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I watched it for a while, blankly, a not-unpleasant white noise buzzing in my ears. And then I decided that maybe I just wouldn’t think at all for a while. My brain obviously wasn’t up to it, and zoning out was sounding really good right about—
But of course not.
There was a heavy tread on the stairs, and then Roger burst back into the kitchen, with his usual frenetic energy and a basin of water. “Dropping in like this,” he was grumbling, as if he’d been talking to himself. “Could have gotten your damned fool self killed!”
“You’re not exactly easy to find,” I said, my voice sounding a little strange and a little breathy, like I was doing a bad Marilyn impression. I put my head down on the table.
That left me looking at him sideways, but it didn’t help. He was scowling from this angle, too. “You might have called!”
“Called?”
“We’re in the phone book!” he said, and slammed one down on the wood in front of me.
I blinked at it, cross-eyed. “Under what? Gods and demons?”
“The only demon is
the one you brought with you,” he said, transferring the scowl to Pritkin.
And okay, I thought. It looked like Mom was home. Because I didn’t think her . . . lover? friend? pet? . . . was likely to have figured out what Pritkin was that fast. He’d barely laid eyes on the guy, and Pritkin looked like a human.
Well, usually. At the moment he looked more like a corpse. I got up with the vague idea of doing something, only my legs vetoed that plan halfway through the motion, which left me stumbling awkwardly into the table.
It hurt. A lot. My knee came into painful contact with one of the table’s sturdy legs, and the table won. I backed off, to the accompaniment of Roger cursing a string worthy of a war mage I knew.
“Sit down before you fall down!”
“Too late,” I mumbled, but my butt somehow found the chair again anyway. He slammed the basin down on the tabletop and muttered some more, while cleaning off Pritkin like he was going to die of dirt or something. I kind of thought if that was the case, we’d both be goners, since we’d passed filthy a while ago. But on the plus side, I didn’t look so improper anymore, being decently covered in mud.
Silver lining, I thought, and sprawled there, watching the robot try to fix its wonky eyelash.
It kind of looked like it had had a hard night.
I could relate.
“What is that?” I asked, after a few minutes.
Roger looked up from checking Pritkin for damage. “Is that what you came here to ask?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t need to know, do you?” he snapped, and slammed out.
I stared after him for a moment. And then I managed to get up and check on Pritkin, too, who was a good deal cleaner but no more conscious than he’d ever been. I felt my stomach fall, since my first-aid training hadn’t included what to do for magical pranks or man-eating forests or attacks by supernatural robots.
I put a hand on his cheek, and his skin felt clammy. Or maybe it was just that it was chilly in here, too. His face turned into my palm, his breath warm on my skin, a gentle, reassuring caress.
Until it suddenly stopped.
I grabbed and shook him, which didn’t make much of a difference because I didn’t have much strength. And then, about the time the room was starting to collapse in on me, and the light was graying out and I was contemplating a heart attack to go with my stroke, he gave a loud snort. Followed by what, even charitably, could only be called a snore.
I sat down abruptly, trying to decide between bursting into tears and passing out. But neither sounded all that great. So I finally settled for just listening to him breathe for a while.
And the man upstairs knock about angrily.
“I don’t think he’s happy to see me,” I told Pritkin, who failed to have an opinion on the matter.
But somebody else did.
