was small in stature, slender, almost boylike in shape. She wore jeans and a dark sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. From beneath the hood, golden strands of hair were visible. Her eyes were luminous in the moonlight.

Arlan swung his long tail one way and then the other, unable to tear his gaze from hers. He had morphed into a large male
Urocyon cinereoargenteus
so that he could get a better look at Fia’s Maggie. He’d arrived ahead of her and had been watching her since she walked out on the beach. When she spotted him, he should have darted into the brush, as any fox with sense would have done, but there was something about this woman that held him spellbound.

When she saw him, she had gone completely still, but it appeared she had done so to prevent frightening him. She was not afraid. In fact, from the intensity of her gaze, he sensed that she was as momentarily fascinated by him as he was of her.

This petite woman with green eyes and spun gold hair was not what Arlan had expected. He had worked with informants before, male and female. They were often drug abusers or alcoholics. They were humans down on their luck, willing to accept money for information. They were skinny, malnourished, and hollow eyed. They had a look about them that was often pathetic. Maggie had never asked Fia for money, for anything actually, and in no way did she appear pathetic. This woman was healthy and she was on her game. Whatever game that was. He could smell that much on the salty night air. Yet, she also seemed sad. Lonely.

When their gazes locked, he felt some kind of instant connection with her. An understanding. Arlan could not read the minds of humans, but he sensed a vulnerability about her that made him want to reach out. To touch her. To take her in his arms.

And her neck was so lovely, so pale and slender….

Arlan shook his head, trying to dislodge the forbidden thoughts from it.

She didn’t flinch. Instead, she surprised him by taking a tentative step toward him.

He wondered what she would do if he bolted toward her. Nothing, he decided. She wouldn’t be afraid of him, wouldn’t fear he was rabid. She would stand there and let him trot up to her.

Arlan had to force himself to turn away. He loped into the brush, running back toward the rental car he’d parked on the road south of the parking lot. He didn’t morph until he reached the car. Then he hopped in and drove the quarter of a mile to the lot. He parked beside her car and walked up over the dune.

She was waiting for him in the moonlight.

“Maggie?” he called, as he crossed the dunes and walked down the sandy slope toward her.

Now she was the one poised to lope off into the darkness. She still wore the hood up on her sweatshirt. All he could see was her hair and her eyes. Nothing of her face.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

Arlan was suddenly desperate to see her face. “My name is Arlan Kahill. Fia sent me.”

“She didn’t say anything about sending someone else. Fia would have called me and told me if she couldn’t make it.”

“She had a family emergency and she asked me to come in her place. Had she called to tell you, you wouldn’t have shown up, Maggie.”

She watched him with guarded eyes. “You FBI, too?”

“No.” He stood still, trying not to spook her, much the same way she had done when she had approached him farther down the beach a few minutes ago. “I…I’m an old friend. I help her out with tough cases sometimes.”

“That doesn’t sound legal.”

He smiled to himself. She was pointing out that what they were now doing probably wasn’t legal, but she was making no attempt to walk away. “Fia really wanted to be here, but—”

“Right, the family thing.”

“The family thing,” he repeated.

Both regarded each other for a moment.

“You said you were friends, but you have the same last name.”

“We come from the same town. A lot of us have the same surname.”

She nodded. “I don’t really know anything more than she knows,” she said softly after a moment. “I’m not sure what the point of this meeting was.”

“But you came anyway,” he pointed out.

She remained quiet.

Arlan slipped his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Fia was…
we
were wondering what your connection is. To him,” he said carefully. “How do you know him?”

“I don’t
know
him,” she said, her tone prickly.

He waited.

“Teddy contacts me sometimes. Tells me things. Awful things,” she half whispered.

There it was again, that vulnerability he had sensed earlier, so strong now that he could almost taste it on the tip of his tongue. “Teddy?”

“I’m sure it’s not his real name. It’s what he calls himself.”

“And how does he contact you?” He took a step closer. He had suggested to Fia that she might be the killer, or at least be involved in the murders, but now that he’d actually seen her, had a chance to sense her being, it didn’t feel that way to him.

She watched him, but did not move. “Over the Internet. We’ve never spoken.”

“So…he’s stalking you?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“Why you?”

She looked down at the sand, breaking eye contact for the first time since he’d approached her. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

“And how long has he been contacting you?”

She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I don’t know. A year or two, maybe.”

She was lying. Anyone who had a murderer stalking them would know exactly when it started, down to the very date and time. His gaze narrowed. “And you have no idea how or why he chose you?”

She shook her head, not speaking. She was watching him again, almost beseechingly.

Arlan wanted to believe her. Logic told him he shouldn’t, but he wanted to. He tried a different tack. “Does he ask you to participate in the murders?”

She slid her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. The wind off the ocean had grown cool. “No.”

“Does he threaten you?”

She was slow to answer, as if contemplating the question. “Not really.”

“I don’t mean to be insensitive, Maggie, but I find this all pretty hard to believe. Men like this…this monster are very purposeful in everything they do. Everything they say. Every decision they make. You’re not telling me the whole truth here.”

“You calling me a liar?” Her head cocked at the slightest angle.

“Maybe.”

Moonlight bathed her nose and lower jaw when her chin jutted forward. “Would you blame me if I was lying? At least about certain
details
?”

She had a fair point. If she was telling the truth, if the Buried Alive Killer was contacting her, she should be cautious. And she should certainly be afraid. He took another step closer, hoping to get a better look at her. She smelled good, like a new rain. “Why didn’t you just go to the police? What are you afraid of, Maggie?”

