I assumed I was seeing his court in Washington State, since that was where I’d left him. He’d been injured in an attack yesterday, and it must have been something to take down a man who, although he might look like a raffish thirty-year-old, hadn’t seen double digits in five centuries. And who’d been storing up power for every single one of them.
Luckily, Lizzie had spilled the beans about her side’s plans to finish the job, and I’d gotten to him before they had. I’d thought about bringing him here, but I didn’t know anything about treating injured vampires, and doubted that my small human staff did, either. And anyway, they already had enough of those to worry about.
So I’d taken him home, where I guessed he still was.
Although it was hard to tell, when everything around him looked like I was trying to view it through somebody else’s glasses. The warm wooden floor was just a smudge of brown, except for a small patch right around his knees. The tall windows, heavily draped against the day, were just darker smears. And the designs on the intricately carved wardrobe and the expensive carpets had all been smudged away.
I concentrated on a modernist painting on the opposite wall, and it slowly came into focus. It should have looked out of place, a bright splash of color in an old-world room, like it should have felt odd having a hand grip mine from across a continent. But it didn’t.
He held my hand firmly but gently, careful not to let vampire strength bruise human flesh. He pulled it forward and the light came with it, like sunrise falling over a landscape. Leaving the room bisected between neon bright and dark, like the body of the girl lying on the floor between us.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked nervously, because I didn’t know how to heal someone.
“You’re already doing it,” Mircea murmured, dark eyes sliding shut.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said, trying to stamp down the panic clogging my throat. “I don’t have the power to do anything!”
“Neither does a bridge, yet it serves.”
I waited, but nothing else was forthcoming. I knew I should just shut up and let him concentrate. Healing was one of Mircea’s gifts, and it worked equally well on humans as on vamps.
But it worked on humans who were in front of him. I didn’t know how well it worked from a thousand miles away, but it had to be harder. And that was assuming he could do it at all, so shut up, shut up, shut up, and give him some time.
But I didn’t seem to be able to. Because Rhea didn’t have any time. And just sitting there while she bled out was—
I didn’t seem to be able to.
“I don’t understand,” I blurted, and then bit my lip, practically vibrating with the need to do something, but not having a lot of options left.
“You have a metaphysical link to your acolyte,” Mircea murmured, neon light from my part of the world flickering impossibly over his features. “And I have one to you. I am attempting to use you as a conduit to send her energy, as I would one of my masters who needed help.”
“But I’m not one of your masters,” I said, because I didn’t feel like a conduit. I didn’t feel anything, except for my fingers, blood slick and desperate, gripping his.
It was probably uncomfortable. If he was a human, I might have broken a bone by now. But he wasn’t, and I didn’t let go.
“No,” he said softly. “Which is why I don’t know that this will work. And she is very weak.”
I gripped him tighter. “But you can try—”
“Someone already tried. I feel the spell . . . sluggish, slow, impeding the blood flow.”
“A witch. She isn’t a healer, but she wanted to help. . . .”
“She succeeded. Your servant would have faded by now, otherwise.” But his expression didn’t look happy. “What is her name?”
“Rhea.”
“Rhea.” He rolled it over his tongue. It sounded different in Mircea’s voice, darker, sweeter, more exotic. And sent a shiver up my spine just from the power behind it.
Yet it had no obvious effect.
“Rhea.” The second call was stronger, more compelling, but still sweet. Not a command, but an enticing murmur worthy of a siren. It would have had me running to him, fighting for him, struggling through an army to reach him.
The body between us didn’t even appear t
o notice.
I swallowed, because Mircea wasn’t just a vampire; he was a first-level master, one of only a few hundred in existence. They ruled the vampire world through the six senates, governing bodies of immense power. And Mircea wasn’t just any old senator; he was second-in-command to the North American consul, and therefore one of the strongest vampires on earth.