Argeneau

Chapter 9

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It was the click of the door that woke him. Opening his eyes, Greg stared at the dark ceiling, then turned his head to peer around the shadowed room. The bathroom light was on, the door cracked open, keeping the room from being completely dark.

He recognized Lissianna as she approached the bed, and was immediately fully awake. She looked uncertain of her welcome, and he couldn"t blame her. Greg had been less than pleased to find himself dragged back last night and had been rather voluble about it. She"d probably been told that. Thomas had come in and tried to talk to him at some point, but he hadn"t been in a receptive mood, and the man had given up and left him alone to continue his ranting until he fell into an exhausted sleep.

"You must hate me."

Greg stilled at that comment and peered at her with surprise. "Why would I hate you? You aren"t the one who keeps bringing me here. In fact, you set me free."

"Yes, but it"s my phobia that got you into this in the first place," she pointed out.

"That"s hardly your fault. No one chooses to have a phobia," he said mildly, then peered at her, his thoughts moving to what she was. A vampire. Her arrival and first words had driven that fact from his mind, but now he confronted it. The beautiful blonde, with silver-blue eyes who had kissed him and caressed him and given him the hickey that wasn"t a hickey was a vampire.

Greg could hardly believe he was thinking these things. He was a psychologist, for G.o.d"s sake. If a patient had walked into his office and announced that they"d been bitten by a vampire, he"d have diagnosed them as delusional, or paranoid delusional or any number of other things that all translated to nuts. Yet, here he lay, positive he had somehow been dragged into a nest of vampires.

Despite his thoughts along those lines, Greg hadn"t been sure that"s what he was dealing with until Martine"s and Marguerite"s appearance at his door. No woman he knew should have been able to force his door open as Marguerite had. Then the way he"d suddenly found himself calm and walking into the living room was telling. But the real clincher was what Marguerite had said when Martine had spotted and drawn her attention to the Vampire/Not Vampire list on the coffee table. Lissianna"s mother had paled, looked unhappy, and said, "He knows what we are. That explains why it is even harder to control him. Now what do we do?"

"Well," Martine had said slowly. "I took a look inside his brain, Marguerite, and he really--"

Greg hadn"t caught any more of their conversation. Martine had stood and urged Marguerite several feet away to speak in hushed tones. The interesting thing was that the moment Martine had stopped touching him and moved away, Greg had found himself free of the compulsion to remain seated on the couch. His mind was his own again and had immediately filled with panicked thoughts of what he should do: flee, call the police, or ask the million and one questions that were suddenly crowding his mind about these beings. Greg had found himself torn in two. Half of him was scared silly, the other half was curious as h.e.l.l.

Before he could decide which half to proceed with, the women had straightened, and Martine was back at his side, taking his arm once more. Greg had found himself claimed by a new compulsion. He"d walked out of the apartment with the two women, ridden down in the elevator, walked out of the building, and seated himself calmly in the very same van Lissianna and her cousins had used to transport him home. This time he"d settled himself on the first of the two bench seats in the back of the van. Martine had sat beside him for the ride back to the house. Once here, he"d walked inside and straight up to the same bedroom, once again allowing himself to be tied down.

Greg hadn"t begun shouting and struggling until they"d finished tying him, and Martine had released his arm. His thoughts had been his own again at once, and he"d been frustrated and furious to find himself tied to that bed again. Greg had ranted and raved at them, but the women had simply ignored him and walked away. That hadn"t stopped him, though; he"d continued bellowing at the top of his lungs until he was hoa.r.s.e before failing silent.

He was feeling much calmer this morning. Greg suspected he should be terrified or something, but he found it kind of hard to work up any fear of Lissianna... Or any of her cousins for that matter. It was hard to be scared of people you"ve seen in their pajamas. Baby dolls and Spider-Man PJs just weren"t fear-inspiring. He would re-serve his judgment on Martine and Marguerite. For some reason, he found both of them a tad more intimidating.

"So," he said finally, "you all look pretty good for dead people."

Lissianna blinked, obviously shocked at his words. Not as shocked as he was, Greg couldn"t believe he"d said that. G.o.d! He was such a smooth talker. No wonder his family thought he needed help finding women.

"We aren"t dead," Lissianna said, and Greg stopped mentally kicking himself in the b.u.t.t for his stupidity to peer at her blankly.

