It took Aveline only a minute, and when she opened the door she smiled, mouth open with some quip of a greeting on her lips.
When she saw me, her face fell instantly. “Oh Goddess,” she hissed, throwing the door wide so I could limp through it. “George?”
Once she had closed the door behind me I shifted back, making it only to my half shifted form and sinking to the floor in a heap.
“Ward…..refresh your wards,“ I panted, limbs shaking. My shoulder still burned. It had never stopped hurting, but I still had no idea why. It was more important for us to be protected.
“Your shoulder!” Aveline dropped to the hardwood across from me, not minding my nudity or blood spattered skin as she pushed my hair back from my neck. “Hold still, okay?”
Dazed, I didn’t understand, and couldn’t figure out why she had one hand braced against my arm while she gripped something with the other.
Then she pulled back, and I screamed.
The burn in my chest was from a silver knife that the female vampire had apparently so kindly gifted me during my escape.
“Is that-“ I glared at the offending object. “Is that silver?” It was a dumb question. I knew it was silver by the way the wound over my collarbone still burned and refused to close.
“Yes.” Aveline chucked the blade into the kitchen and turned back to me.
“Aveline you need to ward-“
“You’re still bleeding-“
“Re-ward your damn house!” I screamed, voice much louder than I’d intended to be and eyes blazing.
She met my eyes searchingly before nodding and getting to her feet.
Now I could focus on how much I hurt.
My bag was still around my waist, and without a thought I tossed it further into the house to land on the sofa. Somehow it had remained mostly blood free. I was glad, being that I was unsure of how well I could clean blood out of the faux leather.
Aveline’s legs crossed my vision as she went from the kitchen to the front door, locking it and murmuring a spell under her breath as the scent of herbs tickled my nose.
She held a candle as she worked, the flame flickering this way and that when she doubled the protections on the house around us.
Hopefully the vervain would wear off if the wendigo and vampire came knocking all the way out here.
My mind flashed briefly to the teal-eyed woman who’d saved me, her hand bloody as she’d impaled the wendigo on it. Who in the world was she?
Unfortunately, that was too much for my brain tonight. I slumped back on my knees, bracing myself on my good arm until Aveline came back.
“Here.” She had a white robe with her, the satiny material draped over her arm. “Put this on.”
“I’ll bleed on it,” I told her, aware that she knew this too.
Aveline scowled. “You’ve bled all over my steps, door, and floor. I don’t care and I’ll get it out later. Now come on.” She urged me to stand, helping me into the robe as I did.
“What happened?” She was remarkably calm as she spoke, pulling herbs from the cabinets that tinged the air with their strong scents that tickled my nose. I blinked once, then again, trying to see the herbs more clearly. My vision swam, preventing me from seeing more than green blurs in her hands.
“I went to the Quarter, like I told you. A witch there told me to go home.” A small, defeated laugh left me. “I bet even her fox was judging me for being such an idiot. Obviously I should’ve listened. At this cemetery I was exploring–“ At the words she looked at me in exasperated alarm, “I did another reading for myself. Drew myself the Ten of Swords instead of The Tower. Isn’t that great?” My voice remained dry. “You know, if I didn’t have bad luck in this town I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”
“Who draws the Ten of Swords for themselves, even?” Aveline muttered with a shake of her head.
“Me? So this guy showed up and told me that since I’d helped in the little vampire coup two nights ago, I get to die.” It was easier for me to talk about it sarcastically while trying not to focus on the pain in my shoulder or the blood trickling down my chest and stomach. The robe stuck to me uncomfortably and parts of the silk were already dyed red.
“Why didn’t you call your cards?” My cousin looked up in confusion. “Instead of letting him chew on you. What was he, a lion?”
“A wendigo,” I shot back. “A vervain slurping wendigo.”
Her hand slowed. “My wards won’t stop someone taking vervain,” she said softly.
“Surely he doesn’t have enough to keep taking it,” I dismissed.
“With your Ten of Swords style luck tonight, I wouldn’t take that bet. Also, it still doesn’t explain how you ended up here with a silver knife sticking out of your chest.”
“He had a friend outside the cemetery in case I tried to get out that way. A vampire. She had the silver knife and a vervain sniffing habit like him.”
“Please tell me they’re both dead and rotting in a ditch.”
I shook my head, wincing. By now the other wounds on my body were healed, though I ached from the toll of how much healing I’d done.
The knife wound would heal human slow, without intervention.
“I couldn’t even-“ a choked laugh bubbled from my lips and I leaned heavily on the table, head in my hands. “Av, I couldn’t even fight him when he was half shifted. What the fuck?”
It made me think significantly less of myself, truth be told. Was I really so weak without my summoning?
“So how’d you get away?”
I quickly summarized the rest of the night, telling her tersely about the woman, the drive-by stabbing, and making my way home. When I’d finished, she
