xviii
My eyelids popped to the clack-clack of heels on the wooden floor. I had no idea how much time had passed – it could have been minutes or hours. I had a headache. My throat burned and felt heavy as lead. I could barely breathe.
The specter was on me, clutching my shoulders and head, her fangs nestled into the same bite Claire had made earlier in the soft part of my neck. Her tongue pumped against my flesh while her teeth held the wounds open, producing a steady ooze of blood into her mouth.
“GET OUT!” Jane’s voice was angry, loud and commanding, and the specter flinched and shriveled away from me. Without a sound she backed away from the settee, then scurried for the door.
Jane stood over me with her arms crossed, still wearing the black leather, but her hair was loose and cascading over her shoulders. “Such a mess.”
Claire stood in almost the same pose at the door, once she had shut it behind the fleeing leech.
I truly was a mess – I was limp in the settee, unable or unwilling to move. Blood pooled in the divot of my breastbone and had begun to drip to the cushion, as, in her haste, the specter hadn’t closed the wound. Jane crouched beside me and held the punctures closed with her fingers while she used my shirt to mop up the excess, then swamped her mouth over the bite until the reagents in her saliva stopped the flow and the punctures had swollen shut.
Then she was helping me to my feet and supporting me as we crossed the endlessly long room toward the door.
*
We were stopped. I wanted nothing more than to fall asleep on Jane’s shoulder. My eyelids were too heavy to lift open, and the sound in my ears was tinny and came from far away.
“You should not have let her in,” Jane was saying. Claire had some protest, but Jane silenced her. “You should have kept this quiet. I’ll send for you later. In his cell. We’ll talk.”