A Quick Bite

Chapter 18

"Well that tears it. I haven't got enough blood here for one of them let alone them both."
Greg lifted his head from Lissianna's wrist at Thomas's words and glanced toward the door to find that he and Mirabeau had both returned. When his gaze found the three bags of blood Thomas carried, Greg started to warn Lissianna not to open her eyes, but it was too late.
With a muttered "Oh damn," she sagged into the mattress in a dead faint.
Mirabeau shifted on her feet and clucked with irritation, then said, "Why didn't you warn me you were going to do this? It would have saved me waking up three neighbors in search of juice."
Greg's gaze slid to the pretty young blond woman at Mirabeau's side. Orange juice wasn't all she'd brought back. He was guessing the blonde was one of the neighbors she'd promised to bring back for Lissianna to feed on.
Mirabeau followed his gaze and sighed wearily. "Sit, Mary," she ordered, then set the glass of juice she'd fetched on the dresser and crossed the room as her neighbor settled blank-faced on the chair by the door.
"How much did you have?" she asked.
Greg shook his head and opened his mouth to admit that he wasn't sure, but moving his head set the room spinning. Closing his mouth, he sank weakly back onto the bed next to Lissianna without responding.
"Enough obviously," Thomas answered for him. He joined her at the bedside and peered down at the pair of them, then glanced at Mirabeau to ask, "Have you ever overseen a turning?"
"No." She arched an eyebrow. "You?"
He shook his head.
"This is going to get messy," Mirabeau commented.
"Hmm." Thomas nodded. "I'm thinking you don't have enough neighbors for this situation."
Mirabeau snorted, and the pair glanced at each other.
"Aunt Marguerite's?" he asked.
Mirabeau nodded solemnly. "There's no reason not to now, Lissianna's seen to that." She turned to glance back at the girl she'd left seated by the door. "So? Do we use Mary here?"
"Why bother?" Thomas asked. "Both of them need more than she could supply, and it will just slow us down."
"Right. I'll take her home then," Mirabeau announced, and walked back to collect the girl.
"While you do that, I'll call ahead and warn them. It'll give Aunt Marguerite a chance to have more blood sent out to the house."
Greg lay silent as they left the room, his heart thudding heavily in his chest as he tried to ignore the growing pain in his stomach. Lissianna had told him that they called the one who did the turning the sire, because the turning was a painful rebirth. He suspected the mild discomfort he was presently experiencing was nothing compared to what was coming.
* * *
"How are you feeling now?"
Greg grimaced at the question. Thomas had asked it at least twenty times in the last twenty minutes as they'd driven out to the house. He wished he'd stop. Every time the man asked the question, it seemed to focus all of Greg's attention on the pain building and spreading throughout him. It had started in his stomach, an acidy eating-away sort of sensation that had been just bearable, but with every passing moment it grew worse and was slowly dispersing outward, spreading like a virus or cancer and eating away at him with sharp little teeth.
It had gotten so bad in just the half hour since he'd drank Lissianna's blood that sweat had broken out on his brow, and Greg found himself clenching his teeth and hands as he struggled with the pain. His answers to Marguerite's questions when she'd met them in the garage just moments ago had been monosyllabic at best. He was finding it terribly difficult to think past the agony consuming him.
"Take Dr. Hewitt to the rose room, Thomas," Marguerite instructed, opening Lissianna's bedroom door for Lucian Argeneau to carry his niece inside. "I shall be along in a moment, I just want to start Lissianna on her IV, then I will come see to Greg."
"I can hook up the IV for you, Aunt Marguerite," Jeanne Louise offered.
Marguerite hesitated, her gaze moving over Greg's pale face as Thomas half carried him past, then she nodded. "Thank you, Jeanne Louise. I had Maria bring the IV and a cooler of bagged blood up right after Thomas called. If you could get her started for me, I will come check on her as soon as I can."
"Yes, Aunt Marguerite."
Greg saw Jeanne Louise follow her uncle into Lis-sianna's room just before Thomas dragged him into the room next door.
"Put him in the bed, Thomas," Marguerite instructed as she followed them inside.
Greg caught a glimpse of the ropes attached to the bedposts and glanced back sharply at Marguerite as she closed the door before Mirabeau, Elspeth, and the twins could trail them in. Marguerite saw his expression and grimaced as she moved to join them at the bed.
"Those are only to prevent you hurting yourself while in the midst of the turning, Dr. Hewitt. You are not a prisoner. I promise."
Relaxing, Greg let Thomas ease him onto the bed. The moment he was flat on his back, Marguerite seated herself on the edge of the mattress and leaned forward to examine his eyes, though he hadn't a clue what she was looking for.
