Her frown deepened. “I came here looking for a certain item. A stone. Or a gem. I’ll know it when I ‘feel’ it. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s what led me up here. My body tunes itself to the precise stone, gem or crystal I need for my work in healing. I knew it was here in the Carpathian Mountains and I had to come. I knew the general location and what part of the range to search because I was drawn to it on the map.” She waited for him to laugh. To make fun of her.
He studied her face. She didn’t know it of course, but he was already in her mind. She could do exactly what she said she could.
“Why would I not believe you? You are a gifted healer.”
“I didn’t get the chance to heal you. How would you know that?” she countered.
He hadn’t talked so much in ages. It was rather wearing. “I feel your power. Why do you need this particular stone?”
Her face crumpled. She looked almost as if she might cry. Her look did strange things to his insides. His belly formed hard, protesting knots and his chest ached in the region of his heart.
“My grandmother. Grandma Trixie. She raised me, and she’s the kindest, most thoughtful, wonderful person you can imagine. She raised my three older sisters as well. It wasn’t easy. She had to work all the time but she never complained. She even helped us out with school when she didn’t have to. She’s incredible.”
“Is she ill?”
Teagan looked down, studying the toe of her boot as she scuffed it in the dirt. “She’s gone a little crazy. Her mind isn’t right. A while back she began to mutter under her breath about this mythical man named Gary. She despised him. I asked her about him numerous times, but she just said he was a man who had betrayed everyone. He was a spy and he needed to die. That’s totally not like my grandmother.”
He held out his hand to her. “Keep talking. We should go back to your campsite and start a fire. You are beginning to shiver a little. That is the only chamber with a decent chimney.”
She took his hand without hesitation, more because she wasn’t paying as close attention than because she was no longer leery of him.
“About two months ago, she began talking about Gary to my sisters. She’s become totally obsessed with him. She said he runs with vampires and he has to be stopped. My sisters took her to a psychiatrist. He said she was slowly losing her mind. She wouldn’t back down. She swore vampires exist and that this Gary is a traitor to the human race and needs to die.”
Andre knew a man named Gary Jansen. He was highly respected among the Carpathian people. He had fought beside them in battle, led the way in research to find the cause of why their women couldn’t produce babies and worked to find a way to save the children who were born. He was also instrumental in finding the flower needed for their fertility. Gary was fully Carpathian now and a brother to Gregori Daratrazanoff. He was a little alarmed that his lifemate’s grandmother might actually know something about Gary.
He remained silent. Teagan sent him a hesitant look. He nodded at her, making certain he looked interested.
“I found a vampire-hunting kit she bought off the Internet stashed in her closet. I wasn’t snooping. She’d asked me to get her yarn and knitting needles. I didn’t even know she knitted. I think she plans on using her needles to stab someone through the heart if she can’t use her vampire-hunting kit.”
“What’s in a vampire-hunting kit?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.
“She has some gun that shoots wooden stakes. A rosary. A bible. A silver cross and holy water. There are all kinds of bottles filled with stuff, but I don’t know what’s in them.” She sighed. “My grandmother wouldn’t hurt a fly. Seriously, we had to put spiders outside rather than kill them, and now she’s going to hunt vampires, specifically a man who I can’t find out about anywhere, and shoot them with a wooden stake. It’s scary that her mind is going so fast.”
“What else does she talk about? Why has she fixated on this Gary person? Surely you must have asked her.”
“We all did. She just told us that he had once hunted vampires but now he’s in collusion with them. When I asked her if she’d really kill him, she said she didn’t want to kill anyone, but he deserved to die for what he’d done. She’d heard of a monastery in these parts and hoped he was there already asking for forgiveness and then she wouldn’t have to lead justice to him, he’d spend the rest of his life doing penance for his sins. Seriously. That’s how she talks. Penance for his sins.”
Andre’s alarm rose. He’d heard of a few individuals who had a specific psychic gift. If her grandmother were one of those gifted who could follow the path of a Carpathian or vampire, it would answer the question as to how her granddaughter had unraveled his safeguards. She had the same gift. The difference was, Teagan had never been told about vampires. Her grandmother obviously had.
If he had to guess, he would say that Trixie Joanes belonged to the human vampire-hunting society. The same society killed Carpathians and vampires alike, without distinguishing between the two. They also occasionally targeted humans they didn’t like, or had grudges against, such as Gary Jansen.
Andre had run across them a time or two, but they’d never had anyone who could actually follow the trail of a Carpathian or vampire. It was difficult to do. And he was more difficult than most. He had never understood how it was done, but after seeing how Teagan had unraveled his safeguards, he realized it had something to do with the way their bodies “felt” or “sang” when near their quarry.
“Where is your grandmother now, Teagan?”
“She’s at home. In the United States. We live in California. My sisters are watching over her while I try to find the specific stone or crystal that will help me heal her mind.”
“Will they be able to stop her if she tries to get on a plane and follow you here?”
They were back in the chamber where her sleeping bag and backpack were stashed. He waited until she had her back turned and was rummaging through her pack before he waved at the fire. Instantly flames leapt. When she turned, shocked, he was dumping a load of wood next to the ring of rocks.
“Where did you get the wood?” she asked, her eyes wide.
He gestured toward the darker shadows where the cave curved deeply and a small amount of water trickled to the floor and seeped under the dirt. There was a large pile of wood neatly stacked.
“I have used this cave many times,” he said. Again, it was strictly the truth. His statement was misleading, but it wasn’t a lie. He had just acquired the wood for her fire, but he had, in the past, often used the cave for his retreat when he was wounded.
“I didn’t even see it. I guess I was so obsessed with finding the stone I need, I didn’t really look around.”