"But you"re vampires. Nosferatu. The undead..." He blinked at his own words, then said, "Oh, yes, I see. You are the undead." Before Lissianna could confirm or deny that, he asked, "Now that you"ve bitten me, will I become a vampire, too? Or am I just at the Renfield type stage where I"ll start eating bugs?"

"You haven"t turned into a vampire, and no, you won"t suddenly have an unexplainable urge to eat bugs," Lissianna a.s.sured him patiently.

"That"s good. I hate bugs. Truth is, I have a phobia about them."

She blinked in surprise. "You treat phobias, and you have one?"

He shrugged, looking chagrined. "It"s the old saw, a plumber has leaky pipes, the accountant"s always late with his taxes..."

"And the phobia expert has a phobia of his own," she finished with amus.e.m.e.nt, then added solemnly, "We"re not dead, Greg."

Greg raised his eyebrows. "So, you"re vampires, but not dead or even undead?"

"Right, though I wouldn"t use the term vampire around

Mother, she hates it," Lissianna informed him. "Most of the older vampires do."

"Why? It"s what you are, isn"t it?" he asked.

She hesitated, then explained, "Vampire is a mortal term. We didn"t choose it. Besides, the word carries a lot of unpleasant connotations... Dracula, demon-faced beings." She shrugged.

"So you aren"t demons, that"s good to know," he said wryly, then asked, "How old are you?"

Lissianna was silent so long, he didn"t think she was going to answer, then she sat down on the side of the bed, peered at her hands, pursed her lips, and admitted, "I was born in 1798."

Greg lay perfectly still, his mind boggling--1798? Dear G.o.d, she was two hundred and two, that made her old, he realized, and wryly recalled worrying that she might think he was too old for her? Shaking his head, he asked, "But you aren"t dead?"

"No," she said firmly.

Greg frowned and pointed out, "But according to all the books and movies, vampires are dead."

"According to a lot of books and movies, psychologists and psychiatrists are psycho killers," she responded. "Think Dressed to Kill or Silence of the Lambs."

"Touche," he said with amus.e.m.e.nt.

They were both silent for a minute, then Lissianna said, "As with everything, the tales of our kind have been corrupted over the centuries."

Greg considered that briefly, then asked, "How corrupted are the tales? Are you cursed and soulless?"

She smiled with real amus.e.m.e.nt. "No, we aren"t cursed, we aren"t soulless, and garlic and religious symbols have no effect on us."

"But you drink blood?"

"We need blood to survive," she admitted.

"This is crazy," Greg said aloud, his mind rebelling at accepting the unacceptable. "Vampires, living forever, feeding on blood... It"s fiction, a myth, legend."

"Most legends and myths are based on some truth," she said calmly.

Greg eyes widened in alarm. "What about werewolves and stuff?"

"Oh well, you"re a psychologist," she said with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Surely you studied lycanthropy?"

"It"s a psychosis where the patient has delusions that they"re a wolf."

"There you are then."

What did that mean? Greg wondered. He didn"t really believe in such things as werewolves, but then he hadn"t believed in vampires before either. This whole business had really turned his belief system on its ear. He didn"t know what to think.

"I"m sorry about biting you."

Lissianna"s voice drew him back from his thoughts, which was probably a good thing. He could drive himself crazy with the ideas running through his head. Next he"d believe in fairies and pixies.

"It was a mistake," she added quietly. "When I saw you tied to the bed with a bow around your neck I thought you were my birthday gift.. which you were. I just didn"t realize you were to treat my phobia. I a.s.sumed you were... a special treat."

"A special treat?" Greg echoed her delicate phrasing with disbelief. "Don"t you mean you thought I was dinner?"

She grimaced and had the grace to flush guiltily, and Greg was sorry he"d said that. He wasn"t really angry at her for biting him. It was difficult to be angry about something he"d enjoyed so much, and Greg had enjoyed it. Just recalling it was enough to make him harden.

"So, you"re a vampire with hemaphobia," he said to change the subject.

"Ridiculous, isn"t it?" she muttered with self-disgust. "I know that I shouldn"t fear blood, that there"s nothing to fear, but..."

"Phobias aren"t rational. I have a client who"s six feet tall and weighs two hundred pounds who"s absolutely terrified of teeny-tiny spiders. Phobias are definitely not rational," he a.s.sured her, then another thought occurred to him, and he asked, "What about sunlight?"

"Sunlight?" she asked uncertainly.

"According to legend, sunlight destroys vampires," he pointed out.

