Midnight's Daughter(54)

“She was here, but not by the time we arrived. There is a note for you, when you are well enough to read it.”

“A note?” Trust Claire to find time, in the middle of a slave auction, to leave a note! The girl needed therapy. I laughed, but it hurt, so I stopped. “I feel well enough now,” I said, and made the mistake of trying to sit up again. The room did some kind of weird kaleidoscope thing and started to grow dim.

“Stay put!” I was told savagely. “You will never read it if you are dead!”

I decided he might have a point, and lay back again. The twisted hulk of the cage loomed over us, and I had to be careful not to move much or I came into contact with some of the hundreds of pieces of splintered wood that littered the place. I eventually identified them as the remains of the folding chairs the bidders had been using. Olga’s group must have gone nuts.

I’d lost Mircea’s coat somewhere and now Louis-Cesare tore my T-shirt in two. “We haven’t even had dinner yet,” I protested weakly, and he glared at me out of eyes lit by an inner glow. “Daddy’s turn gold,” I told him confidentially, and giggled.

“You should be unconscious by now,” he muttered.

“Dhampir,” I reminded him. Louis-Cesare didn’t answer, but he upped the amp on his suggestion. I found myself staring into eyes like starlit steel, some unsuspected poetic part of me whispered, or lightning cutting across a summer sky. They really were amazing, those eyes. “Pretty,” I observed, which seemed to startle him.

Olga appeared behind him, her bulk dwarfing him as if he were a child. She bent over to see me better, close enough that her golden beard tickled my chin. “She alive?”

“For the moment.” Louis-Cesare’s voice sounded strained.

“Good. That vampire, he not here,” Olga informed me. “Where we hunt now?”

“I’m working on that,” I told her. She nodded, satisfied, and lumbered away.

Louis-Cesare began digging around in my chest for something. A bullet, I remembered vaguely. The auctioneers had had guns, and judging by where his impromptu surgery was taking place, someone had been a good shot. It had missed the heart, but not by much.

“We cannot take her along,” he commented. It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Olga.

“Sure we can.”

“You know nothing about her!”

“I know Drac killed her husband. I don’t think she has a chance of bringing him down, but it’s her right to try.” Humans might be willing to fight their battles in court, and for lesser things the magical community followed suit. But for this, someone would bleed. I just hoped it was the right someone, as the idea of Olga writhing away her final hours on one of Drac’s special poles didn’t appeal.

“She is a Bergtroll,” he informed me, as if there was any chance I’d failed to notice.

“Uh-huh. A really pissed-off one. You don’t want her to come, fine. You tell her. I’ve had about all the violence I want for today.”

Louis-Cesare looked like he was going to argue, so I distracted him with a pitiful groan. Too bad it wasn’t faked. He went back to surgery, and in return for my agreement to stay still while he patched me up, he filled me in on some of the stuff I’d missed. “It seems we disrupted an illegal auction featuring failed experiments by the Dark Fey. They gave them to a group of humans they use to do some of their errands as—what do you call it? A bonus,” he said, dropping the bullet he’d extracted onto the floor. “The prisoners said that there were no mages here, only humans. I believe the Dark Circle abandoned this location as too vulnerable, and that the wards we found were some they did not bother to remove when they left.”

“And what did the humans say? If they work for—” I broke off at a particularly painful dig.

“We would have asked them had your allies left any alive,” was the acerbic reply. Another little bullet hit the floor. No wonder I felt like crap. Even I usually manage to avoid getting shot twice in the chest on the same day.

Then what he’d said registered. I looked around and for the first time noticed that the man who had attacked the little crossbreed was now draped across a couple of cages—on opposite sides of the room. Pieces of the auctioneer and his staff were everywhere, with an arm still clutching a gavel about a yard away. While Louis-Cesare stitched me up, I watched Olga’s little troll, appearing unaffected by his obviously broken nose, tuck it into a basket alongside other mangled bits. Takeout, I presumed.

“Wait a minute.” My sluggish brain finally threw up the obvious question. “If this was some bargain-basement slave auction, why was Claire here?” The idea of her in what amounted to an odd bin was ludicrous.

Louis-Cesare didn’t reply, being too busy digging a .22 out of my thigh. Before I could press him, someone came into view who drove the words right out of my head. “Shit!” I tried to rise, but Louis-Cesare held me down.

“What is wrong with you?” I just stared past his shoulder at the new arrival. Either I was hallucinating or the threat wasn’t as great as it seemed. I really hoped it was the latter, since I was in no shape to defend myself.

The newcomer knelt gracefully beside me. I tried not to stare, but I don’t think it worked. At least he was worth it, being quite simply the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Golden hair spilled over his shoulders and in the dim room it seemed to glow with an inward light. Eyes so dark green they were almost black provided a startling contrast, especially framed by gold-tipped lashes. But his face was the most surprising thing about him. Faint laugh lines crinkled around his eyes, and his smile revealed even white teeth. Despite the perfection of the features, the first word I’d have used to describe him would have been “pleasant,” something I’d never have thought to associate with a member of the Light Fey.