Chapter 550
Katelina and Jorick were downstairs when Sarah caught up to them. She tugged Katelina away, but wouldn't say what she wanted until they were cloistered in her bedroom.
"You believe me now?"
Katelina blinked. "About what?"
Sarah's hand curled into an irritated fist. "About the stalker standing outside my door in the daytime. This morning you said you heard them, remember?"
Had she? The tangle of the day's weirdness had blown it from her mind. "Oh, yeah. I said I thought I might have"
Sarah deflated slightly. "You said you did." Her spine straightened and she turned brisk. "Never mind."
"No," Katelina said quickly. Best to humor her. "I believe you. What about it?"
"I think it's time we lay a trap for them."
"What kind of trap?"
Sarah chewed her lip. "I don't know. I thought we could hide somewhere and wait, but there's nothing to hide behind. Then I thought of staying awake in our rooms, but they're always gone before we can open the door, so they're too fast for that."
Too fast. Like Verchiel was fast. Like those creepy twins were fast. "Maybe it's a wind walker?" Katelina explained the ability. "Even with that, the problem with the whole thing is why would a vampire be awake in the daytime? When they sleep is when they heal and kind of regenerate, so if they don't get enough rest, they have to drink extra blood to make up for it or they're sleep deprived."
Sarah perked up. "Then whoever it is would suffer from sleep deprivation. We just need to look for the symptoms."
"I don't know what to look for, and there's too many people to watch."
"We need to narrow it down. You mentioned they might be a wind walker. Are there any of those?"
"Those creepy twins are. Other than that I don't know."
Sarah asked what she meant. When she explained her friend said, "Oh. I've seen them. I thought they looked kind of intriguing. I don't know why they'd stalk me."
Katelina stopped from saying she couldn't imagine why anyone would stalk her.
"Plus, they never go anywhere alone, do they? I haven't gotten the sense that there are two stalkers, only one. But if there aren't any more of the fast ones, then maybe."
They needed a list of the guests and their powers. If only-"The Guild has this massive database of vampires that lists all their information, even their abilities. Jamie cross referenced the guests with it when they arrived. Maybe he could make us a list of wind walkers. Then we can check them specifically. I'll ask him tomorrow, and I'll find out the signs of vampire sleep deprivation." It was a stretch, but it was easier than setting a trap for a vampire that might not exist.
"Okay, and we may as well talk to the twins, since we know they have the right abilities."
Katelina thought of their smiles and shivered.
Sarah nodded to the clock on the wall. "There isn't much point in taking you back to Jorick. Do you want to practice your mind reading for a little bit before bed?"
The answer was a mixed yes and no. After her last failure, Katelina was reluctant to try, but if she didn't practice she'd never learn.
"Sure."
They took their places, sitting Indian style. Katelina stared into Sarah's eyes and tried to stifle her discomfort. She started by listening as hard as she could. When minutes ticked by with nothing but the soft thud of their heartbeats, she thought about what Sarah said in the attic. Maybe she was trying too hard.
She attempted to stay calm, but staring into Sarah's eyes left her tense and disconcerted. How was she supposed to relax under scrutiny?
She closed her eyes. When the desired calm didn't come, she thought of Samael and the peace that surrounded him.
"Yes?"
Her eyes snapped opened. The voice in her head wasn't Sarah. Was it Samael? Had she managed to call him?
"Well?" Sarah asked hopefully.
"I think I contacted Samael."
Sarah blinked.
"He's that ancient vampire. The last time I saw him, in a dream, he was looking for Lilith. He can contact me when I'm asleep, but I've never been able to get hold of him before."
Sarah leaned back on her elbows. "You can get in touch with him, but you can't read my mind?"
Katelina grinned at the irony. "Maybe I'm trying too hard. Let's go again."
