The Rogue Hunter (Argeneau #10) 9

Sam had stopped crying when a knock at the door made her glance up from where she'd curled up on the couch with her pillow. The sight of Decker through the screen door made resentment rise up within her. It seemed the joke wasn't over yet, she thought, and asked bitterly, "What do you want?"

"To talk." He stepped inside without being invited and then paused to look her over.

Sam raised her chin in challenge, knowing he was seeing the evidence of her tears. After several moments of silence, she became aware of the oddest ruffling in her mind. It was something she'd experienced a time or two this last week, each time while with Mortimer and his friends, but it had been much quicker those times, and the men had distracted her from it. In the prolonged, silent standoff now occurring, there was nothing to distract her, and this time it seemed to last much longer than the others. Sam began to worry that she was growing a brain tumor or something.

"You aren't growing a brain tumor," Decker said abruptly, and then added, "It's in your best interests to listen to me."

Sam stared. How had he known she was worrying about a brain tumor? she wondered briefly, but then forgot that issue as her mind processed his comment about it being in her best interests to listen. The way he'd said it had almost sounded threatening.

First Bricker and Mortimer try to humiliate her, and now Decker was going to threaten her. Great, she thought, and asked grimly, "And if I don't listen to you?"

"You won't like what I do then."

"Is that a threat, Decker?"

He shrugged and explained, "If you won't listen, I'll be forced to erase the last several days from your memory. It will be as if you never met Mortimer."

That brought a burst of disbelieving laughter from Sam. "Sure. Right. Well, at the moment that's sounding attractive, so go ahead."

"You don't believe I can, of course."

"No, ya think?" Sam said dryly, and then gasped in surprise as she found herself suddenly setting the pillow aside and standing up. She hadn't intended or planned to do it. She just did. As she struggled with her confusion, Decker reached to the radio sitting on the counter beside the stove and flicked it on. Soft music poured into the room.

"Dance with me?" he asked.

"I-" Sam's words died as her body suddenly started across the room. It was as if her brain had disengaged or somehow been bypassed and she was being controlled by an outside source. Sam tried to stop herself, tried to make her legs stop moving, but her brain didn't appear to be getting the message. When she reached Decker, her body paused and her hands rose. One moved to his shoulder, the other to his waiting hand, and then they began to dance.

"How are you doing this?" Sam asked shakily as he swept her across the kitchen floor. "What are you doing to me?"

"Controlling you," he answered simply, seeming unconcerned by her upset. "Making you dance with me seemed kinder than some of the alternatives I could have chosen, but I had to pick something you wouldn't even conceive of doing to ensure you didn't manage to convince yourself that whatever I made you do was something you made yourself do. Mortals are very good at self-delusion."

"Mortals," Sam echoed faintly, not understanding any of this. There was no way her brain was willing to accept that he was controlling her, even if he was, which he appeared to be doing, Sam realized dizzily. She certainly wasn't controlling herself at the moment.

"Yes... mortal. You are... and I am not." He spun her away in time to the music, and Sam's body did a little twirl and then danced its way back into his arms. It was the last place she wanted to be, but her body didn't seem to care what her mind wanted.

"You're not mortal?" she asked in a dazed voice.

"Most decidedly not," Decker assured her, and then stopped dancing, but continued to hold her close as he opened his mouth. Sam stared in disbelief as fangs suddenly sprouted and dropped from behind his canines just as Bricker's had done earlier. He left his mouth open for her to peer over for a moment, and then let the fangs slide away and arched one eyebrow. "Shall I bite you now, or are you ready to believe?"

Her eyes jerked to his, but Sam couldn't speak. She couldn't even think.

Decker's other eyebrow arched to join the first. "Shall it be a bite then?"

"No," Sam gasped, and tried to struggle, but while she was sending the message out from her brain, her body remained in his arms, quiescent and unconcerned. Her heartbeat hadn't even sped up, Sam realized, though she was terrified and it should have been beating a rapid tattoo. That odd ruffling happened again inside her head, and then Decker said, "I'm controlling your heartbeat and keeping you calm. Mortimer would never forgive me if I let you drop dead from a heart attack."

"You can read my thoughts?" Sam asked with dismay.

"Oh yes," he said with a wry smile.

"And Mortimer?" she asked, the thought turning her dismay to horror. Had he heard every lustful thought she'd had about him? Dear Lord!

"No," Decker answered solemnly. "If he could, you wouldn't be his life mate."

"Life mate?" Sam echoed. She recalled Mortimer using the word.

