The Immortal Who Loved Me by Lynsay Sands
"Did you?" Lucian asked mildly, peering into the bag of chips and picking one out to sniff suspiciously before popping it in his mouth.
"Yes, we did." Stephanie spoke up now, scowling at the man as he winced, his cheeks sucking inward as if he'd bitten into a lemon. "We all saw it in her memory."
Lucian didn't even glance at the girl. Returning his gaze to Drina, he chewed, swallowed, and said, "Look again . . . and this time really look . . . as you would if you had no idea who it might be."
Sherry wasn't surprised when Drina immediately turned to her. She was a little dismayed, though, that everyone else did too. Well, everyone but Lucian. He turned his attention back to eating as Drina, Harper, Stephanie, Bricker, and even Basil turned to eye her. Basil was the only one who wasn't staring at her with that weird concentrated expression, but then he was the only one there who couldn't read her.
Resigning herself to it, Sherry recalled the moment they were looking for and simply waited.
"See," Stephanie said with a nod. "She was wearing the outfit she has on now. Someone knocked at the dressing room door. She opened it and it was . . ." Stephanie shook her head with frustration. "It looks like Leo, except--"
Sherry tilted her head at what Stephanie had said. It twigged a memory for her. She recalled exactly what Stephanie described. She had been wearing the jeans she now had on and the sweater. A knock sounded at the door. She'd opened it, expecting it to be Elvi, but . . . Sherry frowned and shook her head. It was all very fuzzy. She saw Leo standing outside the dressing room, but another face kept trying to replace his, and the image was overlaying his, or perhaps his image was overlaying the other so that it was a confused picture, like a double-exposed photo.
"It was a dream," Stephanie said suddenly, her eyes wide. "It was fuzzy the first time, but I can see it better now. It's like a digital recording that's gone whacky. It must have been a dream we've picked up on."
Sherry let her breath out with a little sigh of relief. That made sense. As she'd suggested back at the house, she'd been having nightmares about Leo and his little trio of monsters since the attack in her store. Why wouldn't she have one during her faint?
"It's not a dream," Lucian announced, and took another bite from his sandwich.
"It has to be," Stephanie protested, scowling at Sherry as if she were deliberately remembering it all wrong and confusing her on purpose.
"I am afraid Lucian is right," Drina said, sounding weary. "I have seen this before. What you are seeing is the result of someone trying to make her see something that wasn't there."
"What?" Stephanie asked, turning to peer at Drina.
"Whoever knocked on that dressing room door wanted Sherry to think it was Leo," Drina explained. "But she's built up that resistance to mind control. It didn't work properly." Drina grimaced and glanced to Sherry again, adding, "I suspect he realized that and tried to erase it altogether. Only that didn't work fully either, which is why we can read it from your memory despite it being veiled from you. The attempt to bury it is probably why you fainted, though." She glanced to Lucian and admitted, "I would have realized that the first time I picked up on the memory, but I didn't look hard enough. I saw Leo, and it was what I expected, so I didn't trouble myself over the fact that the image was garbled. I am sorry, Uncle. I let you down and did exactly what they wanted."
"What who wanted?" Sherry asked with a frown.
"Whoever wanted us to think Leo was at the mall," Drina explained grimly.
"Why would someone want that?" she asked with confusion, and then before anyone could answer, she added, "And this might be a good thing. It could help us narrow down who it might be. There can't be that many people who know about Leo and what he looks like, right?"
Stephanie snorted at the question. "Everyone knows that he's being hunted and what he looks like. He's been the Blood Bag Boy for months now."
"The Blood Bag Boy?" Sherry asked with confusion.
"Yeah," the girl said dryly. "You know how they used to put missing kids' pictures on milk cartons?"
Sherry nodded.
"Well, it's kind of like that," Stephanie announced. "Only it's Leo's face glued on blood bags from the blood bank. Every immortal orders blood, and so every immortal has seen his picture, knows he's Immortal Enemy Number One, and knows they are to call if they see him in their vicinity."
"Oh," Sherry murmured with disappointment.
