Текст книги "Cloud City"

Автор книги: Jeanne Stein

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

Leticia’s hand snakes between their bodies. “I’d say you were happy to see me.”

I clear my throat. “Can you restrain yourself until you’re alone?” I wait for them to part—reluctantly—and look into Prendergast’s eyes. “Jonathan?”

He nods. “In the flesh evidently.”

“Is Prendergast in there with you?”

A pause as if Jonathan is taking inventory. “I think he’s gone. I felt something when I first entered his body. A sharp pain in my—his—chest. For a minute I thought we had both died.”

“He had a heart condition,” Sophie says, joining us from the shadow of the bar. “If we’d waited a minute longer, you both would have died.”

I steel myself for Jonathan’s reaction when he sees Sophie. Would he be angry that she risked his life to be rid of him?

Leticia is rubbing the back of his neck, nibbling his ear. He’s projecting nothing but contentment, purring inside like a kitten getting a chin rub.

After a moment, he rouses himself long enough to face Sophie. “I knew you were unhappy. You took a risk bringing Leticia into it, though. You would be dead if hadn’t worked.”

“You may still be dead,” Leticia growls, “if the spell turns out to be temporary. I need to know—what is Jonathan? Human or vampire?”

Sophie shakes her head. “I don’t know. But does it matter? If he’s human, you can change that.”

Leticia raises her eyebrows. “Hadn’t thought of that. You’re right. We’ll test it tonight.”

Jonathan looks around the bar. “Are there any mirrors? If I am human, I’d like to get a look at myself.”

Sophie spies one behind a booth. “There.”

He walks over, Leticia by his side. There’s a fuzzy image, fading even as he looks. I get a flashback to my first realization that I was a vampire. A mirror image vanishing as I watched just as his does now.

A stab of emotion washes over me—recollection of what I felt then—a sense of loss, uncertainty, fear.

That was eighteen months ago.

I’ve reconciled to what I am. Jonathan won’t have to go through that same period of adjustment. He’d been a vampire a long time before his assimilation into Sophie.

Jonathan runs a hand through his hair, glances down at his hand with a frown. “Well. I guess I have my work cut out for me. This guy was flabby and what’s with this hair?” He sweeps Leticia into his arms. “Can you live with this face?”

“We’ve got other things to discuss,” I remind him before he and Leticia start another round of petting. “Prendergast had a job. Do you intend to take over his life as well as his identity?”

He shrugs. “I suppose it depends on how much fun I can have. And how much money he makes. I am used to a certain lifestyle.”

Leticia clucks her tongue. “Money is no object, my love. I have plenty for both of us.”

“And there is Jonathan’s estate,” Sophie adds quietly. “I am willing to relinquish any claim. I still have my house in Denver.”

Jonathan waves his hand. “All things we can discuss later. Tomorrow.” His voice is husky. “Right now, I have more urgent matters on my mind.” He leans over and whispers in Leticia’s ear.

She pulls back, grinning. “You haven’t had sex in how long? What are we doing standing here?”

Jonathan looks at Sophie. “Prendergast was in room 302, right?”

She nods. “The key is probably in his pocket.”

Jonathan and Leticia barely take the time to wave on their way out.

Great. If I could hear Prendergast pecking at his computer and talking on the phone, what will it be like when those two start going at it?

I stay behind with Sophie to help her clear away the debris from her spell making and scrub the pentagram from the floor. We don’t speak. I imagine it’s a relief for Sophie to be alone with her own thoughts so I don’t intrude with small talk.

We part at the hotel lobby and I go reluctantly up to my room. It’s been a couple of hours, but the bed springs are still singing next door and the mingled moans of Jonathan and Leticia keep me awake long past dawn. The windows are open and once in awhile a whiff of sex and blood drifts in, making my own hormones jump into overdrive.

Tomorrow, I ask for a different room.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The ringing of a telephone wakens me from a deep sleep. With a groan, I roll over and look at the clock.

Ten A.M.

Between listening to Jonathan (I’ve already started thinking of Prendergast as Jonathan) and Leticia’s uninhibited cavorting and trying to come to terms with the morality (or immorality) of what we did last night, I didn’t get much sleep.

I pick up the receiver and croak, “What?”

“Well, good morning to you, too.”

Leticia sounds much too perky, too cheerful. Her voice grates in my ear like nails on a chalkboard.

“You sound well-laid,” I grumble.

She laughs. “And you don’t. You’re next door, aren’t you?” As if testing, she knocks on the wall. “Sorry if we disturbed you.”

“I’m sure. Is there a reason for this wake-up call?”

