Vampire Memories #5 - Ghosts of Memories Read Online Free

bed.
    “Meow.”
    She had blue eyes.
    “Meow, yourself,” Wade answered, walking to the desk. He’d put her food, water, and cat box in here, since this was where he spent most of his time. Maxim may have “adopted” the small cat, but Wade took care of her. Over the winter, she’d had a litter of four kittens, and he’d managed to find them all homes.
    Getting up, she stretched and hopped up onto his desk—as she always did when he was working. She seemed to enjoy watching his hands move across the keyboard.
    “We have a new addition that you’re not going to like,” he said to her, pushing the mouse so that his dark screen lit up.
    She didn’t seem concerned and sat quietly while he focused on the screen, deciding to start his search in Europe tonight.
    Their strategy was for Wade for seek out any online news stories of homicide victims drained of blood or of living people checked into hospitals with cuts or gashes that did not warrant an unexplained amount of blood loss. He’d once worked as a police psychologist, and he knew a good deal about where to search for such stories. Then he’d send Seamus out, and once Seamus pinpointed and confirmed the find, several members of their team would travel to the vampire’s location, try to make contact, and try to bring him or her safely home to the church.
    Two of their attempts had ended in success, and two had ended in complete disaster.
    But now, several months had passed since Wade had uncovered anything promising, and he was starting to feel antsy. He wanted a new mission.
    He subscribed to an almost countless number of online newspapers, and he normally started with the Evening Standard from London. As he scanned through it, Tiny Tuesday meowed for attention, and he scratched the side of her face absently for a few moments. When he stopped, she batted at his hand.
    “Let me read,” he said, moving on to the Connexion from France. As always lately, he found nothing of note, and after exhausting every online paper in Europe (or at least those published with an English version), he moved to U.S. papers, beginning with the Seattle Times . He knew what to look for, and he was capable of scanning quickly, so he almost missed a headline from the Arts and Leisure section:
Mysterious Psychic Causes
Stir in Puget Sound
by Randall Smith
     
     
    Wade didn’t know why he paused on that one headline—but he did. Then he clicked on the story.
The affluent residents of The Highlands in Seattle appear to be fighting one another for a chance at a private audience with the newest guest of socialite Ms. Vera Olivier.
Christian Lefevre arrived in Seattle last week and has been quietly catering to the upper crust of Seattle society from inside Ms. Olivier’s home—by making contact with their dead loved ones.
Little is known about Lefevre, other than his high fees and that he is constantly in demand. Apparently, he dislikes the terms “psychic” and “medium” and refers to himself as a “spiritualist.” But an unnamed source recently described him as “clairvoyant to an unprecedented degree,” and he appears to conduct detailed conversations with the dead that convince even the most reticent of his clients. While his potential for public attention seems limitless, he will not do television and has consistently managed to avoid being photographed.
Scattered reports suggest that his séances are so intense that afterward, some clients are faint, weak, and dizzy. To date, he’s mainly worked in the South—Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennessee. But his arrival in Seattle is causing quite a stir. Who will be allowed to see him? Whose dead loved ones will he contact here? Exactly how much does he charge? I’ll be following up on this story soon.
     
    Wade read the article twice. He knew something of Randall Smith—who had a tendency to cover sensational stories and bend the truth a tad. But Wade couldn’t take his eyes off one line: “Scattered reports suggest that