Argeneau Family - Vampires Are Forever Part 11

Inez seriously considered the blood order idea until it occurred to her that she might get a different delivery guy, and then someone else would know about what had happened tonight and instinct was telling her that wasn't a good idea.

"Just do it," Inez muttered to herself impatiently.

Taking a deep breath, she reached out and wrapped both hands carefully around the handle, trying not to jar it as she did. She then closed her eyes, counted to three, tightened her grip and jerked the knife up and out of his body, blinking her eyes open and glancing sharply toward Thomas's head when he groaned in pain. Unfortunately, Thomas's head was turned to the other side and she couldn't see if he was awake. However, when he didn't make another sound, she dropped the knife on the towels, and then had to move that towel aside so she could retrieve another one.

Turning back to Thomas, Inez tugged his T-s.h.i.+rt quickly from his jeans and peered at the wound, grimacing at the sight of the blood seeping out. It seemed to be flowing from him rather quickly. Biting her lip, she covered the wound with the towel and pressed down firmly, holding it there for a few minutes before lifting the now b.l.o.o.d.y towel away to see what was happening.

Thomas had said the nanos repaired and regenerated, but apparently it wasn't instantaneous like the vampires on television. The wound was still there, though it did seem as if the bleeding was slowing down. She pressed the towel to the wound again, waiting another few moments, and then lifted it for another inspection. The bleeding had definitely slowed down now.

Letting her breath out on a sigh of relief, Inez set the used towel aside and grabbed another, laying this one lightly over the wound, just to make sure the little bit of blood still seeping out didn't run down his side and drip on the floor, then she stood and moved to the cooler to retrieve a couple of bags of blood. Inez carried them back to Thomas and knelt beside him again, only to stare at him uncertainly. She had no idea how she was supposed to get the blood into him. If he were on his back, she'd just pop a hole in the bag and let it run into his mouth and hope he swallowed it. However, he was on his stomach.

Inez considered the problem for several moments and then sighed and simply laid the bags of blood beside his head so that he'd find them when he woke up.

If he woke up, Inez thought and frowned, but then recalled his saying that immortals couldn't be killed by most injuries. Not even a stake through the heart could kill them if it was removed quickly enough.

He'd wake up, she rea.s.sured herself. But now she had to go out and check the latest coordinates to see if she could find Marguerite. She didn't want Thomas's friend Herb calling back and wondering why they hadn't checked them out. Besides it was what they were there for. She started to stand and then knelt again as she recalled his phone. There was a good possibility Bastien might call to check on their progress and she thought it best if she had the phone if he did.

Gritting her teeth, Inez snaked her hand under Thomas's body, feeling around for his pocket. The knife was no longer in his back, but she still didn't want to jostle him too much and possibly worsen his injury. Finding his pocket, she slid her hand inside, caught the phone in her fingers with some difficulty and eased it out, her breath coming out on a gust of relief when she had it free.

Inez dropped it in her purse, and then slid the map out of his back pocket and put that in her purse as well as she got to her feet.

She hesitated then, feeling awful about leaving Thomas lying there. After a moment, she dropped to her knees again and slid one of the folded towels under his head as a pillow, then stood and headed for the door.

Chapter Eight.

It didn't take Inez long to find the new location on the map. The next spot was a lot closer to the hotel than the others had been. It was only a few minutes walk away. Inez set out at a quick clip, eager to get this over with. She ended up on Rembrandtplein, directly in front of a huge night club with a ridiculously large queue of people in front of it. Judging by the number of people waiting outside, there must be a colossal number of people inside. It would be loud, dark, crowded, and impossible to find Marguerite.

Closing her eyes briefly, Inez prayed for strength, or at least a little energy, and then stiffened as a phone rang. Digging quickly in her purse she found her phone, pulled it out, and opened it.

"Thomas?" Herb asked.

"No, it's Inez," she answered, having to speak loudly to be heard over the noise around her. Before he could ask where Thomas was, she quickly said, "The last coordinates are outside a large club called Escape. There's a huge queue out front waiting to get in and we're checking it out now."

Her eyes slid over the people in line, looking for the tall brunette as she continued, "But if she isn't in the line up, which she probably isn't since she could control the doorman's mind and make him let her go in, then we'll have to move the search inside.

But this place is really big. I'm guessing it holds well over a thousand people, and it will be dark and noisy and crowded inside and she'll be impossible to find. Please tell me the new coordinates are somewhere else and she was just pa.s.sing by here."

"They are," Herb answered.

Inez let her breath out on a sigh of relief and scrambled to find her pen and notepad to write down the coordinates as he rattled them off.

