Necromancing Nim (23 page)

Pieter gave a sharp bark of laughter. “I knew you’d come.” That was all he managed to get out. Colin’s fist connected with the side of Pieter’s face, and Pieter flew backwards, lifted from the ground by the force of the blow. His trajectory ended, luckily enough for him, at a couch. He fell into it in an undignified sprawl.

Then Colin turned and planted a fist in the servant’s pasty face, and the zombie fell to the floor. I half expected his head to fly off his body at the force of the blow, because that always looked cool in zombie movies, but it didn’t. I was relieved—I didn’t think it would have been nearly as cool in real life. Plus I’d seen enough flying heads for the week, thank you very much. Instead, the zombified minion vampire thrashed on the floor, trying to get his feet back under him.

“You okay, Nim?” Colin paused next to me, reaching a hand down.

“I’m fine.” I waved off the proffered hand and pushed to my feet. I still felt woozy. “Why are you attacking my master?” I wasn’t sure how far they wanted me to carry the charade, but I figured the longer we could keep Pieter off guard, the better.

But Pieter guffawed. “Drop the act, Nim. I’ve known since before you walked in that you weren’t under my control. And seeing you didn’t help.” He pushed to his feet from the couch where he’d landed, preparing to meet Colin’s again-raised fists. “You’re a fucking terrible actress.”

I glared at him. “Everybody’s a goddamn critic.” I picked up my whisky tumbler and flung it at him. It bounced off his head with a thunk, scattering whisky everywhere. The contact was immediately followed by Colin’s fist smashing into his face. Pieter lurched backward, then scrambled to his feet and ran for it.

I expected Colin to chase after him, but instead, he headed for the door.

“We’re not going after him?” I asked. The pasty-faced servant lurched to his feet, and Colin half turned, casual, and slugged him again. The zombie collapsed again to the floor, a mess of ruined flesh where his face had been. I winced.

“No. We’re not.” Colin’s words were abrupt, clipped. He stepped over the dead zombie, barely acknowledging the corpse as he headed for the door.

“Why not?” I headed after him. He was moving fast, and I had to power-walk to keep up.

“We need to get back to your house.” Colin’s voice was hard and angry. “The fucker duped us. This was a dodge.”

Dammit. We’d been played. “Well, shit.”

First aid for vampire bites should include cleansing and disinfecting of the area. Apply an antibiotic cream and a gauze bandage. Under no circumstances allow the vampire himself to treat the wound, regardless of your personal relationship to the vampire.
—
First Aid for Household Accidents
, published by the Red Cross, 1980

Chapter Fourteen

My house was trashed. Again. Word of advice—if you’re ever hiding something in your house that you know evil vampires are after, leave it in plain sight on the kitchen table. Otherwise, you’re going to be left with a lot of cleanup work after they turn your house upside down trying to find it.

The fucktards had done everything but rip up the carpet. I didn’t see any blood or strings of intestines, though, indicating neither Rufus nor Gwen nor Sebastian had suffered the same treatment as my couch, whose guts were strewn across the living room floor. Still….

“Gwen?” I pushed past the door, torn between rushing in to check on my sister and being cautious in case there were still bad guy vamps lurking about.

I heard the sound halfway down the hallway. I supposed that was a good sign if she was making noises, but my heart lurched into my throat. I ran the last few steps, grabbing the doorframe to swing into the bedroom a half second quicker.

Gwen lay sprawled on the floor, blood staining the front of her shirt from the wide smear of it across her neck, just above her left collarbone. I skidded to my knees next to her, panic brittle and glassy in my throat.

“Gwen? Gwen, hon, are you okay?”

Colin knelt on the other side of my sister’s distressingly unmoving body. He tilted his head, fingers moving to her throat to check her pulse.

“Pulse is strong,” he announced, then moved his fingers away from her throat. There was blood on them. He stuck them in his mouth and sucked the blood off.

I stared at him. “Ew! There is not enough ew in the world!”

