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

by Sloan Archer

  After a moment I came to realize that the something was me.

  “Mercy, are you . . . okay?” Robert took a tentative step forward.

  Suddenly, I was crouched back on my haunches, hissing like a loon—actually hissing at my boyfriend. I thought stuff like that only happened in crappy B movies.

  Jerry shuffled forward and extended the flask, offering me the blood. “It’s a college baseball player,” he said enticingly.

  I swept an arm out and batted my clawed fingers at him, like an invisible puppeteer was controlling me with invisible strings. On a deep level I knew I shouldn’t have been lashing out, but on an even deeper level I didn’t care. The darkness had seized me.

  And I was hungry.

  So painfully hungry!

  “Mercy, you aren’t yourself now,” Robert said slowly. “Take the flask from Jerry.”

  “You smell so delicious,” I purred at my man. “Let me taste you. Give me a taste!” And then I was lunging forward, nipping and clawing out.

  Jerry placed himself between Robert and me. I hadn’t noticed him, a fellow vampire, creeping up. I’d been too focused on the scent of Robert’s human blood.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” I screamed as Jerry and Robert rushed me. I batted Robert away like he was nothing more significant than a gnat, but Jerry managed to pin me to the floor.

  “Get off me!” I wailed.

  Robert ran to Jerry’s side and snatched the flask. “Open her mouth!” Robert bellowed.

  I clamped my lips together and Jerry thrust his fingers into my mouth, prying my teeth apart. “Sorry sweetie,” he apologized, though it was my fangs cutting his fingers to ribbons. Jerry’s vampire blood flowed down my throat and I gagged at its bitter taste. It tasted nothing close to the way Robert smelled. He looked at Robert and nodded. “Ready.”

  Robert steadied the flask over my mouth and dumped in the blood. “Hold on, baby,” he whispered, stroking damp hair back from my forehead. I nipped at his wrist. He pulled away just in time, or else I would have sunk my teeth in and had myself a nice little meal.

  I relaxed as the effects of the flask blood started to kick in, rolling my eyes back into my head. Like the pain of the changeover, it was an ecstasy that couldn’t be quantified with words. I’d never shot up, though I imagined a heroin user might feel a similar sensation as the opiates invaded their veins. Combine chocolate, sex, wine, and your best adult memory, and it still would fall short to the sensation of drinking human blood as a vampire.

  Robert and Jerry moved away to give me some space. I got to my feet and walked into the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror, examining my new vampire self. I looked like me, though a few tweaks had been made. Besides the most obvious change, the fangs, I was . . . brighter. I glowed from within, like there was a candle blazing underneath my skin. My eyes had lightened; they were a brown-hazel shade that was also gray—three colors in one. My hair, normally chocolate brown, boasted flickers of deep maroon. I was gorgeous. Otherworldly.

  And then it hit me: I was immortal. I, Mercy Delilah Montgomery, was never going to age. Not ever.

  I went back into the main room to join Jerry and Robert. I wanted to apologize for being such a pill during the changeover. No sooner had I opened my mouth to tell them that I was okay that things started going wrong.

  Clutching my stomach, I fell to my knees. I rolled onto my side in fetal position and screamed. This time no pillow was over my face, and my howls reverberated off the walls. It was scary, hearing myself sounding so tormented.

  Everything hurt. My mouth flooded with the taste of copper and I spat an awful thick fluid out onto the floor. It was blood. In the center of the puddle were fangs—my fangs. I tongued the two raw bleeding holes in my gums, gasping as my human teeth began to grow back. They were fully sprouted within a few seconds. The pain in my gut stopped and my suffering ceased.

  I felt human.

  Robert and Jerry were yelling, but I ignored them and ran back into the bathroom. The reflection staring back in the mirror was no longer otherworldly. I was no longer vampire, just regular old human Mercy.

  I turned to Robert and Jerry, who were standing in the bathroom doorway looking perplexed. “I’ve changed back,” I told them.

