Jasper's eyes glowed again. "Where do I start?"
Julian weighed possible options. Jasper would have to try to catch them in the open, so that Mary could help split them up.
"Go to the Amtrak station. Wait for Mary to help you track them, and when they arrive, make sure you cut them off." He paused. "But you'll need to be at full strength, so you should feed first."
"How do I do that? I mean… is there anything I need to know?"
Once again, if it were possible, Julian would have smiled. Perhaps he had done well turning Jasper.
"A few things," Julian said, and he began to explain the best tactics for hunting.
Jasper walked out onto Mason Street wearing Julian's long coat with the sword hidden underneath and five hundred dollars in his pocket-just like something out of a movie.
He almost couldn't believe what happened to him. Maybe those years of bad luck had been his just due while his life built up toward this moment, this night. In all his fantasies, he could never have imagined this.
He was immortal. He was unstoppable. He was rich.
And this was so much better than what he'd seen in vampire movies. He felt like something right out of Highlander, walking down the street with a sword hidden under his coat.
He had a mission.
But Julian had said he'd need to feed. As of yesterday, Jasper had never once broken the law-but only because he didn't like trouble. But now, trouble didn't seem like such a big deal… In fact, it seemed new and shiny.
He turned down Sacramento and headed toward Hunting-ton Park, which was mainly a haven of upscale condos and town houses. Sacramento Street was way too busy, so he slipped in between several apartment buildings and looked around for the darkest section of a parking lot. He just kept walking for a while until he spotted a young woman who came out of a security building and walked beneath some trees toward a silver Lexus. He couldn't see-or hear-anyone else close by.
A beep sounded when she hit the button on her keys to unlock the car, and he came up behind her.
"Can I get a ride?" he asked, wondering what would happen after he spoke. Julian had explained how a gift would surface to help him hunt. Julian's gift was fear, and that would be awesome, but Jasper kind of hoped his would be more like that of the Philip guy Julian told him about. That would be the best.
The girl turned to look at him, and his interest went up several notches. She was pretty, with long blond hair, wearing a tight pink T-shirt and small diamonds in her ears-the kind of girl who normally wouldn't bother to spit on him.
She didn't seem startled and glanced at his coat. "You borrow that from your big brother?"
He went cold. She was making fun of him?
"No, it's mine," he lied defensively.
But his words sounded different this time, and her expression changed. He felt something flowing out from his body as he recounted all the times people had ignored him or discounted him or rushed to be away from his company.
The girl suddenly looked like she felt… sorry for him.
"I didn't mean to say that," she said. "It's been a long day."
The feeling inside him increased until she was looking at him like he was some sort of lost puppy. Her eyes filled with sympathy.
"Poor thing," she said. "You said you need a ride?"
Pity? His gift was pity?
No!
He wanted to wipe that look off her face as fast as he could. He should be feared, desired. There was nothing about him to be pitied! Not now.
As these thoughts passed through him, her expression wavered, and he remembered that Julian said his gift would help him to hunt more quickly and quietly, but he had to keep it focused. He didn't want to mess this up, and he rushed to her before the sympathy in her eyes completely faded. He grabbed her, clamping one hand over her mouth before she could scream, and he jerked the back door open with his free hand, pushing her halfway inside the car and then shoving her down beneath him. The sword hampered him, but he couldn't believe the strength in his arms and hands, and he pinned her down easily, driving his teeth into her neck, still keeping his hand over her mouth.
She struggled and tried to scream but kept getting weaker. The blood tasted so good, he was gulping it down, feeling the strength in his body growing stronger, and then he saw pictures passing through his mind… her father playing golf, her mother drinking from a martini glass, her sixteenth birthday party with a bunch of adults she barely knew, a string of boyfriends in polo shirts…
The images faded. Her heart stopped.
He wanted it to go on, but she was dead.
"Hurry up," someone said from behind him.
He jumped back out of the car and whirled around, his right hand going for the sword. Then he saw Mary's transparent form standing a few feet away from the car. He hadn't actually talked to her yet, but in truth, she looked more like the girls he'd known in high school, and even as a ghost… she seemed more familiar to him than the girl he'd just fed on.
"You better get moving," she said. "They're not at the apartment, and I can't find them. That means they're on their way. Julian told you to feed fast and get started."
"Don't tell me what to do."
"Yeah? Well, you don't know Julian yet. You screw this up, and he'll make you sorry."
That scared him and he looked around, debating on the fastest way to get to the train station.
"Just take the car!" Mary said. "Her keys are right there on the ground."
She was making him feel stupid, and at the same time, he didn't want do all this alone.
"You'll meet me there?" he asked.
She tilted her head to one side, looking at him. "Yeah," she said, sounding nicer now. "I'll meet you."
He grabbed the keys. Then he slid the dead girl's body farther into the backseat and slammed the door. Attempting to climb into the driver's seat, he found he couldn't sit while wearing the sword, so he took it off his belt and leaned it on the floor of the passenger side. Then he was somewhat unsettled by the alien-looking dashboard. He'd learn to drive in an old Dodge Dart.
"But you'd better hurry," Mary said, and she blinked out.
He started the Lexus.
He still couldn't believe his gift was pity.
As Eleisha walked through the large doors of the Jack London Square station, she was beginning to worry about Rose-who was growing more and more anxious with each passing moment. Her eyes were turning glassy. Her face was beginning to look pasty rather than pale, and her hands were shaking.
From their very first meeting, Rose had never tried to hide her fear of traveling, of leaving the safety of her home. But throughout the course of her undead existence she'd managed two successful-and long-journeys on her own. Then again… in fairness, the last one had been well over a hundred years ago. She had been holed up in her apartment for a long time now, leaving it only when the need to hunt grew desperate.
Although she was the one who expressed a desire to join Eleisha and to begin a new purpose, perhaps she had underestimated her own terror of truly leaving the safety of her home?
Eleisha didn't know how to help her.
After walking a few steps into the brightly lit train station, Rose faltered and then stopped, blinking in open fear at the sights all around her. A modern-day Amtrak building must look quite different to her than a station had in 1870.
Philip walked up behind Eleisha and leaned close to her ear.
"What's wrong with her?" he whispered.
"Shhhhh," Eleisha said. "You know she's afraid of traveling. I just didn't think it would be this…" She trailed off.