Cloud City

I stay behind with Sophie to help her clear away the debris from her spell making and scrub the pentagram from the floor. We don’t speak. I imagine it’s a relief for Sophie to be alone with her own thoughts so I don’t intrude with small talk.

We part at the hotel lobby and I go reluctantly up to my room. It’s been a couple of hours, but the bed springs are still singing next door and the mingled moans of Jonathan and Leticia keep me awake long past dawn. The windows are open and once in awhile a whiff of sex and blood drifts in, making my own hormones jump into overdrive.

Tomorrow, I ask for a different room.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The ringing of a telephone wakens me from a deep sleep. With a groan, I roll over and look at the clock.

Ten A.M.

Between listening to Jonathan (I’ve already started thinking of Prendergast as Jonathan) and Leticia’s uninhibited cavorting and trying to come to terms with the morality (or immorality) of what we did last night, I didn’t get much sleep.

I pick up the receiver and croak, “What?”

“Well, good morning to you, too.”

Leticia sounds much too perky, too cheerful. Her voice grates in my ear like nails on a chalkboard.

“You sound well-laid,” I grumble.

She laughs. “And you don’t. You’re next door, aren’t you?” As if testing, she knocks on the wall. “Sorry if we disturbed you.”

“I’m sure. Is there a reason for this wake-up call?”

“We’re meeting Sophie downstairs at eleven. Will you join us?”

I tell her I will and hang up. I’ve no sooner swung my legs out of bed when I hear Leticia squeal with delight. I huff out a breath. “Jesus. Not again.”

And beat it into the shower.

I stand under a stream of scalding water, fighting emotions battling in my mind and body like prizefighters seeking the knock out punch. It’s not just aggravation I’m feeling. It’s jealousy. The closest I’ve come to a relationship like theirs was with a vamp I ended up killing. I don’t seemed destined for a happily-ever-after.

At eleven, I’m dressed and waiting in the lobby. I’m the first one down. Leticia and Jonathan are probably going another round. But where is Sophie? I got the impression she called this meeting.

I take a seat in the lobby and watch people come and go. Ordinary mortals, some with kids in tow, heading out for a day of sightseeing or hiking or fishing. They all have a plan. A destination.

What do I have?

No doubt about it. I’m in a funk. I need to get home and go back to work. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and pull up my pilot’s number. I’m just about to hit send when the elevator door opens.

Leticia and Jonathan spill out like teenagers on a first date, all smiles and giggles and roving hands. Their skin is glowing, the effect sex has on a vampire’s constitution. It heats the blood and floods us with warmth. Leticia is wearing the same clothes as last night. Not surprising since she didn’t exactly arrive in Leadville with a suitcase. But Jonathan has washed the slickness from his hair and it falls over his eyes and tickles the collar of his shirt. He looks younger and relaxed and healthy. Far different from the Prendergast of old.

I watch them approach with narrowed eyes.

I’m jealous again.

“What’s the matter, A

Naturally.

“You look like you want to bite the head off a chicken.”

I puff out a breath and try to wipe the resentment off my face. I go for a smile but I’m doubtful I succeed in anything more than a grimace. “Just tired,” I say in an attempt to cover up the unreasonable hostility eating at my gut. “Where’s Sophie? I thought she was going to meet us?”

Jonathan looks at the watch on his wrist as if seeing it for the first time. “Hmmm. Patek Philippe. At least Prendergast had good taste. It’s only eleven fifteen. She’ll be here.”

“So what did you two decide? Will you go to New York or…?” I realize I don’t know where Leticia was when Sophie conjured here in Leadville. “Where were you last night, Leticia, before Sophie yanked you away.”

Leticia laughs. “Good description of what happened. I was at my summer place in the Hamptons. In the middle of a party. I imagine they’re still talking about my disappearance. Luckily they know how mercurial I am. Probably thought I decided to jet off to my place in Paris or Lisbon.”

“Nice life. I guess you were right when you told Jonathan money would be no object.”

“I’ve invested wisely,” she says modestly.

“Anyway, we’ll go to New York from here. Check out Prendergast’s offices and home. Jonathan did a little snooping on his computer last night. He has some interesting projects in the works. Might be fun to live his life for a little while.”

Jonathan grins. “First, though, there’s a fiancé I have to dump.”

“I offered to help with that,” Leticia says. “But he think it would be better if he handled it himself. I might be too—forceful.”

If I have to spend any more time with these two lovebirds, I’m going to hurl. I start to rise, then remember something from yesterday. “I overheard Prendergast speaking to his assistant yesterday. Her name is Nancy if that’s any help.”

“Yeah, I got that from office email,” Jonathan says. “There were some perso

I watch Jonathan slipping into another person’s life as easily as he slipped into Prendergast’s Gucci loafers. “Don’t you feel guilty?” I ask.

He lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Prendergast is gone. He probably would have died soon anyway. His heart was bad. Mine is not. And don’t forget, none of this was my doing. Sophie orchestrated all of it. If anyone should feel guilty, I’d say it was Sophie.”

And me? I let it happen without interfering.

A little voice sets my spidey sense to tingling. Vampire reminds me: It may not be over yet.

Magic always exacts a price.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Do you think we should check on Sophie?” I ask when eleven thirty comes and goes and there’s still no sign of her.

Jonathan extracts himself from the chair. He’s so tightly wedged in beside Leticia that I expect his rising to produce a giant sucking sound as he gets up. “I’ll go use the house phone,” he says. “See what’s keeping her.”

Leticia and I wait in silence for his return. She has a wonderfully giddy expression on her face as she watches him cross the room. She’s in love.

Bitch.

No. That’s not fair. She’s been given a second chance and she’s not going to waste it. My skin prickles with envy.

Jonathan rejoins us. “That’s odd,” he says. “There’s no answer.”

But before we can comment, the elevator door opens.

Sophie’s eyes scan the lobby. When she spots us, she starts over.

Not the Sophie I left last night. Not the young, beautiful girl with shiny hair and sparkling eyes.

My breath catches. I hear Jonathan and Leticia gasp, too.

Only Sophie is smiling as if nothing is wrong. “It’s all right,” she says.

But is it? This Sophie walks with a slight stoop, her face lined and wrinkled, her hair gone white. Even her eyes are changed. Not the color, they’re still deep blue. But yesterday Sophie’s eyes were hard and stormy with discontent. Today they twinkle with contentment.

She exudes tranquility and the stillness of i

Leticia jumps up and offers Sophie her chair. Sophie sinks into it with a sigh.

“You look so troubled,” she says quietly. “Don’t be. I expected this might happen.”

Jonathan crouches down and takes her hand. “But you didn’t look…” He struggles with the words. “You didn’t look this old when you catered my party. What happened?”

Sophie squeezes his hand. “I had been experimenting with anti-ageing creams and lotions long before you came into the picture. Some worked pretty well. I may just try some of those formulas again. They’re all in my basement at the old house in Denver.”