In Memories We Fear Read Free Page B

instinctively learned to stop on specific words or phrases. When he found nothing, a memory tickled the back of his mind, and he switched over to London’s Evening Standard .
    “Anything at all?” A masculine voice with a Scottish accent sounded from behind him.
    Wade didn’t even bother turning, but he glanced up.
    “Not yet.”
    Seamus de Spenser stood looking over his shoulder. Seamus’ body was transparent as always. Though long dead, he looked like a young man, his brown hair hanging to his shoulders. He wore a blue and yellow Scottish plaid draped across his shoulder and held by a belt over the black breeches he had died in. The knife sheath at his hip was empty.
    He was Rose’s nephew, and he’d died the same night she was turned—but he’d come back as a spirit, forever tied to her.
    Seamus was a key component of their strategy. Once Wade located a possible location, he sent Seamus to investigate. As a ghost, Seamus could zero in on a vampire—or anything undead—once he was in the general vicinity. Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay too long, as his spirit was tied to Rose, and the longer he stayed away from her, the weaker he became.
    He and Wade worked well together, but Wade always wondered what they might look like to an outsider . . . the two of them studying the computer screen. Wade, in his early thirties with a slender build, viewed his own appearance as common. His only outstanding feature was a shock of white-blond hair. He hadn’t cut it in more than six months, and it hung down the back of his neck. But how did he look with a six-foot-tall, transparent Scottish Highlander leaning over his shoulder?
    “I’ve just switched to London,” Wade said.
    In midsummer, they’d come across a strong lead there: a news story about a “wild man” who’d attacked a woman in an alley and tried to bite her. When the police ran to intervene, their own dogs had turned on them, allowing the attacker to get away. Wade had been certain he was onto something. But Seamus hadn’t been able to find anything in London, and he’d come back home on the brink of exhaustion.
    “I keep telling you,” Seamus said. “You’re always looking in the major papers. Find a way to access smaller papers . . . from smaller towns.”
    “I know what I’m doing.”
    Vampires didn’t live in small towns. They needed a large population to hide their feeding practices.
    Seamus started to say something else, but he stopped as their eyes hit the same headline at the same moment.

WILD MAN STRIKES OUTSIDE BRITISH MUSEUM
    As if unaware of what he was doing, Seamus began reading the story aloud. “‘Late Tuesday night, a second bizarre attack took place in Bloomsbury. According to the police report, although the museum was closed, the sound of screaming brought two security guards running toward the street where they found a “dark-haired man with tattered clothes” pinning a woman against a streetlamp and biting her throat.’”
    Seamus stopped.
    Wade looked up at him again. “‘Biting her throat,’” he repeated softly. Then he took over reading. “‘Two security guards, whose names have not yet been released, moved to intervene. The man broke off his attack and ran. As they pursued, three cats seemed to come “from nowhere” and attack the guards, leaving bites and scratches severe enough to send both men to the hospital. One is expected to require cosmetic surgery. . . .’
    Wade stopped reading as the story moved on to recount the woman’s injuries, complete with blood loss.
    “There’s something in this, Seamus,” Wade said, shaking his head. “There must be.”
    “I tried before and couldn’t pinpoint anything,” Seamus answered, almost defensively, as if Wade were accusing him of failure. “What if it’s just a madman who thinks he’s a vampire?”
    Wade tried to keep his tone even. “Then how do you explain the dogs turning on their own handlers in the first story? How do you explain these . . .