Dev barely had the energy to lift his head at the softly spoken word. Erin stood before him, a bowl of soup on a plate in one hand and a mug of something hot in the other.
“You should eat,” she murmured, turning and setting it all down on the coffee table.
“I’m not hungry.” He didn’t lie. In fact, he couldn’t even imagine wanting to eat ever again. Everything was numb, inside and out.
Erin frowned down at him, then with a determined sigh, smoothed out her expression and sat on the couch beside him. “Dr Carver said you need to replenish your body. The soup is chicken and sweet corn. I think it was a gift from Matt’s neighbours,” she said with a small smile, “before he went all tough love on them. It’s good, which is proof enough Matt didn’t make it himself. I haven’t known him long but I do know his culinary talents only extend to pasta and even then, that’s mostly just pouring a store bought sauce over store bought pasta. The drink is green tea, the only tea I could find in his cupboards.”
He knew what she was trying to do. Distract him. Divert his thoughts from the internal rollercoaster ride. Blindside him into making the motions of life, trick him into thinking it was possible to continue on.
She didn’t understand, though. Lana was dead. Again. There was nothing left of her or her life to keep him going. He’d tossed aside any chance he’d had at a normal life when he’d agreed to learn the Art with her. He’d sacrificed a long life just so Lana would have someone level-headed enough to keep her out of trouble.
Not that it had worked, regardless, and now he didn’t even have a burning vengeance to keep propelling him forward.
Dr Carver had mended his broken ribs and sealed up the broken blood vessels in his head, but Dev still felt the ghost of those injuries. A lingering burn in his chest if he breathed too deep and a sickening wave of dizziness if he moved his head too fast.
So he didn’t do those things. He just sat in the corner of the couch and tried not to think. Tried not to breathe, or hurt, or feel. Tried not to remember seeing his sister crumple to the surface of the bridge, her body loose and broken, sprawling across the shattered remains of one of her monstrous stone monkeys. Desperately, fiercely tried not to remember that small moment of relief when he’d realised she was dead, that her pain was over, that she wouldn’t hurt anyone again—that it had been Matt Hawkins who’d done it.
Not Dev.
Erin didn’t say anything more. She just reached over and squeezed his hand, gentle and reassuring.
They were back at Matt’s place. Dev barely remembered getting there. Had only vague thoughts of Erin hauling him up off the road and bullying him to the BMW. Flashes of the vampire doing the same for Matt, his heavy, unresponsive left arm slung over her shoulders. Dev did recall, however, in perfect clarity, the sight of his switchblade clutched in Matt’s hand, unable to be dropped from his immobile fist. Still saw in his mind’s eye the way Lana’s blood dripped from its point.
Somehow they’d all ended up in the one car, Dev, Matt and Fiona squished into the back, Carver in the front passenger seat. Erin and Mercy had argued outside the car for a minute, then Erin had got behind the wheel while the vampire headed back to where the final clash had occurred. Thankfully, they’d pulled away before Dev could even peripherally understand what Mercy was doing.
The BMW was off the bridge and taking random turns to evade the incoming police and firetruck cavalcade by the time the Moto Guzzi had caught up. A single, black-haired rider had waved at them as she passed by, burning ahead to lead the way home.
Once there, Carver had healed Dev’s physical ailments, then, with the spell Mercy had obviously retrieved from Lana’s body, disappeared into Matt’s bedroom with him. That had been several hours ago.
Beside him, Erin stirred and looked over her shoulder.
Dev didn’t have to look to know what she’d see. It was same thing she’d seen every other time she’d looked.
A closed bedroom door, only silence from beyond it. A tiny vampire curled up against the door, her ear pressed to the wood, expressionless as she strained to hear and feel what was happening in there.
“Any idea…?” she asked, also for the umpteenth time, her tone weighted by weary concern.
Dev moved enough to answer, “No,” has he had every other time.
She sighed and slumped back. After a moment, with an irritated scowl, she got up and went to the far end of the couch.
Fiona had given in to overwhelming emotional exhaustion and was curled up in a tight, trembling ball, sleeping fitfully. Erin had tucked a blanket around the girl, leaving only a fan of bright red hair visible. Laying a hand on the girl’s covered shoulder, Erin seemed to reassure herself Fiona was all right, then she moved on to her next patient.
“Mercy,” Erin said softly. “It’s nearly dawn.”
The vampire was about as responsive as the rest of them.
“Come on. You need to get to your room.”
“No.” The response was quiet and solemn, a complete contrast to every other mood she’d shown so far. “He needs me.”
“Yes,” Erin agreed. “He needs you to be there for him when he’s better, so you should get to bed now. Sleep and rest so you can take care of him when you wake up.”
There was an expectant silence, then, “I’m not a child.”
The tone of Mercy’s voice was almost enough to coax Dev into looking. Almost, but not quite.
“I know you’re not,” Erin said, her own patience clearly straining.
“Then don’t treat me like one. Matt does it all the time and I don’t like it.”
Dev’s mouth twitched. A vampire less than a hundred years old expressing a personal feeling? No wonder Aurum was intrigued.
Behind him, Erin said in a carefully neutral voice, “Then perhaps stop acting like one. You know you’ll be no good to Matt if you get caught outside your room when the sun comes up. Take some responsibility and do what’s right.”
