Unable to look anymore, she put her forehead on her knees.
After a while she said, “Oh, Jack.” Then she took a deep breath and worked at getting herself put back into some kind of public-ready shape. She’d fed before she drove over, but emotional distress makes the hunger worse, and her teeth ached and her nose insisted on remembering how good Mr. Aubrey Tailor had smelled when he’d blushed.
Something made a sighing noise in the empty apartment and she jerked her head up, all thoughts of hunger put aside. But nothing moved and there were no more sounds.
What had she expected? Time hadn’t stopped for her; why would it have stopped for this apartment? Since seeing that first newspaper article about it, she’d done her research. She’d walked in here knowing that the stripping of the old had already been begun, awaiting replacement by the new. The in-progress remodel hadn’t even bothered her until she saw it with her own eyes.
What was she doing here? The past was the past. She should strip it away just as the old plaster had been stripped from the living room wall. She should wash herself clean.
Outside, the rain slid down the windowpanes.
When she had the vampire within tamped down until it would take another vampire to see what she was, she opened the apartment door.
“As you can see,” the real estate agent said heartily—without looking at her—“it won’t take much to get it ready to become whatever you’d like. It’s good solid construction, built in 1911. You can put new flooring in, or strip the oak. It’s three-quarter-inch oak; you don’t see that in new construction. My client’s price is very good.”
“You had it sold twice this year,” Elyna said, keeping the anxiety and need out of her voice. She had money. Enough. But not so much that bargaining wouldn’t be a help.
“Ah.” He looked disconcerted. No one expected someone who looked as young and frivolous as she did to have half a brain. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Twice.”
“They both backed out before the papers were signed.”
He frowned at her. “I thought you didn’t have your own agent?”
“I took the downstairs neighbor, Josh, out to dinner yesterday.” He was a nice man about ten years older than she looked. She’d treated him, despite his argument. It had been only fair that she pay for his dinner since she’d intended he should serve as hers afterward. He’d not remember the dinner clearly or what they’d discussed. Nor would he see that it was a problem that he didn’t.
Elyna’s Mistress had had a talent for beguilement. She could have given him a whole set of memories clearer than what had actually happened. Elyna, whose talents lay in other places, made use of the more common vampire ability to cloud minds and calm potential meals.
“I see.” Elyna could tell from Aubrey’s tone that he knew the story that Josh had related to her.
Even so, she laid it out for him. “He told me that the man who bought the building to turn it into condos stayed in this apartment and fixed the others, one at a time. He finished the one over there”—she tipped her head toward the door to the other third-floor apartment—“moved in, and started on this one. Only odd things started happening. First it was tools and small stuff disappearing. Then”—as the destruction increased—“it was perfectly stable ladders falling over with people on them. Sent an electrical contractor to the hospital with that one. Saws that turned themselves on at the worst possible time—they managed to reattach that man’s finger, Josh said. Chicago is a big city, but contractors do talk to each other. He couldn’t get a crew in here to work the place.” Elyna gave him a big friendly smile. “Some of that I already knew. I read the article in the neighborhood paper before I called you.” That article was why she had called him.
She could see him reevaluate her. Was she a kook who wanted a haunted house? Or was she just looking for a real bargain?
“I’m older than I look,” she told him, to help him make up his mind. “And I’m not a fool. Haunted or not, anyone looking at this apartment is going to start by getting appraisals from contractors. You haven’t had an offer on this place in six months.”
“A lot of bad luck doesn’t a haunted place make,” he said heartily, taking the bait. “All it takes is a few careless people. The man who lived here before my client, lived here for twenty years and never saw any ghost. I have his phone number and you can talk to him.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m convinced it’s not haunted,” she told him. “It matters what the contractors think.”
He looked grim.
“I’m willing to make an offer,” she said. “But I’m going to have to pay premium prices to get anyone in to do the work, and that affects my bottom line.”
And they got down to business. Aubrey had the paperwork for the offer with him. They took care of signatures, she fed from him, and then both of them went their separate ways in the night. Aubrey, with a new affection for Elyna, would be determined to make a good bargain for her regardless of the effect it might have on his commission. She felt guilty—a little—but not as much as she would have if he hadn’t tried to take advantage of her supposed ignorance.
Elyna’s phone rang while she was in the hotel shower. She answered it with her hair dripping onto the thick green carpeting. Only after she answered did she remember that she wouldn’t be punished for not answering the phone right away anymore.
“Elyna,” said Sean, one of the vampires who’d belonged to Corona with her. Without waiting for her greeting, he continued, “You are being foolish. There are plenty of places without seethes where you could settle. Colbert doesn’t play nicely with others and you won’t be able to hide from him forever.”
Pierre Colbert was the Master of Chicago, and a nasty piece of business he was. He’d driven the Mistress and what he’d left of her seethe out of Chicago about thirty years ago. Elyna had met him only once, and that was enough. He wouldn’t bother driving her out. He’d just destroy her—if he noticed she was in his territory.
“Elyna,” coaxed Sean’s voice in her ear. “Come back to Madison. Take your rightful place here.”
Never. That much Elyna was certain of. Sean had been her lover sometimes—two frightened people finding what solace they could. Usually they’d been friends, too, and more often allies. But Elyna wasn’t strong enough to hold the seethe—and Sean knew it. If she went back, he’d kill her to establish his power. Or maybe he was working for someone else, someone more powerfuclass="underline" there were several that came to mind.
“What of Sybil?” Elyna asked him. Sybil wouldn’t need to kill Elyna to take power, but she’d enjoy doing it.
“Sybil’s been dealt with,” Sean said with considerable satisfaction.
“Good,” Elyna said, meaning it. If Corona had been brutal, Sybil, her lieutenant, was fiendish.
Sybil had enjoyed hurting others: vampires or regular people, she didn’t care. She had a special hatred of men, and Sean had suffered under her hand as much as any in the seethe except maybe Fitz. Fitz was ash and gone, but he’d provided Sybil with months of entertainment. “That’s good. With her gone, Brad or Chris can take over as Master.”
“Where are you staying?” said Sean.
Elyna sighed, making sure he heard it. He was being too obvious. Ah, the joys of vampire politics. No one even made an attempt to hide the bodies.
“I’m not really as dumb as I look,” she told him gently. “I would have thought that you, of all the seethe, would know that.”
“Colbert will find you,” he told her. “That’s his talent, you know, finding vampires when he wants them. You’ll be dead anyway and we’ll be in the middle of a fucking civil war—”