“Um…” She found herself distracted as she tried to think of something to say. All she could think about was how much she wanted to know what it would be like to be held by him. There was every chance, she thought, that she was being too romantic and silly about all this. Sam sounded sweet, strong and brave, but sensitive in his own way when he wrote in his diary. He even sounded funny sometimes. But there was every chance he was much different in real life. He was also a kind of soldier. The guy regularly saved the world and fought real-life big bads. What would he be interested in her for anyway? She caught her reflection in a mirror by his bed and frowned, feeling just a little bit insecure. She thought she was alright looking, normally. She had olive skin and plump lips and a mass of frizzy, curly black hair, all courtesy of her Italian father. But her eyes seemed dully brown to her and maybe her nose was slightly too big. And Sam… Well, Sam looked like an action hero…
“I am crazy,” she said, chuckling now, as she pulled her hand away from his. She rubbed her eyes, sighing to herself. “This is ridiculous. I gotta...get back into the kind of dating that doesn’t involve coma patients.” She mumbled that into her hand, feeling suddenly tired, if only of herself.
“Okay,” she said, playing with her tulip. “I’m going to figure this thing out and then…I’m going to not be a ridiculous sap. And I’m going to try to date someone conscious.” The last she mumbled into her hand, blushing a little. She picked up a book and began to read, hoping the comatose man in front of her didn’t think she was a complete loon.
Gwen knocked on Olive’s door a third time and had nearly given up hope when it was abruptly thrown open and Olive herself came to the door. She was somewhere north of forty and she had gray and pale pink hair and a tattoo of a phoenix on her neck. A clove cigarette was stuck between her lips as she blinked at Gwen. She was wearing flannel and jeans.
“Hey!” Olive greeted, her voice throaty and deep. “Gwen, right? What’s up, kitty cat?”
“Hi!” Gwen cleared her throat and presented the black tulip.
Before she could explain herself, Olive raised her eyebrows. “Is this a come on? Because I’ve kind of got something going with this warlock in Santa Monica-”
“No, no,” Gwen said, laughing a little. She took the Post-It out of her pocket. “I’m sorry to bother you, Olive. It’s about a curse. Might be called the Black Tulip Curse? Might be in French? I have a friend in a spell-induced coma and I’m trying to wake him up.” She took a deep breath and held up the bottle she had been hiding behind her back. “I also bought some very high-end vodka to sweeten the deal.”
Olive smiled at the vodka and said, “Well, in that case, come right in, my dear.”
Gwen grinned and followed Olive inside. She had never seen Olive’s apartment before but now it looked just the way she might have pictured a Hollywood witch’s apartment. There were framed movie posters on every wall, for old silent Gothic films. Three cats wandered around, fluffy tails in the air. There were bottles and jars and small cauldrons littering nearly every empty space. The place smelled strongly of sage and there were small baggies of flowers and herbs everywhere.
“So this is what you do for a living, right?” Gwen said, following Olive to an oversized couch covered in plaid throw blankets. Gwen sat down and the couch seemed to swallow her up, though she couldn’t say she wasn’t comfortable.
“Yes, ma’am,” Olive said. “I’ve been getting paid to do magic since I was eleven.”
“Dang,” Gwen muttered. “Well, I should pay you then.”
“No, no, no,” Olive said, with a wave of her hand. Gwen noticed her nails were painted a glittery black. “On the house. Besides, you couldn’t afford me. Just promise to bring the good vodka again, next time I have a barbecue. I’ll let you know.”
“Deal!” Gwen said.
Olive set her laptop on her knees and took a drag of her clove cigarette before setting it in an ashtray. “So, you’re in luck. I have heard of the Black Tulip Curse. Put him in a coma, huh?”
“Yeah,” Gwen said, nodding. “He’s been out for a year, up at Griffith Park Memorial. He’s a cougar shifter like me.”
