"How awful," Pilar said sympathetically-but Thea thought she wasn"t entirely sorry that the dance hadn"t gone well.
"Yeah. So how"s our boy?"
"Okay-a little hyper. You might want to take him for a walk later." Pilar p icked up her jacket. She nodded politely to Thea as she headed for the door . "See you Monday."
She likes him.
When the door was shut, Thea looked around the office. "So the clinic"s not open."
"No, but somebody has to stay overnight when we"ve got animals boarding h ere." He gave her the grin again. "Follow me."
He led her through an exam room into a corridor and then to a kennel room a t the back. Thea looked around with interest. She"d never been in the inner sanctum of an animal hospital before.
There were several dog runs. Eager whining was coming from the last.
Eric looked at her mischievously. "Three, two, one . . ."
He opened the cage. A big Labrador puppy tumbled out, tail wagging frantic ally. He was a beautiful color that ranged from deep gold on his back to a lmost white on his legs and paws.
"Hey, Bud," Eric said. "Hey, pal; who"s a good boy?" He looked at Thea sole mnly. "This is the ultimate cuddle dog."
Thea collapsed on the sheet vinyl floor and made a lap, holding both arms ou t.
"Uh-your dress-" Eric began mildly, but the puppy was already in midair. Th ea caught him and he crawled up her, legs on her shoulders, hot breath blow ing in her ear.
"I think I"m in love," Thea gasped, her arms full of warm, heavy puppy swee tness.
Happiness surrounded her. She didn"t have to try to merge with the puppy"s mind; he practically took over by force. All his thoughts were good ones, and they were all about now. About how terrific everything smelled this minute, and how great that scratch behind the ear felt on a fleabite.
Good feelings, happy feelings . . . I really like this big bald dog . . . Wonde r which of us is dominant?
The puppy bit her and Thea play-bit him back.
"Wrong; I"m the pack leader," she informed him, holding his jowls.
There was only one odd thing. She could see the way the world looked to the pup-and there was nothing on the right. Just a void.
"Is there something wrong with his eyes?"
"You noticed the cataract. Lots of people don"t see that right away. Yeah, h e"s blind in the right eye. When he gets older he may come back for surgery.
" Eric sat back against the wall, grinning madly. "You"ve really got a way w ith animals," he said. "But you don"t own any pets?"
The question was gentle, not intrusive. Thea said absently, "Well, usually j ust temporary ones. I pick them up and when they"re cured I put them back- o r find homes for them if they want to be pets."
"You cure them."
Once again, the question was gentle, but Thea felt a little shock. Why could n"t she guard her tongue around this guy? She looked up and found he was loo king at her steadily and searchingly, his green eyes alert.
She took a breath. "I feed them, take them to the vet if they need it. Then I w ait until they heal up."
He nodded, but the searching look didn"t go away. "Did you ever think of be ing a vet yourself?"
Thea had to look down. She bluffed by kissing the puppy.
"Uh, not really," she muttered into blond fur.
"But you"ve got a gift. Look, I"ve got some material on U.C. Davis. They ha ve a great undergraduate program-and their graduate school is one of the be st in the country. It"s not easy to get in, but you could do it. I know you could."
"I wouldn"t bet on it," Thea muttered. She had several dramatic blotches on her academic record- like four expulsions.
But that wasn"t the real problem. The real problem was that witches weren"t v eterinarians. They just weren"t.
She could choose to specialize in gems or herbs or ritual clothing; in chants or runes or research or amulets ... in hundreds of things, but nothing taught at U.C. Davis.
"It"s hard to explain," Thea said. She didn"t have much room left to be surp rised, or she"d have been surprised to find she wanted to explain to a human . "It"s just-my family wouldn"t really approve. They want me to be something else."
Eric opened his mouth, then shut it again.
The puppy sneezed.
"Well-maybe you could help me with my application sometime," Eric said at l ast. "I"m trying to do the essay question and dying."