"How long is it since Lissi offered her blood?" she asked, sitting back.
"About half an hour," Thomas answered when Greg stared at her blankly, the answer suddenly eluding him when he knew he should know it.
Marguerite nodded and released a little breath that might have been relief. "It has not yet started then. It is still only in the preliminary stages."
Greg felt his heart drop at these words. It hadn't started yet? The agony he was experiencing was just the preliminary? Dear God.
"Thomas, I had Bastien call the labs and order some drugs to be sent over that might help Greg through this," she said, as the door opened and Lucian and Martine entered. "Could you go downstairs and wait for them, please?"
"Drugs," Lucian said with a snort of derision as Thomas left the room. "In my day we did not use drugs to ease it. It was a rite of passage, and we took it like men... But I suppose men today are softer, they would not be able to stand the pain."
"I don't need drugs," Greg said, pride making him rise to the bait the other man had offered. Lucian Argeneau had seemed to take an instant dislike to him during their interview the morning he'd first arrived, though Greg had no idea why. The only thing he could think was that the man had done a sweep of his brain and picked up on some of his less-sterling intentions toward Lissianna. Greg supposed he shouldn't be surprised if the man took exception to his lusting after his niece.
"Lucian, stop it," Marguerite snapped, then told Greg, "Yes, you do need the drugs."
"No, I don't," he insisted, goaded to it by the superior expression on Lucian Argeneau's face.
"Yes, you do," Lissianna's mother informed him firmly. "You are going to take them and like it."
"I thought you said I wasn't a prisoner?" Greg said testily.
"You aren't," Lucian Argeneau announced. "Marguerite, he is a grown man. If he does not want the drugs, you should not force them on him."
She glanced at Lissianna's uncle with exasperation, then sighed and turned to Greg.
"Are you sure?" she asked one last time. "It is a most painful and unpleasant experience without them."
Greg wasn't sure at all. He was already in enough pain that drugs were sounding pretty good, but with Lucian smirking at him from the foot of the bed, he'd have sooner bitten off his tongue than admit it. Nodding, he said, "I can take it."
Lissianna's mother opened her mouth to speak again, but Martine Argeneau moved to her side and placed a re-straining hand on her shoulder. "Let it be for now, Marguerite. The drugs will be here if he changes his mind."
"Yes," Lucian agreed. "It will be interesting to see how long he lasts before he's crying like a baby and begging for the drugs."
"You'll have a long wait," Greg promised him, and silently hoped that would be true.
"Well? Any luck?"
Lissianna recognized Mirabeau's voice as she drifted toward consciousness, as well as Thomas's when he answered, "No. They didn't even bother to open the door this time. I listened in the hall for a minute though."
"And?" This time it was Jeanne Louise who spoke.
"He's mostly incoherent, moaning and occasionally--" He paused as a terrified scream came muffled from somewhere in the house, then finished dryly, "Screaming."
"That poor man," she heard Juli whisper unhappily.
"Makes you glad you were born one of us and not turned, huh?"
Lissianna blinked her eyes open to stare at Elspeth as she made that last comment. Standing at the foot of the bed, her cousin was eyeing the door uncomfortably, but turned to the bed, stilling when she saw her open eyes.
"You're awake."
Her cousins and Mirabeau immediately crowded around the bed, and Lissianna peered from one concerned face to the other with confusion. "What's going on? Who's screaming?"
There was a brief pause as the group looked uncomfortable and exchanged glances, then Jeanne Louise ignored her question, and asked, "How are you feeling?"
She considered the question, wondering why her cousin asked it with such concern, then memory returned and Lissianna quite clearly recalled being staked. That lovely recollection was followed by a blur of pain-filled memories. She vaguely recalled waking up once before. She'd been in agony then and thought Greg had said they were at Mirabeau's. Lissianna was sure something important had happened there, but couldn't quite place what. It was all rather fuzzy.
Letting that go for the moment, she shifted experimentally in bed, relieved when she didn't suffer any pain or discomfort. It seemed her chest was completely healed. Lissianna wasn't even suffering any hunger pangs for a change.
"I'm fine," she assured them, then realized that none of them should be there. Glancing sharply around the room, Lissianna realized that she was in her old bedroom at her mother's and that it was she who shouldn't be there. Suddenly, she recalled what the conversation with Greg had been about... and she remembered offering him her blood... and his accepting.
The last of her sleepiness ripped away, Lissianna sat up abruptly. "Greg! Is he all right?"
"He's fine," Jeanne Louise was quick to assure her. She stepped back out of the way as Lissianna tossed the blankets aside.
