Chapter Eighteen
Marcus’s thoughts and attention were brewing far too much over the idea that Simone didn’t want to be seen in public with him. It hurt, the way she dodged his every attempt to be warm, affectionate or any outright sexual intimacy. He stopped trying after her last snub. There was no sense in hurting his pride.
But why should it matter so much to him? He wondered at the intensity of the feeling. She had developed a certain power over him, he realized. She was compelling and drawing out parts of himself he had not examined in quite a long time. Possessiveness. Jealousy. Protectiveness. Obsessiveness. Devotion. He didn’t know how she managed to stimulate all of these feelings and more, and he wasn't certain if he liked it.
Oh, he liked her. He liked her very much. She was vital and alive, stunning and sensual. She had a sexuality that just wouldn’t quit. Even now, as she looked over her shoulder at him and let her eyes roam his body from head to toe, he knew what she was thinking and knew it had nothing to do with whatever conversation it was that she was having. She wanted him. He made no mistake about that. But she apparently wanted him in her bed and in her employ and very little else.
He wasn't certain what else he wanted, but he wanted more. He wanted her to declare to others that she felt something for him. That he was there. That he meant more than just something to toy with and a source of orgasmic release. He felt used and he didn’t like it. Where was his self-respect? He had abandoned it…all for the sake of being near her. For feeling her warmth against him. For how alive she made him feel. More alive than he had felt in a very long time. He had not realized his life was missing vital things until she had woken him up to it.
Now that he was awake, he didn’t know what to do with his awareness. He didn’t know where to focus. He was drawn to her like a magnet. He was a compass and she was true north.
He was so obsessed with his thoughts that he almost missed seeing the vampires who were stalking her across the ballroom floor as she moved. He only noticed because as his eyes swept the crowd he saw them whispering to one another their eyes trained hard upon her. This shouldn’t have raised flags in a room where most people were paying attention to her, but it did. It felt off. Especially how they looked away when they realized he was watching them, and pretended as if the queen was not drawing their focus.
He excused himself from Simone’s immediate side and moved toward them. He had an ear bud and mike attached to his wrist and he activated it with a touch of his finger as he raised his wrist to his mouth and spoke clearly and quickly.
“Look sharp,” he warned the others on the other end of the mike. His entire team was wearing them. “Ronald, move in closer to the queen while I check these guys out.”
“Will do,” Ronald said in his ear.
Content to see Ronald moving toward the queen, seeing he would reach her in just a few more steps, he turned his attention to the couple he was approaching.
They were dressed as richly as every other human and vampire in the room. The male was in a tux and the female wore a short dress. Too short for such a cold night, he noted. Most of the women around her were in gowns. She stood out for more than her mode of dress, a style he noted would allow for ease of movement. She wasn't wearing heels. She was wearing a pair of flats. They were sparkling and unique, but they were flats just the same. Something else that allowed her ease of movement.
They saw him coming and immediately moved into the crowd of people on the dark dance floor. The male wasn’t particularly tall, so he lost sight of them quickly. Cursing under his breath, he quickened his pace and searched for them relentlessly. He warned the guards at the exits to be aware of them, gave them descriptions of the female as she stood out above everyone else. He then described the male, realizing that they might have split up. He cursed himself again for not thinking of it immediately. His responses were slow and dim, he thought irritably. He was letting too many other things crowd his mind. He glanced over his shoulder at Simone and saw Ronald standing beside her looking attentive. He barely knew the man, didn’t know how far he could trust him, didn’t know how capable he was. He was torn between trying to find the couple himself and staying close to his charge. He realized he was letting himself be drawn away. Not liking the feeling he turned back toward Simone and let the search for the suspicious couple continue on in the hands of others.
He had almost made it back to Simone’s side when he saw the female reappear. She had circled back around and was closing in on Simone faster than he was. She was going to reach her first.
“Ronald! To your left!” he exclaimed into the mike.
Ronald turned just in time to get a knife in his gut. The female vampire butchered Ronald quickly and harshly. It would not kill him of course, but it would certainly incapacitate him. Ronald fell to his knees and then hard on his face. No one in the room seemed to notice at first, then as Ronald began to bleed profusely, causing a puddle in which a woman slipped and fell. She fell on top of Ronald and seeing herself covered in blood she began to scream.
But before that could happen, the woman turned to Simone, knife blade flashing. She said something but Marcus was too far away to make it out. Then she lunged for Simone with her knife. Simone, encumbered by heels and a long gown, barely jumped back in time. Actually she wasn't in time. The woman’s follow through caught Simone’s forearm and open up a wide gash there.