You sneak, Thea thought.
"Maybe," she said.
At that moment a buzzer sounded-far away but insistent. Bud barked.
"What the . . . that"s the outside buzzer," Eric said. "But n.o.body should be here at this time of night." He got up and headed for the front of the buildi ng. Thea followed, her fingertips just brushing Bud"s head to control him.
Eric opened the door, then stepped back in surprise.
"Rosamund . . . what are you doing here? Does Mom know you"re out?"
Something like a miniature whirlwind entered the waiting room. It was a kid, a little girl with a mop of sandy hair sticking out from under a baseball c ap. She was carrying a rolled-up blue blanket, and what could be seen of her expression under the hair was ferocious.
"Mom said Madame Curie wasn"t really sick, but she is. Call Dr. Joan." Wit h that, the kid marched into the office and dumped the blue blanket on the counter, pushing aside a clipboard and some vaccination reminder cards.
"Hey. Don"t." When she ignored him, Eric looked at Thea. "Uh, this is my sister Rosamund. And I don"t know how she got here-"
"I rode my bike and I want Madame Curie fixed now."
Bud was rearing up and trying to sniff the blue blanket. Thea pushed him down gently. "Who"s Madame Curie?"
"Madame Curie is a guinea pig," Eric said. He touched the blanket. "Roz-Dr.
Joan is gone. She"s out of town at a conference."
Rosamund"s ferocious expression never wavered, but her chin began to quive r.
"Okay, listen. I"ll take a look at Madame Curie now, see if I can see anythi ng. But first we have to call Mom and let her know you"re alive." He reached for the phone.
"I"ll take Bud back," Thea said. "I think he thinks Madame Curie is lunch."
She led the puppy into the back room and coaxed him into the run with a prom ise of extra petting later.
When she came back to the office, Eric was bent over a small brown-and-whi te guinea pig. He looked frustrated.
"Well, there"s something wrong with her-I guess.
She seems weaker than usual and sort of lethargic___"
Suddenly he jerked his hand back with a yelp.
"Not too lethargic," he said, eyeing the blood welling up from his thumb. He wiped it on a tissue and bent over the guinea pig again."She"s in a bad mood," Rosamund said. "And she"s not eating right. I told yo u yesterday she was sick."
"No, you didn"t," Eric said calmly. "You told me she was tired of living unde r patriarchy."
"Well, she is tired. And she"s sick. Do something."
"Kid, I don"t know what to do yet. Hang on." He bent closer to the little ani mal, muttering to himself. "She"s not coughing ... so it"s not strep. Her lym ph nodes are okay ... but her joints seem swollen. Now, that"s weird."
Rosamund was watching him, her green eyes full of fierce trust. Eyes like Er ic"s, Thea realized.
She reached out gently and just touched the guinea pig"s soft fur with her fi ngers. Her mind reached gently, too.
Frightened-little-animal thoughts. The guinea pig didn"t like being here, want ed the sawdust of her cage, wanted safety. She didn"t like the clinical smells, didn"t like huge, strange fingers descending from the sky.
Home-place, nest-place, she was thinking. And then, something odd. A conce pt-more smell and taste than picture. Madame Curie was imagining eating so mething . . . something crunchy and slightly sharp. Eating and eating and eating.
"Is there some treat she really likes?" Thea asked doubtfully. "Something li ke cabbage?"
Eric blinked, then straightened up as if he"d gotten an electric shock. His gree n eyes stared straight into hers. "That"s it! You"re brilliant!" "What"s it?"
"What you said. She"s got scurvy!" He dashed out of the office and came back with a thick book full of small print. "Yeah-here it is. Anorexia, lethargy , enlarged limb joints . . . she"s got all the symptoms." He turned pages fe verishly and then said triumphantly, "All we have to do is give her some of those veggies, or maybe some as...o...b..c acid in her water." Scurvy-wasn"t that a disease sailors used to get? When they were on long trips with no fresh f ruits or vegetables? And as...o...b..c acid was . . . "Vitamin C!" "Yeah! It"s be en hot and we"ve got hard water at our house-all that could deplete the vita min C in her diet. But it"s easy to fix." Then Eric looked at Thea and shook his head wonderingly. "I"ve been studying for years, besides working here, and you just look at the animal and you know. How do you do that?"