"We think," Thomas added, as she surged to her feet.
Another scream made Lissianna pause and she stared around with horror at the faces of the people surrounding her.
"Is that him?" she asked weakly.
Six heads bobbed in reluctant admission and Lissianna sank back to sit on the edge of the bed and let out a shaky breath. "How long have I been out? How long has he been like this?"
"We arrived here about three hours ago," Thomas told her. "And he's been like this for about... well, he's been screaming for probably two."
Lissianna's gaze had been moving around the room, but paused on the empty bags on the bedside table. She turned on Thomas suspiciously. "I couldn't have taken that many bags in three hours."
"We were popping them on your teeth as well as using the intravenous," Mirabeau explained, then shrugged. "You were unconscious anyway so it wasn't like we had to worry about you fainting."
"And your teeth suck it in much faster than the IV can drip it to you," Jeanne Louise quietly pointed out.
"You were in a lot of pain, and we were trying to get you the blood you needed as quickly as possible," Elspeth added.
Lissianna nodded and even managed a smile. She appreciated their caring for her. "Who's overseeing Greg's turning?"
"My mother, your mother, and Uncle Lucian," Elspeth answered.
She nodded again. "And the staking? Do we know what happened? Who it was?"
Thomas tilted his head. "You don't believe it was someone Uncle Lucian sent, then?"
"What?" Lissianna glanced at him with surprise. "No, of course not. He'd know that staking wouldn't kill me. Besides, that's kind of rough punishment for sneaking Greg out of here."
"Greg thought it was them," Mirabeau informed her, and Lissianna frowned.
"Well, he'd heard a lot about what the council does, he probably has a pretty grim picture of Uncle Lucian and the council."
Thomas nodded. "Aunt Marguerite, Aunt Martine, and
Uncle Lucian were pretty upset to hear about the staking when I called. I'm sure they'll look into it. Uncle Lucian probably already has someone doing so."
Lissianna nodded, then got to her feet, grimacing at the stiffness of her blouse as she moved. The smell told her it was dried blood causing the cardboardlike stiffness of the cloth. Fortunately, the dark color didn't show the blood; otherwise, she'd be fainting and back in bed.
"Maybe you should take a shower," Elspeth suggested.
Lissianna shook her head. "I want to check on Greg first."
"Lissi, they won't let you in," Thomas said quietly. "We've all tried to get in there to check on him, and they won't even open the door anymore. They just shout that he's fine and to go away."
His words made her hesitate, but then Lissianna moved resolutely to the door. "I have to check on him. Where is he?"
"The room next door," Elspeth murmured.
Nodding, she stepped into the hall, aware that the rest of them were following her. Their presence helped bolster her up so that when Lissianna reached the spare room, she didn't hesitate and didn't bother knocking, but simply opened the door and walked in.
Her eyes went wide with horror as she took in the tableau. Greg lay writhing on the bed, his hands and ankles tied down. Apparently, fearing the ropes weren't strong enough to hold him, her aunt Martine and her uncle Lucian stood on either side of the bed, adding their strength to keep him down as her mother struggled to insert an IV into his arm.
"Is everything all right?" Lissianna asked with concern.
As if her words were some sort of cue, Greg suddenly screamed again and redoubled his thrashing. Much to her amazement, he nearly broke free of the hold Martine and Lucian had on him.
"Close the door!" her uncle Lucian roared.
Lissianna turned automatically to do so, her glance apologetic as she shut the door on her cousins and Mirabeau. Then she turned back to the struggle taking place to keep Greg in the bed.
"The nanos have made him this strong already?" she asked in amazement as she approached the bed.
"No. It's the pain and fear," Marguerite gasped, giving up on what she'd been doing to bear down on his arm and shoulder as he thrashed.
"Fear?" Lissianna moved around her uncle to the top of the bed and reached out to gently touch Greg's forehead, murmuring his name.
He seemed to settle a little at the sound of her voice. At least, his struggles slowed. Lissianna felt tears sting her eyes at the desperate agony that filled his as he opened his eyes and found her.
She'd heard many times that the turning was painful. The nanos were an invading force, eating up blood at an incredible rate as they multiplied and spread throughout the body, entering every organ and cell. Lissianna had heard that it felt as if the blood was turning to acid, and that acid ate you up an inch at a time. She'd heard that the pain wasn't even the worst of it, that nightmares and hallucinations accompanied it, horrid terrifying visions of death and torture and, usually, burning alive.
Lissianna had often thought those stories an exaggeration, but seeing Greg as he was now, she believed every one of them. Her gaze slid to her mother. "Isn't there something you can give him for the pain?"
