GM"s eyebrows rose. "So, you are a genius, then?"
William"s face was suffused with color. "No, that"s not what I meant at all."
"Why are you here in Elspeth"s Grove," GM asked. "Is it for work?"
"No," William replied.
"You came here to see my granddaughter?"
"Yes."
GM was holding a fork in her hand. In that moment I wouldn"t have been surprised to see her snap it in half.
"You sound to me like a reckless, irresponsible young man," she said in a voice of iron.
"GM-" I began.
"Hush, Katie," GM snapped. "You stay out of this."
She turned her attention back to William, and her eyes blazed. "You admit that you came here to stalk my granddaughter?"
"I can appreciate your concern, Mrs. Rost." William replied mildly. "And I"m very grateful that you invited me over here tonight. I wanted you to see me. I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted you to know more about me. I did move here to be near Katie-I admit that. But I can a.s.sure you that I have not come here to stalk her. I only want to see Katie as long as she wants to see me."
GM seemed incredulous. "So, if Katie were to ask you to go-to leave Elspeth"s Grove entirely, what would you do?"
"I would leave," William said.
"Just like that?" GM demanded.
"Just like that."
GM stared hard at William for a long moment, and he calmly returned her gaze.
William was the one who eventually broke the silence.
"I hope you"ll forgive me for saying this, Mrs. Rost, but I am much happier here. Things are difficult for me in the town of Krov. I believe that is something you can understand."
GM seemed to consider William"s words. After a moment, she sighed.
"It is true, what you say. I love Krov, but I could never live there again. I, too, am happier here. Krov is hard on her children."
GM didn"t seem entirely sold yet, but the tense lines in her face had relaxed.
"Where do you live, William?" GM said.
"I have a house in the Old Grove."
I gave him another sharp glance. He had already told me that he would answer GM"s questions-even though he wouldn"t answer mine-but somehow the fact that he had answered this particular question so easily rankled.
I felt for just a moment as if the two of them were united against me.
"Do you rent or do you own?" GM asked.
"I own the house."
"And your freelance work-is it full time?"
"Yes."
"It is strange," GM said. "You are almost like a full grown man, dating a high school student."
William didn"t have an answer for that.
GM was suddenly fierce. "I want it to be clear that I will allow nothing and no one to harm my granddaughter. Neither you, nor anyone else, will jeopardize her future. Katie will finish high school and go on to college. She will have a flourishing career in whatever field she chooses. She will not run away with you and elope. The two of you will not decided that you can "live on love." And if you were to attempt to abscond with my granddaughter, I would hunt you down and murder you myself. Do you understand that?"
William blinked and sat back in his chair. I had never seen him look intimidated before.
He was intimidated now.
"Yes, ma"am. I understand that," he said.
GM nodded. "Good."
Something in William"s answer must have satisfied GM, because her sudden anger seemed to subside. After she had regained her composure, her att.i.tude became less confrontational. She began to ask William about the company he was currently freelancing for. When GM discovered that she had done projects for the same company, the two of them began to talk pleasantly.
I was relieved that the grilling was over.
The rest of the evening seemed to go well, and GM was almost friendly when she said goodnight to William.
As William left, I followed him outside and closed the front door behind us. I"d been turning something over in the back of my mind, and I had to ask him about it.
I glanced back at the window in the front of the house uneasily. I knew I wouldn"t have much time, and I knew GM would be watching. I just hoped she couldn"t overhear us.
"I think this went well, don"t you?" William said.
"It does seem like this was a good idea," I replied.
"I"d kiss you good night, but I have a feeling that your grandmother would storm out here and forbid me ever to return."
"William," I said quickly. "I have some questions that I need to ask you."
"More questions?" William was amused. "I would have thought we"d both had enough of those at dinner."
"I need to ask you about Anton and Innokenti," I said.
"You don"t need to know about those two," William said.
"I know you"ve said that before," I replied, "but there"s a lot I don"t know about-about-"
I stumbled over my words, afraid that GM was listening.
"I need to know about them," I said at last.
"Katie, they aren"t nice-"people." I"ll call them that for lack of a better word." William glanced up at the window as if he too, feared that GM could hear him. "You really don"t want to know about them."
