New Blood (31 page)

Her own heart faltered for a moment and she heard a faint, faraway cry. Her name? She was cold, so cold. So tired.

Then warmth surrounded her, seeping into the cold. Strength followed, settling in behind her, beneath her, supports holding her up. Another heart beat with hers, the rhythmic
thump-thump
singing to her of life and of possibilities.

She drank it in and shared it out again, calling up those memories she'd pushed away, giving Mr. Strelitsky back his own possibilities. The magic in the wizard's potion swirled around her, enhancing what she did, adding the warmth of sun-kissed leaves, the stubbornness of roots digging deep into the soil. The alchemist's heart seemed to listen and remember, slowly echoing the rhythm Amanusa shared, stronger and stronger with every beat.

Carefully, Amanusa withdrew, ready to jump in again if the weakened heart faltered, but it continued to beat steadily. Back in her own body again, her eyes fluttered open. Jax knelt behind her. She seemed to have collapsed into him. Onto him. Both.

She reached for the lancet in her pocket, but couldn't seem to make her arms—or anything else—move. Jax understood her intent and brought the lancet out for her.

“Over his heart?” He held the lancet poised over Strelitsky, waiting for her assent.

Her voice didn't want to work either, but she managed to force a yes-shaped sound from it. Jax scored Mr. Strelitsky's chest and Amanusa called back the blood she'd sent into the alchemist. Jax used the side of the lancet's tip to scoop up the droplets of blood that oozed from the tiny wound and brought them to Amanusa's lips.

It seemed a bit barbaric to lick up the blood under the fascinated and slightly horrified gazes of the other magicians. Amanusa did it anyway. This was sorcery. If it was barbaric, so be it. Perhaps the world needed to be a little less civilized.

Only when she had licked up the last traces of the blood—her own, but none of them knew that—did Tonio the wizard reach across their patient to check Amanusa's pulse. Of course he'd been monitoring Strelitsky in the interim, but he still waited until the barbarity was done to check on her well-being. “How do you feel, Miss Whitcomb?”

Twining her fingers with Jax's, Amanusa found voice enough to answer. “Weary, but improving.”

Tonio rose higher on his knees, asking permission before lifting her eyelids to peer into her eyes. “I did not realize a sorceress shared her own life essence in a healing, or I would not have permitted it.”

“I didn't share my ‘essence.' I shared—” Amanusa looked up at Jax for inspiration, an aid to recall what he and Yvaine had told her on the long train trip. “Knowledge is perhaps the best way to put it. Your magic gave back much of the strength he lost, but his heart needed to be shown how to beat properly again.”

She sighed, pressing her palm flat against Jax's palm, increasing the contact. “Instead, he almost
made my heart forget what it knew. Fortunately, Jax was here to help me.”

She twisted in his embrace to look him in the eye. “And I promise I will not try new magic without you ever again.”

The new Jax, the one with the hard edges and stern eyes, looked back at her. “Swear it. Never again.”

A little thrill went through her at his tone. She raised a hand in pledge. “I swear.”

“Do you mean to say this was your first time to attempt such healing?” Tonio demanded, aghast.

Embarrassed by the admission, Amanusa bit her lip as she nodded. “There has to be a first time sometime, and I
did
help him. I've practiced on Jax dozens of times. Maybe hundreds. He's healthy as a horse, but that means I know what the internal organs should look like and how they're supposed to work.”

She paused to look up at all the appalled magicians staring back at her. “It isn't as if I have a master sorcerer to stand over my shoulder watching everything I do. I'm the only one there is right now, and yes, I'm still learning. Sorry if that offends you, but I'm all there is. And I do have Jax.”

“What I've been wantin' to know—” Harry Tomlinson spoke up, “is just what part a blood servant plays in sorcery. How does he help you? Why do you need one?”

She struggled to stand, feeling very much at a disadvantage sitting sprawled on the floor while most of the others stood over her. Jax rose, helping her to her feet as he did. Holding tight to his hand clasped with hers, Amanusa put her other over the hand he'd set at her waist, keeping it there.

