Chapter 28 #2
An ugly red mark extended across the whole left side of his face, radiating from his jaw.
It was beginning to darken into an ugly bruise.
But there was more. A weird, purplish substance dribbled from his nostrils and the corners of his mouth, staining his skin and making him look like some nightmarish fiend.
“Mr. Grimm!” Luna sprang to her feet, her limbs suddenly galvanized with horror. “Mr. Grimm, what is this? What did he do to you?”
He moved his head vaguely, trying to shake it. “N-n-not Mortimer,” he managed, pushing the words through swollen, stained lips. “Severmist gas.”
Luna stared down at him, uncomprehending.
Then she remembered: severmist. She’d heard of it before.
It was an anti-sorcery agent, intended to burn all traces of Dire from the atmosphere.
A scourge on regular sorcerers, but deemed generally ineffective against Dark Sorcerers, who had too much Dire in their systems for it to make much difference.
But to a sorcerer who didn’t currently have access to his own magic? It might prove deadly.
Chewing her lip, Luna stood some moments in shock, not even realizing that her brain was hard at work. Then suddenly, she heard herself speaking out loud, “Starfire Phlox. And Pink Coronations. Nasty stuff, and you’re not going to thank me, but . . .”
Not waiting to finish, she left him behind the counter and rushed to the storage room to fetch the key from the polka-dot pot.
Moments later, she was pushing open the boiler room door and stepping into Garden.
A night-swept breeze blew in her face, carrying with it an entire world’s worth of delicious aromas.
For a few breaths, Luna stopped in her tracks.
She’d never seen Garden at night before, its sky studded with stars, and all its night-blooming flowers on display beneath the moonlight.
It was so peaceful. She hated to ruin it. But she also didn’t have any time.
“Garden!” she shouted, her voice breaking with desperation. “Garden, I need Starfire Phlox and Pink Coronations. Now!” A sob bubbled up in her throat, and suddenly overcome by the enormity of the situation, she dropped to her knees. “Please!” she begged.
A bluster of wind raced through trees and shrubberies, stirring up a wild bouquet of perfumes.
Luna bowed her head, fighting back more sobs.
She couldn’t give in to these feelings. Not now, not while Mr. Grimm was back there in the nook possibly .
. . possibly dying. She couldn’t think about other things .
. . anything . . . until she’d saved him.
Suddenly a bunch of star-shaped blossoms appeared directly in front of her knees, sprouting up from the soil in profusion.
Their color was so vivid, she could see the scarlet hues even by moonlight.
The next instant, a many-frilled Pink Coronation sprang up from its single stem, followed swiftly by two more.
“Thank you, Garden!” Luna gasped. She pulled up the blossoms, careful to take the roots as well, and scampered back inside.
First locking the boiler room door carefully behind her and swiftly dropping the key back in its pot, she rushed to the kitchen.
For a mere second, she saw the unprimed teapot where it sat on the counter, just as they’d left it.
Forgotten. When he’d pulled her into his arms and made her forget absolutely everything for the most glorious three minutes of her entire existence.
Luna bit down hard on her lip. Then, first removing her coat and casting it over the back of a kitchen chair, she sprang to the stove and ignited the burner under the kettle.
Grabbing her cutting board, she set to work chopping and grinding the flowers and roots of her small harvest. The tea wouldn’t be as effective without the slow-drying process, but she would have to make do.
Once she’d got the tea steeping in the pot, she grabbed a cup and the last remaining head of Pink Coronation, and hurried back to the counter nook.
Just as she emerged from the back passage, a bundle of feathers and croaking irritability flew down from the stairwell and landed on the counter.
“Never mind?” Debbie demanded, peering at her master where he sat.
“I know!” Luna pushed up the hinged portion of the counter and stepped back into the nook. “I’m trying to help!”
She popped on the behind-the-counter thaumatic light bulb, but the glow wasn’t comforting.
It served only to illuminate the slumped form of Mr. Grimm in his chair.
He didn’t seem to have moved an inch. Stifling a little whimper, Luna set down the pot and teacup and pressed a finger to his throat, feeling for a pulse. It was there. Thready, but present.
At the touch of her fingers, his eyes flared open.
He stared up at her. His mouth moved, trying to speak, but more weird, purple foam spilled from his lips.
“Oh, Mr. Grimm!” Luna cried. Then, because she didn’t know what else to do, she took the frilly Pink Coronation head and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Chew this!” she commanded. “It’ll help. ”
She didn’t know that it would. But it might.
Mr. Grimm obeyed, chewing dutifully. Then his eyes flared open, much more focused than they were before.
His body spasmed. Recognizing the signs, Luna grabbed the wastebin from behind the counter and handed it to him.
Just in time. He bowed over it, heaving hard.
The flower was quite fast-acting, it would seem.
Not as soothing or thorough as the tea, but effective.
After the initial heaving, Mr. Grimm lifted his face from the bin.
His eyes sought hers. And though his expression was one of pure misery, it shifted momentarily into strange and wholly unexpected delight.
He tried to move his purple-stained lips, like he was about to speak her name.
Then he bowed his head, as his body purged more, violently.
When he was quite done, Luna poured the tea. “Here, Mr. Grimm,” she said gently. “Drink this now.”
He looked up at her, his eyes swimming. “I . . . don’t know if I can . . . stand more of your . . . gentle ministrations just now, Miss Talbot.”
Luna bit back another sob. Trust Mr. Grimm to bring that dry sarcasm, even on the brink of death. “Drink it,” she urged and held the cup to his lips. “It’ll help flush out the rest of the poison.”
He took a dubious sip. She could already see that his color looked better.
Not great, but better. Tea dribbled down his chin, and Luna grabbed the mushroom hanky to mop it up gently.
“Forgive me,” he murmured, his words slurring rather.
“I’m afraid it’s . . . not very gentlemanly of me to .
. . to heave up my guts in a lady’s . . . ”
He slumped forward before finishing, drifting into unconsciousness.
“Mr. Grimm? Mr. Grimm!” With a clatter of cup and saucer, Luna set aside the tea and knelt in front of her boss, patting his cheek.
Fingers trembling, she checked his pulse again.
Steadier than it was, perhaps. Oh, Green Mother, did he get enough of the Starfire Phlox in his system?
Did that one, violent purging eliminate enough of the poison from his body?
What else could she give him? Maybe some Saint Hylda’s Wort, for Dire-burn.
Who knew what Lancelot Mortimer had done with him before he breathed in that gas.
“Never mind!” Debbie rasped in fell tones of warning.
“I don’t know!” Luna gasped, turning to look at the bird, her eyes wide. “I don’t know what else to try! I’m not trained in this sort of thing!”
“Never mind!” The bird fluttered her wings, turning around in place on the counter.
“Well, if you have any ideas, I would—”
A knock sounded. Loud in the stillness of the darkened shop.
Luna stopped. Her heart turned over in her breast before plummeting to her stomach.
Another knock. More insistent than the last.
She and Debbie exchanged looks. “Never mind?” the bird suggested.
Swallowing hard, Luna got to her feet and slowly, cautiously, peeked out from the nook across the shop floor.
There, standing under the awning, his face framed in the square of glass set in the front door, stood Officer Ward.