Dead Of Night Part 17

"I'm not that bad, am I?" Aaron asked me.

"No." I made myself smile up at him. "But I am."

I traded Aaron back to his very grateful girlfriend, but asked Denny if we could get something to drink. He led me over to a big metal bin filled with bottles and cans of soft drinks sitting in partially melted crushed ice, and after asking what I wanted fished around until he produced a bottle of peach tea.

As I took a sip, I saw a tall, slim figure appear on the other side of the dance floor. He wore riding clothes instead of a highwayman's costume, and the mask Kari had given him was red instead of black, but for a moment time reversed itself, and I was back at the Halloween Dance.

"You okay, Cat?" Denny asked. He looked over at Jesse. "That your boyfriend?"

"Yeah." Remembering my manners, I thanked him for dancing with me. I noticed a pet.i.te girl standing alone in one corner and looking wistful as she watched the other kids dancing, and pointed her out to Denny. "There's someone who'd like to meet the best salsa dancer at Tanglewood."

"Well, that's me." He grinned and headed toward the girl.

I started toward Jesse as he came to me, and we met in the middle of the crush of kids dancing. I took his hand and led him toward the back of the garage, where I found a more private spot behind the parts shelves.

"You look adorable," he said.

"Kari's idea." I glanced down at my coveralls and gave him a wry look. "Want me to check your oil, sir?"

"Perhaps another time." He plucked the hat off my head and drew my hair down around my shoulders. "That's better."

I needed to tell him about what I'd found at the cabin, and what I'd figured out about Julian having the ability to use mind-control, but I wanted this moment for us. I took out the map-wrapped package I'd slipped into the pocket of the coveralls and handed it to him. "Merry Christmas, Jesse."

He smiled as he touched the sprig of holly. "You didn't have to buy me a gift."

"I didn't buy it," I said. "Go on, open it."

Jesse untied the string and carefully unfolded the map to reveal the two books inside.

"They're my journals," I said. "Everything I've written since I got my memory back."

He looked uncertain. "But these are your private thoughts. You should keep them."

"They're all about you." I tried to smile. "I've been hiding them from my brothers since I got my memory back; they never thought to look in the barn. Whenever I felt frustrated, which was ten times a day, I wrote in them. There are some poems I wrote about you, too."

"You wrote poetry for me?" He sounded awed.

"I wrote everything, Jesse. Everything I felt and thought and knew about you." I didn't want to tell him the rest, but I had to. "I never considered how dangerous that could be until we found Julian's journals, and all the stuff he collected while spying on you. I didn't mean to, but in a way I did the same thing he did."

"No, Catlyn," he said, and touched my cheek. "Julian didn't care about anyone but himself. All you have done since we met is try to protect me."

I swallowed hard. "Anyway, that's why I decided to give them to you. If something ever happens to me, I don't want my brothers or anyone else to find them and use them to hurt you."

"I will keep them safe." He took an envelope out of his pocket. "My gift for you seems suddenly inadequate."

I frowned as I opened the envelope and took out the multi-page doc.u.ment inside. My name and Jesse's had been typed in at the top, along with a lot of legal jargon and a state seal. "This looks official."

"It is. It's the deed for the lake cabin," he said. "It's in your name now."

My jaw dropped. "You're giving me the cabin?"

"The cabin, the lake, and the fifty acres surrounding it. I would give you everything I have," he said, "but I think it would make the county tax collector suspicious."

"I can't believe you did this." I laughed and hugged him. "You really want me to have the cabin?"

He kissed my forehead. "I think Jacob would be pleased to know it's yours."

"All right, who's messing around back-oops, sorry." Peac.o.c.k feathers swayed as Kari turned around. "Um, when you guys are through having your private moment, can you come into the office? My monk and I have some info we need to pa.s.s along."

"We'll be right there," I told her. When she left, I said to Jesse, "I was just out at the cabin today." I told him about finding the remains of Sunny's jacket, and how I'd used it to have another blood vision. "I'm almost positive Julian has the same ability that Trick does. I don't know how that's possible, but he's making the girls forget to be afraid of him. That's why Sunny went along with him willingly."

"That is a Van Helsing ability." He frowned. "He could not have acquired it from using my blood."

"Maybe some of my blood got mixed up with yours in the boathouse." Someone switched off the music, and I heard Kari calling me over a bunch of protesting voices. "Stay here."

I walked out into the garage, and stopped as soon as I saw Trick standing in the center of the dance floor. My heart sank as I saw Sheriff Yamah beside him.

The party, it seemed, was over.

Seventeen.