“Hmm.” Olive nodded. “That’s rough. Very high-level curse too. Whoever cast that wasn’t fuckin’ around, I’ll tell you what.” She waved one of her glittery black-nailed hands around. “But then there are plenty of those dark wizard types hiding out all over Southern California plotting, plotting, always plotting. Not enough cougars protecting the city from them.” She patted Gwen’s knee and said, “No offense.”
“No, I…” Gwen cleared her throat and said, “Yeah, my family wasn’t really… It’s considered old-fashioned now. Nobody thinks it’s needed and we’re so assimilated with humans-”
“Oh, I know, sweetie,” Olive said quickly. “I’m not making you responsible for that.”
“Sam is one though,” Gwen said, smiling to herself. “He’s one of those guardians you’re talking about.”
Olive stopped typing and sat back, looking at Gwen in surprise. “He’s a guardian?”
“Yes,” Gwen said. “That’s how he got cursed. He was fighting some...guy. One of those dark wizard guys, I guess.”
Olive looked stricken suddenly and then her expression hardened, her mouth set in a determined little line. “We’re going to get him out of that coma,” she said sternly. She got up from her seat and Gwen watched her march into her kitchen and come back with two shot glasses. She poured two healthy shots of vodka and handed Olive one. “We’re going to.”
Gwen believed her and she grinned, feeling more optimistic than she had in a while. She tipped her shot glass in Olive’s direction and said, “Thank you, Olive,” before the two of them took their shots.
“You’re going to need to…” Olive blinked slowly at Gwen and squinted. They were both a little drunk. They had been sitting around, researching the spell as they sipped vodka. But they had just about cracked the Black Tulip Curse now. Olive had heard of it and Gwen had found a version of a counter spell for a similar curse online. Now Olive was jotting down notes, devising a counter spell specific to the Black Tulip. “What was I saying?” Olive asked.
Gwen had a fluffy orange cat in her lap and she said, “You said I’m going to need to do something. But you didn’t say what.” She frowned at the cat and said, “Did she?”
The cat meowed.
“Oh yes, yes,” Olive said, scribbling something else. She was writing on a small notepad. Gwen was pretty sure she was using an eyebrow pencil. “Blood. The spell is going to need spilled blood from somebody close to him. Do you know anybody close to him?”
“No…” Gwen said, thinking hard through her drunken haze. She frowned at the cat. “Oh. Yes, I do. His butler, but…why?”
“We’ll need somebody who’s close to him to spill blood for the spell.” She made a face. “It’s a bitch. You have to cut your arm and stuff.”
Gwen frowned at that. She didn’t like the thought of sweet Arthur, who had to be at least sixty, first getting his hopes up that Sam would wake up and also cutting his arm and shedding blood over it. What if it didn’t work? “I guess… Well, I’m close to him,” Gwen said softly. “Or I feel close to him anyway. Even though I’ve only known him while he was unconscious.”
“If you the two of you don’t share a real connection and have some kind of relationship, it’s not going to work,” Olive said doubtfully.
“Let’s try it with me,” Gwen said. “I think I’m close enough to him. If it doesn’t work, then we can try with Arthur? That’s the butler.”
Olive snorted at that and said, “Well, it better work. I’d hate to have to try this twice.”
“It’ll work,” Gwen said slowly. “I...believe in us.”
“It’s a lot of blood,” Olive said, raising an eyebrow.
“Well…” Gwen shrugged. “Good thing we’ll be in a hospital then.”
“I would think the hospital would be more crowded on a Friday night,” Olive said,
frowning.
Their voices slightly echoed in the parking structure of Griffith Memorial and Gwen winced, glancing around to make sure nobody was around. “The ER sometimes or maybe maternity. But no, usually it’s very slow Friday nights.” She grabbed the duffle bag full of supplies out of the trunk and Olive grabbed the giant tote bag that held her trunk. Gwen locked up her car and sighed.
Finally, the moment of truth was upon them. They had plotted and planned for the spell all week, practicing chants and hunting down ingredients. Picking a knife with which to cut her arm open had been a bracing experience to Gwen’s mind. She’d needed another shot of vodka for that. It was also not something she could practice. She knew at least how to make her arm bleed without actually threatening her life, being a medical professional. That was useful anyway.
