“Lie still if you want to live!” Louis-Cesare ordered harshly. “And call that thing off or I will be forced to kill it. I cannot help you while constantly fending off attack!”
“What is it?” The room kept swimming in and out of my vision, but I managed to focus on the hovering gray thing. It reminded me of a Mr. Potato Head doll assembled by a two-year-old. All the parts were there, but they weren’t necessarily in the right place. The comparison was strengthened by its incongruously long, sticklike arms and legs, which poked at sharp angles out of the fur. Its knees were currently up around its head as it squatted protectively beside me, close enough that the stench emanating from it made my eyes water.
“A lot which failed to sell. It was about to be killed when you went mad.” Louis-Cesare nudged it cautiously with a toe and it snarled at him so viciously that one of its bent fangs pierced its bottom lip, causing a trickle of black blood to join the matted dirt and who-knew-what on its chin. “It appears to be under the impression that you saved its life.” A misshapen appendage that only vaguely resembled a hand reached out to pat my hair. “How touching. Now call it off!”
“How do I do that?”
“Improvise.” He had his hand on his rapier, and I didn’t doubt he’d use it.
I sighed. “It’s okay,” I told my little groupie. “If he lets me die, Daddy will kill him for you.”
The thing must have understood something, because it shuffled back a few paces, letting Louis-Cesare get close enough to examine me. I lay back against the floor while he touched my cheek gently, then stroked along my throat. Light mental fingers danced past my tattered shields and suddenly I could breathe without pain. His hands were warm on my skin and his touch swept away the last of the confused frenzy. They made me feel steadier, anchored, and I realized that he’d hit me with a suggestion. Normally, that sort of thing wouldn’t work, but my shields were in shreds. And since it took most of the pain away, I didn’t feel like protesting.
I closed my eyes and let a wonderful numbness creep down my body from neck to knees. The room was spinning to the point that I knew I’d lost a lot of blood—enough to be dangerous even for me. I didn’t try to catalog my wounds, since I couldn’t seem to concentrate, and decided to use what little mental capacity I had for more important things. “Claire?”
“She was here, but not by the time we arrived. There is a note for you, when you are well enough to read it.”
“A note?” Trust Claire to find time, in the middle of a slave auction, to leave a note! The girl needed therapy. I laughed, but it hurt, so I stopped. “I feel well enough now,” I said, and made the mistake of trying to sit up again. The room did some kind of weird kaleidoscope thing and started to grow dim.
“Stay put!” I was told savagely. “You will never read it if you are dead!”
I decided he might have a point, and lay back again. The twisted hulk of the cage loomed over us, and I had to be careful not to move much or I came into contact with some of the hundreds of pieces of splintered wood that littered the place. I eventually identified them as the remains of the folding chairs the bidders had been using. Olga’s group must have gone nuts.
I’d lost Mircea’s coat somewhere and now Louis-Cesare tore my T-shirt in two. “We haven’t even had dinner yet,” I protested weakly, and he glared at me out of eyes lit by an inner glow. “Daddy’s turn gold,” I told him confidentially, and giggled.
“You should be unconscious by now,” he muttered.
“Dhampir,” I reminded him. Louis-Cesare didn’t answer, but he upped the amp on his suggestion. I found myself staring into eyes like starlit steel, some unsuspected poetic part of me whispered, or lightning cutting across a summer sky. They really were amazing, those eyes. “Pretty,” I observed, which seemed to startle him.
Olga appeared behind him, her bulk dwarfing him as if he were a child. She bent over to see me better, close enough that her golden beard tickled my chin. “She alive?”
“For the moment.” Louis-Cesare’s voice sounded strained.
“Good. That vampire, he not here,” Olga informed me. “Where we hunt now?”
“I’m working on that,” I told her. She nodded, satisfied, and lumbered away.
Louis-Cesare began digging around in my chest for something. A bullet, I remembered vaguely. The auctioneers had had guns, and judging by where his impromptu surgery was taking place, someone had been a good shot. It had missed the heart, but not by much.
“We cannot take her along,” he commented. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Olga.
“Sure we can.”
“You know nothing about her!”