Raphael can run; I"ll give him that. For a big guy, he"s incredibly fast on his feet. Still, the ARMPITs giving chase were angry, and that meant Raphael had no time to listen to me explain that absolutely, under no circ.u.mstances, would I leave without Christian. Instead he just picked me up and threw me into the back of the car on top of Roxy and Sebastian, lunging into the front seat and slamming his foot on the accelerator as he started the car. All three of us in the backseat were thrown backward as the car shot off, swerving around one ARMPIT as he leaped toward us.
Raphael swore and swerved again, the faint thud indicating that this ARMPIT wasn"t as agile as the last.
"It"s okay," he said, panting as he glanced into his rearview mirror. I hauled myself off Sebastian and turned to glare at Raphael"s head. "Just winged him. He"s up and running. We made it."
I turned to look back, ignoring the four people as they ran down the rain-slicked pavement after us. The house stood as silent as ever, its windows staring out into the street with dark, watchful eyes.
I slumped down into the seat, a sharp pain slicing through my heart. "No, we didn"t make it. We left Christian behind."
Chapter Sixteen.
Roxy had to sit on me to keep me from throwing myself out of the car every time Raphael was forced to come to a stop. I swore and thought seriously of cursing her-just a little one-but in the end Raphael and Roxy ignored my sobs and pleas and threats and drove us to Christian"s home.
What Sebastian thought, I had no idea. He didn"t look very lucid, and to tell the shameful truth, at that moment I didn"t care what he thought, In fact, I would have been more than willing to trade him for Christian"s safe return.
"Good evening, Mrs. Turner," I told Christian"s housekeeper as we stood on his doorstep. "You remember Raphael and Roxy from earlier today, of course. This is a friend of Christian"s." I waved toward Sebastian, apparently lying dead in Raphael"s arms. "He"s... um... he"s not feeling very well at the moment, and Christian asked if we"d get him settled in one of the bedrooms."
Evidently Mrs. Turner"s impression of Christian"s eccentricities covered two near strangers appearing at the door with her employer"s girlfriend and a nearly dead man, because she didn"t even bat an eye as she stepped back and allowed us in. Oh, she blinked a bit once she got a good look at my eyes, but she didn"t faint or run screaming from the room, so I figured we were well ahead of the game.
"Will Mr. Dante be along shortly? There is a young lady waiting to speak with him," she said as we started up the stairs.
I stopped on the first stair. "Oh, really? What sort of a young lady?"
"It"s a good thing you"re not denying your fate any longer," Roxy called from the top of the stairs. " "Cause that"s the most jealous "What sort of a young ladyI I"ve ever heard."
"Christian has been"-torn from my side... held prisoner... forced to endure who knows how many torments-"detained. Is this something I can help with?"
Mrs. Turner looked doubtful. "The young lady said Mr. Dante had asked her to repair some damage done to a floor in the wine cellar."
The Guardian! I"d forgotten all about her. Drat, what a time for her to come and put a cork in the conduit to h.e.l.l.
"If it will make you feel better, I"ll have a talk with her."
Mrs. Turner didn"t look as if she"d feel a whole lot better, but I guess she figured I was the lesser of two evils, because she nodded and bustled off to dust something. I limped as quickly as I could up the stairs.
"This is all I need, a Guardian hanging around just when I need to focus on saving Christian."
"You don"t know that anything happened to Christian," Raphael pointed out as he carried Sebastian into Christian"s bedroom.
I trailed behind, wringing my hands and wishing I could scream and yell out my frustration and worry. "Oh, sure, he"s in a house filled with ghost and vampire hunters, not to mention at least one demon and a triumvirate capable of destroying any of us without breaking a sweat, and I have nothing to worry about? Cow cookies! Christian sacrificed himself for Sebastian; I just know he did. And now he"s in trouble and I have to go save him. So if you don"t mind setting Sebastian down on the bed, I"ll get him tucked in and then be on my way to rescue the man I love." I headed for the door as the last word left my lips.
"What about him? You can"t just leave him like this. Even I can tell he"s not going to last much longer," Raphael said as he set Sebastian down. The Dark One lay limp and exhausted on the bed, too weak to move.
I stopped at the doorway. Blast. I knew he was going to call me on that. "He needs blood."
