Rosemary and Rue Part 14

"Toby!" Ignoring the cabbie entirely, he put his hands on my shoulders, yanking me toward him. I hissed as he hit the poultice, world briefly whiting out from the pain. "Oh, root and branch, Julie said it was bad, but I had no idea . . ."

"Julie?" I said, as the cabbie said, startled, "Toby?"

Devin and I both turned to stare at him. That was all right; he was staring at me.

"Toby?" he repeated. "As in October Daye?"

"Sadly, yeah," I said, blinking as confusion won out over the pain in my thigh and shoulder. "Do I know you?"

"No, but you helped my baby sister outta a tight spot once, about seventeen years ago." He grinned, showing teeth that not even an illusion could make look like anything but chunks of craggy stone. "You forget what I said about the upholstery, you hear? I don't want your money. There's a Bannick I know, he'll do it almost free anyhow. You need a cab, you just call and ask for Danny. 'S the least I can do." He paused before adding, almost shyly, " 'S good to see you're back in business. This Kingdom needs more folks like you." Then he was gone, heading rapidly back down the path, leaving me to lean on Devin and stare be musedly after him.

"That was weird," I said finally.

"I don't really care about weird." Devin's tone was sharp. "I care about getting you inside and taking a look at those wounds. What did you do, do, Toby?" Toby?"

"Oh, the usual," I said, letting him lead me toward my front door. "Wrecked my car. Got shot. Twice, actually. With iron bullets. Lost a lot of blood. Lily managed to give a lot of it back to me, but that was before I got shot the second time . . ." The world was spinning. I leaned on Devin's hands. That was a familiar feeling: being dizzy with blood loss and leaning on Devin.

"When you decide to go back to work, you don't screw around, do you?"

I didn't have an answer for that. Instead, I stumbled, and Devin picked me up, carrying me into my apartment. That seemed wrong somehow. Frowning, I asked, "Didn't I lock the door?"

"Hush. You locked it, but I'm the one who taught you how to pick pick locks, remember?" He put me down on the couch. "Get your pants off." locks, remember?" He put me down on the couch. "Get your pants off."

"Always the romantic, aren't you?" I pulled the gun out of my waistband, leaning over to put it on the coffee table. The last thing I needed to do was shoot myself.

"After Julie called, I thought heroic measures might be required." Devin picked up a large black box, shaking it in my direction. "I brought the first aid kit."

Devin's line of work wasn't exactly gentle, and it didn't attract healers. Consequentially, he had a lot of experience with healing potions, charms, salves, and anything else that could patch a body back together faster than nature could manage on its own. Healing potions take their toll, but when you're hard up enough to need them, it always seems like a fair trade.

Normally, I would've been eyeing the box with unalloyed delight. This time, however, there was a little problem. "Iron bullets, Devin," I said, closing my eyes. "You're not gonna have a charm that can handle iron poisoning."

"Maybe not, but I can at least take care of the blood loss and the flesh wounds," he said. I felt his fingers un-snapping the buckle of my jeans as he knelt. "You won't do anyone any good if you're dead."

"That's debatable," I said, and went limp, letting him work.

Devin hissed as he peeled my jeans back. "What were you planning to do about this? Wish it away?"

"I dunno. Think it would work?"

"Not unless you've got a Djinn hiding in your closet." I smelled the sharp, antiseptic tang of disinfectant, and felt him starting to wipe the blood off.

"Not last time I checked." Opening my eyes, I looked down.

It wasn't all that bad at first glance. The bullet had pa.s.sed cleanly through, leaving a small, almost tidy hole on the front of my thigh. The damage was worse around the exit wound; I couldn't see it, but I could feel the ragged edges of the muscles there sc.r.a.ping against each other. As Devin wiped away the blood, thin red-and-white lines became visible, radiating out from the wound like the heralds of infection. That was the real danger. Not the blood loss, not the injury; the iron.

"Have you tried to spin an illusion since you were shot?" Devin asked, head still bent as he worked at my leg.

"I cast a confusion spell on the girl working the gate," I offered, starting to feel faintly nauseated by the sight of so much blood. How much blood is in a body, anyway? And how much of that could I afford to lose?

"And after the second time?"

I hesitated. Tybalt had pushed me toward the cab, and my hair was down, covering my ears . . . "No," I confessed, eyes going wide. "Maeve's teeth, Devin, I just took a taxi without an illusion on! What if the driver had been human?"

