"Of course. I"m daft, not helpless." He grabbed a suitcase in each hand and stalked toward the car.
I leaned down and picked up the car keys Lily had tossed on the ground before she"d stomped off. She looked and acted like a teenager even after hundreds of years. The girl definitely needed her strong father back. After a quick conversation with Flo and Richard and promises to get together soon, I slipped into the driver"s seat of Jerry"s Mercedes convertible. The top was down and it was a perfect cool Texas night as I drove us toward my place on Sixth Street.
"This is a big city." Jerry had figured out the seat belt on his own and actually seemed fairly relaxed. He"d had plenty of practice riding in cars now. Compared to a jet, this was easy. Traffic got heavier as we got closer to downtown and my shop. My apartment was on a floor above it. "It"s not the Highlands but there are hills. The weather is good."
"Yes, I enjoy this Texas climate. The winters are mild but the summers are terribly hot." What was this? We were talking about the weather? But it was a safe topic since the major one, the vial I could feel hard and cold next to my skin, was something to be discussed when we were alone upstairs. We arrived at our destination and I stopped in front of the shop. No parking places and the store looked busy. That was the good news. The bad news was that the window display hadn"t been changed since I"d left. Hmm.
A honk behind me got me going again and I pulled around back to the alley to park next to my own car, a nifty sports model I"d acquired after a deal with the Devil"s evil twin. Don"t ask.
"We"re here. I live upstairs. Look around. Is any of this ringing any bells?" I glanced at Jerry. He was in warrior mode, checking out the dark alley for predators. The light was burned out again. Not good. I can"t tell you how many ambushes I"d endured back here. It was death alley as far as I was concerned. But parking was at a premium on Sixth Street. I had no choice.
"This looks a little run down. Are you sure it"s a safe place for you to live?"
"No, but I can"t afford better." I huffed, a little irritated. Not having this argument now. He didn"t realize this was an old one. "Let"s go." I popped the trunk. "Help me with the suitcases."
"I"ll get those." The voice out of the darkness was achingly familiar.
"Rafe!" I lunged for him, hugging him tight. All the tears I hadn"t shed yet came pouring out-my pain at what had happened to Jerry, my hurt that everyone had believed the worst of me, even the isolation I"d felt in Scotland. I laid my head on Rafael Valdez"s broad chest and sobbed my heart out.
"Who the h.e.l.l is this?" Jerry stood close, near my back, his voice edged with fury. "And why are you crying, Gloriana?"
"Rafael Valdez. You hired me to be her bodyguard. Glory and I are very good friends." He rubbed my back. "She trusts me. Don"t you, Glory? So she knows she can let down her guard with me. Right, sweetheart?"
"Answer him, Gloriana. Are you his sweetheart?"
"Don"t start this please." I pulled back and wiped at my wet cheeks. True to form Rafe came up with a handkerchief and I blew my nose. "I"m not going to watch you two fight. I love both of you. You don"t remember him, Jerry, but Rafe has saved my life more than once. He"s a dear friend. Shake hands with him."
"I"ll not." Jerry pulled me back against him. "You need to cry, I have a shoulder for that."
"Relax, Blade. Glory and I aren"t involved anymore. It"s all good." Rafe shoved his hands in the pockets of his snug jeans.
I didn"t want to notice how good he looked to me in his black N-V T-shirt. How had he known I was back here? Of course, I"d driven past his club, which was right down the street. He always had a man at the door, who"d probably spotted me in the slow moving traffic. All of his employees knew me and knew Rafe would want news of my arrival.
"Blade? And what does he mean "anymore"? Were you lovers?" Jerry"s hand went to his back. Oh, s.h.i.t. Those knives. He"d loaded up with them before he"d left home.
"I can"t deal with this now." Nothing like refusing to answer. "Jerry has amnesia, Rafe. He doesn"t remember anything since right before he met me in London in 1604."
"That"s convenient." Rafe smiled. "Who masterminded that?"
"My mother. She gives b.i.t.c.h a whole new meaning. I"ll clue you in about that later." I stayed between the two men. It was obvious they"d decided to be enemies again. Instinct.
"You"re a shifter." Jerry said it like it was the worst kind of insult. It was a pretty common vampire att.i.tude unfortunately. Vamps hired shifters to work for them but didn"t always see them as equals.
"Yes, and you were happy to hire me to protect Gloriana. I guarded her night and day for five long years. Long enough to know her very well." Rafe smiled meaningfully. "That"s why we are so close."
Jerry had a knife in his hands. "How close?"
