Mercy Blade

“Rock and Roll, Legs”

 

 

Gee was trapped in the spell like a moth in the strands of a spider’s web, his body suspended above the floor, caught in a fighting posture. When we entered, his eyes swiveled our way. That, and breathing, assuming a storm god had to, were the only movements he could make. His swords lay on the bloody rugs, the edges coated with dried gore. But the blades were pointing away from Leo, and Gee’s back was facing the bloody bed. Yet, the stake was on Leo’s side of the hedge. “He was either defending Leo from attack,” I said, “or running away when the hedge came up.” And only Leo could tell us which.

 

Sabina shook her head slowly, her mantle rustling. “Little Leo, what have you done? Is there enough blood in all the world to heal you now?” Which did not sound good. She looked at Bruiser and addressed her comment to him. “Your master is close to death. When the spell falls, I can give him my blood, but I cannot restore him. He will need much blood. Much.”

 

I stepped around Gee, observing him from every angle I could, looking for additional weapons; there were none that I could see. But there was a nasty gash on one arm, old and half healed. I had a feeling I might have given him that one when he was sitting outside my house. Because my guns were loaded with silver shot, and silver wouldn’t kill an Anzu, I pulled two steel-edged vamp-killers and set my balance. Waiting.

 

Bruiser stepped to a wall phone, an old-fashioned one that had a dangly tangled cord. Our cells were useless underground. He dialed two digits, like on an intercom, and said, “Evie, we’re ready down here. Send down ten blood-servants as soon as they’re free of the spell and pronounced healthy. Leo’s badly wounded. Yes.” Phone to his ear, he nodded to Sabina and then looked at me. “Kill Gee if he resists.” Into the phone he said, “Go.” And hung up.

 

An instant later, everything fell. The hedge fell, the red light vanishing in a burst of white light. Sabina fell forward, toward the bed and Leo. And Gee fell to the floor.

 

He hit the bloody rugs like a broken marionette, air woofing out of him, ending in a grunt as I landed on him, one knee in his belly, a position I’d landed in a lot lately. He lay there, gasping, my knife at his throat, his eyes on mine. There was no evidence of fight in him. And no weapons that I could see.

 

“I did not wound my lord,” he gasped. “I tried to protect him from the wolves.” I sniffed carefully, parsing the disparate scents to their distinct origins. Under the reek of Leo’s blood, I smelled Roul, another werewolf, and the were-bitch. And faintly, I scented Rick. He had been here, or someone wearing a lot of his blood had been here.

 

I chanced a quick look at the bed. Sabina was sitting on the mattress, one hand gently at Leo’s lower back, one at his nape, holding him the way she might a small child. His lips were at her neck, sucking hard, his eyes closed and his face twisted as if with a great effort. It was bizarrely like watching a kid try to suck a thick milkshake through a straw, and I wanted to laugh, until I remembered who was handy to provide him a blood meal if he got well enough and violent enough to take one. My sense of humor was gonna be the death of me one day.

 

“Let me go to him,” Gee said. “I can heal him.”

 

“Not until Leo can tell us what happened here,” Bruiser said, his voice tight, his gaze glued to Leo and Sabina. I glanced at the bed, seeing Sabina’s skirts stained red, the white linen fabric wicking up the unclotted blood from the mattress.

 

Leo pulled from Sabina, his fangs still snapped down, his eyes vamped out. “Crap,” I murmured. Where was the blood-servant cavalry from upstairs?

 

But Leo said, “Girrard, mon ami,” and let loose a bunch of French I couldn’t begin to follow, not with only my high school Spanish. Too weak to get up, Leo held out his hand.

 

“Let Gee up,” Bruiser said. “Leo says Gee saved his life, and killed a werewolf to do it.”

 

I looked at the blood on the floor and bed. Now the quantity made sense. I stood slowly and backed away, but I didn’t put the blades up. Not yet.

 

Gee seemed to flow to his feet and across the room, to Leo. Sabina stepped back, the holes over her carotid artery closing as the vamp saliva constricted blood vessels and flesh. Though Leo had worked hard to suck her dry, she looked no worse for the wear. I had to wonder, as I always did, who she drank from. She had no scions and no blood-servants. None of the outclan did. But that was a mystery for another day.

 

 

 

Near midnight, all the blood upstairs had been cleaned up, and thanks to the healers and Gee, no one had died. Low level blood-servants and -slaves were hauling rugs and lugging the mattress up the switchback stairs from Leo’s lair, stuffing linens into plastic bags to be burned. Higher level blood-servants were heading down the stairs to return minutes later, wobbly-kneed and drained. And I was watching everyone and everything, Gee at my side. “And once again, you’re at the scene just in time to help avoid major problems,” I murmured to Gee. “Fill me in?”