Roxy and Raphael looked at Sebastian doubtfully. I waved my hand toward him. "It"s obvious; I can feel his hunger from here. One of you is going to have to allow him to feed."
"Feed?" Roxy yelped. "You mean... feed?"
I tsked. "It"s just a little blood. Think of it as a donation to a worthy cause. Look, I don"t have time to stand around explaining it to you. I have Christian to go save."
"And just how do you plan to do that?" Raphael asked as Roxy stared at Sebastian in horror. The latter moved in feeble protest under her gaze. "You barely made it out of there on your own; how do you expect to find Christian and free him-that"s a.s.suming he isn"t staying there of his own free choice?"
I was across the room and in front of Raphael even before I could draw breath. "Christian is strong. He would never yield to the triumvirate. Never!"
"Not them," Sebastian whispered, his voice a frail reed of sound. I glanced down at him, the tatters of his shirt making it possible to see his ribs clearly outlined beneath the tautly stretched skin of his chest. His breathing was labored and slow, much slower than it should be. His sunken, hopeless eyes begged me for a release to his nightmare. I was torn between the need to rush out and save Christian, and helping the friend I knew meant a lot to him.
I stood next to the bed, hesitating, knowing that if I didn"t do something, Sebastian would slip away. He needed help, and I couldn"t turn to either Roxy or Raphael for that help. They simply did not understand.
I hope you"re all right, Christian. I hope you understand that I have to do this first.
Sebastian moaned a wordless protest as I sat on the bed next to him.
"You need blood," I told him quietly, rolling up my sleeve. Roxy moved away from the bed, giving us room as I offered my wrist.
Sebastian closed his eyes, his lips thinned into a tight line.
"Come on," I said, shaking my wrist beneath his nose. "I"m offering this to you of my own free will. Please take it. Christian would want you to."
His breath hissed through his teeth.
"I want you to."
He turned his face away from my wrist.
I squished his lips apart and shoved the delicate flesh of my inner wrist up against his teeth. "For G.o.d"s sake, I"ve never had to beg anyone to drink my blood. Now will you just take it!"
His hands fluttered against the bed. "Not you," he mumbled against my wrist. "Beloved."
"Oh, for heaven"s sake..."
"What"s wrong?" Roxy asked as I straightened up.
"He won"t feed off me. I think it"s something to do with the fact that I"m Christian"s Beloved."
"Glad to know you"ve finally seen the light," Roxy said, then tapped her chin as she thought. "You know, I think he"s right. You haven"t Joined with Christian, have you?"
I shook my head.
She continued chin tapping. "That makes sense. Once a Beloved is claimed, you go into kind of a holding zone, a limbo as far as other Dark Ones are concerned. You"re not Joined, so you"re not a Moravian, and yet you"re not quite human because you"ve completed all but a few steps of Joining."
"There"s just the last one remaining," I admitted. "Wait a minute-what do you mean I"m not quite human?"
"According to what Christian wrote in one of his books-you really need to read them; you"re sadly ignorant of even the most basic Dark One lore, and that"s bound to be a handicap when you"re married to one-your blood is actually like poison to any other Dark Ones."
I gaped at her. "Of all the ridiculous things I"ve ever heard! My blood is not poisonous!"
"Not to Christian, no, but just you dribble a bit on poor Sebastian"s lips and he"ll be stiffer than a three-day-dead dog."
We all looked at Sebastian. He lay so still, so lifeless he almost looked as if he were already dead. I couldn"t leave him like that, I just couldn"t. Not only would Christian not want his friend to suffer; I couldn"t allow it. Not when there was a way to help him.
"Now what will you do?" Raphael asked. I turned toward him and smiled.
He was out even before he saw the punch coming.
"What do you think you"re doing?" Roxy gasped as Raphael hit the floor. She looked from his ma.s.sive body to my small fist. "And more important, how did you do it?"
I grabbed one of his arms and nodded toward the other one. "Come on, help me-he won"t be out for long. I used a spell to add some wallop to my punch, but it doesn"t last long. I"m not very good at casting spells."
Roxy grunted as we heaved Raphael"s torso up onto the bed, his head lolling next to Sebastian"s thigh. I rolled up his sleeve and dragged his arm up over his head. "Dinner"s served," I told Sebastian.
