of the cage. He gave a final heave and the thing tore loose with a sound of screeching metal and splitting flesh. With nothing holding me in place, I slipped to the floor, bleeding in more places than I could count.
“Are you sane, or what passes for it with you?” he asked in a strangled half lisp. I recognized the sound—that of a vamp with fully extended fangs—not that I’d heard it often. Mostly, when they get to that stage, they aren’t much interested in talking.
I nodded weakly. The animal that clawed through my veins was gone—for the moment. I could feel the ragged remnants of confused rage, but that was normal. It would pass, and even if not, I doubted I’d be doing further damage anytime soon.
Before he could reply, the Frenchman was airborne, landing several yards away. Two huge brown eyes appeared in my field of vision, peering at me out of a small, misshapen face. Shaggy gray hair obscured most of the features, including any sign of a nose, but there were a few scraggly fangs poking out of the fuzz. I noticed that several of them were pointing the wrong way, heading upward like tusks, while a few of the others had grown in such a way as to be more a threat to the creature than its prey.
I stopped wondering if I was about to become something’s lunch and struggled to sit up. Unfortunately, that made the room tilt violently and my blood seep out even faster. A tearing, sharp pain bit into my side every time I moved or breathed.
“Lie still if you want to live!” Louis-Cesare ordered harshly. “And call that thing off or I will be forced to kill it. I cannot help you while constantly fending off attack!”
“What is it?” The room kept swimming in and out of my vision, but I managed to focus on the hovering gray thing. It reminded me of a Mr. Potato Head doll assembled by a two-year-old. All the parts were there, but they weren’t necessarily in the right place. The comparison was strengthened by its incongruously long, sticklike arms and legs, which poked at sharp angles out of the fur. Its knees were currently up around its head as it squatted protectively beside me, close enough that the stench emanating from it made my eyes water.
“A lot which failed to sell. It was about to be killed when you went mad.” Louis-Cesare nudged it cautiously with a toe and it snarled at him so viciously that one of its bent fangs pierced its bottom lip, causing a trickle of black blood to join the matted dirt and who-knew-what on its chin. “It appears to be under the impression that you saved its life.” A misshapen appendage that only vaguely resembled a hand reached out to pat my hair. “How touching. Now call it off!”
“How do I do that?”
“Improvise.” He had his hand on his rapier, and I didn’t doubt he’d use it.
I sighed. “It’s okay,” I told my little groupie. “If he lets me die, Daddy will kill him for you.”
The thing must have understood something, because it shuffled back a few paces, letting Louis-Cesare get close enough to examine me. I lay back against the floor while he touched my cheek gently, then stroked along my throat. Light mental fingers danced past my tattered shields and suddenly I could breathe without pain. His hands were warm on my skin and his touch swept away the last of the confused frenzy. They made me feel steadier, anchored, and I realized that he’d hit me with a suggestion. Normally, that sort of thing wouldn’t work, but my shields were in shreds. And since it took most of the pain away, I didn’t feel like protesting.
I closed my eyes and let a wonderful numbness creep down my body from neck to knees. The room was spinning to the point that I knew I’d lost a lot of blood—enough to be dangerous even for me. I didn’t try to catalog my wounds, since I couldn’t seem to concentrate, and decided to use what little mental capacity I had for more important things. “Claire?”
“She was here, but not by the time we arrived. There is a note for you, when you are well enough to read it.”
“A note?” Trust Claire to find time, in the middle of a slave auction, to leave a note! The girl needed therapy. I laughed, but it hurt, so I stopped. “I feel