by R. J. Blain
Coughing and spluttering, I curled on the dock, shudders coursing through me. Fingers brushed against my throat, so hot on my chilled skin I cried out.
“Get him dry and warm. I’ll take care of Alexa,” Sullivan ordered over my head, glaring at someone—or something—behind me. “Yes, I know, wear gloves or minimize contact. Don’t you even glare at me. I’ll throw you right back into the river and dunk you a few times. I’ll have Netzach sit on you. I’ll skin you and stitch you back together again. You’re a pain in my fucking ass.”
“You’re still a virgin,” I mumbled. “I’m not. Netzach will eat you first.”
The vampire turned his glare on me and continued to rant and rave, his threats growing more colorful with each passing moment, although he didn’t direct a single one at me. I fought to catch my breath, wondering who had stoked Sullivan’s wrath.
Whoever he was, he remained silent. My teeth chattered so much I had to clench them together to keep my head from rattling off my shoulders. While Sullivan continued his monologue, he peeled me out of my jacket, tossing it to the side.
The octopus skittered over me, refusing to be dislodged, although it stayed out of the way so Sullivan could strip me out of my soaked clothes. Nudity in the depths of winter was tantamount to suicide, but before the wind could freeze the water on my skin, the vampire wrapped me in a blanket, which was so hot I hissed as it woke every nerve in my body.
All of them informed me something was wrong, and a convulsion rippled through me.
“Talk, Alexa,” Sullivan demanded. “You don’t get to take a nap until you’re home and your body temperature is somewhere above the freezing point. Sleeping beauty over there is a bit tougher than you are. You keep talking to me, you hear?”
Who was sleeping beauty? I wanted to roll over and find out, but the blanket restrained me, and my body refused to obey my commands, although my mouth seemed to work just fine. I started with a few choice curses before stammering, “An eternity of servitude is a stupid price. Netzach’s idea was better. Nasal disembowelment with ravens. Outclassed by a unicorn.”
“Heard that, did you?”
“I got assaulted by an octopus. Three of them. Two took my guns. One gave the nice one back. Samael’s funny. Could like him. He really likes tentacles.” Half of what I said didn’t make much sense to me, but then again, stranger things had already happened. What were a few kleptomaniac cephalopods?
Sullivan, wearing a pair of leather gloves, lifted my arm, which was encircled by eight wiggling tentacles. The octopus changed colors to match my skin. “You sound drunk, Alexa. You weren’t slurring nearly this much after that shot of whiskey at my place. Did you find a liquor stash on board or something?”
I blinked. Had I been slurring? I couldn’t tell. The sluggishness in my arms and legs remained, and it reminded me of the slow drag of sedatives. I sifted through my memories from the moment I had fired the lethal little bullet with the yellow and black marks to when Sullivan had pulled me out of the river.
I only remembered a few bits and pieces after the river breeched the ship, but the sharp stab in my leg stood out among them. I wiggled my toes, wincing at the heat radiating from my calf. “Something stabbed me. In the water. Leg.” It took me a shameful amount of time to remember my right from my left. “Left one.”
Sullivan shifted the blanket cocooning me, exposing my left leg to the cold air. “Shit. Something stung you?”
“So many tentacles,” I whimpered.
“Fuck, that’s right. Samael. The smug, slimy bastard probably did it so you wouldn’t drown yourself or someone else while panicking. You didn’t wish for anything, did you?”
“Me? No. Samael goaded Smith into a few, though.”
“What were the terms?”
Annoyance at what Kenneth Smith had tried to do—and had done—boiled my blood. “That fucker.”
If I could have killed him a hundred more times, I doubted I’d be satisfied with his demise.
“Alexa. What was Samael’s price for telling him what Smith wanted to know?”
“Didn’t find that out when you were busy offering him an eternity of service to you so he could have me?” I snapped, fighting against my urge to reach out and slap the vampire for even considering helping my former boss.
