Vampires Are Forever (Argeneau #8)

Vampires Are Forever (Argeneau #8) Page 17

Letting her breath out on a sigh of relief, Inez set the used towel aside and grabbed another, laying this one lightly over the wound, just to make sure the little bit of blood still seeping out didn't run down his side and drip on the floor, then she stood and moved to the cooler to retrieve a couple of bags of blood. Inez carried them back to Thomas and knelt beside him again, only to stare at him uncertainly. She had no idea how she was supposed to get the blood into him. If he were on his back, she'd just pop a hole in the bag and let it run into his mouth and hope he swallowed it. However, he was on his stomach.

Inez considered the problem for several moments and then sighed and simply laid the bags of blood beside his head so that he'd find them when he woke up.

If he woke up, Inez thought and frowned, but then recalled his saying that immortals couldn't be killed by most injuries. Not even a stake through the heart could kill them if it was removed quickly enough.

He'd wake up, she reassured herself. But now she had to go out and check the latest coordinates to see if she could find Marguerite. She didn't want Thomas's friend Herb calling back and wondering why they hadn't checked them out. Besides it was what they were there for. She started to stand and then knelt again as she recalled his phone. There was a good possibility Bastien might call to check on their progress and she thought it best if she had the phone if he did.

Gritting her teeth, Inez snaked her hand under Thomas's body, feeling around for his pocket. The knife was no longer in his back, but she still didn't want to jostle him too much and possibly worsen his injury. Finding his pocket, she slid her hand inside, caught the phone in her fingers with some difficulty and eased it out, her breath exhaling on a gust of relief when she had it free.

Inez dropped it in her purse, and then slid the map out of his back pocket and put that in her purse as well as she got to her feet. She hesitated then, feeling awful about leaving Thomas lying there. After a moment, she dropped to her knees again and slid one of the folded towels under his head as a pillow, then stood and headed for the door.

Chapter Eight

It didn't take Inez long to find the new location on the map. The next spot was a lot closer to the hotel than the others had been. It was only a few minutes walk away. Inez set out at a quick clip, eager to get this over with. She ended up on Rembrandtplein, directly in front of a huge night club with a ridiculously large queue of people in front of it. Judging by the number of people waiting outside, there must be a colossal number of people inside. It would be loud, dark, crowded, and impossible to find Marguerite.

Closing her eyes briefly, Inez prayed for strength, or at least a little energy, and then stiffened as a phone rang. Digging quickly in her purse she found her phone, pulled it out, and opened it.

"Thomas?" Herb asked.

"No, it's Inez," she answered, having to speak loudly to be heard over the noise around her. Before he could ask where Thomas was, she quickly said, "The last coordinates are outside a large club called Escape. There's a huge queue out front waiting to get in and we're checking it out now."

Her eyes slid over the people in line, looking for the tall brunette as she continued, "But if she isn't in the line up, which she probably isn't since she could control the doorman's mind and make him let her go in, then we'll have to move the search inside. But this place is really big. I'm guessing it holds well over a thousand people, and it will be dark and noisy and crowded inside and she'll be impossible to find. Please tell me the new coordinates are somewhere else and she was just passing by here."

"They are," Herb answered.

Inez let her breath out on a sigh of relief and scrambled to find her pen and notepad to write down the coordinates as he rattled them off.

"Tell Thomas I'm going to check her coordinates again while you two head over that way. If she's still at the new location, fine. But if she's moved on again, I think it might be smarter to leave it until morning. Once the sun rises she'll stay in one place."

"All right," Inez murmured with relief. She was tired and didn't relish the idea of running all over Amsterdam tonight in search of a woman who was proving to be a ghost.

Inez said goodbye and hit the off button and then glanced down at her purse as the sound of ringing came from its depths.

Thomas's phone, she realized and knew it would be Bastien checking on what was happening. Sighing, she grabbed Thomas's phone, dropped her own in the purse, and opened Thomas's.

"Hello?"

"Inez?" Bastien sounded startled that she was answering Thomas's phone and Inez grimaced, knowing she was going to have to lie. She hated lying.

