Why she'd only felt it with Jack and not me was a whole other question I wasn't ready to deal with.
"I wish it was, but..." Jessamine shook her head and looked over at me. "I know what you think it is, and it's not that."
I relaxed back in my chair, offering a bemused smile to help ease the tension in the room. "And what do I think it is?"
Her eyes narrowed under her bright blue eye shadow. Then she asked, "You're a... vampire, aren't you?"
My jaw dropped. I gaped at her, unable to decide if I should argue or deny or ask how she knew. Had she known the instant we walked in here, or was it when she touched Jack?
Since I could only stare, Jack finally answered, "We both are, actually."
"Well, there's something much more going on with you," Jessamine said.
He leaned forward, resting both arms on the satin tablecloth. "What does that even mean?"
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"But I'm not dead, obviously." He waved his arms to enunciate his point, and then he put his fingers to his jugular in his neck. "I have a pulse. It's slower than yours, but it's there. My heart is beating."
He looked at me for confirmation, and I could hear the subtle thud of his heart, pounding harder and faster than it usually did, but still very slow by human standards.
I nodded, suppressing the urge to smile at the wave of pleasure that went through me every time I tuned into his heartbeat. "Your heart sounds good," I said, but that was an understatement, because for me, there was no sound on earth more beautiful than the delicate drumming of Jack's heart.
"Your body is alive, clearly," Jessamine agreed.
Jack laughed darkly then. "My body is alive? What about the rest of me?"
"I don't know," she replied, and her accent was sharpened by her own confusion and annoyance.
"And what else is there than my body?" He gestured toward himself - the Cure tee shirt that covered his wonderfully toned physique. "I'm just a bag of blood and bones, and if that's alive, then what's left to be dead?"
Jessamine pursed her lips. "Your soul."
"My soul?" Jack asked incredulously and leaned back away from her. "But I love. I laugh. I live. I'm a regular inspirational quote over here. If I can do all those things without a soul, then what's one good for?"
"For when you die," she explained. "It's what you leave behind when your body is gone."
"So like a ghost?" I asked, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
"But you're saying the thing I leave when I'm dead is already dead," Jack pressed on, ignoring me. "If it's only good for when I'm dead, does it even affect me when I'm alive?"
"I don't know, honestly," she admitted. "I've never met anyone that had this problem before."
He stuck his thumb toward me. "But hers is alive?"
Jessamine peered over at me. "As far as I can tell, yes. She appears to be an ordinary vampire."
"Maybe you're the one that's haunting me," I suggested, trying to make a joke.
Jack just stared at Jessamine, without cracking a smile, but when I reached over he let me take his hand, holding it underneath he table.
"You're being haunted?" Jessamine asked me.
"Maybe. I don't know. It's just weird dreams." I brushed it off. "But I don't think that really matters right now. I'd rather figure out what's going on with Jack."
"What does all this mean? Can you fix it?" Jack asked.
"I honestly don't know if it's something that can be fixed, or even how much of a problem it is," Jessamine said, and her frazzled demeanor seemed to be ebbing away, returning to something closer to the jovial young woman she'd been before she started the reading. "You're happy? You're healthy? You can have fun and love your fiancee?"
"Yeah," he said, then more emphatically, "Yes, absolutely."
"Then I think you should go on living your life, the same way you always have," Jessamine said.
He let that sink in for a second, then shook his head. "So you're telling me that I'm dead, but it's no big deal?"
"I'm sorry I reacted the way I did. I truly am," she said, looking between the two of us as she apologized. "It's just not something I've ever encountered before. But the truth is that you seem happy and okay to me, so I don't know if it's something you need to worry about."
"But you don't understand how it happened or what it means?" he asked.
She shook her head sadly. "Unfortunately, no. If this were a medical problem, you could go to the hospital and have all kinds of tests. But it's just me here, running this little shop, and I mostly do readings for people hoping to find love or win the lottery."
"You think I'm okay, though?" Jack persisted.
