Bite Me if You Can (6 page)

“I was afraid you would not get here before we left, Lucian.” Marguerite reached his side and leaned up to kiss his cheek.

He stiffened under her greeting. “You knew I was coming?”

“Yes, Mortimer called both Bastien and myself after you left Kansas City. How was your flight?”

“Fine,” Lucian answered absently, nodding in response to Etienne’s smile of greeting as the man rushed out the door with the suitcases. “What’s going on? And what do you mean before you left? What about the girl?”

“I took care of everything,” she assured him. “As soon as I got off the phone with Mortimer, I immediately arranged to have blood delivered, then set up Lissianna’s old room for her.”

“What about drugs?” Lucian asked with concern.

“On the bedside table.”

He nodded.

Marguerite patted his arm, then pressed something into his hand and turned to head out the front door. “I’m so glad you got here before we left. I didn’t want to leave the keys under the front mat. I was afraid you wouldn’t think to look there.”

Lucian glanced down and opened his hand to reveal the keys she’d pressed into his palm. Her keys. To the house, the car, the—Snapping his hand closed, he hurried after her, pausing to step out of the way as Thomas struggled through the door carrying the girl and the IV. He waited impatiently for him to move off up the hall, then hurried out the door, toward Marguerite, who was fussing over the way Etienne was placing the last two bags in the back of the van.

“What do you mean before you left?” Lucian asked again as he reached her side. “Where are you going?”

“That’ll do,” Marguerite decided, apparently now satisfied with the placement. “Thank you, Etienne.”

She patted his shoulder as he closed the side door, then turned to answer Lucian, only to pause, her gaze shooting past him. “Thomas! Get over here and give me a kiss good-bye.”

Lucian shifted impatiently and glanced over his shoulder as the younger man rushed over to kiss and hug her, saying, “Have a good trip.”

“I will, thank you. And you stay out of trouble while I’m gone,” she ordered lightly.

“I’ll do my best,” Thomas assured her with a grin, then turned to step out of the way as Lucian glared at him.

“Marguerite—” he began as she turned to open the front passenger door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

His sister-in-law stepped up into the van and reached for the seat belt as she answered. “To Europe. Don’t you remember? I have a job there. I told you about it last week.”

Yes, she had, Lucian realized, but he’d forgotten all about it. “But who’s going to look after the girl?”

She finished snapping her seat belt into place, then glanced at him with surprise. “Why, I thought you were going to, Lucian.”

“Why would I have brought her here if I was going to look after her?”

“I did wonder about that,” Marguerite admitted. When he opened his mouth again, she added, “I knew you weren’t arrogant enough to expect me to change all my plans and neglect the first job I’ve had in seven hundred years, in order to handle a problem you chose to take on.”

Lucian snapped his mouth closed.

Marguerite smiled and leaned out to kiss his cheek, then pulled the passenger door closed and leaned forward in her seat to smile at him through the window. “She’s very pretty.”

“Yes,” he agreed, distracted.

“I did wonder what had moved you to help her. You don’t generally collect strays, and aren’t known for your mercy, but now I see. Congratulations, take good care of her.”

Lucian scowled and was about to protest, but she’d turned to glance at Etienne as the younger man started the van.

“Let’s go, Etienne,” he heard her say, then she turned to peer out at him again as she added, “By the way, Julius is still here. The woman from the kennel was supposed to be here about ten minutes ago. She’s late. Julius and all of his things—along with the special instructions for his medicine—are in the kitchen. Just send her in there when she gets here, won’t you?”

Lucian nodded, his heart sinking as he watched the van pull away. It had nearly reached the road when he recalled Thomas. He turned toward where the car should have been, eager to enlist his aid, and frowned when he saw the car was gone. The lad had snuck off while he was distracted, probably hoping to get away before he could be recruited for the chore ahead.

Well, his dear nephew thought wrong. Lucian strode into the hall and snatched up the phone, then stared blankly at the ridiculous number of buttons and symbols on the huge dial pad. It was as bad as an airplane cockpit. Shaking his head, he began to punch buttons randomly until he got a dial tone. He’d barely heard the blessed sound before a scream rent the air from the living room.

