"Ah. I see, so there will be echoes in the Captain's head until The effect of the curse, or dark spell, whichever you actually used, wears off." Meri said, dispassionately. "That explains why the noose keeps twitching," she added. "I wonder, will it wear off in time to keep you from being strangled?"
She turned to Jace and said, "A little something else slightly different to think about, lest you think in future of using my blood to heal a wound; If you had chosen that road, it would be my voice you'd be hearing in your head." She saw Liam's reaction, and added, still as if speaking to Jace, "I have no desire to sire more fledglings and have them wrenched from me again, so my voice would be strident indeed in your mind." She had finally realized from the Hunter's reactions that he did not want to be identified as such, so did not address him upon that score; she might be a fiend, but she had her scruples, and prided herself on her discipline and self-control - and her honor, albeit an immortal undead's kind of honor. "I haven't heard my own sire's voice clearly since I came to this world," She said, a note of near-wistfulness seeming to creep into her words. "I wonder if she is still surviving."
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Al carried Jace back over to the cot and laid her down gently. He walked over and picked up the bucket, righted it (upside down), and sat on it again, this time very deliberately going through the process of Field-stripping the Colt. He paused to pull the jacknife out again, and folded out a file blade, and took a leather bag from a lower leg pocket and extracted a pistol cleaning rod and brushes, and the gun oil bottle from earlier.
"I haven't forgotten you, or my promise, Doctor," he said, a coldness in his voice that made even Meri take pause, "But I rolled on my friend, here, and she needs a good stripping and cleaning before I go shooting holes in you. Rest assured, though, that if I have trouble fixing her up, I can always switch to my knife. That might even be better, I could butcher you slowly while you watch, and Meri has a nice, long meal." He stripped the gun with lightning speed, checked the parts, then reassembled it just as quickly, tried the action (with an empty magazine from a pouch on the shoulder holster's harness), stripped the gun again, filed a couple of places, and reassembled the action after oiling this or that part, and finally put it all back together. "Well, Dangit. She works just fine now." He slid in a fresh, loaded magazine, and worked the slide, then set the safety.
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Meri wished they'd stop talking about feeding her; her canines wre getting so long and curving slightly that they were starting to prick her lips, and her stomach grumbled like a child's, just before supper...