Ten minutes later, Inez found herself standing in a circle of light cast by a streetlamp on the edge of a dark, public park.
Shifting uncomfortably, she peered into the dark tree-filled park, noting that a trio of young men were sitting on a bench near the center, laughing uproariously. They were loud, English, gregarious, and obviously drunk and she was reluctant to draw their attention by entering the park alone.
Having Thomas here would come in handy right now, Inez thought and wondered how he was doing. Had he woken up yet? Had he found the bags of blood she’d left lying beside him? Had he healed? The only way to find out was to call the hotel, but Inez didn’t have any idea what the hotel number was. Exhausted as she was, it seemed a lot of trouble to her to figure out the number for information in Amsterdam, call, get the hotel phone number, and then call the hotel. It would be easier just to get this over with and head back. Besides, she knew she was just stalling about going into the park alone.
“Coward,” she muttered under her breath, took one step out of the circle of light and halted again. Dark, empty parks weren’t exactly on the top of her list of safe places to go. After hesitating another moment, Inez suddenly pulled out Thomas’s phone. It was extremely quiet here away from the noisy town center and, other than the three men, the park looked empty to her, but if she were to call Marguerite’s number and her cell phone was anywhere around here, Inez thought she’d probably hear it ring and be able to follow it. She searched Thomas’s digital phonebook for Marguerite’s cell phone number, and was about to press the button to call it when she heard a scuffling sound behind her.
Turning nervously, Inez found herself staring at an approaching man dressed all in black. For one minute she hoped it was Thomas, but then he stepped into the circle of light with her and she saw that he was the thin faced, dark-haired man she’d noted at one of the tables outside the restaurants earlier, the one who had looked familiar. She’d thought at the restaurant that she must have seen him in the airport, and she had, Inez suddenly realized, but not on the way to Amsterdam. He was the man who had stolen the taxi she’d hired to follow Thomas that morning after he’d left her standing in the airport, she realized suddenly and felt alarm begin to creep up her back.
Surely it couldn’t be coincidence that she kept seeing the man? Inez thought, stepping back as he continued forward. And then her mind went blank.
The ringing phone forced Thomas back to consciousness . The first thing he became aware of was pain. It was a pain he recognized, the full body agony of the hunger for blood, the acid sensation of the nanos infiltrating organs and tissue in search of what they needed. He then opened his eyes and saw red. Literally. Thomas’s vision was filled with red. It took a moment for him to realize he was staring at a bag of blood lying directly in front of his face. The moment he did, he felt his teeth shift and shot his hand up to grab the bag and shove it into them.
A slow, relieved sigh slid around the bag in his mouth as he felt the blood rushing up his teeth and into his system. His pain began to ease at once as the nanos rushed back into his blood stream to collect the fresh blood entering. Thomas just lay where he was, ignoring the phone as he waited for the first bag to empty. The moment it did, he pulled the bag free and replaced it with the second bag lying there.
It was as he waited for the second bag to empty that Thomas’s brain began to function properly again. His first thought was to wonder how the bags had got there, and then to wonder where “there” was, and what he was doing wherever he was. It only took a quick glance around what he could see of the room to recognize the hotel suite. He was lying on his stomach on the floor, seriously depleted of blood. The second bag was nearly empty when he recalled the rest of the night and how he’d ended up where he was.
His own bloody stupidity was how he’d ended up there. No one had ever claimed horny men thought with their heads. Thomas could now verify this was true. He didn’t think he’d used his head since realizing he’d consumed a bag of S.E.C. Attacking Inez in the alley, and then attacking three drunken idiots in a fit of jealousy…
First, he’d displayed his unnatural strength by lifting the blonde off his feet with one hand, and then he’d actually flashed his fangs!
Fortunately, Thomas didn’t think anyone but the brunette had seen and no one was likely to believe the account of a half-drunk, half-stoned idiot.
Now that he was beginning to think again, Thomas was concerned about other things. Like, where was Inez? And was the knife still in his back? All it took was a quick glance over his shoulder to see that the knife was no longer protruding from his lower back. He then saw it lying on top of a towel next to a stack of three or four more fresh towels and a small pile of blood-soaked ones.