The ring fell apart.
The top of the unopened flower fluttered to the ground. Its light faded and died.
The two halves of the beast collapsed, spilling vegetation and metal all over the floor. The remains of a human body, flesh still clinging to the bones, scattered across the tile. The stench of carrion hit me. I gagged. My head felt too heavy. Someone had poured lead into my skull when I wasn’t looking.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. Talking was very difficult for some reason.
“No.”
I tried to walk, but I wasn’t sure where the ground was. And then Alessandro was there, carrying me to the car.
“Put me down.”
“Shut up,” he said gently.
“You don’t have touching rights.”
“Right now I do.”
I couldn’t stop him if I’d tried. And being carried by him felt so nice. He was warm and strong, and after all that, somehow, he still smelled good. Being in his arms felt like nothing in this world could hurt me.
“Okay,” I said. “You can carry me to the car.”
“Thank you, Prime Baylor. That’s quite magnanimous of you.”
He opened Rhino’s passenger door and loaded me into the seat as if I were made of glass. The seat felt good, but his arms felt better.
He tilted my seat back and reached over me to buckle my seat belt.
“I’ve got it,” I ground out.
“Relax. I’m strapping you in.”
We were face-to-face, his arm around me. If I leaned forward an inch, I could brush my lips over his cheek. My body tried to respond. It had no energy left, but it tried so hard.
He buckled my seat belt.
“Sword,” I told him.
“I’ll get the sword.” He shut the door, ran to the pile of metal and plants, and came back with Linus’ blade and the four rings. He handed the sword to me, and I hugged it and exhaled.
Alessandro stuffed the rings into a canvas bag, climbed into the driver’s seat, started the armored SUV, and Rhino rolled forward. The walls of the dealership slid by and we emerged into the sunlight. Alessandro made a sharp left and Rhino sped onto the bridge we took to get here.
“Wrong way. Marat is the other way.”
“We’re not going to see Marat. We’re going to the hospital.”
A green construct leaped out of the water and landed on the bridge in front of us. Alessandro gunned it. The SUV smashed into the beast with a wet thunk at fifty miles per hour. Chunks of metal and bone flew apart. In the sideview mirror I saw them fall and remain still. He must’ve crushed the flower.
“I’m warming up to your pancake strategy,” he said.
My tongue felt slow and thick in my mouth. “We have to see Marat in twenty minutes.”
“He’ll wait.”
“No. It’s im . . . imp . . .”
“Important?”
“Imperative that we keep that appointment. It’s my first interview with them.”
“He will wait.”
“Turn around.”
“Catalina, your side is soaked with blood, your shirt has vomit on it, and your head is bleeding. If we go to see Marat right now, he won’t be impressed. Also, that sword burns through magic like a motherfucker, and when I find out who gave it to you, I’ll kill them, because that’s a death sentence.”
I raised my hand and touched my head. My fingers came away smudged with blood.
“It’s not deep,” Alessandro said. “But you need to be checked out.”
“Don’t take me to the hospital. I can’t afford to be the evening news.”
“Then I’ll take you home.”
“No, that’s worse. If we go home, I’ll never get out.”
“Of course you will.”
“They’ll swarm me. They will tie me to the bed and call an ambulance.”
His voice softened. He turned to glance at me. He looked so handsome. “Catalina, tesoro, please let me take you home.”
Oh my God. How was he even in my car?
“I know what you’re doing.”
He smiled at me and my heart made a little happy leap.
“You’re trying to charm me.”
He reached over, took my hand in his, and kissed my fingers. “Let’s go get you a doctor.”
“It doesn’t work on me.” It worked. It so worked.
“You need a doctor. We can go home, or we can go to the hospital. I’m driving and you’re not in a position to stop me.”
A low insistent ache pulsated in my head, growing stronger and stronger. Somewhere deep inside me a rational part of my brain informed me that he was right. I needed a doctor. But I needed to do the interview even more.
