Vampires Are Foreve(87)

No one else got in his way, and Thomas crashed through the pub door and out onto the street without further hindrance.

A slight breeze had kicked up outside. It sent his hair ruffling as he glanced first one way and then the other. Thomas didn’t see Inez in either direction, and panic became a living beast in his chest, clawing at his heart. He couldn’t lose her now. He’d waited two hundred years for Inez, he simply couldn’t lose her.

Spotting a crossroad just a little ways up to his left, Thomas hurried toward it, thinking that surely that would have been where she’d been taken. He hadn’t been away from the table long, whoever was controlling her would have wanted to get her off this street in case Thomas came looking, and this was the nearest corner.

Pausing at the crossroads, he glanced left and right again, freezing when he spotted a bit of brilliant white in the distance. Despite his exceptional eyes, it took him a moment to realize that it was a figure in a brilliant white blouse and dark slacks being led off the sidewalk and down what must be steps by a dark figure all in black. Thomas couldn’t be sure from this distance, but by the size difference between his petite Inez and the figure with her, he’d guess her captor was a man.

God Bless her penchant for wearing white blouses, Thomas thought as he set out up the street at a dead run. If she’d been wearing black like himself and the man with her, he never would have spotted her before she disappeared from view.

Thomas crossed the distance quickly, uncaring that anyone might see the speed he traveled at and wonder. He slowed when he thought he was drawing close to where Inez had been led off the sidewalk, and soon spotted a set of stone steps just before the bridge that crossed the river. They led down to a lower level with a stone path that ran along the river.

Thomas stopped at the top of the stairs and peered down, spotting Inez and her captor at once. The dark figure was most definitely a man, tall, and wide and built like a warrior of old. An immortal that was older than he, Thomas surmised, but couldn’t care less. He wasn’t giving Inez up without a fight, not even if it killed him.

He was about to start down the step when he saw the man bring Inez to a halt. Thomas frowned as he watched him turn her so that she faced the water, placing her back to him, but when he then raised his hands placing one on her shoulder and one around her face, Thomas recognized that he was about to break her neck, then probably drop her in the river. He roared with fury and hurled Inez’s purse like a missile.

Thomas didn’t wait to see if the purse hit its target, but immediately charged down the stairs at a speed he didn’t think he’d ever reached before. Still, he did see the purse slam into the man’s head and send him stumbling a startled step to the side, dragging Inez with him. Regaining his balance, the man glanced up the path to where Thomas was just hurling himself off the last step and racing toward them. The immortal hesitated, and then shoved Inez off the edge and into the river even as he turned to race away.

Heart lurching in his chest, Thomas put on another burst of speed, raced to the edge of the path, and dove into the water after Inez. The River Ouse was cold, dark, and murky. It was impossible to see anything.

Silently cursing, Thomas waved his arms around, searching blindly for Inez. He was beginning to despair of finding her when the tips of his fingers brushed against something. Moving in that direction, he waved his arms again and this time caught something in the crook of his elbow. Grabbing at whatever it was with his other hand, he felt his fingers close around an arm and immediately pushed off the riverbed toward the surface, tugging her along with him.

The impetus of his push sent him whizzing through the water. Thomas was still moving at speed when he hit the surface and rose out of the water up to his waist, before receding back into it. He glanced toward Inez as he started to slide back into the water, realizing only then that he had her by the calf, not her arm as he’d first thought.

Kicking his feet to stay above water, Thomas quickly shifted her around, drawing her head out of the water as he caught her by the upper arms. Her head was tipped back and the moonlight glowed down on her face. Thomas’s jaw tightened as he noted the blue tinge to her skin. It was most noticeable around her lips.

Thomas drew her closer, pinched her nose and blew air into her mouth several times, then kicked toward shore, crossing half the distance before stopping again. He breathed into her again before continuing on to the embankment where he once again took a moment to breathe air into her.

Thomas managed to get them both out of the water, lifting Inez out first and then following. He crawled to her side and peered down at her face in the moonlight, frowning at her poor color. Swallowing back the fear tickling its way up his throat, he promptly set to work. Thomas tilted her head back and lifted her chin, then bent to listen for breathing. When he didn’t hear anything, he pinched her nose closed, breathed into her mouth twice, and then placed the heel of his hand on her breastbone, placed his other hand on the first and pressed straight down fast and hard thirty times in a row before stopping to breathe into her mouth again, watching her chest rise as he blew in, then fall as he stopped.