Page 29 of Vampire's Choice

As the woman swiftly turned the windsurfer toward the shore, Ruth knelt over Clara. Her body was doing a jittering dance like an epileptic. Ruth stripped off her belt to put between her teeth, but before she could do it, Clara went harrowingly still, eyes fixed vacantly on the sky. Her hands flopped to her sides, but they weren’t relaxed. She was a soldier at attention, her body plank straight. The tightness to her mouth, her pale, tense face, said wherever she was, she didn’t want to be there.

A spurt of relief replaced terror as Ruth put her hand on the girl’s throat and felt the blood pulsing strongly.

Marcellus dropped out of the sky, landing on the other side of Clara’s inert body. The ground vibrated from his impact, his arrival so swift the air disturbance from his wings blew against Ruth’s hair and clothing.

“It just happened,” Ruth told him. “Is this usually how it works?”

He nodded, kneeling beside his fortune teller. He brushed his fingertips over Clara’s brow, lingered there. “When the veins start throbbing with the headache, it means the vision is almost at an end. It is the usual process.”

Not one he liked, from the set of his jaw.

“So we just wait it out?”

“Yes. It’s best not to move her when it’s happening, because movement increases her agitation. It can be done, however, if she’s in danger.” His lips pressed together. “She was supposed to advise you of the risk of this, so you would be prepared.”

“I expect she wanted to get to know me first. People dealing with something like this don’t like to be defined by it.” No matter how much it did. “Can I put my coat over her? She looks cold.”

Marcellus’s gaze slid to her, held a beat, then went back to Clara. “Yes. That would be kind.”

Ruth laid the camel-colored fleece duster over the girl. “Does she give you any information during it?”

“Rarely. She remembers afterward, and gives us what the vision provides then. Despite the headache, she must do that immediately, or she can lose important details.”

From his tense expression, Ruth suspected he had to watch her offer that information while she fought the pain. “Headache” was probably an understatement. What had Clara said? Like my head is going to explode.

Medusa had approached, but at a gesture from Marcellus, she retreated with a respectful bow. Ruth logged the information. Thanks to that tattoo or whatever other link they had, if Marcellus was on site, he could be at Clara’s side within seconds of her distress. If he was elsewhere, that was when Ruth would call for reinforcements.

When a new employee was hired for the preserve, he or she had to work through a learning curve. It was the same for her responsibilities here, no matter how unusual.

“What can I do for her while she’s like this?” She kept her voice low. She didn’t know if it was necessary, but she didn’t want to cause any distractions from what Clara was seeing or hearing, such that she had to stay in this state one second longer than necessary.

“Watch over her until it’s done.” He adjusted the coat to lift the hem of Clara’s shirt and reveal a sheath hooked at her waistband. Marcellus tapped on the contents, a sleek black cylinder made of hard rubber. “This is to put between her teeth, if needed. Most times, though, she goes right into the vision state. The seizure symptoms disappear swiftly.”

“It was like that this time.”

After readjusting the shirt and coat, he put a hand on his bent knee, since he knelt on the other. The dark green wings spread out to either side of him, the feathers vibrating with the tension she saw in his curled fingers. Evidence of how much effort it took him not to touch Clara right now.

“So you can’t go ahead and put your hands on her head to help reduce the impact of the headache on the front end? She said your touch makes it a lot better.”

His mouth softened. “Unfortunately, no. We have tried it before. Touching her too early made the visions…worse.”

She changed the subject. “How often does this happen?”

“Too much, of late. We do not yet have enough pieces on the current subject of her visions, not enough to put together a picture and address it. Their frequency will increase until we do.”

The veins in Clara’s temples were starting to noticeably pulse, and she shifted, a moan escaping her rigid lips. Her eyes remained vacant, far away, but the veins and moan were apparently the cues which allowed Marcellus to lay a hand on her forehead. As he did, Ruth saw those symbols and praises to the Goddess reappear over the curve of his biceps, a metallic gleam against tanned skin.

Ruth had thought it would be difficult to tell what he was thinking, with his eyes wholly dark. But the lines around his eyes and mouth spoke eloquently as his large hand rested on her pale brow, fingers framing her delicate temple and cheek. “I will return her to our quarters. Come there in a half hour. Clara will want to see you.”

“All right. Take the coat with you to keep her comfortable. I’ll get it then.” Ruth had more questions, but she held them as Marcellus lifted Clara into his arms. He cradled her as if nothing in the universe could ever be as precious to him.

“Ruth?”

“Yes, my lord?”

“You are handling yourself well. But there is one very important rule you need to never break.”

His dark gaze came to her and locked. That, and the tone of his voice, the flicker in his eyes, held her very, very still.

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