Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson(41)

She shook her head. Everyone became increasingly worried as an hour crept by without word. Peter didn’t answer his cell phone, and as he was ten years divorced, no one was home to answer the phone. They called the station and were told that Peter had left at his usual time.

Finally Frankie stood up and stretched, cracking his spine. “We’re getting nothing done here, sweetie,” he told Elyna. “We need to go out and look for him. He has a few mates and some places he goes to for a bite or glass.”

“Call me when you find him.”

“As long as it’s not too late,” Frankie promised, and he and the rest left Elyna alone in her home.

There were all sorts of reasons why Peter might not have made it over tonight. But the one she believed was that she had made him hers—and Colbert had noticed.

She remembered quite clearly how easily Colbert had ousted Corona and her seethe from this city. Half her seethe, anyway; the other half was gone to ashes and sunlight, never to rise again.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Sean,” she said, “get me Colbert’s phone number, would you?”

She felt his hesitation through the phone lines. He was angry with her—and would happily have sacrificed her on his road into power. But she had killed his Mistress, and for a while more the urge to obey would stay strong, even with the physical distance between them. She snapped her phone closed, confident that Sean could get the information and would call her back.

She walked into the living room, where Jack had died at her hands, and touched the floor where the wood was just a little darker than the boards around it, despite sanding and staining.

“My fault, Jack. I was mad because you were late again. Jealous, maybe. You were the newest rising star among the architects of Chicago, and I was a housewife. There was a new singer at that speakeasy we used to go to, and you’d promised to take me there. When you couldn’t, I decided to go by myself.”

The air in the apartment was still and hot despite the new HVAC system. Waiting.

“My fault. I knew it was stupid when I did it.” Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. “The new singer was an old woman with a voice like a lark. She came to my table and said, ‘You’re all alone here, aren’t you? I think I’ll take you home with me tonight.’ If I’d waited until you could go with me, she’d have left us both alone.”

Elyna bowed her head. “She and her fellow vampires fed on me for a couple of weeks. I don’t remember a lot about that time. Someone got careless and I died. It’s unusual for someone to turn after such a short time; mostly they just die.”

Stubborn Pole.

Elyna turned slowly, unsure whether her mind had supplied that voice or she’d really heard it.

“When vampires rise the first time, we are nearly mindless, and hungry. Scared.” She remembered that most of all. She’d been so scared. “I ran home and you were waiting for me.” She swallowed. “Thing is, Jack, I don’t think I’ll be coming back here after tonight. The local vampires have taken Peter.” Peter might already be dead, though certainly they’d have toyed with him while they were waiting for her to figure out what had happened. “I just . . . wanted you to know that my death wasn’t your fault. I wish . . . I wish you’d had a chance to marry again, to grow old and watch over your grandchildren, never knowing what had become of me.”

In the silence, her phone’s ring was very harsh.

“Elyna,” she answered.

“Elyna,” said a man’s voice, “I heard that you wanted to call me.”

When she was through talking to Colbert, she slipped the phone back into her pocket. It was traditional for vampires to dress up when they treated with each other, a convention that traced back to older times. Elyna didn’t bother changing out of her work clothes.

She opened the door to leave, paused, and said, “I love you, Jack.”

•   •   •

The jazz club wasn’t the same one where she’d run into Colbert’s vampires. This one had a CLOSED FOR REMODELING sign on the door and wasn’t in nearly as nice a neighborhood. Elyna got out of the cab and paid the driver.

“You sure you want off here?” he asked, a fatherly man who’d entertained her all the way here with stories of his daughter’s almost-disastrous dance recital. “It’s late and there’s no one here.”

She smiled at him. “I’ll be fine.”

The cab waited, though, until she opened the club door before driving off.

She took a step into the dark room, and with a click someone turned a spotlight on her. With the light in her face, she couldn’t see them, but the vampires could see her just fine.

“Such a lot of trouble for such a little girl,” purred a man’s voice. Over the years, he’d lost most of the French accent she remembered. Colbert sounded a lot more like a TV newscaster than the eighteenth-century vintner he had once been.

“You have someone who belongs to me,” she said, tired of playing games. Corona had liked games, too. “Show me that he is alive or this ends now.”

Something heavy was tossed onto the floor in front of her, a body.

She went down to one knee and felt the body in front of her. She still couldn’t see, but one hand touched something wet. She brought her fingers up to her mouth and licked the moisture away. It was Peter’s blood. The body it had come from still breathed. She petted him gently and stood up.