Dead Of Night Part 13

"I'm not a legend." I sighed. "I'm in trouble again." I turned to Kari. "I need a favor. Kind of a huge one."

After I explained what I wanted to do, she nodded. "Not a problem. So when I talk to him, do you want me to be me, or some s.h.i.+ny glee clubber who goes to church regularly, has made the chast.i.ty promise, and would never, ever get you into any kind of trouble whatsoever?"

"You don't have to lie about who you are," I said, making Connor laugh. "Sorry. I meant, be you. Just don't volunteer any extra info."

She looked pleased. "I knew there was a reason I liked you, Youngblood. You're smart and honest, even when you're lying through your teeth."

Connor walked with us back to the bookstore, although he first put on the black hoodie I'd seen Kari wearing to cover his head and face.

"Kari, don't let anyone see you from the front windows," he said when we reached the back door. "I'll wait out here."

"Don't get abducted," Kari told him. After we went inside the store, she said, "Cat, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention Connor's secret ident.i.ty to anyone. Princ.i.p.al Deaver would expel him like instantly, and then his parents would probably s.h.i.+p him off to some boot camp or military academy. If they didn't have him committed first."

"My lips are sealed." I gave her a wry look. "I can't believe Connor is running the Ledger. I mean, he's ... " I couldn't think of an a.n.a.logy. "He's Connor Devlin."

"I had a problem getting my head around it, too, until I realized he's Zorro." At my blank look, she said, "You know, rich, ent.i.tled golden boy by day; rebellious, secretive whistle-blower by night." She grinned at me. "That's why no one ever suspects him. Connor Devlin can't be the editor of the Lost Ledger. The universe would implode first."

"Well, I never would have guessed it was him." I was still puzzled, though. "How did you and he end up getting, you know, involved?"

"Oh, that." She waved a hand. "He's been totally in love with me since the fifth grade. I'm not kidding. I'm the boy's reason for living." She sighed. "And now he's mine."

"Wow." My heart melted a little, and I wanted to ask her a couple thousand questions about how they were coping with being so different, but Jesse was waiting somewhere nearby for me. "Okay. Are you ready to do this?" When she nodded, I went to the phone and dialed home.

"Youngblood Farm," Trick answered.

"Hey, it's me, back from shopping, safe and sound." I grimaced at Kari. "While I was out I met a girl who was in my Ceramics cla.s.s at school, and she invited me to come over to her house to hang out."

"Tonight?" Trick asked. "What about work?"

"I can work Sat.u.r.day night to make up for it," I said, which was true. "Please, Trick? Kari's really nice. She's right here if you want to talk to her."

Kari plucked the receiver out of my hand. "Mr. Youngblood? Hi, this is Kari. I know this is all kind of last minute, but I could use Catlyn's help with my laptop. Every time I boot it up, I get the scary blue screen, and I don't know what to do." She listened for a minute. "Yes, my folks will be there." She eyed me. "Sure, we'll be glad to give her a ride home." She nodded. "Got it. Great, thanks so much." She handed the phone back to me and gave me a thumbs-up.

"I want you home by midnight," Trick told me when I got back on the line. "You can call me if you need some computer advice."

I winced. "Thanks, I will. See you later." I hung up the phone and heaved out a breath. "He bought it."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did," Kari told me. "But even over the phone, he's one scary dude. I know I wouldn't want him catching me in a lie."

"It'll be okay." On impulse I hugged her. "I really appreciate this, Kari."

She patted my back. "Always happy to acquire new blackmail on someone." She drew back. "He's going to ask you what was wrong with my laptop. Tell him that an Internet virus corrupted my start-up program, and we had to wipe my hard drive and restore the factory settings. Also, mention how much I whined about all the photos I lost because I never backed them up."

"Whoa." I gave her an admiring look. "You're really good at this."

"That actually happened to my laptop last year, so it's one hundred percent believable." Kari wagged a finger at me. "Never tell a lie unless you back it up with a truth. Like Tony would love for you and a date to attend the teens and tacos party at his place on Christmas Eve. Now, what part was the lie?"

