Page 63 of Winter Lost

Adam answered the other part of the vampire’s question. “The Tri-Cities in Washington State.”

Elyna nodded. “Is she going to attack Jack again?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. I don’t know what she is. Absolutely no idea.”

“What did you do to me?” asked Jack.

I looked at him reluctantly. Even when I hadn’t been looking at him, he’d felt real. Now I could see things I hadn’t noticed before. His blue eyes had a dark gray ring around the pupil. He smelled of something familiar. After a moment, I identified it as ink. There were faint black smudges on his fingers. Ballpoint pens had come into common usage in World War II, I remembered. Before that, it had been all fountain pens.

“Were you a journalist?” I asked.

He frowned at me. “Architect.”

“Architect,” Elyna answered, too.

“What did you do to me?” he asked again.

“What does it feel like I did?” I asked.

He opened his mouth, shut it again. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.” He walked to the window between the reception room and the office and knocked a pen onto the floor. “That was a lot easier.”

“I can’t see you, Jack,” Elyna said. “But I can hear you more clearly.”

She hadn’t heard everything he said, though.

“Will it last?” Jack looked as though the answer mattered to him very much. I could see why it would.

“I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “Usually I try not to make the ghosts I see stronger than they already are.”

He grinned at me, a charming, boyish expression—but he was still wearing that gun. As soon as I noticed it, I could smell the gun oil.

“I can understand that,” he said. “Encouraging ghosts doesn’t make for restful sleep.” Then he sobered. “If they knew what you can do, they’d never leave you alone.”

“No,” I said. “If they—if you—knew what I can do, you’d all stay far away from me.”

I usually tried not to think about the night in Prague when I’d destroyed all the ghosts, using the power of that destruction for my own purposes. It still made me sick.

He looked at me a moment. “Wow. Okay. I’ll keep it in mind, then.”

Abruptly, there were only three of us in the room.

“He left,” I told the other two, then yawned, one of those jaw-cracking, inescapable yawns. “Is there any chance I could get to sleep sometime before the sun rises?”

Adam held up his purloined key. “Ms.Gray, we should head to bed.”

“Good night, then, Mr.and Mrs.Haupt—” She stopped midword. Frowned. “Hauptman. Tri-Cities, Washington. Werewolf. You’re them. Adam and Mercedes Hauptman.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed.

She whistled softly. “You are the Hauptmans the Lord of Night has taken such interest in.”

“Bonarata,” I said, and watched her flinch just a little. I wondered if she thought he’d appear if I said his name three times.

Maybe he would.

“What did you do to enrage him?” she asked me. “Your husband and pack he wants dead—he offers substantial rewards to the vampire who manages to kill any of them. But you, Ms.Hauptman, you he wants alive. Any vampire who harms you will regret the day they were made. He has made it clear he wants you for himself.”

“Do you intend to try for Bonarata’s reward?” I asked without answering her question. It was a long story, and I didn’t feel like sharing it. It was also the second time I’d said his name out loud.

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