Night's Mistress (Children of The Night 5)

And if that didn’t work, what then?

He swore softly. If he couldn’t forget her, he would have to join her, become a vampire himself. But first, he had to find her. Maybe if he went back and talked to Cordova again, or maybe one of the others . . .

He snorted softly. Like that would do any good. Since Rane had refused to help him, he wasn’t likely to get any answers out of the rest of the Cordova clan, so what hope did he have? None, he thought bleakly, and then he frowned.

He was going about this all wrong. Mara was a vampire. Who better to help him find a vampire than a vampire hunter? Of course, that was the answer.

Moving to the table in the corner, he poured himself a glass of red wine.

In the room’s dim light, it looked like blood.

Chapter Eight

It took some doing, but after numerous inquiries, Logan managed to find a doctor who belonged to the community of the Undead. Logan called and made an appointment and a week later, he drove Mara to a small town in Northern Nevada to meet with Dr. Thomas Ramsden.

From what Logan had been able to learn about the man, Ramsden had been a doctor with the Union Army during the Civil War. The doctor had been searching the battlefield for wounded late one night when a hungry vampire found him. The vampire had also been a Yankee and rather than kill a compatriot, he had turned the good doctor. Ramsden’s wife had been less than thrilled when she discovered her husband had become a vampire, and from what Logan had ferreted out, had been even less thrilled when the doctor brought her across.

Thomas Ramsden’s office was located in a three-story red brick building. Logan noted there were no windows on the second and third floors.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Mara asked as they exited the elevator on the second floor and entered the reception area.

Logan shrugged. “I’m not sure about anything, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”

In truth, he was more worried than he had let on. For the first time since Mara had brought him across, he had no sense of her as a preternatural being. She no longer smelled like a vampire. Even more unsettling, the two-way blood link that had bound them together for over nine centuries no longer existed. He could still sense her presence when she was near, but the bond that had allowed them to communicate telepathically was gone. He wondered if she had noticed.

There was no one else in the well-appointed waiting room. A receptionist, whose name tag identified her as Cindy, handed Mara a double-sided form to fill out.

Mara glanced at the paper. The doctor knew she was a vampire. Why did she have to fill out a form? What the heck, she could play along. Maybe there were humans in his employ who would ask questions.

She looked at the form again. Last name? She frowned, then wrote the surname Logan was currently using. Date of birth? She felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in her throat as she imagined a human doctor’s astonishment if she jotted down her real age.

Sobering, she did some quick figuring in her head and wrote the year she would have been born if she were a human twenty-year-old. Address? She thought a moment, then made one up. Phone number? She made that up, as well. She didn’t have a Social Security number, so she left it blank. There followed a long list of ailments with instructions to check the boxes that applied: Whooping cough. Measles. Mumps. Chicken pox. Polio. High blood pressure. Syphilis. The list went on and on.

She left all the boxes blank, then signed and dated the bottom of the form and returned it to the receptionist.

Tapping her foot nervously, Mara glanced around the room. A number of abstract paintings adorned the walls, a brass pot held a ficus tree, several magazines were scattered across a large square coffee table which was located amidst a grouping of chairs upholstered in a dark blue print. Water bubbled from a fountain in one corner, no doubt meant to soothe the nerves of waiting patients.

It wasn’t working.

Moments later, a nurse with curly blond hair and brown eyes called Mara’s name, then led her into an examining room. Was the nurse a vampire? With her weakening powers, Mara couldn’t tell.

“Make yourself comfortable,” the nurse said with a friendly smile. “I’ll be right back.”

Mara glanced around the room, noting that the walls were bare save for a painting of a sailboat on a storm-tossed sea. With a sigh, she sat on the foot of the examination table.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she muttered, and wondered why she had let Logan talk her into coming here.

A short time later, the nurse returned. A name tag identified her as Susan. She took Mara’s blood pressure, made a notation on a chart, and then handed Mara a paper gown and a covered plastic cup.

Seeing Mara’s confused expression, the nurse said, “We need a urine sample. The bathroom is the first door on the left at the end of the hall. Just leave the cup on the sink, then come back here and put on the gown.”

Mara blinked at the woman. Did she seriously expect her to pee in a cup?

“Is there a problem?” the nurse asked.

“I don’t have to . . . to . . .” She held up the cup.

“I’m sure you can, if you try.”

“I. Don’t. Have. To,” Mara said, speaking each word clearly and distinctly.

“Oh, well, maybe later. Doctor will be right in,” Susan said, and left the room.

Muttering, “A really bad feeling about this,” Mara placed the cup on the counter. After undressing, she slipped the flimsy paper gown over her head and sat on the edge of the examining table again. In all her life, she had never been examined by a doctor, and she had no idea what to expect. She jumped when someone knocked on the door.

“Mrs. Blackwood?”

“Yes. Come in.”

The door swung open and a tall man with graying brown hair and brown eyes entered the room, a clipboard in one hand.

“Mara,” he said, his tone respectful. “I never thought I would have the opportunity, the pleasure, of meeting you.”

She smiled, unsure of how to respond. She was unsure of so many things these days, she hardly felt like herself anymore.

“So,” Ramsden said, scanning the form she had filled out, “what brings you here?”

“I’m not sure. I just feel, I don’t know, strange.”

“In what way?”

“I can’t explain it. More and more, I’m taking my rest at night instead of during the day. I can consume mortal food and drink. I’m gaining weight, something I’ve never done before. Sometimes I feel sick to my stomach. My breasts are tender.”