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Claire blinked again, and I could almost see the transformation. From harassed mom with in-law problems to competent nurse on a mission. “Where?”
“Down the hall.”
She grabbed a bag from a cabinet, and was on my heels in a second flat.
We entered the dining room to find the trolls seated on groaning chairs; Stinky with his chin propped on his bear’s head, watching everything with inquisitive eyes; and the little troll out cold, facedown on the table.
“Help me get him up,” Claire muttered, and I hurried to comply, a little worried about just how easy it was to lift this particular troll. He felt like a bag of bones, and looked it, too, after we laid him on the table and Claire ripped open his shirt to reveal little more than a lattice of ribs. And—
“Fuck me.”
That was me, of course. Claire is usually able to convey emotion without profanity. But she wasn’t saying anything at the moment. Just looking down with the kind of expression you hope to never see from your doc.
“You help?” Olga asked, looking from me to Claire.
Neither of us answered. Claire was busy examining the little one, her mouth pinched almost to nonexistence, while I was realizing why my hands were wet. The dark patches I’d noticed on his arms were a black lake on his chest, one composed of old, caked blood and some fresh. I wiped my hands on my jeans and left greenish black smears behind. And looked up to see Claire’s face mirroring what was probably on mine.
“There’s no open wound,” I said, looking for some kind of hope.
“It’s internal. Trolls bleed through their skin if it’s bad enough,” Claire said shortly.
“And it’s bad.” It wasn’t a question.
She looked up at me, answering with her eyes the question I hadn’t asked. She couldn’t help him. And if Claire couldn’t, nobody could. Her last name was Lachesis, and she belonged to one of the oldest and most respected families of healers anywhere.
They’d once been known for something else, back when poisoning had been the nobility’s favorite pastime. But over the centuries they’d grown out of their dodgy rep, into a respected family of potion sellers. Not that their concoctions would help the fey, who did not respond well to human medicine, if at all. But Claire hadn’t specialized in human illnesses.
Even before she’d found out about her own . . . unusual . . . genetics, she’d been drawn to the fey. She’d worked in R & D, looking into the potential healing properties of fey flora, which was one reason we’d ended up as friends. She was the only person I’d ever met compassionate enough to want to help a half-mad dhampir.
Which was probably why she was tearing up now—and rooting around in her bag, I guess for something to ease the little one’s pain, at least.
Until she suddenly stopped, and just stared at the wall for a second. Before dropping everything—literally, the bag scattered its contents of precious bottles and handmade plasters all over the floor—and running out the door. And before I had a chance to go after her, to ask what the hell, she was back.
And hell had come with her.
Or so you’d have thought, when a tableful of massive trolls suddenly surged to their feet, and a dozen weapons flashed under the dining room’s dim lighting. One of them was close enough to have given me a shave had I been the type to need one. That was happenstance, though, because the weapons weren’t aimed at me.
They were aimed at Caedmon.
He stood in the doorway, shimmering softly, because he’d drawn down the glow that the Light Fey tended to have in our world. Not that it helped. I’d always heard the expression “You could have cut the tension with a knife,” but in this case it would have taken the sword gleaming by my eye socket, because it was so thick I could barely breathe.
“Stop,” Olga said suddenly, because nothing intimidated Olga.
Something that sounded like a cross between a word and a growl came from a huge specimen on the far end of the table. He could only stand while bent over, despite the high ceilings of the room, which flattened the top of an impressive mane of white hair and allowed braids the size of my arms to brush the tabletop. And he was so heavy with muscle that he was the only one at that end of the table, because no one else would fit. He wasn’t speaking English, and nobody felt like translating, but I didn’t need it.
His expression was . . . eloquent.
“Caedmon can help,” Claire said, which didn’t.
“Claire.” I licked my lips, having seen what a bunch of pissed-off trolls could do and not wanting to see it again. “Why don’t you take Aiden and—”
But Claire wasn’t budging.
“Gessa!” she yelled unnecessarily, because the little au pair was never too far away. In this case, she was already peering in the door worriedly.
She was another relative of Olga’s, on her late husband’s side, who had been a forest troll like Fin. Also like Fin, she was tiny, only a little over three feet tall, and cute, with big brown eyes—for a troll—and a mop of brown curls that always seemed to go everywhere. She’d been brought on board after Olga got her business up and running again, and hadn’t had time for babysitting. Then Aiden came along, and now she cared for them both, with a gentleness that belied her ability with a double-headed ax, if anyone threatened her charges.
She was looking around now, like she was thinking of getting the ax, until Claire took her son from Caedmon and handed him over. “Take the boys outside,” Claire told her. To where my guards are remained unsaid.
