Mercy's Danger: Montgomery's Vampires Trilogy (Book #2) (Montgomery's Vampires Series)

by Sloan Archer

  “Naturally, Robert and I have discussed me changing over,” I said. “I’m a realist. I know a point in time will come when I’ll need to either change into a vampire or leave Robert. I know it, alright? And I’m sure eventually I will change. I can’t bear to think about what it would be like to lose Robert. But giving up the sun, food . . . my mortality? I just feel like I have a few more years of human living to do.”

  “Maybe you can get Robert to stay human,” Liz suggested.

  “No, I couldn’t do that to him. Being vampire makes him happy. I’d never want to take that away from him.”

  My tone must have implied that the subject was closed for further discussion, since Liz and Marlena didn’t continue prodding. But I could tell they were both thinking the same thing: Robert may not be able to change back. And then where would that leave us?

  “Get your veins warmed up,” Robert said as he returned. “Shelia has agreed to come over.”

  6

  Leopold arrived the three nights later.

  He’d actually landed in San Francisco that morning, but had been required to stay in his lightproof plane until the sun went down. Leopold handled the shock of seeing Robert in human form a lot better than Marlena had, perhaps because he’d expected it. He hardly batted an eye when Robert embraced him.

  “What’s it been?” Robert asked when they broke apart. “A few years?”

  “Feels more like a century,” Leopold said. “But it’s just like old times, hey old chap? I suddenly have a deep yearning for a midnight horse gallop.”

  Robert took Leopold’s coat and hung it in the entryway closet. “Not too many fields in San Francisco, I’m afraid.”

  Leopold’s intonation was the epitome of old school upper-crust Englishman: bottom jaw pushed out, Rs rolled softly, the center of every few words drawled out just so, rendering his speech rich and crisp to the listeners ears, like auditory peanut brittle.

  He also looked absolutely nothing like what I’d expected, which was a strapping man with features similar to Robert’s—the archetypical tall, dark, and handsome. Leopold was striking all right (the norm for most vampires), but in an entirely different way. For starters, he was short. He stood a smidge taller than me, which placed him at a height no taller than five feet six, maybe five-seven in stacked heel boots. Robert had never mentioned Leopold’s vampire age, but I gathered that he’d been turned during a time when men were smaller in stature. The rest of Leopold was petite as well: hands, facial features, and body. He was compact, a living man-doll. Yet he was by no stretch of the imagination effeminate. His pale yellow eyes contained a subtle ferocity, a glint that communicated Fuck with me and it will be the last mistake you ever make.

  One could easily determine Leopold was sharp only by looking at him; he radiated intelligence as much as he did charisma. His hair gleamed like liquid petroleum under the bright hallway lighting. Attributes viewed individually, Leopold may not be impressive. But as a complete package he was stunning.

  Thankfully, Leopold was far from stuffy. He kissed me on both cheeks and then threw his arms around my sides. “And you, darling, must be the lovely Mercy.” Daaaarling. “Robert told me you were exquisite, but he did not do you justice.”

  I cocked my head towards Robert. “Didn’t do me justice, you say?”

  Robert chuckled. “Oh, Leopold. Not even here for five minutes and you’re already getting me into trouble.”

  “What can I say?” Leopold twinkled. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Why don’t you two go settle in and catch up?” I suggested. “I’ll grab us some drinks.”

  They did as I directed and soon I could hear the two of them cackling all the way from the kitchen. I smiled. Though he denied it, Robert had started feeling down after the novelty of being a human (again) had worn off. It hadn’t taken long. The unveiling of Raquel’s journal hadn’t helped, either. Robert was frightened, I could tell, and his major source of anxiety was the possibility of being stuck a mortal. I sure hoped Leopold could offer up a solution. I was worried for Robert.

  When I joined Robert and Leopold on the sofa, I noticed Robert wiping tears from underneath his eyes. “Want to let me in on the joke?” I said.

  “Mercy, I’m afraid that would take all evening,” Leopold explained, which had the two men in hysterics again. I laughed, too, just to feel included in the fun.

  “I was telling Leopold how pretty Shelia is,” Robert said.