"Stop it!" I put myself in front of Rafe. "You are not fighting. Rafe was in dog form when he guarded me. You insisted on it. He slept on the foot of my bed."
Jerry laughed, a deep belly laugh that made Rafe"s face darken. I threw myself on Rafe before he could launch himself across the alley at Jerry.
"Now that"s brilliant. Gloriana fond of dogs, is she? Did she scratch you behind the ears? Rub your tummy? Play fetch?" Jerry wiped tears of glee from his eyes and put his knife away. "Come, Gloriana. I want to see this place of yours. We can handle our own luggage, Valdez."
"Don"t you want to know why I called you Blade?" Rafe kept his hand on my shoulder when I started to reach for a suitcase.
"I suppose it"s because I love my knives and am very good with them." Jerry lifted his jeans to show off yet another one strapped to his ankle. "Quit hiding behind my woman and I"ll show you how I can throw one that will skewer you before you can shift your dog body out of here." He pulled a knife out of his boot, obviously ready to rumble.
"I have no need to hide behind anyone. You went by Jeremy Blade here in town." He glanced at me. "I did some research. Seems you were the one doing some hiding. Ask him, Glory, why he had to change his name."
Where had this come from? I looked at Jerry. Did he have a secret I didn"t know about? As it stood, he didn"t know it either. He"d shown up with the new name after one of our breaks. If he"d been hiding something, it was news to me.
"You"re talking gibberish. I"m a Campbell, proud of it." Jerry gestured threateningly with his knife. "Glory knows who I am and is happy to be mine."
Rafe laughed. "Keep that up and she won"t be for long. Your ancient Scot att.i.tude doesn"t play well with the lady here. She"s not any man"s woman." Rafe ran his hand down my arm. "Tell him, Glory."
"Don"t confuse him, Rafe. Jerry"s still trying to figure out this new world." I touched Rafe"s cheek. "I appreciate your standing up for me. And I want to see you, to talk. But can we table this for now? I"m doing what I need to. Work with me."
"Playing nursemaid? I get it." He looked over at Jerry. "You get the pity vote this time, Blade. Enjoy it while you can. Glory knows she can always count on me." He leaned down and kissed me, a quick landing on my lips that I didn"t have time to dodge. "Later, Blondie." Then he took off down the alley so fast that the knife Jerry threw stuck in a telephone pole instead of in his back.
"No!" I whirled around. "He"s my friend, Jerry. If you"d killed him..."
"What? You"d never forgive me? Stop taking care of me?" Jerry"s voice was tight as he pulled the knife out of the wood and examined the blade for damage. Apparently satisfied, he shoved it back in his boot. "I don"t want your pity, Gloriana."
"You don"t have it. I love you. I want to help you. To make up for what my mother did." I shut up, digging a hole for myself.
"Then I guess you do owe me. Tell your "friend" to stay out of my sight. I don"t like the way he was pawing you. It might have been all right when he was a dog, but now that he"s on two feet, it needs to stop." He nodded toward the back of the building. "Now let"s go."
Did he remember the door there led to my apartment? Probably not. It was the logical place to enter.
"Fine." I picked up my carry-on. He had the other suitcases.
"I"m fading. Guess I need to feed. You have a synthetic upstairs?" He was all business. Man to nursemaid. I wanted to slap him, hug him. Both.
"Yes, of course." I dug out my key. Time to decide if he should take the potion my mother had given me. Could I trust it? The last thing she"d brought from Olympus had ruined him. What would this one do? Did I dare find out?
Eleven.
Upstairs, Jerry roamed my tiny two bedroom apartment while I found bottles of synthetic blood and poured them into gla.s.ses.
"This is all the room you"ve got?" He settled onto the couch. It was fairly new and I"d bought it secondhand. At least I"d had it steam cleaned and it was comfortable. Compared to Campbell Castle and Jerry"s own large house, where Lily no doubt pouted, it was a dump.
"It"s enough for me. I usually have a roommate. If the shop has a slump, it"s hard for me to make the rent on both it and this place. Luckily the business is doing pretty well now, though I need to get down there soon and take a look at the books." I handed him the gla.s.s. "It"s cold. I can heat it if you"d like." In Scotland they"d served everything room temperature. I kept my synthetic in the fridge, a habit left over from when I"d lived in hot Las Vegas.
He took a cautious sip. "No, this is fine."
I put a hand on his arm before he could drink more. "Wait. We need to discuss something." I pulled the vial from between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"What"s that?" Jerry reached for it and held the container to the light. "Strange color."