  Jerry’s mouth fell open. “How is that possible? I saw you change—I saw you die!”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But look at me.” I pulled back my upper lip so that they could see my incisors. “See. Human teeth. Those aren’t Tic Tacs on the floor in there. Those are my fangs.”

  “Do you want to try again?” Robert asked.

  The very idea of spending a few more hours in excruciating pain made me want to burst into tears. But I had no other choice. “Might as well,” I said.

  And so we tried again. This time, the changeover went faster—just thirty minutes—but so did my reversion to humanism. I was vampire for about two minutes before I returned to my mortal self.

  Hoping that the third time would be a charm, we tried once more. I changed into a vampire in about five minutes, but my fangs fell out as soon as they grew in. In my possession I now had three sets of razor sharp teeth. I scooped them up and rattled them in my palm, marveling how they’d come from my mouth.

  After a few moments of silence, Jerry said, “It isn’t working, is it? I’m sorry to be the one to say it, but somebody has to.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Jerry. You’re absolutely right.” I showed them the fangs to illustrate my point. “We’ve tried three times, and all we have to show for our efforts are six very sharp teeth.”

  Robert said, “You probably don’t want to try any more, do you?”

  “I don’t see the use. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If my blood can make a vampire turn human, then it’s not a wonder that I’d be incapable of becoming vampire.” Sighing, I sat down on the edge of the bed. “It should have occurred to me sooner.”

  This was a revelation that distressed me on multiple levels. I now couldn’t use vampirism as a way to get the VGO off my back. And, sure, I could kiss that ethereal creature in the bathroom mirror goodbye—the shimmering hair, the mesmerizing eyes, the impeccable skin. But, worst of all, I would eventually die and Robert wouldn’t. I was going to grow old and feeble and Robert was going to live forever. (That is, if he reverted to vampirism, which he certainly wanted to do. Leopold was a weasel, okay. But, according to Robert, he was a weasel who kept his promises. Leopold would find a cure eventually.)

  Jerry asked, “So, what now?”

  “Bed,” I suggested. Slumbering for a few hours seemed the most logical thing to do.

  “Good idea,” Robert said. “I’m feeling sort of off myself.”

  I clicked my tongue. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  Robert placed his hand on my cheek. “After the pain you’ve suffered, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  While Jerry slept later in the afternoon, Robert and I took a drive along the coast to clear our heads. It was too stifling in the hotel room, as if the disappointment from my failed changeover had permeated the paint on the walls and we could no longer stand breathing in the nasty fumes.

  There were a couple unanswered questions I wasn’t up to facing, but my mind kept firing them off anyway: How could my relationship with Robert prevail over my impending old age? Was I out of options as far as protecting myself from the VGO?

  Robert and I talked very little during our journey, and when we did it was superficial, which made me wonder if he was asking himself the same questions that I was. But I didn’t ask. Even if Robert carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, he would deny it, and then swear for the billionth time that he’d love me no matter what my age. I appreciated his loyalty, but I questioned how that could possibly be true.

  I put myself in Robert’s place and imagined what it would be like being shacked-up with an old lady when I was still a hot young man, frozen at age thirty-one forever . . .

  In my head, the year was 2060. Robert and I we
re heading out to spend a night on the town together. People would think Robert was such a lovely man, taking his grandmother out for the evening. I’d have an early bird’s dinner special—dry chicken in mushroom wine sauce, mashed potatoes, tapioca—and Robert would sit across from me, uneaten food on his own plate, his lips stained from the blood he surreptitiously sipped from a flask in his breast pocket. We’d retire early so I could get home in time to watch reruns of Sex and the City, now an entertainment staple of the over-sixty female crowd. At precisely nine o’clock, I’d ease down into bed. I’d plop my dentures into a stagnant cup of water I kept on the nightstand and then swallow a handful of pills engineered to combat the discomforts of old age: arthritis, frail bones, dementia. Robert would run his smooth hands over my sagging, wrinkled skin, trying not to recoil as his fingertips fluttered over the wiry thatch of grey hair billowing out from the center of my thighs. He’d tell me that I was as beautiful as the day we first met. And I wouldn’t believe him, but I’d say something grandmotherly like, “That’s nice, dear.” I’d shut off the light, roll on my side, and wonder if tonight would finally be the night that Robert would decide to leave me. I’d wonder if I’d wake and find him gone.

