Dr. Chris shooed Edward farther away so I couldn't hear what he was saying. He turned the knob on the IV and said, "You're going to sleep now, Ms. Blake. Trust me, you'll enjoy the examination more that way."

"But…"

"Let it go, Ms. Blake. You're hurt. You have to let someone else hunt the vampires today."

I started to say something, probably to argue, but I never finished the thought. One minute I was staring up at Dr. Chris, the next—nothing. The world went poof.

Chapter Thirty-four

I WOKE UP, which was nice. I was blinking up at a ceiling I'd seen before, but couldn't quite place. I was not in the room that I remembered last. This room was painted an off-white, and there were pipes in the ceiling. Pipes… that should have meant something, but I was still a little fuzzy around the edges.

" 'She wakes; and I entreated her come forth, and bear this work of heaven with patience.'"

I knew who it was before he stepped beside the bed. "Requiem." I smiled up at him, and reached out to him with my right hand; the other one was full of needles. Reaching for him made my stomach ache a little, but not that bad. It made me wonder how long I'd been out, or what drugs were coming through the IV tube. Requiem took my hand in his and bent over it to lay a kiss on the back. I was happy to see him. Hell, I was happy to see anyone. "I don't know the quote," I said.

"The words of a worthless friar," he said.

"Sorry, still a little fuzzy," I said.

He held my hand underneath his cloak, against his chest. His blue, blue eyes glittered in the overhead fluorescents. "Perhaps this will help: 'A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished; For never was a story…' "

I finished with him. "'… of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.'"

He laughed then, and it transformed his face from a thing of cold beauty to something livable, lovable, more touchable. "You should laugh more often, it becomes you," I said.

The laughter leeched away, as if the two reddish tears that slid down the white perfection of his cheeks stole his joy away as they fell down his face. By the time the tears melted into the dark line of his beard, his face had its usual melancholy handsomeness.

I'd been happy to take his hand. Happy to touch someone I cared for, but there was something in the weight of that ocean-blue-and-green gaze that made me take my hand back. I had other lovers who would look at me that way, but the look in his eyes was one that Requiem had not earned, or that our relationship didn't deserve. He was Requiem, he wasn't a light comedic sort of person; no, he was definitely a lover of tragedies.

"Where's Jean-Claude?"

"Did you expect him to wait by your bedside?"

"Maybe."

"He and Asher are busy elsewhere, together. I was left to tend you while they had more important things to do."

I stared at him. Was it on purpose? Was he trying to make me doubt them? I'd nearly died, and was still hooked up to tubes; fuck it, I'd ask. "Are you implying that they're having sex together somewhere, and that that is more important to them than me?"

He looked down; I think he was trying to be coy. "They are off together, and they left me to tend you. I think the situation speaks for itself."

"You really shouldn't try to play coy, Requiem. You're not good at it."

He gave me the full weight of those blue, blue eyes, with that swimming shadow of green around the iris. Eyes you could sink into and swim away in, or be drowned in. I actually looked down, rather than meet his gaze. Normally he wasn't a problem, but I was hurt, weak, and I didn't like his mood.

"My evening star, you are thinking too hard. Let us rejoice that you live, that we all live."

That gave me other questions to ask; maybe since they weren't about Jean-Claude, he'd answer them. "Then Peter is all right?"

His face went blank, even that pressing need in his eyes fading away. "He is in a room nearby."

"Is he all right?"

"He will heal."

"I don't like how you're saying that, Requiem."

I heard the door open as a male voice said, "God, you are a gloomy bastard." Graham strode into the room.

I watched him for signs that the Harlequin were messing with his mind, signs of that panicked false addiction. He was his usual smiling self. Okay, his usual self when he wasn't feeling grumpy about me not fucking him.

"Are you wearing a cross?" I asked.

He drew a chain out of his shirt, and on the end of it was a tiny Buddha. I stared at it. "You're a Buddhist?"

"Yep."

"You do violence, you can't be a Buddhist," I said.

"So I'm a bad Buddhist, but it was still the way I was raised, and I do believe in the chubby little guy."

"Will it work if you're not following the tenets of the faith it represents?" I asked.

"I could ask you the same question, Anita."

Did he have a point, or not? "Fine, I just wouldn't have pegged you for a Buddhist."

"Neither would my parents, but when Claudia told us to get a holy item, I realized I didn't believe in the Jewish carpenter, never raised in that faith." He shook the little Buddha at me. "This I believe in."

I gave a small nod. "Okay, whatever works."

He grinned at me. "First, Peter will be fine, but he heals human-slow."

"How hurt is he?"

"About as hurt as you were, but not healing as fast."

Graham came to stand beside Requiem. He was still in the red shirt and dark pants, but somehow it didn't bug me now. Graham would answer questions better than Requiem. He also seemed to be himself, while the vampire was being weird even for him.

I started to ask how fast I was healing, but I wanted to know about Peter before I asked questions about me. I felt amazingly well. "I'm going to ask this again, and I want a straight answer. How hurt is Peter?"

Graham sighed. "He got a lot of stitches—like the-doctor-lost-count stitches. He's going to be fine, honest, but he's going to have some manly scars."

"Shit," I said.

"Tell her the rest," Requiem said.

I glared at Graham. "Yeah, tell me the rest."

"I was getting to it." He flashed an unfriendly look at the vampire. Requiem gave a small nod, almost a bow, and moved back from the bed.

"Then get to it, Graham," I said.

"The doctors are offering him the chance for the new antilycanthropy therapy."

"You mean the inoculation they offer?"

"No, something brand new." He said "brand new" as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

"How new?"

"St. Louis is one of only a handful of cities that are experimenting with it."

"They can't experiment on an underage kid."

"Underage?" He made it a question. "I thought Peter was eighteen."

Shit, I thought. Apparently Peter Black was holding up as a secret identity. "Yeah, I mean, shit, fine."

"If he's eighteen, then he can give permission for it." Graham gave me a funny look as he said it, as if he wanted to ask why I didn't believe Peter was eighteen, or maybe he didn't either.

"Give permission for what exactly?" I asked.

"They're offering him a vaccine."

"Like I said, Graham, they've been offering a vaccine against lycanthropy for years.

"Not the one that they used to offer in college. Not since that bad batch turned a lot of nice upper-class college students into monsters about ten years back." He said it without referencing Richard—who had been one of those college students. I wondered if Graham didn't know. Not my place to share, so I let it go.

"The vaccine's a dead organism now, not live and kicking," I said.

"Did you get it?" he asked.