Sam blinked his eyes and touched his forehead. The pressure in his skull had awakened him from a deep dream in which he was drowning. The water had been up to his nose, slowly squeezing his temples. For a moment he was glad to be awake…until he felt the pain in his face. He winced and blinked several more times until he become aware that Maire was hovering over him.
“You"re a mess alright,” she smiled sympathetically.
When Sam looked around, he realized he was in Maire"s suite of rooms on the third floor of the Gentlemen"s Club. The familiarity of the carved wood fireplace and the lush Persian carpets gave him a sense comfort, in spite of the pain he felt from the waist up. “Ohhh,” he moaned, “what did you do to me, woman?”
“It was your own doing, chere. We were leaving Cat"s Blues Heav