“It would have been a pain-filled eternity, nor would he have lasted very long. I was going to be nice and give him to you as a present, too. Take that as a lesson learned, Miss Daegberht. Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it in unexpected ways. You only would have had to tolerate his presence for a few minutes. When I was finished, you would have thanked me. You should thank me with your body anyway, just so Netzach won’t want to eat me.”
There was something satisfying about hissing at Sullivan like a cat and throwing the octopus in his face. It adhered to him, beating him with its appendages before making its escape and returning to my wrist.
“Cool. Octopus boomerang.”
The vampire snorted, but then his stern visage cracked, and he grinned at the octopus. “You better go back into the water before you die, little one.”
The octopus clung tighter to me and sprayed ink in Sullivan’s face. The vampire blinked, his eyes bright white in a field of black. A giggle bubbled out of me. “I think that means no.”
Maybe Sullivan was a blood-sucking vampire, but he seemed to have a fondness for the octopus. Despite being covered in ink, he grinned. “You are not a land creature. You’ll dry out and die. Back into the water!”
Another cascade of ink splashed over Sullivan, striking his chest and neck.
“Will you stop that?”
I laughed until I couldn’t any more. When I wheezed and fought to catch my breath, everything blurred around me. I was faintly aware of Sullivan slapping my cheeks in his effort to wake me up.
In the end, he resorted to a hard yank on my broken nose, and the pain was so intense I screamed, jerking in reaction. Shudders ran through me, and far gentler fingers pressed a stiff bandage to my nose and cheeks.
The sounds of the shore faded away, and I blinked and tried to orient myself. The fringe so close to the harbor was never so still and quiet. It was dark and the air was cool but comfortable, and after several confused moments, I realized I wasn’t outdoors.
I tried to sit up, but a hand—Sullivan’s—pressed against my chest and forced me down. My back pressed into the soft embrace of a cushion, and as my eyes focused and obeyed my bidding, I recognized the sleek elegance of home.
“Sorry, Alexa. It was broken. If I hadn’t set it, you’d have a crooked nose, and Rob won’t like it if you have a crooked nose.” Sullivan grinned at me, perching on the couch arm near my head. His face was still stained black from octopus ink. “You scared the liver out of us when we couldn’t wake you up after you fainted. Humans. You’re so delicate.”
It took several moments for Sullivan’s words to penetrate the cotton fluff filling my head. “Wait, what? Rob? What about Rob? What do you mean by he won’t like it?”
How could Rob care about my broken nose? My anger at my former boss’s treachery cleared my head, and I struggled to sit up. I made it upright, twisting around to face Sullivan.
He slapped his forehead. “Jesus, woman. I swear you’re the densest thing on two feet sometimes. I promise you didn’t swim to shore on your own. Who else would jump into freezing cold water to save your skinny ass? Colby found Rob on board and let him loose, and they went on a bit of a rampage. His kidnappers drugged him to keep him controlled. He’s sleeping it off in your bedroom while his loyal gaggle of minions fret over him. Once you’re ready to go to bed, I’ll kick them out so you can curl up with him and get some sleep.”
My mouth opened, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I blinked, then my eyes widened. “Colby? Where’s Colby? Can macaroni and cheese swim? Oh, god, Sullivan, I blew up the boat while he was on it. How can macaroni even swim?”
“Colby is currently occupied throwing up ship bits all over th
e guest bedroom. Analise is cleaning up after him, but the floor is never going to be the same. Sorry.”
“Not food,” the sentient macaroni and cheese wailed from its room.
I sighed my relief, and my attention snapped back to Rob. “Rob’s really…?”
Sullivan pointed in the direction of the bedroom I shared with Rob. “He’ll be fine, Alexa. You, once again, are the worst off. I can’t believe you broke your nose on Netzach’s neck. You left buckets of blood on his coat. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood out of unicorn fur? Why can’t you leave the heavy lifting to us dae? We can take a beating far better than you can.”
“Shut up. I killed Kenneth, didn’t I?”
Sullivan arched a brow at me before grinning. “Of course you did. You do know a regular bullet would have sufficed, right?”
“An octopus stole my gun.”
