Hourglass

скачать книгу бесплатно


The wraith, floating next to me, had whispered, The two of you have mutual friends.

In the dream I hadn’t known him. But I recognized him now.

“There,” I whispered. “Is that—is he—?”

“You mean, a vampire?” Raquel peered at him with interest, as did Milos.

My heart sank. Had I just identified a vampire to the hunters? A vampire who was passing by without their notice? Had I just gotten him killed?

The dreadlocked vampire was in his element, though. He strolled beneath one building’s dark-green canopy, nodded at the doorman, and went on in—safe at home.

I breathed out in relief, too loudly. Milos shot me a look. “You don’t want to fight? You’re with the wrong group.”

“Give her a break,” Raquel said. “It’s still scary for us, okay? We’ll get tough in time.”

“Maybe you will at that.” Milos kept staring at the apartment door. “We’ll have to do a stakeout here sometime—no pun intended. For now we check the back alleys. See who else is roaming around here and not nearly ready to go home.”

We continued searching the neighborhood, and to my immense relief, Raquel and I were able to split off from Milos. Raquel kept gushing on and on about how smart I was to spot a vampire like that, when he wasn’t up to anything and didn’t have any of the signs. It just made me feel like more of a traitor.

I cast around for something else to talk about and, almost at random, said, “Hey, where were you guys when we came back last night? You didn’t respond to Eliza’s call.”

“Oh. Dana and I were…”

“Were what?”

Raquel paused. It wasn’t like her to avoid a simple question. Ducking around a lady on the sidewalk who carried three big shopping bags in each hand, I repeated, “Were what?”

“We were off together on our own. Alone. So we’d have some—you know—some space.”

I shrugged. What was the big deal?

Then I saw the hesitation on Raquel’s face, and the hopeful light in her eyes, and I realized that I was just about the blindest person on the face of the earth. “You and Dana are—”

“Me and Dana.” Raquel grinned, the brightest smile I’d ever seen on her face, just for a split second, like she couldn’t hold it in any longer. But her uncertainty returned quickly. “That doesn’t make you feel weird, does it?”

“Some,” I confessed, “but only because you never said anything. After all the stuff we’ve told each other, you could’ve told me this.”

“You never know who’s going to be strange about it. Besides, you kept trying to fix me up with guys.”

“I tried to fix you up with Vic. One guy. Not plural.” My head was spinning a little. At least talking about her love life had distracted Raquel—and me. “I just never guessed.”