A Quick Bite (37 page)

“They didn’t work because I’m not what you think I am,” Lissianna said quietly.

“You bit his neck,” Father Joseph responded. “Dwayne was almost faint from blood loss. He’s lucky to be alive. If I hadn’t come up when I had, you might have drained him dry. You must have heard me approaching.”

“No, I didn’t, Father,” she said with exasperation. “He was faint because he’s anemic.”

The priest glanced at Dwayne, who looked uncomfortable, but nodded. “Yeah. I am.”

Father Joseph frowned, then turned back to Lissianna. “You have been feeding off of the people in the shelter, poor unfortunate souls already down on their luck.”

Lissianna shifted guiltily. Put like that it sounded pretty bad. The fact that she’d hoped to be able to help the people even as they unwittingly helped her, didn’t really seem to make up for it.

“Look, Father.” Greg started forward, only to pause when the priest raised the handgun he held.

“I realize that guns may not do
much
damage,” he said. “But they will do some, and these ones are loaded with silver bullets if that makes any difference.”

Lissianna rolled her eyes. “Sure it does, if you’re a werewolf.”

“Where did you get silver bullets?” Greg asked with amazement.

“I found them on the Internet,” Dwayne explained. “You can get some really cool shit on the Internet.”

“Well, whether the silver bullets will work or not, they will at least slow you down so that we can stake you,” Father Joseph said, bringing the conversation back where he wanted it. “And stakes—as we all learned the other night—are quite effective…Though obviously not deadly.”

“That was you?” Lissianna asked, suddenly gone cold. “You said you had to test me first before trying anything drastic. I passed those tests, and you still staked me?”

Father Joseph shifted uncomfortably. “I overheard…” He paused and frowned, then asked, “What’s the name of the girl who works the night shift when you aren’t there?”

“Claudia,” she supplied.

“Yes. Claudia. I overheard her telling Debbie that she needed to speak to you to see if you’d switch one of your nights with her this week, but she was having trouble reaching you at your apartment. Debbie said you’d been at your mother’s all weekend, but were staying at her house that night, and she’d have you call her the next morning when she got home.”

Lissianna’s breath came out on a puff. A lot had happened since the staking, and most of it had been rather distracting, but the attack had still been at the back of her head, nagging at her. She’d been sure Debbie couldn’t have been behind the attack, but that had left her stymied. It had never occurred to her that Deb might have mentioned to anyone that Lissianna was staying at her place that night.

“I called Dwayne,” Father Joseph continued. “He was supposed to go over and see if he could learn anything. He was just supposed to watch you.”

Dwayne shifted under the glare the priest bent on him, then took over the explanation, and said, “That’s all I intended to do, I only took the stake in case I got lucky.”

At Lissianna’s doubting look, he insisted, “Really. Vampires are usually creatures of the night, and I figured I’d have to wait until you lay down to rest at dawn. I really thought I was going there to reconnoiter, get a feel for the layout of this Debbie’s house, figure out which room was yours and which she’d be in when you both went to bed,” he said, then suddenly grinned. “But when I got there the curtains were open in the living room and I could see you two going at it on the couch, then moved to the bedroom window when you guys moved the action there.”

Lissianna felt the blush from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. It was followed by anger at the idea of Dwayne leering through the window watching their first time together. She forgot such worries when he continued.

“I saw you bite him, and it was all the proof we needed.” He smiled like the cat who’d found the cream and went on, “I expected to have a long cold night standing around staring in windows until Debbie came home and you all went to bed. I couldn’t believe my luck when you left him in the bedroom and went to sleep on the couch. And then when I tried the sliding glass doors in the dining room and found them unlocked…It was too good to be true.” He glanced at the priest and grinned. “Almost like a blessing from God.”

“But it didn’t work,” Lissianna pointed out, directing her comment to the priest. “If it was truly God’s wish that you kill me—”

“It was
my
fault it didn’t work,” Father Joseph interrupted. “I shouldn’t have sent the boy, I should have gone myself. I also should have done more research right from the start. If I had, we’d have been prepared to take proper
advantage of the opportunity God presented. Instead, we were still depending on what the movies and books claimed. I hadn’t yet learned my lesson.”

