His expression went still for a moment, as if he considered her offer, and then he took a step backward. "I'll not be in the same room with Philip Brantй. He's feral. And a coward."
Eleisha turned around and headed for the stairs. "I don't care who you are. I won't listen to this."
Rose ran after her, catching her arm, leaning close to whisper, "Wait. He is old, with knowledge of our kind we could never find anywhere else. Please, Eleisha, convince him. He may be the only one from… before."
Eleisha stopped. How old was he? She'd believed that any survivors would most likely be like herself or Edward or Rose-turned either right as the killing spree began or after, with no opportunity for telepathic training or somehow off Julian's radar.
But she could not help being disgusted by this Robert Brighton's arrogance and contempt. If he was going to join them, he would have to accept a few truths.
She turned to face him. "You call Philip a coward?" she asked. "When you've been hiding in Russia? Yes, Philip is terrified of Julian. We all are. But he kicked Julian out a twelve-story window. Do you know why? To protect me. Don't you ever call him a coward." She dropped her voice lower. "I don't believe Julian will ever come near us again, but I can't promise anything will or won't happen. If you want your freedom, if you want to live with your own kind again, then you have to be willing to expose yourself and fight."
He stared at her in surprise.
"If not," she added, "you can go back to Russia and hide out by yourself. I'm sure the high summers are lovely there."
"Will you at least meet with them?" Rose rushed to say. "Can I set up a meeting?"
He didn't answer for a long moment, and then nodded stiffly, once. "Not here. Somewhere public… but not too public."
Rose closed her eyes. "Tomorrow night, just past dusk, at the Japanese Tea Garden. That should work."
She opened her eyes again and took Eleisha's hand as if anxious to be off now that they had completed her desired task. Eleisha allowed herself to be led down the stairs-beginning to understand the depth of Rose's resolution. But she still felt shaken by her own outburst.
As they neared the last step, she asked, "How old is he?"
Rose hesitated before answering quietly. "I don't know for certain, but I know he was a man-at-arms for Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey."
"Earl of…?"
Although she was of Welsh heritage, like all those from the Commonwealth, Eleisha knew basic English history-at least the major players. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, had later become the third Duke of Norfolk. He was Anne Boleyn's uncle and had served in the court of Henry VIII.
That would make Robert nearly five hundred years old.
Wade's tongue felt thick inside his mouth.
He could hear voices on the edge of his awareness.
"The door is broken!" someone said in alarm. "Seamus, how did this happen?"
He felt soft fingers on his forearm. "Can you hear me?"
Forcing his eyelids to open, he saw the blurred image of Eleisha leaning over him. "Leisha?"
He was lying on a settee. How had he gotten here? The last thing he remembered was eating dinner in the kitchen. She helped him to sit up. He saw an open wooden box lying at his feet… with a leather sheath lying beside it.
"Who broke the door?" she asked.
"Philip did." A hollow voice with a Scottish accent came from nowhere. Seamus appeared behind Eleisha, his expression angry. "He came back and found the door locked, so he kicked it in."
Eleisha crouched down on the floor. "Oh… I'm sorry. Where is he now?"
"Out looking for you."
She got up, went over, and opened a window, closing her eyes. "I'll try to reach him. I don't think he would go far with Wade still in the apartment and the door broken."
Wade was still confused. How had he ended up on the couch, and when had Philip come back? He didn't remember anything.
Less than five minutes later, he heard the sound of booted feet running down the hallway, and Philip nearly fell through the broken door, carrying a machete.
"Eleisha!"
His eyes looked half-crazy, and Rose drew away from him, closer to her bedroom door. Seamus hissed. Wade stood up, but he was dizzy. What was going on?
Eleisha ran from the window to intercept Philip. "It's all right," she was saying. "Everything's all right. I'm sorry we missed each other. Where did you get that? Put it down."
Wade was trying to follow too many things at once.
"Don't tell me what to do!" Philip ordered, and he pointed at Rose with his free hand. "She drugged Wade, didn't she? Where have you been?"
Drugged Wade?
His head was beginning to clear a little, and he remembered bits and pieces: eating eggs, drinking tea, growing tired…
"I can't explain it with words," Eleisha rushed to say. "I need to show you." She took Philip's outstretched hand. "Come and sit. Just let me show you. Wade, can you make it over here?"
Philip still looked enraged and manic, but he let her pull him to a clear area of the room. "What?" he demanded. "Show me what?"
