Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

‘He took a blow meant for me,’ Oliver said. ‘Stupid. I could likely have avoided it if he’d given me the chance.’

That made Eve spin around and level him with a white-hot glare. ‘Likely? Likely? You asshole, he saved your life !’

Normally, having a human use that tone with him would have made Oliver snarl, show fangs and ‘teach her a lesson’… but he did none of that. He only looked away, and Eve glared a moment more before kneeling down at Michael’s side and taking his limp, pallid hand in hers.

‘He feels cold,’ she told Jesse. ‘Please, if you’re going to do something—’

‘I’m thinking,’ Jesse snapped. ‘Just quiet , all of you. I’ve only seen this twice before.’

‘What happened?’ Shane asked. ‘The other two times?’

She didn’t answer, which meant, Claire thought with a cold shiver, that the vampires who’d had those stakes in their hearts likely hadn’t survived.

Jesse finally said, ‘Right. There’s no safe way to disarm it. Oliver, I need you.’

He didn’t move until she turned her head, frowning at him, and then moved to Michael’s side. ‘Yes?’

‘You’re faster and stronger than I am,’ Jesse said. She didn’t say it as a compliment, just a simple statement of fact. ‘I need you to pull that stake out, straight and as fast as you can. I will put my hand over the wound in case the silver triggers; I may be able to stop it from entering his bloodstream.’

‘At the cost of your hand,’ he pointed out.

‘No other choice,’ Jesse said. ‘I’m old enough. I can survive. Daylighters haven’t killed me yet.’

Claire held her breath as Oliver nodded, reached down, and took hold of the stake. He locked his gaze with Jesse’s, and she counted down. Three, two, one .

On one , Oliver moved in a blur, faster than the human eye could catch, and Jesse’s hand slapped in place, covering the still-open wound as the wooden stake pulled free. Or at least, that was what Claire presumed happened, because she didn’t actually see it, only Jesse’s hand on Michael’s chest, and the stake moving at bullet speed to hit and shatter on the far brick wall.

It splattered liquid silver all over the wall.

Jesse didn’t move, though she made a sound – a small one, in the back of her throat. And then Claire realised why.

Her hand was covered in silver. Dripping with it. And she couldn’t move until Michael’s wound healed, or he’d be poisoned, and at his young age, likely die quickly.

Her hand was burning. Sizzling. Claire clapped her hand over her mouth to hold in the nausea as she saw skin erode and tendons working beneath, and still Jesse sat very still, unmoving, pale as a marble statue.

‘I think it’s closed,’ Jesse finally whispered, and just … collapsed. Oliver moved, but – surprisingly, Claire thought – Myrnin was already there, grabbing her as she fell backward and easing her to the colourful area rug beneath.

Eve threw herself forward and frantically checked Michael’s pale chest for any sign of damage. ‘He’s okay,’ she said. ‘Michael? Michael !’

He opened his blue eyes, blinked, and said, ‘Eve?’ His voice was shockingly faint, but he was alive.

Myrnin fumbled in the pockets of his oversized coat – there were a lot of pockets, some flapping loose – and brought out a small stoppered vial of powder. He supported Jesse’s head and shoulders on his knees as he pulled the cork with his teeth and emptied the powder over her burning hand.

She cried out and arched up into the air, and he held on to her as she writhed and fought. ‘Easy, dear lady, easy, it will stop, the pain will stop, it will halt the silver and heal your wound, though the scars may take some time – easy, Lady Grey, be easy …’

Lady Grey? He knew Jesse – well, of course, he would, wouldn’t he? Because she’d been sent by Amelie from Morganville in the first place. Still. Claire blinked, because she’d never seen Myrnin act quite so … gentle. Or so formal. And Jesse let out a long, trembling breath and smiled up at him. Whatever he’d given her had worked. The damage was still pretty serious, but from the smile, and the way its wattage increased second by second, the pain was subsiding. Myrnin put his hand on her cheek in a small, comforting caress – something Claire couldn’t remember him doing before. Not quite that way.

‘Well,’ Jesse said, with a lilt in her voice that hadn’t been there before. ‘It’s a rare sweet day that brings you out of your cave, little spider.’

‘And a rarer one that sees you brought low, Lady Grey. A brave act. Very brave.’

‘Foolish, if the boy doesn’t make it,’ she said. ‘Oh, bother it, leave my hand alone. The silver’s still burning, but it’ll pass. I’m too old for it to do much more damage.’

‘You don’t look a day over a thousand,’ Myrnin said. My God, Claire thought. Was he actually flirting? Well, if he was, she couldn’t really blame him. Jesse was … kind of a stunner.

Michael was trying to sit up on the sofa, something Shane and Eve were trying to prevent; Claire joined them, and when it became clear that ‘no’ was not a viable option, she helped prop him upright. ‘Hey,’ she said to him, ‘weren’t you supposed to stop trouble, and not be so much in the middle of it?’

‘Best laid plans,’ Michael said, and coughed. It had an alarmingly wet sound. Eve grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the coffee table, and when he stopped coughing and took them away from his mouth, they were soaked in fresh, red blood. But he seemed to be feeling better. ‘I think that might have been about as close as I could have come to dead.’

‘Just about,’ Shane agreed. ‘You ever heard of someone putting a silver injector inside a stake before?’

‘Never,’ Michael said, ‘but it seems like a damn great idea, except when it’s in my chest.’

‘Yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking.’ Shane squeezed his shoulder and crouched down to eye level. ‘You good, bro?’

‘I’m good. And it’s good to see you’ve kept up the tradition of getting the holy shit beat out of you, even when you’re in a nice, civilised place.’

‘It was not my fault.’

Michael just shook his head. He still looked very pale, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He was holding Eve’s hand, and he tugged on it, bringing her down to whisper in her ear. She nodded and turned to Pete – who was still standing exactly where he’d been, looking utterly overtaken by what had crashed in on them. As well he might, Claire thought. He’d been worried about sexed-up sheets, and suddenly there were wounded vampires and a big splash of silver dripping down his brick wall. Even for someone who’d known Jesse, this sudden onslaught of the undead might be a little tough to handle.

‘Excuse me,’ Eve said to him. ‘Do you have any, ah, plasma? In bags?’

Pete gave her a blank look, and finally just turned around and walked to the armchair. He sat down, put his head in his hands and checked out of the current reality.

‘Guess that’s a no,’ Eve said. ‘All right. Sorry, you guys, but he needs to feed, and I’m going to volunteer a vein. So if you’re squeamish, turn around.’

Claire did, not so much because she was faint at the sight of blood, but because it seemed uncomfortably intimate to her. Shane turned, too, and took a look around the room. Oliver was examining the remains of the wooden stake, though he was being very careful not to touch any of the remaining silver leaking out of it. Myrnin and Jesse seemed to be very cosy. ‘Well,’ Shane said, ‘at least we’re not alone on the run any more. Apparently, the cops may be the least of our worries right now.’ He put his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and she willingly went. ‘You all right?’