A Line in the Sand

by K. A. Stewart

  “Seriously?” She and Cameron both nodded. “Like, how dressy?”

  “Men have to wear nice jeans or pants, and a shirt with at least short sleeves. Women can wear pants, but any skirts have to be longer than knee length and the shoulders have to be covered.”

  I eyed Sveta. I knew she owned at least one dress. I’d seen it. “Do you have nice clothes with you?”

  She gave me a scathing look in return. “I prepared for this trip, even if you did not.”

  “Well, none of my t-shirts are church-appropriate.” I wracked my brain, trying to think of the least offensive one I might have with me. The best I could come up with was the one that said “I’m why my guardian angel drinks.”.

  “You can borrow one of my polos,” Cam offered. “It’ll be a little big on you, but no one should notice.”

  I glanced down at myself, and frowned at the priest. “I’m not that skinny.” Okay, I probably was, but it was bad form to point it out.

  “I think we should all rest, then. The tour lines form very early in the morning.” Mary Alice stood up, pushing Cameron to lie back down on the couch. “Sveta and I can take one of the bedrooms, if you don’t mind, and Ivan the other. I’ll see if I can find some extra blankets and pillows for you, Jesse.” Which meant I was getting the chair. Great. Oh well, I’d slept in worse places. Way worse.

  We all went about the motions of settling in to the strange apartment. Cameron was out like a light the moment he stopped speaking, and the two women vanished into the bedroom with Sveta’s suitcase, presumably to figure out what she had that would pass the dress code check tomorrow.

  Ivan took up a post near the balcony door, his ice blue eyes fixed on the street two stories below us. I moved to stand against the other side, just watching Rome go about life outside our little sanctuary. Finally, when the silence was about to drive me mad, I asked, “You okay?”

  “I am to being well.” As he said it, though, one hand rubbed over his chest where I knew he’d been kicked earlier.

  “Don’t lie. There’s a priest right there.” Cam was dead to the world and couldn’t care less.

  Ivan managed a ghost of a smile. “I am to being an old man, Dawson. Street fighting is to be causing aches and pains. You will know this, when you are to being older.”

  If aches and pains was the signal of being older, I’d been older for years now. “You don’t have to come with us tomorrow, if you want. You can stay here and chill out for a few hours.”

  “I will to be making that decision in the morning.” That seemed to be the end of that conversation, so I went to raid the refrigerator.

  It was pretty much empty, of course, since the owner was presumably out of town. My forlorn sigh at the sight of the barren shelves got Mary Alice’s attention, and after quickly assembling a grocery list, she ducked out to the local market to keep us from starving. Ivan vanished into his assigned bedroom, which left Sveta and me the only conscious beings within the walls. Though she still seemed a little shaky from her casting efforts, she settled in the middle of what was probably a very expensive rug to begin cleaning her cache of weapons. With nothing else to do, I plopped down next to her.

  “The guy in the alley. Did you kill him?” I knew that Ivan’s first victim, the one with the shattered knees, had been very much alive when we’d fled, but I hadn’t truly seen what had happened to the rest of our attackers.

  Sveta’s eyes focused on the whetstone in her hand, calmly dragging the edge of one of her blades over the surface in smooth motions. “Which one?”

  “Either. Both.” The guy that took the brass knuckles to the head…well, that could have been a killing blow, I supposed, but I really hoped it hadn’t been. Killing demons was one thing. When it came to killing people, I got all squicky.

  “Why does it matter?” I placed my hands over hers, forcing her to look up at me, which she did with a dark frown.

  “It matters, Sveta. Taking a life always matters.” I could tell she didn’t quite agree with me, her icy blue eyes searching mine for long moments. Finally, she sighed.

  “I believe that they will both live. I did not see any of them take wounds that would be fatal.” She pursed her lips for a moment, then amended, “Except for the one who was thrown into the wall. That looked…forceful. I do not know what injuries he took.”

