"Go straight to the airport, Lissa," Merrill said, anger in his voice. Not at me—at Tony. "I'll have a first class ticket to New York waiting. Don't go to the apartment; I don't want Franklin and Greg frightened." He gave me the address of a safe house. I was afraid I'd cry but I managed to get a cab to come to the house without blubbering. The cabbie was nice and loaded my bags in the trunk. I carried the laptop and my purse and we drove to Dulles as quickly as we could.
The flight wasn't scheduled to take off for two hours. In an effort to keep my mind away from the anger and betrayal, I bought a book and a magazine from a small shop in the airport and sat down to read. The magazine had an article about the kidnappings in Great Britain. That's when I got my first look at Paul and the other two werewolves. Their photographs were splashed on a page of the periodical in full color. Paul looked like a nice man. Not that tall—maybe five-ten or so—with medium brown hair and nice eyes. I wished I could talk to him sometime. Maybe have a cup of coffee or tea with him. That opportunity would likely never come.
* * *
Tony went home early; he'd been so short with Lissa lately and now the First Lady was asking to see her. She wanted to thank Lissa for saving her life. The President, too, wanted to do something for her. Tony called her name as he stepped in the front door. He was prepared to take her straight to the White House, jeans and all, so she could meet with the President and his wife.
"Lissy?" Tony didn't find her in the media room where she normally was at night, either reading, watching television or both. She wasn't there. The kitchen was empty, too. He peeked into the laundry room and found Lissa's sheets lying on the floor beside the washer. A horrible thought crossed his mind and he raced toward his bedroom.
What are you doing with my blood, Tony? Was scrawled in blood across his bottom sheet. Tony moaned and pulled out his cell phone. "Just hold her. Don't fight with her and don't hurt her. If you do, I'll have your head," Tony shouted into his cell phone as he drove like a maniac toward the airport.
* * *
"Take your hands off me," I jerked my arm away from the TSA guard who was shoving me inside a small interrogation room. I couldn't refuse to go with him as he and the half dozen other guards insisted. They'd surrounded me where I sat, waiting on my plane.
"Just sit down, someone will be here in a minute," the guard growled. I hadn't hurt him or done anything to deserve that growl. Yet. And three guesses who the someone was going to be. I hoped the room wasn't bugged because I wanted to let Tony have it. At least they hadn't taken my purse or my laptop. I might have fought with them over that or placed compulsion. My flight was called when Tony walked into the room, looking like a thundercloud.
"You're making me miss my flight," I said sullenly, refusing to look at him.
"Lissa, you will sit there and let me explain and then we'll go home," he said.
"Tony, I won't be going anywhere with you. I've already called my sire. He set this ticket up for me. Merrill was very angry and very concerned when I told him what happened. I pulled that fucker out of a boat full of pirates for you, Tony, and this is how you both pay me back. Is this how you reward everybody who saves your ass, or Madame Secretary's ass or the First Lady's derriere?" I swung around to look at him then.
"Lissa, you have to believe me when I say that this wasn't my intention or the reason I brought you in," Tony said, a deep frown on his face. "I just sent the ash from the vampire mister in Los Angeles to Larry and he discovered that some of your particular talents could be duplicated by injecting a compound of the ash into a lab chimp. That was too good to pass up, Lissa, but we didn't have enough of the ash to continue with the experiments. When we took your blood the first time, the results were amazing. It all happened so fast, Lissa. The possibilities are profound and overwhelming. You can't imagine what we could do with this." Tony was pacing.
"I can imagine that you'd drain me dry just to get what you want, Tony. We're done. Don't ask me to help you again. And keep that fucker away from me." The tears started then. "You let him put his hands on me, Tony. While I was unconscious. What kind of man are you, anyway?" I turned away and sobbed. I'd trusted him; he'd been one of the few I had trusted. That no longer held true and the betrayal hurt. Big time.