“We’re meeting Sophie downstairs at eleven. Will you join us?”

I tell her I will and hang up. I’ve no sooner swung my legs out of bed when I hear Leticia squeal with delight. I huff out a breath. “Jesus. Not again.”

And beat it into the shower.

I stand under a stream of scalding water, fighting emotions battling in my mind and body like prizefighters seeking the knock out punch. It’s not just aggravation I’m feeling. It’s jealousy. The closest I’ve come to a relationship like theirs was with a vamp I ended up killing. I don’t seemed destined for a happily-ever-after.

At eleven, I’m dressed and waiting in the lobby. I’m the first one down. Leticia and Jonathan are probably going another round. But where is Sophie? I got the impression she called this meeting.

I take a seat in the lobby and watch people come and go. Ordinary mortals, some with kids in tow, heading out for a day of sightseeing or hiking or fishing. They all have a plan. A destination.

What do I have?

No doubt about it. I’m in a funk. I need to get home and go back to work. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and pull up my pilot’s number. I’m just about to hit send when the elevator door opens.

Leticia and Jonathan spill out like teenagers on a first date, all smiles and giggles and roving hands. Their skin is glowing, the effect sex has on a vampire’s constitution. It heats the blood and floods us with warmth. Leticia is wearing the same clothes as last night. Not surprising since she didn’t exactly arrive in Leadville with a suitcase. But Jonathan has washed the slickness from his hair and it falls over his eyes and tickles the collar of his shirt. He looks younger and relaxed and healthy. Far different from the Prendergast of old.

I watch them approach with narrowed eyes.

I’m jealous again.

“What’s the matter, Anna?” Leticia asks, plopping herself down on the chair next to me. Jonathan squeezes in beside her.

Naturally.

“You look like you want to bite the head off a chicken.”

I puff out a breath and try to wipe the resentment off my face. I go for a smile but I’m doubtful I succeed in anything more than a grimace. “Just tired,” I say in an attempt to cover up the unreasonable hostility eating at my gut. “Where’s Sophie? I thought she was going to meet us?”

Jonathan looks at the watch on his wrist as if seeing it for the first time. “Hmmm. Patek Philippe. At least Prendergast had good taste. It’s only eleven fifteen. She’ll be here.”

“So what did you two decide? Will you go to New York or…?” I realize I don’t know where Leticia was when Sophie conjured here in Leadville. “Where were you last night, Leticia, before Sophie yanked you away.”

Leticia laughs. “Good description of what happened. I was at my summer place in the Hamptons. In the middle of a party. I imagine they’re still talking about my disappearance. Luckily they know how mercurial I am. Probably thought I decided to jet off to my place in Paris or Lisbon.”

“Nice life. I guess you were right when you told Jonathan money would be no object.”

“I’ve invested wisely,” she says modestly.

“Anyway, we’ll go to New York from here. Check out Prendergast’s offices and home. Jonathan did a little snooping on his computer last night. He has some interesting projects in the works. Might be fun to live his life for a little while.”

Jonathan grins. “First, though, there’s a fiancé I have to dump.”

“I offered to help with that,” Leticia says. “But he think it would be better if he handled it himself. I might be too—forceful.”

If I have to spend any more time with these two lovebirds, I’m going to hurl. I start to rise, then remember something from yesterday. “I overheard Prendergast speaking to his assistant yesterday. Her name is Nancy if that’s any help.”

“Yeah, I got that from office email,” Jonathan says. “There were some personnel records, too, so I’m not going in completely blind.”

I watch Jonathan slipping into another person’s life as easily as he slipped into Prendergast’s Gucci loafers. “Don’t you feel guilty?” I ask.

He lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Prendergast is gone. He probably would have died soon anyway. His heart was bad. Mine is not. And don’t forget, none of this was my doing. Sophie orchestrated all of it. If anyone should feel guilty, I’d say it was Sophie.”

And me? I let it happen without interfering.

A little voice sets my spidey sense to tingling. Vampire reminds me: It may not be over yet.

Magic always exacts a price.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Do you think we should check on Sophie?” I ask when eleven thirty comes and goes and there’s still no sign of her.

Jonathan extracts himself from the chair. He’s so tightly wedged in beside Leticia that I expect his rising to produce a giant sucking sound as he gets up. “I’ll go use the house phone,” he says. “See what’s keeping her.”

Leticia and I wait in silence for his return. She has a wonderfully giddy expression on her face as she watches him cross the room. She’s in love.

Bitch.

No. That’s not fair. She’s been given a second chance and she’s not going to waste it. My skin prickles with envy.

Jonathan rejoins us. “That’s odd,” he says. “There’s no answer.”