“I’m not going to ask. I’m going to get up, I’m going to go make you some soup, and I’m going to pretend I never heard anything about a gun-thieving octopus.”
“Oh. The octopus. Did you get it back in the water?”
“You’re seriously worried about that octopus?”
Damned straight I was worried about the octopus. “It grew on me.”
“It’s in the sink, making itself at home and getting in the way. It refused to leave you until I found a bucket and filled it with river water and brought it along for the ride. Damned fucking thing kept squirting ink at me whenever I tried to dump it back into the river where it belonged. Stop collecting weird pets. It’s creepy.”
“Says the vampire who cohorts with a dragon and a unicorn.”
“By comparison, that’s normal. Now, be quiet, wrap up in your blanket, and keep warm while I make you something to eat.” Sullivan scowled at me, shook his head, and headed into the kitchen. Moments later, I heard a splash and the vampire cursing. “Will you stop that, you piece of shit octopus? What in hell did I do to you? I even put your slimy ass in a bucket and brought you here. Keep this shit up, and I swear I’ll eat you. I’ll cut you into little wiggling bits and eat you.”
Instead of doing what I was told, I wrapped up in the blanket, got to my feet, and headed for the bedroom to confirm with my own eyes Rob was actually there. Marlene was seated on one of the kitchen stools beside the bed and looked up from a clipboard and a large stack of papers as I hovered in the doorway.
She smiled, pressed a finger to her lips, and nodded in the direction of the Rob-sized lump hidden under the blankets. “Let him sleep. He’ll be as good as new in the morning, just you wait and see,” she whispered.
I nodded and retreated back to the couch, shaking from more than the lingering cold of my dunking in the winter-chilled water.
25
“You like the octopus more than you like me.”
If I had my way, I’d never go anywhere near the water ever again. While Marlene, Analise, and Sullivan all reassured me stress was the reason I suffered from a cold, I was convinced the frigid river was to blame.
Every time a cough rattled in my chest and burst out of me, I glared at my dae keepers, who maintained a safe distance and grinned at my misery and surly expression. They behaved as if it was their sacred duty to keep Rob from catching my germs while he recovered from his captivity.
I could respect that, but all I had was a cold. I could understand if I’d gotten the same blotchy red marks indicating the more severe illness tearing through the dae.
The time in the river hadn’t done Rob any harm if the others were to be believed. However, the drugs used to keep him docile had done a number on him. I understood the consequences of drugs well enough.
Some things, including the crash and burn of narcotics, were easier to deal with alone, especially for a first timer. The last thing Rob needed was the risk of catching my cold added to his problems. While I wanted to invade our bedroom and make sure he was okay with my own eyes and hands, I left him in the care of the other dae.
Minangi, Muriel, and her sister visited in the mornings and evenings, plying me with offerings of tea and soup. I wondered about Muriel’s sister, who was quick to play her erhu, but hesitant to offer her name, if she had one.
Minangi only called her his daughter, and Muriel said nothing at all. I didn’t ask.
If she wanted me to know her name, she’d tell me.
From time to time, I heard Rob’s voice in the other room, which convinced me he was real and the other dae weren’t playing some cruel trick on me. I fidgeted and paced when I wasn’t sniffling, sneezing, and coughing.
Even Colby avoided me, which only served to compound my misery. It took me almost two days to realize why the dae refused to get within ten feet of me once I had started showing symptoms of a cold.
I wasn’t a dae, and I was ill. I had no idea if my human illness could spread to them, and apparently they didn’t know, either. I huffed, pleased I had finally figured something out. I thought my cold had simply provided a good reason to catch up on my rest. The instant the police had learned I was ill, they weren’t keen to have me around, and I’d been banned from the college until I had a clean bill of health.
It was easier to let the dae keep their distance and avoid me while I suffered in silence, rather than try to talk with a sore throat.
Only the octopus wasn’t afraid of me. My laptop and some searches through informational databases informed me my new friend was a male, and he wouldn’t grow to be much larger.
