“Did he say if he has managed to get enough men together yet, and when they will show up?” Julius asked, considering the cards in his hand.
“He’s waiting on two more men. They should be back at the Enforcer house by tomorrow and will fly straight here. Mortimer has a plane and the rest of the men standing by,” Bricker said, and then rubbed his stomach and glanced around. “Is anyone hungry?”
“I could eat something,” Zanipolo said, leaning on the small card table where Marguerite and Julius were playing. Gaze sliding enviously from the husband to the wife and back, he muttered, “I wish I could play cards. It looks like fun.”
“It is,” Marguerite said with a smile. “But only because Julius and I cannot read each other so cannot read what cards the other has. Unfortunately, we can both read your mind, Zanipolo, which would make it much less fun for you,” she pointed out.
“Yeah,” the younger immortal said on a sigh.
“What kind of hungry are you, Zani?” Bricker asked joining them at the table. “Pop and chips hungry? Sandwich hungry? Burgers on the grill hungry?” He paused briefly before pointing out, “They have a gas barbecue out back and it is barbecue season.”
“A burger sounds good,” Zani agreed.
“How about you, Santo? A cheeseburger?”
“No,” Santo growled with irritation as he wondered why they were all here. He’d had to leave Pet to take over his watch, but if he’d known they were all going to hang out in the den anyway, he could have left them to it and stayed with Pet to make love to her again. Any one of them could have kept watch in his place. They were here anyway. Why was he?
“You are here because it is your turn to stand watch,” Julius said, answering the question in his thoughts.
“And we are here because we want to spend time with you,” Marguerite said gently. “We are not likely to see much of you the next year or so if she agrees to be your life mate.”
“She will agree,” Santo said. He was growing increasingly confident that she would. There had been a couple of times tonight when she’d looked at him with a softness about her face and a yearning in her eyes that made him think she was starting to care for him, perhaps even love him.
“She is,” Marguerite murmured, drawing his gaze around. “I read it in her mind tonight after you came back from the restaurant. She has opened her heart to you and yearns to be part of this family.”
Santo was just starting to smile when she added, “She thinks it is hopeless, though.”
“What?” he asked with alarm. “Why?”
“Because you are immortal, and she is mortal,” Julius answered for his wife with a shrug. “She thinks she is just a diversion to you.”
“And she believes you will be leaving soon. That you will just walk away and forget her,” Marguerite added, and then glanced at him solemnly. “You are going to have to explain life mates to her soon and tell her she is yours.”
Too right he’d tell her soon, Santo thought. He’d tell her as soon as he got off his shift. He’d get there, rouse the apartment manager, take control of him, and make the man let him into the building and Pet’s apartment. Then he’d creep into her room, take off his clothes, climb into bed with her, and kiss and lick his way down her body until she woke up and then . . . well, honestly they’d probably finish what he’d started, and the talking part—where he told her about life mates and that she was his—would have to wait until they woke up from their post-coital faints.
“Post-coital faints?” Bricker asked, wincing. “Who talks like that?”
“He was not talking,” Marguerite pointed out.
“Yeah, but he could have thought something like after they woke from their post belly-bumping faint or something.”
“Belly bumping?”
“Bonestorming?” he suggested.
“Bricker.”
“Bumping uglies?”
“If you are through with your recitation of the most disgusting ways to describe making love,” Marguerite said dryly.
“Oh, those aren’t the most disgusting ones,” he assured her.
“You have worse ones?” Zani asked with a grin.
“Oh, yeah,” Bricker bragged.
“Let’s hear them,” Zani said with amusement.
“Dear God,” Marguerite muttered, scowling at her cards.
“Let’s see.” Bricker thought briefly and then started to spout some out just as the phone began to ring. “Launching the meat missile, the tube-snake boogie, thumping thighs, a little bit of lust-and-thrust, splitting the beard, a hot beef injection, paddling up Coochie Creek, dipping the—”
“Santo?”
Bricker stopped abruptly and they all turned toward the doorway with surprise. The phone had rung several times since they’d started staying here, but they’d always ignored it, leaving the answering machine to get it. It had mostly been sales calls, with a handful of calls from family. Hearing that small voice calling out Santo’s name from the kitchen answering machine shocked all of them. The sob that followed, though, had Santo on his feet and hurrying out of the den.
