Five nights had passed since she'd written to Rose from Portland, and now they were stuck in a waiting period, uncertain what the next step would be.
Eleisha fell into step beside him. Tonight, her hair hung loose, and she wore a white tank top over a chocolate brown broom-stick skirt. He sometimes teased her and called the latter a "hippie skirt," but he liked the way it flowed when she walked.
"This is my favorite part of the city," she said. "I watched it develop over the years."
Apparently-and he still found this hard to believe-she had lived in the same house here with doddering, decrepit William from 1912 to 2008. How was that possible? He would never have submitted to such an existence. To make matters worse, she seemed to miss her old life. He did not understand her.
But that didn't matter. She made him feel things he'd never experienced, things he couldn't name. She fed him something he never even knew he was hungry for.
And tonight, he had more reason to be pleased with her.
He liked his new hair.
True to her word, Eleisha had found a stylist named Ricardo, so flaming he might have set off the ceiling sprinklers. He tutted and tutted over Philip's «magnificent» hair and swore he wouldn't touch it with a pair of scissors. But in the end, he'd charged three hundred dollars for the haircut, and Philip now looked much more modern… like the photo of Viggo Mortensen. He was very pleased.
"Do you like my hair?" he asked.
Eleisha tilted her head back and rolled her eyes. "Yes, Philip. I've told you over and over: I like your hair. Women will swoon at your feet. Now focus on hunting. You need to control the situation better this time."
She was heading for the parking garage.
He stopped.
"Can we not try something different?" he asked. "Are you not bored with cars?"
For nearly two hundred years, his only entertainment had been hunting in every possible variety of ways, and as powerful as his feelings were for Eleisha, she had managed to make it a tedious chore.
She turned around and frowned in confusion. "Well, we can't leave an unconscious person in the street. They might get robbed… or worse."
How could she possibly be such a sheep?
An idea struck him, something to make this more fun. Why hadn't he thought of it before? "You want me to try harder… to do this without your help, no? Then we make it a game."
"A game?"
"Yes, I will think of someplace clever-difficult-to lure a mortal. I drink and alter memories to give a reasonable explanation, no matter where the mortal will wake up. Then you must think of someplace more clever."
"Philip, we just need to feed. I don't think it is such a good-"
"Then I won't learn!" he argued. "I will be too bored to try."
She stepped toward him. "You'll make sure the place is safe?"
He almost always got his way with her in the end. The situation with this mysterious letter writer was the only time she hadn't given in.
"Of course," he said. "Follow me. I have an idea, and you will never top it. My gift is better for this game."
He led the way to Fifth Avenue and walked into Macy's.
Reluctantly, Eleisha followed him through the menswear section, through the cosmetics department, and over into lingerie.
"What are you going to do?" she asked quietly, already alarmed.
"Go over there," he answered, pointing to the nightgowns and slippers, "and pretend you don't know me. I have to look like I'm alone."
For the first time in a month, he was interested in hunting again. Maybe this would work. Maybe if Eleisha played this game with him, he could take some pleasure.
Within moments, he spotted a pretty redhead wearing a pink dress and tan sandals. Pink was a bad color on her, but otherwise, she appealed to him. She was looking at bras.
He took a black lace bra off the rack and moved up behind her.
"Pardon me," he said, and he let his gift begin to flow.
She stiffened and then turned around, staring at him. Up close, she was quite lovely, with ivory skin and a few tiny freckles.
"I am buying a present for my sister," he said. "Can you help me decide?"
She glanced at the bra in his hand. "You're buying that for your sister?"
He smiled and let the power of his gift increase. "Maybe not. But I am buying a present."
Her eyes were getting bigger as she focused on his face, as if she couldn't believe he was real.
He picked up a cream lace bra by Vanity Fair. "This one is good too. Come with me to the dressing room," he whispered. "We can see them in a better light."
She followed him without a word, without a question, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to follow a complete stranger into the dressing room in the Macy's lingerie department. He checked inside first, to make sure the corridor between the stalls was empty. To his glee, he could hear several women trying on clothes behind the doors, but no one could see him. Their veiled presence gave this part of the game more spice. Looking down at the red-haired girl, he put a finger to his lips, urging her to silence, and led her inside a stall. He closed the door.
Let Eleisha try to top this!
The girl was breathing hard and watching his face expectantly, and then suddenly Philip's sense of fun drained away. Alone with her, he was overwhelmed by a desire to hunt in the same fashion he always had. To put one hand over her mouth, bite down savagely, and drain her until she stopped moving. He wanted to feel her fear, to feel her struggle, to see all her memories, and feel her despair in the moment she realized she could not stop him and that she was going to die.
But he could not do this.
Eleisha might come in and find the mess.
So, instead, he reached out with his thoughts and entered the girl's mind.
"You are so tired," he whispered. "Sleep."
He caught her as she dropped, and he positioned her carefully on a small bench attached to the wall. He fed from her wrist this time, focusing on keeping her asleep, taking no joy in feeding at all. The blood tasted like memories of bland water to him, almost like nothing. He saw a few flickering images of a dirty kitchen, a mother smoking a cigarette, a dented Honda Civic… a boyfriend named Ricky.
Philip took only what he needed, and then he used his teeth to connect the holes-as Eleisha had taught him. Looking around the dressing room stall, he saw some decorative square boards painted purple and nailed at equal intervals up and down the door. Quietly, he reached out and jerked one loose, exposing the nail.
Then he reached into the girl's mind again, erasing her memory of meeting him and replacing it with one where she entered the stall, cut herself on the nail, and fainted from the blood and pain.
Then he slipped out, left the dressing room, and went to find Eleisha-still standing among the nightgowns and slippers.
"Everything okay?" Her tone suggested worry.
"Yes, go and look. She's still alive and not lying alone in the street."
"I don't need to look. Did you alter her memory?"
"Of course!"
She reached out and touched his arm. "What's wrong then?"
"Nothing."
She tried to smile. "So it's my turn?"
He tried to smile back. "Yes, your turn."
Rather than make the hunt more fun, his game had only made him hungrier for what he'd lost.
As they walked back onto the dark street outside, he knew he would need to go hunting alone-and soon.
Wade sat on the floor of the empty sanctuary, looking at the open letter in his hand. Eleisha and Philip had gone hunting, and for the first time in five nights, she'd been too preoccupied to check the mailbox.