The priest was pale and haggard-looking from lack of sleep. He obviously hadn’t gotten much rest the past week, what with doing double duty by working at the shelter during the day and guarding his flock from her by night. Lissianna knew that sleep deprivation could lead to extreme anxiety and hallucinations amongst other things. Greg was the psychologist, but she suspected that, with Father Joseph, sleep deprivation had caused a break from reality. It must have pushed him over the edge if he really thought God had put her in his path to kill.

“So, like I was saying,” Dwayne continued, drawing everyone’s attention back to him, “I crept into the house, into the living room, and right up to you and you didn’t even stir. But you were on your side and I was trying to figure out how to get you to roll onto your back, when suddenly, you did just that. You just rolled over.”

“Another blessing from God,” Father Joseph murmured.

“It was the cold,” Lissianna snapped impatiently. “He left the sliding glass door open and a draft was coming in. It woke me up. I rolled over to get up and find another blanket to keep warm.”

“It was a
miracle
,” Father Joseph insisted. “It allowed him to stake you.”

“For all the good that did,” Dwayne muttered.

“Yes.” Father Joseph frowned. “I was terribly upset with Dwayne for staking you at first, until he explained about actually seeing you bite your friend.” His gaze shifted to Greg then away and he shook his head. “Once he told me about that, I thought it had been God’s will, and the whole matter was over with. I couldn’t believe it when your mother called the shelter the next night and
said you wouldn’t be in because you’d been
taken ill
.” Some of the devastation he must have felt then, showed on his face. “I couldn’t believe it. You were supposed to be dead! At one point I even thought it was a lie; that you
must
be dead, but…” He raised his head and peered at her. “That’s when I finally did the research I should have done in the beginning.”

“
I
did the research,” Dwayne said with irritation. “You didn’t even know how to get onto the Internet.”

“I used the resources God had sent me and called my computer friend here to do the research,” Father Joseph corrected grimly, then informed them, “He’s very good with computers; he’s a programmer.”

Lissianna raised one sardonic eyebrow in Dwayne’s direction. It seemed the tan, the padding, and the cucumber weren’t the only things he’d faked that night. He’d told her he was doing his last year of internship and once he was a full-fledged doctor, he planned to start his own family medical practice. Trying to impress her, she supposed. Idiot. What would he have done if they’d hit it off and he’d wanted to pursue a relationship with her? How would he have explained that he wasn’t an intern after all?

“Dwayne found all sorts of information on the Internet,” Father Joseph announced. “Of course, there was the usual stuff about crosses, holy water, and garlic, which we already know is wrong, but there were also suggestions about vanquishing one of your kind. Some sites claimed that a stake through the heart would do it, but others said that once the stake was removed, the vampire could be resurrected…as you were. Those sites claimed you had to cut off the vampire’s head to finish the job properly.”

“God,” Greg muttered. “Don’t you just love the Internet?”

Lissianna shared a grimace with him, but turned back to Father Joseph as he continued.

“I knew I couldn’t handle it on my own. So, I again enlisted the help of Dwayne and we prepared this house, then came up with this plan to lure you out here this morning. Of course, at the time I expected you to be driving yourself to work as you normally did. When you got a ride into work last night, I feared the plan would have to be put off for another day, but then your friend showed up. Providence again lent a hand,” he said, with a pleased sigh. “While he was in your office with you, I called Dwayne, and he told me how to fix it so the car wouldn’t start, then headed out here to wait for our arrival…and here we are.”

“Here we are,” Greg agreed dryly, drawing Father Joseph’s attention.

“Of course, when we conceived the plan, we were only counting on it being Lissianna we had to deal with,” the priest pointed out. “So I’m afraid I only brought one stake.”

“Such a shame,” Greg said pleasantly. “Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to put this off to another time, huh?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Father Joseph assured him quietly, then added, “I do have some wood in the back of the van. I’m sure it won’t take long to fashion another stake…Or we could do the two of you one at a time. Lissianna first, I think,” he decided. “We can stake and behead her, then use the same stake on you.”

“Ladies first, huh?” Lissianna didn’t bother to dampen her sarcasm.