He looked from the wrist in front of his mouth down to the unconscious man lying half-on, half-off the bed.
"You don"t have any other choice," I told him. "I realize you feel weird about dining off of someone who helped save you, but I won"t force Roxy, and you turned me down. It"s Raphael or nothing."
Sebastian nodded, his reluctance evident even as his lips parted.
"Raphael is going to be so p.i.s.sed at you," Roxy said, her eyes wide as she watched Sebastian"s fangs sink into Raphael"s wrist. "I mean, majorly p.i.s.sed. We"re talking world-cla.s.s p.i.s.sed here."
"Tell him he has to take a number," I said, pulling the rag doll keeper from beneath my sweater and setting it carefully on the floor. "There are a lot of other people who were angry with me first. I might as well do this while Sebastian is filling up."
"Do what? What"s that doll?"
I explained about the ghost Guarda had Summoned as I chalked out a circle.
"Wait a second, if she Summoned the ghost and bound it to a keeper, how can you do anything for her? I thought there was some rule that said first come, first served."
"There"s another rule that I like better," I said as I pulled out a small pair of scissors, a length of ribbon, and the bottle of holy water. "Finders keepers."
Roxy hesitated for a moment, then came around to where I had drawn a circle.
"Is Raphael going to be all right with him?"
I glanced over to the bed. "Sebastian."
The Dark One"s eyes opened, and I was startled to see they were a clear, true blue rather than the grayish black they had first appeared. His lips caressed Raphael"s wrist.
"Don"t take too much; he"s one of the good guys. All right?"
He managed a small nod.
I sat down before the circle and snipped a long strand of my hair.
"I don"t mean to be rude, but do you... er... trust him?"
"Yes." I glanced up at her. "I thought you were an expert on the Dark Ones. You of all people should know that Sebastian feels a sense of obligation to Raphael. He would never harm him."
"Oh. I guess you"re right. It"s just that Raphael"s a friend, and I don"t want to see him... er... drained dry, for lack of better word."
I smiled. "He won"t be. Sebastian will take care."
"You can feel that?"
I nodded. "I can feel it."
"Okay." With one last glance at them, Roxy sat down beside me. "So how do you "finders keepers" this ghost?"
I set the keeper in the circle, my strand of hair laid across the doll"s neck. "I"ve never actually done this, so I"m not sure if it"ll work or not. Theoretically it should, but who knows?"
The ribbon was used to bind the doll"s hands behind its back. I dug into my bag until I found a length of plum-colored cloth wrapped around a long silver object.
"That"s gorgeous. What is it?"
I held it up so Roxy could see the figures of two lovers entwined on the top. "It"s a hatpin, really, one of the old-fashioned kind. A wizard friend of mine made it for me. I use it for spells, though."
"Cool. Does he take orders?"
I shook my head, glanced over to make sure Sebastian and Raphael were all right, then sketched a binding ward and closed the circle, the keeper and my hands within it. Using the hatpin, I p.r.i.c.ked the doll"s heart.
"This pin pierces your heart, I see, so let it now be bound only to me."
"Wow, magic," Roxy said, her eyes huge.
I snipped the ribbon binding the keeper"s arms, signifying the spirit"s bindings to Guarda being destroyed. "Threads your body first entwined, now find you are bound to mine."
"Why do spells always have to rhyme? I mean, it makes for some fairly bad poetry."
"It gets worse, I"m afraid," I told her as I wove the strand of my hair into the ragged, twisted cloth that made up the doll"s hair. "As I am now part of thee, so you will answer only to me."
Roxy groaned.
"Last one."
"Good. I don"t think I could survive much more. You really need to take a couple of poetry cla.s.ses before you do this again. I"m thinking something along the lines of an ode would help."
I used the hatpin to p.r.i.c.k my finger, pressing the drop of blood into two marks on either side of the circle. "With my blood I do command you to heed my call and stand."
"Oh, that was so lame-Hey! It"s working!"
I pulled my hands from the circle as the air within turned opaque, first light gray, then darker, until the image of a small girl in Victorian dress shimmered in the air: I grounded the spirit. "What is your name?"