"I have heard of couples that were only projecting for one year though," Francis reassured her. Biting his lip, he then added, "Of course, I have also heard of couples that projected for as much as four years or more too."
"Years?" she repeated with horror.
Francis nodded, his expression sympathetic. "I suspect that is part of the reason new life mates tend to spend the first year or so mostly at home."
"That and the fact they cannot drag themselves out of bed long enough to actually do much else," Russell said with amusement.
"That too," Francis agreed.
Mary stared at them blankly for a minute, and then stood up abruptly, muttering, "I need to visit the ladies' room."
She didn't wait for anyone to comment, but moved quickly through the tables to get to the hall with the sign reading WASHROOMS. It was a long hall and while she expected the bathrooms to be at the front, they weren't. She passed a door with a sign that read EMPLOYEES ONLY, and then another that had a small window in it that looked into the restaurant's large kitchen. Then there was a long stretch of wall before she reached a door with a male symbol on it. The women's bathroom was the next door, the last one before the hallway ended at an emergency exit.
Sighing, she pushed her way inside the ladies' room.
The tiled room had three stalls, all presently empty, she noted with relief. It also had a counter with two sinks in it and a mirror over the sinks. Mary immediately moved to the sink and turned the cold tap on, then automatically glanced up and blinked in surprise at the young woman peering out of the mirror at her. She stared at her reflection for a moment, and then shook her head. Her reflection did the same and Mary lowered her head, wondering how long it would take for her to get used to this new her.
Probably about as long as she would be projecting her thoughts to everyone, Mary thought grimly, and cupped her hands to catch some of the cold water splashing out of the tap. She then splashed it on her face.
It was a bit alarming to think that every little thought she had was being broadcast to any and every immortal around her. But it was positively humiliating to think that every time she glanced at Dante and thought about . . . well, anything, someone would be picking up on it.
Sighing, Mary turned off the tap and straightened to look at herself again, ignoring the water that slid from her face to run down her neck in rivulets before it was absorbed into the collar of her T-shirt.
"You can do this," she told herself solemnly. "You may look like Barbie, as Francis put it, but you are a beautiful, intelligent and mature woman. We are all grown-ups. They've been through this themselves and obviously been around others who went through this. Stop acting like a shrinking virgin and deal . . . and maybe try not to think so much about Dante naked," Mary tacked on with a grimace, and then added, "And sex with Dante."
Yeah, that would work, she thought dryly, and turned the tap back on. Just saying the words had brought a tsunami of memories and images to her mind. Every one of them X rated. Mary splashed her face twice this time, then stayed bent over the sink and reached out to grab paper towels from the paper towel dispenser. Her top was already a mess with a hole in the side and a couple stains that laundering hadn't removed. She didn't need to add to its disheveled state, so she quickly dried her face before straightening this time.
"Think of something else," Mary instructed herself firmly. "That article, the 'Profile of Cognitive Aging,' that you read last week, was interesting. Think of that."
Mary paused for a minute and focused on the article she'd read in one of the medical journals she still got. Once she was satisfied that her thoughts were purely boring and safe and miles away from anything to do with sex or Dante, she nodded to her reflection and turned to leave the bathroom.
There was a man in the hall when she stepped into it. He was leaning against the wall outside the men's room. She automatically offered a polite smile as moved toward him, but then paused as he raised his hand and she heard a sharp hiss-thump sound and felt something punch her in the chest. Glancing down with confusion, she stared at the red tipped dart protruding from her shirt just above her breast. Instinct made her reach for it, but before her hand could connect, she noticed that the floor was leaping up to meet her.
Mary had barely left the table when Francis pulled a notepad out of his pocket and began writing down items.
Dante immediately leaned toward him and began to read the list aloud, "Toothbrush, men's and women's razors, panties?" Pausing, he straightened and asked, "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I am doing?" Francis asked dryly. "I am making a shopping list."
"Oh," Dante murmured, and asked, "For Mary and me?"
"For Mary and I," he corrected. "You said you did not want help shopping."
