respectable-looking doors. Finally, she knocked on one and a
wizened man with a huge head and the faintest remnant of a wispy beard
opened the door cautiously.
“I don’t keep any ketterris here! No hexen, no zemeral! And I
don’t do love spells!” Then, peering short-sightedly, he seemed to focus
on the little group.
“Lakshmi?” he said.
“We’ve brought a woman who needs help,” Elena said shortly.
“She’s pregnant, too. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? A healer?”
“A healer of some limited ability. Come in, come in.”
The doctor was hurrying into a back room. They all followed him,
Damon still carrying Ulma. Once she arrived, Elena saw that the healer
was in the corner of what looked like a crowded wizard’s sanctuary,
with quite a bit of voodoo and witch doctor thrown in.
Elena, Meredith, and Bonnie glanced at one another nervously, but
then Elena heard water splashing and realized that the doctor was in the
corner because there was a basin of water there, and the healer was
washing his hands thoroughly, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and
making a lot of frothy bubbles. He might call himself a “healer,” yet he
did understand basic hygiene, she thought.
Damon had put Ulma onto what looked like a clean white-sheeted
examining table. The doctor nodded to him. Then, tch-tching, he pulled