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“What was in that mixture?” I ask Rita in amazement, looking from Finn’s face to his closed wound and then back again.
She gives me a teacherly head tilt. “It’s a powerful form of healing salve, similar to the poultice I used before for Finn’s leg after he’d been shot. That’s a little above your learning grade right now though. Just keep practising at night like I showed you and soon I’ll be able to teach you all my tricks.”
This learning business is such a slow process. I’ve been practising almost every night before I go to bed, but Rita only seems willing to feed me tiny bits of information at a time.
Finn squeezes my hand and I realise that I’m still holding his in a vice grip. I look at him. “Do you remember what just happened?”
“Every detail, unfortunately,” he answers quietly, closing his eyes as though in pain.
“Are you still hurt?” Rita questions, perhaps worried that her spell might not have worked fully.
“Not presently, but the memory is there. I’ve been stabbed enough times to know that the pain isn’t something you quickly forget.” He regards Rita warmly. “I suppose it was you who saved the day again.”
She nods and dusts off a shoulder. “No biggie. Though you might want to start a tab. That’s twice I’ve healed you now.”
Finn smiles. It feels so good to see him do that, to see the life in his face. “We’ll see,” he answers her teasingly.
My heart squeezes. Almost losing Finn has made me aware of certain feelings I have for him that I’ve been trying to ignore. I’m not exactly sure what they mean yet.
“You going to let go of my hand, Petal? You’re cutting the blood off and I’ve lost enough today as it is,” he says to me gently.
I quickly release my hold. “I’m sorry. I’m just still a little in shock.”
“That’s you and me both.”
“I can’t believe I stabbed you,” I breathe, peering down at the scar on his abdomen that’s now silver like all the others.
“I can’t believe I almost choked you to death,” he counters, sounding guilty, which is silly. He’d basically been possessed, it’s not like he could have helped it.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that, but look at the bruises on your neck.” He reaches out and runs his hand along my skin. I close my eyes for a second and suppress a shudder. “I hate knowing that those mists can get into me at any time and make me do things like that. Especially to you.”
There’s meaning in his words that I don’t want to think about.
“That’s why we need to keep hunting them every night until we’ve killed them all,” Rita puts in, breaking the intense moment between me and Finn. I pull away from him, embarrassed.
We sit there for another few minutes, gathering our strength after the ordeal. Then we make sure that Father McGuire and the other people in the church have recovered. Finn and the priest seem to know each other well. Finn explains to him what happened with Theodore and tells him about the chaos that’s currently infesting the city. Surprisingly, he doesn’t show any signs of shock. Finn tells him that he’ll organise for the DOH to come and remove the dead body of the man who died today.
Father McGuire knows exactly who the DOH are because he just so happens to be their appointed minister. That’s why Finn attends this particular church. After we’ve stocked the boot of Finn’s car with countless bottles of holy water, we head home. I’m so ready for my bed right now, everything else can wait until tomorrow.
It’s dark by the time we park outside the house, and in my world darkness means one major thing – vampires. I can make out the shapes of Ethan and Delilah through the living room blinds. Did they just let themselves into the place, or did Ira answer the door to them?
“You girls go on in. I’m going to start getting the water out of the boot and bringing it inside,” says Finn as we get out of the car.
Rita nods and skips straight to her motor home. I don’t think it’s fair that Finn should have to carry in all the bottles after what he’s been through, so I go to help him. Okay, I might also be feeling a little guilty about the stabbing incident. Even though he’s fine now, I can’t help thinking that I might have been able to fight him off in a less extreme manner.
“What are you doing?” he asks, as I start loading bottles into my arms. We stashed a lot of them in the rucksacks Finn brought, but we ended up buying more than we could fit in those, so the boot is filled with loose ones.
“Helping you,” I answer quietly.
He raises a sceptical eyebrow and nods to the living room window. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to avoid the prince of darkness in there?”
I giggle. “I actually hadn’t thought of that, but now that you say it, yes I do want to avoid Ethan. He’s still keeping a firm hold of that grudge and thanks to Marcel’s potion all I want to do when I see him is jump on him. Those two factors don’t exactly make for good times.”
Finn stops collecting bottles and stares at me for a minute. Just as I’m starting to get self-conscious, he asks, “How much longer do you think it’ll be before it wears off? The lust thing, I mean.”
“Rita said a couple of days, but I could feel it wearing off already last night.”