By now the woman on the floor was screaming, the din of it combining with music and drawing attention. Marcus moved swiftly. He reached the battling women. Stepping over the woman on the floor and Ronald in a single bound, he plowed into the attacking creature and brought her down to the floor. All the while he kept his eyes roaming the crowd forming around them. The male half of the couple was still at large. As he pinned the female and disarmed her he knew the danger wasn't over. He flipped the battling creature over as he straddled her flailing body. He bent back her arm against her back and she cried out in pain.
“Settle down,” he warned her on a snarl. “I’m not above puncturing your spine right where we are,” he said.
“Our time is now!” the woman exclaimed savagely. “You can’t stop us. The world will know who we are and will bow down to us!”
“Someone call 911!” he heard someone cry out.
The music stopped as the crowd grew to full thickness in a circle around him. Two of Marcus’s men pushed through the crowd and took charge of the woman. Marcus was on his feet instantly and rushing to Simone’s side. She was surrounded by a sea of concerned people, a danger and a risk all on its own. The situation was rapidly spiraling out of control. If the human authorities got there before Marcus and his men could clean up this mess, there would be questions and plenty of them. He had no idea what the deranged woman was going to say.
Marcus reached Simone. Someone had handed her a while linen napkin to cover the profusely bleeding cut on her arm. It was already soaked through with her blood. Blood was energy. It carried the energy a vampire needed to stay alive and active. Like a human if they lost too much of it…torpor was quickly behind it.
“Simone,” he said softly as he wrapped an arm around her back and gently cradled her arm where she was holding pressure.
“I’m all right. Handle the situation. Don’t worry about me.”
“I am handling the situation. I’m getting you out of here before any well meaning emergency services can arrive. I can’t protect you in the emergency room of a human hospital.” This last he said in a whisper against her ear. She nodded and allowed him to draw her away through the crowd. More of his men came up from the sides, holding back the crowd and making way for them. Marcus called one to him with a jerk of his head.
“Handle Ronald. Get him out of here.”
If a human medical service got hold of Ronald and saw how quickly he could heal himself, it would reveal things about the vampires best left unseen. He had a feeling that was exactly the kind of chaos the attacking woman was looking for. Something that would expose them all.
The guard immediately withdrew his phone and called for the vampire ambulance kept at vampire central. The clinic there would be able to see to all of Ronald’s needs. The question was, which service would reach him first? Human or vampire? Luckily vampire central was very close by. Merely blocks away. The odds were in their favor.
He couldn’t afford to wait around and see what happened. He had other more pressing concerns. Like the crowd of concerned people following them out of the ballroom.
“Please!” he said loudly. “Let me care for her. I’ll bring her down to wait for the ambulance,” he told them. They backed off as he made his way to the elevator. However, the mayor of the city came up to him and interfered.
“Let my security detail come with you. Just in case there is a further threat.”
“We have our own men as you can see,” Marcus said, nodding to the four men protecting them from the mayor coming too close. The mayor and everybody else. No one was getting past them.
The mayor insisted, used to getting his way, but Marcus refused him more sharply and that was the end of it. Marcus and his four protectors stepped onto the elevator.
Marcus pressed the button for the fourteenth floor.
As a matter of preparation, a room had been purchased from the hotel for the night. The name was Marcus’s and he had the key. It had been handed off to him earlier. They always kept a room on site just in case it was needed. It was purely a cautionary thing. It usually remained empty for the night having never been used.
The floor was a discreet floor, the room an ordinary room rather that some kind of expensive top floor suite. The object was to not draw attention to themselves.
They wouldn’t be staying there. They would simply hide there until the vampire ambulance could make it to them. The cameras in the elevator and in the hotel corridors would tell anyone who watched them exactly where they went, but luckily no one would come looking for them so soon that they wouldn’t make it to vampire central first. Simone would be treated there; would be safely locked away there. Let the human cops come and interview her there…as they were going to do. He had been aware of Renee Holden, the human detective, taking charge of the scene as they left. She would understand the delicate nature of this event and the risk to vampire secrecy that was involved. She would manage the scene to the best of her ability without exposing them or her involvement with them.
The biggest danger was Ronald. The vampire ambulance must reach him first. It wouldn’t be so bad if the humans reached him and treated him first, but he would heal at a phenomenal rate, no doubt being completely healed, without scarring, by the end of the day tomorrow. Getting Ronald out of the hospital before that happened and aroused suspicion would be a difficult trick. Not impossible, but difficult.
They would simply have to see what happened. They would worry about it when the time came to worry about it. Right then he was more concerned with Simone who was still bleeding profusely from the gash in her arm.
