Gunmetal Magic (26 page)

“It’s a fun little snake,” Barabas said. “Small, bad-tempered, active after dark. You walk by it, it bites you, you think nothing of it. Twenty-four hours later you develop spontaneous internal bleeding. Kills more people than any other snake species in Africa. It’s also delicious and has a tangy aftertaste.”

I drank my nasty medicine and connected the dots for them: Garcia Construction, drag marks of a towed vehicle, mechanic, check with Gloria’s name on it, and Gloria attacking me when I mentioned the knife.

“So it is the knife we saw when we broke in to Anapa’s office,” Raphael said.

Barabas stuck his fingers in his ears. “Lalalala, I’m not hearing anything about any break-in.”

“Yes,” I told Raphael. “They’re all after it.”

He frowned.

I finished the last of the medicine and put the glass on the table. “I want my lollipop. I’ve earned it.”

Doolittle reached into his bag and offered me a choice: grape, watermelon, or orange. No-brainer. I took the watermelon and stuck it in my mouth. “So why does she have fangs?”

“It’s some sort of magic augmentation,” Doolittle said. “Perhaps it’s a creature we’ve never seen before.”

“Her fang span is similar to the bite wounds on Raphael’s employees.”

Doolittle nodded. “Similar, but unfortunately we can’t know for sure, because we don’t have her head.”

“Also, there were multiple bites of varying sizes on their bodies,” I said.

“Which means her friends are still at large,” Raphael finished.

“People walking around with venomous fangs,” I interrupted. “How is that even possible?”

Doolittle glanced at me with a wry smile. “How is it possible that we grow fur, fangs, and claws?”

Touché.

Doolittle checked my blood in the test tube and took a fat leather roll from his bag. “The blood coagulation is still abnormal.” He unrolled the leather kit on my desk. Odd metal instruments gleamed, each in a neat leather pocket. It looked like the kind of toolkit a medieval torturer would carry around. Doolittle’s hand paused over the scalpel.

“You’re going to cut me, aren’t you?”

Doolittle nodded. “That purple swelling on your arm is the accumulation of dead Lyc-V combined with trapped venom. We must purge it from your system. Do you remember how to push silver from your body?”

“Yes.” Not something you’d forget.

Doolittle pulled up a chair and sat next to me so our eyes were level. “I need to make a cut on your arm and insert a needle into the muscle affected by the bite. The needle is made of a silver alloy.”

It would hurt. Oh yes. It would hurt like hell.

Raphael reached over and covered my hand with his.

“We must give it a few minutes for your body to react,” Doolittle said. “Then I want you to concentrate on pushing the needle out. This will stimulate blood and lymph flow to the wound and expel the poison. If we purge the poison, your chances of survival will be significantly higher.”

The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on their ends. I was tired, so tired, and my body felt like it had been beaten with a sack of rocks. The mere thought of silver needles made me want to cringe.

“You can do it,” Raphael said. “Stop being a baby about it.”

“Screw you.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Come on, tough guy. Show me what you’ve got.”

I clenched the chair’s armrests. “Do it.”

Raphael put his hands on my right shoulder, pinning me to the chair. Barabas clamped me from the left.

Doolittle took a scalpel. His hand flashed, too quickly to see. Pain stung me, quick and sharp. Black blood gushed from the wound, and Doolittle wiped it with gauze. “This will sting.”

A white-hot needle thrust into my arm. My entire body screamed in alarm. It felt like someone had bored a hole in my muscle and poured molten metal into it.

“Hold it in,” Doolittle told me, his voice gentle. “You’re doing wonderful. Wonderful. Hold it. A little longer…”

I growled and clawed at the armrest with my left hand. Barabas held me tight.

“Did you like my message on the table?” Raphael asked.

“Loved it,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “I’ll have to repay the favor later.”

The pain grew and grew, inflaming my arm. I shuddered, my limbs shaking.

“Don’t change shape,” Doolittle said. “You’re doing fine. You’re doing very well. Just a little bit more. Hold on for me, Andrea.”

The pain ate its way through my muscle all the way to the bone and scraped it with sharp serrated teeth. I snarled.

“Aaalmost there,” Doolittle crooned. “Almost.”

“We got you,” Barabas told me. “We got you.”

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take another second. My body twisted, looking for a way to escape. Faint spots appeared on my skin.

