The heavy wooden door opened, and Leonard Pellissier, the Master of the City, walked in, followed by three others, but Rick kept his gaze on the MOC. The stink of vamp, peppery and minty, and blood, thick and slightly chilled, filled the room. Rick’s arousal faded quickly, and he stepped back against the far bars, feeling the damp of the iron through his tee.
Leo wasn’t vamped out like the last time Rick had seen him, but Leo was still wearing the bloody shirt, which said something about his state of mind. Rick crossed his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits, knowing that made him look defensive, but looking defensive was marginally better than looking aggressive. He got in the first salvo. “I apologize to the Master of the City of New Orleans for hitting you. Him.” Rick wasn’t good at the royal third-person speech, and thees and thous had always just confused him. Of course Jane talked to Leo like she would to any other person, but he had a feeling that Leo allowed a lot of smack talk from Jane that h Sm Jgaine wouldn’t from anyone else.
Leo, his chest not moving with breath, his eyes so black it was hard to read anything in them, studied Rick. Leo was dead. Or undead. Yeah. Standing there like a dead man, no sense of life left in him at all. Nothing in the room moved. No one coughed or sighed or shifted on the stone floor. It was so silent that Rick could hear his heart beat and the sound of air breathing in and out of his lungs. A good two minutes too long later, Leo took a breath, and the movement startled Rick. He blinked, and that quickly, Leo was smiling.
“You have my blood. I have fed you more than once at the brink of death.”
Rick nodded once, unconsciously mimicking Jane’s little chin-drop nod. “The first time, I was on a slab of black stone, being spelled by a witch and drained by a vampire.” He saw Jane start. He had never told her the story. He needed to remedy that. He had a lot of things to tell her, if she chose to listen. Later. Much later.
“I feel the pain that crawls under your skin like acid, burning like flames, like silver through your blood. One of my blood-servants prepared the medicine”—Leo flicked a finger at the trank dart—“but he did not know what dosage would be required. It helped?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“I tried to bring our priestess to assist you, but she refused, saying she might be injured. I cannot force her, and my own blood was not enough to prevent your contagion, nor were the services of my Mercy Blade. Neither of us can cure you now when the taint has taken firm root.”
Rick looked away, discomfort squirming though him. He remembered—in bits and snatches—the first days after Jane brought him, more dead than alive, to the MOC’s Clan Home. Gee DiMercy and Leo had carried Rick to a bed and climbed in with him, healing him as best they could. It had been way more intimate than he was comfortable with, but they had kept him alive, so he couldn’t bitch about their methods.
When it was obvious that Rick wasn’t going to respond, Leo said, “The local witches wish to assist you. If you will permit.” Rick looked back at him quickly. “The female who spelled you originally is no longer with the coven. You will be safe.”
“Can you keep me drugged through it?”
“Of course.” Leo moved closer, inhaling. “I smell your pain. It grows. I shall send in the witches.” He turned to the man beside him. “Keep him comfortable.” Moving human slow, he walked from the room.
“Yes, boss,” George Dumas said, the words sounding odd when flavored with his faint British accent.
Rick dropped his arms and nodded to the blood-servant. The man was holding an oversized handgun, a tranquilizer gun. Rick had never liked the MOC’s primo blood-servant and especially didn’t like knowing that the overage half-human blood-sipper had shot him in the butt, but there were better times than now to complain about it. That gun was loaded with his sanity for the next three days. “Dumas.”
“You’ll be in charge of the dosing. Ask, and I’ll shoot. I understand the pain will likely be more intense whenever the moon is up and easier to bear when the moon is below the horizon. Of course, if they get you to shift, you’ll be fine.”
Rick’s mouth twisted up. “Furry.”
“That too.” There was compassion in the blood-servant’s eyes.
Hell. George Dumas was probably more human than Rick was now. He sighed. “Okay.”
Moments later, five witches entered the room. A tiny blonde approached the bars, getting closer than anyone had since he’d woken up in the cell. “We’ve met. You might remember me? Butterfly Lily?” She pointed at an older woman. “And my mom, Feather Storm?”