"Lissa, I did this the wrong way, I know that. Try to see reason, baby. We can help the country, you and I." Tony was pleading but it wasn't going to work. Not with me. Not this time or any other time.
"If I hadn't accidentally found out, how long would you have been helping the country without my knowledge?" I was still wiping tears. I could barely see him, my sight was so blurry.
"Come back home with me please," Tony begged. "We'll work this out, I promise."
"No." I stifled another sob. "Stay away from me, Tony."
"Where are you going?"
"Home. Just as fast as I can get there. And you've made me miss my flight."
"Lissa, come home with me now. You're upset and I understand that. There's no reason for you to walk away. You're scheduled to go home in a few days anyway. We'll talk this over and you can go home then."
"I'm going home now. Get out of my way, Tony." I stood up. "If you try to stop me, Merrill and the others will know. What do you think will happen then, Tony?"
"I have no idea. Come home with me, Lissa."
"Tony, I can't trust you. Ever again. How do you think I'd feel, going to sleep and not knowing what you'd do to me? Or what you'd allow somebody else to do to me? Do you even have a conscience, Tony? Does the fucker who did this have one? God knows he doesn't appreciate what I did for him. Stand there and tell me I shouldn't have just dropped him in the ocean and let him drown."
"Fuck," Tony growled, pacing a little more.
"I'm leaving. I have to see if there's another flight I can get out of here tonight." I brushed past Tony on the way out the door and he stood there, watching me leave.
Chapter 14
I landed at La Guardia two hours after I'd originally been scheduled to land. The airline was able to get me on a later flight and Tony didn't try to stop me. At least not then. I was a little concerned; he had eyes and ears everywhere, I recalled, as I took a cab to the first address Merrill had given me. It wasn't the actual address of the safe house; it was a building nearby where I could pay the cab and then make my way to the safe house after the cab left.
My bags had to be piled one on top of the other so I could lift them and mist to the safe house. It was a bit awkward getting it all there but I did it. My entire flight had been spent wiping my eyes. I'd cared for Tony and he'd done this. I still couldn't believe it. It was one thing to ask my permission, another to violate me while I slept, just to keep it secret.
Merrill got a voice mail message and an email, as did Gavin. They'd both be asleep. Blood was in the fridge so I helped myself to some of it before going to bed. I watched television for a while; the news network was doing an article on the fears of the World Health Organization over a new strain of flu cropping up and that the manufacturers of the flu vaccine might not be able to produce enough to meet the demands of the population as a result. The journalists were interviewing the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies in Scotland and France, along with someone from the company in Georgia. I turned the program off after a while. I was still upset with Tony and the more I thought about the whole thing, the more upset I became. Where had they punctured me? How much had they taken? It was enough to make me to feel weak and tired. Now I knew what had caused my symptoms. They'd taken from me twice and may have been planning other draws before I left. What the fuck had Tony been thinking? He certainly hadn't been thinking about me except as a means to an end. That hurt more than I can say.
* * *
I'd been awake maybe three hours the following evening when I heard the door into my little basement safe house open. Not knowing who it was, I hid myself and waited for the intruder to come down the stairs. I shouldn't have bothered; I'd know those scents anywhere. Merrill and Gavin had both come. Ga
vin had me in his arms in two blinks and he was murmuring soft words as I had my meltdown. If I'd been coherent, I might have worried that I was choking him; my arms were so tight around his neck while I sobbed. What I remember most through all of that was Gavin telling me, "shhh, cara, shhh."
"Sweetheart, do you know how much he took?" Merrill sat across from Gavin and me later in the small, safe house living area.
"I don't know. I felt weak both times and since I didn't have any other way to explain the weakness, I thought I was coming down with something." That caused Gavin to snort but he didn't say anything.
"How did you discover what he was doing?"
