by Lynsay Sands
“Yes,” she repeated. “I’d still want to let him go, even if I’d known it meant he wouldn’t come back and treat me.”
“I knew you’d say that,” Thomas told her, then glanced in the rearview mirror at his sister, and added, “and that’s why I didn’t stop his leaving.”
No one said anything, and they remained silent for the rest of the return journey. It wasn’t until Thomas was parking the van in the garage several moments later that anyone spoke, and then it was Julianna.
“Uh-oh. She looks mad.” The words were a half whisper.
Lissianna glanced up from unbuckling her seat belt and grimaced when she spotted her mother in the open door between the garage and the house. Marguerite Argeneau did indeed look angry. Furious even. It seemed Mother was up early, too. Sighing, Lissianna let her seat belt retract into its holder and reached for the door handle.
“Wait for us,” Juli cried, scrambling to join her as the van was filled with the sound of the door sliding on its track. “We’re all in this together, remember.”
Jeanne Louise caught Lissianna’s eye then and smiled encouragingly. “It won’t be so bad,” she assured her doubtfully. “I mean, how mad can she be?”
Pretty mad, Lissianna decided several moments later as she watched her mother pace in front of her.
Marguerite had waited until they’d all climbed out of the van and walked to meet her, then snapped, “Come,” and led them into the house, then to the front living room, where Aunt Martine was waiting. She had led them just far enough into the living room that they were all inside, but not far enough that any of them could claim a seat, then had turned to eye them coldly and demanded an explanation. It was Lissianna who had blurted that they’d taken Greg home. What seemed like an hour later, but was probably only a couple of minutes, Marguerite was still pacing up and down in front of them, struggling to control her mounting fury.
Finally, she turned to face them. Her mouth worked briefly, apparently at a loss as to what to say, then she shook her head, and asked, “You what?”
Lissianna bit her lip at the look of horror on her mother’s face. She’d feared she wouldn’t take it well but had thought she’d be angry. She hadn’t expected her to react as if she’d just heard the townsfolk were rushing the house with torches and stakes in hand.
“Mother,” Lissianna said on a sigh, “he was upset. He’d missed his flight, and—”
“He wouldn’t have missed anything,” Marguerite interrupted with irritation. “I would have put memories of a great vacation in his mind. He would have returned home as relaxed and happy as he would have been had he gone on a real vacation. Perhaps more so because he would have avoided all the real-life stresses of a normal vacation like delayed fights, security checks, sunburn, and food poisoning.”
Marguerite closed her eyes and let her breath out on a little sigh, then turned to move toward the bar and the refrigerator behind it, as she asked, “So, what memories did you give him?”
“Memories?” Lissianna asked blankly, her gaze sliding with alarm to her compatriots in the crime. They were all looking just as blank as she felt.
“To replace his memories of being here,” Marguerite explained, then, scowling into the refrigerator, she muttered, “Damn, we’re almost out of blood. We went through almost all of it last night at the party.”
“Bastien is sending more over today,” Martine reminded her.
“Oh. Yes.” Marguerite relaxed a little, but continued to peer over the contents of the refrigerator with dissatisfaction, probably wishing she could grab one of the few remaining bags and slap it to her teeth, but knowing she couldn’t if she wanted Lissianna to stay conscious. “So?” she asked finally. “What memories did you give him to replace his being here?”
“Uhm.” Lissianna glanced at the others, then sighed, and admitted, “I didn’t.”
Marguerite had bent to move things around in the refrigerator, but froze now and slowly straightened. If her mother had looked horrified before, it was nothing compared to her expression now. “Excuse me?” she said faintly. “You didn’t what? Please tell me you didn’t leave that man wandering around with full knowledge of our existence in his head? Please tell me that you wiped his memory and gave him new ones to replace them as you’ve been taught to do.”
