The Thief

by J. R. Ward

  As Sola ended the call, she handed the cell phone back to Ehric and stretched her stiff shoulders. The two of them were outside Assail's room, standing together in the corridor, and she was careful to keep her voice low. Assail had fallen asleep, and she didn't want to disturb him.

  Although that was assuming he was just asleep and not gone again. There were no alarms going off, however. And as long as she couldn't hear that horrible, shrill beeping and medical staff wasn't rushing down like police to a break-in, she had to believe everything was okay. For this moment in time.

  "Thank you," she said to Assail's cousin. "I just wanted to make sure my grandmother was okay and knew the plan. And they took my phone away."

  She wasn't going to bother to ask why he got to keep his. At this point, that kind of stuff was way down her list of things to worry about.

  The man bowed low. "I will see to her myself as soon as I arrive home. And again, you are safe here, I promise you. I too would stay, but you are far better here with him than I."

  "I'm fine now that I've spoken to my grandmother. It sounds like she's been cooking all night. Will you try and get her to go to sleep? I failed, but hey, maybe you could give it a shot."

  Ehric smiled. "I shall endeavor to be persuasive in that regard."

  The big blond man with the hostile name came out of a glass door and walked down to them. "We ready to go?"

  "Thank you," Sola said to Rhage. "For bringing me here."

  The guy unwrapped some kind of lollipop--a Tootsie Pop, yup that's what that was--and put it in his mouth. "I'm glad you brought him around. Now keep him with us, you hear? We need him."

  Sola narrowed her eyes as she wondered, For what? Drugs?

  Were these his dealers on the street? She didn't think so. They didn't seem the types to take orders from anybody--and besides, why would they be hanging around a hospital?

  "I'll do what I can," she murmured.

  As the two walked off, she watched them go, putting her hands in the pockets of her fleece and leaning back on her heels. Her brain was telling her that so much of this didn't make sense, but in the end, Assail's condition was the only thing she was prepared to get thought up about.

  One thing she had learned from being on the wrong side of the law? Don't make other people's crap your own.

  Pivoting around, she re-entered the room and immediately looked at the monitoring machines. Nothing was going off, and Assail was lying there peacefully. Her first impulse was to wake him up to see if he was still alive, as if he were an infant in a crib. Instead, she settled for watching his chest go up and down.

  He had suffered so much, she thought as she looked at his bald head and too-thin body. Cancer was such a bitch, and the only thing worse than the disease was what the doctors did to you to try to get you to beat it.

  A soft knock on the door brought her head up. "Come in?"

  Ehlena, the nurse, leaned into the room. "Hi, there. I'm sorry to bother you, but if he's able to feed, we'd like him to."

  Perfect excuse to wake him, she thought.

  "He's asleep right now, but--" Sola glanced at Assail and smiled. "Oh, wait, his eyes are opening." She went around and took his hand. "Hey."

  As his stare locked on to hers, his mouth moved.

  "You're saying hello to me, aren't you." When he nodded, she smiled some more. "Yup. I can read you like a book."

  Ehlena came over. "Assail, we'd like you to have Ghisele come in so you can take her v--"

  When he shook his head sharply, the nurse went quiet and Sola braced herself for another seizure. But then he just looked at Ehlena as if he were trying to communicate with her telepathically or something.

  "Yes, well..." Ehlena cleared her throat. "Okay, anyway, Sola, we'd like to change his catheter and do some things that we'd prefer to offer him some privacy around. Do you think you could head down to the break room and have a bite to eat? We'll need about twenty minutes. It's the fourth door on the left."

  "What about food for him?"

  "And we'll get him some food, yes."

  As Assail squeezed her hand, she smiled at him. "I'll be right back. Soon as they let me."

  He smiled at her as best he could, and then she was stepping out into the corridor again--

  "Oh, excuse me," she said as she bumped into a woman who was trying to come into the room.

  As Sola moved back, she thought...Wow, what a robe. The thing was white as a cloud, floor length, and had more swing than something out of Ginger Rogers's closet.

