Self-Done First Aid

One end of the hallway was a bust; a dead end existed only two cells down from their set.

"Do you think they kept anyone else in here?" Jim asked as he and Douxie stealthed their way down the hall, going the other direction. Toward wherever their jailers came from.

"Not in my time, I'm afraid," the vampire replied. He glanced at Jim. A smile quirked his mouth. "You were a surprise. Best one I've had in years."

"Ha. Ha."

"See, you think I'm kidding." Douxie's footsteps were nearly inaudible, even to Jim's hearing. "Rest assured, I am not."

"Shh." Jim held up a hand. Douxie obediently stilled as Jim listened hard. Finally he shook his head.

"What'd you hear?" Douxie asked softly as they resumed moving forward.

"Nothing." Jim frowned. "And that worries me."

"Nothing?!" Douxie's gesture was expansive. "You must've heard something! These lights have been driving me mad with their buzzing for years, if nothing else!"

"Nothing besides you, me, and the lights," Jim clarified.

"Oh." A few more steps. "You think they were the only guards?"

"I think if I was in charge, there would have been more than two guards on duty."

"Mmm. Particularly while coming to assess and move a new prisoner." Douxie seemed to be following Jim's train of thought, because he nodded.

They each held their breaths as they peeked around that final corner neither of them had ever been able to breach before. Toby would think they looked like a cartoon doing so, Jim thought, his head over Douxie's as they both took that careful look.

A glass door, with some kind of key card reader and number pad. And on the other side, a pair of plain office desks, facing one another, with a computer monitor on each. "No guards," Jim murmured.

"Maybe they're short-staffed," said Douxie. "Right. If I nip back and grab their key cards-"

Jim strode forward and, like he had with the door to Douxie's cell, kicked the door off its hinges.

"-Or we could just do that," Douxie finished. "Not one for much subtlety, are you?"

"I want out of here," Jim told him as Douxie threaded between him and the doorway, then he followed the wizard through.

"I can't argue with that." Douxie sidled into one of the desk chairs and tapped at the keyboard. The monitor came to life, but he frowned. "Locked." He pulled open one drawer, then another. "Check the other one, will you?"

Jim pulled the drawers of the other desk open, finding pencils, erasers, a crossword puzzle book, rubber bands. "What are we looking for?"

"A map? A phone? A teleportation device?" Douxie ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know."

"Let's keep going," Jim suggested.

Douxie nodded, and followed.

It was kind of creepy, how abandoned the building seemed to be as they followed the single corridor out, the pair of them carefully stealthing past each door in case there was someone inside. But there never seemed to be.

Finally, they reached the last set of doors, a pair of push bar doors that reminded Jim of his high school. Through the inset glass panels, they could see outside: dust, and more buildings.

And sunlight, which would be fatal to either of them.

"What do we do?" Jim asked. "We can't go out there."

Douxie was very still as he looked out the windows. His gaze dropped to his left wrist, and the two-inch silver band there. His mouth thinned. He looked up at Jim.

"I'm sorry," he said, and the bottom dropped out of the world for Jim. Douxie was going to betray him-

"I shouldn't ask this of you," the vampire continued. "Merlin's already asked too much. But it's the only hope either of us has of getting out of here."

"Douxie-"

His fingers drummed on the silver band as he held it up to Jim. "This suppresses my magic. All of my magic."

Jim met his eyes, not understanding.

"I can't get it off," the wizard said. There was something stark in his gaze. "I need you to do it."

Jim touched a taloned finger to the bracelet. "What, I should just rip it off?"

A tiny head shake. "It's got thorns inside my arm, almost to the bone. I can feel them. I don't think you can 'just rip it off'." Douxie's eyes were hard. "I need you to bite my hand off."

Jim recoiled, stumbling back. "I can't-"

"Do you want to escape?" Douxie stood merciless. He waved a hand at the doors. "One step out there, and we're both dead. I can protect us-if I have my magic back."

"You'll die from blood loss!"

Douxie's jaw set. "Morgana Le Fay survived losing a hand, I can too."

"Douxie-"

Golden eyes met Jim's, not giving an inch. "Do you want to live?"

Douxie's voice was that of a man who had made his decision and would not back down from it, no matter what. In the face of that surety, Jim's own surety... backed down.

They were running out of time and had no other options.

Slowly, he nodded.

Douxie smiled brightly. Like biting off his hand was a joke and only he knew the punchline. "Don't swallow," he advised. "I imagine I'd taste terrible, vampire and all that."

"Like I'd want to be a cannibal," Jim retorted.

"Well, technically..." But slowly Douxie's smile dimmed, merriment vanishing. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if steadying himself. Then his eyes opened, and were hard again. "Do it," he said.

Not letting himself think, because if he thought about it, he knew he wouldn't be able to do it, Jim bit.

The feeling of flesh and bone crunching between his teeth was something he knew he would never forget to his dying day.

He turned his head, spat out the flesh.

Douxie had fallen to his knees, savaged arm held in the embrace of the other. He was white with pain, gasping out syllables that meant nothing to Jim as Jim spat again, and again, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. It was tingling, it was numb, it was burning-

The words sounded like Latin, maybe. Slowly Douxie's gasps came slower, like he was getting himself under control. Spitting one last time, Jim turned back to look at what he'd done.

The stump of Douxie's arm was wreathed in blue light. The wizard's face was dotted with sweat. His eyes dilated with shock.

Finally, his ragged breathing calmed to normal. Jim was pretty sure Douxie was forcing that.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Douxie's eyes raised to meet his again. "You did nothing I did not ask of you," the wizard said, stumbling to his feet. Jim put out a hand to steady him. Douxie accepted the help, giving thanks with a nod. His gaze landed on his hand, abandoned and curled on the floor. He drew another breath. "Suppose I'd best not leave that here. They might use it to clone me, or something."

"What?" Jim asked.

"You clearly never read the Timothy Zahn Star Wars novels," said Douxie. A wave of his surviving hand, and the severed one floated in the air, surrounded by blue light. He tucked it under the arm it had come from, held tight to his body. "Come here," he told Jim, who obediently moved closer. Douxie touched two fingers to Jim's forehead. "Solus Umbra," he said, and tingling light washed over Jim. He then repeated the spell for himself, to the same effect.

Douxie quirked a still pain-tinged smile and looked at the doors. "Now, shall we get out of here?"