back against Julian. If Eleisha and Philip could defend themselves, they could defend others. But could she trust them? She did not know. She did not even want to give them her name. She remembered an account she’d read of a Hungarian countess dubbed a “vampire” for her practices. This story was well known and should offer enough of a hint. But she wanted to offer more . . . a hint of her goals, the whispers in the back of her mind of others like herself who might be trapped in hiding.
Rose opened up a post office box.
Then she went home and sat down at the antique desk while Seamus stood anxiously behind her, and she wrote:You are not alone. There are others like you. Respond to the Elizabeth Bathory Underground. P.O. Box 27750, San Francisco, CA 94973.
chapter 6
“No...nomore!” Eleisha cried, pulling out of Rose’s mind.
Eleisha had fallen forward onto the floor, supporting herself on her forearms.
All she could see was Edward’s face, and she was having trouble separating Rose’s memories from her own. She was Rose. She felt everything Rose had gone through.
And to see Edward again, larger than life, his smile, his green eyes, to hear his laugh . . . She managed to partially disentangle her thoughts.
He had used her to try to heal himself.
She tried to push herself up.
“Eleisha!” Philip’s voice cut through the haze.
She felt his hands latch onto her, one on her arm and the other around her waist, as he pulled her up against his chest—which was hard and cold. He held her tightly. She tensed for a moment and then pressed her face into his shoulder, gripping his shirt with her fingers.
Rose was making choking sounds from the shock of having relived her own life. Eleisha wondered why Rose had ever given her even an ounce of kindness.
She should hate me.
“What’s wrong?” Seamus was asking in alarm. “What happened?”
Only Wade kept his head.
Eleisha could hear his feet on the carpet, and she shifted her face slightly to see him hurrying toward Rose.
“It’s all right,” he said. His voice was shaky, as he had relived all the same events, and coming out of these deep journeys was never easy. But Wade had been reading minds his whole life. He knelt beside Rose. “It’s over.”
“What was that?” she said in a choked voice. “How did you do that?”
He didn’t answer. This was not the time to try to explain his ability to help others channel linear memories. Eleisha could manage as a guide up to a point, but not as well as he could.
“Put both palms against the floor,” he said. “You’re back in the apartment, in the present.”
The sight of his calm efforts made Eleisha ashamed for hiding in Philip’s chest, and she tried to pull back, but he tightened his arm.
“Let go,” she said.
“That was too much,” he said. “Too much for you.”
For her? What about Rose?
“I’m all right.”
He relaxed his hold and she sat up, looking at Rose, who stared back. Rose had known about her all this time.
“He never told me,” Eleisha said.
Rose was becoming more composed, but Seamus kept looking back and forth between all of them in confusion.
“I know,” Rose answered.
All of Edward’s sins came crashing down on Eleisha: what he had done to Rose, to Seamus, and then his abandonment, and his heartless letter of how he was trying to make up for this tragedy by caring for her. How could he? And how could he not tell her? She had been his companion for nearly one hundred and seventy years. If only she had known.
She would make it up to Rose, all of it.
“How did Edward die?” Rose asked suddenly. “Did Julian kill him?”
Eleisha flinched. “No, he killed himself. I think he got tired of living.”
Rose glanced away. “What about the others?”
“Maggie and William?” Eleisha glanced at Wade, uncertain how to answer.
“No, Julian didn’t kill them, but that’s a long story,” he said. “And we’re all pretty wrung out. I think . . . we all have questions that can wait.”
This was certainly true. From what Eleisha had seen, Rose didn’t even know why Julian had murdered some vampires and left others, like Edward, alone—because Edward hadn’t known Julian was hunting only telepathic members of their kind. Rose didn’t even know that she possessed the ability to feed without killing. They still had a good deal to talk about.
Eleisha tilted her head back to look up at Philip. “Do you believe she is not working