but followed my pointing finger to the inscription on the plinth and comprehension dawned.
"We need to get back to the kitchen," he said, getting to his knees. He was careful not to touch anything except carpet, but he swayed slightly, scaring me. I looked down and understood the problem. His trouser leg was drenched with red, making it a match for the jacket below his injured ear. There was so much blood that I suspected a major artery had been hit. He leaned on me heavily as we made our way along the narrow safe way, reinforcing the impression.
Sounds of a furious battle came from around the corner, no doubt from the mages, but we ignored it. Personally, I was rooting for the casino. I knew how to deal with it now, but the mages didn't have a time-out zone.
We burst back into the kitchen. "We need an ambulance!" I yelled, squinting around. It was hard to see, since the room seemed blindingly well lit after the hall, but I got a vague impression of a bunch of squat shapes pausing to stare at us out of huge, glowing eyes.
"No. I can deal with this." Pritkin collapsed just inside the door. He pulled off his boot and gouts of purplish red blood flooded the previously pristine kitchen floor. His face lost what little color it had.
I grabbed up a nearby dish towel and held it to the wound. Resolution or no resolution, I wasn't going to watch him bleed to death. "I'm going to shift us to a hospital," I said, but he drew back from my touch.
"No! I can heal this." He muttered something under his breath and the blood flow did decrease, but I didn't like the shallow, panting breaths he was taking or the clammy pallor of his face. It also seriously creeped me out to see his hanging ear slowly climb back up the side of his face and reattach itself.
"Why don't you want a hospital?" I demanded, trying to ignore the ear, which gave a final twitch to align itself with the slant of the other one. Suddenly, some pieces of the puzzle fell into place. "Wait a minute. Those mages weren't just after me, were they? The Circle's chasing you, too!”
Pritkin didn't reply, being too busy chanting something inaudible. I felt a presence looming over us and looked up to see a gargoyle with red eyes and, incongruously, dainty ruby earrings in its pointed, catlike ears. It pushed me aside gently but firmly.
I stood there awkwardly, unsure whether to protest or not. I didn't say anything, mainly because I didn't get a feeling of evil from the thing. That might have had something to do with the jewelry, or the fact that it had chocolate icing on its fuzzy chin. It seemed to have been the right decision. A hand that looked more like a paw hovered over Pritkin's leg for a moment, then slowly, the jagged wound began to close.
The process appeared to be helping him heal, but judging by the way his eyes were bulging, it wasn't pleasant. He looked like he wanted to say something, so I leaned in a little, staying out of reach of his balled fists. "Me oportet propter praeceptum te nocere (I'm going to have to hurt you on principle)," he gasped.
"Very funny.”
"You could have shifted us out of there all the time!”
"Not without a price.”
Pritkin's glare almost set a new record. "What price? You could have been killed! So could I!”
"Stercus accidit (Shit happens)." While he was deciphering my bastardized Latin, I went in search of another way out. I did not intend to set foot in that corridor again, nor was I planning to shift after going to such lengths to avoid it.
What I found was very satisfactory. If I hadn't been so weirded out by the gargoyles, I might have thought to take a look around earlier and saved us that whole scene in the hall. After passing a couple of huge, built-in freezers, a cool room and a storeroom for nonperishable stuff, I found a loading dock that let out onto the back of the casino.
I looked over the sunlit parking lot and was seriously tempted to take off while the mage was healing. I so didn't have time for this, whatever this was. I had to persuade Casanova to tell me where his boss was hiding. Not that I was 100 percent certain that Myra was with him, but it was a