Lissianna sighed. She’d been raised from childhood having it drummed into her head that mortals always had to have their memories wiped. Mortals could not be left with any knowledge at all of their people’s existence. It was a threat to all of them. After two hundred years, that was a lot of drumming. Yet, she’d let him go without doing so.
“I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to. I couldn’t get into his thoughts, not even to read his mind, remember,” she said.
Aunt Martine looked startled. “You could not read his mind?”
“No.”
Aunt Martine glanced toward Marguerite. Lissianna’s mother opened her mouth, probably to explode with vitriol, but Elspeth rushed to Lissianna’s defense, saying, “It’s okay Aunt Marguerite, Greg doesn’t know anything about us or what we are.”
“Right. As far as he’s concerned we’re just crackpots, not vampires,” Thomas put in, the comment making Lissianna frown.
“Besides,” Elspeth said, “if he did try to claim he was kidnapped or anything, no one would believe him. He climbed into the trunk under his own free will, and that shows on the security tapes in the parking garage.”
“The only thing he could complain about is being kept overnight and missing his flight,” Jeanne Louise pointed out. “And the authorities would just think it was some sex game that went overtime, and he wanted to get a refund on his ticket.”
Marguerite closed the refrigerator door with a snap. “That would be his argument, of course.”
Lissianna silently cursed. The moment she’d heard Jeanne spout the bit about sex games, she’d known it was a mistake. Jeanne Louise was the most conservative of the group and the last one to normally go around spouting terms like sex games.
Marguerite walked back around the bar to face them. “What about his neck?”
“His neck?” Lissianna stared at her in confusion.
“You bit him,” Thomas reminded her under his breath, his tone of voice making it obvious he, too, had forgotten that fact.
“Oh…yes.” Lissianna felt her heart sink. She usually made sure to put it in a host’s head that her bite mark was a shaving cut and to keep it bandaged until it healed. Or that it was the result of some fluke accident with a two-pronged barbecue fork. She hadn’t been able to put that thought into Greg’s mind though. She’d forgotten all about the bite. This was bad. He would see it and wonder. He might even go to a hospital or the doctor’s to have it checked out, allowing others to see it. Her expression became worried, and she admitted miserably, “I forgot all about biting him. I didn’t—”
“Never mind,” Marguerite interrupted with a sigh. “I will take care of it.”
“How?” Lissianna asked anxiously.
Her mother considered, then said, “I’ll pay him a quick visit and wipe his memory as well as plant a viable explanation for the bite marks.”
“I’m sorry,” Lissianna murmured, feeling bad. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about biting him. It had been an unforgettable experience at the time.
“Not as sorry as I am, dear,” Marguerite said. “I was really counting on his being able to cure your phobia.” Her disappointment was obvious and just added to Lissianna’s guilt, especially when she scowled at her, and added, “How many times have I told you it’s rude to return a gift?”
“I can make an appointment with him for after his vacation,” Lissianna suggested, trying to make amends.
“Lissianna, if it were that easy, I would have made an appointment for you ages ago,” Marguerite pointed out. “But you know we can’t veil a memory more than a couple of times without risking the veil failing altogether. They build up a resistance. Some part of them recognizes y
ou and it gets harder and harder each time. Once or twice is fine, but more than that isn’t recommended. That’s why I was so excited about Dr. Hewitt being able to cure phobias in one or two visits. I thought we could bring him here, let him cure you, keep him till the end of his vacation to be sure it took, then wipe his memory and send him on his way.”
“Well, I’ll just—” Lissianna shrugged helplessly. “I’ll make an appointment with someone else. There must be another therapist who knows the technique,” she pointed out. “If it only takes a try or two, then we can wipe his memory afterward.”
“Yes, but who?”
There was silence in the room for a moment, then Aunt Martine said calmly, “We can ask Dr. Hewitt for the name of a competent psychologist who deals with this sort of thing before we wipe his memory.”
Marguerite turned to glance at her sister-in-law as she got to her feet. “We?”
