No kidding. The headache was already gone completely. The tightness in my head and neck was fading as well, as were the twinges in my upper back and shoulders.
And a beautiful woman was touching me.
Elaine was touching me.
I wouldn't have done anything to stop her if I'd had a thousand paper cuts and she'd soaked her hands in lemon juice.
We simply stayed like that for a time. Once in while, she moved her hands, palms running down lightly over my cheeks, neck, chest. Her hands would move in slow, repetitive stroking motions, barely touching my skin. I'd lost my shirt at some point. All of those aches and pains of exertion and combat faded away, leaving only a happy cloud of endorphins behind. Her hands were warm, slow, infinitely patient and infinitely confident.
It felt amazing.
I drifted on the sensations, utterly content.
"All right," she said quietly, an unknown amount of time later. "How does that feel?"
"Incredible," I said.
I could hear the smile in her voice. "You always say that when I'm done touching you."
"Not my fault if it's always true," I replied.
"Flatterer," she said, and her fingers gently slapped one of my shoulders. "Let me up, ape."
"What if I don't want to?" I drawled.
"Men. I pay you the least bit of attention, and you go completely Paleolithic on me."
"Ugh," I replied, and slowly sat up, expecting a surge of discomfort and nausea as the blood rushed around my head. There wasn't any.
I frowned and ran my fingers lightly over my scalp. There was a lump on the side of my skull that should have felt like hell. Instead, it was only a little tender. I've been thumped on the melon before. I know the residue of a hard blow. This felt like a bad one, only after I'd had about a week to recover. "How long have I been down?"
"Eight hours, maybe?" Elaine asked. She rose from the bed and stretched. It was every bit as intriguing and pleasant to watch as I remembered. "I sort of lose track when I'm focused on something."
"I remember," I murmured.
Elaine froze in place, and her green eyes glittered in the dimness as she met my gaze in a kind of relaxed, insolent silence. Then a little smile touched her lips. "I suppose you would."
My heart lurched and sped up, and I started getting ideas.
None of which could be properly pursued at the moment.
I saw Elaine reach the same conclusion at about the same time I did. She lowered her arms, smiled again and said, "Excuse me. I've been sitting there a while." Then she paced into the bathroom.
I went to the hotel's window and opened the cheap blinds a tiny bit. We were somewhere on the south side. Dusk was on the city, the streetlights already flickering into life one by one, as the shadows crept out from beneath the buildings and oozed slowly up the light poles. I checked around but saw no shark fins circling, no vultures wheeling overhead, and no obvious ghouls or vampires lurking nearby, just waiting to pounce. That didn't mean they weren't there, though.
I went to the door and touched it lightly with my left hand. Elaine had spun another ward over the door, a subtle, solid crafting that would release enough kinetic energy to throw anyone who tried to open it a good ten or twelve feet away. It was perfect for a quick exit, if you were expecting trouble and ready for it when it arrived. Just wait for the bad guy to get bitch-slapped into the parking lot, then dash out the door and run off before he regained his feet.
I heard Elaine come out of the bathroom behind me. "What happened?" I asked.
"What do you remember?"
"Madrigal opened up with that assault rifle. Flash of light. Then I was in the water."
Elaine came to stand next to me and also glanced out. Her hand brushed mine when she lowered it from the blinds, and without even thinking about it, I twined my fingers in hers. It was an achingly familiar sensation, and another pang of half-remembered days long gone made my chest ache for a second.
Elaine shivered a little and closed her eyes. Her fingers tightened, very slightly, on mine. "We thought he'd killed you," she said. "You started to crouch down, and there were bullets shattering the ice all around you. You went into the water, and the vampire... Madrigal, did you say his name was? He ordered the ghouls in after you. I sent Olivia and the others to the shore, and Thomas and I went into the water to find you."
"Who hit me in the head?" I asked.
Elaine shrugged. "Either a bullet hit your coat after you crouched down, and then bounced off your thick skull without penetrating, or you slammed it against some of the shattered ice as you went under."
A bullet might have bounced off my head, thanks to the intervening fabric of my spell-covered coat. That was a sobering sort of thing to hear, even for me. "Thank you," I said. "For getting me out."
Elaine arched an eyebrow, then gave me a little roll of her eyes and said, "I was bored and didn't have anything better to do."
"I figured," I said. "Thomas?"
"He's all right. He had a car near the docks. I drove that clown car of yours, and we shoehorned everyone into them and got away clean. With any luck, Madrigal had a tougher time avoiding the cops than we did."
"Nah," I said, with total conviction. "Too easy. He got away. Where's Thomas?"
"Standing watch outside, he said." Elaine frowned. "He looked... very pale. He refused to stay in the room with his refugees. Or me, for that matter."
I grunted. Thomas had really put on his Supervamp cape back at the harbor. Under ordinary circumstances, he was surprisingly strong for a man of his size and build. But even unusually strong men don't go toe-to-toe with ghouls armed with nothing but a big stick and come away clean. Thomas could make himself stronger - a lot stronger - but not forever. The demon knit to my brother's soul could make him into a virtual godling, but it also increased his hunger for the life force of mortals, burning away whatever he had stored up in exchange for the improved performance.
After that fight, Thomas had to be hungry. So hungry that he didn't trust himself in a room with anyone he considered, well, edible. Which, in our escape party, had been everyone but me and the kids.
He must have been hurting.
"What about the Ordo?" I asked her quietly.
"I didn't want to go until I could be certain that I wouldn't lead anyone back to them. I called them every couple of hours to make sure they were all right. I should check in with them again."
She turned to the phone before she finished the sentence and dialed a number. I waited. She was silent. After a moment, she hung up the phone again.