Grevin’s eyelids fluttered with the effort to keep them open.
“Never mind.Don’t waste your breath.”They could deal with whatever had been freed once Grevin had received the medical care he clearly needed.He didn’t want his friend to die while they were playing twenty questions.
Grevin’s eyes rolled beneath their lids—strings of words in a language Quentin didn’t know spilled from his mouth in fluid strings of incomprehensible sounds.
Fuck, was he possessed?
A wave of his hand returned a negative diagnosis.
“What was that?”Jaks asked, leaning closer.
“Checking for possession.”
“Is he?”
“No, just delirious.”
Abruptly, Grevin’s language switched to English.Quentin leaned closer to hear.
“I didn’t mean it, Q.It was supposed to be a safe space.Someone got in.They hit me from behind and took the demon.”His knuckles whitened around his hold of Quentin’s shirt.“You have to get it back,” he whispered.
A dribble of blood trickled from Grevin’s lips.
Jaks’s fingers bit into Quentin’s shoulder, grounding him in the moment and preventing him from hyperventilating from his rising levels of panic.
“We need to get him to the doctor.You can interrogate him when he’s feeling better.”
Quentin nodded.He slid his left arm around Grevin’s back and his right arm beneath Grevin’s legs.He swallowed back bile as sticky blood coated his hands and seeped through his shirt.
He could do this.His inner pep talk didn’t account for the stench.He swallowed a few more times as cold sweat dripped down his spine.
“I can carry him,” Jaks offered.
He swallowed again before speaking.The room swam for a second, but Quentin fought against the dizziness and steadied.“I’ve got him.Where do we need to go?”He hoped Jaks had a private doctor in mind because hospitals and necromancers didn’t mix.He’d forgotten that in his initial alarm.
He lifted Grevin as he stood, swaying and stubbornly clutching his friend tight to his body, afraid of dropping him if he flailed.This shouldn’t have happened.Of all the magic practitioners Quentin knew, Grevin was the most careful.The necromancer always double and triple-checked everything before starting a ritual.For someone to get in, they either had to be one of the few people keyed in or powerful enough to smash through Grevin’s wards.
“We need to take him back to the manor.I recently hired a doctor for the mansion.We can bring him there.Are you sure you can’t do any healing spells to stabilize him?”
“No.”Quentin hated to admit to a weakness.“I’ve never been good at any of the healing arts.”He could feel his cheeks burning with shame.
Grevin gasped out a painful-looking laugh.“I remember when you blew up the patient mannequin.”More blood dripped from between his lips.
“Hush, save your breath.You’re supposed to be heroically unconscious.”He kept his tone light as he inwardly panicked over the amount of sticky blood seeping through his fingers.
“Dr.Wesson should be at the mansion.He was setting up the medical ward when I talked to him this morning.”
“Good.Hold on tight.”The second Jaks touched his shoulder, Quentin transported all three of them to Jaks’s bedroom.The vampire’s large suite took over most of the wing, but Quentin wasn’t confident enough to avoid the living room table.Jaks’s bedroom had the least amount of furniture and was the only one he was familiar enough with to teleport to confidently.He was sure no one would be inside.
Luckily for Jaks’s sake, he was right.
He barely steadied his feet before Jaks was pulling him out of the suite.
“This way.”Jaks opened a door halfway down the hall and motioned them inside.
Instead of a doctor’s office, it was an impersonal guest room.Frowning, he set Grevin on the floral comforter that would have been at home in any cheap motel.
“This one doesn’t have anything that we care about being damaged by blood.As I said, Dr.Wesson is still setting up his medical facility.There isn’t a lot of need for vampire medical care, but several humans are living here, and there is always the occasional injury that needs professional help.He’s only here part-time right now, mostly nights, until I can see how much he’s needed.He’s picked up some clients who needed counseling.”
