Faith nodded. That made an odd sort of sense, really. She hadn't been able to do any magic at all until just before preschool, and that had barely even been anything to worry about. Crissy was the same. “Sort of like eating solid food, or walking, or… well. Baby stuff. Well, anyhow. It's all slightly irrelevant at this moment. Right now we're getting you upstairs and tucked into bed. Marc said you need rest. I'd say you need a doctor, but what do I know?" She ushered him out of the kitchen ahead of her and up the large stairs in the front hallway. "And I thought your cousin was a computer guy?"
"Leo is a computer guy, but his sister Madeline is one of two doctors at the clinic in town. They handle everything from basic health checks to broken bones and stitches. They are not quite set up as an emergency room, but they are the closest thing we have in town. The nearest hospital is almost twenty minutes away by car.”
"And you're sure we shouldn't take you in to see her?"
Faith hovered behind him as he climbed the stairs, stiffly. She wasn't sure that she could catch him if he fell, but she'd rather try than let him just tumble backward with those injuries. His back was still badly gouged, and the bandages she applied might need to be changed before he woke up. Assuming they weren’t healed perfectly by then.
Besides, it was one hell of a view. The parts of his back that weren't covered in bandages were pure muscle. Not gym rat muscle, which she had never understood the attraction of, but the kind that spoke to active use. Like the gymnasts in the Olympics. Okay, so she was pretty sure that athletes actually did hit the gym regularly, but still. It wasn't all free weights all the time or whatever.
And now she was rambling inside her own head. Fantastic.
"I am certain. Madeline would laugh at me for asking her to look at the wounds you have already dressed so well. Then she would amuse herself with the fact that I let the wolves surprise me, in the first place" Aldric sighed. "She would consider it her familial duty."
"I think I would like to meet her sometime," Faith grinned. As stiff as Aldric was, it was interesting to see how many people were attached to him. It was clear that he wasn't just a commander or whatever his title was. He was family. Or a friend. From the way Marc and Tamika spoke of him, they weren't in the slightest afraid of Aldric, though he seemed concerned about people's perceptions of vampires.
"Hey, Aldric?" Faith asked quietly as they walked down the hallway. They both stopped to glance into Jake's room, and the children were both sprawled across the trundle bed like it was their job to cover as much space as possible, but they were both breathing softly and regularly, sleeping deeply the way only children do.
"Yes?" Aldric pulled the door closed without latching it.
"How old are you, exactly? You speak so formally,"
One of the things that she had learned today was that while werewolves had a longer than human lifespan at right around four hundred years, vampires could be effectively immortal. It didn't do them any mental favors to live that long– they would often go crazy in one way or another, and would have to be ‘put down’ as Marc had phrased it for the safety of those around them. It turned out that it wasn't especially complicated to kill either a vampire or a werewolf, though, if you were fast and accurate enough.
"I am just over one hundred years old. One hundred three, to be specific. My mother was very formal. My father was not, but I spent less time with him due to his job outside the coven I was born into," Aldric said. He let her usher him into his room and just smiled, amused, when she pointed him to the bed. "May I change into sleep pants first? Or must I wear my filthy blood covered jeans to bed?"
"Okay, that's a little gross. Yes, pajamas. Oh man, you can't shower, though, can you? With the bandages? What will you do tomorrow? Ugh, living with massive injuries is complicated. I still can't figure out how you're even upright and walking!" She had to get a handle on this rambling thing. It was getting out of hand.
"Vampires heal quickly," Aldric shrugged. "Not as fast as movies and books would have you believe, but by tomorrow afternoon the worst of the wounds will have closed enough for me to shower. Until then, a washcloth will suffice."
Faith watched as he pulled pajama pants and a soft looking t-shirt out of a dresser drawer, then stepped into the bathroom and, with a small smile, closed the door behind him.
14
The next afternoon Aldric felt fully healed. There were still scabs covering the worst parts of his injuries, and pink still-healing lines of new skin at the edges, but they hardly bothered him.
After Faith tucked Aldric into bed, Marc had received several reports from the enforcers tasked with tracking the strange wolves off Frostwalker land. The trail ended at the road, as it had at the Latham’s cabin, so they were once again without a lead.
Mia herself had dragged the corpse of the dead wolf back to a work shed on the property to see if they could somehow discern his identity, but when that failed, they had cremated the creature and would bury the leftover remains.
First
