JANAE SOAKED up Billy’s tales, knowing that every syllable he spoke was simple, unaltered fact. She had lived a lie, and this unlikely man from across the seas had found her and brought her the truth.
She listened as he recounted stories of the monastery in Paradise, Colorado, where he first found the Books of History as a boy. And she knew that she, like Billy, had to touch one of these books if it was the last thing she did before dying.
She heard him speak of the large worms in the endless tunnels beneath the monastery, and she fought off the desire to charter a jet on the spot, fly to Paradise, and see for herself if any of these worms still survived. They, like the books, had certainly been spawned by another world. Yet they were here, in this reality?
But what made her mouth dry was Billy’s claim that Thomas wasn’t the only one who’d crossed the bridge into this other reality or, for that matter, come back from the future.
Kara had gone. And returned.
Monique, her very own mother, had gone. And returned.
How? Using Thomas’s blood. The idea, once it sank in, was too much to absorb in one sitting.
“You mean, when you fall asleep—”
“While in contact with Thomas’s blood,” Billy interrupted, making a show of cutting his finger with a fingernail. “More accurately, while your blood is in contact with Thomas’s blood.”
“And you just wake up in this other place?”
“It sounds crazy, but there’s plenty of proof. Me, for starters. The books—”
“Until you fall asleep there, in which case you wake up here,” Janae said, on her own track. “As if the whole thing was just a dream. Only it isn’t a dream at all.”
“Correct. That’s what I’ve pieced together so far.”
“And you know, with certainty, that this blood still exists?”
“How many times do you need me to say it, Janae? You think I’ve done all of this, come all this way, because I saw your picture in People magazine and decided I had to have you? As if I said to myself, ‘I know, I’ll make up stories about books that can transport you between realities and pretend to be able to read her thoughts, that’ll impress her’?”
Janae eyed him, captivated by the notion that he was reading her mind this very moment. She stood and brushed by him, smiling coyly. There was more about Billy that attracted her, and it wasn’t simply his promise of adventure. He brought out the animal in her. Maybe she should give it to him without pretending.
She reached back for his hand. “Walk with me.”
He did so willingly, and they meandered from the suite, still hand in hand.
“From now on this stays between us,” she said. “You’ll get nothing from my mother, you know that.”
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe. She hasn’t mentioned a word of this to me, which can only mean she’s hidden the truth for good reasons.”
“Keeping to ourselves won’t get us what we need.”
“Of course not, darling. I can get us that. But I need to know that I can trust you.”
“Trust me? I’m the one sharing secrets here.”
She placed her free hand on his chest and gently stopped him. “Look inside me. Tell me I’m not sharing my deepest secrets with you.”
Billy’s eyes stared into hers. She thought about her father, what she knew, which wasn’t much and had been closely guarded. And she told Billy with her mind that she found him exhilarating.
Images of her past skipped through her mind: the first time she’d overseen a board meeting at age twenty-one, her first lover, the time she’d been busted in New York for drug possession and thrown in jail for the night. But her mind finally rested on him. On Billy. On this man who’d fallen from the sky and in a few short hours managed to strip her of her secrets.
She found him stimulating. Enticing. Nearly irresistible. Not only physically, but spiritually. Emotionally. She didn’t understand why. She didn’t care that she didn’t understand.
“You see? You can see into my heart and know that you can trust me. And I have to know that I can trust you as well.”
She still held his hand in hers, and she noted that it was clammy. But then, she was accustomed to the effect she had on men.
“Our secret,” she said, swallowing.
He cleared his throat. “Our secret.”
“I hope I can trust you.” She kissed him lightly on his lips and turned to lead him on. But Billy pulled back.
His eyes glanced nervously at the atrium beyond her. “Where are we going?”
Janae turned back. “You don’t know? You haven’t read my mind?”
“I do know. Learning to live with my abilities has taught me to . . . well, you know . . . go with the flow.”
“By pretending not to know. Because you don’t want to come off as uppity by showing your superiority over everyone else in the room. Right?”
“Something like that.”
“Don’t worry, I feel the same way half the time.”
“Then you’ll understand when I say that I have no interest in wandering around the compound, pretending to be interested in the lay of the land. It’s a waste of time.”
“A woman needs time—”
“I don’t have time.”
Her eyes searched his. “That’s how you want to play?”
“I don’t want to play. This need has been hunting me down for over a year. It’s like a presence. I have to know if it’s here.”
The blood.
Billy turned and walked back toward the guest suite.
“Where are you going?”
“You don’t know where it is, I can see that much. And you don’t have any idea how to get it.”
How rude! Where’d he grown the gall to think he could just waltz away without any regard for his host, a host who’d practically stripped herself bare for him? He was exasperating.
He was . . . like her.
“Slow down,” she snapped, heading after him into the rooms. “Just take a deep breath. Fine.” She shut the main door to the suite. “I’m as eager as you are, but—”
“You’ve known about the books for a few hours,” he said, spinning back. “Don’t talk to me about how eager you are. The idea that these books exist would be a heady thought for anyone, but why are you so . . . crazy about this? I can’t see it in your mind, and frankly it’s a bit disturbing.”