Wade stumbled over, still trying to gain his wits. Eleisha had dust smeared on her face and her tank top.
"Sit down," she said. "Let me in."
Sitting, Wade closed his eyes, and the shock of Eleisha's rapid mental entry almost made him fall backward. To see her memories clearly, he had to reach back, make the connection.
Then he was in the kitchen drinking tea earlier that night, seeing himself through Eleisha's eyes. He was Eleisha. She took him forward from there, and he forgot himself.
Wade did not know how much time has passed when Eleisha pulled out of his mind. His head felt clearer, but he gasped several times, reeling from everything she had just shown him. He'd felt it all, exactly as she had. Her doubts, her fear, the fierce use of her gift… her strength. Her realization of the depth of Rose's single-minded determination.
And Robert Brighton, a soldier from the sixteenth century.
Reality was still sinking in.
"No!" Philip shouted almost immediately, breaking the revelations of the moment. "An elder?" His French accent was so thick, the words were hard to follow. "You don't know with what you deal. We leave this place tonight!"
"Eleisha?" Rose questioned softly, still standing by her door.
Philip turned on her, his lips curling up in snarl.
Eleisha grabbed his arm. "Philip, stop. Listen…" Trailing off, she looked toward the guest room. "Come with me." She pulled him toward it-and again, he let her-taking him inside and closing the door. Wade could hear Philip's low, angry voice on the other side, followed by Eleisha's softer, comforting one.
Suddenly, Wade was completely fed up with Philip.
How nice, how very nice it would be to throw a temper tantrum, wave a machete around, and have Eleisha drag him off to the bedroom to calm him down. Maybe he should try it sometime and see what happened?
But Seamus and Rose were both watching him with uncertain eyes.
"He's mad," Seamus said. "You know that, don't you?"
Wade sighed and shook his head. "No, he isn't." He walked over to Rose. "Don't worry. Eleisha will get him to agree."
"How do you know?"
"Because she always does."
Eleisha spent the remainder of the night in the guest room talking to Philip, listening to him, trying to reach common ground and still do the right thing for everyone involved.
She felt bad for just leaving Wade out in the sitting room, after he'd been drugged and was still recovering, but somehow, she believed Rose would take care of him. Later, she heard the television come on and the occasional murmur of male voices over what sounded like an old western, and she knew he would be okay watching TV with Seamus.
She didn't want to leave Philip, and she didn't want to bring him out among the others yet. He was still too upset.
But there was more to his heated reaction to Robert's existence than fear for her and Wade. She just didn't know what it was, and she wasn't sure how to ask him.
When she felt dawn approaching, she said, "You should get comfortable. The sun will be up soon."
He took off his shirt and his boots and stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She climbed up on the bed next to him, kneeling to look down at his face. "You know this Robert… don't you?" she whispered.
"Angelo believed that John, Julian, and I should know of all the elders. He wrote a book called The Makers and Their Children, with their names and their histories. Julian knew the book better than me, but Angelo taught me things about Robert Brighton. I remember the name. I know he was a soldier."
"Did you ever meet him?"
He hesitated and then answered quietly. "Only once, not long after I was turned and I was still with Angelo. Robert came to visit… with his maker."
"His maker?"
"Her name was Jessenia, and she looked like a gypsy, but she was not. They both hated me, would not be in the same room with me. I stood in a hallway outside a door, and I heard Jessenia tell Angelo that I should be destroyed if he was not going to teach me, and that Julian should be destroyed if he did not develop his abilities. I didn't know what any of this meant then. I didn't care."
Eleisha remembered Robert's harsh words about Angelo letting Philip run wild and kill whomever he pleased.
"Telepathy?" she whispered.
"I think so now. I think maybe they all hunted as you do, as you taught me, and they blamed Angelo for the way I hunted then."
His voice held an edge of pain. Everyone changed over decades and decades of existence. Eleisha knew that for all his temper and selfish behavior, he'd learned to care what others thought of him.
"But it's all different now, Philip. Once he knows you, he won't hate you anymore. And we can't just leave him to go on existing alone-not if he wants to join us. Besides, he can tell us so much about what really happened. We've been in the dark for a long time."
She could feel her eyelids growing heavy. Although the windows were completely covered, the sun outside must be rising.
Philip reached up and pulled her down against his shoulder. "Sleep."