Vampire, Interrupted (34 page)

“I’m sorry. It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack, Julius,” Tiny said with frustration as Marcus entered the room behind him with a tray with coffee, cream, and sugar in his hands. “We’re all out there just driving aimlessly around, checking every van when the one they were taken in may not even be on the streets anymore. Marcus and I came back to brainstorm with you and see if we couldn’t think of a better way to pursue this.”

“Vita gave me this to bring in,” Marcus said as he set the tray on the coffee table.

Julius nodded, but his attention was on Lucian as the man said, “If Marguerite was controlled and made to walk out of the townhouse in York, then the person doing the controlling must have been looking in a window, or otherwise able to see her. They can control her mind, but cannot see through her eyes, it would be like trying to steer a car blind.”

“Yes,” Nicodemus said with a nod, “that is what I thought, but when they said there was no one around, I wondered if I’d been mistaken.”

“So Jean Claude must have been at a window or something to be watching her while he steered her
out of the house?” Vincent asked, apparently thoroughly convinced of the man’s culpability. Bastien and Lucern on the other hand were remaining silent. Bastien appeared troubled. Lucern just grim.

“It wasn’t Jean Claude,” Lucian insisted. No one paid him attention.

“Are you sure you didn’t see anyone outside the townhouse when you went out after Marguerite?” Tiny asked Julius.

He shook his head. “There was no one there. And no one saw Jean Claude near the townhouse back when Marguerite killed the maid, Magda.”

“There are curtains on the windows of the townhouse in York, but not on the door,” Vincent said suddenly, and when Julius peered at him with surprise for knowing this, he explained, “We’ve been staying there the last couple of days. When Thomas came looking for Aunt Marguerite, he and Inez found out that a townhouse was rented under the name Notte in York. “He shrugged, we thought it was Christian. They rented the place to stay there while they looked for more information. We’ve all been staying there.”

Julius nodded and said, “You’re right, there are no curtains on the window on the front door, but Jean Claude couldn’t have got away from the window that quickly. I didn’t see him on the street when I went out, and I did look around. All there was were rather horrified mortals.”

“Julius was naked,” Tiny explained.

“Perhaps Jean Claude was watching from a building across the street,” Vincent suggested. “Binoculars would have allowed him to keep his distance and see her at the same time.”

“Jean Claude is dead,” Lucian repeated.

Julius ignored him and pointed out, “But he couldn’t have seen up into our room where she was sleeping and made her come below.”

“But she wasn’t in bed,” Tiny reminded him. “Marguerite said she got up to get more blood and then the next thing she remembered was waking up on the couch.”

“She would have had to walk up the hall to get to the kitchen, that’s when Jean Claude must have got control of her. He must have been watching the house. When he saw her through the window, he took control and made her turn and head out the door,” Vincent decided, not knowing that they’d kept the blood in the mini-fridge in the living room. It didn’t matter, though, Julius supposed. Marguerite would have had to walk through the hall to get to the living room as well.

“It wasn’t Jean Claude,” Lucian growled.

“It must have been something similar when Magda was killed,” Lucern announced suddenly joining the conversation. “Because I guarantee Mother would not have killed the maid. She adored her. Father must have been at the townhouse that day too.”

Julius peered at the man. He’d thought from his silence that Lucern hadn’t believed what he had told them, but now recalled Lucern had known about his father being missing, and had received a letter from his mother about their plans to marry, though he knew she hadn’t mentioned being with child in it. Julius now wondered what the eldest Argeneau boy had been told when he arrived in York back in 1491 to
find his father returned from the dead and his mother back with him.

Leaving the matter for now, he considered Lucern’s words and frowned as he said, “Vita didn’t mention seeing Jean Claude at the time.”

“Vita?” his father asked with a start.

“She was the one who told me Marguerite was at the townhouse. She said she saw her go upstairs and wondered if we’d got back together. She didn’t mention Jean Claude, however, and I’m sure she would have if she’d seen him there.”

