Five nights later I was on the streets by myself. I wanted to be out alone, away from Philip and Wade.

I’d thought recovering from our shared horror of fighting Julian would be difficult ... but so far, we’d barely even talked about it.

Wade had snapped Philip’s shoulder back into its socket, and that was the last time any of us mentioned what happened that night.

Without even examining our options, the three of us moved into Maggie’s. Simple, mechanical, civilized, unspeakably calm, we set about putting our immediate environment into neat order. I quickly pulled all of my money from Portland and put it into a private account.

Philip took over Maggie’s room, but he didn’t alter the feminine decor even though he didn’t like it.

Wade settled into the stark upstairs second bedroom—sleeping on blankets on the floor. But he’d only bought two new changes of clothes.

I slept in the cellar because it felt safe.

Philip did not arrange for new bank accounts in America, nor would he mention moving back to Paris. Wade avoided the topic or his job or Dominick’s death or any future plans beyond the next five minutes. They both seemed to be waiting for me. But what did I want?

Neither of them had asked me what I did to Julian . . . but I had a feeling Philip figured out I’d attacked him telepathically.

Of course none of us knew what happened to him after he fell.

Philip kept looking over his shoulder, as if waiting to see a sword arcing out of the darkness. But I didn’t. I believed I’d ended this conflict forever. I could hit Julian with the one thing he truly feared, yet I would leave him alone if he left me alone.

He’d stay away.

But . . . where did that leave me?

Every aspect of my undead existence revolved around William or Julian in one form or another. Now, sweet William was gone. I accepted that reality with mixed emotions.

I was free.

But free to do what?

To go on killing and feeding and plying my gift in one long, endless stretch of time? Is that all there was? Perhaps Edward had been the only sane one after all.

Certain doubts—concepts—had been plaguing me for several nights. I couldn’t stop thinking about the memories Philip had shown me.

Did that mean there were other vampires in places like Asia, Australia, or South America? If so, had Julian hunted them down, too? Philip didn’t know, and the topic upset him. He’d spent most of that time of terror in hiding.

But even if all the vampires had lived in Europe, how did they manage to hide and feed without depopulating entire areas? The best-case scenario meant fifteen hundred and sixty deaths a year if each vampire made only one kill a week. That’s nearly sixteen thousand deaths over a ten-year period and didn’t take hunters like Philip into account. How could this be?

An idea, a possibility, began forming in my mind over the past few nights. I don’t how it occurred to me, or when it began, but I needed to be alone to try it. So I hit the streets without Philip and headed down to Pike Place Market.

Even after closing, the market teemed with life. Hookers, bums, guys playing guitars on street corners, their cases left open for donations, and teenage kids looking for something to do all milled around in a kaleidoscope of colors and scents.

Wearing a white cotton dress, my hair in a French braid, I looked clean and bright, like a girl from a Bloomingdale’s hatbox. Maggie had taught me more than she’d realized, but I could never rely on a gift like hers. My own was too deeply ingrained.

Falling into character, I left the busy area and stood outside an alley, arms crossed, back to the wall. Ten minutes later, a tall man in his mid-thirties walked by. Obviously in a hurry, he still stopped when I made eye contact.

“You all right?” he asked.

People in Seattle rarely speak to strangers on the street, at least not without a good reason.

“I got on the wrong bus,” I answered. “It took me here.”

“Where are you supposed to be?”

“Greenwood.”

My voice pitched high but soft, as if I didn’t want to talk to him but didn’t know what else to do. Casting out tentatively, I felt no malice or violence, only haste. He sighed in frustration, wishing he’d taken a different route and left my pretty, frightened plight for somebody else to handle.

“I’ve got to be in Lake Forest Park in an hour,” he said, “but I can take a detour and drop you. Who lives in Greenwood?”

“My sister.”

“Come on, then.”

Not moving, I stared out in indecision. Jumping in right away with him would have looked unusual. But his frustration mounted.

“Look, there won’t be another bus this time of night. You either stay here or come on.”

Obviously the prospect of staying in an alley wouldn’t appeal to any young mortal girl. I stepped out and followed him, half jogging to keep up. Three blocks away, he unlocked the passenger door of a newer Ford pickup and reached out for my hand.

“Watch your dress getting in.”

His manner affected me somehow. On a normal hunt I’d never have chosen a victim like this. Though slightly condescending, he had no motives besides taking me somewhere safe. Even in a rush, he’d stopped to help one person in this crowded city.

He hopped in and slammed the driver’s door. The street was fairly dark and quiet. Reaching out, I stopped his hand from sliding a key into the ignition, and I focused my thoughts, touching the edge of his own.

“Wait, not yet.”

He turned at my words, seeing me through a downy white mist. I pressed a suggestion into his mind.

You’re so tired. You need sleep.