“Well.” Martine shrugged. “You didn’t think I’d leave you to have to deal with this on your own, did you? My girls helped set him free, so I’ll help you clean up the mess the children have made.”
When Marguerite hesitated, Martine said, “It shouldn’t take long. Perhaps on the way back we could stop for a manicure and do some shopping. Everything here is so much less expensive than in England.”
The tension eased from Marguerite’s shoulders, and she nodded. “That would be nice. Then we can drop into the grocery store. I need to pick up food for the twins for your stay here.”
Lissianna began to relax as the women moved toward the door, then stiffened again when her mother glanced back, catching her with a piercing look. “I know you have to go to work soon, Lissianna, but you will come back here afterward, won’t you? I think you should stay here this week so that you can visit with your cousins, don’t you?”
Despite the phrasing, these were not questions and Lissianna—already in trouble over Greg—didn’t want to ruffle any more feathers, so simply nodded a yes.
“Good. I’ll expect you after work,” she said firmly, before her gaze skated to Thomas and Jeanne Louise. “It wouldn’t hurt the two of you to spend some time with your cousins as well.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jeanne Louise said promptly.
Thomas merely grinned, and said, “You know me, Aunt Marguerite. I’m always happy to spend time with lovely ladies.”
Smiling faintly, she glanced at Mirabeau. “You’re welcome to stay, too, dear.”
“Oh…er…”
Lissianna smiled with amusement, aware that Mirabeau was searching desperately for a polite excuse to refuse the offer. Before she could come up with anything, Marguerite said, “Good,” then turned to follow Martine from the room.
Thomas chuckled. “Welcome to the family, Mirabeau.”
Chapter 8
Greg hung up the phone and sat back on the couch to stare around his living room with something like bewilderment. After all his fretting over his flight to Cancún, he actually hadn’t missed anything. The flight had been canceled anyway because of technical difficulties…whatever that meant.
Greg had tried to book a seat on the next available flight, only to find out the next open seat wasn’t until Wednesday. It had seemed stupid to him to spend all day Wednesday in airports and airplanes, just for two days in Cancún before his flight back Saturday, so Greg had spent the past half hour canceling his hotel and return flight.
While the last twenty-four hours had been the most unusual—not to mention stressful—of his life, they hadn’t affected his vacation plans at all. Those had obviously been doomed anyway. It seemed fate had something other than a week of sun, sand, and half-naked gyrating women planned for him, Greg thought, rubbing absently at his neck.
His super was the first person who had noticed his neck. The man had stepped off the elevator with a wide smile, commenting, “Locked yourself out, huh?” Then he’d peered at him more closely, and said, “What’s that on your neck? A vampire bite?”
The man had guffawed even as he asked the question, but—not in the mood for jokes—Greg had merely shrugged the question off as the super had unlocked his apartment door. He’d then thanked him for letting him in and arranged to get spare keys made for both his apartment and the building’s outer door. The super had promised to see to it and deliver them as soon as possible as he got back onto the elevator. Greg had completely forgotten his joke about his neck by the time he’d closed his door.
After locking it, he’d leaned against the solid wood door and heaved a sigh of relief at being home, only to grimace the next moment over the predicament he was in. His coat, keys, wallet, and briefcase were all back at that house. Losing his wallet was bad enough, it had all his ID and credit cards in it, but his briefcase held his appointment calendar and his most recent patient notes.
Unable to do anything about it, Greg had reassured himself that it was all replaceable and headed for his bedroom. After spending the last twenty-four hours in his suit, even sleeping in it, he was intent on a shower and change of clothes.
It was while shaving that Greg had noticed the marks on his neck. There was no purple bruising from a hickey, just two neat puncture holes about an inch apart. The super’s words had floated through his mind as he’d examined them. “What’s that on you neck? A vampire bite?”