But before we can comment, the elevator door opens.

Sophie’s eyes scan the lobby. When she spots us, she starts over.

Not the Sophie I left last night. Not the young, beautiful girl with shiny hair and sparkling eyes.

My breath catches. I hear Jonathan and Leticia gasp, too.

Only Sophie is smiling as if nothing is wrong. “It’s all right,” she says.

But is it? This Sophie walks with a slight stoop, her face lined and wrinkled, her hair gone white. Even her eyes are changed. Not the color, they’re still deep blue. But yesterday Sophie’s eyes were hard and stormy with discontent. Today they twinkle with contentment.

She exudes tranquility and the stillness of inner peace.

Leticia jumps up and offers Sophie her chair. Sophie sinks into it with a sigh.

“You look so troubled,” she says quietly. “Don’t be. I expected this might happen.”

Jonathan crouches down and takes her hand. “But you didn’t look…” He struggles with the words. “You didn’t look this old when you catered my party. What happened?”

Sophie squeezes his hand. “I had been experimenting with anti-ageing creams and lotions long before you came into the picture. Some worked pretty well. I may just try some of those formulas again. They’re all in my basement at the old house in Denver.”

She raises her shoulders. “If they don’t work, so be it. It’s time I looked my age. Frankly, it’s fatiguing to be young. I’m glad I don’t have to play at it so hard anymore.”

Jonathan exchanges a look with Leticia. “We talked about this last night, Sophie. We want you to keep living on the estate. You can have your things brought over from the old house. Build yourself a proper lab. We won’t be living there. You may as well enjoy it. And we feel we owe you.”

Sophie shakes her head. “No. You don’t owe me anything. I took a chance that could have destroyed us both. Another example of the impetuousness of youth. If I had it to do over again today, I’d have second thoughts.”

She pauses. Tilts her head. “Well, maybe not. I believe in fate. Things work out the way they’re supposed to. Look at you and Leticia.”

“In any case,” Jonathan continues, “The estate is yours. You are still legally Sophie Deveraux though I don’t know how you’re going to explain the physical transformation.”

Sophie looks down at hands wrinkled with age. “That might be a problem. I might take a page from my sister’s spell book.”

She sees me jerk upright and grins. “No. Nothing evil. Just a simple glamour spell until I see what I can do myself. To the world, I’ll continue to look twenty. Might make things less complicated things until we can come up with a plan to return the estate to you.”

Jonathan is shaking his head. “I mean it, Sophie. You should stay on. I know you love the horses.”

“No. It’s a wonderfully generous offer but in reality, I missed my little house. I missed my witch friends. Most think the old Sophie is long dead. Luckily we witches are known for having more lives than a cat. Of course, I’ll have to be careful the way I reintroduce myself. Most of my friends are older than I am—I wouldn’t want to give anyone a heart attack by popping up without preparing them first.”

Happiness shines on her face the way the glow of love does on Jonathan’s and Leticia’s. I feel left out. The only thing I’m sure I’m projecting is discontent and gloom. A fucking thundercloud threatening to rain out the love fest. I’d better get out of here before the storm is unleashed.

I rise to go. “I’m going home today.”

Jonathan and Leticia stand up, too. “We’re leaving today as well,” Leticia says. “I called my pilot this morning. He’ll have the jet here this afternoon. Sophie, can we take you to Denver?”

Jonathan offers Sophie a hand and she lets him help her to her feet. “That would be lovely.”

Jonathan turns to me. “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Anna Strong,” he says. “We’ve shared some interesting experiences and I won’t forget you saved my—” he grins at Sophie, “ Ourlife on more than one occasion. When Leticia and I get settled, we’d like you to come visit.”

Leticia tilts her head, giving me a once over. I know a lot of interesting single men—mortal and vamp—who would be thrilled to meet the Chosen One. Interested?

Why not?I’m sure as hell not doing very well on my own.

Leticia picks up the aside and grins.

Sophie gives me a hug. It’s a surprising and unexpected gesture and I find myself flooded with gratitude and relief. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to. The simple act soothes my soul like a rite of absolution.

Jonathan suddenly fixes me with a look that says he just got an idea.

“This is great.” Excitement shines from his eyes. “Anna, you could write a book. All about what happened here. We’d change the names, of course, but I’d be your editor and we…”

Leticia places a palm over his mouth. “He’s channeling Prendergast,” she says gaily. “We may have created a monster.”

I look from Sophie to Jonathan to Leticia.

Contentment. Excitement. Passion.

Magic does exact a price. Sometimes it’s well worth the cost.

THE END