One Lucky Vampire(52)

“We had it closed until you arrived, but you left it open after you stopped to talk to us on your arrival and none of us bothered to close it,” Nina said. “But what’s this about mouse repellents? Why would it cause headaches in us?”

“Our hearing is apparently sensitive enough to pick up the sound they emit and it’s causing headaches,” Marguerite explained.

Nina nodded. “What do the little buggers look like? I’ll take out every one of them. I haven’t ever had headaches before this and I’m not enjoying this one.”

“Dante, Tomasso,” Julius said, turning to the twins. “Go around the house and remove all the ultrasonic mouse repellents.”

Nodding, the two men moved out of the room.

“So that’s the headache,” Nina said. “But what’s causing Jake’s vomiting?”

“We think it’s poisoning,” Dani answered.

“Poisoning?” Nina asked with surprise and then narrowed her eyes. “In food?”

“Right now the hot tub is the most likely culprit, but we don’t know for sure, so just be careful of what you touch or consume.”

“I don’t consume anything but blood anymore,” Nina assured her. “I’ll warn the others, though. I don’t think Mark and Gill eat food anymore either, but Tybo does.”

Dani nodded. “Is Jake still throwing up?”

“No. He’s stopped finally, but he’s in a lot of pain. With him throwing up, we had to give him the blood intravenously. It was the only way to ensure he didn’t just toss it back up right away. But the intravenous is slow and he was losing blood faster than he was getting it. He’s suffering. The nanos are definitely attacking his organs in search of blood.”

“Well let’s try giving it to him orally now. It might stay down,” Dani suggested, ushering her out of the kitchen.

Nicole watched them leave and then leaned to Marguerite and asked, “How did they get in?” When Marguerite turned to her in question, she explained, “The front door was locked and I didn’t let them in.”

“Ah.” She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I asked the same thing when Nina came down to unlock the front door and let us in. Apparently, the door was locked when they got here too, but they could hear you screaming and hurried around the house checking doors and windows. I guess the sliding doors to the living room were unlocked and they came in that way.”

“Oh, yes,” Nicole murmured. The sliding doors to her studio and the living room made an inverted L around the hot tub. Jake must have used the living-room sliding doors to get to the hot tub, because they had been unlocked when she’d helped him inside . . . and she hadn’t locked them behind them. Heck, she’d been so upset at the time, she wasn’t even sure she’d closed them. But she knew she’d left her studio door unlocked too and said so now. “I’m pretty sure the sliding doors to my studio are unlocked too. They might even be open.”

Decker had just started back into the room, done with his call. But hearing this, he turned around at once, saying, “I’ll take care of it.”

Nicole turned to Marguerite then, a lot of questions bubbling in her mind. Before she could ask even one, Marguerite smiled at her apologetically and said, “I’m sorry, dear. I know you have a lot of questions, but the answers aren’t really mine to give. Jake will have to answer them when he’s recovered. I think the best thing for you to do is to go back to work while we do what we can to help Jake. So, I want you to relax, empty your mind of all worries, and simply go to your studio and work.”





Nine





Jake opened his eyes to find sunlight creeping around the edges of his blinds. He stared at the light and shadow it caused in the room, and then pushed his blankets aside and sat up, surprised to find he was buck naked. He normally slept naked at home, but he’d brought pajama bottoms to wear here. It was always good to be prepared and if an emergency struck in the middle of the night . . . Well, having the family jewels hanging out was never good at times like that.

Standing up, he opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of loose, cotton pajama bottoms in a black, white, and gray plaid. He’d dress properly after he made coffee . . . and brushed his teeth. God, his mouth tasted like a sewer. What was up with that?

And what time was it? He glanced around to the alarm clock, frowning when he saw that it was two in the afternoon. What—?

Jake stilled as memory washed over him like a ten-gallon barrel of water. It left him just as stunned as a sudden dunking would have done. In the next moment, he was hopping around, pulling his pajama bottoms onto first one leg and then the other. Once he had them on, Jake headed out the door, tugging his T-shirt on as he went.