  “And he was also reminding me to keep the compliments to a minimum when she comes around. For whatever reason, Robert has convinced himself that I’m a ladies man.”

  “Right,” Robert scoffed. “Every time I talk to you, you’re dating a new woman! Or, should I say, women. Last time it was . . . Who was it? I remember, it was that crazy French model, Josephine. Whatever happened to her?”

  Leopold shrugged. “Do the terms ‘model’ and ‘crazy’ not provide enough explanation? And Josephine happened ages ago—”

  “It was a couple weeks ago!”

  “—long before Emma and then Michelle . . . and Vivian.”

  “There you have it,” Robert said smugly. “I rest my case.”

  “So, you think Shelia’s pretty, eh?” I questioned Robert with mock jealousy.

  Robert curled his strong arms around my waist and pulled me to him. I pretended to put up a fight. “But she’s not as pretty as you, my beautiful cherub.”

  I pursed my lips. “Mm-hmm.”

  Leopold cackled. “You’ve got yourself a spitfire, don’t you, old boy?”

  Robert sighed. “You have no idea.”

  “Don’t worry, Mercy, Robert only has eyes for you.”

  I made a fist and shook it in the air. “Oh, he’d better.”

  The doorbell rang, halting our chuckles.

  Robert grimaced like his fingers were jammed in a mousetrap. “Speak of the devil,” he said, getting up to answer the door.

  “Let’s hope Shelia’s news is positive,” Leopold muttered to me after Robert was out of earshot.

  “Do you think it will be?”

  “Mercy, your guess is as good as mine. The only thing we can do is hope for the best.”

  “And be supportive of Robert, no matter what the outcome,” I responded quietly.

  “Yes, my dear.” Leopold patted my knee. “That too.”

  The look on Shelia’s face made it evident that she hadn’t come bearing happy news. She took a seat next to Leopold and then waited for Robert to settle in, running her fingers through her wavy yellow blond bob. The shade was a striking contrast against her ebony skin, but the style was still professional enough for a mortician. It was a drastic style change from earlier; it had been long, straight, and light brown when she’d come over to take the blood samples. I wanted to ask if her hair before had been real or extensions but I thought the question was rude, like asking a woman for her age or if she pads her bra. Also, poor Robert was terrified. It would have been a tad insensitive to yap about hairstyles.

  Robert seized my hand. I smiled my greatest It will be fine smile at him.

  Getting right down to business, Shelia pulled a file out from underneath her arm and opened it across her lap. Shelia should have been accustomed to dealing with vampires by now, but it didn’t stop her from looking frightened. Her brow was pinched so that a solid vertical line ran down the center of her forehead. When she lifted one of the pages from her file, her hands were quaking so badly that she dropped it.

  Leopold touched Shelia’s shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Please don’t be afraid,” he said. “We will not blame the messenger.”

  Shelia’s posture relaxed substantially. She let out a shaky exhale and her full lips quivered, as if she’d been holding her breath from the moment she entered the room. “That’s great to hear. I’m afraid the results aren’t encouraging.”

  Robert’s palm crushed against mine and I yelped. He released my hand and demanded of Shelia, “Explain what you mean.”

/>   “I . . . I . . .” Shelia stammered.

  Robert snatched the file from Shelia and she recoiled. I’d never seen him behave so rudely. He must have really been freaked.

  “Dear friend . . .” Leopold began.

  “I can’t made sense of any of this!” Robert snarled, thrusting the file back at Shelia.

  “Robert,” I said. “Please.”

  He gazed at us with blazing eyes, and it was then that he seemed to realize how erratically he was acting. “Forgive me,” he apologized. “This is very difficult for me.”

  Shelia was a good sport. “Don’t worry about it. This is serious stuff.” She held up the file. “And, yes, it’s very complicated. Vampire blood isn’t my area of expertise, but I will try to outline this to you the simplest way that I can.”

  “I’m not doubting Robert’s word, but for my own peace of mind I must ask you this,” Leopold said. “Did you share your results with anyone else?”

