Bloody blisters covered his entire body. Some had broken and viscous blood, tainted by something foul, leaked onto his skin. It smelled like vinegar and rot. I touched his skin. Too cold.
“What can we do?” I asked him.
“Nothing,” he said. “I live or I die.”
“There has to be something I can do.”
He sighed. “The last time, there was a bath. With star flower.”
“Mint,” Maud told me as if I didn’t know.
“It helped some.”
I opened a screen to the kitchen, making sure Arland was out of its view. Orro was deep-frying something on the stove.
“I need mint,” I said. “All of it. Everything we have.”
“We have two plants,” Orro said. He’d pitched a fit over fresh herbs not long after the summit was over, and I had created a hothouse, which we were slowly stocking with herbs.
“That’s not enough. Take all of the mint tea we have and brew the biggest pot of tea we can.”
He nodded. I closed the screen
Maud took Arland’s hand.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you… to see me like this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Maud told him. “A pack of rassa couldn’t make me leave.”
“My lady…”
She put her fingers on his lips. “I’m staying.”
I took the handheld showerhead from the side of the bed, adjusted the water to warm, and washed the polluted blood off him.
He didn’t say a word. He just lay there. No strength to protest. No energy to be embarrassed. He lay there and held Maud’s hand.
We couldn’t lose Arland. We just couldn’t.
“I can’t feel a vigil room,” Maud said. “Do you have one?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to make one. Off the kitchen.” She closed her eyes, concentrating.
Vampires treasured their families. The worst fate a vampire could imagine was dying alone. They fell in battle, surrounded by other vampires, or they died at home, watched over by their relatives and loved ones. Arland wouldn’t be alone. It was the least we could do.
“It needs to have a tub,” I told her.
She gave me a look that told me she wasn’t an idiot and closed her eyes again.
I felt the inn move as parts of it shifted in response to my sister’s will. There was a sluggish quality to its compliance, almost as if Gertrude Hunt hesitated before making the adjustments.
“Do what she asks,” I whispered, so quiet even I couldn’t hear it. It wasn’t an order or a demand. It was permission.
The inn moved faster.
Arland was still bleeding. The more I washed him off and patted his wounds dry, the more polluted blood seeped from the wounds. If I sealed the wounds, I would be trapping the rot and poison inside his body.
I looked at Maud. She took the showerhead from me and kept washing.
Arland’s breath slowed. His chest barely rose.
“Don’t let go,” Maud told him. “Hold on to me.”
He smiled at her. When Arland smiled, it was a declaration of war. It dazzled. There was vigor and power in it. There was no vigor in his smile now.
“Fight it.” Maud squeezed his hand.
“Everything is slowing down.” He raised his hand. It shook. Maud leaned to him. His fingertips brushed her cheek.
“No time,” he said.
“Fight it.” Desperation pulsated in her voice. “Live.”
He was dying. Arland was dying.
I felt a presence outside the door. Caldenia.
She knocked.
What could she possibly want right now? I draped a towel over Arland’s hips and opened the door. Her Grace stepped inside, carrying a small wooden box in her hands. She craned her neck and glanced at Arland. “Well. As prime a specimen as I remember from your wonderful excursion to the orchard.”
“I’m not dead yet,” Arland’s voice trembled. He was trying to snarl, but he didn’t have the strength. “You can’t eat me.”
Caldenia raised her eyes up for a long moment. “My dear, I’m not ruled by my stomach. Right now, I’m moved by an altruistic impulse. It will be very short-lived, so you should take advantage of it while it lasts.”
She opened the box and took out a small injector with clear liquid inside it.
“What is that?” Maud asked.
“This is a vaccine synthesized from a certain bacteriophage,” Caldenia said, snapping the protective tip off the injector. “The same prokaryotic virus that our dear Marshal carries in his blood.” She turned to Arland. “I’m going to inject you with it, unless you just want to die on this table for the sins of your ancestors. Or, I suppose, in your case, for their ridiculous bravery and absurd ethical obligations.”
She raised the injector.
“No,” Arland squeezed out.
Caldenia looked at me. “He will die, Dina.”
Arland tried to rise. His whole body trembled from the effort. He collapsed back down.
“Do you trust her?” Maud asked.
“No,” I said. “She doesn’t have altruistic impulses.”
“I have finally taught you something,” Caldenia smiled, exposing her inhumanly sharp teeth.
“But I trust her survival instinct. Without Arland the inn is more vulnerable, and if the Draziri break in, they will slaughter everyone. Her Grace didn’t travel light-years across the galaxy to be murdered by some feathered religious fanatic.”
Arland lay flat, his gaze on the ceiling.
“The safety of my guests is my first priority,” I told him, gently brushing his hair off his face.
“She’s too polite to tell you,” Caldenia said. “If I were to kill you, I would be breaking my contract with Dina. The contract stipulates that the moment I kill another guest, even if I do so in self-defense, she has the right to void our agreement. I’d lose my safe haven. It would be very inconvenient for me.”
Silence stretched.
Arland looked at Maud.
“Take it,” she said. “Please.”
“Do it,” he squeezed out, his voice weak and hoarse.
Caldenia pressed the injector against a wound on his stomach and squeezed. Arland jerked and sucked in a deep breath.
“You must restrain him now,” Caldenia said. “It will sting.”
Maud clamped her hands on his wrists.
Arland screamed.
I thrust my broom over him. It split apart, binding him to the table. Maud threw herself over it, wrapping herself around him as much as she could.
Foam slid from Arland’s lips. He flailed under the restraints.
I squeezed my hands into fists. There was nothing I could do. Maud’s face was terrible, her lips a flat, bloodless slash across her face, her eyes dull as if dusted with ash.
Another convulsion… Another…
A shallow tremor.
He inhaled and lay still.
Did he die?
“Arland?” Maud called softly. “Arland?”
His eyelashes fluttered. He opened his blue eyes, looked at her, then closed them again. His chest rose and fell in an even rhythm.
She rose. I released the broom. Maud washed the blood off of him. The water ran red, then clear. The wounds stopped bleeding. That was fast. Really fast.
I pulled a clean sheet from the drawer and covered him.
“How?” I asked.
Caldenia smiled again. “Strictly speaking, that flower isn’t really a plant. It’s closer to a macrobacterium in structure, very heavily modified, of course. A pathogen affecting both plants and animals. The science of it is long and complicated. Suffice it to say that about three hundred years ago a naturally occurring variant was discovered by a group of enterprising vampires. It existed in a delicate balance, kept in check by virulent bacteriophages that preyed on it as it preyed on other life. The vampires colonized the pseudo-flower’s planet and promptly attempted to manipulate it into a weapon to destroy their enemies once and for all. They were quite successful. It wiped out all of the native life on that world.”