She countered, "Do you feel okay?"
"Other than being a little freaked out, yeah, I feel fine," he said, and most of his panic had seemed to dissipate.
"Look, I won't charge you for this since I don't think I was much help at all," Jessamine said. "But I'll look into this more, talk to some of my colleagues, and see if I can find anything else out. Why don't you come back in about a week, and I should hopefully have more information for you?"
Jack nodded once. "Sure. That sounds good."
"I'm sorry again for reacting so strongly," Jessamine said as she stood up. "I hope I didn't scare you too much."
"Nah, I don't scare that easy anymore." He smiled at her then, and it was his normal goofy, sexy smile.
Once we were out on the street, where the fog had shifted to a cold mist, his smile had fallen away. He took my hand, but he stared straight ahead, with his brow furrowed in thought.
"How are you really doing?" I asked, moving his hand so his arm hung loosely around my shoulders as we walked.
"I've been better. But I don't know." He shrugged. "I'm thinking she's young and inexperienced, and she just hadn't met anyone quite as awesome as me before, so it threw all her senses into a tizzy."
"That's probably it," I agreed with a laugh, but I couldn't entirely shake the uneasy feeling that had taken hold in the pit of my stomach.
THE LIVING ROOM TO OUR apartment normally seemed rather spacious, but it was still overflowing from Milo and Bobby's wedding on Saturday. Gifts, decorations, and now company in the form of Mae and Ezra - not that I minded the last bit.
Leif didn't like staying in the city for too long, so he and my mother had moved on, heading to Russia to show my mom some of the places he'd visited in the past. Peter left early this morning, though he didn't bother telling anyone where he was going. He just left a note for Ezra, saying he had somewhere else he needed to be.
Jack and Ezra were sitting on the couch, with Matilda sprawled out between the two of them, watching a nature documentary on the TV, while Bobby, Milo, Mae, and I were going through their things, trying to decide what to get rid of and what to keep.
"Because I'm a chef, people assume I'm always eating and entertaining, and my coworkers got me an insane amount of cookware," Milo said, adding a set of steak knives to his growing pile of culinary equipment on the table he planned to donate.
Milo did love to cook and entertain, as he always had, which is why he'd become a chef in the first place. Unfortunately, most of his friends and family - aside from Bobby - didn't eat, so that left him no one to cook for really, and our tiny kitchen was rarely used.
Years ago, when Milo was enrolling in culinary school, Jack asked him why he wanted to work in the food industry if he couldn't eat or taste any of it. (Food tasted terrible to vampires and made us sick if we tried to consume it).
Milo countered that Beethoven was deaf and still made beautiful music. He still understood flavor combinations, enough to make many other chefs envious of his skill, and he enjoyed the act of creating something beautiful that he knew other people would love.
Mae held up a crystal punch bowl, and the setting sunlight coming through the windows refracted off the glass, leaving rainbows to dance around the room. "Well, it is a lovely gift, and it's the thought that counts, of cour
se."
"We didn't even invite that many people to the wedding." Bobby stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the scene. "How did we get so many gifts?"
"People have always been enamored with Milo, and now he's oozing vampire charm," I said, only half-joking.
"That was one of the major pluses for getting married." Milo held up his hand and tapped the platinum band on his finger. "I can just flash this to scare off the wait staff who get overly flirtatious."
"That was the major plus?" Bobby asked with an arched eyebrow. "There was no other good reason to get married?"
Milo put his hands on Bobby's waist and pulled him closer. "I'm kidding. But married or not, I already knew I was going to be with you for the rest of your life."
His deliberate choices of words - the rest of your life - caused Bobby to give him a pained smile. "It's for the best. But that doesn't change how much I love you."
"I know." Milo leaned down and kissed him sweetly on the mouth. "I'm still happy I married you, Mr. Swanson."
Bobby smiled. "And I'm happy I married you, Mr. Swanson."
Milo had given up his adopted surname of Townsend, preferring to take Bobby's name so there would be something of him that he could carry with him for longer than one lifetime.