"I don"t mean that I need to know about those two as individuals." I dropped my voice nearly to a whisper. "I mean I need to know about vampires."
William winced and shot another glance at the window.
I expected another protest from him, so I went on quickly.
"I have a specific reason for wanting to know," I said. "I"ve-I"ve been seeing strange things, and there are two of them in town. I don"t know what I can believe about them and what I can"t. For example, in popular folklore, crosses can ward off vampires, but in actual fact, crosses have no effect on them, right?"
"That"s true," William said.
"Those are the kinds of questions I have."
"What do you want to know?" William asked quietly.
"Are they hurt by garlic or holy water?"
"No."
"What about sunlight?" I remembered that Odette had disappeared during the day. "Will sunlight kill them?"
"No. Like many night creatures they are sluggish during the day-it"s when they are most vulnerable. They do tend to hide from sunlight. But it won"t kill them."
"Can they enter a house without being invited?" I was getting closer to the question I wanted to ask the most.
"Yes," William said.
I was a little startled by his answer. "Yes?"
"Yes."
"But I invited you into my house."
"You didn"t need to. And if you"ll recall, I entered your house when Gleb broke in. You didn"t invite me in that time."
"So, Anton and Innokenti can walk into anyone"s house any time they want to?"
"They can. But I"m watching your house. They won"t get past me."
Suddenly an image flashed in my mind of Anton walking around in my living room, his eyes alight with malice. He picked up one of my family photos and examined it. Then he turned expectantly, as if someone had come into the room.
The image faded quickly, and I staggered.
William reached out a hand to steady me.
"Katie, are you alright?"
I wasn"t sure if what I had just experienced was a vision or not, but the image that I"d seen had been unnervingly clear. Somehow, however, it didn"t feel like a vision. Maybe it had just been my subconscious fears bubbling up to the surface.
I knew one thing for certain-no matter what I had seen, Anton was not in my house right now. William would have known if he were, and he would have rushed in to stop Anton. So I took a few deep breaths and decided to ignore the image and focus on what was bothering me the most-the topic I hadn"t brought up yet-my mirror.
"I"m okay," I said to William. "They-people like Anton and Innokenti-they"re fast, aren"t they?"
"Yes, they are." William searched my face as if he still feared that something might be wrong with me.
"Can they be seen in a mirror?" I asked.
"Of course," William replied.
I felt a chill spread through me.
"I"ve been seeing things in my mirror again," I said.
William knew all about my history with mirrors and visions. He also knew that my visions had stopped.
"But what I"m seeing now is different from what I"ve seen before," I said. "Now I see something fluttering-just a little motion out of the corner of my eye. Could I be catching glimpses of a vampire? Could they be hiding in my room, but moving so quickly that all I see is a little flash in my mirror?"
"I don"t know what you"ve seen in your mirror," William said firmly, "but neither Anton nor Innokenti has been in your house. I know that for certain."
"They"re fast," I murmured. "They have keen senses, too, don"t they? And they have the power to control people"s minds-to persuade their victims to do what they want. Odette used that last one on me."
I shivered.
"You shouldn"t think about things like that," William admonished gently. "You"re going to upset yourself, and you"ll have trouble sleeping tonight."
"How can I not think about things like that when Annamaria was attacked, and I"ve been seeing strange things in my mirror?" I asked.
"Annamaria will be okay. She"s safe in the hospital. And like I said, neither Anton nor Innokenti has been in your house. I promise you that you haven"t been seeing them in your mirror."
William paused. "You do believe me, don"t you?"
"I believe you," I said. "I just wish there was something I could do to get the two of them out of town. I won"t feel really safe until they"re gone."
William ran a soothing hand over my hair. "I"ll worry about them. You don"t need to."
"How do you kill them?" I asked suddenly. "Will a wooden stake work?"
"Katie, I"m not sure a discussion like that will do you any good."
"Will a wooden stake work?" I repeated.
"Wood has some effect, especially if the vam-"
He stopped and glanced over at the window. "Especially if one of them is already weak. But it won"t work on all of them. Typically, the older they are, the stronger they are. Sometimes all that will work is beheading and fire. And it wouldn"t hurt to scatter the ashes too."