Vampire Memories #5 - Ghosts of Memories Read Free Page A

ear. She climbed out of the car and Maxim followed, closing the knife and wiping his face with one hand.
    Eleisha had taught several other vampires to feed like this, but in those sessions, the point had been to teach someone else how to use his or her gift to lure a victim into a car, put the person to sleep, feed carefully, disguise the wound, and then replace a memory.
    But Maxim had no telepathic ability with people—only animals—and he’d lost his gift. How could Eleisha ever help him learn to help himself, to feed safely and not call attention to himself by either killing someone or leaving someone alive who’d remember him?
    Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because he stepped around in front of her, cutting her off.
    “What…wrong?” he asked.
    She liked his face and his messy blue-black hair. But now his dark eyes were nervous and searching, as if he feared disappointing her. That was the worst part. He cared how she felt. He’d been lonely and beyond miserable without even knowing it, and he seemed to believe she’d saved him and given him his life back. He loved living at the church and sleeping in a bed and having companionship. He wanted to please her.
    She forced a smile. “Nothing’s wrong. You did just fine.”
    Philip stepped out of the shadows from behind a huge yellow SUV. He frowned slightly at the sight of Maxim blocking Eleisha’s path. “All finished?” His voice was tight.
    She moved quickly around Maxim. “Yes. Let’s go home.”
    Wade took Mr. Boo through the front doors of the church into the sanctuary, which had been turned into a kind of library/sitting room with tastefully arranged couches and bookshelves. The main floor of the church comprised this large, open sanctuary—along with two back offices.
    The upstairs sported six rooms that had once been engaged for Sunday school classes. Maxim was currently sleeping in one of them, and Wade and Eleisha later planned to use the others to house any more lost vampires they found.
    The basement comprised a three-bedroom apartment where Wade, Eleisha, and Philip lived, as well as an industrial-sized kitchen the old congregation had once used for potluck dinners, but Wade had turned that area into a gym so he could work out at home.
    He took Mr. Boo all the way downstairs to the apartment and headed into their small, private kitchen.
    “Sit,” he said.
    Boo just grunted and stood in the archway, looking hopefully at the refrigerator. With some reticence, Wade opened it and took out a package of raw hamburger. He’d been planning on cooking it later, to use in a pot of spaghetti sauce. But he unwrapped the plastic and dumped most of it onto a plate.
    “Here.”
    As he set the plate on the floor, Mr. Boo hurried over and began wolfing down the raw meat in rapid bites. Wade couldn’t help noting that for all the dog’s size, his ribs were showing. He’d probably not had an easy life.
    “I’ll get you some water.”
    He was just reaching for a bowl in the cupboard when someone gasped in the kitchen archway.
    “Good Lord! What is that?”
    Glancing over, Wade locked eyes with the only other woman in their household: Rose de Spenser.
    “It’s a dog,” he answered, sighing.
    “Yes, I can see that.” She sounded almost as appalled as he’d felt out in the churchyard, and for some reason, he couldn’t help smiling.
    Rose was tall and slender, with long brown hair accented by white streaks. She appeared to be about thirty years old and almost always wore rayon dresses. She was the first vampire that they’d manage to “rescue” and bring back here, but she was a reserved person by nature, and sometimes Wade thought he might never know her very well.
    Still, he liked her, and she helped balance out a household that was becoming skewed slightly toward too many men.
    “New addition,” he said, pointing to Mr. Boo and still smiling—with no idea why. “Maxim must have drawn him here.”
    “He’s staying ? Here inside