  And, ah, wow, what a female. She had blond hair--the real kind, it seemed--and perfect features, and was so tall, even Sola had to look up some.

  "No, it is my fault," the woman said with a bow. "Pardon me. But I have been summoned--"

  Ehlena opened the door. "Ghisele. Hi, let me introduce you to Sola. She's Assail's female."

  "It is my pleasure to serve," the woman said as she offered another bow. "Will you permit me to present him my--"

  "Come on in, Ghisele." Ehlena pulled the woman inside and looked at Sola. "She's another nurse here. She works with us."

  And then the door was shut in Sola's face.

  Where did they hire their staff from, she wondered. The Miss America pageant?

  Shaking her head, she went for a wander and thought about the woman's accent. There were a lot of English-as-a-second-language folks around the facility, and that was comforting. She was used to hearing all different kinds of accents--although she couldn't quite place the origins here. Then again, she was primarily familiar with variations on South American dialects.

  She found the break room without a problem and checked out the vending machine, which was--bonus--free: No dollars were required to drop the bags of pretzels and Doritos or the Snickers bars and the Milky Ways. And then there was the Coca-Cola-branded drinks unit, which had everything from soda to Gatorade to lemonade in it, all free for the taking. There were also displays of fruit, sandwiches, desserts--and even microwavable Hot Pockets.

  All free.

  Okay, maybe this was a university?

  Strange, very strange.

  Her stomach wasn't interested in food or drink so she tucked into a cup of coffee and a donut; then she went back out into the hall and found the ladies' room--which turned out to be a locker situation with all kinds of showers, sinks, and toilets. And oh, my God, bonus: They had any toiletry you'd ever want. Deodorant, hairspray, brushes, makeup, Tums, Advil, Band-Aids...it was like an entire CVS was set in pretty little baskets along a wall-length counter that ran above the basins.

  There were even sealed toothbrush packs.

  Rarely had she ever enjoyed fluoride more.

  Re-emerging minty fresh, she wandered down to the far end of the corridor, where they had entered from the parking area, and then she went all the way in the opposite direction to a glass door that housed some kind of office. Then down-and-back. And once more.

  This time, as she passed Assail's room, Ehlena came out with the other nurse, who seemed to be holding her arm to her midsection.

  "Everything okay?" Sola asked.

  "Perfect." Ehlena smiled. "You're welcome to go back in."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  Sola frowned as the other two walked off together, their voices low as they spoke. But then she opened the door and--

  "Oh...my Lord."

  Assail was sitting up in the bed, his eyes alert, color back in his face. And as he focused on her, he smiled in a shy, but very alert way.

  "Well, hello, beautiful," he said in a soft voice. "You are a sight for sore eyes."

  * * *

  --

  As Marisol stood in the doorway like she'd seen a ghost, Assail cursed to himself. The Chosen Ghisele's blood had been so pure--and he hadn't fed in so long in the midst of so much physical stress--that the roaring strength coursing through his body had jumped him weeks and weeks ahead in his recovery.

  All in the time lapse of...twenty-three minutes. According to that
clockface over there on the wall.

  If she had been a vampire like him, she would have understood immediately and rejoiced. With her being human, it was impossible to explain unless he revealed himself--

  All at once, his brain shorted out, the thoughts that had been traveling in an orderly fashion on a train track of neurons disintegrating.

  Nothing existed in his mind, at all.

  "Xxxxx?" Marisol came over, her face worried. "Xxxxx, xxxx'x xxxxx?"

  Her mouth was moving and sounds were reaching his ears, but he couldn't decipher the syllables.

  He was able to recognize the expression on her face, however: She was concerned and asking him what was wrong. Yes, her eyes were worried, and she was leaning in, and she was talking some more.

  "--call the nurse? Should I?"

  With the same abruptness that everything had gone out of phase, cognition came back online in his brain, her words making sense to him once again, his mind processing reality as it should.

  "No," he said. "No, please don't call them. I just got...fuzzy for a moment."

