The Dead of Night

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter 15: The Date

The days following Ary's great reveal were surprisingly relaxing. It seemed that, since she had divulged another of her secrets, Ary was more open around me. Any question I had about Lazarus, she would happily answer, but I kept the questions infrequent, knowing it still hurt her to talk about him. The following afternoon I was able to learn a few more things about his ability.

"So, Avarice said that his brother is telekinetic," I said over the lunch table. "Is that true?"

"No," Ary rolled her eyes while she ate her meal of bloody meat. As she chewed she seemed to mull over my question before answering. "Well, not exactly anyway. He's more of a mind controller than a telekinetic. I've never seen him move an inanimate object with his mind, but that doesn't negate the possibility that he could."

"A mind controller?" I quirked an eyebrow at her, curious to know more. The only vampire gifts I had experienced so far were Edward's mind reading—which never worked on me—Alice's clairvoyance, Jasper's empathic ability, and, recently, Avarice's shielding capabilities.

Ary nodded and took a deep breath, hearing and talking about Lazarus still caused her discomfort, but quickly regained her composure and continued. "He can control others and even hypnotize them."

"Wow." I chuckled softly, remembering when I had turned twelve and Renee had taken me to visit a hypnotist comedian. "That sounds interesting."

"It's definitely useful," Ary said, not looking up from her meal. "There are times when we don't want certain individuals remembering they've met us."

"Huh?"

Ary raised her eyebrows and grimaced a little bit, probably realizing that she'd said too much, but with a hesitant sigh she continued. "You've heard of hypnotists that can help a person diet or make someone forget their own family, right?" I nodded. The comedian I saw made a woman from the audience forget that she was human. My mother and I had giggled as the poor lady clucked around like a chicken. "Lazarus can do something similar, only it's much more permanent."

"How does he do it?" I gawked at Ary, recalling what Avarice had said about many fearing Lazarus for his ability. Who wouldn't be scared of someone who could instantly take away every memory you ever had?

"It's not like he actually removes the memories," she said in a hushed tone as a few of my friends walked by our table. Jessica Stanley rolled her eyes and continued walking beside Mike. Once they were out of hearing range, Ary raised her volume a bit. "It's more like he locks certain memories in a person's subconscious. I don't completely understand it myself."

We dropped the subject, even though I wanted to know more about it, and fell into a conversation about the local humans. According to Ary, Tyler had taken an extreme interest in her and made no attempt to hide it. I stifled a chuckle, while Ary gave a detailed explanation of Tyler's babbling attempt to ask her out, and was about to give my own history with Tyler when Ary's facial expression changed.

"Here he comes," she said and wiggled her eyebrows at me suggestively.