Susan Squires - [The Companion 05] - One with the NIght by One & The Night

Author:One & The Night [One & Night, The]
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperback
Published: 2010-12-24T00:11:20.020000+00:00

Jane sat writing in her notebook at the kitchen table, alone. She had slept a few hours. The sun was setting. Kilkenny was still asleep in his room. Brother Flavio had just departed for Inverness in the gig used by Mrs. Dulnan during daylight hours on a mission to acquire opium or laudanum in large doses. He'd have to brave the sun tomorrow to buy it. Jane's father had retired to his study, his nose in dusty herbal texts. Miss Zaroff was not yet in evidence. As soon as it was full dark, Jane would avoid both Kilkenny and the other vampires by going out into the hills alone. Her father never had to know. She would practice translocating until it was a skill she could rely on. She glanced to her notebook where she had outlined a practice regimen.

The thing she couldn't reconcile was how you actually directed your reappearance by thinking about where you wanted to end up. What interaction of the host's mind and the Companion's power did the trick? It was just like Kilkenny's luck, where the Companion's energy seemed to fuse with its host's knowledge and experience to produce a specific result, almost as though two beings became one. Perhaps the organism in her blood wasn't a parasite. Maybe the relationship was more symbiotic. That would account for the feeling of being more alive. Was that really a feeling of being more whole than she had been before the infection?

That was entirely subjective. But there might be objective consequences. For instance, if you could direct yourself to a new location, why couldn't you direct another object? Could one move objects with only the mental power lent by one's Companion? Intriguing thought! She scribbled furiously in her notebook. She'd never be able to ask Kilkenny. The experience that haunted him, the accusations Miss Zaroff had made, what they had done at Urquhart, all sat between them now like a hunched gargoyle, ugly and hard as stone. It watched everything each of them did, and glared at them. She felt it. He felt it, too, she could tell.

Above her she heard the click of heels across the scrubbed wood floors. There was a certain anxious rhythm to them. They came from Miss Zaroff's room. She must be hungry. It might not be for lamb and parsnips, no matter that she said she didn't need blood immediately. Jane should offer her blood. Now that Jane thought of it, Miss Zaroff too was a fount of information that should not be wasted. She headed up the stairs and tapped on her guest's door.

"Miss Zaroff? Would you like dinner?"

The door opened. Miss Zaroff wore a dressing gown of finest aubergine silk, patterned with pagodas and blossoming branches. It showed a fulsome cleavage to advantage. "Miss Blundell, do come in." She swung the door wide.

Clara stood by the window, brushing off a dashing riding habit of lavender gabardine. Drat. Could she pump Miss Zaroff for information with Clara in the room? She stepped inside… Again, she caught the scent of female musk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.