Cloud City (Anna Strong Chronicles #9)

Cloud City (Anna Strong Chronicles #9) Page 7

Sophie is pale, her manner remote when she opens the door to me the next morning. I can only imagine the hell Jonathan put her through. I wonder if she got any sleep at all.

I don't make things better when I recount my encounter with Prendergast. It's not my intention to make matters worse between Jonathan and Sophie but they need to know he's still here and that I told him I was not the vampire he's been seeking.

"So," she says. "What happens now?"

"We meet with Prendergast and let him ask his questions."

"I won't tell him about Jonathan being a part of me." Sophie rouses enough to put heat in her voice. "I won't have him coming after me again."

Since Jonathan doesn't respond and I can't come up with a reply that would do anything except incite more antagonism, I change tactics. "Jonathan, do you have any information that is not in the book? Information that might make Prendergast let go of his vendetta?"

The silence stretches on so long, I begin to wonder if Sophie's done it again, trapped him in some deep corner of her psyche. But her demeanor is too subdued for that to be true and at last, Jonathan speaks.

Yes. I changed some of the facts in the book.

"Changed them how?"

To add more drama to the story.

"In what way?"

Well, I may have embellished my part somewhat. There were others involved.

Sophie sits up straight. "What are you saying? The story wasn't about you?"

Of course it was about me. But, as I said, there were others involved.

"Would that make a difference to Prendergast?" I ask.

Another protracted silence. I can't penetrate Jonathan's thoughts so I have to wait. But it's making me antsy and that he does pick up on.

Yes.

Now it's my turn to show my agitation. How will it make a difference?

I don't ask the question aloud, afraid to send Sophie into another fury.

Jonathan cloaks his reply to me, too. I imagine he's afraid of the same thing. It didn't happen quite the way I said.

Then how did it happen?

I didn't turn Prendergast's grandmother. He pauses. She turned me.

Sophie is aware some exchange is going on that she's not privy to. She rises from her perch on the end of the bed and faces me. "Stop it. I know you and Jonathan are talking. If you don't include me, I'll send him away again."

You have to find out how she did it. Jonathan sounds nervous.

Finding that out will be a subject to pursue once we get Prendergast out of the way, I fire back.Not now.

I raise a placating hand. "Sorry, Sophie. You're right. You should be a part of this since you're going to have to be the one to convince Prendergast of the truth."

She sets her jaw. "I told you, I won't tell him about Jonathan and me."

"Maybe you won't have to. But before we know for sure, Jonathan, tell us the real story."

Better take a seat, he says. This will take some time.

Reluctantly, Sophie and I sit down. She takes the foot of the bed. I plop onto the divan facing it.

Jonathan spins his tale.

Prendergast's grandmother was not a paragon of virtue brought to ruin by a seductive vampire. Just the opposite. Long before I came to Leadville, about 1861 or so, Leticia Hurlburt ran one of the first bordellos in the city. She and her business partner found whiskey and whores such a lucrative business, they soon accumulated fortunes of their own.

I came to Leadville attracted by the same thing. The promise of wealth, the lure of gold. Wasn't long before I began frequenting Leticia's establishment. I was young, handsome and generous with my gold. I soon became a favorite, not only with her girls, but also with Leticia herself.

I had no idea of Leticia's true nature until the night I got into a drunken brawl with another miner outside the saloon. The miner drew first. He shot me in the chest and pain was the last mortal sensation I was to experience.

I learned from Leticia later that she had my body brought to her room. There was a faint heartbeat and her first inclination was only to drink from me as she had so many fatally wounded humans who fell at the steps of her establishment. But my will to live was strong and when she bit through the fragile layer of skin at my jaw line and began to drink, I stirred in her arms. She was overcome with another desire. She had no companion to share her life or her wealth. I was handsome, young and strong. Her human family all lived far away and had cut off ties because of what she chose to do with her life.

Jonathan pauses as if sorting memories. Leticia had been turned when she was twenty-one, a young widow with a son, and leaving him with her family was the hardest thing she had ever done.

But she was vampire and when the one who sired her moved on, she followed. They parted ways in Leadville. He moved on to California, where rumors of even richer strikes meant fortunes to be made and miners in lonely, isolated cabins an easy food source to be tapped.

Leticia set down roots in Leadville. Her business flourished. There were enough killings to keep her well fed and her true identity concealed. For that was the nature of a mining town. Disagreements were settled with a gun or knife. Bodies would be left on the sidewalk. Leticia saw that they were properly buried. After she'd fed.

Now here I was, a young man, in her arms, moaning with pain and the pleasure of her teeth at my neck. She decided I would become her companion. She hesitated only a moment before tearing open her wrist. She held my head with one hand and pressed her wrist against my lips, keeping it there until she saw my throat move. I came to gradually, drank slowly, hesitantly at first, but as my life force grew stronger, so did my demand for the blood. Soon I was holding her wrist to my mouth, greedy, insatiable. When she knew the change had taken place, she pushed me gently away.

I remember looking at her with eyes full of questions. My body hummed with new life and I felt stronger than I'd ever felt before. I was sexually aroused, too, and she felt the stirring of my lust.

He sighs as if the memory still filled him with pleasure. She opened her gown and welcomed me in.