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"Can do," Thane promised.
Then Cain took a deep breath and spoke the Word.
Immediately, he felt that rush Thane was talking about, but it didn't last long. In the time it took for the sound to cross his lips, all of the vitality he'd consumed the night before combusted inside him, burning out faster than a nuclear bomb. He barely had time to realize that the room around him was filled with light before his eyes rolled into his head and darkness took over.
Cain, the most powerful of all the eidolon, dropped to the ground, completely unconscious.
ChapterTwenty-One
THANE
Thane heard Cain push out the Word, and the room erupted with brilliant light. Unable to see anything, the sound of something heavy bumping on the ground was enough to convince him to speak the deactivation Word. Light dimmed as quickly as it had turned on, but it still took a second for all of their eyes to adjust. Blinking quickly, it was the second time his eyes opened when he saw what sure looked like legs right in front of him.
"Shit," he breathed as he rushed forward to check on Cain. "Dahlia, Cain collapsed."
That little bit of time seemed to be enough for Dahlia and Nikki to see again. As Thane dropped down beside Cain, Nikki hurried around the couch to reach his other side. It looked like the man had simply crumpled in place. Thankfully he hadn't hit anything on the way down, but his eyes were only half open, and he was out cold.
"What the hell?" Nikki demanded. "What did your fucking Word do to him?"
Thane was trying his best to check for a pulse. "Why the fuck do you think I know? I'm just learning how to use them too, and in case you missed it, I'm stillalive!"
But while they were bickering over Cain's body, Dahlia was pulling open drawers in the kitchen, clearly looking for something. It was like the fifth or sixth one when she finally found it. Thane looked up in time to see her hurrying towards him holding what had to be the largest knife Cain owned. Not only was the blade about a foot long, it was probably about four inches wide.
"What the fuck?" he asked.
Instead of answering, Dahlia simply grabbed his arm and cut. She moved fast enough and decisively enough that he didn't even have the chance to jerk away before blood began to well up on his skin. Then she pushed his arm towards Cain's face.
"Say his name," she demanded. "Thane, he needs vitality and a link. His name will pull him back here, and the blood will give him vitality."
Mentally cursing himself for a fool, Thane pressed the gash over the man's slack lips. Dahlia hadn't cut deep, but he was bleeding decently enough. The first few drops hit Cain's lips and slowly trickled inside, so Thane decided to help it along. Using his other hand to squeeze his arm, he pressed the wound right up against the man's mouth to get as much inside him as possible.
"Just tell me he isn't a vampire," Thane begged.
Kneeling down beside him, Dahlia reached up to clasp his shoulder. "He's Cain. There were no myths back in his day for him to embrace, so he's just been Cain."
"Basically, he's everything," Nikki said. "Come on, Cain. This can't be the thing that kills you."
So Thane began whispering the man's name over and over again. He didn't have a last name to go with it, just like Dahlia hadn't had a middle name. The problem was that in all the time he'd been fighting demons, Thane had never seen one unconscious before. When their bodies died, they turned to dust. When they were staked, they released an impressive burst of energy - andthenthe bodies turned to dust. Lying on the floor like a corpse? That wasn't how this was supposed to work.
Then, without warning, Cain sat up and lunged forward. Both of his hands grabbed Thane's arm, and the force of his movement dropped Thane's shoulder to the ground, forcing him onto his side. The sound coming from Cain's mouth was like something an animal would make, only stopping when a sharp pain erupted in Thane's arm.
"Drink," Dahlia demanded. "He's a friend, so don't you dare try to eat him."
That initial pain changed to the sting of suction on an open wound. The grip on his arm also relaxed a little. Gulp after gulp, Cain drank from him, and each swallow seemed to make the man a little less frantic. It didn't take long before Cain leaned back to press his hand over Thane's wound.
"There should be bandages in the bathroom," he said. "I think he's going to need one."
Thane just pointed in the direction of the book of Words that had been dropped on the floor. "Pass me that instead. I'm pretty sure there's a Word in there that will fix this."
"What happened?" Nikki asked. It was the question they were all thinking.
But Dahlia was more worried about Thane, it seemed. She found the book and flipped to the section at the back with healing Words, then handed it over. Letting Cain put pressure on his wound, Thane's eyes scanned the page until he found the one he wanted. The description said it healed moderate lacerations. Well, that sounded like exactly what he wanted.
"Okay, let go," he told Cain. "I've never tried this one before." And then he whispered the Word.
Immediately, fire raced up his arm. He couldn't help but suck in a breath through his teeth, because it felt like someone was holding a hot iron to his flesh. And yet the wound was healing right before his eyes. Oh, Thane did not want to think about why the cut in his flesh was now a semicircular shape instead of the straight line Dahlia had made with the knife. He was just thankful that it was healing, and quickly.
"Okay," Dahlia breathed. "Evidently, those things are unpredictable as fuck."
