Part 5 (1/2)

”Yeah. A few.”

Sebastian looked as if he were about to ask more when the sound of gla.s.s breaking came from the kitchen. Then a pot crashed to the floor, followed by several others.

Each noise made me jump. I clutched the blanket tighter, and shouted, ”Shouldn't you go see what's going on?”

”My poltergeist is throwing a tantrum,” he said nonchalantly.

”Benjamin.” The name came back to me, as did the image of him fading at Sebastian's command. ”He's a ghost.”

”Technically, as I said, poltergeist. He's slightly more material than your average ghost. Hence, the throwing part of throwing a tantrum. Anyway, he came with the house,” Sebastian said with an uninterested shrug, as though discussing the weather. ”He upped the property value for me, frankly.”

The mention of real estate reminded me why I'd made my sojourn. ”The Vatican is after you, Sebastian.”

Silverware rained on the floor. A wooden thud, like the sound of someone tossing aside a cabinet drawer, echoed from the kitchen. Sebastian stood up angrily. ”All right, that's enough,” he said, striding past me to the kitchen door. ”Outside, Benjamin. Now.”

One last petulant crash, and then I heard the sound of a door opening and slamming shut.

”Sorry about that. He's always like this around the full moon. I guess, you know, it happened on a full moon,” Sebastian said. It? Did I want to know? The guy was a ghost now, a fairly murderous one, I might add, so things hadn't ended well. I decided to let that ride for now.

Before returning to his chair, he crouched beside the fire and stirred the embers with a poker. ”What were you saying?”

”The Order,” I repeated. ”They're after you.” When he'd opened the chain screen in front of the fire, heat poured into the room. My skin was still damp enough that the warmth felt divine. I itched to relocate closer to the flames, but the blanket restricted me. ”Don't you have a T-s.h.i.+rt or something you could loan me?”

He glanced over his shoulder, his gaze lingering on my face for a long moment. ”Sure. I'll go get something.” He stood up as if to go, but hesitated. ”What Order?”

”The hunters,” I explained. ”The Order of Eustace.”

”Eustace?” he chuckled. ”Am I supposed to be afraid of an organization with a name like Eustace?”

My fists clenched. ”They could be named the pansy-a.s.s froufrou club for all I care. They're killers, Sebastian. Stone cold.”

”So am I.” Sebastian's tone carried no arrogance or boasting, merely a statement of fact. His gaze held mine steadily for a moment longer, then s.h.i.+fted uneasily to the floor.

”I'll get those clothes for you,” he said.

I nodded mutely. The rain had softened to a hushed, steady rhythm on the roof. The house was quiet except for the creak of floorboards as Sebastian made his way up the stairs. It wasn't as if his admission should come as such a shock. I knew vampires killed people. I mean, they were predators. It was their nature.

I learned from Parrish that vampires could, and most often did, survive on the small amount of blood that they took from consensual partners. The majority of vampires in Parrish's circle courted a certain kind of groupie who enjoyed the thrill of the bite, which, I had to admit, had no small appeal. I let Parrish bite me once, out of curiosity, I suppose, or that before-mentioned self-destructiveness, and I instantly understood why Parrish never lacked for volunteers in that regard. The pain was addictive. My attraction to it must have scared me on some level, or I wasn't nearly as suicidal as I feared, because somehow I managed to studiously avoid the role of ghoul with Parrish. We were lovers; he got his nourishment elsewhere.

I guess that's how I'd fooled myself.

Parrish had been pretty up-front about the fact that he'd made his living as a ”gentleman of the highway,”

as he called it, and had a tendency toward murder even before the Change. Somehow he'd made his lifestyle-past and present-all seem so charming, so... harmless. I supposed it behooved him not to remind me that vampires regularly murdered people. That sort of thing was probably a turnoff for a potential partner.

Sebastian had certainly changed the mood with his comment. I wasn't precisely disgusted by him, but I certainly felt... sobered. I think what disturbed me the most was the comparison. When I thought about the Order, it was personal. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had taken the lives of my friends. Was there someone out there who hated Sebastian for the life-or lives-he'd taken the way I despised the Order?

Of course, I was a fine one to talk. Lilith had killed through me. I was a murderer, too. Though I preferred to think of it as vengeance. If I thought of it at all.

