In the Dark (15 page)

Sebastian
thanked him for his time, told him to forget their conversation, and
left the Resnan home. He had done everything he could for the time
being. A bait and ambush seemed the best approach from here. Ian
would not be happy.

He did not like
the idea of telling her this. A strange sensation. He could not
recall the last time he had felt anything quite like it.

He got into the
Vector, started it, and pulled away.

P
rying
hadn’t done me a damn bit of good. Not only did I feel like a
dirty sneak, I had more questions now than before.

That scrap of
fabric meant something, I was positive, like it had a sign posted on
it: “THIS IS SIGNIFICANT.” But I didn’t know
anything else about it.

And it’s
sad.

I snorted at
myself. That was stupid. Fabric couldn’t feel sad. And why
would an old scrap make me feel sad?

It’s
sad.

All right
,
I agreed with my gut feeling. Whether or not it made sense, the scrap
was sad.

Like Sebastian.

Maybe the fabric
was tied to him being sad. Could the scrap have belonged to someone
who’d died? That made sense. Kent had warned me that my parents
would die eventually, and I would still be twenty. Had that scrap
belonged to him? Or maybe a family member or a friend?

Or a lover. I
tried to picture Sebastian in that kind of relationship with someone.

Sebastian in
love. Yeah. And maybe I’ll stop biting people on the neck.

Sebastian would
have to have been a very different person. And if he’d really
been in love, why hadn’t he changed his lover?

What if he
hadn’t had any choice? She – or he – might have
died before he could, or run away from him. Unrequited love! How
tragic!

I painted the
scene in my mind: Sebastian as a young vampire, watching, waiting to
catch a glimpse of a beautiful young mortal woman, an amazing
creature. Did he love her for her charm? Her intelligence? Her
spitfire personality? Whatever it was, he wanted to be near her, but
he only inspired fear in her, a terrible dread that he could not
overcome. Eventually, heart-broken, Sebastian left her to her mortal
fate, taking with him as a token of her memory the scrap of fabric
that was part of her . . . dress? Hm.

Old, plaid,
wool. It had to be authentic Scot. Hand woven, better than any of my
attempts at weaving in fibers class. Unmarried Scottish women didn’t
wear plaid, did they? I might have been wrong, but I seemed to recall
something like that. And only men wore kilts. So had it been
Sebastian’s a long time ago? Or maybe his fantasy woman had a
husband that kept them apart.

Despite wanting
to keep up the story, my heart-clenching fantasy broke to bits.
Sebastian had a practicality about him that went to his bones. He
wouldn’t spend time mooning over someone who didn’t want
him around. Not now, and probably not years ago.

I wanted the
story behind that scrap. I couldn’t exactly ask. Keeping my
ears open was the best I could do.

With a
frustrated sigh, I got off the couch and went to my room to get my
drawing pad. In my room I dropped on my bed, popped my eraser into my
mouth, and studied the work I’d done the night before.

A long time
later I heard the hum of the elevator gliding up the shaft inside the
building. When I heard Sebastian call my name, I set my drawing
things down.

“Here,”
I called.

Sebastian didn’t
answer. I rolled off the bed and left the room. I found him in a
chair in the living room, gazing at a wall. His eyes flicked in my
direction when I came in. He didn’t say anything.

He turned back
to the wall as I took a chair. His eyes seemed stormy. I leaned my
face on my hand and wondered what was bothering him. Something he’d
found out tonight? Me? Josephine? Something older? Maybe a lot older?

“Sebastian,
how old are you?” I asked. He hadn’t answered before.

“Just
under five hundred.” He said it as if he’d said
“Twenty-five.”

“Holy
shit,” I said, and then heard how rude I sounded.

Sebastian didn’t
react. When he didn’t say anything for a minute, I figured I
probably hadn’t offended him. Another question shouldn’t
hurt.

“Does that
ever bother you?”

“Why does
it concern you?” he asked. His eyes darkened.

I pulled in a
bit. “Just trying to talk. Make conversation.”

“Why?”

