“Est-ce que vous êtes folle?” His voice was harsh.
“No more so than you,” I gasped, spitting out something squashy that I didn’t look at too closely. “And considering everything, I really think you can use the familiar.”
“I told you that I was coming—” For some reason, he was shaking.
I had a bad taste in my mouth. I spat and it was red, but I didn’t think the blood was mine. “What? Did you think one little bird was going to do me in?” The liquid fatigue in my muscles forced me to lean against the house to keep from falling over. I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Hell, that was just a warm-up.”
Louis-Cesare muttered something I didn’t catch. Probably just as well. I ran a trembling hand over myself to check that all my parts were still there. I appeared to be okay, other than for assorted claw marks. The only ones that worried me were those on my abused shoulders. They were bad enough to limit my movement.
I tried to step out of the circle of Louis-Cesare’s arms—we were under an overhang from the roof, and considering that I was soaked with bird goo, I preferred to stand in the rain. But he tightened his grip and glared at me. “You are not going anywhere!”
“Oh, okay. You’re going to round up Radu’s little horrors and guard him from whatever has already slunk into the house, and get the wards up all by yourself?” I gestured at the shadowy landscape, where all that exotic foliage was rustling menacingly. Some of that was due to the rain, but not all.
“I will do what I must.” Despite his mud-splattered skin and the fact that the waterlogged towel was drooping dangerously, he managed to make it dignified.
I bit back a smile and a very inappropriate comment. “I can take care of myself.”
His jaw clenched. “As you did a moment ago?”
I opened my hand and showed him the knife I still clutched. “Yeah.”
Louis-Cesare stared at it for a long moment, expressionless. “You’re hurt,” he finally protested.
I brushed a piece of intestine off my shoulder. “It’s hurt worse.”
“You can assist Radu—”
“I know jack about wards,” I said flatly. “I know a lot about killing things. You and ’Du get the wards up around the pen, and make sure they recognize me. I’ll do the rest.”
No answer, just the interlacing of warm, strong fingers with my own. The knife was tugged from my grip. I let it go—I needed something bigger anyway.
“Louis-Cesare…”
“No!”
“Louis-Cesare,” I repeated quietly. “Look at me. I’m covered in blood and entrails. I just gutted a creature that would send most people into gibbering fits. And speaking of fits… well, let’s not. The point is, I can take care of myself.” I took a breath. “I’m not Christine.”
I braced for anger about my prying. What I got instead was a look so far from anything I’d expected that it took a second for me to recognize it: the quiet, professional assessment of a colleague. “I will send you assistance,” he finally said, “and once the perimeter wards are up, I will return to help you.” A sword was pressed into my hand.
I nodded. “Deal.” I glanced down and couldn’t help but smile just a little. “And Louis-Cesare—get some pants on.”
Geoffrey joined me a few moments later, as I was tying up something I’d fished out of the bushes. It was mostly tail and claws and a lot of bumpy protrusions. I’d eyed them with concern, but apparently they were just cosmetic, because nothing spurted or oozed out at me.
“We’re going to need more rope,” I told him, “a lot more. I found some in a gardener’s shed, but there has to be a hundred of these things roaming around, and ’Du doesn’t want us to kill any more than we have to.”
“I will bear that in mind,” he replied, and stabbed me.
I saw the blade coming. Unlike my own, deliberately dulled versions, he was using a nice, shiny one that gleamed like a beacon in the dim garden light. But I wasn’t quite fast enough to completely avoid it. It bit into the fleshy part of my side instead of hitting my heart, not that that improved my mood any. “You’re the traitor!” I said stupidly, stumbling backward.
“You should have died in San Francisco,” he said furiously. I tripped over a garden hose and fell against a birdbath, while barely avoiding being skewered again. As it was, I lost the sword, which went flying out of my hand like a silver arrow. Either Geoffrey was faster than he had any right to be at his age, or I was slowing down. Either way, not good.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I told him, and threw a heavy earthenware pot, complete with hibiscus, at his. head. He dodged and snarled. It looked really odd on that usually stoic face.