"He wanted to go through it without drugs," Marguerite said on a sigh.
"Only because Lucian badgered him into it with his 'real vampires take it like a man,' crap." Martine tossed her brother a glance filled with disgust. "They may not have had strong painkillers in Roman or medieval times, but you won't convince me that a society advanced enough to develop this sort of thing, didn't have the knowledge to develop pain suppressors to ease their introduction to the body. Besides," she added pointedly, "you were born this way just as I was."
Lissianna saw the smile playing about her uncle's lips, and growled with fury as she turned to her mother to snap, "Give him something!"
"He said he wanted to suffer through it," Lucian commented mildly. "You cannot--"
"This is none of your business!" Lissianna barked. "He's no threat now. I'm allowed to turn one, I have, and neither you nor the council can now hurt him." She paused breathing heavily, then said more calmly, "He's mine. I turned him, and I say knock him out."
There was complete silence for a moment. Even Greg's struggies slowed to almost nothing, as if he sensed the sudden tension in the air as Lucian stared coldly at Lissianna. No one spoke to Lucian Argeneau like that. At least, she'd never heard of it happening.
"My, my," her uncle finally said softly. "Marguerite, our little kitten has finally found her claws."
"Lucian," her mother said uncertainly.
"Do as she says," he interrupted calmly. "He is hers."
Lissianna glanced at her mother, then down to Greg's arm where she had been trying to insert the IV. It was when she saw the blood staining his arm, as well as the bed around it that Lissianna realized the older woman hadn't been trying to insert the IV, she'd been trying to reinsert it.
"Oh hell," she muttered as the room began to spin.
"Oh hell," she heard her uncle Lucian echo as he took one hand from Greg and reached out to catch her as she fainted.
Lissianna opened her eyes to find herself lying in her old bed again. At first, she thought she was alone, but then her uncle stepped into view and peered down at her, meeting her gaze.
Lissianna eyed him warily. He stared back, expression grim, then asked, "How do you feel?"
"Fine," she said slowly, then opened her mouth to ask how Greg was, but he forestalled her.
"Your Greg is fine. Marguerite has him all drugged up and oblivious to any suffering."
"I suppose that disappoints you?" Lissianna asked bitterly, and he shrugged.
"Actually, no. His shrieks were giving me a headache, and holding him down was becoming tiresome," he admitted with a slow smile. "I soon regretted taunting him into proving his mettle."
"It serves you right," Lissianna said wearily, and sat up in the bed. She pulled her feet up to sit in the lotus position and leaned back against the wall.
"Yes, I am sure it does," Lucian acknowledged wryly, then added, "though I am also glad I did it. Your young man surprised me. Many would have been shrieking for drugs the minute the nanos reached their testicles. He started screaming soprano, but did not once ask for drugs. He is worthy of my niece."
Lissianna was trying to figure out what to make of that when he tilted his head, and said, "Despite what you think, I did not have you staked. I have always done my best to protect my family, and that includes my brother, his wife, and each of his children. I did not order you staked as punishment for defying me."
"I didn't think you had. Greg was the only one who thought that," she admitted, then tilted her head and asked, "Why do you do that?"
"Do what?" he queried.
"You just said, 'I have always done my best to protect my family, and that includes my brother, his wife, and each of his children.' When you could have said 'my brother, Marguerite, and each of you children.'"
"Does it matter?" he asked stiffly.
"I think so. It's as if you don't acknowledge that we have any connection to you except through him. It's as if you keep an emotional distance by talking about us objectively. As if you are separate."
He looked disturbed at her words, but Lissianna wasn't done. Annoyance tipping her lips, she asked, "Why have you never remarried? Aunt Luna and the children died in the fall of Atlantis. Surely you've met someone since then that you could love? Or are you just too cowardly to allow yourself to iove again?"
"You think I am afraid to love?" he asked with surprise.
She nodded.
"Well... perhaps," he allowed, then added, "and perhaps it's true that it takes one to know one."
Lissianna frowned. "What does that mean?"
Lucian shook his head as if to say it wasn't important, then peered down at her curiously, and asked, "You are not afraid of me at all, are you?"
Sighing, she dropped her gaze, then shrugged unhappily. "I used to be."
'Then what has changed?"
"I'm tired of being afraid. It's no way to live."
"Your father," he said with regret.
"You look like him," Lissianna said quietly. It was a silly thing to say. Of course he looked like her father. They had been twins, but now she thought that perhaps that was part of the reason she had always cringed in his presence. He reminded her of her father, and Lissianna had always been afraid of Jean Claude Argeneau, and so she was instinctively afraid of her uncle Lucian.
