“This is so not fair.” Juli sounded sulky. “You guys got to feed ‘off the hoof’ when you were way younger than we are.”
“Juli, there was no other way to feed then,” Jeanne Louise said patiently.
“Do you want me to read him for you and see if there’s any problem?” Greg was positive that was Mirabeau speaking. Her words brought an immediate end to Juli’s complaints. In fact, it seemed to end all conversation. Greg found himself holding his breath during the silence that followed, and wondered if he could somehow block the woman from reading his thoughts. Maybe if he made his mind blank? Or if he—
“Here we are!” That cheerful announcement made Greg glance around. Thomas was squinting out the window as he pulled the van to a stop. Not that he should have had to squint, the van windows were all treated with some blackening agent. It was like the vehicle itself wore sunglasses, and yet Thomas still seemed bothered by the light filtering through the screen.
Greg peered out the window at his high-rise apartment building. After the briefest hesitation, he opened the door and stepped out, shuddering as the cold air hit him. He almost left just like that, but something made him turn to peer back into the van. His gaze swept the occupants. They all stared back with solemn expressions.
“Thanks, for untying me and for the ride,” he muttered reluctantly, then, with a nod, he closed the door and turned to hurry up the walk and into the building, positive with every step that one of them would leap out and try to drag him back. It was with a sigh of relief that he slid through the glass doors to the lobby.
“Lissi, take the front seat,” Thomas said, as Greg slipped into his building.
Lissianna unbuckled her seat belt and shifted to the front passenger seat. The moment she’d pulled on her seat belt there, Thomas shifted the van into drive and steered them back into traffic.
“I read him on the drive in,” he announced.
“You can read him, too?” Lissianna asked with a frown. It was bad enough that her mother could read Greg where she couldn’t, Marguerite was loads older than Lissianna, so much more powerful. She could even have accepted if Mirabeau had been able to read him, since her friend was over two hundred years older than she, but Thomas was only four years older, and yet he could, too? Why couldn’t she read the man?
Aware that her cousins in the back of the van were now leaning eagerly forward to hear what was being said, she asked, “And?”
“He
was
mad.”
“Why?” she asked with surprise.
“I gather he asked what your phobia was after we’d left to change?” Thomas asked. “And you told him it was hemaphobia?”
When Lissianna nodded, he said, “That’s why he was mad.”
Juli was the first to speak. “I don’t get it. Why would that make him mad?”
“Aunt Marguerite interrupted his vacation and dragged him to the house where she tied him to a bed, all in an effort to get him to help cure Lissi’s phobia,” Thomas pointed out. “Then we all insisted her phobia was bad and ruining her life.”
“Well, it is,” Elspeth said grimly.
“Yes, but hemaphobia wouldn’t be that bad an affliction for a mortal,” he pointed out.
“But Lissianna isn’t a mortal,” Jeanne Louise said. “She needs blood to survive. Blood
is
food to her.”
“Exactly,” Thomas agreed. “But Hewitt doesn’t know that, does he.”
“Ohhh.” It was Juli and Vicki together who murmured the word, but it was silently echoed by the older women as realization dawned.
“We have to tell him you’re a vamp, Lissi,” Vicki said. “Then he’ll understand.”
“Oh yeah, he’d understand all right.” Mirabeau snorted. “He’d think we were crazy. Besides, do you really think he’d allow us to get close enough to tell him? Geez, the guy’s probably arranging to move house even as we speak.”
“Mirabeau’s right,” Jeanne Louise said. “He probably
will
arrange to move, and he won’t help.” She frowned. “What I don’t understand, Thomas, is—if you knew all this—why did you just let him leave?”
Thomas didn’t answer Jeanne Louise, but glanced at Lissianna instead. “Would you still want to let him go?”
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “He couldn’t be controlled or calmed. Mother made a mistake in kidnapping him.” Usually they could submerge the wills of mortals and put thoughts and suggestions into their heads. With most people, Marguerite would have been able to keep them pliant, pleased to be there, and eager to help. It would have been safe to leave them free to wander the house without fear they’d try to leave, or even want to until she released their wills…and by then she would have wiped the whole episode from their memories, leaving vague alternate memories in their place. In effect, they’d have been stealing time from the person,
but it was time the person wouldn’t even know was missing. Lissianna could have accepted that as a necessary evil to cure her phobia.
But Greg wasn’t most people. He appeared strong-willed and resistant to control. He would have had to be kept tied up during his entire stay, and they would have had to force him to treat her phobia using threats and the promise of freedom. That wasn’t acceptable to her…and she knew her mother would agree—once she got over her initial anger at their having set Greg free.
“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 cou
ple of times without risking the veil failing altogether. They build up a resistance. Some part of them recognizes you 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?”