There was another silence. “That, too, would be easier to explain later. When you’re well.”
Even with her eyes closed, the lights seemed to pulse and wobble, making bright, sickening sparks behind her eyelids. There was something wrong with the way she felt, more than the pain and nausea of the concussion. Margrit swallowed, trying to pinpoint the source of discomfort. “Why am I not in a hospital?”
“I wouldn’t be able to talk to you in a hospital, and I need to talk to you.” He sounded patient but tired.
“Why can’t you talk to me in a hospital?”
“For one,” Alban said, “I seem to be wanted for murder.”
Margrit thought she might blush, if her head didn’t hurt so badly that the idea make her temples throb.
“For another,” Alban said more slowly, “hospital visiting hours tend to be during the day.”
“So, what?” Margrit wished she dared open her eyes, even just to stare at the ceiling. “You’re a vampire?”
He sounded a bit startled as he answered, “No. Not at all.”
“So I don’t see the problem, then.”
Alban went quiet again, except for small clinking sounds, as if coffee was being prepared. Water boiled, a kettle whistling, high-pitched enough to set Margrit’s teeth on edge. The screech cut off after a few seconds and she slumped in the cot, relief as palpable as discomfort. “I’ll help you sit up,” he said, his voice at her side. “I have a tea for you to drink. It’ll help the pain and the swelling.”
“They seem to be doing fine on their own,” Margrit said groggily.
Alban chuckled again and slid an arm behind her shoulders, enveloping one of her hands in his. The touch was gentle, his hands dwarfing hers in strength and size. Her heart hammered harder, making her temples pound, but it cleared her mind a little. She knew the thrill of feeling in danger: that was what was missing. She wasn’t afraid. In pain, yes, but not in distress for her life.
“I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought,” she mumbled.
Worry came into Alban’s voice. “Can you not sit?”
“No, I can sit. I’m just-” She stopped abruptly, unwilling to give up the only advantage she might have. A kidnapper didn’t need to know his victim wasn’t afraid of him. “I can sit,” she repeated instead.
Alban helped her upright. “There’s a wall to your left if you need something to lean on.”
She put her hand out, finding it, and shifted against it before Alban folded her hands around a sturdy mug. Margrit smiled without opening her eyes. “Nice cup.”
“Thank you,” he said with mild surprise. “I made it.”
“Really?” She opened her eyes, looking at neon lights reflected in yellow tea. The mug was stoneware, glazed a pale seaweed-green and had a chip in the handle. Spiderweb cracks lined the glazing at the bottom of the cup. “It looks old.”
“I was young when I made it.”
Margrit looked up cautiously, the room swimming and dipping alarmingly behind Alban. He appeared to be around thirty-five. “Yeah. ’Cause you’re so old now.”
He smiled. “Drink your tea.”
She lifted the cup, inhaling the scents of honey and lemon, then hesitated. “You said you were innocent. At the club you said you were innocent but you couldn’t go to the cops. Why? Are you here illegally? You said you needed to talk to someone who wasn’t easily frightened, and that’s why you wanted to speak to me. How do you know if I’m easily frightened or not? Why do you need someone who’s not?” She threw the questions out as if they were barriers to any harm that might come to her, words being her only weapons. They helped her focus through the throbbing in her skull, though the pain didn’t ease any.
Alban’s smile came again, sorrow touching it. “You could say I was an illegal immigrant, though it’s an oversimplification of gross proportions. The reasons I can’t go to the authorities are very much tied to the reasons I need to talk to someone who isn’t easily frightened, Margrit. I know a little about you. What I know gives me the irrational hope you can help me. Please.” He nodded at the mug she held. “Drink the tea, and we can talk.”
Ir. Rah. Shun. Al.
Margrit met his eyes, then drank the tea.
He hadn’t intended to lie to her.