It was Leigh again. Great.

Lucian ignored it and punched the button with Thomas’s name beside it. Marguerite had all of her brood on speed dial, and she counted Thomas and his sister Jeanne Louise among them. By the time the phone began to ring, a dog’s howl had joined the chorus of shrieking.

Julius, Lucian thought, closing his eyes as he listened to the phone ringing and willed his nephew to pick up. He let it ring until it cut out then dialed again. After three tries he cursed and slammed the phone down impatiently.

“Julius, shut up!” Lucian roared as he stormed up the hall. The dog obeyed at once, cutting the cacophony of sound in half. He only wished the woman could be silenced so easily.

Lucian followed the screams into the living room and surveyed the scene. The blood bag was empty, which was a good thing because the girl had thrashed about enough to dislodge the IV from her arm, leaving it to leak onto Marguerite’s snow white carpet. Fortunately, there were only a couple of drops to worry about. Not that he would.

Marching across the room, Lucian glared down at the woman and opened his mouth to order her to silence as well. But he knew from prior experience that wouldn’t work. Grimacing, he pulled the earplugs out of his pocket once more and popped them in his ears, decreasing the noise to a faint roar.

Feeling a little more composed now that his ears weren’t assaulted by her high-pitched screeches, Lucian bent and scooped her into his arms, then carried her out of the living room. He’d almost reached the stairs before he noticed the woman standing, gaping, in the open front door.

“Oh, you must be here about Marguerite’s dog, Julius!” he said, his voice rising to a shout because of the earplugs and the muffled shrieks of the woman in his arms. Lucian glanced back over his shoulder toward the kitchen door at the end of the hall, adding, “He’s in the kitchen. Marguerite said all his stuff is in there, too. As well as some instructions... ”

Lucian’s voice faded away and he tilted his head with a frown as he realized a second noise had joined the muffled shrieks of the woman in his arms. It took a moment for him to realize it was Julius barking again. He grimaced, but supposed the dog had heard him shout his name and was now excited. Lucian shrugged. Not his problem anymore, the dog-lady could deal with it.

He turned back and opened his mouth to shout again, only to pause as he noted the dog-lady was staring at the woman in his arms with abject horror. Lucian glanced down. Leigh’s hair was damp with sweat, her face deathly pale, her white top bloodstained, and she was flopping around in his arms like a fish landed on a boat with a hook in its mouth. And speaking of mouths, hers was open on the screams she didn’t seem able to stop at the moment, shrieks of combined agony and horror.

Oh yeah, Lucian thought dryly, this couldn’t look good.

Sighing inwardly, he raised his gaze to the dog-lady, planning to do the mind zap bit, only to find himself staring at blank space. The woman was gone. Frowning, Lucian stepped up to the door, arriving just in time to see a white van screech off down the driveway.

“Hey!” he roared. “What about Julius?”

The van didn’t even slow down. Lucian scowled after the vehicle with impotent fury as it careened out onto the road, then he turned back into the house. He’d just kicked the door shut with one foot when the kitchen door at the end of the hall burst open and a mass of black fur exploded up the hall toward him.

Apparently, Julius had heard his name being shouted and worked frantically to get to him. And succeeded, Lucian realized with alarm.

Julius was a Neapolitan mastiff. He was black as night, thirty inches tall, and weighed in at a little over two hundred pounds. He was also presently dragging a gutted bag of garbage that he’d obviously attacked and somehow gotten caught around his back left leg. Empty cans and various bits of debris were spilling out every which way as the dog charged toward him, and the large jowls of his ridiculously wrinkly face swung to and fro, drool flying every which way as he ran.

Lucian instinctively bared his fangs and hissed at the oncoming dog. Rather than lunge up to plant his paws on Lucian’s chest—which would have done further damage to the woman he carried—Julius skidded to a halt, his hind end sliding out from under him on the marble floor. He nearly crashed into Lucian’s feet, but fortunately managed to regain his footing at the last moment and turned to charge up the stairs, away from Lucian’s wrath, dragging the garbage bag with him.

