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The shape I was in didn’t really hit me until I stumbled out of the car. And face-planted onto something hard. I didn’t know if it was the afterburn of adrenaline or being a snack for a half-incubus war mage, but I was completely wiped. To the point that the concrete under my cheek actually felt pretty damn inviting. I was all for sleeping wherever the hell I was, but somebody picked me up. I didn’t have the strength left to protest.
Those same hands gently wrapped me in a blanket. It had to be three, maybe four a.m., but Vegas in August is stifling even at that time of the morning, and the blanket was scratchy and hot. I decided not to care, because it was easier.
We started across a cracked parking lot toward a brightly lit aluminum building with a couple of trucks and, incongruously, a limo parked outside. I squinted at it blearily. If that was war mage HQ, color me disappointed. It looked like it ought to be warehousing shoes. But I guessed it was more interesting inside, because a couple of leather-coat-clad guards were roaming around, giving us the hairy eyeball.
I didn’t care about them, either.
I did care a few minutes later when I was put down on something puke green that smelled like cigarettes and old shoes, but decided I could live with it. I went to sleep. And then woke right back up at the furious, whispered conversation going on over my head.
“They called ahead; told them to expect you. What the fuck am I—”
“Tell them whatever you like. I am more concerned with getting a healer in here.”
“You’d best be concerned with your job!”
“I could care less about—”
“Then how about your neck? Because that was assault, and assault on the Pythia carries a mandatory death sentence, as you damn well—”
Which was when I sat up. “No doctors,” I croaked.
“Cassie!” We were in a small office, with Pritkin crouched beside what could best be described as an antisofa. Besides the unfortunate color and the more unfortunate smell, it was also hard and lumpy and stained, and had sad little tufts of stuffing dribbling out of one of the cushions. Kind of the Platonic ideal turned on its head.
Two sets of startled eyes looked at me, so I guess I’d said that last part out loud. “What? I read.”
“Are you all right?” Caleb asked, crouching down beside Pritkin. Which gave me nowhere to put my legs. I thought about drawing them up, but then I’d probably go back to sleep again, and that was a bad idea for some reason that currently escaped me. I sat there and blinked at them, and waited for it to come.
“She needs a healer,” Pritkin said harshly, and started for the door.
That was it. “No doctors,” I said again.
And then I flopped over.
“You heard her,” Caleb said, as Pritkin paused, his hand on the knob.
“Damn it, Cassie—”
“I’m just really, really tired,” I told him, wondering why the fake wood paneling behind him was bleeding over into his body space. And then I realized that my eyes were crossing. “Do you have any booze?” I asked Caleb.
“You probably shouldn’t drink,” Pritkin said, looking conflicted.
I thought about that. There was a phrase I was looking for, but my brain was really not cooperating right at the—Oh yeah. “Fuck it,” I said brightly. And then I sat up again, because the antisofa seriously reeked and because Caleb was coming over with a paper cup in his hand.
It was the kind you get out of watercoolers, small and cone-shaped, but it held some really fine whiskey. Really, really fine, I decided, tossing it back, all smooth and peaty.
And then it hit the party going on in my stomach and oh, shit.
“Trash can,” I said thickly.
“What?” Caleb looked at me.
“Trash can!”
Pritkin cursed and grabbed one, just about the time everything I’d eaten that night paid a repeat visit. Whiskey, pizza, milk shake, beer—and a lone, half-dissolved gummy bear, which was a surprise, since I couldn’t actually recall having eaten any. Fun times.
I finally finished, and was rewarded with another little paper cup, only this time filled with water. “Keep it coming,” I said hoarsely as Pritkin held my hair back from my face and Caleb handed him a box of tissues.
Cleanup took a while, since I’d been pretty damn dirty to begin with. During which Pritkin kept bitching about a doctor and I kept saying no, until I got pissed. “You’re not putting your head in a noose when I’m fine,” I croaked. “I’m just tired. For God’s sake!”
