I was normally asleep by five or so. My eyelids felt heavy. "Have you ever been inside Maggie's place?" I asked.
"No."
"It's wonderful. I wish we could go there."
The passing minutes didn't bother me too much. Philip was doing ninety by the time we hit northbound I-5. I was actually beginning to relax when the first siren roared from behind us.
"Jesus, Philip, don't pull over."
"I hadn't planned to."
"Can you outrun him?"
For an answer, he laughed out the shattered window. "Now we are having fun, no?"
"No."
This was all we needed. A cop chasing us down in a stolen car with Philip's wrist torn open and his shirt soaked in blood.
"You'd better lose him. He'll be calling for backup."
"Too many movies," Philip answered, and then he glanced over at me. "Put on your seat belt. I'm not used to passengers."
Obeying him instantly, wondering how he could talk and drive so fast at the same time, I looked back to see the police car falling behind. A second siren wailed from our left.
Philip might have gotten me into this, but somehow I believed he would get me out. He wasn't scared or worried or putting on some macho show for my benefit-as a mortal would. His expression was focused but calm, every fiber, every muscle and reflex moving in rapid sequence.
Whipping to the right with no warning, he threw me off-balance, and I grabbed the dashboard.
"Hold on," he said.
We flew off I-5 onto the Bothell exit. Philip never took his eyes off the rearview mirror. Sirens still screamed, but no lights were visible. He turned behind the office building of an old wrecking yard and braked the Firebird so hard I jerked forward against my belt.
"Get out," he said, shoving his own door open.
We ran among rusty cars, trucks, motorcycles, and army jeeps as the sky slowly turned from black to dark gray. Our speed felt good, too quick for most mortals to keep up.
Philip slowed down next to an abandoned barn. The changing sky bothered him a lot more than the cops had. Me, too.
"We better get another car and find a hotel room," I said.
"There's no time."
Tearing the barn door open, he slipped inside. The building must once have been part of the wrecking yard. Hubcaps, blackened socket wrenches, and even an aged engine lay scattered in the grass. I followed Philip to find him on his knees, ripping up floorboards.
"What are you doing?"
He didn't answer, but my question had been pointless. I knew what he was doing-making a hole under the barn for us to sleep in.
"Here," he said, "get under here."
"We can't stay in this place. What if somebody comes? What if somebody finds us?"
"You would rather take chances outside? No one has been here in years. We'll be all right."
My eyelids felt even heavier than my arms, and what choice did I have? He was right. We had no chance outside. The sun would be up in a few moments. Walking over, I slid down into the crawl space between the ground and the barn floor. Philip's body dropped down next to mine. Lying on his back, he put all the boards back in place over us.
Part of me wanted to thank him, but if not for his reckless behavior, we wouldn't be here in the first place.
"Sleep now," he whispered. "We talk tonight."
"I've never slept on the ground before."
"Never?"
"No."
His next words were a jumble, and his hard body relaxed slightly in dormancy. I don't remember anything else.
Chapter 20
Upon waking that night, three different lines of thought pushed to the front of my brain. The first was Jet-not only my regret over her unnecessary death, but the experience of reading her mind. How was it possible? Could she have been special like Wade? If so, why didn't she sense my intrusion?
The second thought, of course, was Wade himself. By now he figured I'd ditched him and run off to save myself. The hurt feelings of one mortal meant nothing-especially in trade for his life-but I wanted to talk to him, explain Philip's unannounced presence. Ridiculous really. And irrational. Wade's good health depended on my absence, not my words.
The third struggling thought was a memory from long ago of a dog named Thorne. One of Lord William's female wolfhounds disappeared during a hunt, and then turned up three weeks later, running with a wild mastiff. Months later, she gave birth to a single puppy. I must have been about ten when he was born. I can still see his broad, swaggering little chest and hear him growling at everything that moved. He grew up useless for anything men consider important. Independent, vicious, refusing to be touched or petted, he received no one's favor but mine. I couldn't scratch behind his ears any more than William could, but that didn't matter. I saved him kitchen meat scraps and cheese and gravy that the cooks threw out. He eventually stopped snarling at me and even met me by the back door in winters when live game grew scarce. I didn't love him but respected his independence.
Two days after my sixteenth birthday, he attacked a small boy-one of the groom's sons-and inflicted permanent scars. The boy admitted to having thrown a stick at the dog, but no one listened. The groom shot Thorne an hour later. I heard his gun from my room. It wasn't as though I'd lost a pet who was dear to me. He just somehow seemed more important than the boy. Why should anything so strong and fierce have to die like that? I'd put my cloak on, left William in Marion's care, found a shovel, and had Mr. Shevonshire lift the dog's dead body into an old wooden cart for me. Pushing the cart into the woods, I buried Thorne by the pond so he could hear flocks of geese coming home in the spring. I shed tears for him. His loss affected me in a way I can't explain. He was not a loss to me personally, simply a needless loss. He'd been magnificent in life, more worthwhile than most people could claim to be.
And why would Thorne push to the front of my brain after so many years? Perhaps I was lying next to his kindred spirit. This Philip. This purist who saw no contrasting shades in the world.
He stirred beside me and pushed up at the boards. "Eleisha, are you awake?"
"Yes."
"Come."
After climbing back up into the barn, we walked outside, night air breezing across cool skin, making me feel alive. Half expecting Philip to start looking for a car, I was surprised when he sat down on the grass.
"Sit," he said. "Answer questions."
I stayed on my feet. "You need a new shirt."
"That doesn't matter. Tell me things."
"What things?"
"You were afraid of being caught by mortals last night, no? Not a game. Not your gift."
His face and hair glowed like a candle in the dark, emanating his gift, but I didn't care.
"Why did Maggie leave you?" I asked.
That caught him off guard, and he stood back up. "She… we were different before. I can't remember how, but we were different. She cried for lost walks through vineyards in the morning, the sun on my face at dusk, the warmth of our hands. None of that mattered to me. Useless, human trappings of a world long past. There is nothing but hunting."
"Did you miss her?"
His jaw twitched. "I thought she had gone to Wales at first, so I searched for Julian. But she wasn't with him. He said that my chasing after an undead whore was insane. He said I must have been mad for turning her in the first place."
"You had a better reason for making her than he had for making me."
Walking over, I stood beside him, my head barely reaching his chest. He gazed down at me uncertainly. "Your voice is soft tonight. You don't hate me anymore."
His amber eyes searched my face when I didn't answer.
"You spat angry words at me," he said. "You called me ‘sick.»
We all have hang-ups. Philip seemed overly concerned about what others thought of him. An unexpected weakness. But that could work to my advantage, give me a little control, keep him from killing unless we found safe conditions to hide bodies.