"Come on, Gavin," I wept. "Drink this or I swear I'll never speak to you again." The second bag was now in my hand and I was trying desperately to get it down Gavin's throat. His throat convulsed and he swallowed. And then swallowed again. I almost sobbed and poured the rest of that bag into him before tossing the empty aside and reaching for the third. I had the better part of five bags into Gavin when Radomir drove in the garage at the safe house. He carried Gavin inside and down the steps to the basement.
We convinced Gavin to drink another two bags of blood and Radomir was beginning to look hopeful. Gavin was lying on the sofa in the tiny living room while I was picking charred clothing away from his flesh. "We'll put him in a tub of water shortly before dawn," Radomir told me. "I think we've gotten enough blood down him now."
Radomir handed a unit of blood to me later while I sat at the kitchen table, staring morosely at Gavin's body lying on the sofa just feet away. "Drink some, it'll help," Radomir urged gently. "If you hadn't sent mindspeech, I would never have known where you were," he added. "And it came in, clear as a bell. The plane had just landed at the airport and I was loading my bags into the SUV."
"Thank you for being there." I still felt like crying as I sipped my blood. "I was terrified somebody would try to take him to a hospital and that would have been a calamity."
"Yes, it would have been that for certain," Radomir sighed. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. I heard Wlodek's voice when he answered.
"Child," Wlodek said, "what has happened?" Radomir truly was Wlodek's son, by blood. Not his biological father, but by blood, anyway. I realized I could connect the two by scent.
"Nyles had a flamethrower and burned down a bar along with injuring Gavin. We do not know if he will survive the rejuvenating sleep," Radomir explained.
"Is Nyles still running loose, then?" Wlodek sounded upset.
"No, father. Lissa killed him."
"Put Lissa on the phone." It was an order. Radomir handed the phone to me.
"Honored One?" I was tired and it came through in my voice.
"Lissa, tell me exactly what happened." I told him. About turning to mist and Nyles playing with all of us, terrifying the bar crowd and sending them rushing through the door. About his placing a compulsion on Gavin so he'd stand still to be burned. And then about my turning back to myself behind Nyles to decapitate him.
"Do you think Gavin will live?" he asked.
"I hope so," I sighed. "We got as much blood as we could into him. I guess we have to wait now. His skin is black and just flakes off if we touch him."
"I made the right decision, sending you," Wlodek said.
"Yes, I suppose you did," I agreed. "I just wish it had turned out better."
"I will get some of the local vampires to do damage control," he told me. "There are quite a few in the area. Let me speak to Radomir again."
I handed the phone back to Radomir and went to kneel beside Gavin. Even his hair had been burned. I remembered Charles telling me it would only grow about half an inch a year. If Gavin lived, he'd have short hair for a while. "Gavin," I said softly, "I don't know you well enough to say what you need to hear to make you want to live. I have no idea what that might be. But I can't help thinking that you wouldn't want to leave this way. You strike me as the guy who'd want to decide for himself how that happened, instead of allowing some crazed idiot with a flamethrower to make that decision for you. Radomir says we'll put you in a tub of water after a while, so I'm going to go clean the bathtub a little. I don't want you getting soap scum on your tooshie when we put you in." I touched his forehead lightly and my fingers were blackened with ash when I pulled them away.
The bathtub was as clean as I could make it when we put him in later. "I made the water slightly warm, I hope it's the right temperature," I told Gavin as Radomir lowered him into the tub. The water was black in seconds as the top layer of his skin floated away. We replaced the water three times and it was still draining out gray when we pulled Gavin out. I'd laid towels across his bed as Radomir carried Gavin inside the bedroom and laid him down on top of them.
"Honey, I don't know if you can stand this or not, but I'm taking a chance anyway," I said and covered Gavin lightly with a sheet.
"I'll sleep in here, over in the floor," I told Radomir. "You can take my bed." Radomir didn't argue when I went to the other side of the floor and sat down. I keeled right over the minute dawn came.
* * *
The moan woke me when night fell, making me jerk upright. I'd been in a curled up position, having fallen over in the floor the minute the sun had come up, almost. Scuffling over to the bed on my knees, I peeked over the edge to see what was happening. Gavin was moving just a little. His skin looked bright pink, as skin sometimes does after a scab drops off. "I'll get some blood for you," I told him and rushed off to the kitchen.
Having no idea how much he might need or be able to drink, I grabbed three bags and ran back to the bedroom. Gavin was moving around, trying to sit up. "Here," I said, pulling him up as best I could while trying not to hurt him. He was naked, didn't seem to care and nearly bald on top of that—there were still a few small patches of hair on the back of his head. His dark eyes examined me briefly before tearing into the first bag of blood and drinking it quickly. I had the top off the second one and passed that to him so he could start on it. He got halfway into the third one before he sat back, closed his eyes and sighed.
"Did you get the ass**le?" he asked.
"Yes. Asshole gone now. Gone, gone."
"Why are you talking like that?" he demanded, opening his eyes and frowning at me.
"Ooh. Tarzan thump mighty chest," I said. His mouth quirked into a smile.
I cleaned the bathtub out again before any of us took a shower. We left the keys to our rental car under the mat; the local vamps were going to return it for us. Radomir and I loaded everything into Radomir's rented SUV. Radomir told Gavin to rest while he and I did all the work. That didn't sit well with him and he grumbled, but did as he was told anyway. He kept his eyes closed most of the flight back, and I think he slept off and on. Will and Russell met us at the airport and helped with the bags. Radomir bundled Gavin into the Limo Russell brought and we all drove to Wlodek's manor. I suppose we were debriefed, whatever the hell that means. We just talked about what happened, Gavin and I, while Charles typed it all into his computer for the records. Gavin was exhausted but wasn't willing to let Wlodek know it, suffering in silence mostly, his face an expressionless mask. He only spoke when Wlodek asked a question.