“How did that name come up, anyway?” Zachary asked, almost too casually.
Hoping the subject of a target to hunt would be more settling for him, Adia said, “I was looking up my contact from that bookstore, a vamp named Jerome.”
Zachary nodded tightly. “I’ve heard of him,” he said. “My impression is that everyone knows him but very few people like him, and he pretends to have more influence than he does. I doubt he’ll be helpful. And—” He hesitated, and his controlled expression cracked, showing for an instant the fear beneath. “And I’m not sure he’s worth mentioning to Dominique,” he said. “She’s already dealing with losing Sarah. Do you really want to flash in front of her the creature who killed her first love?”
Zachary’s reaction was so unnerving Adia didn’t know how to respond. The fact was Jerome was the only contact they still had, and Zachary and Dominique were just going to have to deal with it. On the other hand, the concept of her having to tell Zachary and Dominique to suck it up was terrifying. These people were the ones Adia looked to for strength, especially now. They weren’t allowed to be shaken by a page in a book.
Zachary jumped visibly when the door opened, admitting Michael, whose arms were laden with a bag full of groceries.
“I brought food,” Michael said when neither Vida spoke for a moment. “There’s one more bag in the car if someone can grab it. Zachary, good to see you up, even if I’m not sure you should be. You’re still pale as a sheet.”
Either Michael was oblivious to the emotion lingering in the room, or he chose to ignore it. Either way, Adia appreciated the interruption.
She decided she wouldn’t mention Jerome to Dominique—or to Zachary again—if she could find a way around doing so, but she couldn’t ignore the only useful contact she had.
Zachary was fraying; he kept lying down and getting up within minutes, as if he couldn’t stop his body long enough to sleep. Michael hid behind a cavalier joviality that was driving her crazy, but when he had to be still, he seemed dazed and unfocused.
This hunt was going to destroy them all if it wasn’t over soon. Adia just hoped that ending it the way they needed to wouldn’t be as bad.
CHAPTER 14
SATURDAY, 9:44 A.M.
ZACHARY TRIED TO help put away groceries, until Adia flat out ordered him to leave and get some sleep. As he retreated to bed, he could hear Adia and Michael arguing behind him about how Michael didn’t need Jay to “babysit” him when he went to New York. For someone who admitted to working with moral-less mercenaries, the Arun put up a lot of fuss when he thought someone didn’t trust him, but it sounded like he might win the argument this time.
Zachary wasn’t feeling dizzy anymore, but it was still a relief to stretch out in bed, alone and, for the moment, unguarded. Technically, he shared the room with Jay, but the Marinitch had commented that he had trouble sleeping inside, so Zachary hoped he could get a few hours of sleep without being bothered.
He lay on top of the sheets and closed his eyes in meditation, trying to relax his body and mind. Hearing Adia say Jerome’s name, he had wanted to throw up.
He looked up, glaring before he could help it, as Jay stepped into the room in his usual birdlike manner. Jay ducked around the door and closed it behind him before sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing Zachary. So much for not having a roommate.
“Yes?” Zachary finally prompted him, when it seemed Jay was perfectly happy to stare at him with those hazel-green eyes, never speaking. Like a freaking raven, nevermore.
Jay would probably be flattered by the description. His line were the only ones who used familiars in their work, raising animals as more than pets. Zachary didn’t know what Jay’s particular companion was.
“Something’s wrong,” Jay observed, tilting his head and studying Zachary in a way that made him nervous enough to sit up and erase any lines of anger or concern or frustration from his face from the force of habit.
“What isn’t wrong?” Zachary replied. “Sarah is gone, and we’re stumbling around—”
“That is not what I mean, and I think you know it,” Jay interrupted. “What is it you’re ashamed of, that you think I will find out?”
The list was too long to begin, even if he had had any intention of sharing with the birdbrained witch.
“If I thought it was any of your business, I’d say something aloud,” he said flatly.
“I’m pretty sure it is my business when it starts making you wonder whether you want to win, especially since you’re likely to be watching my back,” Jay replied.
“How about you get out of my head and focus on the problem at hand?” Zachary snapped, grateful that no one who really mattered was around to hear the sharp response. He was exhausted, physically and mentally and emotionally. He desperately needed to sleep. More importantly, he needed a chance to relax, to drop all his guards and pretenses and rest.
He knew it wasn’t acceptable to need that. The self-control that took up much of his energy should have been real, not feigned, not something so heavy to carry around.
“The problem at hand …” Jay shrugged. “I have replayed the event in my mind a thousand times since everything went bad, and I can come to no other conclusion. Sarah was going to turn herself in. She was as surprised as we were when the others appeared. She didn’t come there with the intent to betray you.”
“Maybe your abilities are not as sharp as you think they are,” Zachary said, much more at ease now that the conversation had turned back to their current mission. Focusing on a hunt had often been what had gotten him through the worst times.
Jay smiled, an expression that was strangely sharp and warm and biting all at once. “My abilities are every bit as advanced as yours are, Zachary Vida. They would have to be before I could even begin to read one of your line. And Sarah had every intention of dying the day she approached us. She is desperate, she is scared, and I will say it if no one else will: I do not think she is, or ever will be, a monster. I think we are hunting innocent prey, and I do not like doing that.”
