Vampire Memories #5 - Ghosts of Memories (5 page)

Angelo’s hand continued to stroke his face. “I’m going to find you some help, my son. I swear I will help you.”

The image vanished, and Eleisha felt Philip fighting her, trying to rechannel the memory to shift it away and hide something. She knew if she spoke, she’d probably just break the connection. Instead, she held on and drove deeper, forcing her way through the layers upon layers in his mind.

Without warning, she broke through.

H
ARFLEUR
F
OREST
, F
RANCE
, 1819

Philip was on his back again, but this time, he was dressed…or at least wearing pants. He was in a forest, with trees and the moon above him, and someone was sitting on his chest, holding him down. He snarled and spit, trying to pitch his captor off.

He wanted more blood.

“Shhhhhhhh,” a familiar voice said, and a hand stroked his cheek. “Be still now.”

“Jesus Christ,” another voice said from a few feet away. “This is madness, Angelo. Do you see this woman? He’s torn her head off. You have to put him down.”

Philip did not know the voice, and from where he lay, he turned his head. A slender young man with wavy steel gray hair was standing over a bleeding lump of what had once been a woman.

“No!” Angelo answered.

It was Angelo sitting on Philip’s chest.

“This is wrong,” said the young man with gray hair, moving closer. “And you know it. You’ve broken the third law, and this is the price. Is this why you lured me out here? To stop this slaughter? If so, we’re too late. He’s a danger to our secrecy, Angelo. Either you put him down or I will.”

Angelo sat straight, but he didn’t get off Philip’s chest. “I will not, and neither will you. You owe me, Christian.”

Both men fell silent, and Philip turned his head farther, looking eagerly at the lump, wondering if there was more blood left inside it.

“
I
make the demands here,” Angelo said. “Or you will become a new chapter in my book…and I have many details to include.”

“You swore you’d leave me out,” Christian answered.

“And in return, you swore to do me a service when I asked. I am asking now.”

More silence followed, and Philip tried to pitch Angelo off again. He wanted more blood. But Angelo held him down.

“What do you want?” Christian asked finally.

“He cannot speak, so I have no idea how much he understands. Go inside and help him to find words. You’re the only one who can implant suggestions. Just help him to find speech. After that, I can help him myself.”

“Inside his mind?” Christian asked, incredulous. “No. I’m not going in there. Not for you. Not for anything.”

“Then you leave me no choice.”

The words between them blurred in Philip’s ears as he longed to get free and go back to the body before all its blood ran out onto the ground. But the argument went on and on until he suddenly had a feeling Christian had lost.

For some reason, this unsettled him, and he tried harder to buck Angelo off. He fought and snarled and then screamed as he saw Christian’s face coming closer. Christian knelt down on the ground, just above his head, and Philip had no idea what was coming.

But he was afraid.

Two slender hands settled on his shoulders, and then he felt a sharp pain slicing through his head. It was blinding.

He heard a voice in his mind.

Where are you? Where is Philip Branté? I know you are here
.

In terror, Philip tried to squirm away. The voice in his head wanted something, searched for something, and he did not know how to make it go away. He tried to fight, but it just kept cutting deeper and deeper into his thoughts.

The words are in you. Use your mouth. Use your voice. Speak.

Philip kept fighting, tried to hide from the voice, but after a few moments, he stopped hearing any words at all, and he just felt an impulse that was growing harder and harder to fight.

Finally, the resistance inside him built to such a frenzy that he thought he would burst. His mouth and tongue struggled to move, and he heard himself scream.

“No!”

The word felt as if it had been ripped from his throat, but then the slicing pain in his head vanished. It was gone. His body trembled and relaxed.

“Don’t make me do that again!” Christian choked out.

But Angelo leaned low over Philip’s face. His eyes glittered, and he said, “Philip, what is my name?”

Philip knew his name. He’d known it for some time now, but the impulse struck him again. He forced his tongue and mouth to move, and he said, “Ang…elo.”

Above him, Angelo smiled.

Eleisha released Philip and pulled out of his memory.

