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Eli watched the world zip by, more than a little aware of how foolish it was not to take control of it. Everything could be reined in with enough force. Even his life.
A soft hand palming his own on the seat tore his focus away from the city and the night. He instead focused on Slade. For the past hour, since they’d entered this frigging deathtrap vampire limousine, she’d said nothing.
Manos summoned them. Why?
And why go?
If Slade was willing to go against her very nature and bleed an ailing gorilla of the last of its lifeblood in an effort to save him, maybe he could convince her to run with him now.
They were under no obligations. She was ineffective as sovereign. He’d die before admitting it, but he had to—somebody had to. She wasn’t good at it. She wasn’t forceful or swift. Now looking back, he could see her tantrums as a child for what they were, not for any real exertion of power.
Slade wasn’t a good sovereign. But she was a good friend and she’d die before leaving poor Trixie to her brother.
Eli didn’t care. Everything in him said to grab her. Grab her, open this car door, roll with her, find some runes, even if he had to hijack it from someone, and get her away from here.
And where could they go? Anywhere. They could go anywhere. Maybe to Africa. Anywhere.
When she scooted closer and took hold of his right arm with both hands, he had to look away.
She’d never allow it. She’d just keep going into danger.
Fine.
Get Trixie. Get that fucking harpy, no matter what state she was in, and get the fuck out. Fine.
He interlocked their fingers and kissed the back of her left hand. “We’ll get her,” he promised. “By all means. Of that I swear. It’s a sound plan.”
Color returned to Slade’s face as she calmed. She trusted him.
When the vehicle came to a stop nearly three hours from where they’d began, Eli looked up at the manor and gasped.
“Ma’am....”
“I see it,” Slade said. Making sudden movements in the presence of jumpy werewolves was never a good idea so they waited for the doors to open.
Sure enough, Lomos greeted them, less than pleased.
Eli wanted to punch him.
“Save it—save your petty anger,” the wolf brigade captain said, kilt securely around his waist. “Just get in there and do something about her. He’s...it’s not good.”
One gasp was all Slade let out before she overtook Eli and rushed up the stone steps. They all knew it by heart. It was their own—their original home before they were run out and sequestered in Dresden.
A woman’s harrowing cries echoed off the stone. A man’s voice came muffled with it. The man argued with someone, screaming and threatening violence.
“Get the fuck up!”
Slade broke into a run. Eli nearly left her behind, but he was in no hurry to see what Manny had done—was doing to Trixie.
“Get that thing,” Manny’s voice carried. “Get it now or it is your bloody head. Just fucking smash it.”
Slade bit back a sob. Eli listened for the harpy’s cries and was disappointed to find he’d guessed right. The cellar. She was in the fucking cellar. Where they’d kept feral werewolves like dogs.
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“That bastard.”
Eli gained speed and raced down the coiling stairs. Slade hopped the railing and fell ten feet. She landed in a crouch but regained her senses fast and raced along the corridor.
“What are you doing? I said that one.” Manny struggled to keep hold of something. “Harpy—Trix, damnit, stop it.”
Slade reached first. She careened to a halt and stepped back, hands at her mouth.
Eli feared for her enough to jump through the open cell door. He landed as a wolf, teeth bare.
Manny, sitting crouched in a corner, took one look at him and wailed, “Well, it’s about bloody time!”
The pale, naked creature in his arms, shivered, screaming like a banshee. Maybe that was what she was turning into because her hair was all gone, so thin it resembled string. But the worst...was her back, and the nubs that used to be wings.
She looked like she’d been plucked.
“Shh. Shh. Here. They have come,” Manny soothed. “They have come. Look. Your friends are here—”
“No,” she wailed. “Get them out.”
Manny looked equally on the verge. “But—”
“No!”
The high-pitched scream convinced him to shake his head at Slade. “Get out. Get out for a moment.” He leaned to his right and called, “And where is that fucking aloe?”
“Here. Here. I’m coming.” The dwarf pushed past them, a bucket in hand. “I smashed as much as I could.”
“Give it.” Manny shoved his hand into the slime and dragged it along her fingernail-scratched skin.
When Trixie shivered, weeping quietly instead, Manny slowed.
“There. That’s good, right?” His attempt at seeing her face had little success. “Should I get the front?” Another layer of aloe against her back had her leaning into him. She fell silent.
