The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles Book 2) (32 page)

I turned my head and regarded Charlie. Opie couldn’t come to the doctor with me, but I didn’t feel right sending a human psyche to the kennel. Charlie/Opie made it easier for me. He trotted to my side, looked up at me with warm brown eyes that seemed to be amused, then went and sat in front of the staff member.
 

Okay, kennel it was.
 

I thanked the young man, wondered what his politics were when it came to the dead/undead and watched as the two of them walked down the hall.
 

When it was time to leave, Dan wasn’t available. So said a new and improved smiling Mike who was to be my driver/bodyguard to the doctor’s office. Since last night’s revelations, I wasn’t adverse to being protected.
 

“He’s got an important meeting in Austin.”
 

I stopped in the act of getting into the Mercedes, a much warmer car than the Jeep on this blustery and wintry day. I wanted to ask for details. Was it chicken business? Was he seeing representatives of the OTHER? Was it about his missing sister? Or Maddock? Was he taking the precaution of having someone with him?
 

All questions I knew Mike wouldn’t answer, that’s why the words didn’t make it past the gate of my lips.
 

I’d spent most of the morning re-reading every scrap of information the Librarian had given me, along with my own notes. I saw everything with a different perspective, one that led me to make the same conclusions my sleepy brain had deduced last night.
 

I was the answer to an homogenized human.
 

If the OTHER got what they wanted, did that mean we’d all have the ability to compel each other? Would we be like walking radios, each commanding another person until we were surrounded by white noise? I could imagine what walking down the street in New York would be like.
 

Look at me! Look at me! Tell me I’m pretty!

Leave that cab for me, idiot.
 

You want to give me your money. Give me all your money.
 

You’re hungry. Come sit in my restaurant. Buy the most expensive meal.
 

What about zapping people? Would we all be given the power of concentrating emotion like I was able to do? Granted, I’d only used the ability a few times, but it seemed to have either anger or fear as a base.
 

How would the police combat that? Forget any stop and frisk ability.
 

He had his forefinger cocked at me, Judge, and he was scowling at me. She was definitely getting ready to zap me, officer. Her hand was pointed in my direction and she didn’t look happy, not happy at all.
 

Extended life expectancy would put a crimp in the funeral industry. They’d have to branch out into other fields.
 

The Worthington Funeral Home and Crematorium proudly announces that its venue is now available for weddings, graduation parties, and business conferences.

But other industries could be born from the wreckage, I suppose. We’d have more extended generations, wouldn’t we? We’d know our great-great-great-great grandfathers. Maybe we’d have multi-generational housing, new ways of daycare. That is, if homogenized humans could produce offspring.
 

They should have thought of all these things before just going willy nilly after someone like me.
 

But was I the first, the only? The Librarian said that they’d never found another child of a vampire. Had they contacted Maddock? For that matter, had anyone contacted my father’s family?
 

Could I have half-siblings somewhere?
 

One thing I hadn’t thought of until this morning: group dynamics. A group often finds unity if every member of that group has a common enemy. A lot of times, in working environments, that’s the boss. Now it was me.
 

The witches might meet with the other Brethren, groups that would ordinarily stay far away from each other, in a single concerted effort to end
me
.

Oh, joy, I might not have just the OTHER and Maddock to worry about.
 

The doctor’s office was crowded, just like before. Mike, however, didn’t have the amused acceptance Dan had shown. It was a little strange seeing such a big and tall man with the face of a warrior suddenly look a little green around the gills at the sight of so many pregnant women.
 

There were no less than three signs on the walls reminding patients to turn off cell phones. I switched mine off and tucked it in my pocket.
 

I expected the billing clerk to talk to me before my meeting with Dr. Stallings, but at the front desk I was directed to have a seat. That was code for: “We’ll call you when we feel like it.”
 

I don’t think the practice of medicine has changed in the last fifty years in regard to waiting room procedures. I always had to wait an hour or more to see any doctor.

Some of the chairs in Dr. Stallings’ waiting room were the roomy, comfy type. After all, when you’re pregnant, you’re bulging in odd spots. But a whole row of empty chairs against the wall were upholstered with a nubby green fabric that made me itch and wooden arms that made me wonder if I’d gained weight.
 

Mike didn’t fit and finally gave up to stand against the far wall, his gaze fixed on a spot near the reception area window.
 

I’d deliberately left the castle early, hoping to get to see Dr. Stallings before four. We arrived at three. At three forty five, I was starting to anxiously check my phone for the time. When I was finally called into the examination room, I went with a sigh of relief.
 

What an idiot I can be sometimes.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-T
WO

Someone’s elevator doesn’t go to the penthouse

The nurse was someone else I didn’t know, a middle aged woman with twinkling brown eyes and the kind of personality that had never met a stranger. By the time we got to the room, I found out that she was from Kansas, her husband was in the Air Force and stationed at Randolph, and San Antonio winters were much milder than what she was used to and wasn’t that nice?
 

Instead of an examination room, she opened the door to what looked to be Dr. Stallings’ office. The desk took up most of the space and was overflowing with papers and books. Instead of a window, a mural of Florence was painted on the wall behind the desk.
 

I'd been there once, on a tour of Italy. It was a beautiful city and I remembered buying a few leather notebooks there, seeing the statue of David and being awed by Michelangelo's talent even centuries later.