"Why do you have a man's razor on there then?" Dante asked. "I saw your shaving kit in the bathroom."
"Mary thought it was yours and used the razor," he explained. "And then she broke it to slice up her T-shirt. She also used my toothbrush thinking it was yours."
"Oh. Sorry," he muttered.
Francis shrugged. "It is fine. I am not afraid of getting cooties or anything. I just thought it would be nice to get her a toothbrush of her own, as well as her own razors and such." He paused briefly and then began to write again, muttering, "A hairbrush too."
"Dante," Russell said, drawing his attention away from the dark-haired man busily scrawling on his notepad. Once he had Dante's attention, he suggested, "Now that the worry of Mary's turn is out of the way, perhaps we should discuss ways we can set up another trap for the kidnappers."
Dante nodded slowly, and then frowned and added, "If they are still around and have not given up."
"They are still around," Russell assured him.
Dante stiffened at this news and glanced worriedly toward the hall Mary had disappeared down.
"Relax. I kept an eye out for them when we left the hotel for here, and there was no sign of them. However, there was a dark van following Francis and me when we went to the furniture store and back. They left when the delivery truck pulled up, but I suspect they will pop up again, and we have to decide how to deal with them."
"Yes," Dante agreed, but glanced toward the hall to the bathrooms again and muttered, "Mary is taking a long time."
Francis glanced up from his list at that comment and said, "Relax. I am sure she is fine. She was just embarrassed and wanted some time alone to compose herself."
"Hmm." Dante scowled at him. "That is your fault. You are the one who told her about that projecting business."
"What? I should have left her ignorant?" Francis asked dryly. "Knowledge is power, my friend. She needed to know."
"Yes, but--" Dante paused and sat back in his seat as their waitress rushed to the table.
"Um . . . hi," she greeted them, her expression flustered, almost panicked. "Er . . . I was out having a cigarette and I think--I mean I saw--That lady who came in with you guys? I think she's in trouble. Some guy just carried her out the back door of the restaurant and put her in a van. She was unconscious."
Dante was out of his seat and rushing for the door before she'd finished speaking.
Mary woke to the hum of an engine and rumble of voices and for a minute, didn't have a clue where she was. She also couldn't open her eyes at first, or even move, she realized, and felt panic well up within her as she tried to sort out what was happening.
"Dr. Dressler is going to be mighty pleased with this shipment," a man said, his voice filled with what sounded like glee. "Five vampires, two of them twins, and one a new turn. He'll give us a huge bonus for this."
"Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Ernie," another voice cautioned. "Right now we only have the woman and the one twin. We haven't captured the rest of them yet."
"We will," Ernie said with certainty. "That waitress told the fangers like you paid her to, and they're following us. Once we stop at the warehouse, they'll rush the van to save the girl and Danny and Ja
ckson'll take 'em out with the darts. Easy peasy."
Mary frowned at this news, and actually felt her mouth move. Whatever they'd shot her with must be wearing off, she thought, and opened her eyes, happy when she was able to. She opened them all the way, and then closed them to slits in an effort not to give away that she was stirring. Mary then glanced around to see that she was lying on the floor in the back of a van. She had been placed along the wall behind the driver's seat with her head toward the front of the van and her feet toward the back.
Mary tried to tilt her head back to look at the men who were speaking, but her head didn't move. She didn't think it would be long before it would; her fingers already had movement again, as did her hands, although she couldn't move them far. She seemed to be tied up or something. She could move her feet too though, and they were bound. Still, the rest of her felt like she'd been given some kind of numbing agent. Whatever the darts held was definitely wearing off quickly.
"How much do you think our bonus will be for this one?" Ernie asked, his voice excited.
"I don't know," the driver muttered. "All I'm thinking about is making sure those fangers don't catch up with us before we get to the warehouse."
"They're still two car lengths back," Ernie said, his voice growing a little louder and Mary stilled, her eyes closing. She was quite sure the man had turned to glance back toward her as he spoke so stayed as still as she could, practically holding her breath.