"He would've thought you were a comic book geek on your way home from a convention," Devin said, briskly. "People ignore more than you give them credit for. Can you try weaving an illusion? Just a little one? I want to see if you can do it."

"Sure," I said, and raked the fingers of my left hand through the air, intending to gather a handful of shadows to work with. I caught nothing. My magic, always reluctant to answer my commands, didn't even stir.

I went cold.

"Devin . . ."

"Iron poisoning. You're lucky it pa.s.sed straight through; you'd be dead by now if it hadn't," he said, reaching into the first aid kit and coming up with a bottle of something green. "Drink this. It should help with the dizziness."

"Do I want to know where you bought this?" I asked, taking the bottle. The liquid inside smelled like wasabi and pineapple.

"Probably not," he said, beginning to rub a thick purple cream around the wound in my thigh. I gritted my teeth against the stinging. The cream sank into my skin, leaving a cool numbness in its wake. "Try not to get shot again. You can only have one dose this month."

I looked at the bottle with new respect. "Or what?"

"You melt."

"Got it." The liquid tasted like it smelled and tingled all the way down. I handed the bottle back to Devin, not terribly surprised when I realized that my dizziness was gone. "So, iron poisoning. How long am I going to be reduced to living by my wits alone?"

"A few days. You'll need to guard against infection, but it won't kill you." He gave my thigh a critical look. "This needs st.i.tches. I can do it, or you can. Whichever makes you more comfortable."

"Go ahead," I said, closing my eyes again. "You've had more practice."

"You should've stuck around, instead of running off to play with the purebloods," he said, chiding lightly to distract me from the feeling of the needle biting through my flesh. "I told you you'd get soft."

"I wanted to see what getting soft was like," I said, digging my fingers into the cushions and forbidding myself to move. It wasn't easy.

"And the verdict?"

"It was nice. You should try it sometime."

"I'll keep that in mind." He pressed on the edges of the wound, forcing them closer together as he worked. After five st.i.tches, he pulled his hand away. "I need you to lie down on your stomach so I can take care of the back."

"Am I going to get a lollipop when you're done?" I asked, scooting over so that I could lie down on the couch, eyes still closed. "I like the grape ones."

"Hush," he said again, going back to work. First the cream; then the sharp bite of the needle, and the feeling of thread pulling flesh back together. "Is being the one to find Evening's killer really worth all this, Toby?"

"She was your friend, too."

"She was a n.o.ble. Isn't that what we have a queen for?" A hint of bitterness crept into his tone as he tied off the last of the st.i.tches. "Let the n.o.bility take care of their own, and get your a.s.s out of the line of fire."

"Not an option."

He sighed. "You always were a stubborn little fool."

Lifting my head, I twisted around and smiled at him. "I learned from the best."

"I suppose you did," he said, reaching out to cup my chin in the palm of his hand. "I wasn't a very good teacher."

"You were good enough," I said. He moved to let me push myself upright, hand still cupping my chin. "I'm still alive, aren't I?"

"Yes, but at this rate, for how long?" Devin was kneeling, the first aid kit still open beside him. "I want you out of this."

"That's not an option," I said softly.

It wasn't often that I got the chance to see Devin outside the carefully constructed confines of his office. His hair was mussed, hanging to half cover one eye. I reached out to brush it aside, and he caught my hand, expression grim.

"Don't make me beg, Toby. Please. Walk away from this. Let the Queen's Court deal with it." He squeezed my hand. "You just came back to me. I'm not ready to let you go again."

"I never said . . ."

"You didn't have to. You came Home." Hand still cupping my chin, Devin leaned forward and kissed me.

I worked for Devin for years; he'd had his hands over every inch of my body for reasons both s.e.xual and practical, from pulling my clothes off to bandaging a wound. In all those years, he'd never kissed me with so much urgency or such a feeling of need. I found myself responding despite my injuries, first returning the kiss, then sliding down off the couch to kneel beside him. His st.i.tches were good. They didn't even pull as I knelt.

Devin was the one to break away, releasing the hand he was holding as he said, "I need to look at your shoulder."

"Wow," I said, dizzy now for reasons that had nothing to do with blood loss. "Way to kill the mood."

He smirked. "No, darling. The amount of blood you've decided to accessorize with could do that quite admirably without my help."

I glanced down at myself as I slid back onto the couch. The robe I'd borrowed from Lily wasn't pink anymore. Dried blood had turned it a mottled shade of brown, with a brighter streak of red over my left shoulder where exertion had reopened the gunshot wound.

"I need a shower," I said.