Ikept my innocent face on as I approached my brother. "I thought Gray was picking me up at eleven." I glanced at Yamah. "Is there a problem?"

The sheriff shook his head slightly, as if to tell me not to say anything more.

"Someone broke into the barn while we were gone," Trick said, his voice colder than I'd ever heard it. "Jupiter's been slashed, but the vet patched him up, and he thinks he'll pull through."

I couldn't breathe. "What about Sali?"

"She's fine. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d didn't have time to hurt her or anything of the others." Trick sighed. "Rika's stall is in pieces, and so is the barn door and the front gate. From the tracks it looks like she took off again."

"We'll find her." I turned to Kari. "I'm sorry, I've got to go home." I glanced down at my makeshift costume. "I'll bring these back when I can. Would you say good-bye to everyone for me?" I shifted my eyes toward the parts shelves.

"No problem." She touched my arm. "Let me know if we can do anything to help."

Trick had come along with the sheriff in his patrol car, so Yamah drove us back to the farm. On the way I got more details from my brother about the break-in and the attack on Jupe.

"The gash on his neck was pretty deep, and he lost some blood, but it could have been worse." His jaw tightened. "Dr. Marks st.i.tched him up, and took him to the clinic to watch him overnight. I'd be there, but I have to ride out and find Rika."

"I think you'd better let me do that." Before he could say anything, I added, "She won't come anywhere near you, and you can't la.s.so her in the woods. Besides, if you scare her more than she already is, you could make the foal come too early."

"Then we'll let her go," he said flatly. "I don't want you riding through those woods at night."

"I've been riding at night a couple times a week for the last month." I let that sink in before I said, "I know, I'm not allowed to, and you can ground me forever tomorrow. Tonight we need to find that mare."

He stared at me. "Why have you been sneaking out to ride at night?"

"I like it," I said simply. "So does Sali." As the sheriff pulled into our drive I saw what was left of the front gate. The entire gate panel had been broken off its hinges and flung a dozen feet.

I got out and walked over to where Rika had left deep tracks in the sod. They went straight through the gate and across the road into the woods.

Trick joined me. "She barreled right through it."

"I didn't think so." I crouched down and measured the distance between the hoof marks. "She never even slowed down." I saw a different, fainter track crossing the mare's and peered at it. The impressions had been left by a man's shoe. "Someone was running in front of her." I showed Trick how the mare's trail crossed over the footprints.

He went over and retrieved the broken gate, the top rail of which had been smeared with blood. "This is horse blood. Whoever did this had to be the guy who attacked Jupe."

I didn't bother to ask him how he knew the blood wasn't human; I had to get saddled up. "Tell the sheriff."

I ran to the barn, where Sali and the other horses were still milling back and forth. "Just me, guys," I said as I grabbed my bareback pad and led Sali out. She rubbed her nose all over me, sniffing and nickering like an anxious mother. "I'm okay, girl, but Rika isn't." Once I had her bridled and padded, I pulled my hair through the back of my ball cap and mounted her. "Let's go find her."

Trick was standing outside the barn door. "Wait for me to saddle Flash."

I reined in Sali. "That is a terrible idea," I told him. "He'll buck you off in a heartbeat and you know it. Please, Patrick. I can do this. Just for once, trust me."

"I want you back here in thirty minutes," he said flatly. "Whether you find her or not."

I nodded, and trotted Sali out through the gate and across the road. I stopped there to examine the trail, which wound around to the left. Horses were creatures of habit, and would choose a familiar path over a strange one every time. Rika knew the Ravenovs' old abandoned manor house and the trail that led across their land to Kari's apartment building; if she hadn't caught the jerk who'd attacked Jupe, that might be where I'd find her.

I followed the trail for as long as I could make it out, past the Ravenovs' old manor house and into the trees. Sali seemed to read my mind as she picked up the pace, gliding into her running walk while avoiding the various obstacles along the trail. By the time we reached the place where Connor and I had found Rika, the tracks became confused, as if the mare had been turned around several times. I found tracks going in three different directions, but lost all of them in the dead leaves and undergrowth.

I dismounted and held Sali as I listened to the night. The utter silence told me the Arabian was long gone.

I rode the rest of the way to Kari's apartment building to be sure, and then turned Sali around to head home. I felt sure Rika was somewhere on Jesse's land, but there was no way I could search five hundred acres in the few minutes I had left.

Trick had Flash out and was saddling him as I rode into the barn. "Don't bother," I said as I dismounted. "She's probably halfway across the county by now."

Trick eyed me. "You're sure?"