He had the decency to drop his head, hangdog. “Sorry.”

Gwen’s eyelids fluttered. Deciding to let Colin’s horrible table manners go for the moment, I helped her sit up.

“What happened?” Gwen and I both asked at the same time. Gwen pushed herself the rest of the way up, grimacing. Colin touched her chin, rotating her face so he could meet her eyes. Gwen blinked at him, then seemed to realize who—and what—was touching her.

“Get your damn vampire hands off me!” she protested. Her hands fluttered toward his in uncoordinated flappy, slapping motions. Colin withdrew with a wry grimace.

“Fine. How do you feel?”

“Like a damn vampire bit me.”

I’d never heard Gwen swear so much. Or at all. I had the feeling she was angry.

“Did you tell them where the stone was?” His voice was sharp and accusing. I gave him a hard look, but he didn’t swing around to meet it. I resisted the urge to poke him hard in the ribs, mostly because I was a tiny bit afraid of him right then.

Gwen was still either too not-quite-conscious or too pissed off to be afraid of him. “Of course I didn’t. You never told me where it was, did you? When they threatened to kill me, I told them to search all they wanted. Stupid morons. And I think they ran over Sebastian with a car or something… Holy shit.” She rubbed her forehead, wincing, while I fought the urge to abandon her to find Sebastian and be sure he was still alive. “And jeez, what is it with you people and your vampire crapola?” Her glare at Colin was even more baleful than mine had been as she launched into an angry mockery of Pieter’s goons. “
‘Ooo, there’s a tasty morsel. I hope you’ve been exercising. I don’t like high cholesterol snacks.’
The heck?”

I could tell Colin was barely hanging on to his temper. In fact, I was pretty sure I could hear his molars grinding. “I kind of like cholesterol, myself. What part of ‘guard it with your life’ did you not understand?”

“Oh shut up,” she snapped back. Gingerly, she pressed her fingers against the wound on her neck. She grimaced at the dark stains on her fingers.

“Leave.” The word came firm and dark, from behind me. It was Sebastian.

There was a moment of silence. I think all of us were trying to figure out exactly who he meant. Then Colin swung around, eyebrows climbing to his hairline. “Are you talking to me?”

I dared a peek at Sebastian as well. I had never seen him like that. More than angry. More than pissed off. Like a tornado-spawning thundercloud had taken up residence behind his eyes. He also looked as if someone had beaten the shit out of him. Where the red sunburns still streaked across his face, he now carried bruises rapidly turning from blue to black. It was, I hate to admit, mind-numbingly hot.

“Yes,” he snarled. “You have no right to talk to her like that. She did—we both did—everything we could.”

I rocked back on my heels, suffering under the illusion that the slight movement would get me out of their line of sight. There was a moment of tense silence. Even Gwen said nothing, just staring at the vampires, fingers pressed against her neck. Then Colin pushed to his feet and walked back to the living room. His departure was eerie, his feet making no sound at all on the rough carpet. Sebastian didn’t watch him go but waited until Colin settled into a kitchen chair with a soft creak. Only then did he sink to his heels next to Gwen, his face gone soft and careful. “Are you all right?”

I think I loved him a little right then, not just because he’d faced off with Colin, but because Colin had backed down so quickly. Gwen blinked.

“I think so,” she said. She started to pull her fingers away from her neck, then stopped, as if afraid to release the pressure, slight as it was.

Sebastian nodded. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. You did the right thing. There was no reason for you to die over this. Too many people have already.” The dark edge to his voice made me wonder again about his history, Colin’s, the history of the stone itself. This wasn’t the time to ask, though. With a careful smile at Gwen, he leaned closer to her. “May I?”

She hesitated, then finally lowered her hand. He examined the wound, then touched it carefully, wiping a bit of the blood away so he could see the marks more clearly. Gwen winced but held still. And, unlike Colin, he didn’t lick his fingers but withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped them dry. “It’s a clean bite,” he announced. “You’ll be fine.”

She gave a short nod, strangely sober. “Thank you.”