"We still have six blocks to the warehouse," the driver said grimly.
"Yeah, but they won't try anything on a busy street," Ernie said, his voice returning to the quieter level, suggesting he'd turned away again.
Relaxing a little, Mary carefully opened her eyes and glanced toward the front of the van. This time she was able to tilt her head. Her gaze slid over the driver and passenger, Ernie. All she could see was the backs of their heads over the seats. Both had dark hair.
Lowering her head again, Mary started feeling around with her fingers, trying to sort out what she'd been tied up with. A quick inspection of whatever was around her wrists told her she hadn't been tied. Instead, something that felt very like shackles to her were around each wrist. The shackles both had chains flowing away from them. Following the chains with her fingers, she found that it was actually one chain connecting both shackles. But that it was threaded through some sort of metal circle attached to the sidewall of the van, she noted, wincing as the chain made a clanking sound behind her.
Mary stilled, her eyes instinctively closing in case the sound made one of the men glance back, but their conversation continued, unhindered.
"The bonus has to be huge," Ernie muttered. "Hell, even if we don't catch the others, he's gonna be pleased with the woman. Especially once he finds out that the hottie in the back was an old broad just yesterday. He said he thought the fangers could turn mortals and she's proof they can."
"Maybe, but we still don't know how they did it, and he'll want to know that more than anything else," the driver pointed out. Mary dubbed him Bert rather than keeping thinking of him as "the driver."
"So? She'll know," Ernie said with certainty. "He'll make her tell him."
"Actually, I almost feel sorry for the woman," Bert said, "From what Jackson says, some of the experiments the doc performs on the fangers are pretty nasty."
"This is no time to be going soft," Ernie said firmly. "Just think of the bonus we're going to get."
Mary's mouth tightened. Dante had said people had been going missing in San Antonio. What he'd meant was immortals, she realized, and she and the others were going to join their ranks if she didn't do something about it. It seemed to her that she was the only one who could. Dante, Russell and Francis had no idea they were being led into a trap. She did. If she could somehow warn them, or get out of her chains . . .
She wasted a moment trying to force her hands out of the shackles, but quickly gave it up as a lost cause. They were too tight. She considered the situation briefly as the men continued to talk and then she grasped the chains higher up their length, closer to the metal circle they were threaded through and gave a tug.
Mary wasn't terribly surprised when nothing happened. While Dante had said the nanos made them stronger and faster and all that, she suspected they didn't work so quickly that she would suddenly be as strong as the Hulk.
Despite that, she blindly felt her way up to the metal circle and, just for shits and giggles, tried to turn it like it was a wing nut. Much to Mary's amazement the circle apparently wasn't well affixed to its base, that or her tug had loosened it. The metal turned under her pressure, just a little, but it turned. Grasping it more firmly, she tried again, and it snapped off.
Mary was so surprised by her success that she just lay there for a minute, her heart pounding and eyes wide, but then she started trying to figure out what she should do next. She was free and needed to stop the van before it reached this warehouse they'd mentioned. How much time did she have? Mary wondered. And how the hell was she supposed to stop the van?
Her gaze slid to the side door of the van. It was just feet in front of her, and Mary supposed she could probably leap the short distance, slide the door open and leap out before Bert or Ernie could stop her. The only problem was she didn't know what kind of road they were on. Was it one lane or two lanes? If it was two lanes, she might get run over by a vehicle coming along in the next lane when she tumbled out of the van. Or even a vehicle behind them if it was one lane.
Mary knew she'd probably survive getting run over, but there was the possibility that she might get injured badly enough that she couldn't warn Dante, Russell and Francis. They would no doubt stop and jump out to rush to her, and then Bert and Ernie would just shoot them with their darts . . . maybe. It depended on how willing they were to abduct them all in public.
Maybe she could stop them without leaping out, Mary thought hopefully, and slowly eased one foot back and up behind her butt, trying to find and poke it through the chain now lying between her hands. All she needed to do was get the chain in front of her rather than behind her and she could use it as a weapon.