“Don’t change shape,” Raphael snapped.

“Shut up.”

“Be good or I’ll kiss you in front of everybody.”

“Hell no,” I snarled. I had to hold on and live through this so I could punch him in the face. It was a great goal.

“Hold on,” Doolittle told me. “Ten more seconds.”

Aaah. It hurts. It hurts, hurrts, hurrrrrts…

“Expel,” Doolittle’s voice snapped.

I concentrated every ounce of my will on the pain.

Heat spread through me, combing through my flesh with spiked fingers.

Get out of my body. Get the hell out!

The needle shivered.

I cried out.

“Expel it,” Doolittle urged.

“You can do it,” Barabas told me.

I pushed. The needle slid free and scalding-hot blood gushed down my arm. It ran gray, purple, and then finally bright red. Raphael let go of my arm and I punched him in the chest. It was the closest part of him.

“Good girl.” Doolittle exhaled. “Well done.”

I wiped tears from my eyes and saw Ascanio. He stared at me. His eyes were huge and terrified.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” Doolittle told him. “Don’t get bitten. Bring the meat from the refrigerator. Andrea needs to eat.”

It’s amazing how much good a sandwich, or three, can do for you. My head had stopped spinning and I no longer felt like my legs wouldn’t support me. I eyed the dwindling ham, from which Julie had carved the meat for my sandwiches. No more food would physically fit into my stomach, but I was still hungry.

Doolittle set a small plastic box down in front of me and flipped open the top. Six small ampoules in a neat row.

“Antivenom,” he said and showed me a gun-looking object. “One ampoule goes in here. Once you hear a click, press it against the skin and pull the trigger. Not for use on humans. It is in the form of a gun, so you should have no difficulties using it.”

An antivenom gun—load, press, squeeze the trigger. Okay, I could do that.

“Unfortunately, that is all I can do until I know more,” Doolittle said. He leaned closer and looked into my eyes. “I strongly advise against any physical activity for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Nothing strenuous. No sexual relations, no running, and no fighting. Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly.”

“I’m not naive enough to think that you’ll heed my advice.”

“I solemnly swear to heed at least one-third of it. No sexual relations won’t be a problem.”

Barabas laughed under his breath.

Doolittle shook his head. “Should you feel faint, you
will
take another dose of antivenom and you
will
lie down.”

“Yes, sir.”

Doolittle shook his head again and went to pack up his tools. Barabas stepped into his place and leaned against my desk, his arms folded over his chest. “As your attorney, I’m forced to advise you to stay away from that crime scene. We both know you won’t, but if you get caught, there will be repercussions.”

“Thank you for the warning.” Now I had advice from both a doctor and a lawyer. I tried to fight a yawn, but it won. “I’ll definitely take it under consideration.”

I had to go back to the scene. Everyone in the room knew it.

“Also, you won’t like hearing this, but as a lawyer, I’m used to that. Your position with the Pack is muddy. This makes things a hell of a lot more complicated than they have to be. Sort yourself out.”

Settle things with the woman who sent two boudas to beat the crap out of me. Right.

Barabas looked at Julie. “Please get your bag. We’re going back to the Keep.”

Julie crossed her arms. “But…”

“Julia,” Barabas said calmly. “Please get your bag.”

Julie stomped to the kitchen and returned with her backpack.

My eyes were apparently producing glue instead of moisture, because I had trouble keeping them open. “Take Ascanio with you, too,” I said. The boy was looking really rattled.

“No,” Raphael said.

I turned to him. “You don’t get to give orders here.”

“I’m still his alpha. Ascanio or me, one of us will stay here with you and stand guard while you sleep. Gloria is dead and now her friends and relations might be looking for you. You can barely keep your eyes open. I don’t care how good this door is, you need someone awake and alert in case they show
up. That can be Ascanio if you prefer, but I’m more than happy to lie in the bed with you and hold you while you sleep. It’s your choice.”

There came a point in everyone’s life when they were just too tired to argue. I opened my mouth and realized I had hit that point. If they weren’t gone in the next half minute, I’d fall asleep sitting up. “I’ll take the kid.”

Ascanio blinked. Julie stomped on his foot as she passed him and he elbowed her in the ribs.

“Call me if anything,” Barabas told me.

“Sure.”

