“Trust me,” Madoc said grimly. “The one time their spell works, you’ll be glad to have some recourse. Do you have a graveyard on site?”
James drew back in distaste. He still looked suspicious. “What possible fucking reason do you have to ask that?”
“Because I assume you have no stable,” Madoc replied with a grim smile. “I need iron nails, from a horseshoe or a coffin. Whichever is easiest to find.”
James rubbed his hand over his head. “Neither is easier,” he said. “Would a nail from the store not do as well?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Took asked. He felt suddenly exhausted, as though he could just lie down and sleep in the salt. The inside of him felt raw, as though whatever Waring had done had chafed him on the way through. Revulsion curdled in his stomach at the thought—the same sick knot he felt whenever the VINE psychiatrists probed too hard about what he’d forgotten—but he couldn’t muster anger. That flash of Waring’s motivation was still too sharp in the back of his head. If Took had been that desperate to protect something, maybe he’d have done the same thing. “Iron is iron.”
Madoc shrugged. “Or it isn’t,” he said. “A coffin nail or a horse nail is what’s prescribed. Why risk being wrong?”
“I’ll send a guard to the nearest ranch,” James said. “It will cause fewer questions than if I sent him to defile a graveyard. That will take a few hours, though. We don’t encourage people to settle nearby, even if the land were hospitable enough to draw them.”
“Take your time. I still need to speak to the boyars, add this wrinkle to the ones we already handed them.” Madoc paused as he turned to look at Took. “You should go back to the plane. The boyars wouldn’t speak to you anyhow, even if I wanted you to be under their attention. Feed. Rest.”
It was masochism that made Took take a sidelong look at James. He already knew what he’d see, the discomfort in gray eyes and distaste in the curl of a lip, because they were whathefelt… usually felt. After the last few days he had spent too much energy to muster much self-loathing.
A little of course—he was tired, not dead—but it was mixed with a dose of bitter defiance. Maybe it was all the salt. He hoped it lasted.
“If you’re sure?” he said.
Part of him squirmed uncomfortably at the idea he’d just leave Madoc to deal with this. He’d gotten used to aggressively pulling his weight as the only human Biter in the field. But he still had a meeting to attend, and it would be easier if he didn’t have to sneak from under Madoc’s attention to do it.
“Go,” Madoc said. He kicked the leg of Waring’s cot with his foot. “This doesn’t fall under your purview.”
Calculation flickered over James’s face. It didn’t take VINE’s best behavioral scientist to follow his train of thought. However uncomfortable he was with the idea of Took’s hunger, he judged he’d be a lot more uncomfortable with a tired, pissed-off cardinal in his passenger seat. And no one ever seemed to come away from the boyars without being pissed off.
“I’ll drive you,” he said. “I have to go into town anyhow, and then Agent Madoc will have the car when he’s ready to leave.”
“That works,” Took said. “Thanks.”
Madoc scowled but nodded reluctantly. “That’s convenient.”
After one last look around the cell, James shook himself and stepped back into the hall. “Give me five minutes to brief my team. This will have roused some of the lighter sleepers. I want everyone prepared and with answers for the ones that still talk.”
“I’ll come with you,” Took said quickly. He guiltily avoided Madoc’s eyes as he ducked out the door after James. Maybe he couldn’t muster much anger against Waring, but the idea of being shut up with him—
He didn’t know why he still fought. It never worked. Maybe it was stubbornness or the fear just short-circuited everything else to hijack his body and make him flail. One of them dealt him a casual blow that made his ears ring, before they threw him into the room. It stank like a trap house, that acrid stench that reached down to what was left of Agent Luke Bennett, and they locked the door behind him. In the dark, he sat up and said…The words were gone, scratched out of his brain.They wouldn’t come back for him for a long time.
—was something different.
Madoc stepped out after them. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of being locked in there either, or the singed, biological smell that clung to the salt.
“Three nails,” he told James. “Best to get six, in case you need to do this again.”
“He’s slated to die soon,” James said. “If it takes a year for him to muster a spell—”
“They won’t execute him now,” Madoc said. “Not even for dead dhampirs. There aremaybea hundred sorcerers in the US, all in the Senate’s employ, andmaybea dozen of them have any real power. Most would spend a year to win an hour’s glimpse into the future or give their enemies scabies. He’s too valuable to kill if they can break him. And if they can’t break him, they can trade him back to the home country. Tepes collects magic users like a child collects baubles.”
For the first time, James seemed to register the bitter chill of the prison. He shuddered and rubbed his hands together.
“I’d choose the sword,” he said.
“As would I,” Madoc said. “But he won’t get the choice.”
He turned to Took and caught his hand. The brush of his lips over Took’s knuckles, the hint of fang behind the soft curve, was sweetly familiar but felt more intimate than a kiss under James’s watchful eye. Heat caught at the tips of Took’s ears and between his legs as Madoc grazed his tongue along the dip between Took’s knuckles.