"Oh, well..." She hesitated, then told him, "It does the same damage to our bodies as it does to you, but it"s a little more dangerous to us because our bodies use up blood at an accelerated rate to repair the damage... which, in turn, dehydrates us and means we have to feed more. In the old days, we avoided sunlight like the plague to prevent having to feed more often. Feeding was a dangerous business back then. It could lead to discovery."

"And now?"

"Now, most of us use blood banks for feeding, but many still avoid the sun out of habit, or for convenience sake. Walking around carting coolers of blood to replenish with can be a pain."

Greg nodded in understanding. "If you aren"t cursed or dead, what are you?"

Lissianna considered the matter for a moment, then said, "It would probably be easiest to understand if I explained from the start."

"Please." Last night he"d been furious at finding himself here again against his wishes, or more specifically, without being given a choice, but now... well, if the truth were to be known, Greg was curious. Intellectually speaking, this was all terribly fascinating. It was like discovering there was a Santa. Well, sort of.

"You"ve heard of Atlantis?"

It wasn"t really a question, but Greg grunted a "yes" despite being a tad confused by what the mythical land could have to do with vampires. "The lost civilization, Plato, Poseidon, Creita. A paradise with wealthy people who displeased Zeus by becoming greedy," he recalled from his courses at university. "Zeus punished them by gathering all the G.o.ds together and wiping them out."

"That"s what the books say," Lissianna agreed with a hint of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"What does the mythical Atlantis have to do with your being a vampire?"

"Atlantis is no more a myth than vampires are," she announced. "It was a very advanced race, and just before the fail, scientists there developed a sort of nano."

"Those tiny little computer thingies?" Greg asked.

"Yes," she said. "I don"t pretend to understand it all. I"ve never really found science that interesting. My brother, Bastien, could explain this all more clearly, but basically, they combined the nanotechnology with some sort of bio something or other--"

"Bioengineering?" he asked.

"Something like that," she allowed. "They combined the two technologies to create microscopic nanos that could be shot into the bloodstream, where they would live and replicate."

"I don"t understand what that has to do with--"

"These nanos were programmed to repair tissue," Lis-sianna interrupted. "They were meant to be medical aids, to help heal people who were seriously wounded or ill."

Greg arched an eyebrow. "And they worked?"

"Oh yes. They worked better than anyone had expected. Once in the body, they not only repaired damaged tissue, they destroyed any sort of infection and even regenerated dead or dying tissue."

"Ah," Greg said, suddenly understanding why she was telling him about Atlantis. "And these nanos are how you live so long and stay so young."

"Yes. It was an unexpected side effect. They were programmed to self-destruct once the damage in the body had been repaired, but--"

"The body is constantly under attack from sunlight, pollution, and simple aging," Greg finished for her.

"Yes." She smiled with pleasure at his understanding. "So long as there is damage to repair, the nanos will live and create others of their kind, using blood from the bloodstream. And there is always damage to repair."

Greg closed his eyes, his mind whirling with the knowledge she"d just given him. It raised as many questions as it answered. "What about the blood? Your... er... feeding, I mean? Is that because the nanos use the blood?"

"Yes. They use it both to fuel themselves and to make the repairs. The more damage, the more blood is needed. But even with just the damage from day-to-day living, the body can"t supply enough blood to satisfy them."

"So you have to drink blood to feed the nanos," he reasoned.

"Yes. Drink it or take transfusions."

"Transfusions?" he echoed, pleased to hear such a common word in this conversation. "So it"s really rather like hemophilia? Sort of a blood disorder..." Then he paused, and added wryly, "Except for the fact that you"re all from an ancient, but scientifically advanced, race of people." He paused as a thought confused him. "But you were born just a little more than two hundred years ago. You aren"t from Atlantis yourself. Is it pa.s.sed from mother to child?"

"It was pa.s.sed to me through my mother," Lissianna admitted. "But my mother wasn"t born with it."

"Your father?" he queried, and realized he hadn"t asked how old Jean Claude Argeneau had been when he died just a couple years ago. "How old was your father?"

"He, his twin brother, and their parents were amongst those who fled Atlantis when it fell. Aunt Martine was born a couple hundred years later."

Her father and his family had fled Atlantis when it fell, he considered silently. When had that been? He wasn"t sure. Certainly before Roman times, before the birth of Christ... Dear G.o.d, it didn"t bear thinking about.

"My father introduced the nanos to my mother when they were married," Lissianna added when his silence continued.

Greg gave a start at this news. "So anyone could..."

