Blood Memories

He stepped out of the shadows, and I looked at him, wordless. He didn't look like Maggie… but he was so much like her. His beauty must have blinded hundreds, thousands. He was tall-slender and muscular at the same time. Thick, red-brown hair hung halfway down his back, and amber eyes stared out of a narrow, ivory face. He and Maggie shared the same gift. But this time, the pull affected me.

It felt as if I were staring into the sun at noon.

Gifts.

He was a killer without thought. Snuffing out my existence and Wade's meant less than nothing. I was not immune to his gift, indeed probably more susceptible since it was new to me. But then again, he wasn't immune to mine either. I crossed my arms in fear and looked at the floor.

"Philip, don't hurt me."

Concentrate. Emanate. Get him on his knees.

"You're finally here," I said. "I kept hoping. I didn't know what to do."

His expression flickered. Could he feel it? Did he know what I was doing, or was he lost in some overinflated sense of forgotten manhood? He was so perfect. I'd never seen anything like him in my life-except Maggie.

A humorless smile curved the corners of his mouth. "We seem to be at a standoff, little one. Unexpected. Maggie tried to warn me, but her words were often exaggerated. Yet right now I feel an overwhelming urge to throw my body in front of a moving train to rescue your handkerchief."

A lie, and a stupid play. Showing that he already knew the score gave me an advantage. He liked to show off.

"How did you find me?"

"Followed you from Maggie's." He motioned with his head toward the bedroom. "Who's your pet?"

"No one. He's been helping me. If you sit down, I'll tell you everything."

I didn't tell him to sit down; that's the key to handling men like Philip. You can't tell them to do anything. You either ask them or make it seem like their own idea.

He crossed to a chair, expression guarded. I felt torn for a moment. Sitting by his feet would give me the best psychological advantage, but getting that close to him was dangerous.

"If I had come to kill you, you would be dead," he said in a voice that sounded more sad than angry. Sorrow was no mystery to me, at least not anymore.

Moving to the floor by his knee, I focused on his black Hugo Boss pant legs and not his face.

Don't look at his face.

"Odd little thing," he said. "More than I expected."

"Do you remember the first night I saw you?"

"No, have you seen me?"

My words pleased him. He might have had some depth hidden away, but he thrived on attention.

"Yes, at Cliffbracken. You came in with Julian and Maggie late one night, but that was a long time ago."

"A long time ago," he echoed. "What happened to my Maggie?"

"How much do you know? She said she called you once."

"Only that Edward Claymore destroyed himself and mortal men chased you to Seattle."

Part of me wanted to say anything that would make him leave. I wanted him to go away. Wade slept helpless in the next room, and I knew no way to protect him. But another part of me understood Philip's confusion, his pain. Maggie had been a deadly work of art, and she'd barely outlasted two lifetimes. She should have gone far into the future. And now it was as though she'd never been.

"A policeman killed her," I said quietly, "named Dominick Vasundara."

Starting with the first night at Edward's, I gave him my version of the past six weeks, letting him know the kind of hunter Maggie truly had been, so competent and skilled-and still graceful. No matter how sick it sounds, that was my comfort for his loss. Perhaps that's another gift I'd developed, instinctive recognition of what others needed to hear. I left out Wade's psychic ability, though, and played up Dominick's psychometry.

"You cared for her?" he asked.

"She was good to me… and to William."

"I was close to the house when he died."

His words startled me, leaving no response. For the first time since watching him step away from the curtain, I looked into his eyes. Reckless or not, it felt like the right thing to do. He was searching for words, like a computer accessing memory banks for a correct response and finding none. No residual trace of humanity remained in Philip.

"It's all right," I told him. "You don't need to say anything."

"Julian would think us mad, no? Like two old ladies sad for things past."

I didn't know how to answer that, so I just sat there, looking at him.

"Maggie's voice changed the last time she telephoned," he said abruptly. "You gave her something I could not."

"What?"

"You tell me."

"Maybe she was just tired of being alone."

"Our kind lives alone, hunts alone. It's the way."

If he really believed that, he was as cracked as Julian. But Philip's expression reminded me of faces I hadn't seen since going to church as a child. Religion? Did we have a religion? If so, Edward certainly hadn't mentioned it.

"Why are we supposed to be alone?" I asked.