His gaze followed mine, and his frown deepened. “You pulled animus from them? How many?”
I blinked, trying to keep my brain on track. “Four. Killed... two.”
Rans was silent for a moment, staring at the dead Fae. “Right,” he said eventually. “Well, we know Fae magic has never sat well with you, and you’ve just pulled a massive amount of it at one time. Let’s... focus on getting to St. John’s as fast as possible. We’ll have more resources at our disposal there.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Guthrie said, still peering at me with a worried expression. “What are we going to do with... uh, the bodies?” His tone sounded uncertain. Distantly, I wondered if he’d ever killed anyone before.
“Dump them overboard,” Rans said absently, his attention still fixed on me. “They may wash up somewhere eventually, but it’ll take a while. Do you have any blood bags left?”
“One,” Guthrie replied.
“Drink it. You’ve lost a fair amount of the stuff, and I’d rather you don’t go feral on us unexpectedly before we reach shore.”
If Guthrie had any opinions on that, he kept them to himself. Rans stroked my cheek... the side of my neck. It felt divine, and I moaned softly.
“I want you to rest, love. We’ll get you to civilization, and if you’re not feeling better by then, there will be a hospital in the city. If nothing else, I’m pretty sure that bullet’s still inside you.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. You didn’t look strong enough for me to go digging around in your guts to get it out. And... I’m not entirely certain I could have done it, anyway. Not to you.”
I reached for him, my fingers uncoordinated as they grazed his cheek. “S’all right,” I whispered.
He captured my hand and kissed it, then laid it gently on my lap. After bringing his carryon bag for me to use as a pillow, he eased me to lie down in the shade thrown by the hull. The change in position didn’t help much with the dizziness, and I swallowed a few times as fresh nausea threatened.
I was only vaguely aware of Rans and Guthrie throwing the bodies of the dead Fae overboard, and I caught disconnected snippets of the brief conversation that ensued after several unsuccessful attempts to get the powerboat’s engine started. I was jostled into full wakefulness when Rans lifted me into his arms and moved me into one of the Fae boats before laying me down again.
This boat’s engine started on the second try, thankfully. Guthrie cast off the ropes tethering us to the powerboat, and the deck surged beneath me as we got underway for Antigua. I retched weakly at the unexpected movement, but there was nothing left to bring up.
“Guess it’s a good thing we paid that guy for his boat,” Guthrie observed. He sat down on the deck across from me, leaning against the hull as he watched me closely. No one replied.
The afternoon sun beat down unmercifully. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the burning in my body started growing exponentially worse, but it didn’t seem like very much.
“Rans,” I whispered in a tremulous voice, feeling suddenly terrified of what was happening to me. I tried to roll over... to get onto my hands and knees so I could crawl to him. My panic increased when my muscles wouldn’t obey my command. I flailed, trying to get control of my arms and legs, but it was like everything inside me was short-circuiting at once.
Guthrie scrambled toward me. “Hey—easy there. What is it, what’s wrong?” His hand closed over my shoulder.
“Ra—” I choked on the name, my lungs seizing as my body convulsed into helpless spasms.
NINETEEN
WHEN I CAME BACK to myself, it felt a though every nerve and muscle fiber in my body had been individually shredded. We were drifting again, or at least I thought we were. Possibly, it was just me. I was lying on my side in the fetal position, my head still supported on Rans’ bag.
Everything that had been bad before was even worse now. I was too weak to lift so much as a finger. My eyes were open, but everything swam in double vision. The hazy objects around me were surrounded by haloed auras that hurt to look at. Ringing in my ears nearly blocked out the tinny sounds of voices nearby. I struggled to focus past the racket and make sense of the words.
“... can’t do that, Rans!” Tentatively, my scrambled brain identified the speaker as Guthrie. He sounded upset. “I’ve been a vampire for, what? Three days? Maybe four? What the hell do I know about turning a human into one! Look, we’re probably only ten minutes away from shore. There must be something else—”
“She’s dying.” Rans, that time. Desperation now joined the fear I’d heard in his voice earlier. I wondered distantly what they were fighting about. It felt like I should be more worried about whatever it was, but I was so tired...
“You can’t know that for sure! We need to get her to a doctor—”
“Damn it, man, stop talking and listen! Listen to her heart!”
There was a long beat of silence, broken only by the ringing noise still echoing through my skull like an alarm. When Guthrie spoke again, he sounded less certain.
“But... I’m not...” Another pause. “You should be the one to do it. I told you, I wouldn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I could make a mistake and kill her.”
“I can’t do it.” All the emotion drained out of Rans’ voice, leaving it flat and dead in a way that was even scarier than his earlier desperation had been. “I trapped her in a life-bond when she was held captive in Dhuinne. I did it to save her, but... our lives are forever intertwined now. The moment I drain her to the point of death in preparation for turning her, I’ll drop dead as well.