He gasped and coughed and then slid off the bed onto the floor, wrapping his arms around himself. He stared at nothing.

“Philip!”

She slid off after him, trying to hold one of his hands, but his arms were crossed, and he wouldn’t let go of his own shoulders.

“It’s all right,” she said, feeling more than guilt for what she’d just put him through. How awful it must have been to see himself like some feral animal.

But her mind was reeling. She could still see Christian’s face clearly, so young and unlined, but framed by wavy, steel gray hair, and she tried to make sense of the images she’d seen through Philip’s chaotic memories. Angelo had been unable to awaken spoken language in Philip, but he’d forced Christian to try, and he’d suggested that Christian’s telepathic ability was stronger than his own. What had he said?
You’re the only one who can implant suggestions.

And yet Angelo had gained Christian’s help only by making a threat…to include him in the book cataloging detailed accounts of all vampires in existence before 1825. To the best of Eleisha’s knowledge, all of the elders knew that Angelo had made this account, and none of them had objected. A few had even helped him. Why had Christian been afraid to be included?

Philip’s teeth began chattering, and Eleisha got up onto her knees, putting her arms around him. He didn’t push her away, but he didn’t respond either.

“At least we know,” she whispered in his ear. “We know there was an elder named Christian…who wasn’t listed in the book. And we know what he looks like. You’ve helped us, Philip.”

Of course there was no way to tell yet if this “spiritualist” that Wade had read about had any connection to the vampire from Philip’s past. Christian was a common enough name.

But Eleisha could not help feeling certain they were onto something.

A telepathically powerful vampire named Christian had been left out of Angelo’s book. It had to mean something.

Mary Jordane watched through the bedroom window as Eleisha held Philip and rocked him back and forth. At first he didn’t respond at all, but finally, one of his hands released his own shoulder and he pulled her closer.

The sight of them in such an embrace did not move Mary in the slightest.

She’d lost the only thing she’d ever loved, and she had no pity for Philip. Plus, she hated it when these vampires sat silently reading each other’s memories, as it left her nothing to report to Julian.

But tonight she’d picked up a few juicy details. Right after they came out their trance—or whatever the hell they were lost in—Eleisha had said,
At least we know. We know there was an elder named Christian…who wasn’t listed in the book. And we know what he looks like. You’ve helped us, Philip.

That alone was worth reporting back to Julian, and it filled her with hope.

Her biggest fear had been that Wade and Seamus would uncover some new vampire who wasn’t an elder—someone like Rose or Maxim who didn’t count—thus dragging her deal with Julian out for God knew how much longer.

But this? This sounded promising.

Julian had sworn to her…just one more elder, and he’d send her back to the in-between plane, where she was certain Jasper would be waiting. He wouldn’t want to move on without her. But each passing day brought more fear that he might fall into despair and give up on her and go onward into the afterlife. She’d never been there, so she had no idea if she’d be able to find him. No, she had to get to the in-between plane as soon as possible.

That meant tracking down an elder and helping Julian kill it.

She had every intention of moving this hunt forward as fast as she could.

chapter three

F
or some reason, Seamus was having a hard time focusing in his search through the Puget Sound area of Seattle.

Well…maybe he did know the reason. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Mary.

He kept seeing her on her knees in that graveyard in England, wailing in sorrow over a dead vampire. He’d once believed that if she served Julian, she must be evil…but he didn’t believe that anymore. He also kept seeing her standing in the rain in front of the church a few nights later, looking up at the stained-glass windows, with her face so sad.

He’d wanted to help her. To protect her. But she’d vanished, and he had not seen her again.

Sailing through the night air over a Seattle golf course, he was trying to force himself to focus when he sensed a hole in the fabric of life somewhere ahead. All thoughts of Mary fled. He had a mission tonight. It wasn’t that he could exactly feel an undead’s presence. It was more like he felt an absence in the vicinity, and that’s what he zoned in on.

He was moving west, toward the water, and suddenly he stopped, midair, about fifty feet off the ground, and he tried to sharpen his senses…and realized he felt two black holes.