Fortunately it was a longish chain. It wasn't huge or anything, but it was long enough that Mary was able to ease first one foot into it and then the other and then draw the chain slowly forward until it was around her knees, and then in front of her.
Mary kept her gaze on the men in the front as she did it, watching to make sure that the small clinks and clanks of the chains didn't attract attention. But Ernie, she saw, had his window open and the traffic noises appeared to mask any noise she was making. At least he didn't glance around, and neither did Bert.
"They're right behind us now," Ernie announced grimly.
"Good, we're almost there. One more block," Bert said, sounding just as grim, and she heard the vehicle accelerate.
Time's up, Mary thought.
Sending up a quick prayer, she rolled abruptly onto her hands and knees and then pushed upward with both hands and feet to lunge toward the front of the van. Dante had said that the nanos improved speed, but to her it seemed almost like time slowed. She saw Ernie's head slowly turning, as if the noise she'd made had drawn his attention, but she was behind the driver's seat, swinging the chain that dangled between her hands over Bert's head and down to his throat before Ernie had turned his head halfway around.
"Stop the van," Mary snapped, tugging the chain tight behind Bert's neck. When he didn't obey at once, she snapped, "Now!" then glanced quickly toward Ernie as he began to move, reaching for a dart gun that lay on the dashboard.
"I'll break his neck!" Mary barked in warning.
Ernie froze, his hand halfway to the gun. Turning back to peer at her, he eyed her briefly with calculation, and then pointed out, "We'd crash."
Eyes narrowing, Mary said calmly, "I'd survive. Would you?"
Ernie started to frown, but before the expression was fully formed he paused and smiled instead. "You're a nice old grandma. You won't kill him."
&n
bsp; "Sonny," Mary growled. "I'm a crotchety old lady in a strong young vampire body and right now you look an awful lot like a walking blood bank to me. Do you really want to test my patience?"
Apparently, he did. Ernie tried for the dart gun, and Mary instinctively shifted to jump at him, intending to stop him. Unfortunately, she forgot about poor old Bert and the chain around his neck. She heard the crunch of what could only be bone breaking as she unintentionally snapped his neck, and then the van swerved wildly.
"Crap," Mary breathed as she looked out the front windshield and saw the telephone pole they were about to crash into. That's gonna hurt, she thought just before impact.
Fifteen
Mary turned over sleepily and snuggled into the pillow under her head with a little sigh, then sniffed with interest as the scent of lavender teased her nose. Wondering where it was coming from, she opened her eyes and stared at the alarm clock radio sitting on the bedside table in front of her. It wasn't her clock radio; that was her first thought, and then she rolled over and glanced around the room she was in, which also wasn't hers.
Sitting up abruptly, Mary peered around at the pale blue walls, the sitting chairs by the window, the mirrored sliding closet doors, and the two normal doors in the room. This definitely was not her home or the RV. Not a hotel either, though, she thought and then glanced curiously at the contraption next to the bed. An IV stand, she noted, and followed the tubing coming out of it down to the back of her hand. She raised her hand and eyed it curiously, wondering why she'd needed it, then glanced down at herself, eyebrows rising when she saw that she was wearing a pretty white cotton nightgown with spaghetti-string shoulder straps . . . also not hers.
A hospital? She considered the possibility, but hospitals didn't look this nice; at least none of them that she'd been in had. Besides, they usually smelled of disinfectant, not lavender.
Sighing, Mary pushed the blankets aside and slid her feet off the bed, then paused and glanced around the room again, before deciding to try the door to the right of the bed first. She had to go to the bathroom, and knew that one of the two doors in the room would either lead to a bathroom or a hallway that would lead to a bathroom. Either one would get her closer than just sitting there, so Mary pushed herself to her feet and then paused and grabbed the IV stand to balance herself when the room started a slow spin. It only lasted a minute before the room settled and her equilibrium was restored, but it was kind of startling. Keeping her hold on the IV stand, Mary pulled it along with her just in case the room decided to do another dance move. Much to her relief, however, she made it to the door without anything else happening.