Page 102 of Elven Shadow

At least his body wasn’t as stone-cold as the rest of him. And how nice it would be to just lean against him like this, just a little longer. Just until she came back to herself…

“All right, everybody move!” Zida’s rasping bark cut through the noise, making her every word sound like condescending judgment. “Out of the way. I said move it! Let me through! Hey, ifyouwant someone else’s death on your hands, then by all means, step aside even fucking slower!”

Then the old daraku was there, hovering in front of Rebecca’s face and fussing, clicking her tongue as her gnarled, clawed hands fluttered about.

“Something’s wrong,” Maxwell said. “I don’t see any injuries, but this isn’t right.”

“What a fucking observationist you are,” Zida snapped before she smacked his hands away.

That had to be what she’d smacked, because the next second, the warmth of his strong grip clamped around Rebecca’s arm disappeared.

Great. Now there was nothing left to keep her warm and nothing left to keep her from falling even deeper into the dark, cold, searing oblivion just waiting to swallow her up.

Had she really just preferredMaxwell’stouch to anything?

She must have taken more hits than she’d thought before practically falling down those stairs.

The world spun around her, then Rebecca was sitting down—she assumed—the cold of the concrete beneath her and at her back while her fingers brushed across the dusty floor littered with bits of plaster and whatever else had fallen through the ceiling during the compound’s attack.

“Now let me have a look at you,” Zida grouched.

The feeling of her wizened old claws poking and prodding and grasping at Rebecca’s body in various vital places felt like she was being picked apart by hundreds of irritated birds.

Rebecca tried to swat them away, but the old healer slappedherhands next.

“Hold still!” Then those claws clamped down onto either side of Rebecca’s head to pull it down toward the healer’s toothless, gummy grimace. Zida looked her over from head to toe, then almost grabbed Rebecca’s wrist but seemed to rethink her decision at the last second.

Instead, she pulled back to fiddle with what looked like an enormous, overstuffed fanny pack clasped about her squat midsection.

“I don’t know what you think you’re up to,” Zida grumbled under her breath, opening flaps and rummaging around in her bag’s contents. “But whatever it is, maybe consider the possibility that now isnotthe fucking time.”

Rebecca could hardly keep her eyes open, but at least she wasn’t still coughing up her lungs. At least she could breathe. For now.

“What happened to you, anyway?” Zida asked.

“What?” Rebecca rasped.

“Up there.” The old woman grunted, shook her head, and clawed through yet another open pouch of her fanny pack. “With that…thing. You said you’d take care of it, and hey, that’syourbusiness. I don’t do the fighting. I’m just here to clean up after everyone afterwards.”

What was shetalkingabout?

“You sure did take your sweet damn time about it, though, didn’t you?”

Blinking dangerously heavy eyelids, Rebecca tried to put the pieces together of what the old woman was trying to ask, but they simply wouldn’t fit. “Ididtake care of it. And Ikepttaking care of it. How…how didyouget down here so fast?”

With a snort, Zida finally pulled what she’d been looking for from her pouch and viciously spun the fanny pack around her hip to get it out of the way. “We walked. Much like everyone else, I imagine. Except for the katari, probably.”

“What about all the others?” Rebecca asked, fighting back a groan against the throbbing pain wreaking havoc inside her head. “How’d you…get…past them?”

“Others?” Zida looked sharply up at Rebecca, her beady little eyes dark and narrow, scrutinizing every bit of movement and emotive twitch in Rebecca’s face.

Not that there was a whole lot going on there. Rebecca was starting to wonder if any of this was real. If she might wake up at any second. Being in a dream right now might have been preferable, but it was still a remarkably dangerous position in which to find herself.

“You hit your head up there or something?” the healer rasped as her clawed fingers dug into the stopper of a small, clear vial clutched in her other hand. “Hmm? I can’t say I know you that well, elf, but I’ve seen enough of you to understandthisisn’t it. Whatever got into you doesn’t make any damn sense.”

“You didn’t…” Unable to stop staring at the vial—which from this angle and in the garage’s dim lighting looked entirely empty—and tried to clear the hoarseness out of her voice. “You didn’t see any more of them?”

“You mean those creepy tar-lookin’ fellas with no face and nothing between the legs?” Zida barked out a creaking laugh. “Just the one you said you’d take care of, elf. Plus the pieces of that other one that all tumbled down the stairs beforeyoudid. I’m assuming that was you.”

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