"Almost a neon green." He gave me a quizzical look. "Means it looks like it could glow in the dark. Anyway, my mother gave it to me. Claims some sorcerer she knows told her it might help bring your memories back." I sighed. "I"m afraid of it. You know what her last potion did."
"Am I supposed to drink it?" Jerry looked excited, obviously desperate enough to try anything.
"She suggested we put it into your next meal. That would be the synthetic I just handed you." I wanted to grab it back. "Don"t drink it! I"m scared of what it might do. The last thing she tried, the memory-loss potion, was supposed to wear off. She told me that. Because you were vampire, it didn"t. Now she"s got this. Again, you"re vampire. Who knows how you"ll react?"
"But could it be much worse than not remembering what century I"m in, Gloriana? Who you are?" He pulled the tiny cork out of the vial.
"You know who I am now, Jer. There are just gaps-"
"Gaps? Holy h.e.l.l, woman!" He jumped up, but not before he dumped the contents of the vial into his gla.s.s. "I know what I was like when I rode a horse named Thunder, a beast who"s been dead for centuries. I call myself Jeremiah Campbell, not Jeremy Blade, a man who must have secrets, maybe shameful ones. I have to know what the h.e.l.l I"ve been up to all this time." He began to drink, fast. I watched his throat move as he downed the liquid in enormous gulps. When the gla.s.s was drained, he looked it over, I guess to make sure he hadn"t left anything, then flung it crashing into the wall, where it shattered.
"f.u.c.k those gaps! I want my mind back and I"ll do anything, anything, to get it." He threw open the hall door and charged out.
I heard him clattering down the stairs and decided to let him go. He was a vampire. He"d figure things out. And where would he end up? Right back here because he didn"t know where else to turn. Unless his memories came back. I looked up and prayed it happened. Poor Jerry. And, man, would he hate that I thought of him that way. I couldn"t imagine living with such a huge blank spot in my mind. I was so going to jump on Rafe for that "research" he"d done. He had no business investigating Jerry. But what could Jer have done to make him hide things from me?
I don"t know how long I sat there, rehashing everything that had happened since that night I"d arrived in Scotland, before I heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs again. Of course I knew it was Jerry. I had his scent memorized, that earthy Scot who had my blood inside him.
One look at his face and I knew the gap still remained. I walked into his arms and held him. But something was wrong. Different. It took me a moment to realize what it was. He felt warm, way too warm.
"Jerry?" I leaned back and checked his face.
"I"m all right. Or as right as I can be after getting lost and wandering around for an hour or more. Finally I had to ask strangers where Glory St. Clair might live. At last one took me to the shop downstairs. The girl working there knew me." He ran a hand over his flushed face. "That was d.a.m.ned embarra.s.sing. I didn"t have any idea who she was. She treated me like a child after she figured out what was wrong with me."
"I"m sorry, Jer." I touched his forehead. Fever. "How are you feeling?"
"Hot. It"s strange. I usually don"t notice the temperature and it"s cool outside. But I"m all right otherwise. Just d.a.m.ned stupid." He sat on the couch. "Best give me another gla.s.s of your synthetic. Straight, no more of your ma"s magic." He put his feet on my coffee table. I usually wouldn"t tolerate that, but didn"t have the heart to fuss at him when he looked so dejected. "Fat lot of good her first dose did."
"It"s doing something, to raise your temperature this way." I hurried into the kitchen to get a fresh bottle and gla.s.s. I had cleaned up the mess he"d made. Luckily I didn"t have nice crystal or I"d be mad about his temper tantrum. When I came back, Jerry had picked up one of the magazines on my coffee table-GQ, because I liked to see hot guys wearing good clothes-and was thumbing through it.
It was kind of sad, really. Before, he would have already been using the remote to channel surf for sports to watch. Obviously he didn"t have a clue what the black plastic thing close to his feet did, though he and his father had watched TV together at the castle. Then I noticed wisps of smoke curling up from the pages of the magazine.
"Jerry?"
"What the h.e.l.l?" He threw the magazine down to the hardwood floor and stomped out sudden flames with his boot. "Did you see that?"
"You taking up smoking again?" I handed him the gla.s.s. "I haven"t seen you with a cigarette in years."
He just looked at me strangely. "No, I don"t know what you"re talking about. Though I wouldn"t mind a fine cigar about now. Richard mentioned on the plane that we used to enjoy a smoke together. It was good to see at least one familiar face among all those strangers." He took a sip. "You decided to heat it this time. I think I like it better this way." Then he exclaimed and set the gla.s.s down on the table. "You didn"t have to boil it!"