Two undeads?

That concerned him. Vampires didn’t normally travel in pairs—except for Eleisha’s group. Had he found something else?

Even in the darkness, the area all around him was beautiful, thick trees and sculpted gardens—and high fences with stout gates. This was where the affluent of Seattle often chose to live. Focusing hard, he began drifting forward again, moving faster until he reached a winding street called Cherry Loop, and he sailed through the trees to see a mansion spread out before him.

It boasted no front yard, but once someone made it through the front gates, he or she would drive about a quarter mile over elaborate stonework in shades of cream and tan, which then formed a kind of courtyard. Over the top of the house, Seamus could see the dark water of the Puget Sound, so the view must be from the back.

But he didn’t hesitate long enough to get a good look at the house. Instead, he moved around to the north side, sensing for those two black holes.

Whoever he was tracking…they were inside.

Zeroing in on their location, he pinpointed them on the main-level floor, so he blinked out and blinked back in on the second floor, directly above them, hoping he would materialize in a room by himself.

He did.

Looking around, he realized he’d appeared inside a guest room that was currently not in use—or did not appear to be in use. The furnishings were lavish, from the four-poster bed to the gold-gilt curtains hanging from ceiling to floor, but somehow, the décor seemed to lack good taste. For one, the room was hopelessly overcrowded with tables, brocade-covered settees, vases, huge brass lamps, and far too many paintings on the walls…and nothing seemed chosen to complement anything else. Seamus was certainly no expert at interior design, but it seemed to him that someone had spent a great deal of money to make the room look like an extremely expensive garage sale.

However, he believed himself to have arrived in a good location for his own purposes, and he floated downward, turning his body to achieve a horizontal position so he could pass his face down through the floor.

Within seconds he could hear voices, and then his face just breached the ceiling so that he could look down and see what was happening below.

The sight caught him off guard for almost a full minute before he began to take stock of the situation.

The first thing he truly absorbed was the sight of a large round table with a candelabra at the center. But the room did not appear to be a dining area, more like an old-fashioned sitting room of some kind—with the large table placed dead center. As in the guest room, there was far too much furniture scattered around and far too many paintings on the walls…and Persian rugs and vases of dried flowers and candles and Chinese vases and Egyptian statues and uncountable crystal and porcelain knickknacks everywhere.

But once he’d assessed the room, he turned his attention to the six people sitting around the table.

Of course the first ones he studied were the vampires—as they indeed were vampires. He could tell easily from this close range: a man and a woman.

The man looked about twenty years old, but his hair was steel gray and hung in waves to either side of his forehead and curled around his ears down to the nape of his neck. His face was narrow, and his eyes were almost clear, with just a hint of sky blue. He wore a wine-colored shirt and a black sport jacket, which seemed an odd contrast to the thick gold ring in his right earlobe. Something about his expression and facial structure reminded Seamus of a silver fox.

But the man’s companion was even more striking, and she held Seamus’ attention longer.

She was lovely, small and delicate. Her hair was fine and white-blond, similar to Wade’s. She wore it nearly to her shoulders, with the bangs tucked behind her ears, and a small jeweled clip held about half of the length pulled back at the crown of her head. Long silver earrings dangled from her lobes, glinting in the candlelight. Her eyes were green and slightly slanted, and she wore a burgundy V-neck evening gown.

“Do we have enough for the circle, Christian?” a short, stocky woman in a purple caftan asked him. “I can always call in a few servants. They won’t mind.”

“No, Vera,” the male vampire answered. “Six is a perfect number.”

His accent was French.

Vera clapped her hands cheerfully. “Good enough, then. Shall we begin?”

Seamus took a better look at her. She had short hair, dyed orange-red, and a string of huge blue stones around her neck. The other members at the table comprised a middle-aged man in a suit, a slightly younger man—also in a suit—and an attractive woman about thirty years old. Both of the younger people looked distressed, but the middle-aged man looked more…annoyed, as if he was wasting his time and would rather be someplace else.