Sarah settled back and Katelina closed her eyes. She tried to think of something soothing that wasn't Samael. The last thing she needed was him complicating her efforts. She ran through calming thoughts from her childhood. Her house. Her mother. School. Sarah. She'd seemed smaller then; drawn in, with a mop of curly hair and stooped shoulders, as if she wanted to fold in on herself. Then one recess in second grade, someone took Katelina's new doll. It had come from Santa. Though now she knew that meant her mother, at the time it meant something magical. It was an older kid, the girl with freckles and a boy haircut. She'd thrown the doll in the mud. Katelina remembered crying, then
"Leave her alone."
She blinked angry eyes to see a little girl huddled in a denim coat and bright pink earmuffs. Blonde hair hung in a braid down her back. She turned a tear stained face, and Katelina realized she wasn't seeing her memory but
Sarah's?
The world shifted. Sarah shook the mud off the doll and said, "Tell the teacher and she'll let you wash it off in the bathroom after recess." She paused. "I'm Sarah. I'm in Miss Peabody's class. You're Katie, right?" The blonde nodded. "You can't let stupid Glenda bother you. Mr. Green says she picks on people to make herself feel better."
Mr. Green. The school counselor. Only in second grade and Sarah was already seeing him.
The scene morphed, shifted, swirled. Mr. Green sat in a plastic chair and she looked down at her swinging feet; brown loafers and checkered socks. The teacher's voice was soothing. "It's all right. You can tell me." But she didn't want to. She wouldn't. She wouldn't tell anyone.
There was a flash, and the office was gone, replaced by a room with brown carpet and eggshell walls. Her father stood over her, shouting, his face red and puckered. Bits of spittle flew with his words, scented like the beer he tried to drown himself in every night.
"think I'm made of money, huh? You and your goddamn mom, always spending, spending, spending. Don't give a damn about the bills, don't give a damn that I have to work overtime to pay for everything. No! Just leave the goddamn door open and let the heat out, huh? Who cares how much it costs? Who cares if I have to spend my goddamn Saturday working just to keep the lights on and the water running and the goddamn bank off our asses? This is your fault; you and Theresa! She had to get pregnant. She had to trap me into this shit hole. The least you can do is shut the goddamn door!"
The last three words were punctuated with slaps that left her cheeks stinging and brought tears to her eyes. He reared back, ready to deliver another
Katelina was suddenly in the bedroom of the mansion, her hand up, and her chest heaving.
Sarah gaped, her expression torn between horror and anger. "You"
Katelina tried to come to terms with the sudden shift in scene. She lowered her hand to her face to discover tears. She tried to reason away her terror. It wasn't hers. She wasn't in danger. She was fine. "I-I guess it worked."
"It worked?" Sarah demanded. "That's not what it's supposed to be like." She eyed Katelina. "You saw-?"
Katelina realized Sarah wasn't asking what she'd seen but if she'd seen that. "School," she said quickly. "The day we first talked, on the playground. Glenda took my Barbie and you saved it."
Sarah's tight shoulders relaxed and some of the wildness faded from her eyes. "That's it?"
Katelina nodded and swiped away the last of the tearstears that weren't really hers. "I hated Glenda. She used to terrorize everyone."
"Yeah. Remember when she killed herself our freshman year and the teachers ran around trying to make us feel sorry for her; trying to humanize her? As if poor Glenda was a ray of sunshine."
Katelina mumbled a reply, but her attention wasn't on the conversation. She knew Sarah's dad was a drunk, she'd heard him yell before, she'd even seen him hit her friend once, but that was different. Safe. She knew he wouldn't go far enough to hit someone else's kid, and if it got too scary she could always run home to the security of her mother. But this, being the one on the other side of the fist, feeling the fear, knowing he was supposed to love her, supposed to treat her like other kids' parents treated them, it was too much to process in a burst.
Sarah kept talking; reminiscing on Glenda and some of the other kids. As she chattered, Katelina's sensations faded to an uncomfortable memory, like a bruise that didn't hurt unless you poked it.
