He followed her around the corner, heading toward Claire’s store.
“You don’t take no for an answer very often, do you?”
She smiled over at him.
“Nope.”
Her reward was his laugh. Rusty, quiet, but a laugh. She planned to get more out of him before the end of the night. He didn’t remember much about her, so she was going to help him make new memories. Happier memories.
Light filtered out of the front window of The Wiche’s Broom. Claire probably had a customer she couldn’t get rid of—always too polite to just shove them out the door at closing time. I’ll give her a hand with that—
The door was locked.
“What the—” Claire never locked the door when she was expecting Annie. Never. Annie peered through the window, her heart pounding—and saw nothing. No Claire, no customer, no one at all. “Oh, God—” She fumbled the spare key out of her purse, started to push it into the lock.
“Let me.” She jumped when Eric touched her shoulder. In her panic she’d forgotten about him. “Stay behind me until we know what’s going on. Okay?”
She thrust the key at him. “Just get in there.”
He obeyed, unlocked the door. The small bell rang when he opened it—then the door hit up against an obstacle.
“Claire—” Annie whirled around the door, halted when she saw the sprawled figure—and recognized the black clothing, the dark, curling hair. “What the hell?”
They both knelt. Eric eased Marcus on to his back. Blood stained his face, matted his hair. The fingers of his bandaged right hand were twisted, like they’d been slammed hard against a wall. Looking up, Annie saw where he hit. The plaster was cracked, blood dripping down the pale yellow wall.
“He’s alive,” Eric said. “Is there water here, a blanket?”
Annie slung her purse off her shoulder and stood, ran shaking fingers through her hair.
“Water—yeah, in the back. A blanket—what are you, a doctor?”
“Something like that. See if you can find a first aid kit—check under the counter.”
She went hunting for what he needed, refusing to believe what her mind screamed at her.
Claire wouldn’t—she doesn’t have that kind of power—she couldn’t—
The night in her apartment taunted her, and Claire, overpowering the fire elemental— Annie shut the thought down before it could go any further.
A decorative moon and stars throw served as a blanket. Eric took it, along with the heavy first aid kit and one of the water bottles she pulled out of the back room fridge, then he studied her. “How are you with blood?”
She swallowed. “Not great. What do you need?”
He smiled, the first life she’d seen back in his blue eyes.
“For you to play nurse.”
“Okay.”
“Good girl.” He flipped open the first aid box and whistled. “Looks like Claire is prepared for anything. Open that water, wet down some sterile pads for me. Here.” He handed her several of the wrapped pads and a pair of latex gloves. “Keep these on until I tell you. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
She watched him snap a pair on with the ease of long practice, tried to follow his method. They slipped on easily, the powdered inside soft against her hand. For about ten seconds. Then her hands started to sweat. She ignored it, ripped open the gauze pads, handing them over as fast as she could get them wet.
Eric cleaned the blood off Marcus’ face. It looked like a bad nosebleed, and his nose was crooked—probably from impact with the wall. Once Eric packed his nostrils with dry gauze, the bleeding stopped.
“See if there are any splints in there,” he said. He gently lifted Marcus’ broken hand, cut away the torn, bloody bandage. “God in heaven—how did he do this?”
The skin of his palm was shiny, tight—like a newly healed burn. A bad burn.
His hand had been scorched black yesterday.
“I don’t know—I don’t think I should—” Annie looked up at Eric—and blurted it out. “He burned it breaking the spell.”
Eric swallowed, then dropped his gaze back to Marcus’ hand. Cradling the broken fingers, he took the index finger and methodically snapped it into place. Marcus bolted awake.
“Slow now, old man.” Eric lowered him back to the floor. “You had a nasty run-in with the wall.”
“You are—”
“A vet,” Eric said. Annie blinked at him, then smiled. “I know anatomy well enough to diagnose a not badly broken nose and some damaged fingers.”
Marcus cursed, whispering in some fluid language Annie had never heard before—then he grabbed Eric’s wrist.