I donned latex gloves from the first aid kit and took out a can of pressurized saline wound wash. “This might hurt.”
I held the can over the largest wound and squeezed the trigger. Saline streamed forth, knocking clotted blood loose and hopefully cleaning out any dirt or debris. The harvester watched impassively.
“Or maybe it won’t.”
Fresh green-black blood welled and dripped down the parchment skin as I flushed the other two wounds. Her eyes flickered like lights about to go out.
“Stay awake.” I moved faster, setting the saline spray aside and grabbing forceps and a medical stapler. I loaded a cartridge of stainless steel staples but hesitated. Why wasn’t the harvester healing on her own? The wounds should have begun to close within minutes once the knife was removed, but these were fresh and still bleeding.
A poisoned blade? If there was a poison that worked on harvesters, I’d never heard of it. That left the magic on the knife. A spell not just to pierce the flesh but to continue to kill, like an infection.
“Temple, where are you?” Artemis never used to leave me hanging like this when I needed her help. She’d had my back like I was one of her own daughters. She’d certainly watched over me better than my own mother. But I’d walked away from her—from both Artemis and Mom—a long time ago.
I pushed the old loneliness aside and removed my necklace. A silver tetradrachm, a Greek coin with an image of Artemis on the face, hung from a thick platinum chain. The coin had been a gift from Felipe after the ceremony binding me to the goddess.
It will protect you from supernatural harm.
I thrust the coin into the deepest of the harvester’s wounds.
It was like reaching into a death-and-mud-flavored milkshake: cold and gritty and altogether gross, even through the latex gloves.
I’d always believed harvesters were mute. I certainly hadn’t expected this one to make a keening sound like a hawk on helium. Were her eyes dimmer than before? I couldn’t tell.
I slid the coin free and repeated the process with the second wound, not knowing if it was making any difference at all.
With my other hand, I reached past the harvester to the wall. The wallpaper was a red-and-tan heraldic design from the late nineteenth century. It was original, repaired and maintained all these years by Finn family magic.
“I’m sorry about this.” I ripped a long strip from the wall.
My reward was a sharp yell from upstairs.
“He’ll be right down,” I assured the harvester.
I was working on the third stab wound when I heard the slide-slap of old leather slippers and the tap of a rubber-tipped cane in the hall behind me. The smell of denture cream joined the death-stink in the air.
Temple Finn was a legend in supernatural circles. Or rather, he used to be. He came from one of the most powerful magical families in the world, and he’d spent much of his adult life as Protector of the eastern half of North America. You could fill two dozen books with his exploits and adventures.
Nowadays, he looked like someone’s slightly addled grandfather. He had a good four inches on me, being close to six feet tall, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he hunched over his cane. His bushy salt-and-pepper beard was a tangled mess. He wore plaid boxer shorts and a white T-shirt that stretched to cover most but not quite enough of his belly. An honest-to-goddess nightcap, white with blue stripes, perched on his head.
“Do you have any idea how much your little act of wallpaper vandalism hurt?” he snapped. “Imagine peeling a hangnail and having the skin tear all the way to your elbow.”
“I called you twice,” I shot back. “If you slept any harder, you’d be dead.”
“Pah. I refuse to die on a Friday.” He glared at the sky like he was daring Death to challenge him.
“It’s two in the morning. It’s Saturday.”
“Saturday, you say?” His eyes narrowed behind the thick lenses of his plastic-framed bifocals. “Maybe it’s good you woke me up. Saturdays are tricky. What’s the problem?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he leaned in until the pom-pom on the end of his nightcap swung within an inch of the harvester’s skin like a poofy pendulum. He didn’t need a hagstone to see through the shadows.
“I think the knife left something behind, a curse or infection,” I said.
“This is old-school magic.” He peered over the top of his glasses. “Irish, from the look of it. These weapons are tricky to create. You have to take an iron blade coated in silver and imbue it with—”
“Can you help her?”
“Of course I can.” He scoffed. Taking the chain of my necklace, he tugged the coin out of the harvester. “I imagine you’ll want to wash that.”
