the moment more than I do,” I replied. I went out to the kitchen. I only had one glass of wine with dinner, but this was definitely shaping up to be a two-glass day.
I brought the wine back in with me and settled into an armchair facing Sorren. Baxter was on his lap with a goofy grin. For a moment, it was awkwardly silent.
“I met her in 1940,” Sorren said finally. “She was twenty. I was… older than that,” he said with a sad smile. “She loved horses and mint juleps – and me. Even though she figured out quickly enough just what I was,” he added, and if he had needed to breathe, he might have sighed. “She had a touch of her mother’s Sight.”
“I could tell that you two were close,” I said, not entirely sure what to say. Technically, Sorren was my boss, or at least, my patron. Then again, in my last job, I had sat with my boss on more than one occasion while she drank herself numb and talked about her divorce. Chalk it up to being a good listener. But more than anything, Sorren was a friend. He’d had my back in a lot of fights. I wanted to hear him out.
“Helen was the last mortal I permitted myself to become romantically involved with,” he said quietly. “Ever. It’s just not fair, to either of us… and sometimes it’s so hard.” He smiled. “But damn, she was a very special woman. Smart. Funny. An amazing dancer. Not afraid of anything. So open to curiosity. Do you have any idea how rare that was back then?”
Or even now, I thought, remembering Anthony’s struggle to reconcile himself to what his own senses testified.
He didn’t really expect an answer, so I didn’t give one. Helen Butler was over ninety years old. There were a lot of things people didn’t talk about back then, including vampires. She must have been exceptional to handle that.
“I’m guessing that eventually she found someone else.” Since she was ‘Mrs.’ Butler instead of ‘Miss’, that was pretty obvious.
Sorren nodded. “We were together for several years. But eventually, it had to end. She wanted a real home, and children. Neither of which I could provide. She did not want to be turned. I looked in on her from a distance, now and again to make sure she was well. The years go so quickly for mortals, and so slowly for us. Her husband died a decade ago. She outlived her children. And then the Alzheimer’s set in…”
“And you found a way to reconnect,” I supplied. “To make sure she was taken care of.”
He looked away. “I can’t cure Alzheimer’s. But for most people, it makes the past more real than the present. I can glamour her, just a bit, and nudge those memories to the fore. And as far as she’s concerned, for a little while, it’s seventy years ago, and nothing has changed.”
Damn. I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so for a few moments, we were quiet. Finally, Sorren sat up and shook himself out of his mood. “Thank you,” he said again. “But there are other things that also need attention.”
“Yeah, and I’ve got some news on that,” I replied, filling him in on what I knew of the bombing, what Teag and I had experienced with Valerie, as well as Anthony’s news. I added the unexpected visit from Daniel Hunter, plus what we had seen at Tarleton House and Father Anne’s Nephilim information.
“Hunter is an asset, but he’s also a wild card,” Sorren replied, scratching Baxter behind the ears. “I’ve worked with him once or twice. He’s more of a hit man or a bounty hunter than anything else, which means that his real allegiance is to himself.”
“Lovely.”
Sorren shrugged. “In an all-out fight, he’s handy to have around. He’s not a member of the Alliance. More of a resource we call in when we need to. So no, I don’t entirely trust him. But I think we’re going to need some hired guns for this fight, and he’s one of the best.”
His expression darkened when I told him about Coffee Guy and the attack at Magnolia Cemetery and the paintings in Father Anne’s book. He made me repeat some of the details of the attack, and describe exactly what I remembered of the monster.
“You are absolutely certain that the man you saw at Honeysuckle Café became the monster that attacked you outside the cemetery?” Sorren asked.