Лорел Гамильтон - Rafael

I looked at Claudia and her expression softened for a second. “You must finish the kill by taking his blade.”

I wanted to say, I hadn’t meant to kill him, I hadn’t even drawn one of the blades with high silver content. How could he be dead? I moved the knee that I was driving into his back, but he never reacted to the pressure change, but until the head and heart were gone, death wasn’t a sure thing, so I kept one knee on his remaining shoulder so I’d feel if he tried to move, and then I reached down his arm for the blade he was still gripping.

Somewhere between reaching for it and getting to his hand, that unnatural stretching of reality stopped happening. Maybe it was just shock? I took the knife out of his soft, unresisting hand, and that was when I knew he was dead. I hadn’t meant to kill him, and if the blade I’d just taken from him didn’t have a high silver content, he hadn’t meant to kill me either. God.

19

THE KNIFE I’D taken off the dead man had been silver. He’d meant to kill me; good, that made me feel just a teensy bit better about what I’d just done. If there’d been more fighting to do, I could have rallied and kept going, but strangely, no one wanted to fight me now. Of course, no one wanted to hug or flirt with me now either; since I was drenched in fresh blood, I couldn’t really blame them. Going from a violent, life-and-death fight to nothing meant that all the adrenaline just washed away, which left me feeling weak, faint, nauseous, and really needing a few minutes out of sight of strangers to get my shit together.

I had cleaned my blade on the dead man’s shirt and put it back in its sheath. I didn’t have a sheath for the silver blade I’d taken off him, so it was still naked in my hand. I held it out wordlessly to Claudia.

“You’re entitled to the sheath and any other weapons or equipment that he’s carrying,” she said.

I glanced down at the body lying there in the huge pool of blood. I understood now why the throat wound hadn’t bled much; the hydraulics had lost too much fluid by the time I got to his neck. The blood was still shiny; it’s almost cheerful red when there’s enough blood in the right light. It would start to darken soon.

“Is there some place I can clean up?” I asked in that detached voice that people who don’t understand violence think means you don’t care, but that’s not it at all. It means you care too damn much, so much that your mind is trying to shut down so that you won’t feel all the emotional fallout all at once, because if you do, then you’re going to fall apart right here, right now.

“There’s an area where the fighters get ready and there’s a bathroom,” Claudia said.

“Which gives me the most privacy?”

“Bathroom,” she said.

“That,” I said.

She started guiding me away from the curtain opening that was the way into the main fighting pit. That was fine with me; I’d had enough fighting for the moment. Pierette moved up beside me and took my left hand in hers. I squeezed her hand to let her know I appreciated the gesture, but I took my hand back. If anyone was too nice to me in that moment, I was going to lose my shit, and I couldn’t afford that in front of all the wererats here.

They looked at us as we passed, some not wanting to make eye contact, but others stared, and some even nodded. I didn’t know if I was supposed to nod back or ignore them, so I pretended I didn’t see and did nothing but follow Claudia’s tall figure. She was walking ahead of me like a good bodyguard, clearing the crowd, but we moved in an oval of emptiness; people were staying away from us, from me. They weren’t all horrified, but they were all being careful of the crazy woman who had just torn a man’s arm off.

The numbness was starting to wear off, the nausea was getting worse, and I was having to concentrate on not letting my hands shake. The cut on my leg was stinging. I didn’t have a limp, but it hurt. “Is there a doctor on site?” I asked.

Claudia looked back at me. “Leg hurting?”

“Starting to,” I said.

She stopped and turned to me. “There are doctors in the fighters’ area.”

I sighed and fought a serious urge to rest the top of my head against her as if I were a tired five-year-old, but I fought it off. I’d just torn a man’s arm off; surely I could not break down for a few minutes longer.

“Sure.”

She looked at me for a second, as if she knew I wasn’t sure at all, but she didn’t question it, just turned around and started leading us back toward the curtained area and the fighting. I should have known better than to try to leave the fighting early; that never really worked out for me. Onward, motherfuckers, onward.

20

CLAUDIA HELD THE curtain to a narrow hallway, but it was like a wall at a sports stadium. It curved around to either side, and I could hear the movement of a lot of people just out of sight. The noise was murmurous like an ocean made up of the movement and sounds that people make even when they think they’re not making any noise at all. She led us to the left, and we passed more curtained doorways leading into the stadium, or I guess the fighting pit.

We came to the first door, but it didn’t lead toward the sound of the crowd, it was on the wall opposite all the curtained entrances. There was also a tall, muscular guard standing by the closed door. He looked impressively big until Claudia got close enough and then you realized he was at least six inches shorter than her. Hard to be the biggest dog in the room when you’re not.

“Claudia,” he said, giving that little nod I’d seen people give me in the crowd after the fight. Among the rodere it seemed to mean more than just an acknowledgment of I see you .

Claudia didn’t nod back, which was my first clue that maybe it was like a salute in the military. You had to salute officers, but it was up the higher rank if they saluted back. She just said, “Franco,” but that was all. Apparently, she didn’t think he rated a return salute.

He opened the door for her, but when I tried to follow her in, he put an arm in my way. I stared at the arm and thought about my options. “Franco, why is your arm blocking my way?” My voice sounded normal, almost pleasant. I recognized the tone; it meant I was ready for a fight, but I was going to try to talk my way out of it first. Conservation of energy and all that.

Pierette said from behind me, “Shall I move him for you?”

“You should not be in here at all, cat,” Franco said.

Claudia was on the other side of his arm now. “Franco, she needs a doctor.”

“Anyone who lets themselves get that cut up just coming through the rats outside the pit doesn’t get to use our doctors tonight. Those are the rules, Claudia, you know that.”

“It’s not her blood,” Claudia said, stepping out of the doorway, so that I had to back up and Franco had to move his arm. Pierette stayed a little behind and to one side of me. I stepped back far enough to give myself room in case I actually had to fight my way through Franco to get medical care. Pierette moved wide and to the side of me so we could flank him if it was allowed. I admired the wererats’ having so much culture and tradition, but I was getting tired of being on the wrong side of it all.

I was hoping a dramatic gesture could cut through the bullshit, so I pulled the front of my T-shirt away from my body. It clung to my skin, soaked, and I fought the urge to start screaming Get it off me , because up to that point I’d been ignoring the sensation of so much blood in my clothes that it was like I’d been dumped in a pool fully clothed. I knew logically that I had to have been this messy before; I mean I was a vampire executioner and had spent years beheading chickens or slitting the throats of bigger livestock to raise zombies. I had to have had this much blood on me at some point, right? But if I had ever been more blood-soaked than I was right that second, I couldn’t remember it.