Now that did make Dev turn around. Mouthing off to a vampire was one of the swiftest suicide methods Dev knew of. The lingering ache in his chest spiked, but didn’t stop him. At the door to the bedroom, Mercy was on her feet, staring at Erin, who stared right back. Dev couldn’t see the vampire’s expression but Erin’s was grim and determined, not one ounce of fear showing.
That, he realised, was why she had the job she did.
“Fine,” Mercy snapped, fangs clicking. “I’ll got to my room. If anything happens before I go to sleep, I’ll know it and you won’t stop me from going to him then.”
Expression not changing, Erin stepped out of Mercy’s way. “I wouldn’t dream of trying to.”
The vampire swept passed her, nose up, hair tossed over her shoulder, but at the door to her room, she stopped.
“Erin?”
The soft call drew Erin around. “Yes, Mercy?”
“You’ll watch him until I wake up?”
“Of course.”
Mercy disappeared into her room, closing the door softly behind her.
Only when it had been shut for a full minute did Erin let out a long, relieved breath. “One down,” she said, then turned back to Dev.
Seeing him watching her, knowing he’d witnessed the confrontation with Mercy, knowing he’d paid active attention to it, she just raised an eyebrow at him.
Dev managed barely thirty seconds of resistance, then caved.
Erin sat beside him again and he began to talk. Told her about Lana and Monty and growing up on the ranch. About his fear of sorcery and how he’d felt forced into it in the first place. He couldn’t talk about everything that happened at Friedrich’s but he didn’t have to. Erin could guess well enough and she listened with open support and empathy.
“I don’t know what I’ll do now,” he said when it was all told. “Everythin’ I’ve done ever since our parents died was for Lana. Be strong for her, make sure she got a good home, an education. Keep her from racin’ too fast into the Art. Even after she died, the first time, everythin’ was for her. Get healed from the burns so I could get revenge for what Friedrich did to her. Get her spell back. Now…” He trailed off before he could get choked up and make a sorry sight of himself.
“Now,” Erin took up for him gently, “you do something for yourself.”
Dev began to shake his head automatically, but Erin caught his chin and made him look at her.
“No, listen to me.” She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “My husband has cancer. He’s doing as well as he can be at the moment, but we both know our time together is limited. There are days, when I think about life without him, and I just can’t carry on. I don’t want to even try. But I know I will have to. I have my work, I have my friends, as weird as they may be, and I know they’ll be here for me. But you have to have something of your own to keep you here. Something that’s yours, not Lana’s. Find it, Randy. And if you need help finding it, then, that’s what friends are for, and we’re here for you.”
She hugged him for a long, dazed while, then went to reheat his food and make fresh tea.
He didn’t feel much better for letting it all out, and learning about Erin’s husband didn’t exactly help, either. But it had planted a seed. A potential that let him know he could talk about it and not collapse in on all the empty spaces inside himself. That, one day, he might feel something other than a hollowing pain.
“So,” Erin said when she handed over the warmed soup and sat again, “did you find out who bought the spell?”
Forgoing the spoon, Dev sipped directly from the bowl. The warmth between his hands felt better than the numbness. As did the soup as it washed across his tongue and down his throat.
“No,” he fessed up after swallowing. There hadn’t been time to contemplate the answer to that question, but now it had been asked, his mind began working. “There had to be someone. The Belascos’ wouldn’t have bought it themselves I’m pretty sure. It’s an obscure spell.” He grimaced. “Well, it was until it’s results were splashed across a very public landmark. But before that, the Belascos’ wouldn’t have known what it really was. Someone who did had to be behind getting it here.”
Erin, her own cup of tea in her hands, shifted uneasily. “Do you think it was Carver?”
Both of them looked over their shoulders again at the closed door.
The idea of that ole cuss wanting such a powerful spell wasn’t a particularly good one, but either way, he had it now. He’d assured them he wouldn’t need to cast the spell to decipher how it worked in order to help Matt and, even through his near catatonia, Dev had believed him. Carver hadn’t faked his disgust at Dev’s use of his sorcery. Perhaps, of all sorcerers, Carver was the sanest.
“Nah,” Dev said eventually. “He’s not the sort.”
“Then who?”
Another candidate came to mind, but Dev didn’t say the name aloud. If he was right, then there was nothing they could about it now. Nothing anyone could have done to stop it from playing out as it had.
He just shrugged and finished his soup.
Dawn came and still nothing from the bedroom.
Erin was battling back a yawn when Dev conceded to the next growing urge.
“What did Mercy do to Lana?”
The question caught Erin by surprise. She froze, mid-stretch, then slumped back, eyeing him cautiously. “Are you sure you want to know?”
It was tempting to say ‘no’, but he knew if he did, he’d regret it one day. Maybe, when he got a handle on everything that had happened, it would help to give him some sort of closure.
“Yeah, tell me.”
Erin nodded slowly, looking away. “She tied her to Tanqueray’s body and pushed them into the river. If the police get enough evidence to suspect someone going over, they probably won’t find them.”
Dev thanked her with a quick nod, then let the silence fall again.
The soup was finished and his half-drunk tea cold when Dr Carver finally emerged. He looked drawn and uncomfortable as he sank into a seat opposite them. Curious and anxious, Dev waited as patiently as he could while the doctor settled back, closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a long while.
It was, however, Erin who broke first.
“Well?” There was a dread acceptance in her voice, preparing for the worst.
Dr Carver didn’t stir except to say, “He is sleeping and when he awakes, he will be fully healed.”