He sat her on the bed of the room, kneeling beside her as one of their guards made himself useful and brought fresh towels from the bathroom. They replaced the napkin she was holding against her arm with the firm absorbency of the towel.
She was covered in blood, her gown stained with it. She was trembling in fine little tremors and he took her face in his hands and turned her eyes to his.
“It’s over,” he said softly. “You’ll be fine.”
“I know that,” she said, a snap to her voice. “I just wish I could have killed the bitch myself. I want to drive a spike through the back of her skull!”
“That will happen. Justice will be served. She will go up against the committee and will be punished for her crimes with the ultimate punishment.”
“I want to be the one to carry it out,” she hissed.
He hesitated. “We have executioners for that.”
“I mean it. I want it done. As soon as possible.”
“Very well,” he said softly. “If it is what you wish. You are the queen. You can have anything you want…within reason. This is within reason.”
“Thank you,” she sighed, her breath gusting out of her with a sound of relief. Then she put a hand to her head and swayed in her seat. “Whoa,” she said. “The room is spinning.”
“Blood loss,” he said with a frown. “We’re just as susceptible to it as humans are, only in different ways.” He turned to the guards. “Have we contacted the ambulance?”
“They are arriving downstairs even now,” one of the guards said as he held a phone to his ear. “They will fetch Ronald first. We’ll walk down with them.”
“Can you walk?” Marcus asked her.
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin. “Just tell me when.”
“As soon as one of the EMTs get’s here we’ll go,” the guard said. Marcus couldn’t remember his name right then. It wasn't important.
Silence fell over them as Marcus kept pressure on Simone’s arm and he frowned grimly. He remembered seeing her get injured, remembered how it had felt. The helplessness had been extraordinary. His heart thudded in his chest as he remembered it.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” he said softly to her, low enough that the others couldn’t hear them. “I don’t know what I’d do if…” He couldn’t bear to finish the thought.
“I don’t think she was trying to kill me. After what she said…I think she was trying to create chaos and risk. She was trying to do something that might expose vampires to the world. Going after me would do that.”
“If she had killed you in front of all of those people, your body would have disappeared within minutes. It would be something we couldn’t explain. That would have caused the ultimate risk.”
“It’s happened before. We have ways of dealing with such things. Hypno would be used.”
“On that many people? On the officials that would be called in?” He shook his head. “The logistics would be impossible…simply because it is you. You are too central a focus. Containment would have been nearly impossible.”
“Nearly. We would have managed…just as we’re going to manage this. Even if I were killed, we would have ways of managing that. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Don’t think about it,” she said gently. “Let’s deal with what has happened, not with what could have happened. The vampire ambulance is here first. We have containment.”
“Provided we get out of here before human EMTs show up. You know they will since 911 has been called.”
“You also know how long it takes for human EMTs to arrive on scene in a city of New York’s size. We’ll be long gone before they can get here. Then they’ll put it down to a communications mishap.”
“I’ll go back to the ballroom and see to it that’s what happens,” on of the guards said.
“Take charge of the scene alongside Renee. She’s our best resource for containment here.”
“Will do,” he said, exiting the room.
There was a knock on the door shortly after that and an EMT, complete with a gearbox, entered the room.
“I don’t have a gurney,” he said. “That’s at the ballroom scooping up the critical patient. Can you walk down to the ambulance?”
“Yes. Let’s go quickly though,” she said. “I’m already dizzy and weak.”
The EMT took a few minutes to bandage and wrap her wound tightly before they all escorted her down to the lobby. Marcus was on high alert the entire time, keeping an eye out for danger and for well-meaning human emergency services. The ambulance had pulled up right to the lobby doors, its wild lights flashing all around, and they climbed in the back of it.
Only Marcus and the EMT could attend to her. There was no room for additional guards. But the EMT would also be a well-trained authoritarian. The dual role allowed him to protect the vampire nation on two fronts. There were several such dual jobs in their society.
The guards remained standing around the ambulance until the other two EMTs came into the ambulance with a gurney and Ronald in tow. Two of the EMTs hopped in the front and the third remained in the back with his patients.
They pulled away from the curb as quickly as possible and raced through the streets to vampire central. They were in the clinic shortly after, Ronald being whisked away for surgery and Simone being herded into a medical bay where a doctor could look at her arm and stitch her up. It would help speed up her healing process…even though she could potentially heal without stitches. Basic medical care was supportive and helpful. It kept her from losing any more blood and kept her from growing any weaker.
They tried to get her to retire to a hospital bed where she could heal in comfort, hospital staff waiting on her every need, but Simone was having none of it. Her idea of comfort meant the safety of her own apartments and the familiarity of her own bed.