Decker hesitated and then released her and stepped back. He didn't just release his hold on her, however, but her body was suddenly her own again too. Sam knew that when she started to sink to the ground, her knees unwilling to hold her up. Decker swiftly caught her arm to keep her upright.

"I apologize for my behavior," he said stiffly as he half carried her to one of the chairs around the dining room table. "You were too hurt and angry at what you thought was a cruel joke to listen. I had to do something shocking to get your attention. I think you're ready to hear what Mortimer has to say now."

He didn't wait for her to agree or disagree, but turned to move to the door of the cottage.

Sam watched him go, her expression and mind blank.

"She's ready to listen."

Mortimer jumped up from the table as Decker entered on that announcement.

"Listen?" he asked uncertainly.

"I got her calmed down and convinced her you two weren't lying. You can explain things now. She'll listen," he assured him, and then added, "Whether she'll be your life mate, though..." He shrugged. "That's up to her."

Mortimer nodded and moved to the door.

"Garrett."

Pausing, he glanced back warily. Decker never called him Garrett; his doing so now was not good.

"She'll believe what you tell her now, but if she's unwilling to mate to you..." He let the sentence die, but Mortimer knew exactly what the man wasn't saying. If he couldn't convince Sam to be his life mate, her memory would have to be wiped completely, as would her sisters'. They wouldn't recall ever having met them.

The idea terrified Mortimer, but he knew it would have to be done to protect their people from discovery. That was always their main concern. One brokenhearted immortal meant nothing next to having them all hunted down and extinguished.

Nodding abruptly, he turned and headed out the door. Somehow he had to convince Sam to be with him, to be his life mate. It was that or lose her forever, because he'd never be able to go near her again after they wiped her memory. There was too much chance her memories might return were she to see him again. This was going to be the most important talk of his life. He only wished he felt confident about his success with it.

Mortimer spotted Sam the moment he mounted the deck and stepped up to the door. She was seated at the table, her head and shoulders bowed. She looked defeated, and it made him wonder what Decker had said. Or done, he worried suddenly. Decker had said she was ready to listen, which suggested he hadn't said much himself. So he must have done something to convince her this wasn't a joke.

Mortimer reached for the door handle to pull it open, but hesitated and then knocked instead. He saw Sam stiffen and then straighten, but she didn't look toward the door.

"Come in."

His nerves tightened at her grim voice, but Mortimer opened the door and stepped inside.

"Decker said you were ready to talk to me," he murmured, moving around the table to claim the chair opposite her.

"You mean listen, don't you?" Sam asked quietly, as he sank into the seat. They peered at each other silently, and then her gaze dropped to his mouth. "Show me your teeth."

It wasn't a request, Mortimer noted, but he wasn't angered by the demand in her voice. She was upset.

What mortal in her right mind wouldn't be? Up until now, vampires had always been mythical monsters to her. Besides, he'd rather mismanaged their talk earlier and knew it. While it was probably never easy to have this talk, surely there were better ways to handle it than he had? Still, Mortimer hesitated to reveal his teeth. She had a phobia about bats, or vampires, or both, and he didn't want to have to watch her turn away in disgust.

"Please." This time her tone was much less sharp, almost conciliatory. It gave him hope.

Surely Sam wouldn't care if she was rude if she didn't still care for him, he told himself as he opened his mouth and allowed his fangs to slide into place. He then quickly retracted them and closed his mouth, swallowing the liquid that had gathered at the back of his throat.

"Does it hurt when they drop down?" she asked, seeming more curious than anything.

"No."

"Do you feel it?"

Mortimer considered the question; he'd never really thought about how it felt when his teeth slid out. Finally he said, "Not really. It's more like the sensation of bending your knee. You don't really feel it per se, but you know it's happening."

Sam nodded slowly and then shifted her gaze from his mouth to his eyes. "Decker said you would explain things."

Mortimer nodded and then paused to gather his thoughts, unsure where to start. "Well," he said finally, "I'm an immortal."

"You mean vampire, don't you?" she asked dryly.

Mortimer grimaced. "Some call us that."

"But you don't like it?"

He shook his head. "Vampires are monsters. They attack unsuspecting prey... er... people, and feed off them."

"But you don't?"

"No," Mortimer said at once. "I ingest bags of blood that we get from a blood bank. Like a hemophiliac," he added on inspiration. "The only difference is they get transfusions and we ingest it through our teeth."

"You bite a bag?" Sam asked with a strange combination of disgust and disappointment.

"We don't bite it. Not really. We pop it to our teeth." Wishing he'd brought a bag with him to demonstrate, Mortimer opened his mouth, let his fangs drop, and then made the motion with his empty hand that he would if he were about to feed.