“What are you . . . ?” he mumbled.

Sleep.

His eyelids grew heavy, and his head lolled back against the seat. His body went limp except for his chest, which continued to rise and fall.

I scooted across the seat and moved up for his throat.

He looked so peaceful, so helpless, that I stopped.

Changing my mind, I lifted his wrist instead. No tearing or ripping this time. Using my eyeteeth, I punctured the large blue vein above the callused curve of his palm. Carefully, keeping the holes as small as possible, I drew down on his wrist, drinking blood and absorbing life force while his heart beat quickly. My mind filled with visions of a farm in Nebraska and a hard-faced mother who never laughed, a soft-eyed sister who dreamed of being a dancer, and a stocky chestnut horse named Buck . . . his memories, his past treasures.

Once I had taken enough, I pulled out and used my fingernail to connect the little holes on his wrist, making the wound into a jagged cut—messy, but he was not bleeding badly.

My focus turned to his thoughts again, taking him back to the moment he’d rounded the corner and seen me up against the wall. I erased the memory.

No frightened girl had waited for him, only an empty street. But in his haste he’d stumbled and cut his wrist on a broken bottle. The pain didn’t bother him at first, but then it grew worse. He got in the truck and felt dizzy. He must have passed out.

Opening the passenger door and pressing the lock button down, I let go of his altered memories and hopped down into the street, leaving him to sleep peacefully a little longer.

Numb shock faded as I ran through the night. Then euphoria began to rise inside of me. This was it. Their secret.

I didn’t mourn for all the lives needlessly lost in my ignorant past, but instead, I rejoiced for those saved in my future. I didn’t have to kill. I never had to kill.

This was the way of the vampires who existed before my generation. They were not murderers, not slavering hunters who wiped out whole villages, merely survivors who used what gifts they had, like everyone else.

Where had they come from? Where did I come from? Perhaps Philip was right and we came from black spirits who roamed the void before some great god created the earth. Perhaps not. There was no one left to teach me. Perhaps I’d find out one day.

None of that mattered. I didn’t have to kill anymore. We were a new breed, Philip and I, like our predecessors. Would Philip care? Would he evolve? I couldn’t wait to bring him outside and show him what I’d discovered.

I waved down a taxi. This state of limbo had to end. The undeclared war was over. Nobody really won, but it was over just the same, and it was time to go on. I kept mulling over the same thought all the way home.

We don’t have to kill.

After tipping the driver, I jumped out of the cab and was about to run toward Maggie’s house when I noticed the small door on the mailbox was half ajar. We hadn’t paid any bills since moving in, and even though I was desperate to get inside and talk to Philip about tonight’s revelation, I also didn’t want the water or power shut off, so I jogged over to get the mail.

But inside, I found an ivory envelope . . . and to my shock, it was addressed to me, here, at Maggie’s. I studied it for a few seconds. The blue script was lovely, nothing like Julian’s blocky handwriting. Seeing no return address, I ripped the envelope open and pulled out a small note on matching ivory paper. It read:

 
I just stood there, frozen, for a long time. What did it mean? The Elizabeth Bathory Underground? Was it some sort of trick? Was Julian trying to lure me off alone somehow?

No, Julian was a blunt instrument. This wasn’t his style. I shook my head and closed my eyes briefly.

You are not alone.

After all my questions, all of my burning need to learn more about my own kind, I didn’t even want to look at this note. In this moment, it was an unwanted intrusion.

And it was too much, too much to deal with right now.

Deliberately, I put the note back inside the envelope and folded it into thirds. Then I slipped it into the pocket of my dress. I wasn’t going to show this to either Philip or Wade tonight—maybe tomorrow.

Tonight, we had other things to discuss.

I went up the steps to Maggie’s front door and walked in to find Wade and Philip sitting on the living room floor by the fire facing each other in telepathic connection.

Lost in my own private dilemma these past few nights, I may have been blind to their growing relationship. Originally, simple tolerance would have pleased me. But thinking about it, they had both been starved for companionship, for long talks with friends who actually listened. Attaching themselves to me had probably been easier for them at first. But my distance lately might have driven them closer to each other, both surprised to find a willing ear or mind.

I was well aware that before anything else, the three of us had to make some decisions about the future. We could not put it off any longer.

I walked over and sat on the carpet beside them. Warmth from the fire soaked into my skin. I reached out and touched Wade’s hand with the tips of my fingers.

“Wade?”

He instantly dropped mental communication and looked at me. This too was becoming easier for them, to slip in and out of psychic contact without losing themselves in the memories.

“Yes?” he asked.

Philip turned his head and frowned when he saw my white dress. “Have you been hunting without me?”

Wade’s narrow expression grew expectant, even impatient, as if he preferred to go on practicing mental interaction with Philip . . . or maybe he just didn’t want to talk yet.

