“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?” Peter asked. “What if the authorities find them close to your house?”
“Not to worry. I rented it under a false name, and I hope we’re going to be on the road to finding the traitors in the next day or two.”
“Speaking of that,” Jean said, pulling out his cell phone. “I’ll make a few calls and see if anyone’s found anything out yet.”
He hit pay dirt on his second call. Grinning, he said into the phone, “Excellent. Check it out and I’ll get back in touch with you in an hour.”
He broke the connection and smiled. “That was good news. One of Gerald Enyo’s contacts in the phone company traced a call on Samantha Scott’s cell phone. She made a call from the Austin area last night.”
“Austin, huh?” Morpheus said, a speculative look in his eyes.
“Yeah. They couldn’t narrow it down any more than that. She wasn’t on long enough for a detailed locator trace.”
“Why don’t you call Christina and see if they might’ve booked a flight out of the Austin airport?”
“We can try,” Jean answered, “but odds are they won’t be using their real names.”
Morpheus sighed. Why did he have to do everyone’s thinking for them? “Jean, tell her to check for two men and two women who booked a flight last night and paid in cash. If they’re using fake names, they can’t use their credit cards.”
Jean nodded. “Good thought. I’ll call her right now.”
While he made the call, Peter bundled the shrunken bodies up into old sheets Morpheus gave him and lugged them one at a time out the back door and through the wooded area at the back of the house to the edges of the muddy stream Morpheus had called a bayou. As he dumped the first body, he shook his head. “Hell, this is no bayou, at least not like we have in Baton Rouge. There ain’t even any gators or snakes to speak of to give it character.”
By the time he finished with the last corpse, he came back into the kitchen and found Jean and Morpheus excitedly discussing their plans.
“I guess you found something out,” he observed, grabbing another donut from the platter on the table and stuffing it whole into his mouth.
Jean glanced up. “Yeah. Christina found out that two couples made reservations to fly to Spokane, Washington, just after the phone call on Scott’s cell phone. It’s got to be our pigeons.”
Morpheus watched Peter chomping on his mouthful of pastry with distaste, thinking it was no wonder the man weighed in excess of two-hundred pounds. “Jean made a few more calls and we found an ally who lives in the area. He’s agreed to watch the airport for their arrival and to follow them until we can make arrangements to travel up there.”
Peter smiled, sleeving powdered sugar off his lips with his arm. “Then, it’ll all be over soon,” he said.
Morpheus’s eyes glittered with hatred. “Oh, we’ll catch them soon enough,” he said, “but it won’t be over for them for a long time. I intend to make them suffer as no one has suffered for a thousand years.”
Twenty-six
Since the Canadian Pacific train did not go on to Banff, I was going the rest of the way by a large tour bus operated by Brewster Tours, as were the Slonakers. We didn’t have to meet the bus until eight o’clock, so I decided to have a last breakfast in the Jasper Lodge dining room. I got all of my baggage ready and placed it by the door to my room and headed for the lodge.
When I entered the room, I saw Ed and Kim Slonaker sitting at a table by themselves, and so I waved and walked over to join them.
Kim was looking a bit wan as she peered out the window at the snowcapped mountains in the distance, sipping slowly at a tall glass of orange juice, and I wondered if she’d been drinking heavily again the night before. I liked the Slonakers and hoped she didn’t have a problem with alcohol, though I’d heard it was fairly common among Canadians, probably due to the long, harsh winters they had to endure.
Ed didn’t look all that well either, I realized. His skin was pale and it looked to me as if he was losing weight, though the full beard made it difficult to tell.
“Good morning,” I said, “mind if I join you?”
Kim gave a half-hearted smile and nodded. “We’re going to have to quit meeting like this, Yank, people will start to talk. But what the hell else is there to do up here in the winter anyway, so have a seat and dig in.”
Ed glanced up from a sheet of paper he was reading, and his eyes weren’t as jolly as they usually were. “Good morning, Elijah,” he said. “How do you like Jasper National Park?”
The waiter appeared and I ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, a short stack of pancakes, coffee, and orange juice before answering Ed. “It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever stayed. The cabins, with their pine wood paneling and rustic furniture and the views of the mountains on every side are breathtaking.”
Kim gave a short laugh. “That’s one thing we have plenty of up here in the North Country, majestic views of lots of not much,” she said sarcastically.
I noticed Ed’s eyes on his wife. He was looking at her with a mixture of sympathy and worry. He put his hand on hers and looked up at me. “Don’t mind, Kim,” he said. “She’s a bit under the weather this morning. Probably a touch of the flu.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, leaning back to let the waiter set his breakfast down on the table.
Kim took a deep breath and her expression lightened up a bit. “Oh, not to worry, Elijah. I’m just off my diet a bit on this vacation, and I’m afraid it’s made me homesick for Banff.”
I noticed Ed wasn’t listening. He seemed once again engrossed in the paper he was holding.
“Bad news?” I asked as I spooned sugar into my coffee. I’d found that while the treatments took away the worst of my Hunger for human blood, for some reason they also made me crave sweets.