"We'll get to that in a minute," Devin said, reaching up to peel away my robe.

Lily's carefully constructed poultice had pulled away during the fight and was dangling loose against my collarbone. Devin tugged the last of the bindings away, dropping the whole bundle onto the floor. "She does good work," he admitted, almost grudgingly. "It looks like she even managed to wash most of the iron out before it could really work its way into your body. That probably explains why you're still conscious."

"You really are a happy little ray of sunshine today, aren't you?" I was looking at the exit wound, and the visible damage still looked about half as bad as my thigh, despite having been made with the same caliber bullet. "Does it need st.i.tches?"

"To be on the safe side? Yes." Devin picked up the cloth he'd used to clean the blood off my leg. "I don't think I need to worry about disinfecting this." More quietly, he added, "It's going to scar, you know."

"Iron always does." I watched him wash the blood away, considering the severity of the damage. Lily really did an amazing job. My arm wouldn't be up to my normal standards for a while-probably several weeks, if ever-but it wouldn't be useless, as long as I could take things easy.

As if that's ever been an option.

Devin closed the front with three st.i.tches, and the back with only two. "There." He returned the needle and surgical thread to the first aid kit before standing, offering me his hands. I raised my eyebrows, and he nodded toward the bathroom. "Didn't you want a shower?"

"Yes," I admitted. "But I'm a little naked here."

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Isn't that the best state in which to take take a shower? Nudity is, I believe, a prerequisite." a shower? Nudity is, I believe, a prerequisite."

"If you insist." Taking his hands, I let him pull me off the couch. I stumbled slightly as I put my weight on my injured leg, relieved when it didn't buckle. I probably couldn't run, but I could walk, at least for now. Depending on the infection, well, we'd see how long that lasted.

Devin didn't comment on the way I leaned on him as we walked to the bathroom. I appreciated that, almost as much as I appreciated his steadying arm around my waist. "You still like your showers hot, don't you?" he asked, letting go at the bathroom door.

"The hotter, the better," I said, before the mirror caught my attention. "Oh."

"Yes," said Devin grimly. Sitting down on the edge of the tub, he turned on the taps. Hot steam began to fill the room. "You see why I was a trifle concerned."

"Uh, yeah. I do." Muck had plastered my hair almost flat against my head, and there was a distinct gray undertone to my complexion. I've seen corpses that looked like they had more life left in them. Considering the way I looked, I shouldn't have been doing anything but calling Danny and requesting a ride to the nearest emergency room-do not pa.s.s Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

"You look better than you did."

"This is better? better?"

Devin looked up, saying simply, "Yes."

That was a sobering thought. I was still standing there contemplating it, when he walked over, put his hands around my waist, and lifted me off the floor. "Hey!" I protested.

"Shower now," he said. "And then, I'll put you to bed with a nice hot drink to make you feel better."

"Is that all you'll put me to bed with?" I asked.

Devin smiled and lowered me into the bathtub.

Hot water on fresh wounds may be medicinally helpful, but it hurts like h.e.l.l. I gasped as the spray from the showerhead hit me, fighting the urge to scream. Devin watched, holding the shower curtain open, before he asked, "Will you be all right?"

Iron poisoning, two gunshot wounds, and he was asking if I'd be all right? I forced a smile, reaching for the curtain. "If I can't take a shower by myself, you can go ahead and bury me," I said, and pulled it closed.

He laughed, saying, "Have it your way," as he left the bathroom. I waited for the sound of the door closing, and turned myself to the serious business of getting clean.

You never realize how wonderful it is to be clean until you've been dirty for days. I stayed in the shower for almost half an hour, glorying in the hot water and the fact that no one was trying to kill me. When the water started to cool I turned it off, wringing as much as I could out of my hair before grabbing a towel off the rack and stepping gingerly out of the stall.

Devin was waiting for me in the hall. He pressed a mug of thick yellow liquid into my hands. "Drink this."

I sniffed. It was warm and smelled like gingerbread. "This is . . . ?"

"Good for you."

"Right," I said, and sipped. It was bitter. I grimaced. "How good for me are we talking? Because this tastes-"

"Good enough."

"Right," I repeated. Devin watched intently as I finished the mug.

When I was done, he took it away from me, setting it on the hallway table. "There's another cup in your coffeepot," he said. "Drink it in the morning. You'll feel better."

"Promise?" I asked, with a small smile.

Devin put his arms around my waist again, nearly dislodging my towel. "Would I lie to you?" he asked, bending toward me.

"All the time," I said, and leaned in to meet him.