“Please be there! Aunt Pet said to call. She said you’d be there!” Parker’s voice was full of panic, desperation, and accusation as he cried those words. They made Santo’s heart squeeze with dread as he crossed the hall and hurried into the kitchen with everyone following.
“Please! We need you! I don’t know what to do. I—”
“Parker?” Santo barked as he grabbed up the phone.
Broken sobs of fear, worry, and relief were his answer, both in the phone and from the answering machine as it continued to tape the message. The sound seemed to surround Santo and he squeezed the wireless receiver until he heard a crack, and then forced his hand to relax and tried to sound soothing as he said, “It’s okay, Parker. I’m here. What’s wrong, son?”
“There’s someone here. I can hear things breaking in the kitchen. But—”
“Where’s Pet?” Santo interrupted grimly. “Where’s your aunt?”
“She’s here, but she won’t wake up, and I don’t know what to do. There’s so much blood. She’s covered in it. She said to call you and then . . . I can’t wake her up and I’m scared!”
Santo froze at those words, horror sucking at his brain, but then Marguerite touched his arm and he cleared his throat. All he could manage was, “I’m on my way.”
He held the phone out to her, barely waiting for Marguerite to take the wireless receiver before letting go and running for the door.
“Zani, go pick up the phone in the living room,” he heard Marguerite order as he hit the hall. Her voice seemed to follow him, but he didn’t understand why until she said to Parker, “Sweetheart, everything is going to be fine. Julius, Santo, and I are on our way. Zani is going to stay on the phone with you until we get there, okay? Now where are you?”
“In my bedroom. Aunt Pet had me put a chair under the doorknob, but what if he gets in?” Santo heard the boy ask as he reached the front entry. Jaw tightening, he dragged the door open and rushed out onto the porch but glanced over his shoulder as he did to see his aunt and uncle hard on his heels.
“Then you hide under your bed or in the closet until we get there,” Marguerite said.
“But what about Aunt Pet?” Parker asked worriedly as Santo broke into a run at immortal speed.
“She will be fine,” Marguerite assured him. “And we will be there soon. Now there is Zani on the other phone, and I am going to lose your call on this phone. But you just talk to Zani. He will tell you what to do. Okay?”
Santo didn’t hear the answer this time. He was rounding the hedge to get to the SUV and was too far away from the house to hear the answering machine anymore.
“I am driving,” Julius growled, coming up beside him as he reached the driver’s door. When Santo opened his mouth to protest, he added, “You are in no shape to drive. Besides, I have the keys. You gave them to me when you got back. I will drive quickly, but get us there in one piece.”
After the briefest hesitation, Santo nodded abruptly. Seeing that Marguerite was already opening the front passenger door, the now dead house phone still in her hand, he got in the back seat.
The ride to Pet’s apartment building was silent and tense. Julius did drive fast, far above the speed limit. Marguerite even had to control and send away three different policemen in three different cars in the short distance. Still, it was not fast enough for Santo. He wanted to be there now. His mind was roaring with fear and dread that Pet was dead. That he’d lost her before he could claim her.
With anxiety shredding his heart, Santo was out of the car before Julius had finished parking. He heard a second door close and Marguerite call out, but didn’t slow or look around to verify that she too had got out before Julius was quite parked.
A couple was approaching the door as he ran up to the building. Santo controlled them and made them open the door for him to enter. He’d just crossed the lobby and reached the hall that ran both left and right to the main floor apartments when Marguerite caught his arm and pointed out, “We need the manager to give us a key to get in.”
“There is no time,” Santo growled, and then movement drew his gaze up the hall to the left and he saw the apartment manager staring at them suspiciously from his door. Santo slid into the man’s mind at once, verified that he had his key ring with all the apartment keys on him, and took control, making him wait where he was as Santo moved around his aunt. He spotted Julius hurrying through the door the mortal couple still held open, but ignored him and burst into immortal speed to reach the old man.
Once he had the key, Santo continued up the hall to the stairwell door, sure he could reach Pet’s floor faster that way than by elevator. Julius and Marguerite followed, all of them silent until they burst through the door into the hall.