Ed looked up at him over the paper, his eyes flat and with a curious gaze. “Yeah, sort of. You remember that fellow I told you about that’d gone missing just before we pulled into Jasper?”
I remembered very well, since I’d beheaded him and thrown him off the train, but I hesitated, as if trying to remember. After a moment, I nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. It was that man that was drunk and bothering those tourists in the club car wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Ed answered slowly. “When we couldn’t find him, I made some inquiries and ordered a search back along the tracks, just in case he’d fallen or been thrown overboard.”
I nodded at the paper Ed was holding. “And did they find him?” I asked casually, as if only mildly curious.
Ed glanced down at the paper. “They thought they had,” he answered, his brows knit together as he studied the paper. “They found a body alongside the tracks about twenty miles from Jasper. It was pretty well torn up and the animals had gotten to it a bit, and they thought it might be him at first.”
“But, it wasn’t?” I asked around a mouthful of eggs and bacon.
“No,” Ed said slowly. “It seems this body was decades old and almost totally decayed.”
“That’s strange. How would an old body get next to the railroad tracks?” I asked, though I knew the answer very well. When a man was transformed into a vampyre, he stopped aging. However, when he died, the aging process worked very quickly to catch up with time and vampyre bodies didn’t last very long once the plasmids and viruses that kept them young were gone.
Ed shrugged. “Oh, it’s not all that uncommon. There are lots of old graves from the frontier days, and I guess some animal just dug one up and dragged the remains over near the tracks.”
“Jeez!” Kim exclaimed, leaning back and staring at her husband. “Have a little courtesy, ay? The man is trying to eat his breakfast and here you are talking about decaying bodies dug up and eaten by animals.”
Ed gave a low chuckle. “Oh, I am sorry, Elijah. Kim and I are used to this sort of table talk, what with my job and all, so we sometimes forget regular citizens aren’t used to it.”
“Don’t worry abo
ut it, Ed,” I said, continuing to eat. “As a doctor, I’m sometimes guilty of the same thing, discussing interesting cases with lay people and getting a bit too gory for their delicate sensibilities. I’m afraid it’s an occupational hazard for both cops and doctors.”
Ed looked at Kim. “See, dear, he wasn’t bothered by it at all.”
Kim threw her napkin down and got up from the table. “Well, it’s put me completely off my feed,” she said. “Please excuse me, gentlemen. I’m going back to our room and lie down for a while until we get on the bus.”
Ed watched her as she walked away, his eyes concerned. “Poor Kim. I guess the constant swaying of the train must have made her stomach upset, along with whatever bug she’s picked up.”
I noticed she’d barely touched her food. “If you’d like, I could give you something for her to take that would alleviate the nausea.”
Ed glanced at her plate and shook his head. “No, thanks, Elijah. I’m sure when we get to Banff and she gets back in our house and on her regular diet, she’ll be fine.”
* * *
Fall was definitely in the air when the group of four finally arrived at Spokane, Washington. Even though it was almost noon by the time their connecting flight had reached the city, the temperature was a chilly fifty degrees and there was a fine mist hanging in the air under cloudy, dark skies, adding to the chill factor.
Sam, so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, proceeded to the customer service desk and told the representative that she was Sally Ford. She had just enough strength to will the young man to give her the envelope of hundred dollar bills without any further identification.
When she made her way back to the airport cafeteria, where the others were ordering lunch to supplement the peanuts they’d eaten on their flight, she showed them the large wad of bills Pike had left for her.
Matt was amazed. “How could he get all that done by long distance in the middle of the night?” he asked.
TJ smiled. “Matt, what you guys don’t realize is that when you live a couple of hundred years, it is quite easy to amass a considerable fortune, and when you have lots of money in various banks across the country, bank managers are more than willing to provide all sorts of services us mere mortals can only dream about.”
Matt understood her meaning, but he couldn’t quite help arching an eyebrow at her inclusion of herself and Sam in the term mortals. To his mind, both of the girls were something both more and less than mere mortals, now that the vampyre bug was being allowed free rein in their bloodstreams.
Sam, who was now busily consuming the eggs and bacon that Matt had bought her, looked up with bleary eyes. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m just about dead in the water. It seems like two or three days since I’ve had a full night’s sleep.”
TJ covered a prodigious yawn with the back of her hand and nodded her agreement. “I’ll second that. How about we check into a nearby motel, grab a little shut-eye, and then worry about buying a car like Elijah said?”
Shooter, who always said he could sleep in the middle of Main Street at noon, had slept on the plane. “I’m not too sleepy. How about you, Matt?”
Matt nodded his head wearily. “I’m bushed. I need to grab some Zs or I’m gonna fall over.”
TJ drank the last of her coffee and put her hand on Shooter’s arm. “Come on, Shooter. If you’re not sleepy, you can just lie in bed with me and rub my back until I’m asleep.”
Shooter’s expression brightened. “How about I rub your front instead?” he asked, a lascivious grin on his face.
“If you rub my front, dear,” TJ answered, “neither one of us will get any sleep.”
Shooter shrugged. “That’s okay with me.”
They stood up, picked up the small amount of luggage they’d brought with them, and walked out of the airport to hail a cab. None of them noticed a nondescript man dressed in a dark overcoat with a hat pulled low over his eyes as he sauntered out of the doors behind them.
