Hands touching the pain. I tried to jerk away. It felt as if the blood in my hand had been replaced with molten metal. I knew that pain. A different voice, "Anita, let go!"

"Open your hand, Anita, just open your hand." Micah's voice.

My left hand was a lump of agony. I couldn't even feel my fingers. How could I open it, if I couldn't feel it? All I could feel was pain. It made me open my eyes. My vision was ruined, spotted, gray and black and white, as if I'd looked into a bright flash of light.

I had a moment to see the ring of faces: Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, Graham, and Richard. I saw them, but all my attention went to the agony that was my left hand. I looked at it, and on the outside it was fine. A thin gold chain trailed out of my fist. My hand looked fine, but I knew it wasn't.

There were heavy drapes behind us. We were still at the Fox. They'd just carried me out of the box, and put me somewhere where the audience couldn't see. I knew why there were no vampires kneeling with us. The Mother of All Darkness had tried to take me, again, and some fool had given me a cross to hold.

"Open your hand, Anita, please." Micah whispered it again, stroking my hair.

I found my voice, and whispered, "Can't."

Richard cradled my hand in his, and started trying to pry my fingers open. He peeled a finger up. I whimpered, then bit my lip. If I started making noises, I'd end up screaming, or weeping, loudly. They'd managed to hide me away from the crowd. If I started screaming that would all be for nothing.

"I'm sorry, Anita, I'm sorry." Richard whispered it over and over as he pried my hand open.

"Curse if you want to," Jason said.

I shook my head. Bad burns hurt too much for cursing to make anything better. I forced myself to feel past the pain. I could still feel my hand, but distant, as if the hand around the pain were almost asleep. The pain overrode everything else—as if the nerves just couldn't handle it all so they transmitted the important parts, that it fucking hurt, all else was secondary.

Richard made a sound and it made me glance at him. The look on his face made me look where he was looking—my hand.

Most of the blisters had burst, so that my palm and fingers were a mass of ruptured skin and clear fluid. But the glint of gold in my palm was buried inside the mass of torn flesh. The cross had melted into my hand.

I looked away then; I didn't want to think about what was going to be needed to clean it up.