“Are you sure nobody will interrupt us?” Olive asked as they rushed through the maze of hallways to the ICU.
“Yes,” Gwen said firmly. “The nurses only check vitals every four hours for stable patients and there won’t be any rounds this late. Of course...if he wakes up, his EKG will go crazy and things will make noises, so hide the magic stuff as quickly as you can once it’s over.”
“Will do,” Olive said.
When they arrived at Sam’s room, Olive stopped short upon seeing him in his bed. “Wow. He’s a big fella.”
“Yeah,” Gwen said, smiling a little. “Guardian.”
“Right.”
Gwen checked Sam’s chart to find that, sure enough, Sam’s vitals had only just been checked a few minutes ago, which gave them plenty of time for the spell. They went about setting things up. Gwen set the cauldron on the overbed table and Olive began carefully adding the pre-measured ingredients in the order the spell required; a red candle, a dove’s wing, sulfur, sage, bones… All the while she chanted in French. Gwen was only relieved that she only had to chant while spilling her blood in the brew. And her chant was, blessedly, in English. She couldn’t speak a word of French. She had studied Spanish in high school.
The lights are flickering, Gwen thought. She bit her lip as Olive chanted and added feathers and tossed in a crystal. Gwen couldn’t even remember all the ingredients but the cauldron was bubbling over the little hot plate they’d plugged in right next to Sam’s EKG machine.
His bed was shaking.
A very sharp knife with a fine bone handle sat in Gwen’s hand and she gripped it, swallowing. The knife had belonged to her father. She thought it should be meaningful. It was a few hundred years old and had been passed down through the family.
Gwen’s heart pounded. She could feel magic in the room, powerful and hot. It was making her sweat. It seemed to be only the lights flickering but if the monitors were affected, somebody would come running and interrupt their little ritual. Olive was speaking loudly too because spells were supposed to be cast with great authority, but someone would hear her soon in the quiet of the ICU on a Friday night. Gwen’s mouth was dry. She licked her lips and watched Olive add the needles into the cauldron. That was the last ingredient. Now it was Gwen’s turn.
Oh God.
Gwen stood and held her arm over the bubbling cauldron and it was so hot she flinched. It was steaming and her hand shook as she gritted her teeth and held her arm there.
“Gods of death and life… Fates… Underworld… Hear our call… Bring back this guardian from the hidden place…”
Gwen sucked in a breath and held it and before she could think better of it she slashed her arm, cutting hard and deep. She cried out in pain as blood flowed from her arm and into the cauldron and Olive smudged sage around the room.
Gwen had cut deep. She’d cut a little too deep. There was a lot of blood flowing into that cauldron. Her arm was killing her but she watched, strangely enchanted.
The lights were flickering.
She thought she heard a voice from far away say, “It’s you…”
Olive said, “Oh my God, it worked…”
Then the world swam around Gwen and she sank to the floor.
Gwen dreamed again. This time she went to visit Sam, and he wasn’t in his room. Instead, she found him in the courtyard, sitting under the Japanese Maple and drinking a coffee. He was grinning at her and when she sat down beside him, he put his huge arm around her and kissed her on the cheek and she rested there in his arms.
“Gwen.” The voice was Annie’s. She didn’t sound happy. “Gwen, what in the hell did you do? Gwen?”
Gwen stirred, resisting the waking world. She wanted to stay in the courtyard and cuddle on the bench with Sam. She was hoping he would kiss her.
She opened her eyes and saw Annie glaring at her. She also realized she was on a gurney behind a curtain. Her arm throbbed. It was all bandaged up.
“Where’s Sam?” Gwen murmured.
“Gwen, what did you do?” Annie said. She looked very serious.
“I did a spell,” Gwen said, rubbing her eyes. “With my witch friend.”