With our mother marrying our father and taking his given name of Bouchard, I was now the only Bonham left in my family. I glanced over at Jack, arguing with Ezra about what jerks orcas were, and I wondered if I'd be able to persuade him to exchange "Townsend" for "Bonham" for me.
"Would you mind if I took this crystal bowl?" Mae asked once Bobby and Milo separated from their embrace. "Only if you don't want it."
"No, of course not." Milo waved it toward her. "If you have use for it, please, take it."
She smiled, the same one that never seemed to quite reach her eyes anymore, though she did seem to be happier around Milo. The wedding had definitely put her in better spirits.
"When are you heading back to London?" Bobby asked as he carefully began folding up a set of satin napkins our boss Ettie had given him.
"Tomorrow, I think. We still have so much to do back at the manor." She placed her hand on her chin and let out sigh. "We may have bitten off more than we can chew, so to speak." Then she looked over at Ezra. "But it's good for us, I think. We both need to keep busy."
Her expression almost looked satisfied, like she and Ezra had finally found some kind of peace together. Then she blinked and turned back to Bobby. "What about you two? When are you heading out on your honeymoon?"
"Wednesday," he replied, casting a glance toward Milo. "It's really more of an extended weekend than a true honeymoon."
Milo frowned. "We've already talked about this. My boss got a tip that an inspector is supposed to be coming in soon, and we might be able to get a Michelin star. It's an exciting thing, and I want to be here for it."
"I know, I know," Bobby contended. "We'll go on another trip later."
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see the screen flashing with Olivia Smith. I had just seen her at the wedding, but prior to that, it had been months since I talked to her. Olivia wasn't the type to call and chat.
"I should take this," I said, excusing myself from the bickering of the newlyweds.
"ALICE?" OLIVIA ASKED, SPEAKING IN that hazy, seductive way she always did.
"Is everything okay?" I asked right away, fearing the worst.
"Of course!" she replied with a laugh. "I'm on my first real vacation in ages. Maybe even centuries." She paused, as if doing the math. "I don't know how long it's been, but it's nice to let my hair down for a change."
"So when I've seen you before, that's you being tightly wound?" I laughed, remembering the many times I'd been with Olivia as she lounged about, drunk on blood.
"I'm retired, Alice, I'm never completely wound anymore," she said. "But never mind all that. That's not what I called about."
"What did you call about?" I asked.
"I'm in Prague, visiting 'friends." The way she said it, I could practically hear the air quotes around the word friends. "And I ran into someone you may know. Cate Brennan?"
"Cate Brennan?" I repeated, trying to place it. "No. I don't think so."
"We were just chatting, and everything was going fine. She's a really gorgeous vampire with long black hair and these nice, luscious breasts -"
"Olivia," I cut her off, since she a had tendency to wax poetic (but usually more crude than poetic) about her crushes and sexual conquests. "Focus."
"Right," she said, snapping back to the topic. "I mentioned you, and Cate had this flash of recognition in her eyes. She tried to mask it, but I could just see it. I got used to reading people, back when I was a hunter."
I sat down on the bed, still unmade from when Jack and I had gotten up a few hours ago. "Maybe she's just heard of me."
"Maybe," Olivia allowed but sounded unconvinced. "I was trying to get a read on her and dig further. When I gave Peter's name, that's when she totally froze up."
Instinctively, I tensed up. Even with our bond severed years ago, his name still evoked memories of danger and trouble. How many brushes with death had he encountered that I'd only narrowly saved him from, not to mention all the times he'd very nearly gotten me killed?
"Peter?" I asked once I calmed myself down. "Why did you mention Peter?"
"Because he's a vagabond," Olivia replied disinterestedly, as if she hadn't been the one that brought him up. "He's always travelling, doing his own thing, and I know he was obsessed with you for a while, so I thought he might've dropped your name in conversation."
"So what happened after you referred to Peter?" I pressed.