"The problem is, Leo has now become a handy go-to-guy whenever there's trouble," Lucian explained. "He's a bad guy we know, so the first suspect."
Harper nodded. "He's become the bloody bogeyman. Something happens, it must be Leonius."
"We need to take care of the bastard," Bricker said with a shake of his head.
Lucian merely grunted and then shrugged. "That is not the problem here, though."
"What problem?" Stephanie asked with a frown. "This is good news. It means Leo didn't find us. We can go back to Port Henry."
"You can," Lucian said quietly.
Stephanie frowned. "And Sherry and Basil too, right?"
Lucian merely shook his head.
"But--"
"Wait," Sherry said with a frown. "I don't understand. Why would anyone want me to think Leo was in London?"
"My guess would be they knew it would put everyone in a panic and make us bring you back here," Harper said. "Which is exactly what we did."
"So someone wanted me out of Port Henry?" she asked with confusion. "Why? I don't even know anyone there."
"It doesn't have to be that someone wanted you out of Port Henry. It could be that whoever it was wanted you back in Toronto."
"Isn't it the same thing?" she asked.
There was silence, and then Lucian asked, "Who is the immortal in your life?"
"Basil," Sherry answered promptly, and then added, "And the rest of you, I guess."
Lucian shook his head. "Your resistance to being read and controlled suggests long-term exposure to an immortal, or perhaps more than one."
"How long would it take for a mortal to build up that kind of resistance?" Bricker asked curiously.
"At least twenty years," Drina murmured, eyeing Sherry curiously.
She immediately shook her head. "There is no way I have had an immortal in my life for twenty years without my knowing. You guys don't age. I'd notice that."
"Hair dye, older clothes, maybe some padding and a little makeup could make it appear like they were aging," Drina said quietly.
"Seriously?" Sherry asked with surprise.
Drina nodded. "It will be someone you spend a lot of time with. Almost daily for twenty years, I should think. They . . ." Her voice trailed off when Sherry began to shake her head again.
"You can stop there. I haven't had anyone in my life for that long."
"No one?" Basil asked with a frown.
"Well, my mother was around for my first twenty-nine years, but she died three years ago of a heart attack. Your people wouldn't die of a heart attack."
"It's not your mother. If your mother was immortal, you would be too. It's passed on through the mother's blood."
"Unless her mother was turned after Sherry was born," Drina pointed out.
Sherry shifted impatiently. "Hello. Heart attack. Dead. You people only die by decapitation and fire, from what I understand."
"Did your mother have a partner?" Drina asked.
"Just my father. She never dated after they split up."
"No one?"
Sherry started to shake her head, but then hesitated.
"Who is Uncle Al?" Lucian asked sharply, apparently picking up on the thought that had crossed her mind unspoken. "Your father's brother?"
Sherry shook her head. "No. He wasn't really an uncle. He was a family friend. He used to spend a lot of time with us, and he was very supportive of Mom when she and Dad split." She shrugged. "For a while I thought they might start dating or something, but nothing came of it."
"You're sure about that?" Basil asked, and poin
"No. They didn't date," Sherry assured them. "I would have known. Besides, he wasn't in my life that long. He came around after my brother Danny died, when I was seven. As I said, he wasn't really an uncle. By the time I started university he was little more than a fond memory."
"So was he a friend of both your parents or not?" Bricker asked with a frown, and when she glanced to him questioningly, pointed out, "You said he was a family friend of your mom and dad's, but then you said he came around after your brother died when you were seven. Did he show up when you were seven or before that?"
Sherry hesitated and then shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I was a kid."
"It doesn't matter if he hasn't been in her life since she was a teenager," Drina interrupted. "We're dealing with an immortal who is obviously still in her life. This Uncle Al would hardly disappear for fifteen years and then suddenly show up to scare her out of Port Henry all this time later."
"Well, there isn't anyone in my life who fits the bill of an immortal," Sherry said. "The only people I even deal with on a daily basis, who are in their early twenties, are my employees Emma, Joan, Allan, Zander, Sarah, and Eric . . . and I didn't know any of them before I opened the store three years ago. So if one of them is an immortal--"
Drina shook her head. "Three years isn't long enough. But it doesn't have to be someone who looks like they're in their early twenties. As I said, hair dye, makeup, and clothing could make them look older."