  “What about the other guy who attacked Cam and the sister? Did you see what happened to him?” The mystery of Mary Alice’s bloody knuckles was poking at my brain.

  Sveta chuckled, moving my hands off her whetstone so she could continue. “For a nun, Sister Mary Alice has an interesting skill set.” And that was all she would say on the subject.

  I lounged back on one elbow, watching her sure hands move over her assorted tools of destruction. “Ivan sure kicked some ass out there. Pretty damn spry, for an old guy.”

  “Mmf.”

  “You think we’ll be that able, when we’re that old?”

  “Mmf.”

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  At that, at least, she raised her eyes to look at me. “Why do you think I do not like him?”

  “Pretty sure I’ve never heard a civil word pass between the two of you. Even when I don’t understand the language, it’s clear your conversations aren’t pleasant.”

  “The language often sounds angry, even when it is not.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Perhaps realizing I wasn’t going to quit prodding at the issue, she laid her whetstone and knife down on the carpet between us, giving me a flat look with her cold blue eyes. “I have no feelings about Ivan Zelenko. None at all.”

  “I think you’re lying.”

  “I do not care.” With that, she rose to her feet and disappeared back into the bedroom, leaving me alone with a snoring Cameron.

  Dinner, once Mary Alice returned, was what we’ll call “subdued.” Cam roused, looking a hundred times better, and Ivan and Sveta both emerged from their retreats. There wasn’t enough room at the tiny kitchen table for all of us, so we sat picnic style around the living room floor, each of us stuffing our mouths with food rather than try to make small talk that no one really wanted.

  Well, most of us were stuffing our mouths. I noticed that Ivan ate maybe two bites, the rest of the time just pushing his pasta around the plate with his fork. The rise and fall of his chest seemed stilted, and I saw the muscles in his face tense as he bit back grimaces when he breathed too deeply. Mary Alice and Cam noticed too, and I caught several meaningful glances passing between the two , Cam shaking his head slightly. Sveta, if she caught the interplay, didn’t say anything, which I was coming to expect.

  Ivan finally pushed his plate away, having eaten barely enough to keep a bird alive, and rose to his feet with an audible hiss of pain. I looked at the other three, waiting for someone, anyone to call the old man on his injuries, but it quickly became apparent that they were waiting for me to be that guy. Well, fine.

  “Okay, enough. You can’t go on like this.” I stood up too, because even ill, Ivan towered over me and I needed all the advantage I could get.

  He turned, raising one white brow. “What are you to be speaking of?”

  “Don’t give me that shit. You’re not well in the first place, and then you took a solid kick to the chest earlier today. We all saw it, and you’re hurt, and you’re pretending you’re not.”

  He frowned, his pale eyes darkening like thunder clouds. “I am to being well enough.”

  “You’re not. You’re really not.” Even as I said it, his shoulders shook with a wet cough that he forcefully bit back. “See? You may have broken ribs, you could put an end through a lung. You need medical attention. Real medical attention, not just me slapping a Hello Kitty bandage on it.”

  “This is not to being your concern,” he managed, then had to stop as another cough snuck up on him. He pressed his fist to his mouth, but I caught the faint hint of red on his lips before he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  “
It is my concern. We’re all,” I gestured widely, including Sveta in that whether she liked it or not, “concerned. You’re our friend. We’re worried.”

  Another cough shook him, and he glared at me until he could get his breathing under control. “I did not ask you for to being worried.”

  “You don’t ask friends. We just do. That’s what ‘friends’ means.”

  He had more to tell me, I could see that much, but the force of his coughing bent him double at the waist. He braced his hands on his knees, and blood splattered brightly across the expensive rug. Alarmed, Cam got to his feet, taking one elbow as I took the other, trying to urge the old man to sit. Stubborn to a fault, he struggled against us as best he could, trying to yank his arms out of our grasps, but he just couldn’t seem to get enough air to function correctly. I felt the moment that his knees started to buckle.

  “Cam!” Together, we lowered the white-haired man to the floor.

