She had the beginnings of an idea for how to help him remember the things they needed to know, but it would require Sir Francis Varney’s help, and she was not at all sure they could count on that. More than once she’d caught Varney eyeing her with an odd kind of awkward intensity, and she hoped he wasn’t feeling hostile toward people who provided ex–Gladius Sancti personnel with medical care as well as toward the Gladius Sancti themselves. If the terrible penny-dreadful’s account was to be believed, Varney had historically shown very little hesitation in killing people who annoyed him, or at least injuring them badly. At one point he was said to have accidentally murdered his own son in a fit of anger, and she hoped the intense stare was not an indicator of imminent violence.
It was definitely a different sort of eyeing than she got from Ruthven or Fastitocalon. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that, either.
Greta pushed it out of her mind and just sat where she was, watching over her nameless patient, and trying to squash the feeling that unseen things were slipping faster and faster out of control.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Cranswell tapped her on the shoulder, making her jump. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m supposed to take a turn watching him. If he wakes up, can I ask him all the questions?”
There was something reassuring about Cranswell’s lack of mental filter. “No, you may not,” she said, and hauled herself out of the chair. “You may ask him a few of the questions, but he’s really having difficulty remembering anything other than the blue light and the fact that he hurts. At least he’s come out of the Bible-quoting stage, but he’s not very clear. He said something about Chelsea, too. I want to ask Varney to hypnotize him.”
“Varney’s a hypnotist? I thought he was a melancholiac.”
“Ten points for vocab, but all vampires have some degree of ability in that direction. Actually I don’t know how exactly it works—it’s called thralling—but it’s enough like hypnotism to be useful in the same situations. You’ve probably seen Ruthven do it—his pupils pulse in and out in a sort of rhythm, and whoever’s looking into his eyes goes all vague and smiley. Makes you feel like your head’s full of warm pink clouds.” She had once asked him to do it to her in the spirit of scientific inquiry, and then once after that when she’d had a particularly horrific migraine, which it took care of with commendable speed. Thralling was a hunting technique, of course, but Greta didn’t feel the need to point that out to Cranswell.
“Anyway,” she continued, “he’s good at it but not anything like as good as I think Varney must be, because have you seen Varney’s eyes? They’re literally reflective. Famously described as ‘polished tin.’ I just hope he’s willing to have a go.”
“Pretty sure he won’t say no, if it’s you doing the asking.”
Greta frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just an observation,” Cranswell said, raising his hands in a placatory gesture. “I think tall-dark-and-angsty has developed a thing for you, Doctor.”
She stared at him, feeling her ears go pink. “Nonsense,” she said. “Of course he hasn’t. I’m not his type, anyway; there’s a noticeable lack of lacy nightgowns and swooning. He’s known to go for the sort of lady who clutches the bedclothes to her snowy bosom and quavers ‘the vampyre, the vampyre’ through bloodless lips, and I lack even the slightest hint of glamour. Is there anything for breakfast?”
Cranswell eyed her. “We’re down to toast and Weetabix. Somebody is going to have to go grocery shopping, and it’s not going to be me.”
“No, you’re going to sit right here and keep an eye on our friend, and not go all Gestapo on him if he wakes up and is capable of sentences.”
“Okay, okay,” Cranswell said, sitting down by the bed. “You take all the fun out of … being in a pretty ludicrous situation, if you think about it.”
“I’m trying not to. I’ll bring you up a cup of tea in a bit.”
Varney was sitting at the kitchen table when she came in, looking incongruous because, well, Varney just looked incongruous anywhere that wasn’t a windswept hilltop or a ruined castle. It was difficult to imagine him not appearing profoundly dramatic.
His hair was noticeably darker, though. She’d have to check the literature on that manifestation again, but it was almost always correlated with an increase in general health.
Also, August Cranswell was a twit.
At the moment Varney had his long hands wrapped around one of Ruthven’s earthenware mugs, and the rich, coppery smell of blood was heavy in the air. Ruthven must have brought dinner back with him in the night, which was one more thing Greta could cross off her list of things to worry about. You got used to the smell of blood pretty quickly, but she did have to admit it was always a little off-putting at first.
“Morning,” she said, sitting down and reaching for the toast rack. Varney watched her butter a slice of somewhat elderly toast with more concentration than she felt this performance strictly warranted. After a moment or two he set down his mug.
“You seem in decent spirits, Doctor. Are we to take it that your patient is improved?”
Greta looked up from her plate. “A bit, yes. Whatever’s … influencing … him, whatever’s responsible for the eyes and so on, is still definitely helping him to heal despite his having been kicked out of the order. At first he was still going on about iniquity and wickedness and talking in scripture, but that seemed to pass off.”
She made a face. Her unsettling little interview with the monk hadn’t done much for her peace of mind. “He’s having trouble remembering what happened to him, other than the bits we already know about, the blue light and the noise and being excommunicated. I was wondering, actually, if you would mind trying to thrall him, Sir Francis? It might get more actual information out, and I think he might be easier in his mind if he could remember things. Even if they’re terrible.”
Varney blinked at her—two tiny reflections of her caught in his eyes—and looked surprised. “I?”
She held his gaze, which was not the easiest thing she had ever done. “If you wouldn’t mind. I mean, I quite understand your antipathy, he was part of the group responsible for your attack, but …”
“I, er,” he said. “I suppose I could make an attempt, although why you’d want me to do it when Lord Ruthven is quite capable, I’m sure I don’t know.”
He looked away. There was a very faint color high on his cheekbones, and he’d let the Lord slip—she knew he was trying not to use it because it embarrassed Ruthven, but doing so required him to make a deliberate effort. That was a discomfited vampyre-with-a-y if ever she had seen one, and Greta hadn’t seen one before. He looked … different. Less remote. “I just think you’d get better results, that’s all,” she said. “It’ll have to wait till he wakes naturally. I’m not going to haul him out of restful sleep for interrogation, but I’d appreciate it very much if you would have a go.”
“Certainly,” said Varney, and hastily finished his blood.
In point of fact Varney had made up his mind, yet again, to leave the house and take his awkward and utterly inappropriate feelings far away, but Ruthven had drawn him aside a little earlier and asked him point-blank to stay. I think we may very well need you, he had said. Sooner rather than later.