Lucian watched the dog disappear along the upper hall. He then let his gaze drop slowly over the trail of discarded newspapers, cans, leftover food, and other detritus Julius had left in his wake, and felt a headache begin somewhere behind his right eye.

Leigh’s head was throbbing. It felt like someone was crushing her skull. Slowly. She’d never experienced pain like this. It was accompanied by a bad case of cotton mouth and stomach cramps like she’d never known. Basically, she felt like hell.

A groan started to slip from her lips, but the pain it caused in both her dry throat and her head made her abruptly cut it off. She tried to blink her eyes open, but the sudden assault from the light made the pain in her head roar and she quickly closed them again.

This was bad. Very bad. She hadn’t felt this bad since... well, ever, she realized. She’d had broken bones, colds, flus, chicken pox, and every other childhood ailment, but didn’t recall feeling anything like this.

After several moments of lying still didn’t do anything to ease her pain, Leigh decided she’d have to get up and find some aspirins or something. And water. She was so dehydrated her tongue felt like sandpaper. It would also—she hoped—help remove the nasty taste in her mouth.

Mentally bracing herself against the coming pain, Leigh eased her eyes open, only to close them again as the pain in her head ratcheted up a notch.

Aspirin, she reminded herself. And water. Just a dozen steps to her bathroom and she could have both. Maybe she could manage getting there without opening her eyes. She’d lived in her little house for two years, surely she could find the bathroom without opening her eyes? If I can walk, she added, as worry claimed her. As bad as she felt, it was possible she might be too weak to get around.

Leigh took a deep breath, then managed to sit up on the bed. The small action left her panting and breathless. Oh, this can’t be good, she thought vaguely, then became aware of a tugging on her arm every time she moved it and forced one eye open to peer down.

Spying the tape wrapped around her arm, she blinked her other eye open in surprise and stared with confusion, then noted the tube sticking out of it and followed that up to an empty bag hanging from a stand beside the bed. The bag was empty, but there were traces of a red liquid pooled in the bottom, and a label on the bag with a large O and Rh positive under it.

Blood?

Her head turned slowly as she examined the room, and she realized with dismay that it wasn’t her cozy bedroom in the home she’d purchased and decorated so lovingly. This was a room she’d never seen before—a large blue room with a sitting area to one side that included a couch, a coffee table, and chairs. There were a set of double doors, obviously to a closet, and two other doors besides.

A prickly sensation of fear crept up the back of her neck, and she began to recall some of what had happened the night before. Donny stopping her on a dark street. Her anger with him. Turning to walk away, then losing control of her body, and then... Morgan.

Leigh stiffened as she recalled him biting her and giving her blood in the back of the van. The van had stopped at an ugly old house that seemed about to collapse in on itself. Morgan carried her inside and downstairs into a cold damp basement. She’d stared in horror at the coffins there, and the pale, hard-faced people, then he took her into a tiny room that held just a cot. Then Donny was leaning over her, telling her everything would be all right. He’d chosen her. They would live forever.

She remembered shaking her head, trying to get past the pain throbbing in her temples as he’d gone on about vampires and eternal life. She hadn’t listened to most of it; her mind had been fixed on only one thing: she knew she had to get out of there.

And she had, Leigh recalled. With Morgan gone, she’d had control of her body once more. She’d managed to stay conscious despite the pain and weakness that assailed her, and suspected Donny had unintentionally helped her. He’d been as solicitous as a lover, covering her with a blanket as he promised a happy ever after and an eternity of wonderful nights in their own little coffin built for two.

Every word he’d said had fueled the fury burning in her, so that when he finally left the room, she somehow managed to gain her feet and stumble to the door to make her escape. She’d made it all the way upstairs and into the kitchen without interference.

But what happened then? She had a vague, fuzzy dreamlike memory of three men in the kitchen. She’d recognized two of them, since they were at Coco’s every night that week, eating at the bar because they showed up so late. The third man was blond with chiseled features, as gorgeous as a Greek god come to life.

It must have been a dream, she decided. No man could be that good-looking.

She glanced around the room again. Had she escaped from that house? Perhaps she was still there, but in a different room. She had no idea, except that this wasn’t her own room in her own cozy home.