The mural was a clue, but I didn’t see it then.
 

On either side of the desk were tall bookshelves with the same overflowing clutter. I’d never thought of Dr. Stallings as a paperwork hoarder.
 

Two chairs sat in front of the desk, facing a two foot tall plastic technicolor cross-section of female reproductive parts. I was a woman; I knew what I looked like. I couldn’t help but wonder what that diorama would have done to Mike.
 

I’d never been in Dr. Stallings’ office before, not even for those awful appointments where I discovered that, yes, I had had a miscarriage.
There is always hope, Marcie. You mustn’t be discouraged. This is just Nature’s way.
 

I think I’ve heard every platitude. I’ve said them to friends who were undergoing similar heartbreak or even worse diagnoses. Today marked the end of platitudes, didn’t it?
 

I sat on one of the chairs in front of the desk. The nurse, from whom I’d learned her life story but not her name, asked if I wanted something to drink. Another first, I’d never been offered refreshments before today. I guess when you’re getting ready to dispose of your plastic parts, it’s a momentous occasion.
 

 
Thanking her, I refused, staring at the fallopian tubes and envisioning Dr. Stallings’ lecture to a confused husband. Did she help infertile couples? I didn’t know.

Fifteen minutes later, the good doctor still hadn’t appeared. Nor had the helpful nurse. It was now after four and I was getting a little antsy. Call me paranoid. Or call me careful. All I knew was that it was getting later and I didn’t want to be out after dark.
 

What was fear of the dark called? Was it brought about by fear of vampires? I was experiencing symptoms of it: a feeling of cold and dread added to nausea.
 

As much as I wanted the operation, I was just going to have to make a morning appointment.
 

I stood, looked over Dr. Stallings’ desk for a blank sheet of paper. All I saw was a prescription pad. I grabbed it and used the pen from her desk set to write a note explaining that I had to leave.
 

The nausea got abruptly worse.
 

Her name was imprinted on the top of the pad, above Northside OBGYN Associates, PA, a MEDOC Company.

I couldn’t breathe. Contrary to popular myth, vampires do breathe, except those who are undergoing a profound and life altering shock.
 

I put the pad and pen down, grabbed my purse and headed for the door. When the doorknob didn’t turn, I wasn’t all that surprised. If anything, I was in a bubble of suspended animation. My brain was trucking along, thinking of possible better case scenarios. My body was frozen, one of those lizard brain responses to a charging mastodon and me without a spear.
 

Dr. Stallings worked for Maddock. He probably bankrolled her practice. He probably knew every damn thing I’d told her, HIPAA be damned.
 

If your boss was a vampire, you don’t tell him no. You don’t act all coy and say things like, “Sorry, boss, no can do. I can’t divulge what Marcie told me in the privacy of the exam room.”
 

Crap on a cracker. I had to get out of here.
 

I turned on my phone, dialed two, my speed dial number for Mike, but the phone rang three times before it went to voice mail.
 

Please, don’t let him have turned his phone off.
 

I dialed him again, but there was no answer. Only a canned response from a chipper female voice. I tried Dan, but he wasn't answering either.

Was the damn phone working?

According to the time and temperature given by Frost Bank, it was. The time, however, was now four thirty.
 

To say I was panicking would be an understatement. I was encountering the flop sweat of the truly terrified and I've had some scary moments in the last few months. My underarms were wet and so was my waistband. Even the backs of my knees felt damp.

I wasn't processing the feeling of betrayal yet. It was in the corner of my mind, placed there until I had time to think about it. Survival was tantamount right now. I scanned the walls, wondering why the hell I hadn't noticed the lack of windows before now. Evidently, Dr. Stallings met with her boss in this office. There wasn't an escape door other than the one I used to enter. No other way in or out.

I dialed the reception area, but I wasn't surprised when it, too, went to a recording. Had they closed the practice and ushered all the pregnant women out with the explanation that the doctor had an emergency?
 

What had happened to Mike?

I’d envisioned being chained in a basement somewhere. I never considered that I would be held in the offices of my doctor. Did they have a room already cordoned off for me? Someplace where I could be anesthetized and implanted? Oh, hell, why spoil Maddock’s fun? Why not just let him rape me again?

I picked up the phone on the desk, punched one of the buttons, but none of the lights lit up. They’d thought of everything.
 

I wasn't as strong as some vampires. I'd never developed a physical strength, but I could use my fists on the door well enough. I shouted, transforming my fear into anger.
 

No one came.
 

My ability to compel humans wasn't all that strong, but I forced myself to sit and concentrate. I didn't know the woman's name who’d led me to this office, but she’d seemed a genuinely nice human being. I concentrated on her, focusing all my energies on her face, on her smile. Had she already left for the day? Could I force her to return? For that matter, if I did, would I be endangering her life?

I couldn't make someone save me, if doing so might harm them.
 

Closing my eyes again, I tried not to think about the passing seconds. Instead, I sent my thoughts to Mike, hoping against hope that I might be able to get through to him.

Please
.
 

That's all I could think. I saw myself sitting here in this office. I saw my fear as if it were a palpable thing surrounding me. My desperation was almost physical as I called Dan and Mike over and over again. I needed someone strong to help me battle Niccolo Maddock.