Villetti caught me. “I’ve got you,amore. I have you.” He folded me into his arms, and when my legs gave way totally, he lifted me and carried me out into the night.
EJ
EJ popped two painkillers and drank them down with a hot espresso. Drank it, not sipped it. His body was cold, reacting to the fight, the use of magic, the blood, guts, and gore that he had left behind. Except, it seemed he hadn’t left it behind it all. A caffeine kick would be good.
He placed the mug on a table and eased his head back on the chair, staring at his sister’s bloodless glowing hands. They sang with magic. Magic that might be toxic. He’d seen some things like that in the war. He didn’t know what the energies had done to her skin, muscles, bones. Angie didn’t seem to be in pain, just exhausted. But her hands…
“They feel heavy. Kin’a weird,” she slurred, as if she heard his concern. She cleared her throat in surprise. Her voice had gotten stronger.
“Weird,” Walter repeated. He was stretched out on one of her puffy sofas, feet dangling off the armrest. “Young people are dreadfully nonspecific.” The sun was rising. Walter had to get to his quarters.
Shiloh was standing, speaking to the queen on the wall screen. No. Speaking to their godmother, not the queen, or she would have been set down for her tone. Her words lashed like whips, spat like snakes. Shiloh’s unglamoured face snarled, her fangs down, eyes blacker than night. Vamped out.
“You will get an infermieri here,now,” she demanded, “to heal my stupid cousin before she loses her hands. She saved the entire blasted city. Nowyourcity. She savedyourreign. Youwillget someone here if my aunts have to fly them on a fucking broom.”
“I don’ need a’ be healed,” Angie mumbled, her eyes closed, her limbs slack. “I’ll be fine. Pro’lly. Mos’ like’y. The fu-trs say so.”
Futures. Her gift was still going, even though she had released the power back into the deeps.
PeeWee turned her head to Angie and chuffed laughter, sounding like a cat.
The cats looked at PeeWee, on the floor, her feet up on a stool, cat heads moving in concert, then they jumped onto Angie. The nonfamiliar felines were unusually interested in her singing hands.
The other members of the team—the ones not in a hospital—were curled or stretched out on her apartment floor, healing amulets all over them.
EJ was sitting in an absurdly soft chair, beneath an afghan crocheted by one of his doting aunts. He looked ridiculous with a tiara on his head, but he hadn’t slept in days, running Delta too long, too hard, without full recupe. He’d drained Delta and his personal energies during the battle. Delta was tattered, burned, bent, and frayed. He figured he’d heal eventually but it would be a while before he opened it again. Delta waves were for short-term battle, not intended for prolonged use.
Shiloh snarled again and EJ opened his eyes at the sound. He must have fallen asleep.
“Walter and I arebothfucking dangerously low on energy and blood,” she said.
“Language,” Aunt Jane snapped.
“Language my ass,” Shiloh snapped back. “We had to feed all the wounded, keep ’em alive until ambulances came, and talk to the cops. But nobody thought about us needing blood and we’refucking hungry.”
EJ felt a smile twitch his lips. Cousin Wacko was a young Mithran. They weren’t known for control when starving and depleted.
“Language, Shiloh,” Aunt Jane said again, her expression more weary than angry.
Shiloh went silent, but EJ could hear her fury like a live wire spitting into the room.
“An infermieri has lifted off from Knoxville in Lincoln Shaddock’s flying casket,” the Consort said, from off-screen. “Amy Lynn Brown’s helo is ten minutes out.”
A flying casket, or dead-box, or a half-dozen other pejorative names, were slang for a long narrow box sealed against light, in which a vampire could be transported from place to place by day.
Infermieris were vampire healers. They could heal anything, or so it was said. They were rarer than rubies and way more valuable. Their services were also freaking expensive.
Amy Lynn Brown was the most valuable, and most expensive, infermieri of them all, having acquired her doctorate at VCOM medical school. She was also part of Grampa Shaddock’s blood family in Knoxville. Everhart-Trueblood family and political relationships were as twisted as any vampire’s.
EJ liked Amy Lynn. He raised his pounding head and shovedup with his elbows, so he could see the screen. Aunt Jane was in her office. So was Mama. She frowned at him. EJ tilted his head to the side in a modified shrug and instantly wished he hadn’t. He adjusted the tiara and rosemary sprigs.
Her tone stiff, Aunt Jane continued, “Your subject, Ivyanna Holmes, will be transported to the Everharts for healing and de-possession, if that proves to be possible.
“Four blood servants are being transported in a second helo to feed you and Walter. The helos will land in the street and the flying casket will be transported into Walter’s apartment for safety.We,” she said, her words growing sharp with the royal pronoun, “are not without understanding or resources, Shiloh Everhart Stone.”
Shiloh snarled again, but the sound was lower, less vicious.
Aunt Jane’s tone gentled. “The children’s grandfather and I made the arrangements the moment the vid of the battle came in. You did well, Shiloh. I’m proud of you.”
