Barb Hendee: Hunting Memories

Digging through the envelopes, she pulled out a letter. "Here, Philip, come look at this one. She says that Julian could not have killed every vampire in Europe. She believes there must be others, only they are hiding… like she's been hiding. She thinks they're afraid of him, and she's been waiting, just waiting, for someone to fight back. When she learned we'd survived an attack and driven him off, she knew the world had shifted. She needs our help!"

Philip listened to this outburst without a word, but then he walked slowly over to Eleisha, staring down at her with eyes so hard that Wade would have backed up-but Eleisha didn't.

She stood her ground. "Look at the letter, Philip."

"And how did she know where we are?" Philip asked, ignoring the letter. His tone dropped low. "How did she know we drove off Julian?"

Eleisha's voice wavered. "She hasn't told me that. But this isn't a trap."

She turned to Wade, stretching out her hand. "Just read this one."

He was still reeling that she'd kept all of this from himself and Philip, but he took the letter and, scanning a middle paragraph, he could almost hear the polite, desperate voice behind the words. Without even asking, he flashed what he read into Philip's thoughts.

… but the house you stay in now is not suitable. You must find someplace larger, someplace to fortify where you can protect yourselves and me and anyone else we might find. I wait to hear from you. I have waited so long, even before I knew your name.

He looked up, thinking on the initial note. "The Elizabeth Bathory Underground?"

"That's what she calls it… or hopes to call it. It's an underground we'll create so we can look for others and help bring them in, keep them safe from Julian. Rose thinks the name is subtle enough to escape obvious notice but still offers a clue. Elizabeth Bathory was a countess from the sixteenth century who-"

"I know who she was," Wade cut in, frustrated by this sudden shift. "She murdered young girls to bathe in their blood, and she became linked into the history of vampires. That isn't what I meant. How could you get so involved in this without warning us?"

Eleisha looked at the floor. "I don't know. I liked writing to Rose, and I was afraid you'd ask me to stop… and I want to find her, Wade. I need to find her."

His frustration faded. He shared an empathy with both of his companions. He knew Philip reveled in having company after existing alone for so long-because of Julian. Philip's greatest fear was being alone again.

But Eleisha was more complicated. In 1839, Julian had realized his father, William, was dying of Alzheimer's disease-which had no name yet, but Wade recognized the symptoms while reading Eleisha's memories. In desperation, Julian turned his father, only to condemn the old man to eternal dementia. To cover his mistake, Julian turned Eleisha in order to create a permanent care-taker for William, and he'd put them both on a ship bound for America. Eleisha had spent nearly one hundred and seventy years caring for William, but like Maggie, William was gone now, too, turned to dust.

Eleisha missed caring for him. She possessed a need to be needed-which might explain her affection for Philip.

Now she wanted to look for lost vampires?

"You are not going anywhere ," Philip snapped. "And you will stop sending these letters." He paced halfway across the room, muttering, "I have to think. I have to think what to do now."

"I don't need your permission," Eleisha said.

He stopped pacing and looked at her in surprise.

"I am going find Rose and offer her a safe place," she went on. "I want your help, and Wade's, but I'll do it alone if I have to."

Wade had never seen the two of them like this, and the look on Philip's face was beginning to worry him. Stepping toward Eleisha, Philip drew his lips up over his teeth in a snarl.

"You don't think I can stop you?"

"No." She shook her head. "Because if you do, I won't forgive you."

She might as well have slapped him. Releasing a sound between rage and anguish, he turned toward the door. "Then go by yourself! Walk into a trap by yourself!"

"It's not a trap! Just look at her letters!"

"This woman is terrified of Julian," Wade managed to put in.

Philip ignored both of them and stormed out the door.

Predictably, he got as far as the front porch before he stopped and turned halfway around, his pale face gone white.

"Whatever happens, if someone else knows we are here, we have to find a new place." He paused as if the next words pained him. "She spoke of finding a place we could fortify. If we do this… if we do this thing for you, we'll have to begin there."

For a few seconds, no one spoke. Then Eleisha said quietly, "I think I've already found one. I haven't seen it myself yet, just photos."

Wade's mouth fell open. More secrets? "What? Where?"

"Back home," she said. "In Portland. Let me book plane tickets, and I'll show you."

Wade stared at her as if she were a stranger, but then he realized this was the first time he'd heard her use the word «home» in over a month.

"Book the tickets," he whispered hoarsely.

At the moment, he didn't want to know any more.

Julian Ashton had fled to his family estate in Wales like a victim, like a coward-or at least that's how he viewed it.

His gift was fear, and he was accustomed to inducing the emotion, not to experiencing it himself. The only thing he feared was a telepathic member of his own kind, and he had destroyed the last one a long time ago.

He felt no remorse for this. He had taken simply necessary action and ensured his own survival… until now.

For centuries, his kind had existed by four laws, and the most sacred of these was "No vampire shall kill to feed." They'd retained their secrecy through telepathy, feeding on mortals, altering a memory, and then leaving the victim alive. New vampires required training from their makers to both awaken and hone psychic abilities, but Julian's telepathy had never surfaced. He had lived by his own laws, and so the elders began quietly turning against him. His maker, Angelo Travare, had tried to hide this news from him, but he knew . He heard the rumblings, and he had acted first, beheading every vampire who'd lived by the laws, including Angelo-who would have turned against him sooner or later. Angelo had hoped that Julian would eventually develop his powers, but this was a false hope, and Julian knew it.

He began to see a new path, a world without laws.

Vampires without telepathy-without any training by a maker-were no threat to him. On some level, he almost viewed them as kindred spirits.

Then… a month ago, without reason or warning, Eleisha, once his servant, had suddenly manifested psychic abilities so powerful she had forced her thoughts into his and taken over his mind, his body, his free will.

To make matters worse, she seemed to have won the protection of Philip Brantй!

Eleisha had warned Julian off and then let him go, but he knew this was far from over.

Even after a month of hiding out in Cliffbracken, where he had always felt secure, his hands still shook at the memory of her thoughts pushing inside his. He had been completely helpless to stop her.

Of course she knew nothing of the past, of the elders, of the laws, but Julian's world had shifted, and he was uncertain what to do.

What would happen as her power grew stronger?

Since returning, he'd spent much of his time in the main floor study, but earlier tonight, he had made his way down into the depths of his decaying family manor, and he paced the hard mud floor of what had once been a dungeon, back in the days of his grandfather.

He was in the guard room, surrounded by small cells.