  And then I’d die alone, an old brokenhearted woman.

  “What are you thinking about over there?” Robert asked, startling me. “You look like somebody walked over your grave.”

  I swallowed hard, realizing that I’d been on the verge of tears. The top of our sporty little convertible was down, so my hair, whipping against my face, helped camouflage my raw emotion. “Nothing,” I said. “Just letting my mind wander. How about you? You look pretty deep in thought yourself.”

  “I’m not really deep in thought, but . . .”

  “What’s that?”

  He paused. “Don’t turn around, okay, but have you noticed that car tailing us?”

  I gripped the edge of my seat and fought hard to avoid doing exactly what Robert had asked me not to do, which was to whip my head around and see for myself.

  Robert addressed my worry before I had a chance to voice it. “Don’t worry. It’s not the VGO.”

  “How do you know?”

  “For one, the sun is out.”

  “But Seraphim said they have those outfits—”

  “And they aren’t covered.”

  “You sure?”

  Robert nodded. “They’ve been following us since we stopped for gas. They aren’t wearing hats. They are positively human.”

  “Then who in the hell are they? Locals?”

  “No, they look European—definitely not local.” Robert shrugged. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they’re paparazzi. There are three of them in the car, and they all have cameras—even the guy driving. But if the VGO haven’t found us, I can’t see how they could have.”

  “We have to ditch them,” I shrilled. “If they put your picture in the paper, the VGO will find us in no time!”

  “I’m working on that,” Robert said with forced calm. It was his I know I sound composed but I’m really quite ruffled and don’t want anyone to know it voice.

  We were foiled by a stoplight. Robert accelerated to run the red light at the last second, but I screamed for him to stop when a shiny mass caught my eye. Parked next to a palm tree on the side of the road was a motorcycle cop. Like the security men at the airport, he had a large firearm slung over his back. He was smirking, virtually daring foolish tourists to break the law.

  The men following us screeched to a halt on the passenger side of the car—the left side, since we were Indonesia. Their positioning stupefied me. Robert was the one they were interested in and he was driving. To thwart their efforts, I leaned forward to block their view.

  And then they started shouting . . .

  At me.

  “Malory, over here! Over here! Give us a smile, love!” they demanded. “You in Bali promoting a film?” Between the three of them, they’d snapped at least a dozen photos before I cottoned on to what was happening.

  “I’m not Mallory!” I hollered. “I don’t even know who that is! You have the wrong woman!”

  “Aw, don’t be like that, sweetheart,” the driver yelled. He was portly, balding, and badly sunburned. The lens on his camera was as wide as a damn dinner plate.

  The light changed and Robert was off. Unfortunately, so were they. The driver continued clicking photos as he chased us. The three jerks were so focused on me—Mallory—that they didn’t notice that the two lanes of road were narrowing into one. Robert tried to speed up, but he would have rammed the back of the motorcycle in front of us, which was carrying a woman, man, and two very young boys.

  We’d run out of room. We were down to one lane and the other car was parallel to ours. “Look out!” I screamed.

  Panicked, the driver of the other car sped up to overtake us. Had Robert not swerved into the other lane, the photographers would have killed the family on the motorcycle. But now that the family was safe, Robert and I weren’t. In about three seconds, a dump truck was going to hit us head-on.

  Thanks to his residual vamp reflexes, Robert was able to transport us to safety . . . Sort of. He cranked the wheel hard, pulling us off the road and out of the way of the trunk, jumping the curb. We spun out of control for a few seconds—it felt like an hour—and then the trunk of a palm tree intervened, crumpling the front end of our zippy little convertible like tinfoil.