“I’ll make it as quick and painless as I can,” Father Joseph assured her solemnly, then he hesitated, and said, “It would be easiest if you didn’t fight this and simply allowed me to get it done with.”

I’ll bet it would
, she thought grimly.

“And then you’ll finally find peace,” he added, trying to tempt her. On a grimace he added, “It would be much simpler than having to shoot you half a dozen times,
then
staking you while you are weak.”

“Father, I’m hardly going to stand around and let you stake me,” Lissianna said patiently.

“I was afraid you would make us do this the hard way,” Father Joseph said on a sigh. “Never fear. We were prepared for that. Dwayne, it’s time.

“He rigged this up today,” Father Joseph informed them proudly as the younger man retrieved a remote control from his pocket. “He’s quite clever.”

Lissianna stiffened, alert for any eventuality. Dwayne pushed a button on the remote control and a snapping sound then drew her gaze upward to see the ceiling peeling away overhead. She stared in amazement as it began sliding down the slanted roof toward the walls.

Not the ceiling she realized, a black tarp that had been hung to cover the ceiling and walls and rigged to be released when Dwayne hit a button on the remote control. The heavy cloth was slipping away to reveal that the dark room they’d stood in was actually a sunroom and that while they’d been talking, the sun had risen outside. Bright sunshine poured in at them from every direction except the wall Father Joseph and Dwayne stood in front of.

“Nothing’s happening to them,” Dwayne said nervously, as the cloth snaked to the ground outside the windows and pooled there.

Father Joseph tsked with irritation, then scowled and began to dig around in his pocket as his cell phone began to ring. He peered at the display window, frowned, then barked, “Watch them” to Dwayne, and moved closer to the door. He turned his back as he answered his phone.

Dwayne licked his lips nervously and pointed his gun at them. Lissianna noted that the tip of the gun was shaking and hoped he didn’t accidentally shoot one of them in his nervousness.

“Okay, Lissianna, now’s the time,” Greg murmured.

She glanced at him with confusion. “Now’s the time for what?”

“You know.” He made a face and nodded meaningfully toward Dwayne. “Do your thing. Put the whammy on them. I’d try, but you haven’t taught me that stuff yet.”

“Oh,” she sighed. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

“What?” he frowned.

“It isn’t working,” Lissianna told him. “They know what we are.”

“So? Your mother was able to control me after I knew what you were.”

“No. That was Aunt Martine. She’s older and more powerful than Mother, and even she had to be right in your head to do it. Usually we can control behavior with a suggestion; but with these two being aware of what we are, they’re wary, and it makes them resistant. I’d have to be right inside their thoughts to control them, and I can’t possibly control two of them at once.”

“Then—”

“Greg,” she said quietly. “If I control one, and the other shoots either of us, there will be blood.”

He let a slow breath out as he realized what that meant. Thanks to her phobia—the one he hadn’t cured—she’d faint, then neither man would be controlled, and he and Lissianna would be dead. Or maybe not.

“I’m stronger and faster than both of them, aren’t I?” he asked.

“Not by much yet,” she said quietly. “By the end of the month, you’ll be ten times stronger and faster and it will
increase even more over time, but right now you’re still new and just building in your abilities and strengths,” Lissianna said apologetically, then added, “And Greg, I don’t want to hurt them…well, at least not Father Joseph.”

“The man’s planning to kill us, Lissianna,” Greg pointed out.

“Yes, but not because he’s evil or cruel, he just thinks he’s doing God’s work and giving us peace,” she pointed out, then added, “Father Joe’s beliefs are very strong.”

“What are we going to do, then?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, on a sigh. “I’m hoping we can talk him out of killing us. Maybe convince him he’s made a mistake, and we aren’t vampires.”

Greg didn’t look happy. After a moment, he sighed, and said, “Well, you’d better talk fast then, because I think the sun’s already affecting me.”

Lissianna peered at him with concern. She noted that he’d grown pale and silently kicked herself for not realizing that it would affect him so quickly. It wasn’t affecting her yet, but his nanos were doing double time at the moment, still making minor but necessary changes to his body, and now also having to repair the damage the sun’s rays were inflicting. Even without the sunlight he would need to feed more often than she for the next couple of months, but with it…