"Thomas is in the bathroom," she said abruptly. "We've been running all over Amsterdam following Marguerite's phone and are about to check one more spot. If she isn't at this new stop, we're going to call it a night and wait until morning to try again. Hopefully, she'll settle in one spot then and we'll be able to catch up to her."

"Oh," Bastien said, sounding somewhat startled.

Inez grimaced, knowing it was her terse tone that had set him aback, but she couldn't help it. She was a rotten liar. She hated doing it and didn't do it well.

"All right then. I guess that makes sense," Bastien murmured finally. "Tell Thomas to keep me informed."

"I will. Good night," Inez murmured and quickly pressed the button to end the call before he could say anything else. Muttering under her breath then, she slipped the phone in her purse and then opened the map to figure out where she had to go to get to the next location. It appeared Marguerite was heading farther away from the town center and into quieter residential streets. Curious about that, she headed out to the next spot.

Ten minutes later, Inez found herself standing in a circle of light cast by a streetlamp on the edge of a dark, public park.

Shifting uncomfortably, she peered into the dark tree-filled park, noting that a trio of young men were sitting on a bench near the center, laughing uproariously. They were loud, English, gregarious, and obviously drunk and she was reluctant to draw their attention by entering the park alone.

Having Thomas here would come in handy right now, Inez thought and wondered how he was doing. Had he woken up yet? Had he found the bags of blood she'd left lying beside him? Had he healed? The only way to find out was to call the hotel, but Inez didn't have any idea what the hotel number was. Exhausted as she was, it seemed a lot of trouble to her to figure out the number for information in Amsterdam, call, get the hotel phone number, and then call the hotel. It would be easier just to get this over with and head back. Besides, she knew she was just stalling about going into the park alone.

"Coward," she muttered under her breath, took one step out of the circle of light and halted again. Dark, empty parks weren't exactly on the top of her list of safe places to go. After hesitating another moment, Inez suddenly pulled out Thomas's phone. It was extremely quiet here away from the noisy town center and, other than the three men, the park looked empty to her, but if she were to call Marguerite's number and her cell phone was anywhere around here, Inez thought she'd probably hear it ring and be able to follow it. She searched Thomas's digital phonebook for Marguerite's cell phone number, and was about to press the button to call it when she heard a scuffling sound behind her.

Turning nervously, Inez found herself staring at an approaching man dressed all in black. For one minute she hoped it was Thomas, but then he stepped into the circle of light with her and she saw that he was the thin faced, dark-haired man she'd noted at one of the tables outside the restaurants earlier, the one who had looked familiar. She'd thought at the restaurant that she must have seen him in the airport, and she had, Inez suddenly realized, but not on the way to Amsterdam. He was the man who had stolen the taxi she'd hired to follow Thomas that morning after he'd left her standing in the airport, she realized suddenly and felt alarm begin to creep up her back.

Surely it couldn't be coincidence that she kept seeing the man? Inez thought, stepping back as he continued forward. And then her mind went blank.

The ringing phone forced Thomas back to consciousness . The first thing he became aware of was pain. It was a pain he recognized, the full body agony of the hunger for blood, the acid sensation of the nanos infiltrating organs and tissue in search of what they needed. He then opened his eyes and saw red. Literally. Thomas's vision was filled with red. It took a moment for him to realize he was staring at a bag of blood lying directly in front of his face. The moment he did, he felt his teeth shift and shot his hand up to grab the bag and shove it into them.

A slow, relieved sigh slid around the bag in his mouth as he felt the blood rushing up his teeth and into his system. His pain began to ease at once as the nanos rushed back into his blood stream to collect the fresh blood entering. Thomas just lay where he was, ignoring the phone as he waited for the first bag to empty. The moment it did, he pulled the bag free and replaced it with the second bag lying there.

It was as he waited for the second bag to empty that Thomas's brain began to function properly again. His first thought was to wonder how the bags had got there, and then to wonder where "there" was, and what he was doing wherever he was. It only took a quick glance around what he could see of the room to recognize the hotel suite. He was lying on his stomach on the floor, seriously depleted of blood. The second bag was nearly empty when he recalled the rest of the night and how he'd ended up where he was.