"Merrill, he was carrying me into his bedroom so that other man could take my blood there. That way the scents wouldn't be inside my room," I was back to wiping tears again. Gavin drew me tighter against him. I pulled my knees up and huddled against him as close as I could. "I was going to strip all the sheets off the beds and wash them but the minute I walked inside his bedroom, I smelled the other man and my own blood."
"What is he doing with it? Do you know?" Merrill asked gently.
"Tony called the other man Larry and said that Larry started out compounding the ash from the mister I killed in Los Angeles and injecting it into a lab chimp. I didn't know he was doing that until I found out he was taking my blood, too. I got the idea that they were doing this with humans by the time I figured things out."
Merrill rose and cursed. In quite a few languages, too. He wasn't loud and I hadn't heard him go off like this before. Something was terribly wrong; I could tell by the way he paced angrily in front of Gavin and me. Gavin pulled me into his lap and settled my head in the hollow between his neck and shoulder.
"Gavin, take her to the bedroom," Merrill ordered after a while. Gavin carried me in, rising in a blur almost.
"Cara, Merrill must make a call," Gavin told me as I heard Merrill's footsteps going up the stairs to the outside. "He will be back soon." I nodded, taking off my shoes. I wanted to crawl into bed and try to shut everything out for a while.
"Come here, love," Gavin gathered me up, kissed my hands first and then kissed me, nuzzling my neck before moving on to other things. He was a gentle lover that night, as well as the best lover I'd ever had, but then I'd only had two in my lifetime. "We will return to London tomorrow evening; Merrill's jet is at the airport," Gavin covered me up later after settling me in his arms. Yes, I felt safe with his arms around me right then. He angled his body over mine just as dawn was breaking, protecting me as much as he could while we slept.
Merrill had a limousine service pick us up and take us to the airport an hour after sunset the following day. It was May twenty-third and my birthday. I didn’t mention it and neither did Gavin or Merrill. Vampires don't celebrate the occasion, I suppose. I merely made a mental note that now I was forty-nine and that was just a drop in the bucket to what Gavin and Merrill were.
If Tony thought he was going to convince me to come back with him or make things right between us before I returned to Great Britain, he should have thought again. His car was waiting when our limo pulled up near the jet. Tony and Agent White both got out of the car as Gavin, Merrill and I arrived. Gavin pulled me against him, his eyes going red when he saw Tony. Merrill allowed Tony to approach until he was ten feet away. He stopped when Merrill informed him that was close enough.
"I want to talk to Lissa," Tony said.
"My child does not wish to speak with you," Merrill said calmly. There was no expression on his face. Sometimes, not often but sometimes, I wish I had that talent too.
"She can't talk for herself?" Tony crossed arms over his chest.
"Gavin." Merrill's voice was soft and deadly.
"Come, cara," Gavin led me forward until we both stood next to Merrill.
"Is there anything you wish to say to this man?" Merrill asked. I looked at Tony, standing there alone, ten feet in front of me. I'd cared for him once. Thought he was fun to be with, once. Now I knew his motives to be self-serving. That sad look in his eyes? I had no idea where that was coming from.
"Go to hell, Tony," I said.
The limo driver and the pilots were loading our bags onto the plane while we had our little standoff. "The President wants you to have this," Tony held out a small case and an envelope.
"Keep it," I said.
"Lissa, it's the Medal of Freedom," Tony said softly.
"Set it on the ground and back away," Merrill said. Tony slowly bent down, set both items on the tarmac and then retreated. Merrill walked forward and picked them up before returning to my side.
"Lissa, I didn't mean to hurt you," Tony said. "I'm sorry."
"That and a buck will get you a pack of gum at 7-11," I said. "I can't trust you. Ever. Leave me alone and keep your apologies to yourself."
"The lady has spoken," Merrill said. "Now I have words for you. Cease your experiments immediately. It is very important that you do as I say. Wlodek will call you in two nights and explain why." Merrill touched my arm gently and nodded toward the jet. Gavin kept me by his side as we walked toward it.
