“None taken.” She leaned in. “You wouldn’t believe what patients have said to me over the years.”
“Just don’t tell your hellren. I like my arms and legs right where they are.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” She smiled at him. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing.” He glared at Syphon. “I swear—no, wait. I am suffering from cousin-itis. Can you remove that noisy, malignant growth for me? I’ve been finding it really irritating lately—”
“He missed a meeting of the Brotherhood.” Syphon stared across at the doc. “He never does that.”
“I slept in!”
Syphon rolled his eyes. “Until midnight? And actually, you missed two meetings, haven’t you—”
“Okay, okay.” Doc Jane made cool-it-boys motions with her hands. “How about I do a quick exam? If the vitals are good and there’s no fever or anything, we’ll call this case closed.”
“Great.” Balz glared at his cousin as he took off his t-shirt. “And listen, Doc, after you’re done certifying all my perfectly-fine, I’ll drop and do three hundred for this asshole, just so he’s sure I’m tight.”
Syphon nodded. “I’ll count ’em so you don’t have to.”
Doc Jane grabbed her stethoscope from her dreaded black bag. “This won’t take long—”
“Unless you find something,” Syphon cut in.
Balz wadded up his shirt and pegged the bastard in the head with it. “You’re like GE, you bring good things to life. When you shut up.”
“He was electrocuted, you know.” Syphon peeled the [adult swim] logo off his face. “I mean, he was dead—”
“She treated me! And that was months ago—”
“Boys. Please.”
As Syphon tossed the t-shirt away and Balz tried to look like he wasn’t sulking, Doc Jane plugged the stethoscope into her ears and went in with the disk.
“Take a deep breath for me,” she said. “Good. And another?”
She moved the receiver around his pecs. Then she put it in the center. “Just breathe normally now.”
After a moment, Doc Jane straightened from him. “Sounds good—I’m just going to listen around back, too.”
Balz leaned forward so she could do whatever she needed to—and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at Syphon. Because that was totally immature.
So he flipped the fucker off with both middle fingers—
Doc Jane did a double take and yanked the plugs out of her ears. “How did this happen?”
As Syphon sat forward sharply, like he was ready to be called in to help with a code, Balz glanced over. “How’d what happen?”
“These scratches. They’re all over your back, like someone gripped you while you were—oh.”
As the doc flushed, a sense of foreboding had Balz tossing the covers aside and stalking into his bathroom. There was no reason to flip more lights on. That overhead fixture out in the bedroom cast plenty of—
What. The. Fuck.
As he flashed his spine at the mirror over the sinks, he got a load of the long stripes that had been torn into his skin on both sides of his shoulders, his rib cage . . . and right above his ass.
Well, at least he knew why Doc Jane, the unflappable physician, had given him an “oh.” There was only one reason why marks like these would be on a male—and it had nothing to do with him having a medical problem.
Quite the opposite.
When he came out of the bathroom, Doc Jane was closing up her black bag and getting to her feet. “I think we’re okay here, aren’t we.”
Balz crossed his arms over his chest. “Like I said, I’m fine. I was just tired.”
He looked pointedly at Syphon.
“But call me if you need me, okay?” Doc Jane opened the door into the hall. “Promise?”
“I promise.” Balz smiled at her. “And thank you. I’m sorry that Mr. Panic Button over here jumped the gun.”
“No worries.” Doc Jane waved at them both. “I’m always here, and I’d rather you hit me up for nothing than not call me at all.”
As the door closed, Balz stared across at his cousin. “Now do you understand why I might need a little lie-in?”
Syphon put both palms up like someone had a loaded gun between his shoulder blades. “Clearly, I was wrong. I apologize.”
“You’re forgiven.”
“Soooooooooooooooo, tell me who the female is. And can you share?”
No, he was never sharing his brunette. With anybody. Ever.
“She’s not one of us.” He gave a pshaw with his dagger hand. “It was just the wife of this guy I visited last night. She was all alone when she shouldn’t have been, and I took care of her.”
“A pity fuck? Not your style.”
“Oh, it was no chore, trust me.” Balz shrugged. “She just needed somebody to make her feel beautiful again.”
“And you very obviously obliged. Several times. I’m jealous.” Syphon clapped his thighs and stood up. “Which clearly is why a guy would need some extra zzZZzz’s and miss a couple—”
“So what was the Brotherhood meeting about?” Balz asked.
As the question was answered, his ears went on the fritz, and it was a relief for so many reasons when his cousin left.
The second he was alone again, he went back into the bathroom. Staring at himself in the mirror, he thought about the time he’d spent with the Mrs. at the Commodore. He’d treated her like the queen she was, worshipping her with his hands, his mouth, his tongue. A lot of the sex hadn’t registered with any specificity, but he knew one thing for damn sure.
