43

“Who is that vampire in the corner?” Kendra asked Alex.  

“Where?” Alex murmured.  

She turned to gesture, but ponytail vamp had gone.  Kendra sighed.  More intrigue, just what I wanted.

Alex led her silently to the kitchen, then out to the greenhouse.

“The lab is our here?”

He shook his head, then held his index finger to his lips in a gesture for silence.  He led them back to the kitchen, up to their room, then down to the kitchen again.  In the hallway that led back to the ballroom he pulled her close to him, then half turned a tray of dirty glasses that rested on a stand in the hallway.  A section of wall and floor spun so fast that Kendra would have been thrown had not Alex held her.  

They stopped in a plushly carpeted hall.  The ceiling and walls were lined with soundproof tiles.  It was as brightly lit as her room and the ballroom had been.  She looked questioningly at Alex, who shook his head, then held up his index finger, one minute.  He stepped down the hall two strides, and gestured for Kendra to stand behind him.  After she complied, he flapped back one tile, pressed a button, and a soundproof door slid across the hallway, sealing them in.

“Now we can talk,” he said.  “Anytime there are guests in the house we will take these precautions to be sure that we are not followed, and that nothing we say can be overheard.”  He flipped the soundproof panel back into place.  “This is the third panel from the door, second from the floor,” he said, and walked down the hall.

Kendra stared after him, arms crossed.  All the anger she’d suppressed through the night rose from her chest, passed her throat, to a spot right behind her eyes.  

Alex turned as if he felt the heat of her glare.  “What is it?”  He started back toward her.

“If you think you can steal my work, you’re dead wrong.”

Alex stopped, looked at her in disbelief, then burst out laughing.  

Kendra put her hands on her hips.  What the hell--and then she got it.  She chuckled a little, but Alex’s laughter was so infectious that without at first wanting to she joined in.

“Come see your lab, Kendra,” said Alex when he could speak.  “You did well to call it our lab in front of Regis and the others, but I have no pretensions.  This is your lab, and your work.  No one in the world has been able to reproduce what you’ve done.”  

Kendra felt twin surges of relief and pride.  She wanted to let the matter of theft go while she felt good, but couldn’t afford to trust Alex until he’d explained a few things.  “Wait a minute, buster,” she said, halting his progress down the hall once again. 

He turned and smiled at her.  “Yes?”

She stomped toward him.  “You seemed as worried as I did on the drive up here, and yet you know all about this secret passage.  Were you just pretending not to know what was going to happen?”

Alex’s smile became a sad one.  “You have to realize that Regis built this house one-hundred-and-seventy years ago.  Except for the passages that lead to and from Regis’ own room, and I have a fair idea where those lay, I know every inch of this place.  This is the only available soundproofed space, and thus the logical location for your lab.  I may be wrong, but I doubt it very much. 

“As for the rest, I did not pretend to worry on our way here.  Thomas did not act like a friend.  I feared that things might go far worse than they did.  Regis has reason to be displeased with me.”

Kendra raised an eyebrow and waited.

Alex sighed.  To her great surprise, his lip quivered.  She thought he might cry.  “Don’t you see?” he asked hoarsely.  “It’s you.  I didn’t tell him that I planned to meet you las night.  Long has he known how I’ve come to feel about you.  As we entered the modern era, he became increasingly watchful of me, wary of what my feelings might cause me to do.”  He sighed, and looked at the floor.  “The two things I feared most have happened.  You seem at least faintly repulsed by me much of the time, and Regis doesn’t trust me.  Things have not gone as I’d hoped.”  

He looked at her with great longing then.  “I wanted you to meet me at my best, my most warm,” he gave her a wobbly smile, “I wanted you to have time to let your feelings for me grow.”  He stepped close enough to put one arm around her.  “You do have them, don’t you?”  His voice broke.  “Feelings for me?”

She looked up at him, moved despite the fact that she felt as if she were stuck in a cliche.  “Why,” she said softly and leaned back against his arm, “do you care so much about whether Regis trusts you?”

“Because,” he said, and released her gently.  “He is my father.”

That explains a lot.  Kendra wanted to ask if their relationship was genetic or intentional, but thought the question might be insensitive.  The two men did not resemble one another, except for the cold pale skin, so she guessed the Regis had ‘created’ Alex.  Her mind brimmed with questions.  Just how old are you? seemed the most pressing, but she didn’t ask.  

Alex looked at her with hollow eyes.  He seemed drained.  Her own exhaustion crashed around her ears and knees then too.  She took his hand.

“Is it very far, the lab?”

Alex shook his head.  She walked down the hall, and pulled him with her gently.  

Before long he seemed to regain some confidence.  When they reached the end of a hall he studied the wall, then pulled back a soundproof tile on either side of the door.  “Thank you, Thomas,” he said, sounding a little surprised.  He showed her where to press her palm against the wall, and on the count of three, he pressed his left to one side of the door while she pressed her right.

“It seems,” he said as the door slid open, “that neither of us can get into the lab without the other.”