“Please stop the car.”
The muscles on his jaw bulged.
“I know you’re pissed off and my head is bleeding.”
“And your side. And you’re speaking slowly, which means you drained your magic down to nothing or you have a concussion.”
“It could be both.”
He growled.
“That was very scary.”
“You’re not helping your cause, smartass.”
“We came into the Pit to talk to Marat. The person who attacked me by the river didn’t want us talking to him. They attacked us again. And now we are running away.”
“We aren’t running away. We’re making a strategic withdrawal.”
“Arkan is targeting my family. I can’t afford to show weakness. The longer this investigation goes on, the higher the risk for them. This is my first interview. If I don’t make it, the other board members will feel free to ignore me. The investigation will drag on. If people I love get hurt because of this, I’ll never forgive you, Alessandro.”
He slapped the wheel with the palm of his hand. “Porca puttana!”
“If you care for me at all, even a little bit, I need you to stop the car, get the first aid kit from the back, and patch me up. After the interview, we can go home and I’ll have an MRI, a CT scan, a toxic panel, a pregnancy test, and whatever other tests you want me to get. Sound fair?”
“It sounds like shit. You were clawed by something that might have crawled out of the arcane realm. It could be poisonous or venomous.”
“I have the A3 antivenom in the kit.”
“No.”
“Alessandro.” I made my voice soft and pitiful.
He glanced at my super-sad expression and swore again.
“Please,” I said. “For me?”
He hit the brakes. Rhino slid and spun around, facing in the opposite direction, toward the Pit.
“You’re crazy and I’m stupid. Take your shirt off.”
If it were anybody else, I would’ve stripped without hesitation, because it wouldn’t have mattered. Being a Deputy Warden had cured me of any demure shyness about getting my wounds treated. My entire side burned as if scalded. I needed medical attention and it couldn’t wait. But it was Alessandro, and no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, it mattered so much.
Alessandro walked around the SUV to get the first aid kit from the back. I peeled off my blue T-shirt. He was right. There was vomit on it. Not much, but enough to smell bad. Maybe I did have a concussion.
I lifted my butt off the seat, unzipped my pants, and pulled them down on the right side to expose my hip and most of my butt. Alessandro chose that moment to swing my door open.
For a second he didn’t say anything. He just stared.
And this wasn’t awkward. Not at all.
“Help me off the seat?” I asked.
He put the kit down and picked me up. His hands felt so nice on my cold skin. He set me down and squeezed hand sanitizer onto his fingers. I perched on the step that helped you climb into Rhino’s high cabin and raised my arm.
“How bad is it?”
“It’s not good.” He held up a syringe. The antivenom. Creatures from the arcane realm carried things on their claws and their teeth that didn’t play nice with the human body.
I closed my eyes. Needles were never my favorite. A sharp pinprick punctured my side. The medicine flooded into my muscle in a painful heavy stream. I grimaced.
“Almost done,” he promised.
Finally, it was over. I exhaled and opened my eyes.
We were on the access bridge. In the distance Sam Houston Tollway channeled the current of cars heading north. We were out in the open, and yet somehow strangely private, with nothing but an empty bridge and a mire around us. The dark fuzz around my vision melted away—my magic gradually regenerating. I always recovered magic at an alarmingly fast rate. Most magic users had to make an effort to actively use their powers. I spent most of my time suppressing mine. When I let go, magic fountained out of me like a geyser. The first few times I had drained myself down to nothing, I stressed out for hours waiting for it to come back, but now I knew my rate of regeneration. Power trickled into me in a narrow but steady stream. As soon as I could, I’d draw an arcane circle and recharge.
Alessandro picked up the flush bottle and motioned for me to nod. I lowered my head until my chin touched my chest. The saline solution wet my hair.
“The cut is shallow,” he said. “Only an inch across, which is good, but it doesn’t tell us anything about the condition of your brain.”
“My brain is functioning.”