At that moment, the fallen warrior in this bizarre fight against the dead zones and their creatures groaned, his eyelids fluttering. Tonio organized a litter party to bear Strelitsky to one of the cots set up for magicians who needed to rest before plunging back into the fray. “Wait for my return,” the wizard ordered. “I want to hear our sorcerer's answers.”

“I want to hear too,” Strelitsky complained in a feeble voice. “What will I hear?”

“We could come with you . . .” Amanusa looked to Tonio for permission. She didn't want to interfere with Strelitsky's recovery.

Tonio checked his patient's pulse, peered at his eyes, and did several other tests Amanusa didn't recognize before agreeing to the plan. The bearers gathered Strelitsky up and everyone trooped off to the back of the room.

Elinor moved up to walk alongside Amanusa and Jax. “Antonio Rosato is one of the most famous wizards in Europe. He is also a medical doctor,” she murmured.

“Why aren't you apprenticed to him instead of Harry?”

“Because one of the things he is famous for is the number of his love affairs. He has left broken hearts scattered in his wake from St. Petersburg to St. Lo.” Elinor's voice held more amusement than condemnation, but both were there. “I am sure he would gladly take me as apprentice, but I would learn absolutely nothing, for
Dottore
Rosato would spend all his time attempting to seduce me, and when he tired of the attempt—or tired of me after success, since
I am only human after all and he is a very handsome man—”

“Is he?” Amanusa shot Tonio a second glance. “I hadn't noticed.”

“You wouldn't. But when it ended badly, I would be tossed out on my ear without a reputation, without the knowledge I want, and without any entree into the circle of magicians. With Mr. Tomlinson as my master, I will at least have knowledge, through access to the council library, as recompense for my reputation's loss. For all that he sprang from the gutters of Seven Dials, Harry Tomlinson is an honorable man in his own fashion.”

Amanusa had thought so as well. She was glad to have her judgment confirmed by so sensible a woman as Elinor seemed.

When Dr. Rosato had his patient settled as comfortably as possible on a camp cot, all eyes returned to Amanusa once again.

“We're not askin' for guild secrets, mind,” Harry said. “But seein' as we ain't—haven't had any sorcery around for so long, we're all a mite curious. So, how does a blood servant help you?”

“I am bound to my sorceress by blood and magic.” Jax spoke up before Amanusa had a chance to open her mouth. He didn't know what she might say, how much she might reveal. They would accept his word. He was the servant, after all. “I am her magical reflection, if you will, able to reflect her power back into her. A source of strength, much like a familiar.”

“A source of blood?” one of the younger men asked.

“Of course. But since I am apparently over three hundred years old, it is obviously not fatal.” Jax's smile had sharp edges. He wouldn't give away the deep secrets, but sharing a bit more of the truth about blood magic could keep the hounds of hate and fear from her. He hoped. “whatever service my sorceress requires of me, I provide. I am proud to serve this sorceress.”

“But blood servant isn't the same as a footman or a . . . a valet,” Amanusa said, her graceful long-fingered hands tightening around his. “And it's more than a familiar's relationship—as I understand familiars. I know less about other magics than I do about sorcery. Jax is a man, a human being, so of course the relationship is far different than that with an animal familiar.”

She frowned, her “thinking crease” forming between her brows. He wanted to smooth it away. “Mirror—reflecting magic back into me—yes, that's part of it, but I believe the proper word is
partner.
He is my partner in the magic.”

Jax stood, stunned motionless by Amanusa's words. She'd said it before, but he still found it difficult to believe it was what she truly thought. When her blood, her magic had begun to replace Yvaine's in his bindings, he had noticed the difference, but he had been afraid to hope.

“Jax cannot gather the magic, or use it in spells, but I can use his words to create the spell. It was his strength, his heart that kept mine beating just now. When we traveled through the magical vacuums on the train through Baden, we kept each other alive. It is—”

“Wait.” Harry held up a hand. “Magical vacuum—do you mean a dead zone?”

“Yes. We didn't know what it was properly called, but that was what it felt like to us, so—”

“You came on the train
through
—what route did you come?” Harry led them to a huge map of Europe pinned on the wall.