“God dammit! It wasn’t Jean Claude!” Lucian roared, and when everyone turned his way, he scowled and admitted more calmly, “I cannot say for sure it was not him in 1491, but he certainly isn’t behind what is happening now. He is dead.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Vincent said quietly. “None of us can be sure. The funeral was closed casket.”

“Uncle Lucian is the one Morgan called when he woke up to find the house in flames and Father dead,” Bastien said quietly. “He went and handled the firemen and police and retrieved Father’s body. He would have seen it.”

“Yes, but Jean Claude’s body was destroyed in the fire. He was nothing but ashes. That is why it was closed casket. There was
nothing
to see,” Vincent pointed out. “Even Lucian can’t be sure it really was him.”

“Yes, I can,” the head of the Argeneau clan insisted.

“How?” Julius asked suspiciously. “If he was only ashes—”

“He wasn’t ashes,” Lucian admitted, his mouth twisting.

Vincent’s eyes widened. “Then he could have survived. You might have buried an empty casket.”

“No we didn’t.”

“You can’t be sure,” Julius insisted.

“Yes, I can.”

“How?” Julius demanded again.

Lucian hesitated, and then propped his elbows on his knees, dropped his head into his hands and began to rub his forehead as if it were paining him.

“If you have some proof that Jean Claude is dead, you best share it,” Nicodemus said quietly. “Because if he is dead, then we are looking to the wrong person and wasting time.”

Lucian nodded in resignation and said, “I know he is dead, because…I beheaded him myself.”

No one moved. No one spoke. Julius wouldn’t have been surprised to be told that no one breathed. They all simply sat staring at Lucian with wide, stunned eyes.

“As Bastien said, Morgan called me that night,” Lucian said wearily. “Jean Claude was badly burned but he wasn’t dead. He was a blackened and charred mess and wasn’t healing quickly. His system was full of a drunk’s useless blood and he refused the blood I brought with me. Instead he asked me to kill him and end his suffering. He said he loathed himself for hurting Marguerite and everyone else around him, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He said he had nothing left inside him and he begged me to give him peace.”

“So you killed him?” Julius asked with disbelief.

Lucian shook his head. “I couldn’t…until he ad
mitted that he had been feeding on mortals and had actually set fire to the house. He’d intended to die in the fire, but Morgan had dragged him out.”

Sighing, Lucian lifted a haggard face to look at Julius. “Feeding off mortals is against our council laws in North America. It is a killing offense that has to be taken before the council for pronouncement. Feeding on them unto death, however, gains instant death and the hunter doesn’t have to take them before the council for pronouncement.” He shook his head. “But Jean Claude was my brother. I would have taken him before the council and had someone else commit the deed, but he begged me to kill him and then pointed out that if this mess was put before the council, everyone would know. He said he’d done enough to hurt Marguerite and the children and asked me again to kill him and then to arrange a closed casket funeral so no one would ever know.” Lucian shrugged helplessly. “And so I honored his wishes.”

Julius sank back with horror, not at what Lucian had done, but because he believed him. The expression on his face as he confessed to taking his twin brother’s life had been too stark with pain and guilt for him not to believe him. Jean Claude was dead…and now Julius had no idea who could be behind the attacks and taking of Marguerite and Christian.

Bastien cleared his throat. “Then it has to be one of the other two who has Mother and Christian now.”

They all looked to Lucian and then Vincent asked what they were all wondering. “Uncle, do you have any idea who the other two could have been?”

Lucian straightened abruptly, his expression turn
ing cold as he forced himself to consider the problem at hand. The change was almost shocking, though it shouldn’t have been, Julius supposed. The man was a warrior, a hunter and did what had to be done.

“Morgan would have been one,” he announced abruptly. “While I had no idea Jean Claude was still alive when he went missing for those twenty years, Morgan did. He was the one who carried back the tale that Jean Claude had been beheaded in battle.”

When Julius sat up, hope on his face, Bastien frowned and told him, “Morgan is dead. He went rogue and Uncle Lucian had to hunt him down. He was captured and put to death by the council.”

“Who else then?” Vincent asked, settling on the arm of the sofa beside his uncle and awkwardly patting his back.

Lucian didn’t seem to notice the attempt to comfort him, his face was taut with concentration. Finally he shook his head. “There is no one else I can think of that he would trust with this type of thing.”