"Huh." Sam suddenly sat back in her seat, her body much more relaxed. It seemed a bag-sucking vampire was just not that frightening.

Mortimer briefly toyed with the idea of admitting that they did occasionally-in emergency situations-feed "off the hoof," as they liked to call it. That he himself had done it just days ago in Minden, but then decided it was probably best to leave that confession for later. Much later.

"You don't look dead."

Mortimer grimaced as he realized he had a lot to clarify here.

"I'm not dead," he said patiently. "Dracula is fiction, though he was based on one of us and is similar to us in some ways."

"If you aren't dead, how did you become-?" Sam gestured toward his mouth.

"Nanos," Mortimer blurted.

Sam raised her eyebrows. "Nanos? You mean science. Your vampirism is scientific in nature?"

"Exactly," he said happily. "You see, our scientists found a way to combine nano technology and microbiology to create microscopic little nanos that when shot into the bloodstream, live there and replicate. They were designed to repair injuries and fight infections or ailments like cancer and then to disintegrate and be shed from the body as waste."

Relieved that she was listening with a considering expression, Mortimer pointed out, "It was really quite a breakthrough scientifically when you think about it."

"Yes," she agreed faintly, and then asked, "So they gave you these nanos because you were injured or sick?"

"No. I was born an immortal. My parents were both immortals and passed it on in their blood."

"But... That would mean this technology's been around... what? Thirty years or something?" Sam asked incredulously.

Mortimer hesitated. This next was going to be hard for her to accept. "It isn't mortal doctors who came up with these nanos, Sam."

She sat back abruptly, a horrified expression on her face. "You're an alien? I slept with an alien?"

"No, no," he assured her, catching her hand as she started to leap up from the table.

Sam paused, her expression uncertain, but didn't sit back down.

"I'm not an alien," Mortimer assured her, relieved when she sank slowly back into her seat, and then added, "I'm an Atlantean."

Seeing that this didn't appear much more palatable to her, he took a deep breath and began to explain.

"All right," Sam said slowly several minutes later. "So you're telling me there really was an Atlantis way back when. They were incredibly advanced technologically, and one of their scientists had a brain wave with this nano business and created little tiny nanos that could repair and regenerate the human body." She paused, and when he nodded, asked, "Atlanteans are human, aren't they?"

Mortimer nodded again and then added, "Actually, the nanos do much more than repair and regenerate. They keep their hosts at their peak condition. Better than peak even. We're stronger and faster than mortals."

Sam recalled the way he'd scooped her up and raced away from the bear in the woods. Nodding, she continued listing off what she'd learned, "Your scientists tried these nanos out on several of your people before they realized that because the human body is in constant need of repair, the nanos would never die off and disintegrate, but would continue their busy work keeping your people healthy and fit for..." She paused and asked, "How long?"

"How long?"

"How long does it last?" she explained. "For how long will you stay fit and healthy? Till you grow old and die of old age in your sleep?"

"Erm..." Mortimer pursed his lips. "Well, we don't really grow old."

"You don't grow old," she echoed faintly.

Mortimer shook his head. "Aging is seen as an injury, so the nanos repair cells and keep the body young and healthy."

Her eyes widened incredulously and she asked again, "For how long?"

"Well, that differs for everyone, of course. Nanos can't prevent against accidents. If one of us is beheaded, or burned to death in a fire..." He shrugged. "We die."

"Right, but barring an accident or being burned to death... how long will you stay fit and healthy and young?" Sam asked grimly.

"No one knows the answer to that," Mortimer admitted.

"No one knows," she said slowly, her mouth pursing with displeasure. "Then how old is the oldest immortal?"

"The oldest?" He shifted and glanced away, looking uncomfortable. "I guess the oldest one I know of is my boss, Lucian."

"And how old is he?"

"I'm not sure. He was born in Atlantis before the fall, but I don't know the exact year. He's-"

"Born in Atlantis?" Sam squawked. "And Atlantis fell-what? A couple thousand years ago?"

"Close enough," Mortimer muttered.

"And he looks as young as you are?" she asked with horror.

"Pretty much. We all look about twenty-five to thirty."

Sam sat back in her chair as she tried to accept that, and then glanced at him sharply as a question suddenly occurred to her. "How old are you?"

"Me?" he asked with a grimace.

"Yes. You aren't a couple thousand years old, are you?"

"No, no," he assured her quickly, and Sam was just starting to relax when he added, "I was only born in 1210."

The air washed out of her with a whoosh and then she sucked it back in to gasp, "You're, like, eight hundred years old!"

"Thereabouts," he admitted apologetically.