"It doesn't matter how old they look," Sherry insisted. "I just haven't had anyone in my life that long. The longest anyone has been in my life is my mother, who as I said is dead. After that, my buddy Luther was in my life for the longest at nine years, and he got a job in Saudi Arabia and moved there just before I opened the store three years ago. I haven't seen him since."
"Aunts and uncles?" Drina asked.
"My relatives are not vamp-- immortals," Sherry said with certainty.
"You cannot be certain--" Drina began, but Sherry cut her off.
"I am certain," she insisted firmly. "No amount of makeup and hair dye could make a twenty-something look sixty to seventy years old. My mother was the youngest, an afterthought, born fifteen years behind her eldest sister. All my aunts have varicose veins and are wrinkled from their foreheads down to their feet. As for my uncles, one is bald with a little sprout of gray hair on his crown, the other has that donut thing happening where the top of the head is bald and the hair grows around the sides, and the third one has a belly that actually does shake like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs. I'm telling you, they are not immortals."
Silence filled the room briefly, and then Lucian crumpled up the empty wrappings of his sandwich, tossed it on the plate with his now empty chip bag, picked up his plate and drink glass and stood to leave the room for the kitchen. They heard him banging around in there, presumably disposing of the wrappings and putting the plate in the dishwasher, then he returned with a notepad and a pen.
"Write down everyone you have ever known in your life and how long they have been or were in your life," he instructed, handing the notepad and pen to her.
"Everyone?" Sherry echoed with alarm.
"Everyone who has spent a lot of time around or near you while they were in your life," he clarified. "Friends, family friends, that sort of thing."
"That's a lot of people," Sherry warned, accepting the notepad and pen.
"You have until morning," Lucian said firmly, and then turned to Harper. "You can take Stephanie and Drina back to Port Henry, or stay for a couple days, as you like. But if you stay, Stephanie doesn't leave the apartment."
Harper nodded, but asked, "And Sherry and Basil?"
"They stay here until we sort out who the immortal is in her life and why they didn't want her in Port Henry," he announced.
Sherry couldn't help noticing that nobody protested his dictating everyone's life like this. Even she was keeping her mouth shut, she acknowledged wryly as Lucian continued.
"If you're staying tonight," he said to Harper and Drina, "they can stay here too. Otherwise, Bricker will take them to the Enforcer house after he drops me off."
Harper nodded and glanced to Drina when she caught his hand. She tugged him to the side to whisper in his ear, and his eyebrows rose slightly. But he nodded and then straightened and said, "Sherry and Basil can stay here. We'd like to stay a couple days and try to help sort out who this immortal might be before we go."
"To make up for my mistake," Drina added quietly. "It can't hurt to have more minds working on the puzzle of who the immortal in Sherry's life might be."
"I like puzzles," Stephanie announced, dropping onto the couch next to Sherry and grinning at her good-naturedly.
Sherry smiled back and then glanced to Lucian as he headed for the entry, announcing, "We're leaving, Bricker."
Bricker paused with his sandwich halfway to his mouth and gaped after the man, then sighed and quickly wrapped up the second half of his sandwich, muttering, "Of course, we are."
Sherry bit her lip as they all watched Bricker scramble after Lucian. No one spoke until they heard the telltale sign of the elevator door opening and closing, and then Drina glanced to Sherry and smiled.
"I'll make some coffee and see if Mrs. Parker made brownies or anything to help fuel your brain while you make the list."
"I'll help," Harper offered, moving to her side.
Sherry jumped in surprise when Stephanie suddenly squealed, "Brownies!" and leapt off the couch to hurry after the couple. She watched the girl go with wry amusement. Sometimes Stephanie seemed sixty, and sometimes she just seemed sixteen . . . or even six, she thought, and shook her head.
"Are you all right with staying here?"
