Summer was approaching.
William was sitting on the velvet couch one night, carving a new set of checkers and talking quietly to himself. It troubled Eleisha that he only ventured out into the main sitting room now when Edward wasn't home… No, it more than troubled her.
Tonight, she wore a comfortable muslin dress-that she'd purchased herself-and was walking around the hotel room in bare feet.
"Are you tired of carving, William?" she asked. "Would you like to play chess?"
"No, no. I'll stoke up the fire," he said.
"All right."
She knew this was his answer for when he was content with his current activity. So she looked about the suite, wondering what to do with herself, trying not to let herself think. Lately, all she could do was think-to mull doubts and questions over and over again.
She had longed to ask Edward for the answers for years now, but at the same time, she resisted having to accept anything from him, to need him, to depend on him.
And so a few weeks ago, she'd gone to a library to do research on the undead. The wealth of material astounded her. She was bursting to know…
Turning her head, she heard Edward's light footsteps on the stairwell, and a moment later, he swept in through the front door with a «Tallyho» and a bottle of red wine.
"Hello, darlings," he called. "Daddy's home. Look what I've found. A bottle of 1865 cabernet sauvignon. We should celebrate."
"Celebrate what?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Think of something. You're the clever one." He frowned, staring at her. "Good God, what are you wearing?"
William stood up and quickly shuffled toward his room.
Suddenly, the whole facade of their existence came crashing down around Eleisha. She wanted to scream but did not know how. She whirled to face Edward, and his cheerful expression shifted to caution.
Her feeling of hysteria faded, replaced by a cold sense of calm.
"Edward, how many of us are there?"
He put the wine down on a polished table. "Well, there were three of us the last time I counted. Has someone come to visit?"
"That isn't what I meant."
"I know what you meant. Why on earth would you ask me that now?"
"Because there should be more. Because we had to come from somewhere. Who made Julian?"
This conversation was difficult for both of them. But she had to know.
He looked older somehow, almost defeated, just standing there, locked in her eyes. Finally he moved over to the fire and sat down in a mahogany chair. "I thought you might ask me where I came from… a long time ago. But you didn't. Did you never wonder who made me?"
"Julian did."
"No."
Eleisha froze, still staring at him.
"Don't look at me like that," he snapped.
She didn't speak, and he glanced away.
"Where do you want me to start?" he asked.
"The beginning." Her voice sounded cold to her own ears.
"I don't know anything about that." He ran a hand through his slicked-back hair. "I only know of a Norman duke from the twelfth century who was turned. Nobody knows who made him, but in the early nineteenth century, he made three sons: Julian, Philip Brante, and a young Scottish lord named John McCrugger."
Now that he was actually speaking of these things… of things that mattered, she didn't want him to stop. She walked over and sat on the floor beside his chair.
"Which one made you?"
"McCrugger." The tight tension faded from his face, as if he too suddenly wanted to talk of the past. "I was just an ignorant young man looking for work-and failing. He came to London on business, and I tried to pick his pocket. He took me back to Scotland and gave me a job as his manservant. Later I took over the house accounts, and finally, he turned me out of convenience."
"What?" she gasped.
"Sounds coldhearted now, doesn't it? I don't know. Maybe he just wanted to experiment with his power, but he said that he'd trained me well and never wished to go through such training again."
"What happened to him?"
"Julian hunted him down and killed him… and I think he killed the old Norman lord as well. I don't know why. To the best of my knowledge, neither one had wronged him. He seemed to be going on some sort of murder spree, but he never went after Philip or Maggie."
"Maggie?"
"Margaritte Latour? Philip's whore? Did you never meet her?"
The memory of Maggie remained vivid. "Yes, once. She's not someone you'd forget."
"She's the final player. There are only six of us left as far as I know."
"As far as you…" She trailed off as something he'd said struck her. "Why did you say ‘murder spree' if he only killed two other vampires?"
Edward paused for a long moment, as if deciding how much to share. "Because later, Maggie and I corresponded out of… concern for ourselves, trying to figure a few things out. She hinted there were others."
"What others?" Eleisha asked in fascination, moving closer.
"I don't know!" He closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, trying to calm himself. "Remember I was only a servant. Except for Maggie, the others were noble. I was certainly not in the loop."
"You said Julian left them alone, but he left you alone, too?"
His face grew pained. "Yes. My master had gone to Harfleur that winter, and I was managing his French villa in Amiens… He owned homes in several countries. He showed up one night with no warning and told me to pack, that we were going back to Scotland. We went down together to give instructions to our grooms… and Julian came out of the shadows by the stable. I watched him cut McCrugger's head off and then he just turned around and said, ‘Go, like some homicidal, self-important god. I ran like a coward for America and never looked back."
Eleisha's mind raced.
"But I've read… Edward, don't be angry with me, but I've been reading at the library. Some of the accounts suggest larger numbers of us across Europe."
His green eyes widened. "You've been…?" He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "I know those old stories, too. All myth and folklore. We each feed at least once a week. What if there were even twenty vampires living in Manhattan? Twenty deaths a week? We'd depopulate the area too quickly for secrecy."
He was right, of course, but the picture still didn't make sense. Those written accounts couldn't all be fictitious, could they? Mass hysteria?
"What if-"
"Enough!" he snapped, and then his expression softened. "Enough for one night." He looked down at her simple dress and bare feet in disapproval. "What are you wearing?"
"It's comfortable." She paused. "And I would like to buy a few more-just for evenings at home." Her jaw clenched. "I'll need some money."
"You only have to ask."
She looked over to note that William had not come out of his room.
Less than a year later, Edward came home to find her standing by the window again.
She was holding an envelope in her hand, the address written in a familiar black script of blocky letters and numbers.
"A love letter from Julian?" Edward asked flippantly. "What does the old boy have to say?"
Then he saw her face, and he stopped walking. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She held up the envelope. "He's agreed to begin sending our stipend to me directly… in Oregon."
Edward blinked, as if she were speaking a foreign language.
"I'm taking William, and we're leaving," she said.
His mouth fell open in shock. He dropped into a chair, his dark eyes shifting back and forth.
"William's grown afraid of you," she rushed on. "Admit it, Edward, the sight of him makes you ill. I've arranged to buy a house in Portland, Oregon. We need to start over… someplace new."
"You can't be serious," he choked. "You're just doing this to frighten me, to make me treat the old nutter more kindly. If that's what you want, you could have just said so."