"Tell Thomas I'm going to check her coordinates again while you two head over that way. If she's still at the new location, fine. But if she's moved on again, I think it might be smarter to leave it until morning. Once the sun rises she'll stay in one place."

"All right," Inez murmured with relief. She was tired and didn't relish the idea of running all over Amsterdam tonight in search of a woman who was proving to be a ghost.

Inez said goodbye and hit the off b.u.t.ton and then glanced down at her purse as the sound of ringing came from its depths.

Thomas's phone, she realized and knew it would be Bastien checking on what was happening. Sighing, she grabbed Thomas's phone, dropped her own in the purse, and opened Thomas's.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Inez?" Bastien sounded startled that she was answering Thomas's phone and Inez grimaced, knowing she was going to have to lie. She hated lying.

"Thomas is in the bathroom," she said abruptly. "We've been running all over Amsterdam following Marguerite's phone and are about to check one more spot. If she isn't at this new stop, we're going to call it a night and wait until morning to try again.

Hopefully, she'll settle in one spot then and we'll be able to catch up to her."

"Oh," Bastien said, sounding somewhat startled.

Inez grimaced, knowing it was her terse tone that had set him aback, but she couldn't help it. She was a rotten liar. She hated doing it and didn't do it well.

"All right then. I guess that makes sense," Bastien murmured finally. "Tell Thomas to keep me informed."

"I will. Good night," Inez murmured and quickly pressed the b.u.t.ton to end the call before he could say anything else. Muttering under her breath then, she slipped the phone in her purse and then opened the map to figure out where she had to go to get to the next location. It appeared Marguerite was heading farther away from the town center and into quieter residential streets. Curious about that, she headed out to the next spot.

Ten minutes later, Inez found herself standing in a circle of light cast by a streetlamp on the edge of a dark, public park.

s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably, she peered into the dark tree-filled park, noting that a trio of young men were sitting on a bench near the center, laughing uproariously. They were loud, English, gregarious, and obviously drunk and she was reluctant to draw their attention by entering the park alone.

Having Thomas here would come in handy right now, Inez thought and wondered how he was doing. Had he woken up yet?

Had he found the bags of blood she'd left lying beside him? Had he healed? The only way to find out was to call the hotel, but Inez didn't have any idea what the hotel number was. Exhausted as she was, it seemed a lot of trouble to her to figure out the number for information in Amsterdam, call, get the hotel phone number, and then call the hotel. It would be easier just to get this over with and head back. Besides, she knew she was just stalling about going into the park alone.

"Coward," she muttered under her breath, took one step out of the circle of light and halted again. Dark, empty parks weren't exactly on the top of her list of safe places to go. After hesitating another moment, Inez suddenly pulled out Thomas's phone. It was extremely quiet here away from the noisy town center and, other than the three men, the park looked empty to her, but if she were to call Marguerite's number and her cell phone was anywhere around here, Inez thought she'd probably hear it ring and be able to follow it. She searched Thomas's digital phonebook for Marguerite's cell phone number, and was about to press the b.u.t.ton to call it when she heard a scuffling sound behind her.

Turning nervously, Inez found herself staring at an approaching man dressed all in black. For one minute she hoped it was Thomas, but then he stepped into the circle of light with her and she saw that he was the thin faced, dark-haired man she'd noted at one of the tables outside the restaurants earlier, the one who had looked familiar. She'd thought at the restaurant that she must have seen him in the airport, and she had, Inez suddenly realized, but not on the way to Amsterdam. He was the man who had stolen the taxi she'd hired to follow Thomas that morning after he'd left her standing in the airport, she realized suddenly and felt alarm begin to creep up her back.Surely it couldn't be coincidence that she kept seeing the man? Inez thought, stepping back as he continued forward. And then her mind went blank.

The ringing phone forced Thomas back to consciousness. The first thing he became aware of was pain. It was a pain he recognized, the full body agony of the hunger for blood, the acid sensation of the nanos infiltrating organs and tissue in search of what they needed. He then opened his eyes and saw red. Literally. Thomas's vision was filled with red. It took a moment for him to realize he was staring at a bag of blood lying directly in front of his face. The moment he did, he felt his teeth s.h.i.+ft and shot his hand up to grab the bag and shove it into them.

A slow, relieved sigh slid around the bag in his mouth as he felt the blood rus.h.i.+ng up his teeth and into his system. His pain began to ease at once as the nanos rushed back into his blood stream to collect the fresh blood entering. Thomas just lay where he was, ignoring the phone as he waited for the first bag to empty. The moment it did, he pulled the bag free and replaced it with the second bag lying there.