The species was known for its uncanny ability to shift its colors, a sense of curiosity fringing on the demonic, and an intelligence quota equal to some humans—and dae—I knew, including most of the ones crammed into my home.
My pet octopus wasn’t afraid of anyone, including me. He spent his time splashing in the kitchen sink and demanding offerings by grabbing a ladle and banging it against the faucet until someone, usually me, fed him fresh fish. I considered it a blessing he didn’t demand his fish alive; after squirting so much ink around the kitchen in his displays of dislike for Sullivan, stocking live fish for Oliver would have likely resulted in a dinner consisting entirely of calamari.
Cleaning up the ink stains kept me busy when I wasn’t sleeping or pacing around the living room like a caged animal.
Four days of general isolation later, the dae decided my cold wasn’t going to kill them. Sullivan made his appearance, and as though he hadn’t been dodging my presence, he sat at my feet on the couch. “You don’t look quite so much like death warmed over now.”
“Fuck you.” Sometimes it was a lot easier to open a conversation with a large dose of blunt honesty. “Asshole.”
He snorted. “Testy this morning, aren’t you? You don’t sound too bad. Feeling better?”
“Coward.”
“Don’t be like this. We all took turns keeping you company, and even Minangi and his brood visited you, usually several times a day. See? We care about you. That little daughter of his plays pretty music, doesn’t she?”
“It was very nice listening to her while she kept my octopus company in the kitchen. His name is Oliver, by the way. You’d have known that several days ago if you came within talking distance, since I was incapable of communicating above a hoarse whisper.”
“Seriously? It’s still in the sink? You haven’t eaten the damned thing yet?”
Oliver clanged his ladle against the faucet.
“If you get sprayed with ink again, you’re cleaning it up. I just finished removing the black spots from you tormenting him. Get my octopus a proper house. Oliver is a he, thank you very much.”
“You like the octopus more than you like me.”
“Unlike you, Oliver isn’t a coward, you coward. He’s also house broken.”
At the rate Oliver was banging his ladle against the faucet, he’d break the house, but I wasn’t going to argue the semantics with Sullivan.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how Rob is doing?”
I narrowed my eyes, huffed, and turned my back to the va
mpire. “No. He’s fine, because if he weren’t fine, you would have told me. If you have failed to tell me, I will be feeding you piece by piece to Oliver, who I do like far better than you at this point. I behaved, sleeping on the couch so Rob wouldn’t catch my cold. None of you seemed all that concerned. I could have had pneumonia for all you knew, since you wouldn’t get close enough to actually find out.”
“Ouch. No need to be vindictive.”
“Oliver isn’t afraid of me and my germs.”
“While you were sick, you weren’t that sick. Despite appearances, we were actually watching to make certain you didn’t have pneumonia. Anyway, Rob would have told us if you were in any serious trouble.”
“Was it truly necessary to hug the wall when you were coming and going? A bit much, don’t you think? I thought dae could take a beating better than plain, ordinary, powerless, unawakened little humans like me.”
“You’re not going to let us live this down, are you?”
“Not a chance in hell, bat boy.”
“It wasn’t that bad, Alexa. We don’t know how your human illnesses will affect us.”
“As if something like a little cold can kill you when a gun can’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest, lifted my chin, and huffed. “Surely someone has had a cold in the city since the Dawn of Dae. I can’t possibly be the only unawakened in Baltimore.”
Well, the illness Kelsie had suffered through was somewhat like a cold, but it wasn’t the same.
My cold was an ant compared to her illness, which I viewed more like a bear thirsting for fresh blood.
“You’re not the only unawakened in the area,” Sullivan conceded with a sigh.
“It’s cold season. Deal with it. No wonder you’re still a virgin. Where’s Netzach, anyway? I bet I could talk him into eating you. Then you won’t have to worry about catching a cold.”
“I’ll bribe you with a bottle of my special whiskey if you promise you won’t feed me to Netzach.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Netzach and Sandalphon are running interference and making certain no one realizes we’re the reason Kenneth Smith has been missing for almost a week.”