walls between. There were two doors to the two bedrooms—Molly’s and mine. Well, technically the room was Molly’s. As far as I knew, she hadn’t actually been in it since I’d moved in, except for a couple of times she’d breezed through, petted Mouse, tickled Maggie, shared some sunny chat with me, and departed again.
It had been a while since we’d really talked.
The apartment reminded me of my old place in the basement of Mrs. Spunkelcrief’s boardinghouse. Only there was no musty, moldy smell of old basement. And it was bigger. And it was more brightly lit. And newer. And quite a bit cleaner. And it just didn’t feel right.
As dumpy as it had been, that grotty little apartment had been my home. Damn the vampires, for burning it down. Damn Marcone, for buying the property and putting up his new headquarters on the ground where home used to be.
I missed it.
Ah, well. There was no sense in brooding over it. Life never stays the same. There’s always some kind of curveball coming at you. Nothing to do but swing away.
Thomas picked a spot of wall to lean against where he could see the kitchen and sipped his coffee. His eyes were focused on Maggie with thoughtful intensity. “Living dangerously, eh?”
“Mouse will let me know if there’s a problem,” I said.
“Good dog, there,” Thomas said.
“You want,” I said, “I could write to Brother Wang. Tell him you want a puppy.”
“You already stole that one from him.” Thomas snorted.
“Accidentally,” I said. “Plus I think the furball stowed away on purpose. Even if Brother Wang doesn’t like it, I figure he won’t gainsay the dog.”
“Well,” Thomas mused, “he is a pretty good dog.”
“Damned right he is,” I said.
“Let me think about it,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot going on.”
He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Maggie.
“Hey, man,” I said. “You okay?”
He glanced aside at me and offered me a faint smile. “ Just … thinking real hard about the future.”
“Well,” I said. “That’s understandable.” I closed my eyes and felt my limbs aching in dull, steady throbs that kept time with my heartbeat. Suddenly, I sneezed, hard.
“God bless you,” Maggie said promptly from the kitchen.
“Nnngh,” I called. “Thank you.” The sneeze had sent a surge of aching sensation through my limbs that took several seconds to fade. I opened one eye. That wasn’t right.
The mantle of power of the Winter Knight was what let me keep pace with my brother the vampire while running in sand and wearing two hundred pounds of extra weight. One of the things the mantle did was to dull pain, to the point where I experienced it only as a kind of tense, silvery sensation. Broken bones were sort of annoying. A bleeding wound was something of a distraction—but I didn’t ever, ever just ache.
Except now I was.
Stupid Winter mantle. It kept up a constant assault of primal, feral emotions and desires that were like supercharged versions of my own instincts. I didn’t go out for intense exercise every morning because I enjoyed it. I did it because discipline and routine helped me keep the more primal instincts in check. Daily intense exercise forced the mantle to expend energy in keeping my body going—on my schedule, at my will—and as a result reduced the amount of pressure it could apply to my conscious thoughts. And while it did make me able to ignore pain and to push my body well beyond the normal limits of human endurance, the mantle’s influence was a steady nuisance that required constant effort to keep buttoned up.
“Whoa,” Thomas said. “You okay there, nerd?”
“That was weird,” I said.
Mister prowled up onto the couch and settled on my lap, thrusting his head beneath my hand. I petted him automatically, and his body rumbled with a purr that sounded like a pot of boiling water.
A second or two after that thought, I sneezed again, harder, and this time the aching surge sent a wave of exhaustion flooding through me, so hard that I nearly fell over onto my side.
Also, there was a clang and a splashing sound. Mister leapt out of my lap and bolted. It took me a couple of tries to get my eyes to focus, but when I did, I saw that a metal pot with a black plastic handle was lying on its side on the carpet in front of me. Little wisps of steam rose from the soaking carpet next to the pot.
I blinked up at Thomas and traded a