His own bloody stupidity was how he'd ended up there. No one had ever claimed horny men thought with their heads. Thomas could now verify this was true. He didn't think he'd used his head since realizing he'd consumed a bag of S.E.C. Attacking Inez in the alley, and then attacking three drunken idiots in a fit of jealousy...

First, he'd displayed his unnatural strength by lifting the blonde off his feet with one hand, and then he'd actually flashed his fangs!

Fortunately, Thomas didn't think anyone but the brunette had seen and no one was likely to believe the account of a half-drunk, half-stoned idiot.

Now that he was beginning to think again, Thomas was concerned about other things. Like, where was Inez? And was the knife still in his back? All it took was a quick glance over his shoulder to see that the knife was no longer protruding from his lower back. He then saw it lying on top of a towel next to a stack of three or four more fresh towels and a small pile of blood-soaked ones.

Obviously, Inez had removed the knife from his back and staunched the flow of blood, then retrieved a couple of bags for him, but where was she now? In her bed was his guess. She'd been exhausted and beginning to flag before they'd reached the small bevy of restaurants and bars where he'd had her sit at one of the tables to watch the entrances while he checked inside each.

Sighing, Thomas pulled the second, now empty, bag from his mouth and got carefully to his feet. There was only the slightest twinge from his back, telling him it was mostly healed. And the acidy cramps that had been attacking him from head to toe were much eased by the two bags, but he'd probably need another couple of bags at least before they were gone entirely. Moving to the cooler on the table, he retrieved a third bag and popped it to his teeth and then stood there with another bag in hand as he waited for this one to drain. He was about to switch bags when the hotel room phone began to ring.

Recalling that a phone's ringing was what had woken him, Thomas tore the empty bag from his teeth and moved to the end table beside the sofa to answer it before it woke Inez.

"Thomas!" Herb sounded relieved to hear his voice. "I was getting worried. I couldn't reach you on your cell phone or Inez's and was beginning to think the two of you had disappeared right alongside your aunt."

"No," Thomas assured him quietly and reached into his pocket for his cell phone, only to find that it was missing from his pocket. Startled, he felt each of his pockets in turn, wondering if he'd put it in one of the others, but there was no phone.

"Obviously you aren't at the park anymore. Did you find your aunt there?"

Thomas gave up looking for his phone and straightened, confusion flowing through him. "The park?"

"I checked a map, the location I sent you both to after the Escape night club should have been a park," Herb explained. "Did you go to the wrong place? Maybe Inez misheard what I said. It sounded like it was noisy where you were."

Thomas stood still for a minute and then barked, "Hang on."

Setting the phone down on the end table, he turned and strode into Inez's room. He didn't bother to turn on the lights, his night vision was exceptional and he could see the bed was still made and unslept in. Cursing, Thomas whirled to hurry out of the room, but froze as the bedroom door leading out into the hotel hall suddenly opened. Pausing, he glanced to the door. His breath came out on a sigh of relief as he recognized Inez's petite figure stepping inside, then the door closed again. Thomas immediately moved to flip on the light switch in the room. Light exploded around them as he turned to peer at Inez, and then he saw her face and froze. It was completely blank, no expression at all and her eyes were empty.

"Inez?" he said, approaching her carefully.

She didn't respond to either his presence or his voice until he was standing directly in front of her and then she simply moved around him, saying expressionlessly, "I'm very tired and have to go to bed now."

Thomas turned slowly and watched her walk to the bed. She immediately began to strip, apparently uncaring that he was there. He watched her undo and shrug out of her blouse, but then turned and left the room, his expression grim with concern as he returned to the living room and picked up the phone again.

"Herb, tell me everything that you know after I called you from the restaurants," he said grimly.

There was a moment of silence and then Herb said, "But you know what happened. I gave you the next location. It turned out to be a night club called Escape and-"

"You told me? Or you told Inez?" he asked quietly.

"Well, Inez. You were in the bathroom or something," Herb said and then fell silent for a moment before saying, "You weren't in the bathroom were you?"