unlocked my door, worried that I’d find either restless ghosts or Daniel Hunter. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but I didn’t want to see either. My head ached, and it wasn’t from the wine. There was too much going on too fast in too many places, and I didn’t have enough of a grip on what we were doing to fix it. I grabbed my purse, shook out the dog collar so that I’d have Bo’s ghost as an escort, and kept my walking stick in hand. Forget about blasting something with cold power. Anything that got between me and that gate tonight was going to fry.
Good thing that Sorren was already inside, sitting on my couch, petting my dog.
“Don’t,” he said as I came through the door and froze. Bo’s ghost wagged and winked out. Sorren’s tone wasn’t compulsion. He had promised he wouldn’t use compulsion on me, unless it was truly a life-or-death situation. Because of my family’s long bond with Sorren, neither glamouring nor compulsion would work right on me anyhow. But there was a tone of command in Sorren’s voice that made me stop in my tracks long enough to think before I reacted.
That was good, since neither my vampire boss nor my dog – or my couch – are flame-proof.
“You’re back sooner than I expected. I thought the clean-up in Boston would take longer.”
“I need your help.”
Sorren didn’t look good; he was paler than usual and his eyes looked haunted. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask Sorren, and a lot of things I thought he might say, but that wasn’t one of them. “How?” I asked.
“Have you seen the news tonight?” There was a sadness in his voice I hadn’t heard before.
I nodded, put down my purse and came closer. Sorren was slumped on the couch, petting Baxter absently. If I hadn’t known what he was, I would have pegged him for a grad student who had just failed out. My god, he looked awful.
“Trifles and Folly is okay,” I said. “I’ve already had two phone calls from the police on the way home. No damage.” I paused. “You want me to go to Palmetto Meadows, don’t you?”
He looked up sharply. “You know?”
I nodded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I was there a couple of nights ago, when I took Baxter for our therapy dog evening. I saw you in the garden with Mrs. Butler.” I paused. “And I also met old Mr. Thompson – the warlock.”
Sorren gave a melancholy chuckle. “You never cease to amaze me, Cassidy.”
“Do you need me to go over there now and make sure she’s all right?” I asked. Going out again was the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew what it was like to be worried about a loved one.
Sorren shook his head. “No, but thank you. I appreciate the offer. When I heard, I went myself, got close enough to make sure there was no real danger. But I didn’t dare go in. Too many questions.”
I nodded. Sorren had assumed many names over the years, and had been careful to disappear and reinvent himself at regular enough intervals so that no one wondered about his extremely long lifespan and exceptionally youthful appearance. Still, falsifying identification and creating fictitious back stories was harder these days, even for the Witness Protection Program. Fingerprints didn’t change, and retina scans didn’t lie. The nursing home would not have run a background check on ‘Mr. Sorrensson’, but the FBI might.
“I can go over first thing in the morning,” I offered, and glanced at my watch. “Odds are, the residents are in bed by now anyhow, and there are probably police on watch. I can say that I was worried about the friends Baxter and I have made, and wanted to see if there was anything I could do.”
“Thank you, Cassidy,” Sorren said raggedly. “There are many things the Dark Gift enables me to do, but often, it’s the simplest things it denies me.”
Like going abroad in daylight, I thought. Or spending a mortal lifetime with a woman he cared about.
“No problem,” I assured him. Belatedly, Baxter seemed to notice that I had arrived home. Sorren carefully put him on the floor, and Baxter waggled his way over, utterly unconcerned about the obvious breach of etiquette. I picked him up and hugged him, then took him back and set him on Sorren’s lap. Sorren looked up at me quizzically.