The Rogue Hunter (33 page)

"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."