The words had sounded as ridiculous in Greg’s head as they had when the man had spoken them, and he’d given an uncomfortable little laugh and turned away from the mirror to get dressed. Once finished, he’d called the airport, but once that task was done, Greg found his fingers moving repeatedly to his neck. Worse yet, different memories were flooding his mind and painting a picture in his head. Marguerite accusing Lissianna of biting him when she’d found them in the bedroom, then explaining that Greg wasn’t dinner. Thomas telling him that Lissianna’s phobia was like Greg’s fainting at the sight of food and Lissianna saying her phobia was hemaphobia.
Then there was the conversation between the women in the back of the van on the way into the city. They’d talked about Lissianna’s not being able to read him, which was why she’d bitten him. And one of the twins had commented that she wished she could feed “off the hoof, too,” that it sounded much nicer than bagged blood.
Greg continued to rub the little wounds, his mind spinning these facts over and over and causing the oddest ideas to enter his head. Ideas so crazy and impossible he was almost afraid even to think them…but they would explain a lot about his own behavior that he hadn’t understood and which had—frankly—alarmed him: like climbing into the trunk of a strange car, then letting himself be tied down.
Greg shook his head in an effort to shake the crazy thoughts from his mind, but they stubbornly persisted, and he finally retrieved a pen and notepad and drew a line down the center of the top page. He then wrote Vampire/Not Vampire at the top and began to make his list, including all the conversations and noting the physical evidence of the marks on his neck as well. These all went on the Vampire half of the sheet. Then he turned his attention to the Not Vampire side and hesitated. Finally, he wrote “crazy, impossible, and don’t exist.” Compared to the Vampire side, the arguments against it were pretty weak, he noted with frustration, then gave a shaky laugh. It seemed that everything to do with Lissianna was frustrating in one way or another.
A knock at the door interrupted his ruminations and Greg glanced at it with irritation, then tossed the pad on the coffee table and stood to answer it. No one had buzzed, so it had to be the superintendent with the spare keys he’d promised. That was something at least. With those and the extra set of car keys in his desk drawer, he’d be free to catch a taxi to his office building to retrieve his car. Then maybe he’d go out and grab something to eat, he thought as he unlocked and opened his apartment door.
Greg’s smile froze, and his plans died a quick death as he saw who waited in the hall. Marguerite and Martine.
Greg slammed the door, or tried to, but Marguerite had slid a foot in the way, preventing it closing. The next mome
nt, he felt pressure and was forced backward as the door began to open. He redoubled his efforts to force it closed, but had no effect. The woman was incredibly strong, alarmingly so.
Cursing as the door was forced open, he began to back down the hall as the women stepped inside and closed the door behind them.
Marguerite was the first to speak. Smiling brightly, she lifted the items she held, and announced, “We brought your things.”
Greg stared at his briefcase and overcoat, his brain working furiously. They shouldn’t be there. This was a security building. The doorman should have stopped them in the lobby and called him to see if they were allowed up, but he hadn’t. He’d apparently sat idly by and let them saunter in.
“Martine, I cannot control him. Can you?” Marguerite asked suddenly, and Greg realized he’d been simply standing there staring at them while he tried to sort out what to do. He started to dodge to the right, thinking to make a break for the bedroom and somehow barricade the door, but Martine suddenly lunged forward and touched his arm, and just like that, Greg went still and calm. In the next moment, he had the sudden compulsion to walk into the living room and seat himself on the couch. It came from nowhere and was impossible to resist.
Turning on his heel, Greg walked slowly into the room, Martine holding his arm as if he were escorting her. They sank onto the couch as one, but she didn’t release him. Not that he seemed to be able to care. Greg watched with blank disinterest as Marguerite settled in a chair across from them.
“Will we be able to wipe his memory?” Lissianna’s mother asked with concern.
Martine turned to peer at Greg and he felt a brief ruffling in his mind. That was the only way he could think to describe it, it was like a creeping across his scalp. After a moment, she glanced to the notepad he’d left lying on the coffee table, and said to Marguerite, “You’d better take a look at this.”