"She asked Madame Curie," Rosamund said flatly. Thea gave her a wary gl ance. How come this whole family was so observant? "Ha ha," she said, her voice light.
"I like you," Rosamund said, just as flatly as before. "Now where can I get some cabbage?"
"Go look in the vaccine fridge in back," Eric said. "If there isn"t any, we ca n always use vitamin drops."
Rosamund trotted off. Eric watched her, openly fond."She"s an interesting kid," Thea said.
"She"s sort of a genius. Also the world"s smallest militant feminist. She"s suing the local Boy Trekkers, you know. They won"t let her in, and the Girl Trekkers don"t trek. They do macrame."
Thea looked at him. "And what do you think of that?"
"Me? I drive her to the lawyer"s office whenever Mom can"t make it. I figure i t stops her griping. Besides, she"s right."
Simple as that, Thea thought. She watched Eric as he folded the blue blanke t, and heard a voice in her mind like the voice of an announcer describing a game-show prize.
Now. Look at this guy. He"s tender but intense. Brave. Profoundly insightful.
Shy but with a wicked sense of humor. He"s smart, he"s honest, he"s an anima l lover. . . .
He"s human.
I don"t care.
She was feeling-well, strange. As if she"d been breathing too much yemonja root. The air seemed sweet and heavy and tingly somehow, as if laced with t ropical electricity.
"Eric . . ."
And she found herself touching the back of his hand.
He let go of the blanket instantly and turned his hand to close on hers. He wa sn"t looking at her, though. He was still staring at the office desk. His ches t heaved.
"Eric?"
"Sometimes I think if I blink, you"ll disappear."
Oh, Eileithyia, Thea thought. Oh, Aphrodite. I"m in terrible trouble.
The thing was, it was terrible and wonderful. She felt awkward and tremendo usly safe at once, scared to death and not scared of anything. And what she wanted was so simple. If he only felt the same, everything would be all ri ght.
"I just can"t even imagine life without you anymore, but I"m so afraid you"ll go away," Eric said, still looking fatalistically at the computer on the des k. Then he turned to her. "Are you mad?"
Thea shook her head. Her heart was threatening to leave her body. When she met his eyes it was as if some circuit had closed. They were connected, n ow, and being pulled together as if Aphrodite herself was gathering them i nto her arms.
And then everything was warm and wonderful. Better than holding the puppy, because Eric could hold her, too. And the thrills of fear that had been s hooting through her seemed somehow to burst like fireworks and turn into e xhilaration.Her cheek was against Eric"s. And she"d never felt anything so blissful befo re. Eric"s cheek was smooth and firm-and she was safe here, loved here. She could rest like this forever.
Peace filled her like cool water. They were two birds enfolding each other w ith their wings.
Swans mate for life . . . and when they see their mate, they know, she thoug ht. That"s what happened in the desert. We knew each other; it was as if we each could see the other one"s soul. Once you see into someone"s soul, you"r e attached forever.
Yeah, and there"s a word for it in the Night World, part of her mind said, tr ying to shatter her peace. The soulmate principle. You"re trying to say that your one and only is a human?
But Thea couldn"t be frightened, not now. She felt insulated from the Night World and the human world both. She and Eric formed their own reality; and i t was enough just to stand here and breathe and to feel his breathing, witho ut worrying about the future. ...
A door creaked and a blast of cool air blew in.
Thea"s eyes were startled open. And then her heart gave a terrible lurch and started thudding painfully.
It wasn"t the door that Rosamund had gone through. It was the front door, w hich Eric must have left unlocked. And Blaise was standing there in the wai ting room.