Her response was incredulous. “He says he’ll kill others. Many. And it will be my fault.”

He looked over her shoulder to the waves crashing in, the foam sweeping the sand clean and smooth. He remembered the night of the shipwreck. Swimming to shore at Clare Point. A new beginning for him and for the sept.

Arlan shifted his gaze to her again. She was watching him intently. He took a chance and slowly reached out and pushed her hood down. An abundance of blond hair tumbled down her back, smooth and straight and long, and he remembered another woman’s hair the very same color. Same texture.

Arlan closed his eyes for a moment and in his head, time shifted and he saw her as clearly as if she were standing in front of him.
Lizzy,
his sweet, pretty Lizzy. And then he saw the blood.

Maggie cleared her throat. “Arlan?”

He opened his eyes. Blinked. The memories were like this sometimes, washing over him with the force of strong ocean waves. He was helpless against them. He could not stop them.

Maggie was so like Lizzy and yet different. Lizzy had been so confident, so bold and strong and full of life. This young woman before him, she was barely a shadow in comparison. He would not have been surprised if he had reached for her and grasped nothing but air.

“I’m okay,” Arlan said.

“You thinking about someone? Someone gone. Dead?” she asked, her voice as light and innocent as a child’s. Almost ethereal.

He wondered how she knew. Humans were generally so insensitive to feelings. Everything always had to be written, spoken, explained clearly for them to understand. And even then, they didn’t always get it.

“You want to sit down?” Arlan asked, gesturing toward the water’s edge.

“No. I’m not going to talk to you about this. I want to talk to Fia.”

“And she wants to talk to you.”

“So I guess we’ll both have to wait.”

Clouds drifted, settling in over the peninsula, blocking most of the moonlight, and the night suddenly grew darker. They both glanced up at the dark sky.

“Is there a way Fia can contact you?” he asked. “A phone number?”

“I’ll call her.”

It was obvious the meeting was over, yet Maggie continued to stand there.

“You lonely, Arlan?”

The question stunned him. He wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Because I am,” she continued. “And what lonely people are best at spotting”—she took a step forward and boldly took his hand in hers—“is other lonely people.” She raised his hand and drew it across her cheek.

Arlan literally felt his legs go weak. He’d heard a lot of come-ons in his lifetimes. There was no doubt that the ladies liked him, human and otherwise. And he liked them. But he’d sworn off HFs a long time ago. Vampires and humans just didn’t mix well in the sack. It was too risky. He had learned that lesson over a century ago. At least he thought he’d learned….

“A beautiful woman like you,” he said, trying to lighten the tone of the conversation. “No husband? No boyfriend? Don’t you have family?”

“I have no one,” she told him quietly and matter-of-fact. “No one to know if I live or die. It’s just me. So come back to my hotel room with me.” She tipped up her chin to look at him.

A most amazing neck…

Arlan was intoxicated by her nearness, by her touch, by her voice.

He knew he shouldn’t do it and yet he leaned over and brushed his lips against hers. A tentative kiss. Just a taste.

Her lips were soft. Sweet and begging to be kissed again. Harder.

“Come on,” she whispered. She started to walk away, tugging his hand. “You take your car, I’ll take mine. You don’t have to stay the night.”

She released his hand. “Just follow me.”

And bless his mother’s sweet, tortured soul, he did.

“Kiss me,” Maggie whispered, stopping inside the doorway of the hotel room dimly lit by lamps on either side of the bed. She pulled her sweatshirt off and tossed it on a chair. Her pale green T-shirt was tight, showing off her hardened nipples. She wore no bra. “Kiss me. Make it all go away. Just for a few minutes.”

He slid his hand around her neck and fingered her soft nape beneath her hair. She stood in front of him, not touching him with her hands or any part of her body, but she touched him with her gaze. Connecting so deeply with him, so profoundly, that he feared she would see him for what he truly was. As lonely as he really was, as much as he needed to connect with someone, it also scared him. He closed his eyes to hide the truth and found her mouth with his.

Maggie slid both of her palms upward over his chest, pressing against him with the same pressure she used with her mouth. Both her touch and her kiss were hungry.

“Make it go away,” she begged as she parted her lips.

He delved deep with his tongue, the recesses of her mouth cool. He tasted her desire, her fear, and as he drew back, breathless, he tasted the ever-so-subtle taste of weariness. Arlan understood weariness. He had been alive since the fifteenth century. Any man or woman that old understood weariness, but what had happened to this young woman, this human who appeared to be only in her late twenties, to make her such an old soul? Had the killer done this to her?

“Can you do that? Can you make it go away?” she asked, grasping his T-shirt in handfuls.

Arlan pushed her inside the door and kicked it closed. “Do what I can,” he whispered, drawing his mouth from her ear, across her cheekbone to her lips again. He reached behind him and turned the dead bolt. He found her mouth again.

They stumbled to the bed, which looked like every other hotel bed in the United States. They fell on the yellow quilted bedspread. HF or not, it just felt right to him to be here. To make love to her.
She
felt right.

Still mouth to mouth, she pushed his leather jacket off and threw it on the floor. He rolled her onto her back and flattened his body over hers. She was so petite, seemed so fragile, that he tried to be careful. But her kisses were fierce. Her body’s response to his touch was ferocious. The woman was an amazing enigma. She had been so soft-spoken, so unsure of herself on the beach, but here in bed, in his arms, she knew just what she wanted and how to get it from him.