  "Are you sure?" She took his hand and stroked it. "I can just--"

  "You're blond now."

  She reached up and touched her short hair. "I hate it. But it's necessary, I don't want to be identified--well, anyway. It's a change."

  For a moment, he thought about the fact that she was on the run--and hated that she would not let him take care of her. Maybe that would change now, though. Maybe she would stay here with him after he recovered.

  When he went to lift his hand to touch her, the binds on his wrists jerked his arm in place, and he tried to lower things back down discreetly so she couldn't notice--he didn't want to have to explain why he had needed to be strapped down. He didn't want her to think he would ever hurt her.

  But he remembered why he had to be restrained. He recalled feeling the maggots under his skin, the burning, churning, restless twist of all of them itching at him, biting at him. He had scratched at his skin to get them out, to shake them free...then he had bitten at his arms--

  As echoes of the hallucinations became so vivid they threatened to take over, he willed himself to stay in the present with Marisol. To see her, scent her, hear her. To feel her not just as she touched him, but in his heart and in his soul.

  His bonding for her was what had rewired his neurological damage. He knew without a doubt that Marisol's presence was the reason why that which had failed to function was now approximating normalcy: Males of the species were so locked in with their females that they were capable of great feats of strength and power on their mate's behalf.

  And that included a return from madness, evidently.

  Still, he hated for her to see him like this.

  Marisol sat on the bed next to him and stroked her warm hand up and down his forearm. As she did, he frowned at his pin-thin limb, the muscle so withered the skin was loose.

  "Ugly."

  "What?" she asked.

  "I am...ugly."

  "Not to me." She shook her head. "Never to me."

  When her eyes circled his head, he had some vague memory of Doc Jane coming in with a shaver. Why had they taken his hair--oh, right. He'd been ripping it out, convinced that it was worms inside his skull. He'd been so freaked out, he'd chewed his bindings free so he could claw and tear at the black lengths until he was bleeding from wounds.

  Yes, that was why they had had to shave him. And afterward, they had shown him a mirror to prove to him there was nothing there--and he had calmed down when he had seen it had been removed.

  That had been back when they had tried to reason with him in the psychosis.

  "I am so sorry," he said hoarsely. "I didn't want you...to come back to this."

  "I'm here. That's all that matters."

  "My brain...is sick."

  "We don't have to talk about that now if it upsets you."

  "It's sick."

  "Is that...where the cancer is?"

  Assail frowned, wondering if he was having another out-of-phase moment. But then...

  "What did Ehric tell you?"

  "Not any more than that." She shook her head. But I don't need details if you don't feel up to it."

  "I'm sorry," he said again. Although this time, it was for the lie he would not correct.

  How could he? He had just gotten her back. To explain that what had landed him here was intrinsic to him being a vampire was the last thing he wanted to confess. She would be properly horrified at what he was, and he would lose her again--and this time, nothing would ever return her unto him.

  "I love you," he said urgently. "I was trying to tell you that before. When I couldn't speak."

  Her beautiful, dark stare widened with surprise and then glowed with happiness. "So that is what you were saying to me."

  "Yes."

  "I thought...well, I'm glad to hear the words." She stroked his face. "They mean everything."

  Fates, her eyes were lovely, rimmed with lashes beneath the arches of her brows. And there was color on her cheeks, the flush of joy making her seem younger, freer...more alive than ever he had seen her.

  As a wave of post-feeding exhaustion came unto him, Assail desperately wanted to continue talking, to be reassured she and her grandmother had been safe in Miami, to discover how the year had gone for them both.

  "Did you bring your grandmother..." That tiredness rose up through his bones and began to drag him down in earnest. "Tell me...you brought Mrs. Carvalho."

  "I did, yup. She's at your home now. With both of your cousins--and there was another man there? A young guy?"

  "He is...family friend. Staying with us. You...can...trust....him..."

  As he gave in to a yawn that cracked his jaw sockets, his eyes started to close. "Don't leave?"

