“Shut up,” she bit out. “Back away from him.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I said toback the fuck away, Fletcher!” Zaria’s voice tore raggedlyfrom her chest, and something in her tone must have convinced him she meant business. Fletcher lifted his hands from the coat, gaze tracking her movements as she picked it up and tossed it aside.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She ignored him. If her hunch was correct, then Kane wasn’t going to bleed out anytime soon. Gently, she probed beneath the ragged edge of his shirt, peeling it back when she located the bullet wound. Kane continued to jerk and tense beneath her fingertips, his chest rising and falling so rapidly, it was unnerving.
“I think he’s dying,” Fletcher said, a note of hysteria in his tone.
Again, Zaria didn’t reply. She used her sleeve to wipe the worst of the blood away, making Kane claw at the spill of her skirts. His teeth ground together so aggressively that she heard his jaw pop.
“He’s not dying,” she declared, having confirmed her suspicions. “Cleland shot him with a magic-infused dart. It’s still lodged in his skin.”
Fletcher’s lips parted, his face frozen somewhere between relief and dismay. “Oh, hell. Okay. This has happened to him before, you know. He was shot with one on a job a few years ago.”
“And how was it dealt with?”
“No idea. Ward whisked him away the moment he heard, and the next time I saw Kane, he was good as new. I never asked him what he’d undergone.”
Zaria fought to keep her voice level. “Well then, that’s not exactly helpful, Fletcher, is it?”
“I’m just saying, he’s survived this before. Still, those guns aren’t very common—more trouble than they’re worth. How did Cleland get his hands on one in the first place?”
“No idea,” she said, knowing the question was rhetorical and not particularly caring. “But the dart is intended to cause an immenseamount of pain, and it fractures the moment it comes in contact with a target. Each individual piece will need to be removed.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Then his body won’t be able to handle it. He’ll either have a heart attack, or he’ll go into shock and his organs will shut down.”
“Great.” Fletcher clambered to his feet, complexion paler than ever. “Then get those things the hell out.”
In another scenario, Zaria might have offered an angry retort, but stress was beginning to fracture her shield of emergency-induced clarity. She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. The reasonable course of action would be to take Kane to a physician. The problem, of course, was that they were unlikely to find one at this hour, and even if they did, the average physician wasn’t familiar with alchemological weapons. They wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with this.
Zaria, on the other hand, was well acquainted with the type of dart currently lodged in Kane’s ribs. But she wasn’t a surgeon, and she didn’t have any sort of medical training. There was the distinct possibility she could cause damage and make everything worse.
“Zaria.”
This time it wasn’t Fletcher who said her name. Shocked, she glanced down to see Kane turning his head toward her. His voice was scarcely audible, his chest still heaving, and there was a horrible gray tinge to his skin.
Zaria blinked, unable to force an answer past her dry throat. He was lucid—that was something—but fury twisted the planes of his face. Kane’s hazel eyes glittered, never leaving hers. He spoke through clenched teeth with considerable effort.
“End. It.”
“What did he say?” Fletcher was there in an instant. He reachedout as if to grab Kane, then withdrew his hand just as quickly. “Kane, what did you say? Talk to me.”
“Fucking—END IT,” Kane snarled. His head snapped to the other side as he unleashed a roar into the night, his body arching off the ground a final time.
Zaria stood on shaking legs. She had made her decision. “We need to get him back to Cecile’s.”
Fletcher nodded, mouth set in grim determination. “I’ll carry him. Are you going to be able to…”
He didn’t finish the question, yet Zaria could guess at how it ended. Cecile’s apartment contained some alchemological supplies, but whether it would be enough—and whether they would be helpful—remained to be seen. “I don’t know. Hopefully.”
“God help us,” Fletcher croaked. “I suppose that’ll have to be good enough, won’t it?”
Of all the ways Zaria had imagined she might someday kill Kane Durante, this particular method had never crossed her mind.
