Part 35 (1/2)
”Peculiar conditions?”
”Learned man. Eyes the color of rotting reeds. That sort of thing.”
”A learned man with greenish-brown eyes doesn't seem that peculiar.”
”Three nipples . . .”
”Ah.” Cheeks burning, Dean paid a great deal of attention to his next swallow of coffee. ”Lance says Meryat took over your mind.”
The doctor smiled into the shadows as desiccated fingers with blackened tips closed around his hand. ”Meryat took over my heart. How could I not love a woman who'd suffered so bravely for so long? I know what you're thinking, she's not at her best physically, but every day she's in the world she gains back a little more of her beauty.”
”She's not sucking the energy out of people, is she?”
”People give off energy merely by existing. She absorbs that.”
”Lance said that when you left the lab, you left him for dead.”
That drew his attention back to Dean. ”I pushed him into a supply closet,” he explained dryly, ”and locked the door. Lance tends to exaggerate.”
”Yeah.” Dean decided he'd best keep both the foul fiend and postulant monster comments to himself. ”Does he exclaim everything he says, then?”
”Almost everything, yes. I'm amazed you managed to send him away. He's remarkably tenacious.”
”I didn't so much send him away as send him on a wild goose chase. He still thinks he's after you.”
”I'm glad he isn't. Well done and thank you.” As Dr. Rebik drained his mug, Meryat asked a question, her words running together like liquid and music combined. ”Meryat wonders if you wonder how we found this place. This sanctuary.”
Dean shrugged, trying to look as though having the guest house called a sanctuary didn't please him as much as it did. ”You'd be amazed at the people who find this place.”
”In our case, it came about when Meryat's ka managed to gain a small amount of freedom even before I opened the sarcophagus. Still trapped, it couldn't touch the real world, but it could touch what she calls the possibilities. They told her of the Keepers and specifically of the Keeper who works from this inn. We were hoping you'd help us. Until she fully regains her physical form, Meryat is helpless and prey to every media influenced, addlepated adventurer we meet.”
”Meet a lot?”
”You'd be surprised.”
Dean considered the hole to h.e.l.l that had once heated the guest house. ”Not really, no.”
”So will you?”
”Will I what?”
”Help us.”
”Me? I'm not the Keeper.”
Meryat's hand which had been reaching toward him, exposing more of a wrapped arm than he really wanted to see, withdrew.
”You're not?”
”No. The Keeper's my, uh, girlfriend and she's away on business right now. But I'm expecting her back any time,” he added as Dr. Rebik's face fell and Meryat's hooded head sagged forward. ”The room's available as long as you need it.”