Chapter 40
Dinner was full of questions posed to them in English which they pretended not to understand and conversation in French about whatever they wished since no one else at their table knew what they were saying. At least one of them had their eyes on the Vampire at all times. Before they had even finished, Dr. Williams excused himself from his seat across the room and began to walk toward the door.
This was not part of the plan, and as they exchanged nervous glances, Catherine came up with a solution. Clenching her stomach, she said in French, “I’m really not feeling well, darling. Might you escort me back to the room?”
“Yes, of course,” Aaron replied, helping her up from her seat and explaining to the others, also in French, that his wife was not well.
“What do I do?” Christian asked.
“Finish dinner; go make a search,” Aaron said, a fake smile plastered on his face so no one might guess that he was giving a directive.
Once they’d left the dining room, they split up. Aaron headed straight for Dr. Williams’s state room while Catherine went to search the promenade. She realized she needed to make quick work of it so diners from her table didn’t spy her there upon leaving dinner and wonder why she wasn’t in her room lying down.
Aaron couldn’t find Dr. Williams in his room, nor did he see him anywhere on the way. Without any way to communicate with his teammates, he decided to continue searching, hopeful that the reason he was coming up empty-handed was because Christian or Catherine had already destroyed him.
After a few hours, he ran into Catherine on C Deck. She was dressed in Third Class passenger’s clothing, and he hardly recognized her at first. “Anything?” she asked.
“No. You?”
She shook her head. “I ran into Christian earlier, and he said he couldn’t find him either.”
“Well, he didn’t just disappear,” Aaron muttered.
“Maybe he’s in someone else’s room. Maybe he’s taken a mistress,” she suggested.
Aaron considered the possibility. “Could be. But how would we know who it might be?”
“I don’t know. But chances are, if he’s with another woman, she’s a Vampire, too, which means we have more destruction on our plates.”
“All right,” Aaron nodded, realizing what she said was true. “Where are you headed?”
“On my way down,” she replied, gesturing at her dress which indicated she was a Third Class passenger and their quarters were lower in the ship.
“I’ll meet you on the First Class Promenade at midnight, all right?”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a wink.
He couldn’t help but smile in response. “If you see Christian again, tell him to meet us there, too.”
She nodded and squeezed his arm before heading off to the stairs that led down deeper into the belly of the ship.
Several minutes later, Aaron happened down a hallway in the Second Class passenger portion of the ship when he saw a door open at the far end of the hall. A reaction in his gut let him know it had to be Dr. Williams, and sure enough, the gray-haired Vampire stepped out into the hallway, headed the other direction.
Making a mental note of which room the doctor had been in, he planned to return later to check out the residence, and he rushed off after the doctor, thinking he hadn’t seen him. However, as he passed by the room the doctor had vacated, the door flew open and he felt himself careening into the wall across from it.
He looked up to see a nude woman with dark black hair piled atop her head, her skin pale, her teeth sharp. He didn’t have time to ascertain whether or not the doctor had just turned her or she had spent several days in her present form hanging out in her cabin waiting for the doctor to return. Clearly, she needed to be handled now, and privately if possible. Luckily, no other passengers had been in the hallway, and as he leapt to his feet, he kicked her back into the room, sending her into the far wall across from the door.
She was fast, and by the time he’d entered the room and shut the door behind him, she was back on top of him, claws reaching for his face. While she was vicious and full of energy, she was young and inexperienced. Aaron pulled a vial of Holy Water out of his pocket and splashed it in her face. As she began to scream and clutch at the burning spots, he pulled the stake from his breast pocket, and shoving her left arm aside, jammed into her heart.
Her shriek was earsplitting, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to keep the other passengers from hearing. Afraid they might come to investigate and think he was murdering someone, he snatched up the stake and flew out the door before anyone had the chance to discover him. By the time he rounded the corner at the end of the hall, he heard several doors opening and people questioning what in the world that sound was.
The doctor was gone, unfortunately. A thorough search of the area led to nothing, so Aaron headed back towards Dr. Williams’s state room, thinking there was a possibility he may have returned, though he doubted it since that would be the first place they would look, and surely by now he was on to them.
As he reached the stairwell leading to the First Class passenger rooms, the boat shuddered. Preoccupied by his mission, he paid it little mind and continued on his way. He checked his watch and saw that he had about twenty minutes before he was due to meet Catherine. Though it made him slightly nervous to think of her walking the decks alone, especially since he’d already been surprised by a Vampire they didn’t know was aboard the ship, he had confidence in her ability to keep herself safe.
