“The length?” Marcus asked with a frown. “How old is she?”
Vincent shook his head. “Not sure, but she’s old. There are memories in her head dating way back. She’s spent her life always moving from one place to another, always amongst nomadic, mortal tribes. She’s traveled with the Wu Hu, Huns, Magyars, Romani, carnies.” He gave a crooked shrug, his elbow digging into Marcus’s stomach. “There are far too many to list them all.”
“Try,” Marcus said dryly.
“What’s more interesting,” Vincent went on as if he hadn’t spoken, “is that in every section or chapter of her life, she’s had a different name that was her name. Now, and since she began traveling with carnies, it’s been Madame Divine and the moment she became Divine, she was no longer whoever she was in the previous chapter of her life. With the Romani it was Nuri, which means Gypsy, which is what the Romani are and how she’s lived her whole life as far as I can tell.”
“Nuri,” Marcus murmured.
Vincent nodded. “As far as she was concerned that was her name while she traveled with the Romani and her previous name and life no longer existed.” He pursed his lips and then commented, “It’s almost dissociative.”
Marcus scowled at the comment. “When did you get your psychology degree, Dr. Freud?”
“No degree yet,” Vincent admitted cheerfully. “But I’ve been taking some night courses the last year or two and have a little psychology under my belt.”
“There’s nothing more dangerous in this world than ‘a little’ knowledge,” Marcus growled.
Vincent heaved a dramatic sigh, showing his acting roots, and then perched his chin on the heel of his palm and arched one eyebrow. “Since you’re obviously cranky, I shall skip to just the facts. She’s in the next bedroom sleeping after her own bout with healing.”
“What?” Marcus sat up abruptly, despite Vincent’s weight on him. “Healing from what?”
“You shouldn’t be up yet,” Vincent said with a scowl as Marcus tossed his sheets and blankets aside and sat up on the side of the bed.
“Screw you,” Marcus snapped, looking around for his clothes. “What is she healing from?”
“The wounds you gave her,” Vincent said grimly as Marcus stood up.
That brought him up short and Marcus turned to stare at him wide-eyed as Vincent walked around the bed toward him. “Wounds I gave her?”
Nodding, the younger man gave him a push that sent him toppling to sit on the side of the bed again. Bending then, Vincent grabbed his now unresisting legs and lifted them onto the bed, turning him on it as he did. He then covered him up and announced. “You gouged out some nice striations on her chest after drinking the blood when you got here. I gather from what I read of her mind, those weren’t the first injuries you gave her. While you were out of your head healing in the SUV, you did some serious damage. She was suffering and in serious need of blood herself, though we didn’t realize that at first.”
Finished tucking him in, Vincent sat on the side of the bed again, eyed him solemnly, and said, “The woman is very good at hiding her pain. And judging by some of the memories I caught glimpses of, it comes from practice.”
“What does that mean?” Marcus asked with concern. “What did you see?”
The door opened then and they both glanced toward it to see Jackie walking in with a tray in hand. Marcus raised his head, his nose sniffing the air.
“I thought you’d be awake by now, I—” She paused abruptly, her gaze shooting to her husband as an alarm suddenly sounded in the house.
“What’s that?” Marcus asked, sitting up abruptly.
“The security alarm. Someone’s breached the gate,” Jackie said grimly, turning toward the dresser with her burden.
Marcus didn’t stay to watch her set it down, but leaped off the bed, and strode out of the room with Vincent hard on his heels.
“Where is she?” he growled, once in the hall.
“This one,” Vincent said, leading him to the next door on the right. The man wasn’t stupid enough to get between him and the woman in the room. He merely turned the knob and pushed the door open. Vincent then stepped back to allow Marcus to enter. It was a good thing too, since Marcus would have charged right over him in his bid to see that Divine was okay.
“Stay with her,” Vincent said after glancing to the unconscious woman in the bed. “Jackie and I will check out the breach. We’ll come back either when we catch someone or when it’s all clear.”
Marcus merely grunted, his attention on the restless woman in the bed. She wasn’t screaming or thrashing, but she wasn’t still either. Soft moans and murmurs of pain were leaving her lips and she was shifting this way and that in the bed, obviously still healing.
Vincent had said Marcus had hurt her, and the knowledge made him peer carefully over her face. When he didn’t see anything there, he reached for the top of the blanket covering her and tugged it down, revealing the peasant blouse she still wore. Like the one from that morning, this one was stained with dry blood, but more disturbing to him were the scars on her chest. They were fading even as he watched, but were obviously from deep scoring. It was as if he’d tried to dig deep trenches in her chest. Marcus could only imagine how much pain he’d caused her. It made him wonder about the other injuries Vincent had mentioned his having caused her. What had he done to the poor woman while out of his head after the fire?
The question made him tug the blanket lower. He’d intended to get a look at her arms that rested at her sides under the blanket, but instead his attention was caught by an even larger bloodstain below her left breast. It was dry now but had blossomed around a hole through the material there. She’d obviously been stabbed with something.
How the hell had he missed this earlier and not questioned her? he wondered with dismay, and then, thinking back, recalled that she’d been wearing a leather jacket over the top when he’d woken up. His leather jacket, he thought now. The desert got chilly at night and she may have donned it for that reason, but it had done a fine job of hiding all of this too.
“All clear,” Jackie announced, suddenly appearing in the door.
“Video shows two men climbing the fence and then fleeing when the alarm sounded. Good thing Jackie insisted on alarming the fence and yard as well as the house after that business when she was turned,” Vincent added, pausing behind her, one hand on her shoulder.
Marcus glanced to the couple and nodded. He had been there for “that business” and wasn’t surprised that Jackie had ramped up the security since then. The culprit who had attacked her might now be caught and taken care of, but an experience like that could haunt a person and make him more cautious. His gaze slid back to Divine, and he asked, “Did I do this to her?”
“You were out of your head,” Vincent said at once, slipping past Jackie to move to his side. “She doesn’t hold you responsible.”
She might not, but he felt guilty as hell for it and asked grimly, “What did I stab her with?”
“I gather it was an arrow, or a bolt I guess,” Vincent said, peering at the wound and then bending to tug the peasant blouse out of her skirt and up so that he could get a look at the wound. It was further along in healing than the striations in her chest.
“Where the hell did I get— Oh,” Marcus ended on a mutter as he recalled the weapons box built into the floor beside the refrigerator. Every SUV had one; his held a gun, knife, and bows with specially made bolts, the tips painted with a drug strong enough to knock out an immortal, if only temporarily.