Лиза Смит - The Return - Shadow Souls

“Lakshmi?” he said.

“We’ve brought a woman who needs help,” Elena said shortly. “She’s pregnant, too. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? A healer?”

“A healer of some limited ability. Come in, come in.”

The doctor was hurrying into a back room. They all followed him, Damon still carrying Ulma. Once she arrived, Elena saw that the healer was in the corner of what looked like a crowded wizard’s sanctuary, with quite a bit of voodoo and witch doctor thrown in.

Elena, Meredith, and Bonnie glanced at one another nervously, but then Elena heard water splashing and realized that the doctor was in the corner because there was a basin of water there, and the healer was washing his hands thoroughly, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and making a lot of frothy bubbles. He might call himself a “healer,” yet he did understand basic hygiene, she thought.

Damon had put Ulma onto what looked like a clean white-sheeted examining table. The doctor nodded to him. Then, tch-tch ing, he pulled out a tray of instruments and set Lakshmi about fetching cloths to clean the cuts and staunch the profuse bleeding. He also opened various drawers to pull out strong-smelling bags and stood on a ladder to pull down clumps of herbs that were strung from the ceiling. Finally he opened a small box and took a pinch of snuff, himself.

“Please hurry,” Elena said. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“And you’ve lost not a little,” the man said. “My name is Kephar Meggar — and this would be Master Drohzne’s slave, yes?” He peered at them, looking somehow as if he were wearing glasses, which he wasn’t. “And you would be slaves, too?” He stared at the single rope Elena was still wearing, and then at Bonnie and Meredith, each wearing the same.

“Yes, but—” Elena stopped. Some infiltrator she was. She’d very nearly said “But not really; it’s just to satisfy convention. She settled for saying, “But our master is very different from hers.” They were very different, she thought. Damon didn’t have a broken neck, for one thing. And for another, no matter how vicious and deadly he might be, he would never strike a woman, much less do something like this to one. He seemed to have some kind of internal block against it — except when he was possessed by Shinichi, and couldn’t control his own muscles.

“And yet Drohzne allowed you to bring this woman to a healer?” The little man looked doubtful.

“No, he wouldn’t have let us, I’m sure,” Elena said flatly. “But please — she’s bleeding and she’s going to have a baby….”

Dr. Meggar’s eyebrows went up and down. But without asking anyone to leave while he treated her, he pulled out an old-fashioned stethoscope and listened carefully to Ulma’s heart and lungs. He smelled her breath, and then gently palpated her abdomen below Elena’s bloody camisole, all with a professional air, before tipping to her lips a brown bottle, from which she drank a few sips, then sank back, her eyes fluttering closed.

“Now,” the little man said, “she’s resting comfortably. She’ll need quite a bit of stitching of course, and you could use a few stitches yourself, but that’s as your master says, I suppose.” Dr. Meggar said the word master with a definite implication of dislike. “But I can almost promise you that she won’t die. About her babe I don’t know. It may come out marked as a result of this business — striped birthmarks, perhaps — or it may be perfectly all right. But with food and rest ”—Dr. Meggar’s eyebrows went up and down again, as if the doctor would have liked to say this to Master Drohzne’s face—“she should recover.”

“Take care of Elena first, then,” Damon said.

“No, no !” Elena said, pushing the doctor away. He seemed like a nice man, but obviously around here, masters were masters — and Damon was more masterful and intimidating than most.

But not, at this moment, to Elena. She didn’t care about herself right now. She’d made a promise — the doctor’s words meant that she might be able to keep it. That was what she cared about.

Up and down, up and down. Dr. Meggar’s eyebrows looked like two caterpillars on one elastic string. One lagged a little behind the other. Clearly, the behavior he was seeing was abnormal, even liable to be punished by serious means. But Elena only noticed him peripherally, the way she was noticing Damon.

“Help her,” she said vehemently — and watched the doctor’s eyebrows shoot up as if they were aimed for the ceiling.

She’d let her aura escape. Not completely, thank God, but a blast had definitely discharged, like a flash of sheet lightning in the room.

And the doctor, who wasn’t a vampire, but just an ordinary citizen, had noticed it. Lakshmi had noticed it; even Ulma stirred on the examining table uneasily.

I’m going to have to be a whole lot more careful, Elena thought. She cast a quick look at Damon, who was about to explode, himself — she could tell. Too many emotions, too much blood in the room, and the adrenaline of killing still pulsing in his bloodstream.

How did she know all that?

Because Damon wasn’t perfectly in control, either, she realized. She was sensing things directly from his mind. Best to get him out of here quickly. “We’ll wait outside,” she said, catching his arm, to Dr. Meggar’s obvious shock. Slaves, even beautiful ones, didn’t act that way.

“Go and wait in the courtyard then,” the doctor said, carefully controlling his face and speaking to the air in between Damon and Elena. “Lakshmi, give them some bandages so they can staunch the young girl’s bleeding. Then come back; you can help me.”

“Just one question,” he added as Elena and the others were walking out of the room. “How did you know that this woman is pregnant? What sort of spell can tell you that?”

“No spell,” Elena said simply. “Any woman watching her should have known.” She saw Bonnie flash her an injured look, but Meredith remained inscrutable.

“That horrible slaver — Drogsie — or whatever — was whipping her from the front,” Elena said. “And look at those gashes.” She winced, looking over two stripes that crossed Ulma’s sternum. “In that case, any woman would be trying to protect her breasts, but this one was trying to cover her belly. That meant she was pregnant, and far along enough to be sure about it, too.”

Dr. Meggar’s eyebrows drew down and together — and then he looked up at Elena as if peering over glasses. Then he nodded slowly. “You take some bandages and stop your own bleeding,” he said — to Elena, not to Damon. Apparently, slave or not, she had won some kind of respect from him.

On the other hand, Elena seemed to have lost stature with Damon — or at least, he’d cut his mind off from hers quite deliberately, leaving her with a blank wall to stare at. In the doctor’s waiting room, he waved an imperious hand at Bonnie and Meredith.

“Wait here in this room,” he said — no, he ordered. “ Don’t leave it until the doctor comes out. Don’t let anyone in the front door — lock it now, and keep it locked. Good. Elena is coming with me into the kitchen — that’s the back door. I do not want to be disturbed by anyone unless an angry mob is threatening the house with arson, do you understand? Both of you?”

Elena could see Bonnie about to blurt out, “But Elena’s still bleeding!” and Meredith was with her eyes and brows calling council on whether or not they needed to hold an immediate velociraptor sisterhood rebellion. They all knew Plan A for this: Bonnie would throw herself into Damon’s arms, passionately weeping or passionately kissing him, whichever best fit the situation, while Elena and Meredith came at him from the sides and did — well, whatever had to be done.