Hell's Detective

Chapter Six- Dead Man Walking

When Ingleseid woke up, it was to a cup of foul smelling liquid thrust under his nose.

"Drink this," Holly said, managing to sound worried, curious and dead angry all at the same time, a remarkable feat by all accounts. "It'll mend any internal injuries you sustained."

He did. It tasted like someone mixed rat droppings with goblin blood.

"Tastes horrible," he complained.

"It's not meant to taste good, it's meant to fix you."

He grimaced as he drained the last of it. A warm, tingling feeling enveloped his body, the sort you get coming out of a deep sleep.

She took his broken arm in her hand, closed her eyes, and started muttering under her breath. He shifted uncomfortably as the muscles knitted themselves together, bones realigning themselves with a click. Confident he wasn't suffering any more grievous bodily harm, she slapped him on the shoulder.

"Ow."

"What the hell happened to you?!"

"I jumped out of a window."

She glared at him. "Of course you did. What were you thinking, going up against vampires? You know what they're like."

"Ammelius said he knew where some were, sent me to go check it out. To get the tooth."

He didn't know which was worse, the fact he'd mentioned the demon he worked for, or the fact he'd revealed he'd taken up a lead on the case without her. From the look on her face, he got the impression it didn't really matter.

"And you didn't think to mention any of this to me?" she snapped. "Look at you! This is what happens when you do dangerous things without proper protection. Spells, backup. Me, Abner. You could have been killed!"

"I didn't expect there to be quite so many of them," he admitted.

"No, you didn't, because you never expect anything! You just stroll into the crossfire, thinking if you keep your charm and wit about you, everything will be fine."

"To be fair, my charm and wit are quite impressive."

She slapped him on the arm again. "This isn't a joke, Abner! What if you'd died, huh? What then? What, you think I'd just move on, forget about you? You're all I've got. You and your stupid dog, and one day you're going to get too cocky, too overconfident, and you're going to run into something you won't be able to get out of, and then I won't even have that anymore." She paused, drew in a breath. "You never think. You never even stop to care."

Ingleseid looked at his shoes. Holly didn't get angry at him often. She got annoyed at him all the time, but not angry. When other people got angry at him, he didn't mind. It was actually quite funny. But when Holly got angry at him...it was different. It left him with an awful, burning feeling he wanted to run away and hide from. Guilt. He hated being guilty.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She scowled, then her face softened. Though not by much. "Yeah. You so freaking are." She tugged at her hair. "So, how did you escape?"

Ingleseid inwardly thanked Heaven and Earth she wasn't yelling anymore.

"I fought them."

"How?"

He pointed to the water gun lying discarded on the floor. "With that."

"A water gun," she said disbelievingly.

"A water gun, yes. Is there a problem with that?"

"No, no. I mean... it's not particularly scary, though, is it?"