“It’s
what people do.” Genius-quality response.

“Why?”
he insisted. I wondered if he was messing with me or if he really
didn’t know.

“To get to
know each other?” I said.

That startled a
laugh out of him. Just one, abbreviated “ha!” but still,
a laugh. I hadn’t expected that.

“I am a
killer, Ian,” he said. “Not very different from the ones
we follow now.”

“I don’t
think that. I really don’t.”

“It is not
a question of what anyone thinks. It is.”

I shook my head.
“No one is just one thing. Even . . . even killers. Everyone
has a past, everyone feels things, even if they want to pretend they
don’t.” I hesitated, then decided to dive in. I looked
him square in the eye. “Who are you really, Sebastian?”

His eyes
flashed. I could have sworn he almost jumped, like I’d goosed
him.

He stared at me
and didn’t answer. Just looked at me in shock – or what
passed for shock on that immobile face. He stared at me, then finally
looked down. Like he couldn’t stand to see me anymore. Or like
he thought I might read something in his face.

“Something’s
really hurting you, isn’t it?” I asked very quietly,
almost afraid to ask, too curious to keep my mouth shut.

He kept his face
down. I ducked my head to glance at his eyes. Empty. Not angry or
unhappy, just empty. My chest tightened at that lack of expression.
He leaned forward on his knees, watching his own hands. “Ian,”
he began in a thick voice, then stopped.

I held
joint-creakingly still. That sounded like the start to a huge
admission. There had to be more attached to it. But he just stayed
still and silent. I did the same, waiting.

Silence.

He looked up,
slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he should. His eyes had turned
bright, vivid sky-blue. I hadn’t seen them turn this color yet.

The intensity of
that gaze brought misty red to my eyes. We stared at each other, not
speaking, just . . . seeing one another.

The phone rang.
His face froze, then darkened and closed up again. He turned away
from me as the tension between us evaporated.

Dammit.

Without a word,
he got up and answered the phone.

“Yes? Of
course. I’ll be right down.” He hung up. “Josephine
and Emily are here,” he said to me. “I will go meet them.
Wait here.”

I nodded and
stayed put. Not much else I could do.

T
he
elevator felt crowded. Since he alone occupied it, he could not have
said why.

He had returned
to find Ian in a somber mood. Curious. Too curious. He had left his
own room unlocked when he had left – clearly she had taken
advantage of that lapse. He had not expected her to make so bold as
to enter his private room.

No. That was
untrue. He had wondered how she might react if he left the room
unlocked, then did so and thought of it no further. This entire
incident was his own fault.

She said she
wanted to know him. He did not understand what that meant.

She wants
more than the surface answer.

And would she
still want the truth once he had told her? He thought . . . he
thought maybe she would. That gave him an unusual feeling, one he
couldn’t quite identify. Feelings of caution and fear he
understood perfectly. He had pushed the others too far back for too
long, learned far too well how to pay them no mind. Now, when he
wanted to know their meaning, he had to probe at them and stretch
them out to examine them.

He had almost
answered her. It had rested on the tip of his tongue, waiting –
yearning – to be spoken aloud. That he had almost given in
unsettled him. That he wanted to speak of it so much unsettled him
more.

If he wished to
say it out loud, why to Ian? Why not Josephine, or Kent, or Specter,
or any of the members of the pack?

He felt his lips
twist at that. Josephine feared him; she would think him monstrous
had he told her. He did not know how Kent felt toward him; their one
meeting prior to Kent’s death had been brief and formal.
Specter and the members of his pack would have laughed at him, then
shredded him for his weakness.

The elevator
opened on the main floor, interrupting his thoughts. Josephine and
Emily stood waiting, their postures nervous. He took them in quickly,
searching for weapons, for signs in their stances that something
might be amiss. Nothing. He waved them on and took them back up to
the penthouse. Now he would have to tell Ian – and Josephine,
as well – that the tracks had vanished at a wall. Their only
option now was to set a trap, preferably a baited trap.

A feeling he
knew came back. Reluctance.