The tea had been brewed to clear her head, not put her to sleep, though he doubted she would believe him when she awoke a second time. Alban dropped into a crouch, watching her, then lifted his own hand to stare at it dispassionately. She might believe him, he amended silently, if she would listen at all. In retrospect, he’d realized he’d never made the healing tea for a human woman before, and that the potency should probably have been halved for someone her size. He was unaccustomed to thinking in terms of how his people differed from hers, except the most obvious.
The way she slept, for example. Color flushed her cheeks, her breathing deep and even. He breathed imperceptibly when he slept, with no restless flutters of eyelashes or twisting in the covers. Margrit knotted and loosened a hand around the mug she still held, revealing bruises on her knuckles. He reached out to touch the injuries, then stopped, the gesture seeming an intrusion. Even slipping the mug from her fingers seemed rude, so he’d left it in her grasp. He would have to wonder, or ask, how she’d hurt herself.
He gave a snort of disbelief, skeptical that they might ever hold such an ordinary conversation.
But why not? For a woman seized by a stranger-a man wanted for questioning about a murder, no less- Margrit retained her equanimity wonderfully well. The head injury may have helped with that, pain giving her something internal to focus on rather than her situation, but her questions had not been those of a woman befuddled. She wasn’t presenting a bold face; there was no scent of fear about her at all. If she could face so much with such ease, perhaps the rest might be less insurmountable than he’d always imagined.
Margrit stirred and whimpered, lifting her hand toward her head. Alban reached to comfort her, then stopped again. Better to go out and get an ordinary drug like aspirin than to offer her another dosage of the tea that had always helped him. He pushed himself erect, hesitating a moment longer as she fell into a deeper sleep. She would be all right for the brief time he’d be gone.
A flash of humor creased his face. She would have to be. He couldn’t carry her unconscious body to the nearest convenience store. He brushed his fingers over her hair, not quite touching the tangle of curls, then was gone.
A nasal buzz erupted; Margrit flinched awake, hefting the mug she still clutched. The room’s shadows were blue, the only light the garish color from the neon sign outside. It hummed incessantly, making her wonder how she’d slept at all.
The answer came to her easily, and she tightened her fingers around the mug. Alban had drugged her, despite his assurances of wanting to talk. Anger rose, then dissipated as she realized the pain was largely gone, reduced to a dull throb in her forehead. For a moment Margrit counted out the pulses, ir-rah-shun-al. There was still no hollow fear in her belly. There hadn’t been since the flash of headlights and Tony’s panicked shout.
Tony. He would be worried sick. Margrit sat up, holding her head as she groaned. Her cell phone. Her purse. She fumbled on the table by the cot, searching for the purse without looking. Her fingers closed around a strap just as the window slid open, a hush of sound that let in a shaft of cold air. Margrit jerked around.
A monster perched in the window. Winged and clawed, it overflowed the frame. Neon lights backlit it, red and blue that cast demonic shadows across sharp, harsh features. Its eyes were wide and colorless in the gloom.
Margrit screamed, instinct driving her to fling her purse at the thing. The monster batted it away easily, then hopped forward, landing on the cot. The bed sagged and creaked, then collapsed. Margrit snatched Alban’s mug up and swung it as hard as she could into the monster’s temple. Shards exploded everywhere. The creature roared in pain, rolling sideways off the collapsed cot, and disappeared into the jumble of shadows and clutter. Margrit staggered to her feet, panting, and lurched out the window.
Metal bit into her feet as she scrambled onto the fire escape. She stared down, wondering where her shoes had gone, then swayed as the ground, twenty feet below, rippled and spun. She took another step forward, running a hip into the safety railing, and felt her balance give way entirely. Her feet scraped against the metal grating as she fell forward, grabbing feebly at the rail in an attempt to stop her fall. The alley floor below zoomed close, like a movie camera rushing in to examine a detail.
What a stupid way to die, she thought, and closed her eyes.
An arm, solid and muscular, snagged her around the waist and hauled her backward. Margrit spun upright