"Tony's not serving tacos?" I guessed.

"He's not serving anything. He doesn't know about it." She grinned. "He'll actually be up in Brooklyn visiting his mom. So we'll have the place all to ourselves." She glanced around the store. "Unless, of course, you don't want us to meet this incredibly mysterious boyfriend."

"That would not be fair, would it?" Jesse said from behind her.

Kari yelped and whirled around. "Hey, that's not ... " her voice trailed off as she looked from his boots to his face. "Man. Oh, man. Am I glad I'm taken." She grinned and held out her hand. "How you doing? Karise Carson, excellent liar."

"I'm very well, thank you," my dark boy said as he clasped her hand. "Jesse Raven. Excessively grateful."

"You are excessively pretty much the total package, dude. Plus you're a Raven, which I think makes you richer than G.o.d." Kari gave me a sideways glance. "I'm curious. Has he been in love with you since the fifth grade?"

"Not quite," I said. "We don't have a lot of time, Kari, so ... "

" ... I should get out and leave you to it. Gotcha." She turned to Jesse. "Cinderella has to be home by midnight. Also, make sure nothing bad happens to her, or I will personally deliver a full confession to Sheriff Yamah and Patrick Youngblood. After I find you and kick your amazingly handsome a.s.s all over town, of course."

I walked Kari out to the alley, where Connor still stood keeping watch. "Thanks, guys. I owe you."

"Yes, you do, and I will collect." Kari regarded her boyfriend. "I met her guy, and he's cool. By the way, he makes you look like a hunchback with one eye and a harelip."

Connor bent over, c.o.c.ked his head to one side and leered at her. "Why would you think that, my pretty?"

After we all laughed, and I promised Kari (again) that we'd be careful, I went back into the store. In Mrs. Frost's office Jesse sat working on her computer. On the monitor was an image of some type of construction diagram.

"This is the floor plan for the ground level of Hargraves's mansion," he told me, and pointed to one section at the back. "He had this addition constructed thirty years ago."

I blinked. "How did you find that?"

"I have access to the database at City Hall." He opened another window and read a doc.u.ment. "According to the papers his builder filed for the permit, it was intended to serve as a new library." He read further down. "Julian designed it with steel doors, a dedicated generator and an independent alarm system." He glanced at me. "Whatever he had in this room, he considered it extremely valuable."

"That has to be where he hid the rest of his journals with his findings," I said. "But we can't break into a house with an alarm system."

"If it were active, we could not." Jesse printed out a copy of the floor plan. "I called James and told him I wanted to look through the antiques at the mansion so I can instruct our property manager which to acquire tomorrow at the auction. He has disarmed it for tonight."

I didn't know whether to feel relieved that we would have easy access to the mansion, or angry at James Yamah for being such a hypocrite. "We'd better get going."

Julian Hargraves's mansion sat atop the highest point of elevation in Lost Lake, a place I told Jesse that some of the kids at school referred to as "Haunted Hill."

"Why do they call it that?" I asked as he drove up the long road to the front gates. Then I saw the house, which was old, huge and painted gray, and could have served as the setting for just about any haunted house movie. "Never mind."

Jesse parked right in front of the gates, which weren't locked, and scanned the area. "This was a beautiful place when Julian's parents were alive. They kept the house painted white and surrounded it with flower beds." He pointed to a neglected-looking wooden swing hanging from one of the black oaks. "Mrs. Hargraves would sit out there at night with Julian and read him stories. Sometimes I would stand behind the hedge there so I could listen, too."

"Why did he let it get like this?" I asked as I followed him up the brick drive.

"I'm not certain," he admitted. "After his parents died Julian stopped coming to town, and soon he never left the house. James came to check on him, but he behaved normally and insisted he was well." He took my hand as we walked up the steps to the front door. "Some said his loss had forever broken his heart."

