“Shopping,” said Greta. “Ah. Yes. Ruthven likes shopping. How was he, when they left?”
“Seemed fine, maybe a bit tired. All that sunburn actually turned into a really faint tan, that—that was kind of amazing. He went from being seriously not okay to ‘let’s go max out Varney’s credit card’ in the space of a few hours.”
“That’s more or less what I would expect,” Greta said, picking up the phone again. “That kind of vampire healing is fast when it’s working properly. One day I’ll write a paper on comparative tissue trauma recovery rates in the classic draculine and lunar sensitive subspecies of sanguivore. Hello, room service?”
Ruthven did, in fact, enjoy shopping. A great deal.
Even if it wasn’t technically his money, just at the moment, that he was spending. He had begun to say something to Varney about paying him back as soon as he got the banks to issue him replacement cards and Varney had cut him off with an expansive gesture, It’s the very least I can do after all your kindness and hospitality, and in any case I have rather more than I could easily spend on my own. It was a vampire thing, and also apparently a vampyre thing. Very long life and wise investments tended to go together.
First, of course, they had bought him a new phone, which he had used to set in motion the tiresome and exhausting work of dealing with insurance agents, and then gone round to the banks—and then Ruthven had begun to shop in earnest. There were so many things he needed, after all. A computer, clothes, shoes—a car could wait, he would weep for the Jag later and the Volvo had probably earned its retirement anyway, but for the moment cabs would suffice for transportation—hair products, accessories, the list went on.
By the time they returned to the Savoy that evening, laden with bags, Ruthven felt not good, exactly, but something close to himself again. Varney was looking a trifle shell-shocked, which was not uncommon for people who found themselves accompanying Ruthven on shopping trips, especially since it was his credit card that had taken most of the damage. Ruthven made a mental note that the first thing he would do when he got the new MacBook out of its box would be to pay Varney back via online transfer, and he was briefly and vividly glad that such things were possible in the modern age.
He was quiet as they rode up in the elevator, thinking. One week. A lot could happen in a week. A lot had happened, to him and to all of them. He was tired, but not exhausted—and almost pleasurably aware of the difference. The thought of the house still hurt, but the hurt was cushioned, insulated, behind the knowledge of the work he had set in motion to repair, to rebuild, and to replace.
When they got to the room he only just managed to put his bags down safely before Greta—still wrapped in her hotel bathrobe, the clothes she had worn under the city having been beyond the hope of repair or rescue—hugged him so hard his ribs creaked.
He held her close, vividly remembering what it had been like to hold her the night before, remembering her saying Neck or wrist, remembering her cool hands on his burned skin, and made another mental decision. She had never asked him for help, never even mentioned the idea of a loan, but he knew her practice was struggling to stay afloat, that she wanted very badly to renovate and expand the clinic, and as he stroked Greta’s hair Ruthven thought of both her and her father before her, and what they meant to the city, and wondered why it had taken him so damned long to get around to doing this.
“What?” she demanded, when he let her go. “You’re looking smug about something, Ruthven.”
“I have decided to take a more active philanthropic role in the life of the city,” he said—possibly smugly, she might have a point there—“or at least in one very specific aspect thereof. What do you need to fix up the clinic? New equipment, renovations, supplies?”
“A new X-ray setup,” she said immediately. “And a proper 3-D printer to make bone replacements instead of having to sculpt them all by hand. And the roof leaks, and I’m still using a computer system from 2009, and honestly a dental operatory chair and air drill system would be perfect for the mummies, and I’d like to be able to give out more medication for free but the pharma companies just keep jacking up the price, and—oh, a solarium built on the back of the property, and—Ruthven, what are you doing?”
“Making notes,” he said, holding up his new phone. “I don’t think I got all of that; you might need to review the list and see what else you want to add to it before we start placing orders.”
“What?” Greta demanded, staring at him.
He put the phone away, took her face between his hands, and kissed her firmly on the forehead. “I am going,” he said with exaggerated clarity, “to buy you whatever you need to do your job to the best of your ability, my darling infant, for the benefit of all monsterkind. Stop goggling at me, and come sit down and let me show you the rest of our haul.”
Some time later Greta closed Ruthven’s new computer and set it gently aside, rubbing at her eyes. Outside the full moon had risen, spilling a flood of silver across the city, turning the river into polished glass. Varney had drawn a chair over to the tall windows and sat basking in it with his eyes shut, paying no attention to the light in the room.
She had been looking at medical equipment websites, and had had to stop, for a little while at least. It was overwhelming to keep realizing that she could actually buy the things she needed, new, under warranty even. She was conscious of feeling slightly light-headed with excitement as well as blood loss. The prospect of being able to actually repair all the things at the clinic that were stuck together with tape and superglue, of being able to replace her old equipment with gloriously efficient state-of-the-art versions that worked without needing to be thumped and called names, was … well, it was huge.
She had never asked Ruthven for help before, because it had simply never occurred to her. All her life she had made do with what there was. Hand-me-down clothes, secondhand cars, used medical equipment from two decades back. It was just how things were, and always had been, and the idea of actually being able to have the things she wanted instead of just dream about them opened up such an enormous array of opportunities. Greta would finally be able to offer her patients the kind of treatment she had been wanting to provide ever since she took over the practice.
She just wished Fastitocalon were here to see it all.
Somewhere a cork popped, and there was murmured conversation; she paid no attention until Ruthven said, “Greta?” and she looked up to see him holding out a glass of champagne—every inch the host, even temporarily homeless and dispossessed. He had regained that irritating vampire ability to seem both entirely at home and completely in charge of the situation, and she had never been happier to see it in her life.