“People have said the same of vampires, time out of mind,” Theo said. “Are they right? Did you lose your soul when you lost your human life? I believe, I must believe, that I still cling to mine.”

“The draug are different!”

I couldn’t disagree with that, really. Everything that I’d seen about the draug made me think that Naomi had something there. None of the draug seemed to have the least bit of human feeling in them; they were monsters, predators, pure and simple. The vampires at least hung on to something—even the worst of them you could understand, even if you hated it, and them.

But there was nothing inside the draug to understand. It was like trying to reason with a hungry shark.

Theo sighed. “She’s my patient,” he said. “If the worst comes, then it’s mine to do, not yours. And I won’t do it without Oliver’s consent. He is the leader now. Unless you plan to dispute that.”

“Of course I plan to dispute it! He’s nothing but a jumped-up pretender!”

“I am not involved in the politics of kings and queens,” he said. “Or even those of pretenders. Go back, Naomi. Let me see to your sister.”

She bowed her head and curtsied, just a little. “Of course, Doctor. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

He turned his back on her to open the door. That was a mistake.

I didn’t have time to react at all when she pulled a wooden stake from the side of her boot and stabbed him in the back with it—between the ribs, and angling up to his heart. Theo made a little gasping sound, hardly loud enough for me to hear, and then she caught him as he fell and eased him to the carpet. She reached past him to turn the dead bolt lock on the door. Then she snapped it off, leaving the metal tongue in place.

I wasn’t getting out of there. Not easily.

“What are you doing?” I cried. “Guards! Get in here!”

“Yell all you like,” Naomi said placidly. She opened up Theo’s doctor bag and searched through it, calm as an ice sculpture. “Amelie is quite particular about her soundproofing. There’s a hidden alarm, if you can find it, but I should not waste my time if I were you. Stay here until I return.”

Theo was lying totally still, facedown on the floor. A wooden stake wouldn’t kill him immediately, I knew; it would pin him down, paralyze him, leave him helpless for whatever might come next.

I let Naomi think I was paralyzed, too, with fear; it wasn’t a tough job of acting. This was going too fast, and too crazy, and I had no idea what the right thing to do was, except that Theo had never hurt anyone, ever.

Naomi took something out of his bag, walked across to the other door, and closed it quietly behind her.

I dropped to my knees beside Theo, took hold of the stake, and yanked, hard. It was embedded between the ribs, and it took all my strength and three tries to pull it free.