"You don"t have to be born one," she admitted softly when he paused. "They were introduced to the blood intravenously to start with and still can be."

"And the blood doesn"t necessarily have to be consumed," he said, his mind going back to that point. He didn"t know why. Maybe because it made them seem less alien when he thought of it as a blood disorder like hemophilia.

"Yes, but it"s somewhat time-consuming in comparison to proper feeding," she explained. "Think of the dif-ference between downing a pint of water rather than waiting for a pint of saline to drip into a body using an IV."

"I suppose that was inconvenient for you when the others could just down a pint and go," he said, struggling to understand.

"It wasn"t that it was all that inconvenient," she said quietly. "Mother used to wait until I was in bed for the day before bringing in the blood and IV. I fed while I slept. It wasn"t really inconvenient at all, but..." She hesitated, then admitted, "It made me feel like a dependent child, as vulnerable as baby birds who need their mothers to digest the worm and feed it to them. I was dependent."

"And now you aren"t?" he asked.

"Now I feed myself," she said with quiet pride, then admitted a tad wryly, "Not always well, but I feed."

"If you"re hemaphobic, how do you feed?"

She sighed. "Greg, I don"t think--"

"How?" he insisted, though he thought he already knew the answer. If she fainted at the sight of blood, then the only option open to her--without someone"s setting her up with an IV--was for her to bite as she had done with him.

"The old-fashioned way," she finally admitted.

"Is that guilt I hear in your voice?" he asked with surprise. While he himself would rather think she used bagged blood like the others than that she ran around biting people like some ghoulish female version of Dracula, he hadn"t expected it to bother her.

"Blood banks became the main source of feeding for my people some fifty years ago. Everyone switched over, and I started to be fed intravenously," she explained. "After fifty years of not feeding directly from mortals you can almost convince yourself that they and the bag of blood hooked up to the IV have nothing to do with each other. Mortals just become neighbors and friends and--"

"I understand," Greg interrupted, and he did. He supposed it was similar to the phenomenon humans enjoyed, where meat came wrapped in neat little packages and one could forget that the veal they were eating came from the cute little calf with spindly legs and big eyes.

Greg"s mind went back to the conversation he"d had with Thomas his first night here, when the man had pleaded Lissianna"s case, explaining that her phobia was causing them all to worry she might turn out like her father. He puzzled over the matter, his mind slowly putting things together. Lissianna had struggled to be less dependent on her mother, she"d got a degree, a job, and her own apartment. She--

"You work at the shelter," he said with realization.

"Yes," she said warily.

"You feed there." It wasn"t a question. This was the only thing that made sense. If she was feeding the old-fashioned way and had got a degree and a job to do so, she had probably picked a job where she thought she"d best be able to feed.

"I thought I could help people and take care of my own needs at the same time," she explained.

Greg nodded to himself. It made sense. It would help ease any guilt she felt about feeding after doing so intravenously for so long.

"I also thought the people at the shelter would change nightly."

"Don"t they?" Greg asked with surprise. He didn"t know much about shelters.

"Unfortunately, no. It"s often the same people over and over for months at a time, though there are a few who come and go quickly."

"But a lot of the homeless have drinking or drug problems," he said, understanding what was concerning the family. If a large percentage of the clientele at the shelter had a substance abuse problem, and she was regularly feeding from them...

"Some do," she said quietly. "Not all. For some the alcohol or drugs are what helped them become homeless; they lost their jobs, families, homes... For others, circ.u.mstances left them homeless, and they may now drink or take drugs to forget their situations for a while. But they aren"t all substance abusers."

Greg smiled faintly at her defensive tone. She obviously cared about the people at the shelter as more than just dinner. That was good to know.

"But many of them aren"t healthy either," she went on. "They have little or no money and aren"t eating properly. Some only get one meal a day, breakfast at the shelter in the mornings."

"Which is why your family are worried and want me to cure your phobia," Greg guessed. "If you aren"t feeding from people who have alcohol or drugs in their systems you"re feeding off people who aren"t eating healthily, so you aren"t eating healthily."

"Yes." She grimaced. "I exist on the equivalent of a fast-food diet; filling, but containing very little in the way of nutrients. But I really don"t think that bothers Mother as much as the alcohol."

Greg nodded, but he couldn"t seem to take his gaze away from her mouth. He"d never paid much attention to her teeth, his attention until now had always been focused on her lips and what he"d like her to do with them. Still, he thought he should have noticed her fangs at some point. "Can I see your teeth?"