The squeak of the stairs alerted me to Sebastian's return. He handed me a white T-s.h.i.+rt and navy sweatpants with UWs logo on the hip. ”I thought you might find these comfortable.” He gathered up the cocoa mugs, avoiding my gaze. ”I'll freshen these up, shall I, while you change?”

He was already through the kitchen door before I could acknowledge his kindness. I quickly pulled on the clothes. The s.h.i.+rt fell way past my hips, and I had to roll up the legs of the sweats before I could even see my feet, but he was right. The plush fabric of the pants felt really comfortable against my skin, although the softness made me hyperaware of the fact that my underwear was in Sebastian's dryer.

I thought about calling him back into the room to let him know I was decently dressed, but the sounds of broom and dustpan came from the kitchen. I took the opportunity to snoop.

Despite claiming to be sun-loving, Sebastian had not turned on any lamps. The fire cast the majority of the light, accented by a couple of tall tapers on the built-in gla.s.s-fronted cabinet. Though clearly designed to display china, Sebastian had filled the shelves with books-tomes, really. The books Sebastian had looked nothing like any reading material I'd ever owned in my life. For one thing, none of them were published by the major New Age publis.h.i.+ng house, Llewellyn Press, and anyway, these things were leather-bound and serious-looking. Most of them were not in English, or if they were, they were in some dialect so ancient it wasn't recognizable to me as such.

The books seemed very vampire, almost stereotypical fas.h.i.+on-by-Vlad. What surprised me were some of the curios among the books: a toy '65 Mustang with working doors and trunk, a jeweled frog with a compartment that held a rose quartz rosary, and-most curious of all-a framed photo of Sebastian with guy friends dressed in climbing gear on some mountainside.

I looked at the photo for a long time. The sky was crystal-blue behind the men. Sebastian looked...

tanned. Actually, it was a really good picture of him; it showed off his muscles, but that was just a distraction from how strange the whole thing was. A vampire who mountain climbed? With buddies? In the sun?

I was still staring at the photo when Sebastian came back into the room. I suppose I should have replaced the picture guiltily, but I just couldn't get over it. ”You mountain climb?”

He smiled fondly with the memory. ”Oh, yeah, I got into it for a while there. That was taken in Alaska.”

He came up beside me and pointed to one of his friends in the picture. ”This is Smitty. He's a crazy Australian. You'd like him, I think. He has a bit of a wicked side. This is Ron-”

My expression must have halted his reminiscence.

”What?” he asked; it was that incredulous yet I-could-be-guilty-if-I-knew-for-sure-what-you-were-thinking-of what.

”You mountain climb?” ”Rock climb, really,” he said, his eyes lingering on the photo in my hands. ”Not anymore, though. Too dangerous.”

I nodded. I was thinking that the danger of being exposed as a vampire had to increase exponentially when you were alone in the wilderness with a bunch of living men. The logistics of his expedition made me ask, ”How much blood do you have to consume in order to go out in the daylight?”

Sebastian let out an embarra.s.sed laugh. ”That's a bit of an indelicate question, isn't it? See how I've diplomatically avoided asking you how you came to be part killer G.o.ddess?”

I started to deny it, but stopped. I kept forgetting that Sebastian knew about Lilith-had seen her-and lived. ”Tact has never been my strong suit,” I admitted.

”I've noticed.” He smiled, handing me a refilled cup of cocoa. ”Luckily, I find it dead charming.”

In order to take the cup, I had to replace the photo on the shelf. All the shuffling made for a good excuse not to show Sebastian how pleased I was to hear his compliment.

Sebastian must have noticed how fl.u.s.tered I was, because he changed the subject. ”Tell me more about these Vatican agents of yours.”

”Not mine,” I said abruptly, though I'd known full well what he'd meant.

He raised his hands as though in surrender. ”Sorry.”

I shook my head. ”No, I didn't mean to snap. I just have a history with the Order.”

”So I've gathered.”

Sebastian took my place on the couch, so I snuggled into one of the overstuffed chairs close to the fire.

After taking a sip of chocolate, I asked, ”What do you want to know?”

”Why do you think they're after me, for one?”