Page 10 of Brewster

They ended up on the deck before going up to bed. She was able to spot a few of the wolves that were about, and she was glad that a couple of them came up on the deck to look around. Brew told her that it was good for them to get her scent so that they could find her if something were to happen to her. She gladly let them lick her hands when they came up a few at a time. She’d not realized that there were so many of them patrolling around.

“I think they sent more over just in case. You can tell the pack members from the wild ones in the pack. I never realized that when Conri said he was the pack leader of the wolves, hewas the pack leader of the wild ones as well. I wonder how they communicate?” It was something that they talked about as well, but the conversation got silly after a while, and they were laughing hard by the time they were called into dinner. Calla would still giggle a couple of times at something that was said, but all in all, it was a great evening after having Brew gone from her for so long.

Dinner was a steak and potato. Brew didn’t eat the potato, but he did enjoy the steak. His was a little more rare than hers was but that was fine too. She was beginning to like the rarer steak than she had before, and the two of them talked about her magic while she enjoyed a nice pudding. It was one of her favorite desserts. Hot-cooked pudding, still almost too warm to eat. And only in chocolate. Brew called her odd, and she agreed with him. Things that she ate were a bit on the odd side.

After dinner, they retired to the living room. Brew had some paperwork that he had to keep up with, and when he left her in the room, she got another book to read. So far, she’d been able to go through some of his paperback books. Most of them were science fiction and a couple of his romance books. He told her those were for reference, what people were saying about their kind in the books that they wrote.

“No one has it all right, for which I’m glad. There is one person, I do believe him to be a vampire, who writes good murder mysteries. The vampire is a detective who solves crimes committed by supernaturals. He doesn’t always get it right, for which I’m glad, but he does get his man in the end. I get his books delivered to me as soon as they’re released. And I can read them in just a couple of days. I believe that you’ll find them in the office rather than the library. If you’d like to read them, I do believe that Landon reads them as well.” She asked him if he’d read them all, too. “I do believe he reads them as soon as I’m finished. It’s a nice way for the two of us and now you to havea good conversation about them. I do believe that you’d enjoy them a great deal.”

“I’ll read them. I love a good murder mystery.” When she went up to bed, the books, about thirty of them were stacked in order on her dresser. She couldn’t wait to get a start on them.

Chapter 5

Sirous loved riding the train. It was a long way to go to see his good friend, but it let him look at the scenery as he got there, and there was nothing wrong with that. It might well be his last time seeing some of the sights, and he didn’t want to miss out on that. As the train came into another station, he decided to get off this time and have a look around. It was supposed to be a good place, and he was hungry for something to read as well. Getting off and keeping his hat tight on his head, Sirous decided to take a tour of the brewery that was on this route.

At the last minute, he decided to go to the courthouse. There was something going on there today, and he decided that it might be a good way to use up a couple of hours. As soon as the courtroom was called to order, he knew he’d made the right choice. There was a trial for a woman with two children who had killed her husband and his lover. Nothing not good about that, he thought with a grin.

He listened to the attorney for the young woman and was happy to find out that she said herself to be innocent. She told the courtroom that she’d befriended a man who said that he’d take care of her, and when her husband had ended up dead, the man had disappeared. He only had to wonder for a moment if the man had been a vampire when the woman, Sally, had said that with her dead husband, there was a lot of ash like the man had set himself a flame.

“You expect us to believe that this man out of nowhere came to your aid and then burnt himself up when your husband was dead.” She told the courtroom that she didn’t have any other knowledge of what happened to him. He had promised to take care of her. “Yes, we heard about you suddenly having money and a house. Quite convenient if you ask me. And you’ve no ideathat he was going to do that for you, I’m assuming.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the court that the man had been a vampire and that the woman Sally had been his mate. In the little time that he’d met her, not only had he made sure that she had all she needed, but he would bet anything that their names were filed as man and wife in the courthouse as well. That more than likely wouldn’t go over very well, not with her current husband being dead, but that was something that was easy for him to look into. At the break, he decided to do just that.

Not only did he find that it had been done, but that the little girl and boy had been registered to the vampire as well. He knew of Salvator Henry but had never made his acquaintance. It would be a shame after all this time for him to lose his mate after waiting so long to find her, but there was little to nothing he could do about that. Sirous would, however, do all he could to help the vampire’s mate and children so that they could get all the gifts of his estate given to them.

The first thing he did during the break was to find out where he’d been killed. After finding one of the older newspapers, not only did he find that, but he also found that Ben Trussell had been shot several times in the head. That couldn’t be right. If Salvador had killed him, it would have been easier for him to have gutted the man or removed his head rather than to have a gun. Something was off about that.

It didn’t take him long with his digging to find the real killer. The man, Ben, had a gambling problem. And his bookie was the one that had killed him when he’d not come through with the money that was owed to him. He would have loved to have been able to dig deeper into the plot, but the train was only going to be in town for another few hours, and he wanted to be on it when it left. Whispering in the ear of the attorney for young Sally, he was able to have the man look into things and get the woman off death row. By the end of the day, not only was Sally reunitedwith her children, but the paperwork was filed on the house that she’d live in for the rest of her life. He was ever so glad that he’d been a lawyer recently and been able to put the right words into the attorney’s mind to get the job finished.