* * *
"Director, I know you're my boss, at least for the time being," vampire agent Ken White told Tony. "But I don't think you know who you were talking to, just then." Ken was driving away from the airport, Tony in the passenger seat.
"Who was I talking to?" Tony turned listlessly to agent White.
"Merrill is a legend among my race," Ken said. "The rumors are that he's the most powerful vampire that exists. The other one that Lissa is engaged to? That's Gavin, the Council's elite Assassin. Wlodek is Head of the Council, as you know. You've managed to piss off three of the most powerful vampires ever. And if you throw Lissa into that mix, because I have to tell you, she can do things I've never seen or heard of before, well, I wouldn't be looking for favors from any of my kind. In fact, depending on how Wlodek reacts and what he says in that phone call you're going to get, he may pull all the vamps out of the Department."
"He can't do that," Tony huffed.
"He can. And if we want to keep on living, we'll do as he says," Ken added. "And since it's Lissa, all she has to do is make a call to the Grand Master and your wolves will be gone, too. You fucked up, boss."
"Yeah. I won't argue with you over that." Tony rubbed a hand over his face.
* * *
"This apartment belongs to a friend," Merrill said as we made our way into the beautiful London flat. It was tastefully decorated and furnished with what I called jewel tones. Reds, greens, dark purples, golds; all muted, of course. The windows had been blacked out somehow; it belonged to a vampire. "We'll go to the Council meeting tomorrow evening from here and then we're to go back to Wlodek's so he can make the call to Anthony Hancock. Wlodek wants you there, Lissa, when he tells Mr. Hancock how much of a mistake he made." I nodded. It was nearly dawn on the twenty-fourth, now. Gavin and Merrill only had one small bag each so the bulk of the luggage was mine. I insisted on carrying my share and we piled it into the huge master bedroom. Merrill was taking the smaller second bedroom. There was a large walk-in closet in the master bedroom, filled with men's designer suits and a scent that I would recognize if I ever smelled it again.
"Are you hungry, cara? I wish to feed you before you sleep if you are," Gavin said, lifting my chin in his fingers. I looked up at his face; he was worried about me.
"Honey, you have the nicest brown eyes," I said. "I've always been partial to brown eyes."
"You like them?" The corners of his mouth lifted just a little.
"Of course I do."
"Your hair is growing out." He ran fingers through my short, spiky hair.
"Maybe I'll put mousse in it and make it all stand up," I said.
"You will frighten Wlodek."
"We can't have that, I guess." Gavin and I shared a unit of blood before we went to bed.
* * *
"Lissa, we have someone we suspect of being Saxom's turn that Trevor brought in at Wlodek's request," Merril
l informed me as Brock drove us to the meeting cave the evening of the twenty-fifth. "If you smell the taint on him, I want you to tug on my sleeve, all right?" I nodded at Merrill's request.
"Sebastian will also be there," Merrill said. "For reasons that you have already suspected. I am sorry we did not pay more attention to you earlier, sweetheart." I sat in the back of Merrill's Rolls; Brock had driven it to pick us up and I was wedged in the back seat between Merrill and Gavin. Neither seemed to mind that I was so close against them. I didn't care about Sebastian, now. At least no more children would die at Sebastian's hands.
"What set him off, do you know?" I was curious about that.
"Wlodek thinks it was the baby," Merrill said softly. "For those of us who have never drank such innocent blood, we cannot say for certain, but I have listened to other vampires who were brought before the Council for sentencing on such a crime and they all say the blood is sweet and addicting."
"Dear God," I said, reaching out to grab Gavin's hand.
The Council chamber looked just the same as Merrill led the way into the dim interior. Gavin was right behind me with Brock following him. Both prisoners were already inside the chamber; Sebastian was over to the side, the other prisoner was close by and I got his scent the moment I walked inside the cave. I tugged on Merrill's sleeve as we lined up in our customary spot against the cave wall.
Blood Sense (Blood Destiny #3) Page 24