Page 61 of Immortal By Morning
Crispin had picked up his water and gulped some down to finish clearing his airways. Now he set the glass back, and snapped, “And you did not think to tell us this?” His gaze shot to Lucian. “Uncle?”
Lucian gave him a supercilious look, and announced dryly, “Crispin there was a mortal buried in the indoor garden with the immortal.”
“Thank you,” he said with disgust and shook his head.
“Oh, right,” Bricker said with realization. “You were in having your talk with Abril by the time we came across the second skeleton.”
“The immortal was female by the way,” Lucian announced. “And the mortal male.”
“Are you sure?” Abril asked with interest.
“There were high heels strapped to the immortal’s—what used to be her feet, and she was wearing theremains of what at one time had been a short black dress,” Lucian informed her. “The mortal skeleton was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and men’s boots.”
“Oh.” Abril nodded and agreed, “Probably a woman immortal and male mortal then.”
“Probably?” Lucian echoed with disbelief.
“What?” she asked with a grin. “You’ve never heard of cross-dressing?”
Lucian opened his mouth. Closed it. Then muttered something under his breath that even Crispin with his immortal hearing didn’t catch before turning back to his food. He picked up a forkful of lasagna, paused, and then scowled at Abril and said reluctantly, “As for your first question on why the rogue would kill an immortal, I suspect the rogue was mortal either directly before or during the killing of the immortal.”
That caught everyone’s attention. Every man, including Crispin himself, was now staring at his uncle with surprise. Abril was the only one unsurprised. Nodding as she scooped some lasagna up on her own fork, she simply said, “Makes sense.”
“It does?” Bricker asked with interest.
“Well, sure,” Abril said, seeming surprised that everyone couldn’t see that. “The story was that their son died, and Mrs. Foley was paralyzed in a car accident,” she pointed out. “But a car accident wouldn’t kill or paralyze you guys. So, they couldn’t have been immortal at the time of the accident.”
A smile was creeping over Crispin’s face at the fact that he had himself a brilliant life mate, when she impressed him some more as she continued to speak.
“And, I don’t know how much blood you guys go through on the daily, but I’m guessing it’s not a crazyamount. I mean, I haven’t even seen any of you taking it in since arriving.”
“We have beentaking it in, as you put it,” Lucian assured her. “We just have done it in our vehicles which are outfitted with special coolers to keep the blood from going bad. We thought it best not to bring the blood inside and risk you seeing it and becoming alarmed.”
“Ah, that was sweet,” she said with appreciation, although Crispin suspected it was as much because she wanted to fluster his uncle as that she truly thought it was sweet. And it appeared to work. Lucian looked a bit taken aback for a moment, but then regained his usual scowl.
Cassius was the one who explained, “How much blood an immortal needs to consume daily varies depending on their age, their size, and whether they have done anything that might make the nanos work harder. But the average immortal probably consumes no more than one bag a day. Hunters usually live more strenuous lives that include more exposure to sunlight and injury and such, necessitating their taking in anywhere from one to four bags a day. Older, and exceptional immortals can get away with a bag every other day if they are not going out in sunlight or doing anything else to set the nanos to work. However, newly turned immortals need much more blood for the first little while after they are turned.”
“Right,” Abril nodded. “Well, a human body holds eight to ten pints of blood, and those bags you say you consume are usually around a pint if they’re from a blood bank. So, with the twelve mortal bodies outside, and the one inside that would add up to somewherebetween one hundred and four to one hundred and thirty pints. That’s a lot of blood to consume in just a week or so, even for two people.”
Every man there stared at her with surprise until Crispin asked, “A week or so?”
“Hmm.” She grabbed a piece of bread and started to butter it. “They held a street party out here last year at the end of August. I think it was mostly a welcome to the neighborhood barbecue for Gina really. Anyway, Gina didn’t want to go alone and asked me to come with. So, I did. I accompanied her, met this neighbor and that, ate, and so on. But, at one point, I was chatting with a lovely older lady, probably that Mrs. Jamison you mentioned, although she told me her name was Lois and didn’t mention her last name.”
“Mrs. Jamison’s name is Lois,” Crispin told her.
Abril nodded. “Well, she told me the history of Gina’s house. Sort of. What she told me about was the people. The Bransons were nice. Mrs. Branson loved to garden. Their children were so polite. That kind of thing.”
She waited just long enough for the men to nod, and then continued, “What she told me about the family that lived here before the Bransons was that it was a tragic tale. They’d lost their child and the wife had been paralyzed. She too loved her garden and used to work on it daily in the summer and Lois used to stop and chat with her on occasion on her morning constitutional. But after the accident the wife obviously couldn’t work in the garden anymore. Still, she could be found outside every morning, sitting in her wheelchair either supervising the people her husband had hired to tend to the garden in her stead, or justenjoying it. And they were usually both sitting outside, enjoying a coffee together when Lois and her husband went for their after-dinner walk around the crescent.
“However, just about a year after the accident, the wife stopped appearing in the garden in the mornings. There were still lights and movement in the house at night when Lois and her husband took their after-dinner walk, but the couple no longer sat out having coffee in the garden. Lois suspected the husband had left his poor wife. Especially since the husband’s truck was no longer seen leaving or returning, but other vehicles and people began to show up. Sometimes it was couples, sometimes a man or a woman, and once even a couple with children. Lois decided they must have been family helping the wife pack up, because a week after those ‘comings and goings’ started, a moving truck was in the driveway and a for sale sign was in the front yard.”
“So,” Crispin said slowly as everything he’d learned began to coalesce in his head. “An immortal somehow showed up in their life a week before the house sale, and...” He paused briefly, considering everything again, and then guessed, “Something happened that ended with the immortal and the husband being killed and the wife getting turned.”
“What?” Bricker asked with surprise. “You think the husband is the mortal inside?”
“They were the only ones buried there,” he pointed out. “They must have been buried at the same time if they were close enough to each other in the indoor garden for you to find the mortal while digging up the immortal.”
“Yeah, they were pretty close. One of his legs was over hers,” Bricker admitted, and then said, “And the immortal’s head was actually down by her feet.”