Sherry glanced to Basil and started to nod, then frowned and said, "Oh, God, I'm sorry, Basil. You came to Canada to visit your daughter and now--" Biting her lip, she shook her head and said, "You don't have to stay here, you know. I'll understand if you want to return to Port Henry and continue your visit with Katricia."
He smiled faintly at her words and reached out to caress her cheek, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "We can visit Katricia after we resolve this. I meant are you okay with staying here as opposed to the Enforcer house? This is the third new place in almost as many days. I wondered if you would prefer someplace you've already been."
"Oh." She smiled weakly and glanced around. "No, this is fine. It certainly has a great view," she said, then frowned and added, "As long as we aren't putting Drina and Harper out. I wouldn't want to inconvenience them."
"You aren't," Harper announced, returning to the room with a tray of sugar, cream, sweetener, and spoons. "Actually, it's nice to get some use out of this place. We spend so much time in Port Henry, this apartment is really a waste. Thank God I own it and don't pay rent," he added dryly. Harper smiled at her reassuringly as he set his tray on the coffee table. "There are several guest rooms, or the two of you can share one. It's up to you."
"Thank goodness my room is soundproofed," Stephanie said now, carrying out a second tray, this one bearing a pan of brownies and several plates. "At least I won't have to listen to you four going at it tonight. I don't know how the others sleep with all that racket."
"So says she who snores like a lumberjack," Harper teased.
"I do not!" Stephanie gasped with dismay, and then asked worriedly, "Do I?"
"No, honey," Drina assured her with a reproving look at Harper as she entered the room with a tray of coffee cups. "Harper's just teasing you."
"Hmmm." Stephanie scowled at him as Drina set down the brownies and plates, then she slumped on the couch next to Sherry and eyed the notepad. "Would it be easier for you to make your list at the dining room table?"
"Oh!" Drina paused, her own tray still in her hand. Clucking her tongue, she turned in that direction. "I should have thought of that. We can have coffee and brownies at the table so you can write. The coffee's on, by t
"Oh, you don't have to . . ." Sherry let her voice trail away. Drina was already halfway to the table, and Harper and Stephanie were grabbing up the trays to follow. Shrugging, she stood and followed too, leaning into Basil when he slipped his arm around her as he joined her. It really would be easier to work at the table anyway.
Sherry and Basil settled there as Stephanie cut and distributed plates of brownies and Harper passed out the coffee cups. Drina busied herself giving everyone spoons and forks and placing the coffee fixings in the center of the table. She then collected the trays and returned to the kitchen to check on the coffee.
Sherry had opened her notepad and had the pen poised at the first line but hadn't written anything when Basil suggested, "Maybe start from your earliest memories. Write everyone you can remember when you were a child, put down how long they were in your life, and then continue on until today."
"Right," she said, peered at the page, and then wrote down her mother's name followed by the date she died.
"If she has to list everyone from school friends to teachers, this is going to take a while, huh?" Stephanie commented, slipping a generous slice of brownie onto a plate.
"Why do you think Lucian gave her till morning?" Harper asked dryly.
"I thought you guys slept during the day," Sherry murmured as she followed her mother's name with her father's.
"Some do, some don't," Basil murmured, rubbing her shoulders as she wrote her grandparents' names down. "We all avoid actually going out in daylight, but that doesn't mean we can't be up and about. Lucian will probably take a nap when he gets home, so he's fresh in the morning."
Sherry merely nodded and continued with her list. The faster she finished, the faster they could go to bed and the more sleep they'd get before Lucian was back to harass them.
"Like you two will do any sleeping," Stephanie said dryly.
"Steph!" Harper growled.
"What?" the girl asked, and shrugged. "You know it's true. You two won't get much sleep either, and Basil and Sherry are newer at this life mate thing than you guys. I doubt they'll sleep at all other than the brief bouts of unconsciousness." She carried a plate with a slice of brownie around and set it in front of Basil, then patted Sherry's arm and suggested, "You should really let Basil turn you. The lack of sleep won't affect you as much that way. All you have to do is suck up some more blood. Besides, with Leo prowling around out there . . ." She hesitated and then finished sadly, "Well, you just don't want him to be the one to turn you."