A moment later and both the lawyer and the doctor were gone. Raphael and I looked at each other.

“Go away,” I told him.

“For now,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

“I won’t let you through the door.”

“We’ll see about that.” Raphael turned to Ascanio. “Guard her.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

He walked out. Ascanio locked and barred the door behind him.

I pondered whether it was worth it to force myself upstairs to the bed or if I should just lie down on the nice comfortable wooden floor. My dignity won. I was a badass, God damn it. I could take twelve stairs. I’d kick their ass.

I dragged myself to the upstairs cot and collapsed facedown. I tried to take my shoes off, but the world slipped through my fingers before I had a chance to raise my head from my pillow.

“Andrea?” Ascanio whispered next to me.

I opened my eyes.

He was crouching by my cot. “I’m sorry to wake you up. My mother is outside the door. Can I let her in?”

“Of course you can let her in.”

“Thanks.”

He took off. I rubbed my eyes and sat up. The windup clock on the night table by the cot said seven p.m. Every cell in my body ached. Below, the bar clanged—Ascanio was opening
the door. I forced myself upright, crossed the loft, and sat down on top of the stairs.

Ascanio swung the door open and stood aside. Martina came in. She had a rare look to her, a kind of regal beauty on the crossroads of severe and sensual, but not really leaning toward either. Her dark hair crowned her head in a braided updo coil. Her tan skin was flawless. Her features were large and boldly cut, and she held herself with great poise, so self-possessed with quiet confidence that people gravitated to her. Barabas called her Queen Martina. She wore jeans and an olive-colored blouse, but the nickname still fit.

Ascanio closed the door, locked it, and stood there awkwardly. I’d never seen him awkward before.

“How are you?” Martina reached over to touch his cheek, but stopped before the actual contact, as if she’d thought better of it.

“I’m good…Thank you.”

“I brought you your favorite,” she said, handing him a basket.

Ascanio took the towel off the basket and smiled. It was a shy little kid smile, so at odds with his teenage Don Juan persona, I almost did a double take.

“You should eat those,” she said.

Ascanio glanced at me.

“It’s okay,” Martina said. “Go on. I’ll visit with Andrea.”

Ascanio took the basket, leaned over, and kissed his mother on the cheek. Then he turned and went into the kitchen.

Martina climbed the stairs and sat next to me.

“What’s in the basket?” I asked.

“Cannoli,” she said. “He really likes them.”

And she had come all the way here, an hour from the Keep, just to bring them. Something wasn’t quite right.

“Did Raphael ever tell you our story?” she asked.

“No.” I knew that for some reason Ascanio hadn’t lived with the clan for a while, but that was about it.

She nodded. “I was young and living in the Midwest. I wasn’t bitten—I was born a bouda. My mother was a bouda also, my father was a werewolf. I had the best family, Andrea. I was so loved.”

“What happened?” I asked. Funny, I thought that all her
self-assurance would create a distance, but she seemed so nice. Her voice just put me at ease.

“We had a flood,” she said. “One of those insane freak floods that sometimes hits states like Iowa. The river swelled and took down our town. We were sitting on the roof, and my mother saw our neighbors floating by in the car, their kids in the backseat. The car was sinking and everyone was screaming. The car went under. My mother was stronger than my father, so she went in after it. She didn’t come back. My dad dived in to get her out. He didn’t come back either. I sat there on the roof and cried and screamed and screamed and begged God to let them come back, but there was nothing but muddy river.”

I could picture her sitting on the roof, crying her eyes out. “That’s awful.”

“Thank you. My grandparents took me in, but it wasn’t the same. I left as soon as I could and traveled around, doing odd jobs here and there, bouncing at bars, waitressing in diners. I was kind of wild. If a guy had nice eyes and nice biceps, I was game.” She smiled, a little spark in her eyes. “Looking for love in all the wrong places. I had fun.”

“Did you find Mr. Right?”

“I found many Misters Right-for-Now. None of them lasted very long. I didn’t know it back then, because I was young and stupid, but the kind of great love I was looking for couldn’t happen for me back then. I didn’t even know what kind of person I wanted to be, let alone what I needed from a guy. But I wanted that love I lost, so I had this bright idea: I would get pregnant and have a baby. A baby would love me no matter what, because I’d be her mommy. We would be a little family together. It would be just like it was before.”