“What is it?” he asked.

They both sat there, looking at me, but now that I had their attention, my courage began to fail. Open confrontation was not one of my strengths.

But I couldn’t walk away.

“What . . . what do you plan to do now?”

He blinked and shook his head in puzzlement, but his brown eyes were anxious, even frightened.

“I mean tomorrow,” I rushed on, “and the tomorrow after that? Do you just go on like this . . . your job lost, your degree wasted, sitting around in this house we haven’t actually moved into?”

Philip flinched. He looked away, into the flames.

“Eleisha, don’t,” he said.

I ignored him, and kept talking to Wade. “You buried your best friend, and you didn’t even report him missing. Or have you forgotten?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten,” he whispered.

“Maybe you want to become one of us? Forget the past and get lost in a safe little world feeding off the living? Is that what you want?” I held out my thin, white arm. “Like this forever?”

He turned away. “No, not that, but—”

“I don’t want him to go away,” Philip broke in. “Leisha, don’t make him go away.”

“Should he stay here in some shadowed half-life with us?”

He flattened his hands on the floor, and his eyes narrowed. “If you try to make him leave, I’ll turn him.”

“That worked well with Maggie, didn’t it?” I said harshly.

They both stared at me, and I could feel the tension building.

“There’s nothing left for me to go home to!” Wade suddenly shouted. “Can’t you see that?”

“I don’t want you to go home!” I shouted back. “I just want you to live! Get a job here. Get an apartment. Make some friends. Use your gift . . . like with that child in Kirkland. You can be a part of us and live with your own kind, too.” I paused and lowered my voice, moving closer to him. “That’s what you really want anyway. Otherwise you would have bought more clothes . . . maybe a bed for your room here.”

He froze, just sitting there for a moment, and then dropped his head. I’m not certain, but he may have been silently crying. I knew he was torn between our world and his own. He’d be wasted as one of us, and miserable, probably jumping to his own death before the century turned.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “As long we all keep trying to move forward, we’ll be okay.”

Philip’s panicked eyes clicked back and forth between us.

“Can you lend me some money to get started?” Wade whispered. “I don’t think I have enough left in savings.”

“Anything you want,” I answered.

Maybe he really would be okay.

Philip kept his hands flattened on the floor. “I don’t understand . . . Is he leaving?”

I turned my attention from Wade and looked at Philip. His red-brown hair hung forward over his shoulders.

“Yes, but not far,” I said.

“What about us?” he asked, almost like a child. “What do we do?”

I didn’t know how to answer.

Bringing Wade out of limbo might be difficult, but Philip was worse. I needed a future, a plan . . . and he’d spent an existence from one hunt to the next.

I knew I didn’t want to go to France anymore, or Finland. Maybe he didn’t either.

“If we stay here, Philip, we have to make this place ours. All of Maggie’s things go into boxes and get stored in the attic.”

He pulled back, poised on his knees, and I could see his mind rolling over my words as if they’d never occurred to him. “Would you want that?” he asked. “To make a home here . . . in this house?”

“It’s a start.”

I knew he was terrified of being alone again. After so many years in isolation, he didn’t want to go back. After so many years of being wrapped up in William, I didn’t want to live alone. We were weak, perhaps, but this was the truth.

“We’ll get boxes tomorrow night,” he said, nodding. “And then go shopping for furniture at IKEA.”

Relief flooded through me. This was a small step for both of us, but it was something. Then I remembered the reason I’d come running home to get him. Another element of our world had shifted tonight. We didn’t have to kill anymore . . . and I needed to show him how.

“We have to go out,” I said.

“Now? You just got back.”

“Yes.” I turned to Wade. “Can you order a pizza and hang here for a while?”

He frowned, probably thinking we were going hunting—which was half true. But what could he say? He knew what we were. I’d tell him everything I’d discovered tonight later.

“All right,” he answered.

So Wade stayed behind while Philip and I ran down the front steps and headed two miles away from the house.

“Steal us a car,” I said.

“You want me to?”

“Yeah, some old, heavy thing with great big tires and a cassette player.”

My mood infectious, he glanced around and spotted a ’71 Ranchero sporting a chipped paint job. “That one.”

Moments later, as we roared down the street, I plugged in a Blue Oyster Cult tape and watched him smile.

“How come we need to go hunting right now?” he asked.

“Because there’s something . . . I want to show you.”

Maybe we’d all be okay.

Barb Hendee grew up just north of Seattle, Washington. She completed a master’s degree in composition theory at the University of Idaho and then taught college English for ten years in Colorado. She and her husband, J.C., are coauthors of the bestselling Noble Dead Saga. They live in a quirky little town near Portland, Oregon, with two geriatric and quite demanding cats. Visit Barb’s Web site at www.barbhendee.com.