  Ivan’s eyes were glassy, staring, and we could all hear the wet gurgling inside his chest. His lips had lost all color and his entire body heaved with the force of his coughing. There wasn’t enough time between bouts for him to even draw in a full breath.

  “Ivan? Ivan, can you hear me?” The priest cradled the old man’s head, trying to get him to respond to anything at all. Those blue eyes remained unfocused, his breath coming shallower by the moment, and I made the decision I’d promised him I would.

  “Call an ambulance.” When Ivan didn’t rise up off the floor to protest, that’s when I knew things were bad. Things were so very bad, I couldn’t even fathom the level of the badness.

  Mary Alice talked on the phone in rapid Italian, while Cameron and I tried to keep Ivan conscious. Every time he breathed out, we held our own until he gasped weakly again. Sveta stood back, watching the proceedings with an oddly blank look on her face, and the sound of a strange siren coming up the street was the sweetest thing I’d heard in a long time.

  Chapter 10

  I have always hated hospitals. I’d spent more than my fair share in them, for starters, in varying degrees of “near death.” I keenly remembered shaking with a cold no blanket could warm, staring up at a ceiling that never changed no matter how many different facilities I visited. The smell of antiseptic stung my nostrils, but couldn’t smother the underlying reek of death and illness that permeated the very walls. In some of my more delirious states, I could swear I saw the ghosts of the dead passing through the walls.

  Not even the birth of my children could make a hospital tolerable for me, and walking out those automated sliding doors was usually the best moment of my life. So understand that huddling in the waiting room for three hours, waiting for word on Ivan’s condition, was an act of supreme loyalty on my part.

  We weren’t alone, by any means. There were several other families there, also awaiting an update from some doctor in a white coat. Cam and Sister Mary Alice, still wearing their holy garb, had spent a good portion of their time sitting with those people, quietly praying with them. It kept them occupied, made them feel useful in a situation where there was truly nothing to be done. I watched one woman, tears streaming down her face, press a grateful kiss to Cameron’s cheek, blessing him in musical Italian.

  The tension in the room, palpable and prickly up my spine, eased a tad with every prayer the priest and nun shared. The anxious relatives obviously found peace in the practice, and I envied them a bit. I wasn’t feeling particularly peaceful myself. They’d taken Ivan back hours ago. It had been too long. Way too long.

  The last member of our group had stationed herself at the windows, watching out into the dark night, and hadn’t budged an inch. Sveta’s blue eyes were focused on something beyond the glass, and the stiff set of her shoulders gave off a very clear “leave me alone” vibe. Even Mary Alice, persistent as she was, had been turned away with a very terse grunt. Sveta hadn’t said a word since the paramedics came, not even in response to direct questions.

  The waiting room door opened, and every head in the place turned, waiting to see if this was the moment for them. A tall doctor entered, his dark eyes scanning the room with a slight crease between his brows. Finally, his gaze settled on me, my blond hair and beginnings of a reddish beard making me stand out like a sore thumb. “Are you with Mr. Zelenko?”

  Immediately, Cameron and Mary Alice were at my side, and I stood, trying not to hold my breath for the verdict. “We are.”

  The doctor glanced between the three of us, his puzzlement obvious now. “Are you his family?”

  “No, we’re friends.”

  The man frowned. “I really should not be giving this information to anyone but family. Is anyone else expected?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to launch into an argument I’d given many times before – Hospital bureaucracy was one of my top pet peeves – when a voice sounded from across the room.

  “I am his daughter.” We all turned to see Sveta leave her post at the window, her boots leaving black scuffs on the white tile floor as she moved to join us.

  Somehow, I didn’t think she was lying just for the sake of getting Ivan’s medical information. It was the blue eyes. Sveta’s eyes, Ivan’s eyes. They were the same, and I realized I wasn’t nearly as surprised by this revelation as I should have been. It was like something I’d always known, really, but never thought about at length.

