Decker nodded. “That was it.”
“That can’t be it,” Nicole protested with a frown. “It’s an ultrasonic rodent repellent. It’s for mice. They’re the only ones who can hear it.”
“Mice and other rodents . . . like bats,” Dani said dryly.
“Dani, love, I’ve told you, we are in no way connected to bats. That’s all just myth,” Decker said in pained tones.
“Yes,” Dani agreed. “But apparently when it comes to sounds you’re on the same wavelength.”
“We are on the same wavelength, dear,” Marguerite corrected, moving back to the table again and tossing the repellent on its surface as she reclaimed her seat next to Nicole. “You’re one of us too now.”
“Sort of,” Dani said quietly. “Besides, I couldn’t hear it.”
“Yes, you could. You were getting a headache,” Julius pointed out. “But you’re young like the twins, so while it was affecting you, you couldn’t register the sound.”
“Hmm.” Dani grimaced, but didn’t argue the point and simply said, “Well the headache is easing now.”
“Yes,” Marguerite murmured. “Mine’s receding quickly too.”
Everyone but Nicole nodded or murmured in agreement.
“Then that’s probably what caused the headache,” Dani concluded.
Everyone nodded again but Nicole. She just thought they were all a bit crazy . . . but everything was all right. The words drifted through her head and she relaxed.
“What did you do about your sister’s poisoning?” Dani asked Julius.
“We didn’t realize it was poisoning until afterward, and we only realized it then because she had a natural aversion to the dress after that. She gave it to one of her servants . . . who was mortal. The poor girl died in terrible agony and distress,” Julius said quietly, and then sighed and added, “Before that we had no idea what was wrong with Adriana. We just kept giving her blood until it passed.”
“Right. Then I guess that’s what we’ll do here,” Dani said solemnly. “Nina brought a cooler of it, and we brought two. Hopefully that will be enough.” She glanced to Julius. “I don’t suppose you remember how much blood your sister went through?”
Julius shook his head apologetically. “We did not have blood banks back then. It was donors, and we needed a lot of them. We had to take her from village to village in a wagon until it ended and she began to recover.”
“I’ll call Bastien and tell him to have more delivered here,” Decker said, standing and withdrawing a phone from his pocket as he moved out of the room.
“Nicole,” Dani said, drawing her gaze. “How are you feeling? Did you eat the same things Jake did? Or did he—?”
“She isn’t poisoned,” Julius interrupted. “Something that affects Jake like this would have killed her in a heartbeat. Besides, this isn’t from ingested poison. That usually doesn’t cause vomiting in an immortal, and if it does, it would just be a one-round deal. But not anything like this. This is full-body exposure, the poison has to be all through Jake’s system for the nanos to react like this.”
“The robe he’s wearing?” Decker suggested.
“It started in the hot tub,” Marguerite reminded them quietly.
“True, but he probably wore the robe to go down and get in the tub,” Decker pointed out.
“But Nicole wouldn’t wear Jake’s robe and no one wants him dead,” Marguerite countered.
“What?” Nicole asked with surprise.
“Everything’s fine, dear,” Marguerite murmured, and then glanced to Dani to ask, “Do you think the hot tub being poisoned with a drug that can be absorbed through the skin would have the same affect as a poisoned dress?”
“Yes, I imagine it would,” Dani said slowly, her expression thoughtful. She was silent for a minute and then said, “I’ll have to take a sample and have it analyzed to be sure, but I don’t suggest anyone even stick a finger in the hot tub until we find out.”
“So? What’s the verdict?”
Nicole glanced to the door at that question to find the woman who had introduced herself as Nina standing there, a grim expression on her face.
“What happened to him?” Nina added. “And can it happen to us? Because all four of us have headaches right now.”
Dani glanced to Nicole. “You put the mouse repellents in every room?”
Nicole nodded. “Not in Jake’s room, though. I didn’t want to intrude. But I put it in the plug socket directly across from his door in the hall, so if the door is open . . .”
“We had it closed until you arrived, but you left it open after you stopped to talk to us on your arrival and none of us bothered to close it,” Nina said. “But what’s this about mouse repellents? Why would it cause headaches in us?”
“Our hearing is apparently sensitive enough to pick up the sound they emit and it’s causing headaches,” Marguerite explained.
Nina nodded. “What do the little buggers look like? I’ll take out every one of them. I haven’t ever had headaches before this and I’m not enjoying this one.”
“Dante, Tomasso,” Julius said, turning to the twins. “Go around the house and remove all the ultrasonic mouse repellents.”
Nodding, the two men moved out of the room.
“So that’s the headache,” Nina said. “But what’s causing Jake’s vomiting?”
“We think it’s poisoning,” Dani answered.
“Poisoning?” Nina asked with surprise and then narrowed her eyes. “In food?”
“Right now the hot tub is the most likely culprit, but we don’t know for sure, so just be careful of what you touch or consume.”
“I don’t consume anything but blood anymore,” Nina assured her. “I’ll warn the others, though. I don’t think Mark and Gill eat food anymore either, but Tybo does.”
Dani nodded. “Is Jake still throwing up?”
“No. He’s stopped finally, but he’s in a lot of pain. With him throwing up, we had to give him the blood intravenously. It was the only way to ensure he didn’t just toss it back up right away. But the intravenous is slow and he was losing blood faster than he was getting it. He’s suffering. The nanos are definitely attacking his organs in search of blood.”
“Well let’s try giving it to him orally now. It might stay down,” Dani suggested, ushering her out of the kitchen.
Nicole watched them leave and then leaned to Marguerite and asked, “How did they get in?” When Marguerite turned to her in question, she explained, “The front door was locked and I didn’t let them in.”
“Ah.” She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I asked the same thing when Nina came down to unlock the front door and let us in. Apparently, the door was locked when they got here too, but they could hear you screaming and hurried around the house checking doors and windows. I guess the sliding doors to the living room were unlocked and they came in that way.”
“Oh, yes,” Nicole murmured. The sliding doors to her studio and the living room made an inverted L around the hot tub. Jake must have used the living-room sliding doors to get to the hot tub, because they had been unlocked when she’d helped him inside . . . and she hadn’t locked them behind them. Heck, she’d been so upset at the time, she wasn’t even sure she’d closed them. But she knew she’d left her studio door unlocked too and said so now. “I’m pretty sure the sliding doors to my studio are unlocked too. They might even be open.”
Decker had just started back into the room, done with his call. But hearing this, he turned around at once, saying, “I’ll take care of it.”
Nicole turned to Marguerite then, a lot of questions bubbling in her mind. Before she could ask even one, Marguerite smiled at her apologetically and said, “I’m sorry, dear. I know you have a lot of questions, but the answers aren’t really mine to give. Jake will have to answer them when he’s recovered. I think the best thing for you to do is to go back to work while we do what we can to help Jake. So, I want you to relax, empty your mind of all worries, and simply go to your studio and work.”