The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,108

to stop herself. Drina released a slow breath, a good deal of tension sliding out of her as she took in Stephanie's lonely figure. It looked like she hadn't approached the house but had simply stood in the cold, dark night watching it . . . in nothing but joggers, a T-shirt, and a thick woolly sweater, Drina noted, taking in what the girl was wearing. The kid must be freezing, she thought with a frown, then sighed and turned to gesture to Harper to wait here.

When he nodded, she turned and started silently forward. Drina was perhaps six feet behind Stephanie, when the girl said, "It took you long enough to get here."

Drina stopped, and then grimaced and continued forward at a more natural pace.

"What took you so long?" Stephanie asked, as Drina paused a little beside and behind her.

"There was an accident on the highway, traffic was stopped for hours," Drina explained, and then smiled wryly, and asked, "You expected me to figure out you'd come here?"

Stephanie shrugged. "Where else would I go?"

"How long have you been here?"

"Hours." Stephanie leaned her head wearily against the tree and sighed. "I've just been standing here watching the house."

Drina shi ed her gaze back to the McGills' home. There were lights glowing on the ground floor too, she saw, but all the ac vity was in the kitchen. She could see into the room quite clearly through a pair of sliding glass doors that led out onto a deck. The ver cal blinds were open, revealing a dining-room table and a kitchen beyond. There were three kids and a man who she guessed was Stephanie's father at the table. An adult female, no doubt her mother, and more kids, older ones, were moving around the kitchen, pouring coffee and toasting toast.

"The blinds were closed, but Mom opened them when they got up. She likes to watch the sun rise,"

Stephanie said quietly.

Drina focused on the mother, but said, "You controlled the man from the gas sta on and made him drive you here."

"Yes," she said simply.

"You didn't tell me you could control people already," Drina said quietly. Stephanie shrugged. "I didn't really know until I tried tonight."

Drina closed her eyes. If making a man drive her two hours to Windsor was her baby step at mind control, the kid was scary skilled. It just made her worry more for her. Pushing that thought aside, she said, "I'm surprised you just stood out here and didn't go in."

Stephanie smiled bi erly. "I was going to. That was the plan on the way down here. I'd come home, and Mom would put her arms around me and tell me she loved me and that everything was going to be all right. And Dad would call me his little girl, which I always used to hate, but would kill to hear now."

The yearning in her voice was painful to hear, and Drina had to swallow a lump in her throat. Stephanie was just a kid. She wanted her family. She'd asked for none of this. Clearing her throat, Drina asked,

"What stopped you?"

"I'd just be messing up their lives," Stephanie said with a shrug. "I know Lucian did something to them to make them forget me. I'd just mess that up."

"They haven't forgo en you, Stephanie," Drina said firmly, shrugging out of her coat and moving closer to drape it over her shoulders. The nanos would be using up blood at an accelerated rate keeping her from freezing in this weather, and they didn't have any blood to give the girl. Sighing, she rubbed her arms briefly, and added, "Lucian just sent people to veil their memories and probably alter them a bit."

"I know the veiling bit is so they don't suffer so much from losing Dani and me, but how did they alter their memories and why?" she asked quietly.

"They would have made their memories of your faces fuzzier, more vague, so that they wouldn't recognize you if they came across you accidentally."

"Accidentally?" Stephanie asked dryly. "You mean so they wouldn't recognize me if I came knocking."

"No," Drina assured her. "If you walked up to the door, and knocked and said, 'Mommy, it's me, Stephanie,' the veil would be torn. They would remember. But if they happened to see you on a street, or bumped into you in passing and never spoke, chances are they wouldn't. That's why it's done. So that you aren't accidentally revealed to be alive."

"So if I walked up right now