Other maps were there, of Asia, North and South America, Africa. The maps had pencil hatchings laid over different areas, delineating the dead zones already identified. Jax traced their route on the map from Vienna to Paris, through the center of one of the largest zones.

“And you survived the crossing?” Harry sounded incredulous.

“Together, yes. We had to be close—touching—but—”

“It affected me worse than it did Amanusa,” Jax interrupted. “It is possible she would have survived the crossing on her own.” She was so strong, in so many ways.

“I don't think so. I didn't stop breathing, but I got very ill . . .”

“And you were able to pick up that machine.” Harry looked back across the laboratory to the table where the corroded machine sat. “You held it as long as Pyotr, but he collapsed an' you didn't.”

“Pyotr is an alchemist,” Tonio said. “You're the one, Harry, who postulated that our ability to withstand the dead zones is related to the type of magic we practice. Your theory has seemed to hold true in our experimentation so far.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Harry nodded his head, lost in
thought. “Alchemists go down first, then conjurers, then wizards. And sorcerers last?”

“So perhaps the ability to withstand the malevolence of the machine is similar?”

“Miss Tavis picked it up and put it back on the table.” Grey Carteret spoke for the first time since entering the lab. “Perhaps it is women who have the greatest resistance.”

Jax's free hand curled into a fist. He'd like to cure the man of his delight in stirring up mischief.

“She
is
a wizard,” Amanusa said. “Perhaps other wizards can handle it.”

“Or perhaps it's just that I'm wearing gloves.” Elinor held up her hands to show her thin kidskin gloves.

“Pyotr wasn't,” Harry said. “Were you, Amanusa? When you pulled it out o' the box?”

“No, but I've touched it before. It makes me nauseous, but little else.”

“What about you, Jax?” Harry asked. “What happened when you touched it?”

“I did not lose consciousness. I touched it only an instant. My fingers froze, went utterly numb, and when I touched my mouth with them, it froze and blistered as well. The machine was in much better condition, however, when I touched it. No corrosion or visible damage to it.”

“Hmm.”

Several other magicians echoed Harry's “hmm.” They all trooped back over to stand around the table and stare at the battered machine. Pyotr complained from his cot, where Tonio's apprentice Pascal sat on him to keep him in the bunk.

“Only one thing for it,” Grey said, after a long moment of staring. “One of you other wizards needs to pick it up.”

He didn't wait for them to try, however, but grasped one of the dangling arms with a gloved hand and lifted it off the table. He held it only a moment before passing it over to one of the wizards, looking a bit pale.

The wizard took hold of a pair of spokes with his bare hands. “Not too bad,” he said. “I can feel a bit of a chill in my hands, a bit of dizziness.”

Tonio grasped the man's wrist, checking something medical. Jax held his breath, admiring the man's bravery as he shifted his grip to the central sphere.

“Don't push this so far you need Amanusa to bring you back,” Jax said. “She can't do it again.” He wouldn't allow—He was the servant. It wasn't his place to allow or permit. But . . . was it a fiancé's place? A partner's place?

“No.” The test wizard was gasping for breath when he released the machine to thump back onto the table, but he seemed in reasonably good health. “Freddie, you try it with gloves.”

A third wizard had already retrieved his gloves from inside his hat and was pulling them on. He was able to handle the machine a much longer time. After five minutes, he showed very little ill result, and the others were pulling out pocket watches to time him.

Amanusa was getting bored. Jax could read the signs in the way she began to shift from one foot to the other and let her gaze wander over the other cluttered tables in the room.

“Do you have any other questions for us?” Jax drew Harry aside to ask. Better one man than the whole horde of them.

“Not right now. Not that I can think of. The lads'll want to be tinkerin' with it for some time yet. Why?”

“I'd like to take Amanusa back to the hotel. Feed her dinner. Let her rest.”

“I'm not a child to be tended.” Amanusa joined them.

“No, you're a woman and a sorcerer who's been through a long, trying day and hasn't had any dinner.” Jax knew Amanusa enjoyed gentle teasing, but he still couldn't help feeling as if he took his life in his hands whenever he contradicted her in the least. “And you're bored.”