I told him about the tracks I'd found in the woods as I took care of Sali and put her away. "We should call animal control, and Dr. Marks, too. They can put the word out about her."

I sat down on a hay bale and rested my head in my hands. "Where is Gray, and why wasn't he here?"

"I don't know." Trick offered me his hand. "Come on inside and get cleaned up."

As we walked to the house I saw the sheriff, still waiting in the drive. "You should invite him in. I can make some coffee."

"Yeah, I think we'll need it. Thanks, Cat." Trick walked out to speak to him.

Once I had the coffee brewing, I went upstairs to shower and change. I glanced at the gift baskets still sitting in my closet; I'd completely forgotten it was Christmas Eve. I carried them down and put them under our mostly dead tree, brushing off the shower of needles that fell on them in the process.

"Cat," Trick called from the kitchen. "Would you come in here?"

I turned on the tree's lights before I went to join my brother and the sheriff, who were standing by the table. "I baked some cookies this morning," I said as I went to retrieve the tin. A rush of cold air came from the back door. "Trick, shut the door, it's letting all the heat out. Sheriff, do you like chocolate chip?"

Neither of them said anything, and I saw why as I came back to the table and saw the words that had been written on it in huge black letters. The tin fell out of my hands.

BRING THE QUEEN OF CATS TO THE PARK MIDNIGHT TOMORROW OR THEY ALL DIE.

At that moment Gray strode into the kitchen carrying a huge decorated box. "We won the Christmas turkey dinner contest at the market," he said as he set it on the counter. He shut the back door. "They called and I had to go over and pick it up." He looked at us. "What? It's a free turkey."

"Miss Youngblood," the sheriff said, his voice almost kind. "You have to tell them now."

I looked at my brothers. "You'd better sit down."

It didn't take long for me to destroy all of my brothers' illusions; I talked only about twenty minutes. I began from the night Jesse and I had first met, and how we'd met in secret during the weeks that followed. For the first time I told Trick how my dark boy had saved my life at the zoo, and again at the lake on Halloween night. Yet the more I told him, the darker his expression grew.

I admitted to getting the job in town so Jesse and I could continue to see each other, and how that had led the two of us to discovering what Julian Hargraves had done. I explained the two blood visions I had gotten, and what they had revealed about the old man.

"He's been trying to find me all this time." I took out the piece of Sunny's jacket sleeve from my pocket and placed it on top of the words on the table. "I'm the one he wants. He believes I'm immortal, that I'm this Queen of Cats, and that I'm the only one who can finish his transformation."

No one said anything, and after a few uncomfortable moments the sheriff put his hand on my shoulder. "You did the right thing, young lady. Patrick, I'll put out an alert on your missing horse. Merry Christmas."

"I'd better put this food away." Gray got up and started unloading the box.

Trick took out his keys. "I'm going over to the clinic to check on Jupiter. I'll see you two in the morning." On a grim note, he added, "Merry Christmas."

"That's it?" I shoved my chair back and got to my feet. "That's all you have to say? Merry Christmas? What about 'How could you, Catlyn?' or 'You're grounded for the rest of your life'?" I waited, but my brothers just stood there. "Oh, that's right. I won't remember any of this after you brain-wipe again, will I? So why waste the oxygen?"

"We'll talk tomorrow," Trick said.

I stepped in front of him and pointed to the table. "Before or after the vampire does that?"

"It's not your concern," he snapped.

"He took them because he thought they were me," I shouted. "If it wasn't for me none of this would have happened."

"What do you expect me to do, Catlyn?" Trick said. "Deliver you to the park tomorrow night? Hand you over to another vampire? I feel terrible about those girls, but you're my sister. I'm not trading your life for theirs, so just forget whatever stupid idea-"

Gray closed the fridge with a slam. "Shut up, Patrick." He never used our brother's full name, and we both stared at him. "She's right. We can't stand by and let the vamp kill those girls. We're the only ones who can stop him."

Trick got up and grabbed the front of Gray's shirt. "Our parents sacrificed everything so we could be free of the Van Helsings," he said through his clenched teeth. "I swore to them that I would do the same. So we are not hunting this vampire or any other." He let go of Gray. "We're going to live like normal people."

"Normal." Gray nodded. "Yeah, that's what we are. I dream of the future, you erase people's memories and then, there's Cat." He faced me. "You're the family killer."

"Gray."

He ignored Trick. "You don't do it yourself. You make the cats do it."

I took a step back. "I've never killed anyone." I looked at Trick, who wouldn't meet my gaze. "Patrick?"