together like this and feel surprised all over again. Their pale, softly glowing skin made them both seem timeless, yet there the resemblance stopped. Eleisha was probably not what a typical American would consider beautiful. But she was alarmingly . . . pretty. Born in a different era, she was small and slender with a mass of wispy, wheat gold hair that reached the top of her jeans. Sometimes, just the sight of her left Wade speechless.
Philip, on the other hand, looked like someone on the cover of GQ posing for Calvin Klein’s fall fashion line, and without meaning to, he tended to make Wade feel diminished. They were both tall, but where Philip’s tight muscles showed through his shirt, Wade’s build leaned toward thin. Wade’s white-blond hair stuck out in different directions, as he wore it fairly short, but he often forgot to see a stylist for months.
His feelings about Philip were conflicted. He didn’t always exactly like Philip, but they were deeply connected by circumstance, and they knew each other far too well.
Eleisha glanced up over at Wade, almost as if she was nervous. “I need to show you both something, and I don’t know what you’ll say.”
She walked halfway over to the staircase, lifted the top of one of the steps, and took out an ivory envelope. Wade had no idea that step lifted up to create a hiding space. When had Eleisha discovered that? What had she hidden there?
She hesitated a moment longer, and then said to Wade, “Do you remember a few nights after . . . after Julian found us and we drove him off, that night when I tried to get you to start looking for a job here?”
He winced. “Of course I remember.”
“This came that same night.”
She handed him the envelope, and he opened it, reading the brief handwritten letter inside.
You are not alone. There are others like you. Respond to the Elizabeth Bathory Underground. P.O. Box 27750, San Francisco, CA 94973.
He was confused, having no idea what this meant, but before he could speak, Philip walked over and ripped both the letter and envelope from his hand.
“What is that?” Philip asked. He scanned the note and then raised his eyes from the paper to Eleisha’s face. “A month ago? This came a month ago and you didn’t show me?” His voice had lost its normal light, amusement-seeking tone. He sounded angry.
“Philip—” Eleisha began.
“It’s a trap!” he nearly shouted, his accent growing thicker. “Sent by Julian.” He looked at the envelope. “This is addressed to you. Here! By hiding this, you put yourself in danger! You put Wade in danger.”
Philip often behaved as if he needed to protect Wade—which was neither flattering nor comforting.
“It’s not Julian,” Eleisha said. “Look at the handwriting.”
“You aren’t to answer this,” Philip ordered. “You leave it with me, and you don’t go hunting alone until I say so.”
“I already answered it,” Eleisha said quietly. “And then she wrote back, and then I wrote back . . . and then she wrote back. We’ve been corresponding every week.”
Philip’s expression darkened into rage, but before he could explode, Wade asked, “She?”
“Yes, just look at her letters.” Eleisha hurried back to the staircase and drew out a small stack of ivory envelopes. Wade could barely believe she had been keeping this a secret. He thought he knew all Eleisha’s secrets. She gripped the letters in one hand and held her palm up toward Philip. “Wait. Just hear me out. Her name is Rose, and she is like us. She lives somewhere in San Francisco, but she won’t tell me where. She’s frightened, too.”
Digging through the envelopes, she pulled out a letter. “Here, Philip, come look at this one. She says that Julian could not have killed every vampire in Europe. She believes there must be others, only they are hiding . . . like she’s been hiding. She thinks they’re afraid of him, and she’s been waiting, just waiting, for someone to fight back. When she learned we’d survived an attack and driven him off, she knew the world had shifted. She needs our help!”
Philip listened to this outburst without a word, but then he walked slowly over to Eleisha, staring down at her with eyes so hard that Wade would have backed up—but Eleisha didn’t.
She stood her ground. “Look at the letter, Philip.”
“And how did she know where we are?” Philip asked, ignoring the letter. His tone dropped low. “How did she know we drove off Julian?”