* * *
In less than half an hour, they were checked into adjoining rooms in a Holiday Inn a few miles from the airport.
Shooter followed TJ into their room and watched in amazement as she dropped a trail of clothes on the floor and made a beeline for the bedroom. By the time she was at the bed she was completely naked and she fell onto the bed without pulling back the covers. Within seconds, she was sound asleep, snoring softly as she lay on her back with her arms out-flung.
Shooter went to the bed, trying to ignore the heaviness her nakedness caused in his groin, and he turned back the covers and gently moved TJ under them, turning her on her side so she wouldn’t snore.
Once he saw that she was still comfortably asleep, he stripped his clothes off and headed for the shower. He always felt dirty after flying and wanted to wash the travel grime off his body before getting in bed with TJ.
* * *
It was much the same in Matt and Sam’s room, though neither one of them took time to shower. Clothes were removed, teeth were brushed, and then they both climbed into bed and fell immediately asleep in each other’s arms.
Twenty-seven
When Matt opened his eyes the next morning, he was a bit disoriented, as he always was when he awoke in a strange place. He lay there for a moment, getting his bearings, glancing around at the generic furnishings of the hotel room until he remembered where they were staying and what had happened the night before.
Jeez, he thought, yawning and stretching, you’d think after all the running and hiding we’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks I’d get used to waking up in strange places.
As he came fully awake, he noticed the warmth of Sam’s naked body against his under the covers. He could feel her breasts against his back and her arm draped over his waist as she spooned him.
He rolled in the bed and Sam, still asleep, moved onto her back and moaned softly in her sleep. Matt rolled over onto his other side and gently cupped her breast in his hand. Her nipple hardened and her breast seemed to swell to fill his hand. Uh-oh, he thought, what have I started?
Her eyes opened and she arched her back, pressing herself into his hand as she half turned and moved until their bodies were lying tight against each other. She slid her hand down his stomach, causing him to shiver with delight, and took him in her hand, caressing him into full erection.
“Good morning, darling,” she mumbled, still half asleep.
Involuntarily, his hips moved against her hand and he squeezed her breast tighter as their lips came together and he breathed into her mouth, “Good morning, sweetheart.”
She threw her leg over his hips and he could feel the heat from her sex as she ground against him, her breath hot on his cheek.
Suddenly, as if a fire had been lit within her, she pushed him onto his back and slid on top of him. She spread her legs and he slid into her hot wetness, causing both of them to groan with pleasure.
For a moment, she lay there unmoving, enjoying the closeness of their joining as she put her lips against his and let her tongue move against his.
Her nipples were like rocks against his chest and he could feel himself swell within her until he thought he was going to burst.
Finally, her eyes came fully open, burning with desire, and she put her hands on his chest and sat up, still straddling him. He reached up and took a breast in each hand, massaging them until they felt hot and swollen.
“I need you, Matt,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes fixed on the pulse of the artery in his neck.
He took a deep breath and put his hand behind her neck and drew her down to him. “Then take me, Sam, take what you need!” he answered, his voice thick with lust.
She fastened her lips on his neck and began to pump against him as she drank his blood, gently so as not to take too much too soon.
He was filled with a desire he’d never known as she fed and made love to him, their movements becoming more and more frantic as they coupled in mad abandon.
When he finally ex
ploded, groaning in release, she moaned and came with him, putting her lips against his in a kiss so deep he could taste his own blood on her tongue.
* * *
Next door, Shooter was dreaming he was being chased through dark woods by something dark and horrible. The faster he ran, the closer the monster came until he could feel its hot breath on the back of his neck. His heart was pounding so hard he was afraid it was going to burst, and he could feel sweat running down his face. Suddenly, he was pushed from behind and fell sprawling on the pine needles of the forest floor. As he rolled onto his back, his arms outstretched to protect himself, something black and furry leapt onto him, fastening its teeth on his groin.
He tried to scream but his face was smothered with a hot, musty wetness and he felt as if he were suffocating.
He awoke to find TJ lying half on top of him, her mouth working on his penis, her steamy sex pushing against his lips. As he pumped his hips, pushing himself deeper into her mouth, he grabbed her hips and pulled her tighter against him, licking her wetness and moving his mouth against her.
Suddenly he groaned and came with a sensation like hot needles in his groin as she drained him dry. He could hear her muffled shriek as she bucked and pushed and came with him and he kissed and licked and swallowed her essence until she fell limp against him.
After a moment, when they’d both recovered, she twisted in the bed and moved to lie next to him, her arms around his shoulders and her face against his neck. “Forget Wheaties,” she mumbled, her breath hot on his skin, “That’s the breakfast of champions.”
He started to laugh, until he felt her teeth sink gently into his neck and she began to suckle. Amazingly, he again felt a hot rush of desire and felt himself grow erect as she rolled on top of him and took him deep inside her, moving slowly until he was buried to the hilt, their pubic bones kissing as she drank her fill.
When he came again, she moaned with him and collapsed into his arms, satiated with sex and blood.
* * *
Immortal Blood Page 17