  Thankfully, we hadn’t been going that fast. We were both uninjured, nary a bruise or scrape between us. We got out of the car to examine the damage.

  In a flash, the men descended upon us like a swarm of locusts. Only one of the three—the driver—had the decency to inquire if we were hurt. The other two kept snapping away.

  “Hey! You’re not Mallory!” one of the photographers yelled with indignation, as if I’d gone out of my way to swindle them.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” I snarled. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Robert roared. “You could have killed someone!”

  “Hey, man, we’re just doing our job,” said the driver, no longer too concerned with our condition.

  Robert took a threatening step towards the man. “Well, your job—”

  “Robert Bramson!” the men yelled in unison. “It’s Robert Bramson!”

  Robert balled his hands into fists and prepared to strike. I stepped in and pulled him back, right as he bared his teeth and hissed like the vampire he used to be. The men were startled, and for a moment they stopped taking photos. Robert had a crazed look in his eyes. He probably would have inflicted some real damage, even as a human, and not just to their cameras.

  We fled the scene because it was the only thing we could do. Now we had to hold our breath and wait for the backlash that was sure to come.

  19

  I had the strangest dream that night.

  I was dozing naked on a shoreline, the sun above baking my skin. I awakened to find that a goliath leech had slithered out of the water and had coiled itself around my neck like a scarf. It was sucking on my neck, though it didn’t hurt. It was almost pleasant, familiar. Its smooth tail was curled over my breasts. I stopped enjoying myself when it started to bite.

  I jolted upright in a mass of damp sheets and groped for the light. I discovered Robert nestled up next to me, his brow dripping with sweat and his mouth open wide. His hand tensed over my breast as the light touched his face.

  I stroked my neck, finding it slick. “Robert, honey, wake up.” I gave his shoulder a shake.

  “What’s going on?” He sat up and studied me, his eyes unfocused and confused.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. Why?”

  “For starters, you’re all sweaty,” I said, touching his forehead. It was so fiery that I could have fried an egg on it. “And you were just biting on my neck.”

  He bit his lip. “I was? Did I hurt you?”

  “No, but it’s weir
d, no?”

  “Once a vampire, always a vampire.”

  “Not funny,” I scolded. “I’m worried about you. You look terrible. Your skin is greenish, and you definitely have a fever.”

  “My stomach hurts a little.”

  “How bad is it? Do you think you’ll be up for travelling?”

  After our run-in with the paparazzi, Robert and I agreed that we’d have to flee Bali. We’d tried to fly out immediately after the incident, but the next available flight wasn’t for over twenty-four hours. We’d assumed that we were moderately safe, anyway, since the photographers would probably need a minimum of a day to get the photos of Robert into whatever sleazy tabloid newspaper they worked for.

  At Jerry’s suggestion, we were heading to Russia. By the time the world learned of Robert’s car-wrecking escapades in Bali, we’d be far away in St. Petersburg. We were hoping the VGO might be thrown off our scent because of the vast geographical difference of the two countries.

  “I’ll be okay,” Robert said, trying to sound glib. “It’s just something I ate.”

  “I don’t see how. We ate the same thing for dinner.”

  “I’m burned, too.”

  “Burned?”

  “Yes, sunburned. Nothing to worry about. My skin is sensitive to sun after being a night dweller for all those years.”

  “You never mentioned it before,” I said. “How long has it been bothering you?”

  “Not that long. A couple of days.” Robert squished a pillow under his head and pulled me down next to him. “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be fine. No more questions. I think we both need more sleep.”

  Robert slept through the next morning and most of the day. I checked on him frequently. He remained ashen and continued sweating, but his condition didn’t seem to be worsening. Our flight was at 10:30PM, so I decided that I’d rouse him at six if he didn’t get up on his own beforehand. We didn’t have much to pack, but I wanted to be sure that Robert was well enough to board a plane. If need be, we’d stay another night in Bali. It was dangerous, but so was the possibility of Robert requiring serious medical attention while we were midair.