Zachary tensed. “Does that mean you would defy the Rights of Kin?”
“Of course not.” From most people, the instant words would have sounded insincere, but every word Jay said seemed to be measured and considered. “My first loyalty is to my kin. If Sarah was willing to sacrifice herself, then that shows she, too, is still loyal to that same idea. If we cannot survive without destroying that which shows us what we could be … well …” He shrugged. “It is an idea I find distasteful, but survival sometimes requires doing that which you would prefer not to.”
Finally, Zachary let himself say the words that had been on the tip of his tongue almost since Jay first walked into Dominique’s home and introduced himself.
“You creep me out, Jay.”
The Marinitch witch laughed. “I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said. “Who’s the woman?”
The question was so unexpected that Zachary exclaimed, “What?”
There was only one woman Jay could be asking about.
Jay tilted his head inquisitively. “I am not aware of any ancient Vida law that forbids her line from having relationships. So why do you hide it?”
“I don’t—” He broke off, because denials were effectively useless. He didn’t recall thinking about her, though he knew she came to mind intermittently, especially when he was this tired. “I don’t hide it. But I don’t discuss my personal life with people like Dominique or Adia, either. That just isn’t the relationship we have,” he said, settling for honesty, since he knew a lie wasn’t likely to get him far. “And frankly, it isn’t the relationship you and I have, either, so I would appreciate it if you dropped the subject.”
There was no law against a Vida having a relationship. It had in fact been hinted to him, strongly and frequently, that he was twenty-six years old and should get around to choosing a partner so he could pass on the Vida genes, like some kind of prize bull. But the only girl Zachary could possibly
bring home—so to speak—was one who was capable of taking down a vampire using her bare hands. Anyone he might describe as comforting was no one Dominique would approve of or even want to know about.
He left before Jay had a chance to make any more comments. Adia had ordered him to sleep, and he would obey, but she hadn’t said where, and he didn’t intend for it to be where the telepath could rake his dreams. He obviously didn’t have as much control over his conscious mind as he had thought. The last thing he wanted was to give Jay unfettered access to his dreams and nightmares.
He grabbed his jacket, but paused when he realized that Adia wasn’t around anymore.
“She went out to follow up on a lead,” Jay said when Zachary hesitated.
“She didn’t say anything to me.”
Jay shrugged, not needing to respond out loud: Maybe she assumed you didn’t want to know.
She was going after Jerome. Had he really expected her to do anything else? The realization filled him with a kind of fatalistic resignation. It was out of his hands now.
“I’m going out,” he said. He took his keys from their hook beside the doorway. He let his mind be blank, empty, with nothing for the Marinitch to hear. “I have my cell phone if Adia needs to reach me.”
He didn’t think he had a destination, until he found himself in front of a familiar apartment. He climbed the gray brick stairs and put out a hand like a man who had been hypnotized. He felt like he didn’t knock but rather watched as his knuckles struck the turquoise door of their own volition.
The woman who opened the door greeted him with a soft smile.
“Zimmy,” she said as she reached forward and ushered him inside. She pulled her hand back at the last moment with a rueful chuckle and held it up apologetically. “Let me just wash my hands and toss a towel over my project.”
Her hands were coated in red-brown clay. Her shirt, arms and face had been spattered with it, as well, from the work she had been throwing on a potter’s wheel in the corner of the fairly small kitchen.
She put a damp towel over the work in progress, washed her hands and arms, pulled the clip out of her strawberry blond hair to allow it to fall loose to her shoulders in a riot of waves, and put on a kettle full of water before she asked, “Tea?”
“Please,” he replied, feeling his whole body relax in her presence. He no longer needed to focus and struggle to keep his breath from speeding and his heart from pounding.
“Hard day?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You look terrible,” she said, “like you’ve been trying to run a marathon in the rain with the flu.”
The words made him laugh, the kind of sound that could find its way from his throat only around her, because she was the only one with whom he could accept how utterly empty and absurd his life was.
“My cousin tried to kill me today,” he said. He realized that his voice held an edge of hysteria. “She nearly succeeded. But I guess that’s fair, since I was trying to kill her at the time.”
“Do you need help with her?” she asked.
He shook his head. He didn’t know what kind of help she might offer, and he was pretty sure he didn’t want to. Michael wasn’t the only one whose friends did not live entirely by Vida code. Zachary maintained his relationship with Olivia by never allowing himself to consider the people she was willing to work with.
The kettle whistled, and Olivia poured two cups of tea. She made his sweet, with just a little cream, the way she knew he liked it, and handed it to him in a mug she had made with her own hands and always kept aside for him. She had “given” it to him as a gift, but kept it in her cupboard because she knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it anywhere he lived. A beautiful handmade piece of pottery sitting alongside the generic bargain-store white mugs would lead to too many awkward questions.
By the time he had taken the first sip, his anxiety was gone, leaving only bone-deep exhaustion behind. Olivia sat behind him, on the back of the couch, so she could massage his shoulders.
