Oh Yeah, That Thing

“Um, can you do it? Follow Moshe? I need to check on something. Dennis nodded and began speedwalking to keep from losing the vampire, who was about to turn a corner. “I’ll try to catch up. Don’t let him talk to you,” I called after him.

I darted in the other direction. Each time I neared a light, the image would flicker out and reappear under the next one, but it seemed to be growing more and more substantial, more fully there, with each reemergence. By the time I got to the end of the main corridor, it was definitely resembling a dark-complexioned woman. I turned in each direction to see where she would lead me next, and I found myself navigating through the passages I’d been one of the few to explore in recent months, until I arrived at Trudy’s last interim abode, the one she’d taken up residence in after her first encounter with Moshe and before they’d become friendly. The one where the coral charm was supposed to be stored over winter vacation.

I looked around, but my ghost was nowhere to be seen. Using a shelf as a ladder, I reached my arm up into the ceiling cubby and searched by touch. At first, I only felt the rough plywood panels stretched between rafters, coated with a light layer of dust and a sprinkling of mouse droppings. I climbed up one more shelf, and immediately felt my fingertips bump against something more solid. I grasped it, jumped to the floor, and felt some relief to see that it was, indeed, the coral charm.

Then I realized that relief was not the appropriate emotion. Not right at all. Where the hell was Patrick?

“Thank you!” I said out loud, hoping there was someone listening who in fact deserved my thanks. “Wherever—whoever—you are, this is what you wanted me to find, right?”

“You said you’d take care of it.” The voice was loud, clear, and coming from just behind my shoulder. It nearly made me jump out of my skin. I spun around to face a pair of eyes that had once read mine regularly with the intensity of a seer, now as corporeal as they had been when last I accepted their recognition of responsibility. I was momentarily reminded of Medusa. But this was not Medusa.

“Bella,” I whispered.