It was a fair question. She told the truth. No use pretending with him. “I don’t know.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “And that’s the scariest part. It makes your longing almost . . . inhuman.”
She calmed herself. “What do you expect from me? You tell me all of this and expect me to tap my fingers on the table and agree to help you?”
“Pretty much. Yes.”
“Please. A hundred dots have connected in my head, and you want me to take a nap?”
“No dots have connected in your head, Janae. That’s the problem. It hasn’t turned on the lights in your head. I would be able to see that. But when I look inside you, I see something else.”
“Is that so? And what do you see?”
“Your heart. Your desires. They’re all black.”
“Like yours,” she said, because she could think of no defense. What he said was preposterous. She was no more evil than the next person.
Billy turned away and walked to one of the windows overlooking the lawn. “I’ve been here before. Staring down this kind of blackness.”
“But your heart is white now?” She walked up behind him and traced the muscles of his back with her fingers. “You’re afraid that naughty Janae will bring it all back? Hmm? Is that it?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. It just reminds me that what we’re doing—what I’m doing—isn’t right.” Billy turned around, and she saw that his eyes were misty. “But I can’t seem to help it. The power that’s in that blood . . . those books . . . you have no idea how much damage it can bring.” He looked away, and a tear snaked down his cheek.
For a moment she thought he might be talking himself out of everything he’d just convinced her to do. Panic swarmed her mind. She couldn’t let him do that.
Why not, Janae? What is happening to you?
She was certain about one thing: Billy could not leave this place until she knew everything that he knew. And more.
She had to find that blood. Alone, if it had to be that way.
“I know how you feel,” she started. Then, “Actually I don’t. I don’t share your regret. But you’re right, I have desires in me that I can’t understand. And I believe you share those same desires.”
Janae stepped around him, dragging her fingernails delicately over his neck and cheek. She saw light freckles spotting the flesh under his hair when she brushed it away. The vein on his throat stood out, and she touched it gently.
“If your desires are like mine, then you won’t be able to resist them,” she said. “It’s your destiny, to find this blood. To cross over.”
Billy looked at her for a moment, then swallowed and cleared his throat.
“You’re right. I know. But you’re the first person I’ve met who knows it as well as I do. When I look into your eyes I feel like I’m looking into myself, and it’s all a bit disturbing.”
Janae felt drawn to his pale neck, so soft and tender, so bare, so full of life. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear, touching his lobe with her lips.
“Then trust me, Billy. We’re the same, you and I. We are meant to be together in more ways than one.”
She was momentarily distracted by her own audacity, her flagrant attempt at seduction. This wasn’t typical.
But another thought eased her concern. Just exactly who was seducing whom here? Billy had swept her off her feet in a matter of hours. Was he playing her?
She pulled away and walked to a crystal decanter. Poured herself a drink and threw it back in one swallow. When she turned back to him, he was staring at her, expressionless. Reading her. His advantage over her was unfair.
It was also part of what made him irresistible.
“So,” she said, pouring another drink. “What is it? Are we changing our minds?”
“I wasn’t aware we’d made up our minds,” he said, crossing to the decanter. He took the glass from her hand and matched her slug. Set it down with a thunk.
“Rumor has it that Thomas wasn’t the only one to cross over into this world,” he said softly, as if what he would tell her now was of greatest importance. He stepped to a large, plum-colored wingback chair, sat down, and crossed his legs. “Several others have come and gone. But I’ve learned that one came and stayed. A wraith called a Shataiki in that world. His name was Alucard, and he was a creature of the night.”
She felt her chest tighten. “Okay, now you’ve lost me,” she said, but that’s not what she was thinking. She turned her eyes away so he couldn’t see into her mind. “What do you mean, a creature of the night?”
“I don’t know much. But I know they spread their seed through blood.”
“Through blood?”
“The information is sketchy, but yes. I think so. It’s how they reproduce.”
She shoved her thoughts out before he could steal them from her mind.
“Unless you think we can tie my mother down and pry her eyes open so you can plunder her mind, there’s only one way to find out if she knows where the blood is.”
“I’ve already considered that,” Billy said.
“You don’t want to try. Trust me. She’ll have you dead or behind bars before you can use what you learn.”
“Exactly.”
“She has to retrieve the blood willingly.”
“Clearly.”
Janae turned. “I know how to do that.” Then she looked into his eyes and let him take her knowledge.
This time she could almost feel his invasive gaze. His eyes widened slowly and he blinked twice.
Billy stood to his feet, face white.
“Seriously?”
“I should know. It’s my lab.”
“Raison Strain B?”
“A mutation of the virus that turned the world upside down thirty years ago. It’s not airborne. But there’s no known antivirus. If we inject ourselves with it . . .”
“She’ll be forced to try Thomas’s blood, because it proved resistant to the original virus,” Billy finished. “And if she doesn’t have the blood? Or if it fails?”
She reached for the decanter and said what he already knew because a thing like this needed to be said aloud.
“Then we both die.”