The words made everyone in the room sag with disappointment.

“All right,” Tiny said firmly. “Then we have to think of people who would want Marguerite dead and could have been around back then.”

“No one would want Mother dead,” Lucern said firmly. “She never had the opportunity to make enemies. She was always forced to remain at home.”

Tiny shook his head with disgust and then suddenly paused.

“What are you thinking?” Julius asked, desperate for any suggestion.

Tiny hesitated and then admitted, “It just oc
curred to me that perhaps we are thinking about this wrong.”

“How do you mean?” Vincent asked the detective.

Tiny pursed his lips and then said tentatively, “Maybe Marguerite hasn’t been the target here.”

“What?” Julius asked with bewilderment. “But she is the one who has been attacked each time.”

“Not each time. She was made to order your son’s death back at the beginning,” he pointed out and then asked, “Why?”

Julius stared at him blankly.

“Think,” he said grimly. “There was no reason for Jean Claude to want Christian’s death. He had wiped Marguerite’s memory of the baby. Why not just give Christian to you along with the message that she wanted nothing more to do with you both? Or even dump him with a band of Gypsies?”

“Perhaps he was jealous of Julius,” Vincent suggested, but didn’t sound as if he believed.

Tiny shook his head. “It couldn’t have been jealousy. He wandered off and let everyone, including Marguerite think he was dead. He would hardly be jealous if she then started a new life with Julius.”

“Then why did he come back?” Vincent asked. “He was gone for twenty years. Why suddenly come back?”

Tiny shook his head again. “I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to reclaim Marguerite. They weren’t lifemates. They were miserable together, and he didn’t even love her if you judge by the way he treated her. Something else must have caused his return.”

When no one commented, he added, “And now Christian has been involved again. The kidnappers
could have just left him there on the sidewalk and taken Marguerite if they’d wanted, but they took him as well.”

Julius was frowning at the truth of this when Tiny glanced at him solemnly and said, “And if Marguerite wasn’t the true target, that leaves you.”

“Me?” he asked with surprise. “They haven’t done anything to me.”

“Yes, they have,” the detective said solemnly. “Marguerite’s being wiped and taken away by Jean Claude hurt you, not her. She didn’t remember you…just as she didn’t remember Christian. His death would only have hurt you. And now Marguerite and Christian’s being taken is hurting you again.”

“You’re saying all of this has been done to hurt Julius?” Nicodemus asked slowly. “That Marguerite and Christian are just the vehicles to do so?”

Tiny shrugged helplessly. “I know it’s hard to imagine, but if Marguerite has no enemies and Jean Claude is dead, she can’t be the real target. Julius is the only other person being hurt in all this.”

“And us,” Bastien said staunchly.

“But you weren’t alive back then,” he pointed out.

“Lucern was,” Vincent pointed out.

“But Christian’s kidnapping wouldn’t affect him at all,” Lucian said slowly and then glanced to Julius. “Who are your enemies? Ones who would have been around back then as well as now.”

“Wait a minute,” Julius said. “If someone wanted to hurt me, why wait five hundred years? Why not attack or try to kill Christian before this? And why not attack me outright? Why go the circuitous route and attack Marguerite and Christian?”

“Perhaps it’s someone who couldn’t attack you outright without revealing themselves,” Marcus suggested, jumping on the band wagon. “And perhaps your misery and unhappiness was enough for them all these centuries.”

Julius was shaking his head in disbelief when he heard his father sigh. He glanced toward the man with a frown. Nicodemus Notte was standing at the window, separate from the group, a troubled expression on his face as he peered out into the night.

“What is it, Father?” he asked with trepidation. “Have you thought of someone who would want to hurt me and was around back then?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I have,” he said wearily.

Eighteen

“Aunt Vita?”

Marguerite saw the betrayal on her son’s face as he stared at the woman leaning on a sword in the doorway, and reached out tentatively to take his hand in hers. She squeezed in sympathy, but when she tried to release him right away as he had done earlier, Christian clutched her hand and tugged her slowly closer and a little behind him.