It was as he waited for the second bag to empty that Thomas's brain began to function properly again. His first thought was to wonder how the bags had got there, and then to wonder where there was, and what he was doing wherever he was. It only took a quick glance around what he could see of the room to recognize the hotel suite. He was lying on his stomach on the floor, seriously deplete of blood. The second bag was nearly empty when he recalled the rest of the night and how he'd ended up where he was.

His own b.l.o.o.d.y stupidity was how he'd ended up there. No one had ever claimed h.o.r.n.y men thought with their heads. Thomas could now verify this was true. He didn't think he'd used his head since realizing he'd consumed a bag of S.E.C. Attacking Inez in the alley, and then attacking three drunken idiots in a fit of jealousy...

First, he'd displayed his unnatural strength by lifting the blonde off his feet with one hand, and then he'd actually flashed his fangs!

Fortunately, Thomas didn't think anyone but the brunette had seen and no one was likely to believe the account of a half-drunk, half-stoned idiot.

Now that he was beginning to think again, Thomas was concerned about other things. Like, where was Inez? And was the knife still in his back? All it took was a quick glance over his shoulder to see that the knife was no longer protruding from his lower back. He then saw it lying on top of a towel next to a stack of three or four more fresh towels and a small pile of blood-soaked ones.

Obviously, Inez had removed the knife from his back and staunched the flow of blood, then retrieved a couple of bags for him, but where was she now? In her bed was his guess. She'd been exhausted and beginning to flag before they'd reached the small bevy of restaurants and bars where he'd had her sit at one of the tables to watch the entrances while he checked inside each.

Sighing, Thomas pulled the second, now empty, bag from his mouth and got carefully to his feet. There was only the slightest twinge from his back, telling him it was mostly healed. And the acidy cramps that had been attacking him from head to toe were much eased by the two bags, but he'd probably need another couple of bags at least before they were gone entirely. Moving to the cooler on the table, he retrieved a third bag and popped it to his teeth and then stood there with another bag in hand as he waited for this one to drain. He was about to switch bags when the hotel room phone began to ring.

Recalling that a phone's ringing was what had woken him, Thomas tore the empty bag from his teeth and moved to the end table beside the sofa to answer it before it woke Inez.

"Thomas!" Herb sounded relieved to hear his voice. "I was getting worried. I couldn't reach you on your cell phone or Inez's and was beginning to think the two of you had disappeared right alongside your aunt."

"No," Thomas a.s.sured him quietly and reached into his pocket for his cell phone', only to find that it was missing from his pocket.

Startled, he felt each of his pockets in turn, wondering if he'd put it in one of the others, but there was no phone.

"Obviously you aren't at the park anymore. Did you find your aunt there?"Thomas gave up looking for his phone and straightened, confusion flowing through him. "The park?"

"I checked a map, the location I sent you both to after the Escape night club should have been a park," Herb explained. "Did you go to the wrong place? Maybe Inez misheard what I said. It sounded like it was noisy where you were."

Thomas stood still for a minute and then barked, "Hang on."

Setting the phone down on the end table, he turned and strode into Inez's room. He didn't bother to turn on the lights, his night vision was exceptional and he could see the bed was still made and unslept in. Cursing, Thomas whirled to hurry out of the room, but froze as the bedroom door leading out into the hotel hall suddenly opened. Pausing, he glanced to the door. His breath came out on a sigh of relief as he recognized Inez's pet.i.te figure stepping inside, then the door closed again. Thomas immediately moved to flip on the light switch in the room. Light exploded around them as he turned to peer at Inez, and then he saw her face and froze. It was completely blank, no expression at all and her eyes were empty.

"Inez?" he said, approaching her carefully.

She didn't respond to either his presence or his voice until he was standing directly in front of her and then she simply moved around him, saying expressionlessly, "I'm very tired and have to go to bed now."

Thomas turned slowly and watched her walk to the bed. She immediately began to strip, apparently uncaring that he was there.

He watched her undo and shrug out of her blouse, but then turned and left the room, his expression grim with concern as he returned to the living room and picked up the phone again.

"Herb, tell me everything that you know after I called you from the restaurants," he said grimly.

There was a moment of silence and then Herb said, "But you know what happened. I gave you the next location. It turned out to be a night club called Escape and-"

"You told me? Or you told Inez?" he asked quietly.

"Well, Inez. You were in the bathroom or something," Herb said and then fell silent for a moment before saying, "You weren't in the bathroom were you?"