Twisting his back to the mirror again, he stared at the scratches.
The Mrs. hadn’t had long nails.
But dreams didn’t leave love marks . . .
Right?
• • •
As her garage door bumped to a close, Mae turned to Sahvage, aware that her legs were shaking and she couldn’t seem to breathe right. And when his eyes swung over to her, she moved before she had a conscious thought.
She ran across and threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad you’re here—”
“Thank God you didn’t invite her in,” he said roughly as he held her tight. “You did the right thing. She can’t get at you now because I’ve salted the entrances.”
The fact that he shuddered was a shock—but then his broad palm cradled the back of her head, and all she could think of was the warmth and protection he offered.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she whispered, “Who was that?”
“I don’t know.”
Mae pulled back. “Was she even . . . she wasn’t a vampire. And I don’t think she’s human, is she?”
“She’s not of this world. That’s all I know.”
Okay, was it crazy to feel relief that that . . . thing . . . wasn’t a girlfriend of his?
As Mae struggled with some seriously stupid emotions, given the situation, Sahvage’s jaw went hard. “And before you get on me for following you, I just couldn’t leave you unprotected. The only reason I came here was to seal the house. That’s it. I swear.”
Mae broke away and ended up wandering over to the trash bin. But there was no way in hell she was taking it out now.
“I should never have done that summoning spell.” She looked back at him. “It was a huge mistake. But I didn’t know what else to do. I still don’t.”
Sahvage shook his head. “Let Tallah go. That’s what you have to do. Love her while you have her . . . and then release her to travel unto the Fade when it’s her time.”
“I can’t do that.” She put her face in her hands. “You don’t understand. I’ll be . . . I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Death is not something you control unless you’re a killer. Trust me. And loss . . . Mae, loss is something that happens to all of us. You can’t run from it, you can’t duck it . . . and you sure as hell can’t stop it.”
Mae lowered her palms. “You don’t understand.”
“I do. I promise you, I do.”
His eyes were grave. And more than that, they were full of pain.
“Who did you lose?” she whispered.
When he didn’t immediately answer, she figured he wasn’t going to. But then his voice, rough and low, crossed the space between them.
“Myself. And say what you will about mourning other people, it’s nothing compared to grieving the loss of your own damned self.”
God, she knew all about that. She’d been missing herself as well . . . the old Mae, who came home to a family at dawn, who worried about things like what she was going to have for First Meal and whether she was going to get a promotion at work, who actually slept during the day.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “What happened?”
“It’s not important. All that matters right now is that you stop with this Book thing. Nothing good is coming out of it already.”
Turning to the door into the back hall, she pictured Rhoger. In that tub. With the ice.
“No, I need the Book.” Her voice drifted out into the silence. “The Book is the answer.”
And yet even as she said the words, she was losing her conviction. In fact, the only thing keeping her locked into the path she’d been on for the last two weeks . . . was that she had no other solutions.
Except for the one she couldn’t stomach.
“I’ll find the Book, and everything will be fine. I’ll make it okay.”
When Sahvage didn’t comment, she glanced over her shoulder. He looked exhausted, positively overwhelmed with fatigue.
Mae rushed back over to him. “And as for that woman, or whatever she was—she had a shadow around her, like . . . a halo of darkness. Just like what that shadow entity was made out of. So if we can shoot that, we can shoot her.”
Oh, God, what was she saying?
Sahvage seemed to need a moment to regroup. Then he rubbed his short hair on the top of his head. “Do you have a gun that you know how to use?”
“No, but I can get one.” Mae started talking faster and faster. “And I need to go to Tallah’s right now and put salt across her doorways—”
“I sealed the cottage, too. Before I left. She’s safe.”
“Thank God.” Mae grew dizzy with relief. “But how did you know what to do? With the salt?”
“I wasn’t sure whether it would work. Back in the Old Country, my cousin used to do it to our house, to keep evil out. I thought she was nuts, but I don’t know . . . after that shadow showed up? It seemed like a good goddamn idea.” He stared at the closed garage doors. “I don’t fucking know. My head’s a fucking mess—”
“Thank you for coming back.”
Sahvage’s eyes returned to her own—and the surprise on his face suggested gratitude was the last thing he’d ever expected to come out of her mouth.
“I am so grateful.” She thought of Rhoger. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come to help me.”
“It’s okay. It’s nothing—”
“Help me find the Book.”
Sahvage opened his mouth. Shut it.
“Please,” she said. “I know I haven’t been easy to get along with, and I apologize. I’ll do better with that, I promise. But the reality is . . . I do need your help. You’re right. I was wrong.”
When he looked away, and then stayed silent, she shook her head. “You came to that cottage tonight to help me, and now you won’t? After you followed me here, too?”