“So,” she said as he shut his eyes and leaned back against her. “Do you want to talk about this horrid hunt you’re on?”
“I can’t,” he answered. Some of Olivia’s contacts could probably connect him to his targets, which meant that according to the Rights of Kin, he should be demanding answers from her. But he couldn’t stand to do so. And since no one else knew about her, no one would tell him otherwise.
“You put all of SingleEarth in a flurry,” she said. “I had three appointments cancel this morning.” From someone else, the words might have sounded like an accusation, but from her they were as casual as a remark about the weather.
“Sorry,” he said anyway.
“Never apologize to me for doing what you have to do, and being what you have to be,” she replied, tilting his head up so he met her dark gaze squarely. She slid down from the back of the couch to lean against his side. “You should get some sleep, darling.” She ran a hand up his chest, then hooked one finger under the chain barely visible at his throat, fishing the necklace out so she could see it. The pendant was also Olivia’s work; she claimed that it was one of her first experiments with silver.
“I can’t go home.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Stay here. I’ll have homemade beef stew ready when you wake. You need to get your blood pressure back up. You’re much too pale.” Before he could comment on her ability to read him so well, she remarked, “I probably know you better than you know yourself.”
“Do you know how I’m going to make it through this hunt?”
She paused and kissed his cheek before saying, “I don’t care how. I just hope you do.”
As she returned to the kitchen, he stretched out on the couch. He tried to watch her start the stew she had promised, but his eyelids began to droop. He knew it was a lie, an illusion, but he felt safe, and his body responded accordingly, pulling him down into a deep, peaceful sleep.
CHAPTER 15
SATURDAY, 4:37 P.M.
AS DUSK FELL, Sarah opened her eyes.
She had been dreaming—or remembering.…
There had been a girl, a beautiful lady, with honey blond hair and dove white skin. She stood beside a sable horse, one hand on the leather of the saddle, and one hand out like a queen giving a serf permission to rise.
Then a different image. Nikolas, averting his eyes, turning his face away and asking in a very small voice, “Do you forgive me?”
Sarah shoved herself to her feet. Once again, it took too long for her to remember where she was. Who she was. She was Sarah Vida, and she was in Nikolas’s house, and those dreams hadn’t been her past.
She nearly ran into Kristopher as she stumbled into the hallway. He caught her arm to steady her.
Those were his memories. She had healed him but had not had any energy left to shield her mind before they had fallen asleep in rooms divided only by a single wall.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
She meant to say, Fine. She meant to say anything except for what she said. “Was Christine really so beautiful?”
She wasn’t talking about the bloodbond who lived with them now, but the girl of the same name who the twins had loved when they were younger. Kristopher had pursued her despite the difference in their stations, and in the end she had rejected and publicly humiliated him. Nikolas, in a fury, had struck her and killed her.
They had both been human then. More than a hundred years later, the mere mention of Christine still had the power to affect both brothers strongly; just sharing the dead girl’s name had contributed to the modern-day Christine’s situation.
Kristopher’s eyes widened and she felt him try futilely to shield his thoughts from her. “She … you …” Though she tried to turn her mind away, Sarah couldn’t help feeling his distress. Of all the memories he had, the ones of that girl were the last thing he wanted to share. A century and a half later, his feelings about her were still ambivalent. He had loved her; he hadn’t really known her. And
in the end it had killed her.
“Yes.” The answer came from Nikolas, who approached from the stairwell. He must have felt Sarah wake. Perhaps he even knew what she had dreamed, and had chosen to intervene.
“At least, she seemed to be. It’s hard to know what she would have looked like through different eyes.”
“Do you regret what happened?”
This time, Nikolas looked horrified. “Christine Brunswick was used to having everything she wanted, and she was thrilled to have two desperately infatuated young men tripping over themselves to impress her and answer her every whim. She loved to tease, in private, even though in public she put on her high airs and was too good to even look at us. She was a coquette. She was a spoiled brat. But she didn’t deserve to die.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I shouldn’t even have brought her up. I’m not used to dreaming someone else’s memories.”
“At least the smile is nice to see,” Kristopher observed with a forced light tone as he tried to shift the conversation. “What’s it for?”
Sarah had been trying to suppress the expression, which didn’t seem appropriate for the conversation, but since Kristopher had noticed it, she had obviously failed. She admitted, “I forget sometimes that you two were born more than a century ago. And then I hear Nikolas use the word ‘coquette.’ ”
A cry from downstairs made Sarah spin about, tensing for a fight before her mind recognized the noise as a happy sound.
“Our Christine has a guest,” Nikolas said with a wry smile Sarah didn’t understand until the three of them reached the living room, where Christine was laughing over a photo album with Heather.
Heather’s smile and laughter instantly disappeared as she saw the three vampires. She snapped the album shut, and several loose photos from the back tumbled to the ground. She swiped them up quickly, shoved them back into place and then rose to her feet.
She spoke to Sarah. “Robert asked me to bring some of Christine’s belongings to her, after you sent me off with him. That’s why I’m here.”