"But that-I-You could have dated my grandmother. My great-grandmother even."

"Highly unlikely," Mortimer assured her, and then added wryly. "I lost interest in women centuries ago."

Her eyebrows rose and she snapped, "You could have fooled me by last night's events. If that was disinterest, I'd hate to see what interest is for your people. You'd probably cripple me if you were interested."

"Oh, well, I meant I had no interest in other women; I am interested in you," he explained, and then added, "That's because you're my life mate."

When she stared at him blankly, Mortimer explained, "I can read the minds of most women, and control them too. It takes all the fun out of it. You don't have to guess what they like, you just pluck it from their minds. You don't have to have conversations; it's easier just to read their thoughts. As for sex..." He paused and made a face and then said, "Well, frankly, you might as well just masturbate because without meaning to, you'll have them doing everything you want. Sex, like feeding, is intimate enough that our mind instinctively takes control."

Mortimer reached for her hand and looked her in the eye as he said, "But you're different. None of that is a worry with you. I can't read or control your mind."

Sam sighed. He looked and sounded earnest, and part of her wanted to throw her arms around him and hug him, but she still had so many questions. Grimacing, she retrieved her hand and said, "I still don't understand everything. Like, where does the whole fangs and blood issue come in?"

"Oh." Mortimer grimaced. "Well, the nanos use blood to fuel themselves as well as to make the repairs and regenerate and so on, but they use too much blood for our bodies to supply. It forces us to find more blood for them," he explained. "That wouldn't have been a problem if the nanos had deactivated and broken down as they were expected to do once they'd finished their repairs. But the scientists hadn't taken into account that the body is constantly in need of repair."

"It is?" she asked with surprise.

"Sure. Sunlight damages the body, as do environmental factors, and things we eat or drink. Even the simple passage of time damages the body. As we sit here your cells are aging, breaking down and dying, slowly, one by one. The body is never without something that needs repair."

"So the nanos never shut down and disintegrate," she realized.

He shook his head.

"And the fangs?"

"When the nanos were first created, the people who had been injected with them were given daily blood transfusions to keep the nanos from attacking the host's organs in search of blood. But when Atlantis fell, those who survived found themselves stranded in a world that was nowhere near as advanced as Atlantis. There were no doctors or blood banks and donors."

Sam nodded, imagining how horrible that must have been. It would be like her suddenly finding herself transported to the Dark Ages, only with a health issue. She couldn't imagine it. "What did they do?"

"Some died a horrible, painful death as the nanos attacked their body, eating away at their organs in search of blood. Others-"

"Others what?" she asked when he hesitated, knowing she wasn't going to like what was coming.

"Some became butchers, killing mortals, draining their blood into bowls or pails and then drinking it to survive. It's a time our people aren't proud of," he admitted unhappily, but then rushed on to say, "But in others, the nanos evolved. They'd been programmed to keep their host alive and so brought about physical changes to aid them in the new circumstances. For instance, our people-realizing that sunlight damaged the skin-avoided it as much as possible and moved about mostly at night so that they would have to take in as little blood as possible. In response, the nanos altered our eyes to allow for better night vision." He paused then and hesitated before admitting, "They also brought on the teeth as a medium to use to gain blood."

Sam closed her eyes. He'd said they didn't bite people but fed off blood from blood banks. Of course, that may very well be true, but the first blood bank had only been established in the 1930s. They'd had to get blood before that an alternate way... by feeding off mortals.

Dracula did exist, Sam realized. It was just that in reality, he was the result of science not a curse, and he wasn't undead, but still had his soul. Jesus, she thought suddenly, the man she loved was eight hundred years old.

Sam stiffened. She loved him? Of course she did. That was so her. Fall in love with a cute, lead singer of a not-too-successful band and he turned out to be a vampire. Perfect, she thought, and then frowned as she recalled that he wasn't in a band.

"So you hunt rogue vampires for the council of vampires," she recalled.

"Well, they're just called the Council, not the council of vampires," he said, looking pained.

"Whatever." Sam waved that away. "And you're up here looking for one now?"

"Yes."

"And what did this vampire do to become a rogue?"

"He or she has been biting mortals up here," he admitted reluctantly.

"I thought you said your people didn't bite my people but used bagged blood," she said accusingly.

"I did. We do," Mortimer said quickly. "That's what makes this guy a rogue. Biting mortals is against our laws. It's the reason we're here. To stop him, catch him, and present him or her to the Council for judgment."

Sam sat back in her seat with a small sigh. She supposed she couldn't blame them all for one bad apple. Mortals had criminals who broke their laws too. That thought made her ask with interest, "So your people have their own set of laws?"

