"I don't know," Maggie said. "We should wait, though."
Stepping into the darkness under the bottom stairwell, I motioned to him with my hand. "Come in here."
He smiled slightly for the first time and walked over, ducking his head to move inside the shadows. He pushed me up against the back wall. I couldn't see anything, but smelled spearmint gum on his breath. This was Maggie's usual trip, not mine, so I let him lead for a few seconds. His mouth moving up my neck felt alien. I didn't like it.
Too fast, I struck under his chin, catching the top layers of his throat but missing a solid hold. He actually screamed and rammed my backbone against the wall.
Careless on my part. Too fast.
Releasing my bite just long enough to get a better grip, I clung to him desperately, but he felt my teeth withdraw and pitched me off. He bolted back out into the lobby. I ducked after him in time to see Maggie grab his short blond hair.
She didn't try for a grip, but just jerked him back, bit down once at the full extension of her mouth, and ripped. Dark blood sprayed her dress. His face was horrible, not some sleepy, half-conscious sweet dreamer like Gunner had been last week. Twisting panic and disbelief contorted Jeff's mouth, and he lost consciousness while still kicking and gasping.
When he stopped moving, Maggie dragged him back under the stairs. We took turns feeding. I tried not to think or feel anything as I saw flickering images of his life pass through my mind while drinking his blood… comic books, beer bottles, an angry mother who hated herself.
I pulled away from his throat and closed my eyes.
Using a knife she always carried in her handbag, Maggie cut jagged slashes in the torn flesh of his throat, making it look like someone had done a poor job murdering him. I took his wallet, and we walked out the back, leaving him for the janitor to find-if this dive had a janitor.
"There's a pint of blood on my dress," she hissed.
"I'm sorry."
Staying in the shadows, we made our way back down to the pier. Once we reached it, she climbed over the rail down to the rocky beach and knelt to try and rinse herself with salt water.
My knees buckled slowly down beside her. "I'm really sorry."
"What exactly happened back there?" she snapped.
"He was touching me. I don't know. His neck felt close enough… I just missed. That's never happened before."
"Well, it's a good thing you weren't alone. This is a safe city for me. I'm careful. One screwup, even one close call like that, could end everything. Do you understand?"
"Don't give me a safety lecture. I hunted in Portland on my own for over ninety years, just different from you."
"Like how?"
"Different. You play a lot more games. Take more time. I used to just stand outside an alley somewhere looking scared and someone always stopped to either help or hurt me."
Turning away, she splashed more water on her dress. She wasn't angry at me, just shaken. "You're so strange, Leisha. Not like one of us at all."
"Then why do you keep me? Why do you let me stay?"
"I don't know."
We sat on the rocks like that for an hour, neither one of us saying a word.
Chapter 7
Five weeks later I sat by the fire in Maggie's living room watching her play chess with William. He often forgot the rules, and she patiently but firmly reminded him that his bishop could move only diagonally on the same color.
"No, William," she said. "That's your rook. It moves ahead or backward or to the side."
The stimulation of someone new had made William more interested in his surroundings. Maggie was good for him. She had changed a great deal since our arrival as well. Every time I brought up the subject of leaving, she'd say something like, "Don't worry about it yet."
I thought about the hate-filled look on her face the night after we arrived, when she had told me to keep William out of her sight. Maybe she feared being forced to remember. William was such a stark image of the link between our own dead era and the present. We were all tied to the same dark secret: Maggie, Philip, Julian, myself, and Edward. William was the keystone, a blinding, undeniable example of what could be.
But Maggie surprised herself by discovering what I had always known. There was joy in William. He wasn't an abomination. He was our history. It was okay to look him in the face and smile… and remember.
"Checkmate. I win." She laughed.
"Eleisha lets me win."
"Eleisha lets you cheat, and that's why you win."
He looked to me for support, his long, wispy hair hanging at odd angles around a narrow, once-handsome face. I did let him cheat. For some reason, Maggie found it very important that he play everything by the rules. I had little concern for most rules.
"Cheating helps him. It makes him think," I said in my own defense.
"Yes, but he'll never learn anything that way. You've spoiled him for anyone's company but yours."
Oh, that was rich, as if people were beating the door down to spend time with William. Maggie must have realized how stupid her last statement sounded because she dropped it.
"One more game?" she asked him.
"I'm tired. I'll stoke up the fire."
He didn't know how to stoke or build a fire, but it was something he liked to talk about. A few minutes later he was sleeping in his chair.
"We're going to have to call Julian pretty soon," I said. "We've been here six weeks. He'll need to know what's going on."
"He already does."
"What?"
"I called Philip last week and told him what happened. He said he'd take care of it. Julian won't care who you're staying with as long as he doesn't have to see William."
I sat stunned for a moment, and then said, "You should have told me."
"Why?"
"Because you don't know Julian like I do."
"Oh, spare me the martyr syndrome. He wants you out of sight and out of mind. That's all."
"No, I didn't mean that. You just shouldn't… You're putting yourself at risk for us. What if you get hurt?"
The hard lines of her face softened. "Don't worry. I can take care of myself."
Guilt was a new emotion for me. I hated it.
"Maggie, there's something else. Something I didn't tell you."
"What?"
"Do you remember me telling you about that cop who felt Edward die? The one who fell on the lawn?"
"I told you that's impossible."
"No, he felt it. I know because… I felt him."
Her expression sharpened again. "What do you mean, you felt him?"
"He was inside my head. I didn't want to tell you earlier because you might make us leave. He tracked me into a bar in Portland. That's why I sounded so scared the night we came here. I was just sitting at a table in a bar, and pictures from his thoughts flashed into my head."
"What did you see?" Her voice was tight.
"Half-decomposed bodies in Edward's cellar, the photograph of me over his mantel, and the oil painting of me from his storage room. The police have all those things. He thought in scattered waves about his partner, Dominick, too. They both were chasing me."
"How close was he before you felt him?"
"Inside the room."
She sat back in her chair, thinking, staring at William's sleeping form. She didn't seem angry or anxious. Now that we were openly discussing this, I had a lot of questions. Except for Edward, I'd never had a chance to talk like this before-and he didn't know much more than I did.
"Maggie, why do we see images when we're feeding… I mean of our victim's thoughts and life?"
Her head jerked at the word "thoughts."
"I don't know," she answered.
"And why are there so few of us? I used to read accounts of mortals dealing with our kind all over Europe. Now there are six-five, with Edward gone." I paused, remembering a painful talk I'd had with Edward a hundred years ago. "What happened to the rest? Edward told me… he thought Julian killed some of us, but he didn't know why."