25

“Thanks ever so much for your concern” I said acidly. “Now how about you tell me what that place was you had me in?” He looked at me with a very neutral expression, apparently trying to decide whether I had really just tried to insult him. “It was a bedroom. Nothing more, nothing less. Was there something wrong with it?”
I ignored his question and threw out another of my own. “What was that silver floating ball?” He looked at me for a moment, and I smelled something that my brain recognized as speculation. “That is a monitor, easily given simple commands to perform, such as waking one up at a certain time.” “So why was it hovering next to the bed I was in?” “It was there to alert my servants that you were awake and to place your” his lip curled slightly as he looked by sweat clothes over, “garments on the bed so you could clothe yourself.”
“So how long has it been since I got hurt?” Keep firing questions, maybe I could sneak one in that would give me an idea what he was planning next. “It has been four days, quite a fast time to recover from a nearly fatal attack.” “Nearly Fatal?” “Yes, the doctor said the attack slashed between your ribs and nicked your aorta. It took all his magick to repair it and hours of work to stitch everything back into place before he was ready to have his assistant encourage healing.”
I guess I did get lucky. “Must have been a good doctor to get me up and ready to go so fast.” He looked at me. I mean REALLY looked at me like a parent would to an idiot savant. It smelled like desire, and contempt, and fear all rolled together. It made me wonder if he smelled me here. He said carefully, “The doctor said that your wounds would take weeks to heal properly. That it took only four days is interesting.”
“Meaning what?” He was making me nervous with that unblinking stare he gave me. “Meaning nothing at the moment. Maybe something later.” He turned and went back into the booth he'd appeared from. I tried to follow but ran into a solid wall when wouldn't let me past. So much for continuing my argument. I hadn't even gotten to asking about what attacked me, which made me think that Cobb didn't want me asking that question. I decided to go talk with Larry and see if he'd figured anything new out about dragons, and if he got lucky, maybe Anolyn.
“Nothing much new here so far, but I'm only about halfway through all the books I pulled, so we might find something out still.” Larry and Fawn had been very happy to see me up and about so quick, and Fawn suggested I come back out to the gym to practice my self-defense in case I really needed it. It was a good idea, and I promised Fawn I'd see her after I was cleared by the doctor for that kind of activity. No sense in pushing things too much.
Fawn shooed Larry off to start dinner and she and I sat down to discuss what might have attacked me. She asked me to turn around and when I did she lifted my shirt to look at the scar. “Uh, Fern, I can barely see the scars, they must have used some pretty potent magick to fix you up.” “Honestly Fawn, I'm not sure. That Cobb guy acted surprised that I was up and about so soon.” “Well, I can't tell what attacked you from the scars, but whatever it was happened to be very sharp. I don't see any tug marks at all.”
“Maybe that's why some of it healed faster, no tears or rips” I said. “Maybe, but it doesn't answer why you were attacked, just what did it if we can even figure that out.” Fawn answered me. She had shifted into cop mode, and had picked up a piece of paper and was tracing the scars on my back while we talked. She had finished the first, uppermost one and was working on the next one. “You said it was flickering? Was that because of the lighting, or was that the creature itself that was flickering?” “I think it was the light, though when I looked at it when it was in the archway, it seemed to flicker with the torches.”
“Best guess without seeing would be some kind of shade then, which would also make sense as it needs shadows to exist and move about. No shadows, no shade. You said it felt like cobwebs when you passed through it?” “Yeah, it was like running into a dense bunch of spiderwebs.” Fawn finished the last scar, straightened and stretched her back, and let me see her drawing.
Three thin cuts ran parallel to my ribs, right in between them. Who or whatever did the cutting knew how to aim or was just lucky. I figured the former. Always figure skill over luck. “So if it's a shade like you say, what can I do to protect myself against it?” “Holy water works best on shades I remember. We've dealt with one or two, but they're fairly rare. But usually they don't attack so much as try to frighten people away from whatever they left behind, or I remember one case where a shade was forced to guard a wooden box for a magician.”