I looked down over the trees. From here I could see all of Lost Lake, including Raven Island and the roof and some of the windows of the enormous building that occupied the center.

"That's your house down there." I could also see the docks and part of what appeared to be a lighted trail through the trees. "If he used binoculars or a telescope, he could probably see whenever you left the house or the island."

"At home we never bother to stay out of sight," Jesse said. "We've never suspected anyone was watching us." He tried the door, which was locked, and then went to the window. It looked as if it hadn't been opened for years, but he removed the dirty screen panel and forced up the bottom half.

I heard the window latch inside pop off. "Someone is going to notice the window was opened."

"I know how to fix it so they will not." He climbed over the sill, and then held out his hand. Once I was inside, he picked up the screen panel, putting it back in place before he closed the window.

I picked up the broken latch and handed it to him. "You can't fix this."

Using his inhuman strength, he bent the metal of the catch and the latch straight before he put them back together so they looked like all the other latches. "If anyone tries to open the window, they will a.s.sume it broke as they made the attempt."

"That's mean. Necessary, but mean." I took in the room around us.

A thick layer of dust covered every surface; even the white cloths draped over the furnis.h.i.+ngs were gray with it. What must have once been a beautiful crystal chandelier sagged overhead, suspended by two wires in a shroud of cobwebs. The embossed wallpaper curled around the edges and seams and vanished under big dark stains in the upper corners where water had probably leaked through from the roof. Dead bugs littered the badly gouged hardwood floors in between little piles of desiccated rat droppings.

I expected the house to smell as awful as it looked, but the air felt cool, and smelled only faintly musty.

"Mrs. Frost said they fumigated they place. They must have aired it out after that." I saw how dark his eyes were. "What's wrong?"

He breathed in and then frowned. "I cannot say. The chemicals the exterminators used were strong. They are masking all the other scents inside the house." He put his arm around me. "Stay close, Catlyn. Something here feels very troubling to me."

Jesse and I walked out to the main hall, which split off in different directions. Here the floors had been tiled in marble, but tracked-in dirt, cracks and chips marred the smooth stone. I couldn't even tell what the original color had been.

A pair of heavy steel doors at the end of the hall led into a room so dark not even my excellent night vision could pick out any details. Jesse reached across me to flip on a switch, and overhead lights flickered on.

However much Julian Hargraves had neglected the rest of the house, the library looked as pristine and spotless as if it had been built yesterday. Empty bookcases lined all of the walls, each with gla.s.s-fronted panels with individual locks. A giant, old-fas.h.i.+oned wood desk sat at one end, and leather chairs, small tables and floor lamps made little reading islands on either side.

The room might be a hundred times cleaner than the rest of the place, I thought, but it smelled unpleasant, as if something old and damp had been left somewhere to mildew.

Facing the desk was a large oil painting of an older couple sitting in a gazebo; I guessed from the fifties style of their clothes and the white version of the mansion in the background that they were Julian's parents.

Jesse walked around the room, looking into the bookcases before he stopped at the desk to check the drawers, which turned out to be empty. "There is nothing left in here."

"That we can see," I amended as I looked down at the big Persian rug covering the center of the floor. One edge had a faint curl to it, while the others were perfectly flat. I reached down and pulled it back, exposing the tiles. They had been cut and inlaid with a gray metal that formed a gigantic number eight.

Jesse came to kneel down beside it, but as soon as he reached to touch the metal he drew back his hand. "This has been fas.h.i.+oned out of iron."

Iron (or weapons made out of it) was one of the few things that could harm or even kill vampires, a weakness Jesse and his parents had also acquired after they were attacked and changed.

I didn't have the same problem, so I touched it carefully. The metal didn't budge, but the metal-streaked marble ovals in the center of each end of the eight looked slightly newer than the surrounding tile. As soon as I pressed my fingers in the center of one oval, it sank down slightly, and something under the floor made a mechanical sound. At the same time, one of the bookcases to the left of the desk creaked. I pushed against the oval again, but it didn't budge.

