Page 70 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
The real irony, not the fake Alanis Morissette kind.
Hawk stopped, bowed, blustered, “Ati me peta babka.” Gatekeeper, open your gate for me. Then he repeated, “You gave me the wrong thing for the girl! The potion—it was wrong!”
Kalum stirred and stirred, unperturbed by Hawk’s agitated state. “Did I now? And what makes you say that, mar sarrim?”
Hawk began to stalk to and fro before the fire, waving his arms like a madman. “She was . . . intoxicated! Not in her right mind! She was saying crazy things, doing crazy things!”
“Hmm,” said kalum.
“It was like she was a different person or something—like her body had been taken over by aliens!”
“Hmm.” Kalum stirred the pot, watching Hawk as he made a fourth pass in front of it.
“I’m telling you, it didn’t work, something went wrong—”
“It took the pain away.” This was stated as a fact between delicate sniffs of the steam rising from the bubbling mixture in the cauldron.
“Well . . . yes. She didn’t seem to be in any pain at all, actually.”
“So it worked perfectly.” Kalum tasted the hot broth, sipping from a long-handled ladle, and nodded in satisfaction. “Almost ready.”
Hawk ground to a halt and stared at the old man. “Kalum, listen here—I cannot have her in that condition until she heals!”
“Taxing your self-control, is she?” the old man said, mirth twinkling in his eyes.
“Wait. You knew that would happen? You knew she’d get so . . .” His face turned red.
“No. I did not. Everyone reacts differently to the brew. But judging by that”—his gaze dropped to the bulge in Hawk’s trousers, the ere
ction still refusing to diminish even after he’d finished his sad little self-molestation in the bathroom—“your little Gibil had her inhibitions stripped away along with her pain.”
Gibil meant One of Fire. Knowing kalum, it could simply be referring to her red hair . . . or it could mean something else altogether.
Hawk groaned and ran a hand over his head. “You can say that again. And apparently her sense of reality, too. She actually thinks she likes me.”
“Would that be so hard to believe, in light of what she did for you last night?”
Hawk looked askance at the old man, taking up his pacing again. “She would have done that for anyone. She’s very . . . protective.”
“As you are protective of her,” kalum said with a small smile.
“That’s different!”
“Is it?”
Hawk was becoming increasingly frustrated by this irritating, circuitous conversation. He didn’t want to disrespect the priest, but kalum had given him a potion that was supposed to relieve Jacqueline’s pain and instead turned her into some kind of horny beast who blurted nonsensical things like, “Please give me what I need,” and “This is what I’d do every day if I could,” right before she kissed him.
The woman was clearly not rational. Which was kalum’s fault!
“In case you’re wondering, mar sarrim, anything she might have said was the truth.”
Hawk froze in place. The priest was calmly crumbling a handful of dried herbs into the cauldron.
“What?”
The small smile the priest had been wearing seemed to be growing larger. “It’s a common side effect. Euphoria and pain reduction are the main effects of the spirit vine, as are the occasional vivid hallucination, but I added a few special things of my own. I customized it, you understand. So if her body reacted to the potion by stripping away her inhibitions along with her pain, it also stripped away her ability to prevaricate.”
Hawk stared at him with his mouth hanging open, his face blank.
