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“Why is there a Cenobite sitting on my couch?”
“What’s a Cenobite?”
“Rent Hellraiser. ” I walked backward without taking my eyes off him and closed my apartment door behind me. “Was this really the fucking plan?”
“You didn’t think they were coming home with me, did you?”
“They?” I sputtered, and looked down my short hall.
“In your closet. ”
I went back to my bedroom. There was a lightproof sheet over my bedroom’s small window again. I’d kept it after the last time I needed it, for help hiding vampires. Being a night-shift nurse and all, lightproof curtains were a wonderful luxury. My bed was empty, but my shoes were cast out across my floor again. This didn’t bode well. I slid my closet open and peeked inside. “Goddammit, Sike. I hate you. ” There was a woman inside my closet, on the floor. She wasn’t breathing, but I knew she wasn’t dead.
“Likewise, of course,” Sike said.
I squatted down, the phone still pressed to my ear. I put fingers to the prone woman’s wrist and felt no pulse, just flesh, soft and cool. “Who is this?”
“Veronica Lambridge. Gideon’s girlfriend, and former laboratory technician. ”
She didn’t look like a Veronica—she had mousy brown hair, close-cropped, like a ten-year-old boy’s, and a smattering of freckles that made her look even younger. Her face was peaceful now, but who knew how she’d feel when she woke up.
“Anna changed her, after Gideon’s attack, for her own protection. But Anna’s not allowed to make new vampires yet, so we had to hide her. ”
I slid the closet door closed again. “My house is safest why?”
“No other vampires have access to it. You haven’t been making more friends on the side, have you?”
“Of course not. ”
“Well then, there you go. You’re the Ambassador of the Sun, they need a little baby-sitting, and your place is safer than ours till we figure out who did that to Gideon. ”
I was silent on the line. “Anna trusts you. I don’t know why, but she trusts you,” Sike went on, her voice bitter, mocking—jealous. “You might be the only one she trusts. ”
I pushed Veronica a little farther into my closet and slid the door closed. “How long will she be out?”
“Three days is the normal. We’ll pick her up between now and then. ”
“Maybe you could call first?”
Sike laughed at me. “We’ll come by at nig
ht. ” And then she hung up.
I stood in my bedroom, looking at my closed closet door. I was so tired. I was so scared. I was so tired of being scared.
But in my mind, I put all of my nurse armor on. I was going to do what needed doing. Again.
* * *
I went back out to living room, where Gideon sat, pantsless on my couch in a hospital gown.
“We’re going to have to make the best of things, okay?” He was mute, of course. “Look, you were here beforehand, right? Did you give yourself a tour?”
He shook his head.
“Well, the bathroom is down the hall. But. ” I could not just have him sitting on my couch with no pants. I gave a slightly manic laugh at the thought, then breathed in deeply and went back to my bedroom.
Gideon was way taller than me. My old scrubs would be highwaters on him, but at least he’d be able to shimmy in and out of them, even without entire fingers. I silently blessed my new washable couch cover, which was keeping his boy parts from direct contact with my couch.
I brought the scrub pants out into my living room. “Okay, stand up. Right leg up. Left leg up. ” I hitched the pants onto him and drew them up. After I tied the drawstring in a loose bow, I put my hand to his elbow and directed him down my short hallway.
“So there’s a bathroom over here, to your right. ” My toilet was against the back wall, but I didn’t trust him to hit it in his state. I pulled him inside the small room. “There’s a shower here”—I knocked on the glass door so he could hear it—“and I’ll leave the door open. You can just pee in there. And if you have to do worse, just let me know. It won’t be the first time I’ve wiped someone’s ass, so don’t be shy, okay?”
He made a cross between a grunt and a groan. I decided to take it as a yes.
“Are you hungry?”
He nodded. Without lips, there was only so much he would be able to keep inside his mouth. Lips were one of those things that people didn’t appreciate till they were gone—although most times that was due to a stroke, and not internecine vampire warfare. Thank God they’d let him keep his teeth. I inhaled and exhaled, drawing on additional strength and sanity hidden deep inside.