"No. I was here at the hotel."

"But you didn't answer the first time I called. What-?"

"It doesn't matter now," Thomas interrupted grimly. "Just tell me what happened."

Herb explained about the Escape club and then sending Inez to the next spot in the park, ending with, "I checked the location again while she was on the way there, thinking that if your aunt had moved on again, we should call it a night and try at sunrise when she should stay in one spot, but it came back as the same location. However, when I tried to call you back on Inez's phone to tell you that, she didn't answer. So, I tried your phone again, and then I thought to try the hotel."

Thomas was silent for a moment, and then asked, "Is this your second try calling the hotel or your first?"

"First," Herb answered, sounding curious.

"The other call must have been Bastien, then," Thomas muttered.

"Inez didn't find Marguerite at the park, did she?" Herb asked.

"No, I don't think so," Thomas said, though he wasn't sure at this point that she hadn't.

"Do you want me to check her location again and-?" "No," Thomas said quickly. He had no intention of leaving Inez alone to go looking for his aunt. At least, not until he was sure she was all right. It seemed obvious to him that someone had taken control of Inez. But why?

"No," he repeated. "We'll try again in the morning, at sunrise if that's all right with you?"

"That's fine," Herb a.s.sured him.

"Good. Thanks, Herb. I'll talk to you in the morning, then."

Thomas hung up quickly, eager to return to Inez to be sure she was all right, but he'd barely taken a step away from the phone before it began to ring again. Knowing it would be Bastien, and that he'd have to tell him what happened, Thomas grimaced as he picked up the phone and said h.e.l.lo.

"Thomas." Bastien sounded relieved and Thomas supposed he'd tried both cell phones before resorting to the hotel phone and- like Herb-had worried when he wasn't able to reach them. "Was she there at the last spot?"

Thomas hesitated, and then admitted, "I don't know if she was or not."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Bastien asked with confusion. "Either she was or she wasn't."

"I don't know," Thomas repeated and then explained the night's events to his cousin, ending with, "Inez was blank-faced when she came in and all she said was she was very tired and had to go to bed now, and then she started to strip right there in front of me, her expression still blank."

"Someone took control of her," Bastien said sounding grim.

"That would be my guess," Thomas agreed.

"You don't think Mother would have...?" He didn't finish the question.

"I don't know, Bastien. I don't know what the h.e.l.l is going on. Why isn't Aunt Marguerite answering her phone? She obviously has it on her. It isn't walking around Amsterdam on its own."

His older cousin was silent for a minute and then said, "I don't know, I'm too tired to even think right now."

"You should go to bed and get some rest," Thomas said quietly. "You haven't slept since I left Canada, have you?"

"No, but-"

"I don't want to leave Inez alone right now. Not until I'm sure that coming in and going right to bed is the only order whoever controlled her put in her mind."

"I wish you could read her memory to see what happened," Bastien muttered.

"If she has any memory of what happened," Thomas said quietly. "It may have been tampered with too. In fact, it probably was."

"Yes," Bastien agreed on a sigh. "Okay, I guess I'll go to bed, then, but call me as soon as you find out anything."

"I will," Thomas a.s.sured him and the two men said good night and both hung up.

Thomas finally slapped the fourth bag of blood to his teeth, and then a fifth. The bad news was he'd lost a lot of blood from the wound to his back. The good news was he'd lost a lot of blood from the wound to his back. Thomas was pretty sure the worst of the S.E.C. was out of his system. He certainly wasn't feeling h.o.r.n.y right now, or if he was feeling a little, it was easily overcome by his worry for Inez.Pulling the last bag from his teeth, he closed the cooler, and then quickly cleaned up the mess in the room, removing the knife and b.l.o.o.d.y towels. He'd have to toss the towels to prevent upsetting housekeeping, Thomas supposed. He retrieved the small clear garbage bag from the garbage can in his bathroom, put the towels and empty blood bags in, and then put his cooler on the upper shelf in his closet. Once a.s.sured that there was nothing left lying around to upset housekeeping, he went through the suite, locking all three doors leading out into the hall, the one in his room, the living room door, and finally hers.

Thomas then moved to the side of the bed to peer down at Inez. She was sleeping peacefully and he peered at her for the longest time, his eyes just drifting over her face; from her closed eyes, to her sweet nose, to her full lips, and back, and then he eased onto the bed beside her, settling himself on top of the blankets next to where she slept under them. Thomas really wasn't comfortable leaving her alone knowing that someone had taken control of her mind. He wanted to stay near to make sure it didn't happen again, and also to be close by in case she needed him.