He throttled it
down. He had accepted this responsibility. He would see it through.

“How are
you?” Josephine asked quietly. “You seem tense.”

The question
surprised him. He could not recall the last time anyone had asked
after his state of being. He seemed to recall that humans asked one
another frequently . . . had it been that long ago?

“Yes,”
he admitted.

“Bad
news?” she asked.

Sebastian folded
his arms. “I would prefer to tell you and Ian together.”

Her face fell.
“It is bad news. Damn.”

She didn’t
ask him to speak, however, and he stayed quiet until they reached the
penthouse.

I
watched Sebastian go, wondering what in the world could hurt him this
much. Or who. There was some sort of trauma there, something he
wanted to talk about but couldn’t quite bring himself to admit.
Hm.

The elevator
stopped humming as it reached the first floor. I straightened my
mid-riff sweater, making sure to show off my belly-button ring. I
didn’t know if Emily would notice, but I felt more attractive
with my piercings showing. Attractive and a little guilty, jumping to
straighten my shirt for a cute girl when so much else was going on.

The elevator
motor started up again. I got up and went to the doors to meet it –
to meet her. I felt a dopey smile spreading over my face and did my
best to tone it down so that I just looked polite or happy instead of
dumb. The elevator hummed quietly for a minute, then the doors opened
and there they stood.

Josephine wore
all black tonight. The color set off her gold-green eyes. Her face
was downcast when the doors opened, but she smiled at me. Beside her,
Emily beamed at me, dressed in a tight, low-cut blue shirt with dark,
form-fitting slacks. Dressy and eye-catching, but not so dressy and
eye-catching that I’d think she was trying. Like my own outfit.
I could tell her hair and been fussed with. Every blond curl fell
exactly right, framing her face with a halo of them. The other two
got off and walked past me while I stared, Josephine with a soft
“hello” that I thought I answered. Emily stepped off,
coming towards me with that radiant smile.

“Hi,”
she breathed, and took one of my hands in hers. The human warmth of
it made me tingle.

“Hi.”

“If we
may?” Sebastian interrupted, his voice like a brick to the
head. I gave him a quick apologetic look.

Emily let go of
my hand with a guilty start. She looked over her shoulder at me as we
parted, so I followed and sat down beside her. She let her leg touch
mine, just there.

I was hungry
again, I realized suddenly, and my mouth started watering. More than
usual with Emily sitting right there. I swallowed and riveted my eyes
on Sebastian.

“I have
bad news,” Sebastian began.

“I knew
it,” Josephine murmured.

“Unfortunately,
the leads we had go nowhere,” Sebastian went on, as if no one
had interrupted. “The license of the car led to a woman who
vanished sometime last week. I spoke to her husband tonight. From
what I could find, she was simply another victim in this. Ian saw one
of the women who attacked Kent. That led us to a woman of similar
appearance, perhaps even just a coincidence. Josephine, you admit you
aren’t certain when Evan disappeared, but you do know he left
the house of his own free will. Without knowing where he might have
been attacked or where he might have been taken, I have no way to
track this. These women are not native to Seattle – none of us
knows them, and we are the only vampires here. There are no further
leads.”

A frown twisted
on Emily’s pretty face. My face probably mirrored it.

“That’s
it?” I slumped back on the couch.

“No,”
Sebastian said, unmoved. “Setting a trap is still an option.
Not tonight.”

Josephine seemed
lost somewhere of her own. Emily had her hands over her face. I
turned to look at Sebastian, but he had turned away and started off
down the hall. I stared after him, blinking. Him walking away like
that didn’t seem very polite – but then, I guessed he had
a lot to think about, what with our conversation earlier and now
trying to find two killers who wouldn’t come out of hiding.

A second after
his back vanished down the hall, Josephine got to her feet and went
after him, a determined look on her face. I thought about stopping
her and letting her know he had a lot on his mind. The expression on
her face made me keep quiet. It didn’t seem just determined; I
saw compassion and concern there as well. She wouldn’t hunt him
down and bark at him.