He cupped her shoulder softly, then leaned back away from her. “Do you think you could eat? It’d be the best thing right now, before the blood loss hits too hard.”

“I think so.” Gwen shifted her weight, preparing to get to her feet. Seeing the movement, I leaned in to help her. She wavered as I helped her stand. “I’m sorry. Really. It’s not like there was much I could do to stop them.” She sounded genuinely apologetic.

“It’s okay.” Sebastian reached over to help me hold my sister up, making a soft clucking noise when she again tried to discourage him with her flappy hands. “It’s okay,” he said again, and this time, she let him touch her.

We eased her down the hallway to the living room, then into the armchair. Colin was in his chair, not acknowledging us. I avoided eye contact as well—I could almost see the dark cloud looming over his head. Instead, I made Gwen a quick sandwich while Sebastian poured her a glass of orange juice. Only when we had her settled and some of the color had returned to her face did Sebastian turn his attention to Colin. A braver man than I, that was for sure.

Colin didn’t acknowledge him. I lingered near Gwen, not in any hurry to intervene between the two men. Whatever way they had of dealing with each other, they could do it far away from me, especially if it was likely to involve fisticuffs. If they opted for nudity, though, I’d be okay if they stayed in the living room.

As it turned out, there were no fisticuffs. No nudity, either. Sebastian just sat there and stared at Colin until Colin finally turned to him, eyes flaring. In the face of Colin’s visible—almost tangible—wrath, Sebastian just waited.

Finally, Colin clenched his teeth and spoke. “So Pieter has the stone.” My skin prickled with goose bumps at his tone. I held my breath, waiting now for Sebastian.

Sebastian laid a hand softly on Colin’s shoulder. “What do we do?” he asked.

Colin gave Sebastian a steady, even look. His calm somehow frightened me more than any show of anger could have.

“We get it back.”

Apparently finally convinced Sebastian wasn’t going to bite her, Gwen let him treat her neck wound when she had finished her sandwich. She was steadier and much less pale. He gently applied antibiotic ointment and gauze while Colin, who had gone from stony anger to another emotion I couldn’t quite read, monopolized my attention.

I expected him to launch into his Stone Recovery Plan, but instead he frowned toward Gwen and Sebastian. Sebastian had brought the first aid supplies out into the kitchen, he said because the light was better, but I thought he just figured Gwen would be more comfortable if she wasn’t stuck in a cramped space with him.

“Is it just me,” Colin said quietly, “or is he still seriously off his game?” Colin seemed to have shed his angsty anger and was now showing a frowny concern for Sebastian. The rapid one-eighty of his mood annoyed me unreasonably. Maybe because I was pretty sure the anger and the concern were related, and that didn’t bode well for Sebastian.

“How the hell should I know?” I snapped it, my annoyance far from under control. “You’re the one fucking him.” Fucking him and kissing me for God only knew what reason, but I decided not to add that fact to the current equation.

His sharp glance made me regret the snippy response, especially considering the way our relationship had shifted over the last few days. But he went on in the same careful tone. “Which makes me too close to make a good judgment.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I’m worried about him.”

“Maybe he took more sun than he’s letting on.”

“Maybe.” Colin eyed the other vampire contemplatively, then turned his attention back to me. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Why?” I had a feeling it was more than just casual concern, or concern about my specific well-being, for that matter.

“He needs to eat.”

My eyebrows rose, then one shot back down. “You think he needs to eat me?”

I expected smart-assedness from Colin. Stupid sexual innuendos at the very least. But he continued to regard me with uncharacteristic seriousness, which made me worry even more.

“He doesn’t eat right. He never has. He used to feed from fresh bodies in morgues.” He shuddered delicately—the shudder of the offended connoisseur. I shuddered less delicately—the shudder of the completely grossed out. “For all I know, he still does. I know he stays away from live blood as much as possible, unless I’m there to force the issue. I know why he does it, but in these circumstances, it’s the worst thing he could do.”