"She totally shut down and freaked out. She couldn't get away from me fast enough."
I chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to consider only the most innocent of possibilities. "Well, Peter can be a jerk sometimes. That's not a totally unheard of reaction from meeting him, I'm sure."
"You're right about that," she agreed with weary laugh. "There was just something... off about her response. I don't know how to describe it exactly."
"Why did you call to tell me about this?" I asked her finally. "I mean, it's interesting, but it's not the kind of thing that usually ranks important enough to merit a phone call from you."
"I know, I know." She paused, letting the silence hang between us as she articulated her thoughts. "When you're a hunter, you rely a lot on your intuition. You know how that goes now, don't you?"
I closed my eyes, as if that could somehow shield me from the weight of her words. When you're hunting vampires, you must learn to trust your gut and react quickly. You have to sense trouble before it senses you, because by then, it's already too late.
"I do," I told her.
"She just had this look about her," Olivia said at length. "When I mentioned Peter's name, there was this panic in her eyes, like a caged animal. And in my experience, wild animals like that tend to be dangerous when they break out of their cage."
"Thank you, but I really don't think I know a Cate Brennan," I said.
"She may still be in the area, if you wanted to come out. You're only a few hours' drive from Prague," she offered.
"I think it's longer than a few hours," I corrected her. I'd never been to Prague, but Milo had talked about going there last winter, and I recalled him saying it was eight or nine hours, at least. Longer than that, if we took a train.
"I'm just passing along information," Olivia said. "I've given it to you, and now you can do with it as you wish. If you want to come out here and investigate and make sure this girl isn't up to any trouble, then by all means, come on out. If you just want to forget I ever called, that's your prerogative too."
I laughed despite my unease. "Thank you, Olivia."
"I'm always looking out for you, kid," she said before offering a quick goodbye.
I hung up the phone and stood up, thinking that standing might make me feel better somehow. There was a good chance
that this was no big deal at all, that Olivia was just looking for an excuse for me to come visit her since we hadn't seen or talked to each other much these past few years.
But it wasn't like Olivia to waste my time, and it also wasn't like her to be paranoid or put herself out there for things that didn't matter. She'd gotten lazy in her retirement, and she liked to keep it that way.
A small knock on my open bedroom pulled me from my thoughts, and I turned to see Ezra standing in the doorway. "Is everything okay?" he asked quietly.
I forced a smile. "Yeah. Everything's fine."
His mahogany eyes appeared unconvinced. "You just left to take a call, and now you look spooked."
"It was just Olivia," I said, since telling Ezra the truth usually made things easier. He always had an answer or sage advice to pass on. "She had a weird interaction with someone that knows Peter. Maybe you've heard of? Cate Brennan."
"Cate Brennan? No, I don't..." He trailed off and a look of shocked recognition overtook his handsome features. "Oh my god. Catherine."
"Catherine?" I echoed.
"Yes, she..." Ezra looked uncharacteristically flustered as he struggled to find the words to identify her. "You remember hearing of Peter's wife, Elise?" I nodded. "Catherine was Elise's best friend."
I HAD RECALLED HEARING ABOUT Peter's first love, Elise. Her name had been a source of great pain initially, back when I had felt bonded to Peter but he kept pushing me away because of how much it had hurt him to lose Elise.
Nobody spoke of her much, partially out of respect for Peter and partially because no one outside of Ezra had met her. If I understood correctly, Elise had died long before either Mae or Jack had even been born.
But now I realized how little I knew about her. I hadn't even known that she and Peter had been married until Ezra referred to her as Peter's wife, although that made sense. Everyone just usually called her Peter's love or intended or soulmate.
"What did Olivia have to say about her?" Ezra asked.
I told Ezra everything Olivia had said, which hadn't been that much, and Ezra still looked dazed when he sat down on the bed beside me.
"I don't know if Peter has seen Catherine since the last time I did," he explained, exhaling deeply. "But the last I saw her was... it must've been 150 years ago. Maybe more?"