She popped on the behind-the-counter thaumatic light bulb, but the glow wasn’t comforting. It served only to illuminate the slumped form of Mr. Grimm in his chair. He didn’t seem to have moved an inch. Stifling a little whimper, Luna set down the pot and teacup and pressed a finger to his throat, feeling for a pulse. It was there. Thready, but present.
At the touch of her fingers, his eyes flared open. He stared up at her. His mouth moved, trying to speak, but more weird, purple foam spilled from his lips. “Oh, Mr. Grimm!” Luna cried. Then, because she didn’t know what else to do, she took the frilly Pink Coronation head and stuffed it into his mouth. “Chew this!” she commanded. “It’ll help.”
She didn’t know that it would. But it might.
Mr. Grimm obeyed, chewing dutifully. Then his eyes flared open, much more focused than they were before. His body spasmed. Recognizing the signs, Luna grabbed the wastebin from behind the counter and handed it to him. Just in time. He bowed over it, heaving hard. The flower was quite fast-acting, it would seem. Not as soothing or thorough as the tea, but effective.
After the initial heaving, Mr. Grimm lifted his face from the bin. His eyes sought hers. And though his expression was one of pure misery, it shifted momentarily into strange and wholly unexpected delight. He tried to move his purple-stained lips, like he was about to speak her name. Then he bowed his head, as his body purged more, violently.
When he was quite done, Luna poured the tea. “Here, Mr. Grimm,” she said gently. “Drink this now.”
He looked up at her, his eyes swimming. “I . . . don’t know if I can . . . stand more of your . . . gentle ministrations just now, Miss Talbot.”
Luna bit back another sob. Trust Mr. Grimm to bring that dry sarcasm, even on the brink of death. “Drink it,” she urged and held the cup to his lips. “It’ll help flush out the rest of the poison.”
He took a dubious sip. She could already see that his color looked better. Not great, but better. Tea dribbled down his chin, and Luna grabbed the mushroom hanky to mop it up gently. “Forgive me,” he murmured, his words slurring rather. “I’mafraid it’s . . . not very gentlemanly of me to . . . to heave up my guts in a lady’s . . .”
He slumped forward before finishing, drifting into unconsciousness.
“Mr. Grimm? Mr. Grimm!” With a clatter of cup and saucer, Luna set aside the tea and knelt in front of her boss, patting his cheek. Fingers trembling, she checked his pulse again. Steadier than it was, perhaps. Oh, Green Mother, did he get enough of the Starfire Phlox in his system? Did that one, violent purging eliminate enough of the poison from his body? What else could she give him? Maybe some Saint Hylda’s Wort, for Dire-burn. Who knew what Lancelot Mortimer had done with him before he breathed in that gas.
“Never mind!”Debbie rasped in fell tones of warning.
“I don’t know!” Luna gasped, turning to look at the bird, her eyes wide. “I don’t know what else to try! I’m not trained inthissort of thing!”
“Never mind!”The bird fluttered her wings, turning around in place on the counter.
“Well, if you have any ideas, I would—”
A knock sounded. Loud in the stillness of the darkened shop.
Luna stopped. Her heart turned over in her breast before plummeting to her stomach.
Another knock. More insistent than the last.
She and Debbie exchanged looks.“Never mind?”the bird suggested.
Swallowing hard, Luna got to her feet and slowly, cautiously, peeked out from the nook across the shop floor.
There, standing under the awning, his face framed in the square of glass set in the front door, stood Officer Ward.
Nigel jolted back into consciousness momentarily . . . only to slip back once more into the depths of a poison-addled haze.
It kept happening. Back and forth, little ten second intervals. Awake, asleep. Awake, asleep. Never long enough in either state to gain a foothold, to find some sort of comfort.
He tried in those ten seconds of awareness to pull together some sort of idea of his surroundings. He seemed to remember getting partway up Addle Street before the poison he had breathed finally got the best of him. Then he seemed to recall a very strange, rather heady memory of pressing his face against Luna’s coated breast. A button had dug into his cheek, and her fingers had woven in his hair—the one sensation singularly unpleasant but the other so brilliantly lovely, he couldn’t much care about anything else.
After that, there was the sound of her scolding voice and more walking. No longer burdened save with the burden of his own self, his own life, his own ongoing and inconvenient existence. Nothing else was clear until the moment when he came to himself in a fit of painful, gut-wrenching vomiting.
This nastiness accomplished, he didn’t sink back into unconsciousness as swiftly. The agony in his veins subsided, and he thought,Well, perhaps I won’t die after all.This thought vaguely looping in his head, he’d looked up. And his swimming gaze discovered Luna’s worried face hovering in front of him, and a sudden, desperate urge to live had coursed through his soul.
Then he vomited a second time.
Now he seemed to be coming to again. Seated in the cane chair. His mouth tasting of sickness and florals, not a winning combination. His head was a little clearer, at least. Not wholly clear, but not quite so lost in that poisonous fog and funk. He blinked bleary eyes, taking in the sight of the old stove in front of him before sinking back into unconsciousness for another ten seconds. When consciousness returned, he flicked his gaze to the side and saw the cup of tea stashed on the little table alongside his handkerchief, which was looking a bit worse for wear. He faded out again.
When he returned, there were voices. One deep, the other high. Creating a sort of disharmonious duet of noise in his ringing ears. He let himself fade out again. When he came to again, ten seconds later, he recognized Luna’s sweet voice. At the sound of it, irritable though she was, a smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. He forced himself to stay awake this time, to try to understand what she said.
“Ward, I’m telling you, there’s nothing to find in here! The shop’s been perfectly quiet all evening!”
