Night of the Vampires by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

outside and around the corner. I wanted some time alone with you. Besides, it’s her job. She serves me. And she’s paid to do it,” Lisette said, waving a hand dismissively in the air.
    She might be a mouse—a paid mouse—but Cole didn’t intend to be that rude. He walked over to the woman, extending his hand. “How do you do, Trudy? I’m Cole Granger.”
    The young woman flushed and nervously shook his hand. “I’m fine, thank you, sir. How do you do?”
    â€œWell enough, thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
    Lisette slipped her arm through his. “Come. I have things to discuss with you.” She moved ahead. Trudy waited, then followed them at a distance.
    Lisette didn’t speak at first as they walked from the house toward the mall, all manner of men and women moving past them, many of them soldiers. Though it had grown immensely and was a bevy of storage, manufacturing, industry and all things associated with war, there was still something inviting about the Union capital. The president spoke daily with his constituents—and his enemies—in the White House. He took his carriage out daily, often with his Mary, and despite the fact that there were those who despised him for the war, Lincoln was a man of the people. Cole had only seen him at a distance and heard him speak to crowds; Alexandra Fox knew him. She had been arrested for knowing what she shouldn’t have known once because Alex had her ownspecial gift. Her dreams could be prophetic. And she had tried to stop a battle, which had meant that she had found herself arrested for espionage. Lincoln had stepped in. They were friends.
    Alex was no form of monster, as Cody sometimes called himself. But she was a different person. She had those dreams, or dream-visions. Alex often said that it might just be intuition, her senses warning her of what was to come.
    She had never—she had assured Cole once—ever seen what the war would become.
    â€œThis is extremely distressing,” Lisette said, when they had come to the Mall at last, looking to make sure that Trudy was still a good distance behind them. The great expanse divided the streets and had been designed as park area—though it was now most often muddy terrain where troops drilled—and it finally seemed to afford Lisette some sense that they were isolated enough to speak freely. They stood in front of the Castle, the first building of the Smithsonian Institution, where even now, in the midst of the war, the work of scientists went on. James Smithson had never set foot in the United States, but the country’s dream of democracy had appealed to him, and he’d bequeathed the funds to an ideal. While troops drilled, business went on, and so the museum and the Mall were dreams and ideals loved by the people, constants amid chaos.
    â€œThis?” Cole asked.
    â€œMegan Fox,” Lisette said.
    â€œWe didn’t bring her. She found us last night at the prison.”
    â€œConvenient. Are you certain that she hadn’t been in the prison?”
    â€œShe had several chances to inflict damage on us and she didn’t,” Cole said. “She seemed to be fighting with us.”
    â€œSeemed!” Lisette said.
    Cole listened to the sounds of the street, children still being children, playing on doorsteps and in patches of grass, carriage wheels running over potholes, line riders avoiding those potholes and even the rustle of fabric as ladies picked up their cumbersome skirts to cross the streets.
    â€œSeemed?” Lisette repeated sharply.
    â€œLook,” Cole said. “I’m here with Cody and Brendan on a mission. I’m not here as part of a war. Cody says that she’s his sister, and that’s that in my book. I don’t believe she’s here on a sinister quest to rid the country of Union forces by setting forth a league of vampires. Take the war out of this when you’re