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‘Whose blood-pet are you?’
His eyes were wide with shock. ‘You should be dead with a heart rate like that.’
Duh: not human.‘C’mon, Doctor Joseph Wainwright— Joseph—which vampire is your master?’
‘Malik al-Khan, of course.’ His frown returned.
‘Not the Earl?’
‘The Earl’s dead—’
‘The Earl was just here talking to me,’ I snapped. ‘He bit me—’ I stuck out my wrist to show him, then jerked it back and peered at it. There were no fang holes.
‘It’s the morphine,’ Joseph said in a conciliatory voice. ‘It can cause—’
‘Hallucinations, dreams, yes I know.’ I frowned as confusion filled me. It hadn’t felt like a dream. ‘He turned the TV on, showed me the news.’
Joseph glanced behind him at the muted screen. ‘I’ve had it on the news cha
Had the Earl just been a nightmare? Of course, if I was going to have nightmares, the Earl would certainly be up for a starring role. And DI Crane, she was an understudy nightmare star if ever there was one. With her on the telly, no wonder my brain was playing tricks on me. But what if it hadn’t been a dream? What if the Earl wasalive? No way was I waiting around for him to pop up again. My heart speeding, I slid over to the edge of the bed and swung my legs off. My feet sank into the soft plush red carpet and a sudden attack of vertigo made me sway. I clutched at the slippery sheets, bewildered. What was I doing? Oh yeah, getting out. Getting dressed, and getting away before they came back, him and the inspector ...
‘Ms Taylor, I really don’t think you should get up.’
I frowned up at him—no not him, them: the two startled owls looking back at me.
‘I’ve been looking after you,’ they said, ‘and so far your injuries from the explosion haven’t been improving. I really don’t think you should—’
I tuned him out and squinted at the mirrored wall of wardrobes instead. Wardrobes meant clothes. Only the expanse of red carpet I had to cross was rolling like the sea. Why the hell was the room so big? I squinted again and a figure peered back at me, glistening with sweat, chest, neck and arms as red as the sea. All the red was making me hot and dizzy. I wiped my face, and the red-faced girl wiped hers. I looked down at my hand; it was damp with pink-tinged sweat. I had an instant of clear thought: I was crashing into a mega blood-flush. A sick feeling roiled in my stomach. If I didn’t do something, I’d end up having convulsions, maybe even a stroke, which meant I’d be unconscious, helpless ...
Panic bubbled up in my throat again. There was something—
A hand clasped my wrist.
Flinching, I jerked back.
‘Just keep calm, Genevieve.’ The words sounded firm, in control, and I looked up at Joseph, who smiled confidently back, his face slightly distorted behind a clear face-mask. I frowned; the mask meant something, something good. The panic started to recede and my mind started remembering what needed to be done. I took a breath.
‘That’s it, Genevieve. Now I want you to kneel down on the floor.’ He pulled me gently and I slid to my knees. ‘Good.’ He crouched and placed a green plastic bucket between us, his expression grim. ‘Now, I’m going to take some blood, nothing to worry about, so just relax.’ He held up another shunt, its clear tube trailing down to an empty blood bag.
‘S’not quick enough,’ I slurred, ‘need ... knife.’
His eyes lost some of their confidence. The shunt disappeared, then he held a scalpel in front of me. The blade glinted in the mirrors behind him.
I nodded, my heart pounding frantically under my ribs, a fine tremble shivering under my skin. ‘Do it.’ I pushed my arm into the bucket.
He touched the point of the scalpel to the red vein bulging down my i
‘It’s been a while since I’ve done this.’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I grabbed the hand holding the knife, felt him start, then I sliced deeply, scoring the vein from my elbow to my wrist. Sharp pain flipped into pleasure that rushed like electricity through my body. My blood welled, thick and viscous like molten tar, and the scent of liquorice and copper and honey filled the air. The urge to cut my skin again, to chase that pleasure, to see more of my blood sparkling bright along my skin was a seductive whisper, calling me, urging—
‘For the love of God!’ Joseph yanked his hand from mine, flinging the scalpel away. It clattered off the mirrors and landed noiselessly on the thick carpet.
Taking a deep breath, I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the warm, wet trickle of blood ru
After a while, I asked, ‘What day is it?’
‘Friday,’ he said quietly.
Damn, last I remembered it was Tuesday morning. I’d lost three days. I opened my eyes. Blood the consistency of ru
Joseph frowned. ‘Why are you doing that?’
‘My blood’s too thick’—an aspect of the venom—‘and if I don’t do this, I won’t lose enough and the venom will throw me back into another blood-flush.’
‘Ah yes.’ He looked down at the bucket, then up at me. ‘You’ve been heading for a blood-flush since yesterday; you’re hypertensive, and your red blood cell count is the highest I’ve ever seen. I was debating whether to bleed you or not before you regained consciousness, but your other injuries haven’t been healing, so I wasn’t sure if it would do more harm than good.’ His frown deepened. ‘I’ve never treated a sidhe before.’
I looked down at my patchy skin. ‘This isn’t bad for a couple of days.’
‘That didn’t happen in a couple of days. Malik gave you his blood as soon as he could. He carries the true Gift, so he healed you to this in about an hour. But there’s been no change since then.’
It was my turn to frown. That didn’t sound right. No pain, no gain; the words teased at the edge of my mind, nothing to do with exercise—wasn’t there something about fae needing to feel some pain for the magic to kick in with the healing? Then I remembered I’d been floating somewhere golden and warm, riding along with the sunshine, until my subconscious mind reconstituted the Earl and dropped him into my nightmare. ‘You had me stoked up on morphine, didn’t you?’ I asked slowly.
‘Of course, you were in a lot of pain; I didn’t want to see you suffer. Your metabolism works a lot faster than a human’s. I had to up the dose quite a bit before it took effect.’
Was that why I hadn’t healed? Too much morphine?
‘I shouldn’t worry about getting dependant or anything after this short period of use,’ he added. ‘When morphine’s used for pain relief it doesn’t appear to affect the addictive centres of the brain.’
I blinked. ‘I’ve got 3V, Joseph. It negates the effects of any other chemical addictions and it kills off any diseases or infections. ’ If it wasn’t for the obvious side-effects, 3V could keep humans as healthy as the proverbial horse. ‘Or didn’t they teach you that at doctor school?’
‘Sorry, yes, I know.’ He pushed his glasses up with the back of his bandaged wrist. ‘The reassurance stuff is standard spiel; you end up saying it all the time. Everyone gets all concerned about morphine being derived from opium.’ He shrugged tiredly. ‘But 3V only contradicts other infections when in the host; they’re still carried by the blood, and blood transference can still pass them on to someone who doesn’t have 3V.’ He tapped his face-mask. ‘That’s the reason for the get-up.’