  "I won't," he heard her say as he drifted away. "I'm not leaving you, I promise..."

  NINETEEN

  When Jane had come to get her things from the Pit, she had not intended to get anywhere near Vishous--but most especially not a half-naked V, in the bath of their former married...mated...whatever...bedroom. But she was first and foremost a doctor, and when she saw something that looked as though it was going septic, she was not going to let her personal bullshit stand in the way of treating a patient.

  And whatever this was on his arm was nasty.

  Under the lights at the sink, she inspected his skin. The wound was puffy and bright red, and he hissed again as she touched even the healthy, normal-colored areas around it.

  "How did this happen? Did you run into something rusty? Were they using an old crowbar when they attacked you?"

  When there was no answer, she looked up. Vishous was staring at her with those diamond eyes of his, his face drawn in lines of regret.

  Do not get sucked in, she told herself as her heart kicked in her chest. Don't you dare forget where you found him, on that rack in that penthouse.

  "Well?" she prompted as she stepped back. "What was it?"

  "Nothing."

  She rolled her eyes. "Fine, be a tough guy--even though it might help me diagnose your infection. But you're going to let me open that up and clean it out. Then you're going on antibiotics. Maybe even through an IV."

  Although considering she'd just been kicked out of her own damn clinic, she was going to have to get Manny to help with that. A referral, no less.

  Jesus Christ, she hated her life right now, she really frickin' did.

  V pointed to the cabinet under the counter. "There's a suture kit with a scalpel under--"

  "I know, I put it there."

  Along with a paramedic kit worthy of an ambulance. As she muscled the load up and out onto the counter, he moved aside--and was smart enough not to offer to help. See? He truly was Albert Einstein with fangs.

  "I don't want any lidocaine," V said as she began lining up the sterile gauze, the saline rinse she was going to add some antiseptic to, and that suture kit.

  She paused and looked over her should
er. "This is going to hurt."

  "Good."

  Cursing under her breath, she told herself to just let it go. This pain thing of his was none of her business, and besides, if she were honest? She wanted to hurt him a little.

  After gloving up, she surface-cleaned the area with Betadine and then tested the wound with her forefinger. "We've got to get the pus out."

  Taking the scalpel, she went to the base of the wound, inserted the blade vertically, and went with the contour for about a half inch.

  The muscles all over V's torso tightened in response, and she tried not to notice how spectacularly he was built. No fat, anywhere. He was just hard strength under smooth, tight skin, an animal more than anything she had ever seen in human men.

  Focus, Jane--

  "What the hell?" she muttered.

  Nothing. No infection. There was absolutely no oozing, no smell, no anything. She tried a little higher on the wound. And higher still. But no matter where she tested along the ten-to twelve-inch length, there was nothing that would suggest a bacterial invasion that was being fought off by his white blood cells.

  "It's more like an allergic reaction," she concluded. "The inflammation and irritation. What the hell did this to you?"

  "I don't know. And that is the honest truth."

  Jane glanced up his broad pectorals to the jut of his chin and his goatee. "You didn't see what it was?"

  "No, I saw it all right. It attacked me and Butch. I've just never seen anything like it before."

  Jane straightened. "It wasn't a lesser?"

  "Nope. No one knows what it was, true? That's what I was doing when you came in. I was about to search the vampire groups and see if anyone else has ever run up against one of those shadows."

  Fear, like a fire alarm, rippled through her.

  And it was strange--and perhaps V's point, not that she was interested in admitting he had a valid one--that it was only at this moment that she realized his mother, the Scribe Virgin, was truly gone. Because Jane's first advice, her initial response, to the idea there was an unknown threat to the species, was that he should go talk to the race's spiritual and metaphysical foundation.

  V's voice went through her head, from back when they'd had it out: You never once asked me how I felt. You never even asked me how I found out she was gone.

  Clearing her throat, Jane said, "Maybe you need to go up to the Sanctuary. Maybe the information is up there, not down here. In the library, or...I don't know."