that damage the working? I was way messier than a witch, but then I didn’t have talent, power, or craft, and I was as likely to kill myself as accomplish what I wanted. I decided to ignore the dissipating talc fog.
I opened and prepared the blood-drawing stuff and cleaned one finger with alcohol. I held the shot-chalice over the flame and was surprised at how fast the silver heated. “Shoulda gotten a potholder,” I muttered.
“Beg pardon?” Alex drawled. There was a hint of snark in his tone, and he was leaning against the wall to the TV room, ankles crossed, arms crossed over his chest, cell in one hand, recording. He wore a hip rig with two nine-mils. He was a pretty good shot. Better than me, these days. He was dressed in hiking boots, tight jeans, and layered shirts. His too-long curly hair fell over his forehead and his eyes looked a brighter green than normal. Alex looked like . . . Well, wow. Stinky the Kid had grown up. He’d gotten buff and tough and kinda cocky . . . and . . . looked like a male model. An unexpected gush of pride welled up in me, though I’d had nothing to do with the transformation.
“If something happens to me, you take care of the others, you hear?”
“If something happens to you, Eli will beat my ass, so make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Ouch!” I dropped the silver shot-chalice and it landed on a pillow, upside down, as I shook my burned fingers. The shot glass was sterling, so I figured the shallow bottom was as useful as the deeper bowl on the proper side. I stabbed my finger with the lancet and said a bad word. Alex chuckled, sounding as wicked as his brother. Dear God. What was I going to do with two of them? I squeezed my finger over the shallow silver bottom and blood filled it quickly, then started to run everywhere. I applied pressure, but it didn’t stop. “Stupid cancer,” I said. “Now my blood isn’t clotting.” And I was breathless and nauseated and . . .
Brute wandered in from the TV room and flopped on the cold floor, head on one ear, tongue lolling, watching me sideways. Stupid dog.
“Girrard DiMercy,” I said. “By my blood I call you.” The blood in the silver vessel didn’t boil, but it did warm a little. For the space of maybe a minute nothing happened. So I picked up the mermaid in my bloody hand and said, “Girrard DiM—”
“By the feathers of Artemis, what are you doing!”
I looked up to see Gee hanging off the wrought-iron chandelier overhead. The chandelier was swinging and looked as if it might fall and hit me.
“Are you trying to kill us all?” he went on in his vaguely Spanish accent. “Do you know how many arcenciels are in the area? Three! Three of the flying goddesses, searching for a juvenile that someone sensed. And the three are in contact with others.” He said of the crystal, “Who have you trapped?”
I placed the crystal on the floor. Tucked my bleeding finger into the tight space between thigh and calf and used my body weight to apply pressure to the tiny cut. “Soul, but I didn’t trap her. She was captured while stuck in mermaid form and didn’t try to free herself and was carted off by a vampire. You missed the battle.” I didn’t add that if he had been here things might have gone very differently. “I got her back but I don’t know how to free her. The arcenciels owe me for reneging on Leo and the Sangre Duello. I want to collect. She’s my bargaining chip.”
“You want the arcenciels to free Soul?”
Brute snorted as if he thought that was funny.
“Yeah. And then help me rescue my godchild.”
“Have you not bothered to inspect Soul?”
I frowned and lifted the chain to study the trapped mermaid. “What am I looking for here?”
“Her left leg,” Gee said, as if I was stupid.
I held the crystal to the chandelier; something inside caught the light. A silver-toned circle was around Soul’s ankle. Fin. Whatever. It was tight, cutting into her flesh. Small blisters ran up the scales of what would have been her calf and knee, then thinned and vanished. “Okay. I see it. Is this why she can’t find her dragon form?”
“Yes. No one will help her. No one will save her. No one can save her. She was punished by the Arcenciel