Slade watched in tears. “You prick. What have you done?”
“Shh.” Manny waved her back. “She will not stay down for long. Just an hour.” He told the dwarf. “Help me clean her before she awakens. Get the buckets and towels.” He focused on the would-be rescue and growled. “Lot of good you fuckers did.”
Feathers lined the walls. That, mixed in with the bloodied hand marks were the saddest part. Eli was less than enthusiastic when he shifted back into his human form.
He needed to in order to hold Slade up. She lost power. He grabbed her before her collapse.
“What has he done to her?” Slade trembled. “I shouldn’t have left her. I shouldn’t have left her!”
“Shh.” Eli helped her to sit then held her face in both hands. “You falling apart won’t help.”
“Break it,” Trixie whispered. “Please...please break one. Please break it. Save Trixie. Break one.”
“Okay. All right.” Manny rocked with her, his face pressed against her balding scalp. He cradled her close, though there was no tenderness in his voice. The words, from anyone else, would have been gentle. “All right. Whatever you say. Let’s calm down. Can you tell me—can you tell Manny why you want to do that? Will it help you?”
“Break it,” Trixie whispered. “Help Trixie. Please.”
Manny leaned his head back. And there he sat, a naked harpy crouched between his legs, hands dripped in slimy aloe, rocking with her. He wouldn’t focus on anyone. Even when the dwarf arrived back with two bucks which she put down, he refused to acknowledge her.
The look of woe on Manny’s shifted and settled into one of fury. He kicked the first bucket then the second, sending them both flying across the cell.
For a long while, no one knew what to do—what to say.
“Wolf,” Manny muttered at length. He failed to focus but since there was no one else here, he had to mean Eli. “Wolf,” he repeated. “Could you do me a favor...could...could you hold onto her? I do not want to deal with this.”
Eli recoiled. “What?”
Manny was too proud to repeat the request.
“Vampires,” the dwarf explained. “Acts of kindness from them, their karma’s twisted. Bad deeds pan out better than intended but good deeds inadvertently turn out badly.”
Eli looked down at Slade who watched Trixie with tears in her eyes.
“So...” Eli inquired, “he can’t....”
“He can’t offer comfort. I think that’s what he means. Even though he says it the way he says it. He thinks somehow that him holding her is making it worse. But a werewolf, anybody else with a positive rune should pacify the Fates. I’d do it but...if it don’t work out, I’m not looking to have a mad vampire hunting for my head. So...I’m sorry, I’ve refused. My rune’s neither positive nor negative. It’s just basic.”
Eli nodded. He focused on Slade and hesitated. “Ma’am, I—”
“Please. Please help her.”
Letting out a sigh, Eli stood. “Right. I’ll—”
“You do not fucking touch her when she is naked,” Manny snapped. He acted as if he hadn’t just begged for this intervention. Instead, he told the dwarf, “Get a blanket. A soft one. A real soft one. ‘Do not care which room you get it from.”
Five minutes later saw Manny standing with Trixie in his arms. Once the sheet landed on her body, he deposited her into Eli’s waiting arms. The way he tucked her into it was almost touching.
“Take her out into the sunlight,” Manny begged. “She’s not so bad in the day. Runes like hers work on sun and moon cycles. But...I trust no one else to do this.”
Eli nodded and made his way to the steps.
Behind him, Manny told the dwarf, “I will—I will clean up. Get some rest.”
The dwarf hesitated. “What if—she keeps asking to break the egg—?”
“I am not breaking her fucking egg,” Manny snapped. “You do not know her. She has got a bigger heart than Mother Nature. She would never want her egg broke. I am not breaking it.”
“But it—what if there’s a connection? What if it’ll help her?”
“So I break it?” Manny asked. “So instead of her dying, when she recovers, she will only wish she were dead?”
At the silence after that he turned said to Slade.
“You helping or not?”
“What’d you do to her?” Slade asked, her shattered tone sounded like someone else was talking. “What’d she ever do to you to deserve this?”
A bucked scraped the floor when it was turned upright.
“She was stupid enough to think I could give her anything she wanted.”
Eli took the steps two by two and used his shoulder to shove the door open.
Manny’s voice grew distant but was still audible when he said, “Only a fool would love a vampire.”