Where A Witch Goeth

Chapter Nine: Shadows and Sardolive Sandwiches

Dr. Jesse Livingstone, a gray gentleman in his sixties, didn't look much like Evander but somehow managed to retain something of Abraham's smile. Abraham, by my reckoning, must have been his grandfather.

My shoulder did require stitches. Thank the goddess something like novocaine had not only been invented but had trickled down to the use of country doctors, even if it didn't fully mask the sensation of being sewn back together. Not that Jesse wasn't skilled with a needle and sutures. He had been a surgeon with the army in the Great War, he told me. He added that he'd be quite content never to see another wound bigger than the ones I was offering up tonight, which weren't bad, not bad at all. They would heal with little scarring, he assured me.

Evander sat on the bed during my stitching, though he let Jesse carry the burden of conversation. I think the vampire had seen a lot of wounded people being patched up, and that maybe the proximity of his hand to mine was an invitation to grip something solid if I needed it.

I didn't. To accept Evander's comfort, however cold it might have been, felt disloyal because I was thinking of Nick's many, many bites and slashes, and wondering if someone, anyone, was taking care of him.

Comfort eventually came to me when I realized that Nick was not suffering through this night as I was imagining. He wasn't turned into a werewolf, and there was no danger of him dying, either.

Nick wasn't even born yet. Not for more than seventy years.

I had time. If it took me days, or weeks, or even months to make contact with the water sprite, to strike a bargain, to figure out how to calibrate the timing of the return, to work up the courage to trust the journey back, I wouldn't despair. Abraham had tossed out a vague time parameter and a hasty request, and all signs pointed to the water sprite having delivered for him. Surely I could strike up a friendship with his creature and make something similar happen, with just a little more attention to the timing, even if it took me a while to make sure the conditions were perfect. I had all the time anyone could ask for to get back to Nick and save him.

I would not let him die because of me. He did not deserve the horror he had landed in. I would fix things for him. Then, no matter how hard it would be, I would set him free, so that my dark world would never again touch him.

The doctor left me with a bottle of dubious pain pills that I was almost certain contained both cocaine and opium. In the twenty-first century, that was called a speedball, and it came from a corner dealer in a little red balloon. But this was the Twenties and they were Roarin'. Apparently a little bump was just the thing to bounce back from a pesky werewolf attack.

I managed to put the scary drugs on the nightstand without the doctor realizing I hadn't medicated, although I was sure nothing escaped the vampire's notice.

Now that Evander and I were alone, he rose and stood by the window, drawing back the lace panel, resting a fist on the pane near his forehead. He stared at the moon with a clenched jaw.

There he was—the Emo Vampire, at last. I couldn't help but bite my lip in empathy as he gazed at the moon with stoic dissatisfaction as if he refused to acknowledge his futile longing for the sun.

As if my thoughts had cued his words, he said, "The sun rises in three hours." The modern man was speaking now, the Irish accent abandoned with the exit of his family.

"Really? Minnie said it was early."

"Minnie has been raised in the bosom of a clan of vampires, and she shares our habits," he said.

"How many vampires in your family?" I thought I knew, but there could be more, I supposed.

"You'll forgive me, Miss Dunne, but I'd prefer to ask the questions."