A child - yes, a genuine street urchin - darted to the front of the crowd, grabbed Elena's hand and pointed, saying, "Dr. Meggar, right up the street. It's only a couple of blocks; we can walk it."
The child was wrapped in a tattered old dress, but that might only be to keep warm, because he or she was also wearing a pair of trousers. Elena couldn't even figure out whether it was a boy or a girl until the child gave her an unexpectedly sweet smile and whispered, "I'm Lakshmi."
"I'm Elena," Elena said.
"Better hurry, Elena," Lakshmi said. "Guardians will get here soon."
Meredith and Bonnie had gotten the dazed slave woman to her feet, but she seemed to be in too much pain to understand if they meant to help her or kill her.
Elena remembered how the woman had huddled in the shadow of Elena's own body. She put a hand on the woman's bloody arm and said quietly, "You're safe now. You're going to be fine. That man - your...your master - is dead and I promise that nobody will hurt you again. I swear it."
The woman stared at her in disbelief, as if what Elena was saying was impossible. As if living without being beaten constantly - even with all the blood Elena could see old scars, some of them like cords, on the woman's skin - was something too far from reality to imagine.
"I swear it," Elena said again, not smiling, but grimly. She understood that this was a burden she was taking on for life.
It's all right, she thought, and realized that for some time now she had been sending her thoughts to Damon. I know what I'm doing. I'm ready to be responsible for this.
Are you sure? Damon's voice came to her, as uncertain as she'd ever heard him. Because I'm sure as hell not going to take care of some old hag when you get tired of her. I'm not even sure I'm ready to deal with whatever it's going to cost me for killing that bastard with the whip.
Elena turned to look at him. He was serious. Well, then why did you kill him? she challenged.
Are you joking? Damon gave her a shock with the vehemence and venom of his thought. He hurt you. I should have killed him more slowly, he added, ignoring one of the litter bearers who was kneeling beside him, undoubtedly asking what to do next. Damon's eyes, however, were on Elena's face, on the blood still flowing from her cut. Il figlio de cafone, Damon thought, his lips drawing back from his teeth as he looked down on the corpse, so that even the litter bearer scurried away on hands and knees.
"Damon, don't let him leave! Bring them all over here right now - " Elena began, and then, as there was a sort of universal gasp around her, she continued nonverbally, Don't let the litter bearers leave. We need a litter to carry this poor woman to the doctor. And why is everyone staring at me?
Because you're a slave, and you've just done things no slave should do and now you're giving me, your master, orders. Damon's telepathic voice was grim.
It's not an order. It's a - look, any gentleman would help a lady in distress, right? Well, there are four of us over here and one is more distressed than you want to look at. No, three are. I think I'm going to need some stitches, and Bonnie is about to collapse. Elena was striking methodically at weak points, and knew that Damon knew she was doing it. But he ordered one of the sets of litter bearers to come and pick up the slave woman and the other to take his girls.
Elena stuck with the woman and ended up in a litter with the curtains all closed around it. The smell of blood was a copper taste in her mouth, making her want to cry. Even she didn't want to look closely at the slave woman's injuries, but blood was running onto the litter. She found herself taking off her blouse and camisole and putting back only the blouse so that she could use the camisole to hold to a great diagonal slash across the woman's chest. Every time the woman raised dark brown, frightened eyes to her, Elena tried to smile at her encouragingly. They were down deep somewhere in the trenches of communication, where a look and a touch meant more than words.
Don't die, Elena was thinking. Don't die, just as you have something to live for. Live for your freedom, and for your baby.
And maybe some of what she was thinking got through to the woman, because she relaxed against the litter cushions, holding on to Elena's hand.
Chapter 17
"Her name's Ulma," a voice said, and Elena looked down to find Lakshmi holding back the curtains of the litter with a hand over her head. "Everybody knows Old Drohzne and his slaves. He beats 'em until they pass out and then expects 'em to pick up his rickshaw and go on carrying a load. He kills five or six a year."
"He didn't kill this one," Elena murmured. "He got what he deserved." She squeezed Ulma's hand.
She was vastly relieved when the litter stopped and Damon himself appeared, just as she was about to start bargaining with one of the litter bearers to carry Ulma in their arms to the doctor. Without regard for his clothing, Damon still somehow managed to convey disinterest even as he picked up the woman - Ulma - and nodded to Elena to follow him. Lakshmi skipped around him and took the lead into an intricately patterned stone courtyard and then down a crooked hallway with some solid, respectable-looking doors. Finally, she knocked on one and a wizened man with a huge head and the faintest remnant of a wispy beard opened the door cautiously.
"I don't keep any ketterris here! No hexen, no zemeral! And I don't do love spells!" Then, peering short-sightedly, he seemed to focus on the little group.
"Lakshmi?" he said.
"We've brought a woman who needs help," Elena said shortly. "She's pregnant, too. You're a doctor, aren't you? A healer?"
"A healer of some limited ability. Come in, come in."
The doctor was hurrying into a back room. They all followed him, Damon still carrying Ulma. Once she arrived, Elena saw that the healer was in the corner of what looked like a crowded wizard's sanctuary, with quite a bit of voodoo and witch doctor thrown in.