"Oh yes. We can't really be bound by yours. I mean, mortals couldn't make immortals follow their laws. It's too easy for us to slip into your minds and convince you we haven't done something, or we weren't there, and so on."

Sam nodded slowly. She supposed it would be a nightmare for mortals to try to police immortals and that having their own laws and enforcers would be necessary. It made her curious though. "What are your laws?"

"We aren't allowed to bite mortals unless it's an absolute emergency, and we aren't allowed to turn more than one mortal in a lifetime."

Sam waited, but when he didn't add anything else, she asked with disbelief, "That's it? That's all there is? A couple thousand years to come up with your own laws, and that's the extent of it?" She snorted with disgust. "Jeez, even Moses had ten commandments."

"Well, we have a few more," he said defensively. "We aren't supposed to draw attention to our people or let mortals find out about us."

"Well, you've blown that one," Sam pointed out. "You just told me all about it."

"That's different, you're my life mate."

"Life mate?" She clucked impatiently. "That's the third time you've mentioned my being your life mate and Decker said something about it too. What is a life mate?"

Mortimer hesitated and then said, "It's the one person we can't read or control. That's the first sign of a life mate."

"The first sign?" Sam asked with interest. "There are others?"

He nodded. "When we first meet our lifemate it becomes difficult to block our thoughts from being read by other immortals."

Sam's eyebrows rose. "You have to block your thoughts from other immortals?"

"We can read each other just like we read mortals if we don't block our thoughts. It's something we learn to do early. It's not difficult, but requires a certain amount of concentration that appears to be lacking when we first meet our life mate. We're suddenly open and vulnerable to being read by others," Mortimer admitted with a grimace, and then quickly added, "Another symptom is a sudden reawakening of appetites. For food... and sex," he added, and then quickly explained, "Most immortals lose interest in food shortly after they pass their first century. After that they will eat on occasion, special functions and such, but mostly they subsist on blood."

Since the man had eaten like a horse since she'd known him, Sam merely asked, "You lose interest in sex too after the first century?"

"That passes at different times depending on the individual," he said with a shrug. "For me, I lost interest about... I'm not sure, two or three hundred years ago."

"I notice that appetite survived longer than the one for food," she said dryly.

Mortimer grinned. "C'est la vie."

His words surprised a short laugh out of Sam, and then she sighed. "What now?"

"Now," he said slowly, "you have to decide if you are willing to be my life mate."

"I thought I already was," she said with surprise. "You said you had all the symptoms."

"Yes, I do. And you are my life mate, but that doesn't mean that you will agree to be my life mate in return," he said quietly. "You might not wish to join your life to mine."

"What happens if I don't wish to?" she asked curiously.

Mortimer blanched at the suggestion, but said, "If you don't, your memory of me will be erased and your life will go on as if we'd never met."

Sam didn't care for that idea at all. "And if I am willing?"

"Then you have to decide if you are willing to be turned."

"Turned?" Sam frowned. "You mean I could be... ?"

"Immortal," Mortimer finished and nodded.

"Immortal," she whispered. Sam supposed that would mean some sort of transfusion of his nano-rich blood but was more concerned with the results of being turned. Being an immortal. The idea of staying young forever wasn't bad. And being stronger and faster sounded cool, but the biting-bags-of-blood bit was really kind of gross. She'd put up with the grossness, maybe, to be with Mortimer, but...

"What's the catch?" she asked suddenly.

"Catch?" Mortimer asked.

"The downside," she explained. "There's always a downside. You're offering me eternal youth, with you, a handsome, intelligent amusing mate... Biting bags of blood doesn't sound great, but there have to be more negatives than that."

"Well, you'd have to stay out of the sun as much as possible," he admitted.

"You went out in it the day we went shopping, and the day we went Sea-Dooing, and-"

"We can go out into sunlight, but it means consuming more blood."

"Oh." She considered that. "What about garlic and all that other stuff?"

"Garlic is delicious," Mortimer said simply. "You can eat garlic if you like. And go into churches. All those things in the vampire movies are myths..."

"But?" she queried sharply. "I hear a but."

Mortimer sighed and nodded slowly. "But we don't age. It can cause questions if you live anywhere near, or interact with, mortals for more than ten years or so and show no signs of aging. Most of us have to move every decade... and those who work among mortals have to change jobs that often as well."

"The catch," Sam breathed, and it was a doozy. She was working herself to death for a career she might have to give up in ten years, Sam realized, and then Mortimer told her the deal breaker.

"You'd have to leave your sisters in ten years too."