"I may look like him, Lissianna, but I am not him," he said quietly as he sat on the bed, half-turned toward her. Then he sighed. "I knew he was difficult to live with and that he made life hard for you and your mother, but I never realized just how hard. I am sorry."
"There's nothing you could have done," she said with a small shrug.
"Yes," Lucian countered. "There was. I fear I protected him when I should not have. Your father would have been staked and baked centuries ago for his misdemeanors if I had not interfered."
Lissianna's eyes widened at his claim, then she sighed. "He was your brother, blood ties are strong, and love often leads us to do things we perhaps shouldn't, things we later regret." She shrugged. "Just look at what Thomas and the others did for me."
"And what you did for Greg."
"That was different," Lissianna said quickly. "I don't love--" She paused and flushed at his knowing look.
"At least you can no longer bring yourself to lie about your feelings for him. Now you just have to find the courage to admit them to him," her uncle said with mild amusement. When Lissianna allowed her perplexity to show, he said, "Your mother says she knew he was for you the moment she saw you together. The others thought so, too, and when they found that Greg knew what we were--or as much as he could know with all those ridiculous movies and stories about us out there--and was not repulsed by it, Martine and your mother decided they could not wipe you from his memory. They brought him home to allow you two to discover for yourselves what they already knew."
"Then why did she call you?"
Her uncle gave a short laugh. "No one called me. I just happened to drop by for a visit. It has been a while since I spent time with Martine and the girls," he said wryly. "When Thomas nearly swallowed his tongue at the sight of me, the women were forced to explain, then they took me to meet Greg."
"And?" Lissianna asked curiously.
"And I was not sure," Lucian admitted, then added, "until you came home that morning while we were in with Greg. Your panic when you realized I was there was loud and strong, and every bit of your energy was focused on him." He shrugged.
"Then why did you tie him up and decide to involve the council?" Lissianna asked with confusion.
"Your mother had him tied up again, not I. And I was calling the council to inform them that he would be joining our ranks soon. The council keeps track of everyone, you know that.
"After you had snuck him out, your mother admitted she'd hope you'd take everything the wrong way. She'd hoped that the fear of his being subjected to a council of three would force you to recognize your feelings for him. However, instead you grabbed him and ran."
Lissianna stared at him in amazement. It had all been a con? Her mother had just been manipulating her in an effort to get them together? She'd been playing matchmaker?
"So Valerian wasn't chasing us at the mall? You didn't even send anyone out to watch for us?" she asked with disbelief.
Lucian grimaced. "Well, I put a couple of the boys out to watch you and make sure you did not flee the country, but no, I did not set the dogs on you or anything."
"Except Julius," she said dryly.
Lucian snorted. "Julius would never hurt you. That dog is a lamb when it comes to you and your mother. He might have gone after Greg, of course, but we expected you would find a way to keep him off him. And you did."
Lissianna released a slow breath as she considered all of this. It was good to know that her uncle hadn't had her staked. On the other hand, that meant someone else had.
"So," Lucian said, following her thoughts. "This Debbie whose home you stayed in, she's a coworker?"
Lissianna nodded. "And a friend."
"So you do not think she might have been behind the staking?"
"No." Lissianna shook her head firmly. "She's a friend, and she would have been at work at the shelter last night when it happened. Besides, she has no idea I'm a vampire. No one at the shelter does. I'd bet my life on it."
"You are betting your life on it," Lucian Argeneau said softly. "Staking a vampire is a mortal trick, Lissi. Our kind would have known enough to cut off your head."
"Yes, but..." Lissianna frowned. "Uncle Lucian, other than our own kind, I don't know of anyone who could know what I am. I've been careful."
He thought for a minute, then murmured, "Well, I shall look into it and see what I can learn, and I will stay until it is resolved." He raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you will want to see him now?"
Lissianna didn't need her uncle to explain who "him" was. Smiling, she nodded. "Yes. Please."
Her uncle nodded and stood. "Come along then."
Lissianna scrambled off the bed and stood up next to him. The moment she was on her feet, he took her elbow in a gentlemanly fashion and walked her to the door.
"By the way, your cousins and that friend of yours heard you yell at me in the other room. You are now their hero, both for defying me and taking Greg out of here, as well as for daring to yell." He didn't look pleased as he dispensed this knowledge, then he added, "I may have led them to believe that I came in here to bawl you out on the subject and put you in your place."
Lissianna nodded solemnly, but a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she said, "Your reputation is safe with me. I won't say a word about what went on in here."
Lucian Argeneau grinned and chucked her under the chin. "Good girl."