"Try pressing both sides at the same time," Jesse suggested.

When I did that, both ovals lowered into the floor, the mechanical sound grew louder, and the bookcase swung out away from the wall, revealing a dark empty s.p.a.ce behind it. We went over to look inside, and saw something like a walk-in closet with files, books and wooden boxes crammed into five deep shelves.

"A bookcase safe." The musty odor smelled stronger now, and I held my breath as I stepped in and took out one of the file folders. Inside were photographs of Sarah Raven kneeling beside a bed of flowers. I handed it to Jesse. "Jackpot."

Something crunched under my sneaker, and I looked down to see an open prescription bottle, and tiny white pills scattered on the floor of the closet. I bent down to pick up the bottle and read the label. "This was Julian's. It's nitroglycerin. He must have had a heart condition." I set the bottle back on one of the shelves.

Jesse drew me away from the closet. "Something violent happened here. I can smell traces of blood." He started to say something else, and then shook his head.

I put my hand on his arm. "Tell me what it is."

"I can also smell us." He looked down at me, his eyes solid black now. "Your scent, and my own." He nodded toward the closet. "It's coming from inside there."

"But we've never been here before tonight." I looked all around the shelves, until something inside me focused my attention on a wooden box that had fallen to the floor. Dark stains and smears mottled the outside of the box, and when I touched it I felt an instant sense of recognition-and revulsion, because the stains and smears were dried blood.

I couldn't bring myself to open it, so I handed it to Jesse, who slowly lifted the lid. A large plastic bag had been left in the box, the inside of it also stained with dark red splotches. At the very bottom of the bag I saw something, and forced myself to retrieve it.

Jesse's blood had once soaked the broken piece of oar in my hand. I knew this because on Halloween night I had pulled it out of his chest.

I closed my fist around it. As I did, I heard my heart beat in my ears like a drum, pounding hard but at the same time slowing. A chill spread through me, icy and terrifying, as everything in front of my eyes blurred and changed. Lost Lake spread out before me, its waters silvered by moonlight, and on the banks I saw a highwayman and a d.u.c.h.ess standing together, smiling at each other.

That's me on Halloween night, I thought dreamily. And Jesse. I couldn't understand why everything looked as if I were seeing it from inside a small box, until my breath fogged the gla.s.s in front of my face. Not a box, but a window.

"Catlyn?"

I knew Jesse was speaking to me, but I could hear him only faintly, as if from the other side of the house. "He was there. In the boathouse."

"What do you see? Who was there?"

"He waited," I told Jesse. "When you came into the boathouse after Barb stabbed you on Halloween night, he hid in the shadows." I smiled a little as I felt a twisted pleasure spread over me. "You were wounded and weak. He enjoyed seeing you like that ... "

"Catlyn."

The images faded, and I snapped back to the present. "Oh my G.o.d." I dropped the piece of oar and rubbed my hand against my jeans, frantically trying to get rid of the awful sensations it made me feel.

Jesse grabbed my hands and held on to them. "It's all right, Catlyn. Don't be afraid. You had a blood vision."

"What?" I stared at him, horrified. "I'm not psychic. I don't have visions."

"You are in part psychic," he corrected, "and it was a blood vision. Vampires can use blood to see the past. My parents and I can do the same in a more limited way. Since your father was like us, he must have pa.s.sed on his ability to you."

I stared at my hand. "But I've never been able to do that. Why would I start now?"

"Our bond." He picked up the broken wood. "This was stained with my blood. You must have been responding to that." He put it back into the bag, and some of the darkness faded from his eyes. "You said that someone was there in the boathouse. Who was it, Catlyn?"

Someone walked in the room, and I spun around to see Sheriff Yamah standing a few feet away.

"I'd like to hear that, too, Jesse." He eyed me. "But first, young lady, I'd like to know why you're here."

Fourteen.

Despite Kari's coaching, I couldn't think of a single lie that would explain why I was with Jesse. I couldn't even come up with a decent excuse as to why we were searching Julian's library.