Annie was standing there, looming over her, wearing her nursing scrubs. Her hair was all askew and now she looked a bit pale. “A spell? A spell made you cut your arm?”
“I had to,” Gwen said, then sighed, sitting up a little. “We were trying to wake Sam up.”
Olive’s mouth dropped open at that and she looked away, past the curtain, her eyes wide. “Is Olive your witch friend from down the street? She said you put your arm through a window. She told me to tell you to text her when you felt better.”
“Oh…” Gwen nodded. She sat up on the gurney and pushed her hair back with her good hand. The bandages around her arm were thick but her shifter nature made her able to heal quickly. “That’s a better explanation.”
“You did a spell to wake Sam up,” Annie said again. Gwen was hooked up to an IV, and she frowned, tugging on it gently, grimacing at the needle jutting out of her hand.
“Yeah…”
“It worked,” Annie said softly. “He woke up.”
Gwen jerked, her head snapping up as she met Annie’s gaze. “It worked?”
“Yeah!” Annie shook her head. “Yes, the doctors are baffled but then they don’t know what was causing it anyway. He’s sitting up in bed. He um…” Annie smiled at Gwen, looking a little mischievous. “He asked about you.”
“He asked about me!” Gwen said. “So he… Do you think he was aware of me? Could he hear me? When I was talking to him?”
“I’m sure of it,” Annie said. “He’s very eager to see you. I think his butler is already there.”
“I want to see him,” Gwen said. “Let me see him?”
Annie checked the IV bag and looked at Gwen’s chart. She winked at Gwen and said, “Give me a minute.” Gwen’s clothes at least were intact. She had spilled a little blood on her shirt, but she was wearing a jacket and that covered it well enough. She found her purse on a nightstand and fixed her hair a little bit and put on some lipstick. Annie returned with a doctor and the release took a seeming eternity and she was given instructions to check her dressing in the morning and drink some juice and a full meal within the hour. Gwen just kept nodding and let her go eventually. Annie took her arm and walked with her from the ER to the ICU, a walk that now felt longer than it usually did and it usually felt quite long.
Gwen’s heart pounded. She felt as if it were trying to escape her chest and run to Sam.
“I’m gonna leave you two alone,” Annie whispered in her ear when they reached Sam’s door.
Gwen took a breath and walked inside. Arthur was there, but Gwen barely registered what he was saying, and then he left. He was standing near the foot of the bed, looking cheerful. The hospital room itself seemed to disappear because Sam was moving. He was sitting up in his bed and his wide mouth parted a little. His green eyes seemed so impossibly bright as he looked at her.
She opened her mouth and was about to run to him and throw her arms around him, but he wasn’t smiling and she couldn’t begin to read his expression when he flatly said, “Hello. You must be Gwen?”
She had fully expected them to reunite like lovers even though they’d never shared a real conversation, and now she realized all at once that she had invented a romance in her head that wasn’t there at all and her smiles collapsed. She summed up her nerves and took a breath and coolly said, “Yes, that’s me.”
9
Sam
Sam was still just stirring just as Gwen had fainted, he realized. He had opened his eyes, blinded for a moment by brightness. He had been listening to them conduct the spell from the void, walking around the big empty house he had constructed for himself, still thinking about that strange girl’s visit and whether it had really been his subconscious or not. He had heard Gwen coming in and she had briefly squeezed his hand and said hello but there was somebody else there.
When the chant began, he watched the void around him flicker and his house had disappeared around him. He had fallen into the darkness and felt coldness all around him even as he saw light far above his head. He had felt everything shaking like an Earthquake as that woman chanted and then Gwen had spoken and the light had swallowed him. And suddenly he could feel things, not in the fake dreamlike way he had in the void. Now he could feel the sheets on his skin, the cool air conditioning blowing his hair back slightly. He could hear the machines monitoring him and their alarmed beeping. He’d tried to open his eyes and the light hurt but then he had seen her. He had seen her and just knew she was Gwen. He had looked into her big brown eyes, just now looking wild and wide and out of it.
Awakened Alpha Page 6
