Vampire Memories #5 - Ghosts of Memories Read Online Free Page B

of them.
    He was a large man with a bone structure that almost made him look heavy. His dark hair hung at uneven angles around a solid chin, and he pushed it back away from his face.
    His nights had taken on a kind of routine while he waited for Eleisha to find a new lead. He normally woke, built a fire, went to the stables, took his horse out for a long ride, and then came back here to do research of his own. But once again, Wade and Eleisha seemed to be taking so long find someone new to track that he’d continued attempting to take matters into his own hands, just to see what he could find, and perhaps throw a hint in their path. He’d begun subscribing to even more international newspapers.
    Tonight he was still deciding where to begin when the air beside him shimmered and a teenage girl appeared: his spy, Mary Jordane.
    In addition to being transparent, the most striking things about her were her spiky magenta hair and shiny silver nose stud. She was thin, with a hint of budding breasts, wearing a purple T-shirt, a black mesh overshirt, torn jeans, and Dr. Martens boots.
    But at the sight of her, he tensed, on guard at the hatred glowing from her eyes.
    Once, Mary had seemed to enjoy working for him, spying for him, bringing him tidbits of information, but that time was gone.
    In his last confrontation with Eleisha and her team, Julian had been forced to behead his own vampire servant, Jasper—in order to cause a distraction. While Julian had known that Mary harbored some ridiculous affection for Jasper…he’d had no idea that her attachment bordered on madness. Afterward, she’d gone into open revolt, refusing to serve Julian in anything until he’d finally made a new deal with her.
    He’d been forced to promise that if she assisted him with following Eleisha to track down one more elder, he’d send her over to the “other side,” where she might be able to reconnect with Jasper’s spirit.
    In his mind, every instinct he possessed screamed that this situation was wrong. One such as him did not make deals with servants.
    A servant either obeyed or suffered.
    But in Mary’s case, as she had no body, there was nothing he could do to her…and he needed her. He was blind without her.
    Two centuries past, Julian’s kind had been far more numerous, and they’d existed by four laws. The most sacred of these laws was “No vampire shall kill to feed.” They’d retained their secrecy through telepathy, feeding on mortals, altering a memory, and then leaving the victim alive. New vampires required training from their makers to awaken and hone psychic abilities, but Julian’s telepathy had never surfaced. He lived by his own laws, and so the elders began quietly turning against him. His own maker, Angelo, had tried to hide this news from him, but Julian had known . He’d heard the rumblings and he acted first, beheading every vampire who lived by the laws, including Angelo—who would have turned against him sooner or later.
    He’d left a small crop of younger vampires, untrained vampires like Eleisha and Philip, alone. They were not telepathic, did not know the laws, and were no threat to him.
    Then, with no warning, Eleisha suddenly developed fierce psychic abilities and began actively looking for any vampires who might have escaped Julian’s net and remained in hiding.
    She’d found several vampires who didn’t overly concern him, such as Rose de Spenser, an uneducated creature who knew nothing of her own kind, or the feral Maxim, who seemed capable of communicating only with beasts. But she’d located several others whom he’d deemed necessary to intercept and behead. Now he was simply waiting for her to find more elders, to lure more of them out…and to lead him right to them.
    Keeping his expression still, he looked Mary in the eye. “Yes?”
    She was quiet for a minute, but she didn’t look away. “I think Wade may be onto something. He sent Seamus up to Seattle.”
    “Seattle?” That surprised