Page 28 of Close Quarter
Once in the garden, Silas dragged himself to the farthest corner from the bar, crawled up into the plant beds, and collapsed among the ferns.
Here was the life he needed. He drew on it as hard as he could without killing the plants around him, then set about dispelling the poison the soulless had sent into his body. That was the hardest bit of healing. The cuts, the bites, and claw wounds were wounds of the flesh. Some bone and cartilage, like his nose, but all issues of sculpting matter.
Poison--at least for fae--was entirely different. What flooded his body was theabsenceof life.
He had been touched by decay. The rot of the endless death.
Silas wrapped the spirit of the garden around the corrosion inside himself and vomited noiselessly onto the mulched bed.
Ah, the beautiful life of a fae. If Rhys could see him now.
He crawled a few feet away from the mess, sank to the ground, and closed his eyes.
Silas!
The plea--the scream--ripped through his soul.
He was on his feet and running toward the bar before his thoughts caught up. He had already pulled his sword from the Aether, wrapped himself in glamour, and killed two palm trees for their energy.
They had Rhys. There was no other agony quite like that of the soulless feeding. Silas knew it too well, felt it in the incoherent screams that sliced through his mind.
If the creatures had set a trap for him in the garden and then found Rhys...
The bar was quiet but held quite a number of people coupled off into nooks and tables. No Rhys.
No soulless.
One face he recognized, though.
Silas stopped in front of the bar. "Vasil, where's Rhys?"
The waiter started and stared at him. "Mr. Quint?" His look turned vacant. "I...haven't seen Mr. Matherton."
Silas swore under his breath. So they had touched Vasil too. Not fed, but influenced his mind. One remedy.
Silas clamped his hand down on Vasil's wrist and pressed against the man's mind with his own.
"Vasil."
The waiter gasped and tried to pull away.
Silas had some idea what Vasil saw--for he now saw true--a bloodied fae with a silver sword, half-wild with someone else's pain. There was no time for explanations, however. He repeated the question. "Where is Rhys?"
Vasil's attention slid toward a small grouping of chairs by a bookshelf. "He's..."
But he wasn't. Three martini glasses, but no Rhys.
"Where?" He liked the waiter well enough, but gods, he would rip the thoughts from the man's mind if he had to.
There was no need. "They took him," Vasil said. "Outside." He took a deep breath and spoke a word in his mother tongue. "Upyr."
Vampire. "Yes," Silas said.
Vasil looked back. "Leshii?"
Slavic woodland spirits. Close enough. He nodded. "Though I was born much farther south."
He let go of Vasil's wrist and walked to the doors leading to the deck.