  “Absolutely not. I gave Robert a promise and I stuck to it,” Shelia said with vehemence. “And before you get a chance to ask, no, l did not utilize outside help during testing. This was all strictly confidential, between the test tubes and me. I destroyed all the samples and tools when I finished. Slides, needles, tubes—it’s all gone. Incinerated.”

  “Okay, okay. I believe you,” Leopold told her. “Vampires can never be to careful.”

  “And neither can I,” Shelia said gravely. “I’ve got a family to worry about. I can’t afford to go around pissing off vampires.”

  Leopold nodded. “Fair enough. We’ll have to prove our trust to one another, then.”

  We all moved in closer to get a better view of the charts Shelia began to explain. I regarded myself as a relatively intelligent person, but it looked like gobbledygook to me. I was glad when she simplified in layman’s terms.

  “The problem originates in Mercy’s blood, which Robert drank roughly two months ago,” Shelia said, aiming the last detail at Leopold in order to fill him in.

  “Great. What am I, like patient zero?” I grumbled.

  “Sure, we could look it like that,” Shelia said. “Though that seems extreme. You don’t have a virus, exactly, but there is something very, very unique in your system—an enzyme perhaps—that attacks vampire blood. But attack isn’t the best word; filter would be more suiting.”

  “What do you mean?” Robert said. “You mean ‘filter’ as in purify?”

  Shelia said, “Precisely.”

  “How?” Leopold asked. “And am I in danger? As a vampire, I mean.”

  “Have you sampled Mercy’s blood?” Shelia questioned.

  Leopold shook his head.

  “Then you shouldn’t be in danger,” Shelia said. “Mercy’s blood only seems to have an effect if you take it into your system—drink it or mix it directly with your own blood. When I combined Mercy’s blood with vampire blood under a microscope, it initially reacted the same way a human’s blood does when it’s mixed with the wrong blood type.”

  “I’m guessing that’s bad,” I interjected. “For instance, if a doctor accidentally gives a type A patient blood from a type AB negative donor, they could shut their system down—maybe even kill them—since the patient’s antibodies would attack the donor’s blood cells. An acute whatchamacallit . . .” I rubbed my forehead. “I know, an acute hemolytic reaction.”

  “Very good,” Shelia beamed. “And, yes, you’re right. Your blood rejected vampire blood. Initially.”

  I figured Shelia would be less impressed if I informed her that I’d gleaned my medical knowledge from viewing reruns of House, so I didn’t mention it. “Does vampire blood look much different under a microscope?”

  “Vampire blood is entirely different from human blood mainly because it’s . . . well, dead. The color and consistency are peculiar, too.” She looked at Leopold and Robert. “I can see why you guys are so careful about giving out samples of your blood. Anyone with basic chemistry knowledge could easily detect that your blood is unusual.”

  “Okay, so Mercy’s blood rejected the vampire blood,” Robert prompted.

  “That’s right,” Shelia confirmed. “But here’s where things get kind of screwy. Like I said, Mercy’s blood did initially reject vampire blood. However—and there’s no real scientific way to state this—her blood then took on the vampire blood, filtered it, and then the two samples separated again on their own. I’ve never seen anything remotely like it, and I’ve studied everything from infectious diseases to sickle cell anemia.”

  “And what happened after the samples separated?” Leopold asked.

  “The newly-separated sample—the sample that was once vampire—had become human.”

  “So . . . what you’re saying is that my blood turns vampires back into human?” I summarized. “It filters the vampire enzymes or whatever out of their blood?”

  “In summary. But here’s an odd thing,” Shelia said. “I tested Mercy’s blood against Liz and Marlena’s. I tested Robert’s blood as well, but I’ll get to that later. Anyway, the reaction times varied. Marlena’s blood responded the very instant I mixed it with Mercy’s. The whole process—filtering and then separating—took less then ten seconds. Liz’s blood, however, was sluggish on the uptake. I left it overnight, and only then did it begin to show signs of a change. But it was a very, very, very minuscule change. I honestly wouldn’t have noticed any change in Liz’s blood had I not been looking for it. I ran the tests three times total to be certain. I’m not sure why the reaction times varied so vastly, but they did in every test.”