Lissianna stilled, her eyes locking on his face. "Why?"

"Well..." Greg shifted his weight and frowned. "I mostly believe you people are what you say you are. I saw the bite marks, I know I"ve been being controlled, but..."

"But you want more proof. Physical proof," she guessed when he hesitated.

"I"m sorry, but what we"re talking about here is pretty incredible," he pointed out. "Vampires from Atlantis who aren"t cursed or soulless, but live forever and stay young and healthy-looking? It"s rather like being asked to believe in the Easter Bunny."

Lissianna nodded in understanding, but still hesitated another moment before opening her mouth, revealing her teeth. They were straight, pearly white, but--

"No fangs," he said with disappointment.

In response to his comment, Lissianna leaned a little closer. He saw her nostrils flare slightly as she inhaled, and her canines shifted, sliding smoothly out as is if on tracks under the outer teeth. Two long, pointed fangs suddenly protruded from her mouth.

Greg felt himself pale and went still. "Does--" He paused to clear his throat when his voice came out unnaturally high, then tried again, "Does that hurt?"

Lissianna let her teeth slide back into their resting position before trying to speak. "You mean the teeth extending and retracting?"

He nodded, his eyes still fixed on her mouth.

"No."

"How do they--?"

"I gather it"s like the claws on a cat," she said with a shrug, then raised a hand to cover a yawn before finishing with, "At least that"s what my brother Bastien says."

"So, you were born with them?" Greg questioned, and when she nodded, he asked, "But surely your ancestors, I

mean the original Atlanteans, they didn"t have fangs, did they?"

"No. My ancestors are as human as yours."

Greg couldn"t keep the doubt from his face, and she frowned.

"We are," she insisted. "We"re just..." She struggled briefly, then said, "We just evolved a little differ-- The nanos forced us to evolve certain traits that are useful, that will help us survive. We need blood to sustain us, so..."

"So, the fangs," he finished, when she hesitated.

Lissianna nodded and yawned again, then said, "I should probably go to bed."

Greg frowned. It was morning for him, and he was wide-awake and curious as h.e.l.l, but he also knew she worked nights at the shelter and that it was her time to sleep. He wrestled with his conscience for a moment, but his selfishness won.

"Can"t you stay a little longer? Here, sit beside me and lean against the wall. It"ll be more comfortable for you," he suggested, shifting as far to the side as he could with his hands tied as they were.

Lissianna hesitated, then shifted to sit beside him in the bed. She fluffed her pillow, arranging it over his arm, then leaned against it and got comfortable.

Greg peered up at her, but his mind was on the fact that she smelled really, really good, and she was close enough he could feel the heat radiating off her. After a moment, he managed to draw his mind back to the questions whirling through his head. "What else? What other ways did the nanos evolve you?"

Lissianna grimaced. "We have excellent night vision, and we"re faster and stronger."

"To see and hunt your prey. They"ve made you perfect night predators."

She winced at the description, but nodded.

"And the mind control?"

Lissianna sighed. "It makes feeding easier. It allows us to control our hosts or donors, and to wipe their memories of the experience afterward. We can keep them from feeling pain while we feed, and make them forget what happened, which is safer for both the donors and us."

"So what went wrong with me?" Greg asked curiously as she yawned again.

Lissianna hesitated. "Some mortals are more difficult to control than others. You appear to be one of them."

"Why?"

"Perhaps you have a stronger mind." She shrugged. "I don"t know really. While I"d heard of it, this is the first time I"ve run across it. All I know is I can"t read your mind at all, let alone control you, and Mother struggled with you from the beginning."

"She said something about not being able to control me when they first entered my apartment, but she didn"t seem to have any trouble getting me to come back here last night," Greg said dryly, then frowned, and added, "Or perhaps it was that Martine woman. She kept touching my arm. She held it all the way here until they tied me up, and the minute she let me go my thoughts cleared; but the night before, it took a couple minutes after your mother left the room for me to think clearly and realize what I had done and the situation I was in."

Lissianna let out a hiss of breath and rubbed her eyes wearily. "They have to be right in your thoughts then, and need to be touching you to make the connection now."

Greg got the feeling from her expression that for some reason she didn"t think that was a good thing. He did. He didn"t like the idea of being controlled at all, so the fact that it appeared to being getting harder for them to do so was a great thing in his mind.

He glanced her way to say so, only to note that her eyes had drifted closed. She"d fallen asleep.

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