Blood Memories - By Barb Hendee Page 0,50

would I have reacted in the same situation one hundred sixty-nine years ago? How would anyone react? “If it makes you feel any better, William lives on rabbits.”

“Rabbits?”

“Yeah.” I almost smiled. “Want to walk out back and see my hutches?”

The corners of his mouth curved up slightly, but no words came.

Maybe he felt it a split second before me. The world slowed down, and I watched his knees buckle just before the waves hit. Psychic energy cut off my own physical control and passed through my thought patterns in rapid bursts. It was not agonizing, not like the death of Maggie or Edward. The release was milder, yet more vivid.

Visions of green fields, pheasants, a young Lady Katherine, rabbits, chess pieces, wolfhounds, and most of all, myself . . . image after image of myself. I could see his dreams, the focus of his undead energy leaking out, dissipating into space.

No!

It went on for what felt like hours. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get up. I cried without tears, caught in the choppy sequences of his confused, beloved mind.

“Eleisha.” Wade’s sweating face looked down into mine. He was gasping for air. His eyes were wild. “Dominick’s in the house,” he breathed. “William’s dead.”

We both knew it was true, but I still cried out, “No!” and struggled up on all fours.

“You can’t help him! He’s gone.”

This was too much. Too much. I couldn’t think or cope or even feel anger.

“Hide here. Stay here,” Wade rushed on. “I’m going downstairs. Whatever happens, don’t open the door.”

I should be protecting him. Hiding him. Fighting his battles. But I didn’t. My William was gone, murdered, and I’d been upstairs, sharing memories with a mortal.

Frozen in sorrow and guilt, I just crouched there and watched Wade walk out.

William. My William. What did his body look like?

A sharp confusion struck me, and I could see an aged, headless corpse.

I was looking through Wade’s sight line.

Without conscious awareness, we’d slipped into each other’s minds. He experienced my sorrow. I saw through his eyes. It didn’t occur to me until later to wonder at how easy, how utterly natural this feat had been.

“Dominick?” he called.

“Where’s your girlfriend?”

I found it difficult to shut out Wade’s surge of pity when his muscular partner stumbled through the kitchen door, a bloody shovel in his hands. My thoughts got tangled up in Wade’s memories. What a good cop Dom had once been. Now dried food and old sweat stained his T-shirt. His black hair stuck to his skull in filthy patches, and quick, china-blue eyes twitched back and forth, puffy from exhaustion, sunken by obsession.

“You killed this old man.” Wade took in the sight of William’s burgundy smoking jacket, wrinkled hands, head lying two feet from his body. “You murdered him. Does that get through to you at all?”

“He’s been dead for years. Jesus Christ, Wade, you still don’t get it, do you? How many people do you think this ‘old man’ murdered?”

“None. He fed on rabbits.”

“Did she tell you that? She’s lying. Remember her painting? The one you kept. I got sick touching it. That pretty face is a joke. It protects her, like a gun or armor. She’d rip your throat out in a second.”

“That doesn’t make you judge and executioner. Remember? You wouldn’t even shoot at a fleeing criminal. You were good at what you did. Everybody wanted to be you.”

Recognition, pain, flickered across Dominick’s unshaven face. “This is different. Rules don’t work.” He walked over and looked down at William’s body, as the flesh was just beginning to crack. “These things look at us as cattle. They butcher us to live.”

This was war. And what if Dom was right? What if the last semblance of sanity still dwelled in him? Wade thought of Eleisha’s tiny face, her frightened eyes, and his own growing fascination with her. What if he was wrong, the police were blind, and only Dominick fought on the right side anymore?

“She’s not what you think,” Wade said. “Her whole existence surrounded that old man. Now that he’s dead, I don’t know what she’ll do. You have to report this, though. You’ve killed someone.”

“No, I don’t. In a few minutes there won’t be a body.”

“Where did you learn so much about these people?”

“Touching things. Her things and Claymore’s. His house was a memory smorgasbord.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Wade asked.

“I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“You could’ve let me in.”

“My head? No.” Dom’s expression grew sad. “You’re my friend. Trust me on this. My head isn’t someplace