  “Should we consider how long it’s taken Robert to change?” I asked.

  “Let me think about that,” Shelia said, drumming her fingers on her chin. “Hmm . . . Could the change correlate with vampire age? Perhaps the blood of younger vampires takes more time to react. Liz is a fairly young vampire.” Being the person present in the morgue when Liz had awakened as vampire, Shelia knew this as fact.

  “She is,” Robert agreed. “And a lot younger than Marlena.”

  “Marlena is a lot older than you as well, Robert,” Leopold interjected. “She’s ancient.”

  “How old is Marlena?” Shelia asked Leopold.

  “About a thousand fifty. Maybe a little older.”

  “You mean . . . A thousand and fifty . . . years?” Shelia gulped.

  “Yes,” Leopold said, but his tone implied So? “That’s nothing, love. I just celebrated my two thousandth birthday. I’m a few years older than that—sixty-seven to be precise—but I only celebrate my birthday every century.”

  “Wow. Okay,” Shelia muttered. “Of course, I’m speculating about the age thing. It would be pretty difficult to come up with a workable theory with such a small sample pool, though it clearly doesn’t relate to the sex of a vampire. Liz and Marlena are both females.”

  “You tested my blood, Shelia. What happened?” Robert asked.

  “Your blood reacted to Liz and Marlena’s the same way Mercy’s did.”

  Leopold frowned. “You mean it filtered the vampirism out of their blood?”

  Shelia nodded. “Yes. I also tested Robert’s blood against Mercy’s, hoping that it would have a reversal effect.”

  “Did it?” Leopold said hopefully.

  “I’m afraid not. It was simply mixing one human’s blood with another’s.”

  Robert fell back in his seat. “This is a nightmare.”

  Shelia, Leopold, and I looked at each other desperately. None of us could think of anything positive to say.

  “Don’t bother trying to be tactful,” Robert muttered at us. “Only a fool would miss how ghastly this is.”

  “Does this mean that Leopold can’t change him back?” I questioned. Seemed I was going to have more time with human Robert. If I were a better person, I wouldn’t have felt the tiniest tinge of relief. Selfish, I know—but I felt bad for it, if that matters.

  “I haven’t a clue about the changeover process for vampires, except for what I’ve seen in m
ovies,” Shelia replied sheepishly. “Does it involve an exchange of Robert’s blood? Drinking it?”

  “It does,” Leopold confirmed. “I’d drink his blood first and then he’d drink mine in return.”

  “Then changing Robert should absolutely not be attempted,” Shelia said, “at least not until we get a better handle on what we’re dealing with. Like I said before, I can’t give you an absolute answer with the small amount of testing I did. But by attempting to change Robert over, Leopold, you could become human. I’m sorry, Robert, but it looks like you’re going to have to remain human for the time being.”

  Poor Shelia. She didn’t relish delivering such bad news—especially with Leopold sitting a few inches away, his steely gaze fixed on her.

  “I could continue running tests,” Shelia offered. “Perhaps I’d have different results if I tested Robert’s blood against Leopold’s. With him being Robert’s maker—”

  “There’s no need for that,” Leopold butted in.

  “No?” Robert said. “And why not?”

  Leopold waved a hand. “There’s no need to continue running tests willy-nilly. No offense intended, Shelia.”

  “None taken. It was difficult for me to run those tests on the sly. I’m not the only employee at the morgue; pilfering supplies and destroying the evidence wasn’t easy. I don’t have a laboratory at home—why would I—but my results are sound. I can promise you that.”

  “I wasn’t doubting the validity of your results, dear,” Leopold said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m proposing that you let me do the tests.”

  “Why?” Robert said. “You’re no scientist.”

  “You’re positively right about that. But what I am is one of the richest men in the United Kingdom. When I get home, I will immediately set up shop,” Leopold declared, making it clear that his mind was made up. “I will hire all the top scientists in Europe, and we’ll get this situation sorted.”

  Robert said, “Leopold, I don’t want to put you out. You have your own business affairs to deal with.”

  “Nonsense!” Leopold scoffed. “I made you vampire. It is my duty to look after you.”