"I didn"t!" I watched it bubble. "Uh, Jerry. Hold out your hands."
"What do you mean? Didn"t you heat the blood?" His eyes narrowed. "Don"t play with me, Gloriana. The gla.s.s was hot."
"Not until you touched it. And that magazine. It burst into flames on its own, if you didn"t get out a lighter." We could both see the smoke in the air. And smell it. Or at least I knew I could.
"I thought maybe I"d brushed against a candle or something." He peered around the room as if in search of one.
"You know I don"t burn those things. Masks smells of intruders. Bad defense. You taught me that." Well, of course he didn"t remember that he had. I shook my head. One more gap.
"No candles." He stood, staring at his hands like they were alien objects. "Hand me something. Anything you don"t mind losing." He started toward my Israel Caine collection. Oh, no, he didn"t.
"Here!" I tossed him a piece of junk mail from the pile of letters and bills on my kitchen table. My employees had been collecting it for me while I was gone.
He grabbed it. We both watched, fascinated, as it began to smolder. When it flamed, I hurried to hold a metal trash can under it so Jerry could drop it inside. A high-pitched squeal meant my smoke alarm was working.
"What in G.o.d"s name?" He clamped his hands over his ears.
"Careful!" Would he burn himself? But he seemed to be okay, still holding his ears like he normally would. I ran for a stool and jerked the battery out of the alarm. Blessed silence. "That was an alarm. Lets me know if I have a fire. Usually handy. Oh, G.o.d, Jerry. This is, um, unexpected." I carried the can to the kitchen and used the sprayer in the sink to put out the fire. Now my apartment stank of burned paper. I ran over to throw open a living room window for ventilation.
"Unexpected. Yes, I"d say so." He stood next to the door frame, careful not to touch anything. "Do you think your mother planned this outcome? A bit more torture for my turning you vampire?"
"She seemed sincere when she offered the cure for you." I looked skyward. "But then what do I know? She"s from Olympus. Apparently devious is her middle name. I"ll text her. She is supposedly busy paying off some sorcerer for this "cure." I"ll let her know that not only didn"t it work, but now we need a cure for her cure. If she did this on purpose, then she"s burned her bridges with me."
"Burned." He stared down at his hands again. "s.h.i.t! I can"t live like this. I have to find out something." He came up to me where I stood next to the sofa, his eyes on my face. "Brace yourself, la.s.s. I must know. If I touch you, will I set you aflame as well?"
My heart broke at the look in his eyes. "I"ll gladly risk it. Kiss me, Jerry. Let me see if you breathe fire." I pulled his head down, horrified that his cheeks were so hot to the touch. When our lips met, it was like a flame licked me, blistering me immediately. I gasped in spite of myself at the pain.
"G.o.d, no! Look what I"ve done to you." He jerked back, putting several feet between us. "This I can"t stand. I"ve got to do something or just walk into the sun."
"No. Surely we can find a cure. We need a doctor and there"s only one in town, Jerry, who works on paranormals." I didn"t want to say it, but if anyone might know what to do, how to fix this, it was him.
"I can guess." He turned on his heel, putting even more distance between us. "Take me to him."
"Ian MacDonald. You"re sure?"
He looked back at me, clearly resigned but not happy about it. "I"m not so hung up on an old feud that I"ll die rather than try for a cure. What other choice do I have?"
"None, I guess. You certainly can"t just wait around to see if this wears off." I grabbed my cell phone out of my purse. "Let me call him first. Make sure he"s in town and willing to see you." Of course I had Ian on speed dial. Much as I hated him, it seemed like I"d done business with him way too many times.
"Gloriana." Ian answered right away. "Are you back or still frolicking in the Highlands? My brother said you even wore a kilt of sorts when he saw you there. Apparently it barely covered your b.u.m." He chuckled. "Would have liked to have seen that."
"Give it a rest, Ian. I have a medical emergency for you."
"Really. What happened? Are you hurt?" Say what you will, Ian was a good doctor. I could hear him practically vibrating with interest.
"Not me. Jerry took a potion that was supposed to help him get some of his memory back. I a.s.sume, since you"ve talked to your brother, that you know Jerry still has amnesia. Anyway, now this "cure" he took has turned him into a fire starter." I fought the urge to cry. "Everything he touches bursts into flames, Ian. Can...can you fix him?"
"That"s a h.e.l.l of a thing. Literally." Ian chuckled. "Forgive me but the thought of Campbell as a living torch...Well, it doesn"t exactly hurt my feelings."
I counted to five. "Are you going to help him or not?"