  The doctor’s smile held obvious relief. He hadn’t wanted to fight with us over giving out information either. “Your father is stable. We’ve given him some pain killers to help him rest, and he’s receiving oxygen. The bruise to his chest is really quite minor and shouldn’t cause him more than discomfort for a few days. However, I must strongly advise you to take him home as soon as he is able to leave here. I am surprised his doctors gave him clearance to travel, in his condition.”

  “What exactly is his condition?” The doctor glanced between Sveta and me, waiting for her nod before he continued.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that he hasn’t told you. In my brief conversations with him, he has proven less than cooperative.” The doctor flipped open the chart in his hands and offered it to Sveta. “Your father has stage IV lung cancer. We didn’t do any tests beyond a chest x-ray, but from what I can see there, as well as things that Mr. Zelenko has said, it is pervasive, and terminal.”

  Sveta examined the chart like she was committing it to memory, so I took it upon myself to quiz the doc further. “How long does he have?”

  “I really couldn’t say. That is a question for his regular doctors. I know that he has been receiving some treatment, so there must be records somewhere.” The doctor paused, his lips pursed as he weighed his next words, then he sighed. “I can tell you that if he were a patient of mine, I would recommend hospice care. He should be made comfortable, for what time he has remaining.”

  “So, he is dying.” The Ukrainian woman finally looked up from the file.

  The doctor returned that cold blue gaze unflinchingly, and I had to admit a certain respect for the man. “Yes. And sooner, rather than later.” Sveta nodded and handed the chart back to him, then turned on her heel and marched back to her window, staring out into the night again.

  “When will we be allowed to see him?” Sister Mary Alice’s voice was soft, gentle, the kind of tone you couldn’t say no to.

  “We are moving him to a room in the next few minutes. Normally, you would have to wait for visiting hours, but under the circumstances, I will leave instructions for you to all go up for ten minutes.” He held up one finger in warning. “No more than that. Mr. Zelenko needs rest more than anything else, and so do all of you. After you are certain that he is settled, go home. Come back in the morning.”

  Cam and Mary Alice made nice “thank you” noises at the doctor, and I followed in Sveta’s footsteps, stopping just far enough back that she couldn’t reach me with a backhand swing.

  “They’re going to let us go up to see him, for a little bit.” She didn’t answer me. “Look, I don’t know what t
his thing is between the two of you, but if it’s like the doctor says, you have no time left to sort it out. You’d best be thinking of whatever it is you need to say to him.”

  “There is nothing to say to him that I have not already said.” Finally, she turned her head just enough to meet my eyes in the window reflection. “I will wait in the van.”

  When I caught up to Cameron and Sister Mary Alice, the priest gave me a raised brow and I just shrugged. “She wouldn’t come.”

  “Do you think she’s telling the truth? About being his daughter?”

  “Yup. You ever looked at their eyes? Really looked?” I’d have chided myself for missing it before, but again, it felt like something I’d known all along. “Besides, you’ve seen the level of angst going on there. That’s totally a dad-kid thing.”

  “I didn’t know my father,” Cam offered.

  “Well, trust me. She’s his.”

  We rode the slowest elevator in the world up a few floors, following the helpful arrows on the signs to Ivan’s room. On the way, I pondered my relationship with my own father. I hadn’t been a good kid. In fact, I’d been a bad kid in just about every way possible. I lied, I stole, I did drugs. And that was just what I’d admit to now. I’d cleaned myself up eventually, but it wasn’t until I became a father myself that I truly understood the hell I must have put my own through. How many nights had he laid awake, listening for me to sneak back into the house, scared to death that I wouldn’t show up at all? How many times had a ringing phone, late at night, stopped his heart, certain that it was going to be that call about me?

  A very wise woman, who was way cooler than me, once said that once you have a child, you always walk around with your heart outside your chest. I knew what that was like, now, knew the anguish my parents must have felt. I had to wonder, did Ivan feel that way about Sveta? Every time she went up against a demon, fighting for someone else’s soul, did the big man’s heart stop beating until he knew the outcome?