Ray crouched down in front of me, while Rufus rigged up one of those floating stretchers for James. The guy really had thought of everything. I watched him sloooowly roll his son’s body onto it, until Ray turned my cheek back to face him.
“Listen to me. We got what we got, okay? We’re not gonna find the rest of those weapons, not in this. And you’re not at your best—”
“I’m fine—”
“You just took a hit that woulda leveled a troll. You are not fine!”
I scowled at him. And then tried to push his finger out of my face, although I couldn’t seem to catch it. “Stop moving.”
“I’m not moving. And you’re done.”
“You don’t get to tell me that!”
“Well, somebody needs to!”
I scowled at him. “You’re supposed to be what? My Second?”
He looked surprised for what seemed like a long moment, but was probably just a flash across his face. Maybe because a Second was a master’s leading servant, and kind of a big deal. But since the only vamps I had were Ray’s, it seemed appropriate.
But I guess he hadn’t stopped to think about it before.
“Yeah,” he told me. “I guess so.”
“Well, a vampire’s Second does what he’s told!”
Ray snorted. “You must not have known many Seconds.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that they do a lot of different jobs, depending on what the family needs. But their main one is to tell the master what he don’t want to hear.”
“To be a pain in the ass, in other words.”
“A useful pain in the ass.”
“Then you’re perfect for the job.”
“Thank you,” Ray said, and pulled me back up again.
I grabbed the railing, not that I needed it, and looked around. Olga must have realized what I’d flung at her, because it looked like the battle was evening out. But that could change, really fast, and I hated the idea of just abandoning her. Plus, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something.
I had the weirdest impression that, not only were the rest of the weapons here, but I was staring right at them. It was maddening. And if Marlowe came into this mess with no clue where they were . . .
Ding!
I started at the sound and looked around. But it hadn’t come from another weird magical device, or from the drowning slots, which had been spazzing out this whole time. But from something behind me.
And, for once, it was something benign.
It looked like nobody had turned off whatever system controlled the fights, because the doorway behind us had just lit up, announcing a new one. A ring of little green crabs decorated the stone all around the opening, like the orange squid had on the other door. I guess they meant something to the regulars, maybe some clue to the venue or the type of combatants? I wondered if Cthulhu’s door had red octopuses. . . .
“Dory? We’re ready.”
It was Ray, but I barely heard him over the ding, ding, ding, only this time, it wasn’t the door chiming.
It was my head.
“Dory? You up to taking point, or you wanna bring up the rear?”