It always surprised him when attorneys were so slacking in their jobs. This man could have done what he’d done, dug a little deeper into the story, and found that Ben was a gambler who was very behind in his payments to his bookie. Or he could have asked the lady who ran his office what had happened that day. It was all there for him to find.

The vampire, sadly, was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had died. But the secretary had known what had transpired in the office, and the bookie would have been arrested in the first place.

As it was, Sally had been separated from her children, and it caused them all unnecessary stress. As he got back on the train, he saw that the woman was going into her new home, which Salvador had provided for her. Poor man, to wait so long to find your mate only to be killed.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. He did do a good bit more sightseeing and had gone into one more courtroom— It was a divorce proceeding and he didn’t get involved in that one. Sirous, did people watch. It was something that he’d enjoyed even before going through the change into a vampire. It was another reason that he’d taken the train rather than willing himself to Brew’s home. He was able to see humans and shifters at their best and worse while he traveled around. He also got to try a lot of wines, his favorite thing to partake of while he was traveling.

Sirous forgot to call Brew and tell him that he was going to arrive by train. It was all right, he supposed. This way, he could hang out at the station for a few hours and continue with his fun. The thing about humans that he…well, he didn’t enjoy it but didobserve it was how they seemed to be oblivious to things around them. A beautiful sunset was missed because they were arguing with their mate. A missed painting because their heads were buried into their phone. The pet owner who no more deserves their love than they do that of their human. Beautiful things. Small items. Tiny smells that make the world a better place. All missed because humans and shifters alike just forget to look.

There were other things that he was doing on this trip. He was going to smell things like the roses and daisies. He wanted to smell the babies of the world as well. The soft fragrance of baby powder would make his day. The smell of an ocean, its saltiness, made him think of summer days with his family when they were traveling to the new world. He was going to make sure that he heard the operas that were all the rage when he’d been younger. The sound of a bird chirping in the morning before a big storm as well.

Anything and everything that he could feel, too. The softness of a woman’s cheek. The feel of a shell in his fingers, the sharp edge of a blade newly formed. His own needs in this ending of his life—for yes, that was his plan to get his senses ready for his death by giving them everything in the world that he hadn’t given himself time to sense.

He’d been around too long, he’d decided. Even if he’d met his mate right now, he’d go on with his plans. He knew, Sirous knew that as soon as he met her, he’d have to let her go. His life had been too set, his ways too long ago made. As a man who had been around for thousands of years, he knew that someone who would come into his life wouldn’t want to be around him. Sometimes, he hated to be near himself. It was because of the way that he’d become. Jaded. He was jaded from everything in the world and just didn’t have the time to be retrained, even if he wanted to.

The plan was to say his goodbyes to those who had meant somuch to him. Brewster, for sure, and his new mate, too. Then there was Rance and Rutger. Yosef and Kenneth. He was going to tell them how much they’d meant to him, then drink a glass of wine in their honor before meeting with his death. It wouldn’t be an easy one. He’d have to have someone remove his head. The sun, long since not harming him, would do him no good. It was his head that would be removed that would end his existence, and he was glad that he’d long ago talked his good friend Yosef into being the one to do it for him. Perhaps the two of them could end their lives together if he was of a mind to.

The ride was nearly to its end when he finally found the connection to Yosef. It wasn’t like they ever lost the connection, but after so long of unuse, it was difficult to connect with it again. As the connection was made, it brought a smile to his face when his longtime friend connected.

“What do you want? I’ve no use for sentimental calls right now. Have you heard from Brew? The old fool is acting like he’s young again. Found his mate and is acting like we all would benefit from finding our own.” He huffed, sounding like they’d been speaking for hours rather than just a few seconds. “The old fool. What would I do with a mate at my age, I ask you? She’d run me to the ground or take all my money. Mates aren’t like they used to be.”

“How would you know what a mate is like, you geezer? You’ve nary a reference to go by other than what you have dreamed up in your head.” He said he could think about anything that he liked. “Good for you. If you were to find your mate, you’d die of sex overload, from what I hear. Brew wouldn’t tell me, but I think he’s having sex more now than all of us did together when we were newly turned.”

“That would be just like him, too, don’t you think? He’s never had any sense when he was younger.” Sirous called him a liar. “I am not. Remember how he used to take chances witheverything? When he was hungry, he’d pay the humans for their kindness. Kindness, my big toe. If they knew what he was doing, they’d cut him to ribbons like he was the monster that he was. What makes him think that paying for a bit of nourishment was good for the humans? They’d just spend it on women and drink.”

“Good god, man, you’re old.” He pointed out that he was older. “Yes, I am, but I’ve never known a man to act as old as you seem to be right now. Have you ever come to the new century, or are you still living in the one that you were born in? What have you been doing with your life, you old man?”

“Nothing.” He huffed again. “What did you want? Did you only call to bust my chops about Brew?” He pointed out that he’d been the one that brought up Brew. “Well, it goes without saying that he’s going to get his comeuppance when his mate outlives him for whatever reason.”

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