by LW Herndon
“I’ll make it worth their while and put an end to this.”
“You know you’re not indestructible.”
“Haven’t been down for the count in quite a bit.”
Ray’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “You have a death wish, or are you just conducting a personal experiment on what exactly it’ll take to put you in the ground for good?”
“Trying to save my soul again, Ray?”
“Can’t expect me to give up.” He shook his head and gestured to the bottled water and soda on the counter behind me, then moved on into the living room. He laid the plate down on the coffee table in front of Aisha and looked me over. “While frankly, it seems like a pointless exercise sometimes, I believe faith is never wasted.”
“I’ve heard what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” My counter didn’t amuse him and earned me a scowl from him and a frown from Aisha.
“Only when your actions don’t take pieces of you that you can’t replace.”
“My soul’s not at risk here, Caulder.” I didn’t need to get deep and thick on this topic. It wouldn’t save lives. Not mine or these kids’.
Aisha followed the entire conversation with the rapt attention of a circus carnie waiting for the perfect timing of a con. She’d heard every word from the kitchen and wasn’t missing a beat now. I hated to guess how long her life and her brother’s had depended on her attention to detail.
“You’re not expendable, Kane.”
“It’s not my intention to take unwarranted risks. You could go for a little encouragement.”
“I deal in truth, not encouragement.”
I turned my back on Caulder and took in the guarded expression on Aisha’s face. She had riveted her attention between the two of us with an intensity that should have guaranteed whiplash. No doubt determining if a fight would break out, if she’d need to get out quick, if she and her brother would survive the aftermath.
Not concerns I wanted her to have. I pointedly sat next to her, too close, in an attempt to distract her. She scooted backward and jerked her gaze back to the monitor and Ray, who had checked Marco’s pulse again.
“How’s he doing?” I asked.
Ray released the boy’s arm and shrugged. “Pulse is racing less. I expect he may stay this way for the next twenty-four, forty-eight hours. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
The man was no doctor, but he’d had some preliminary field training and knew the gadgets to own and how to use them. What he didn’t have, he asked for. Many of the people he tried to help just didn’t have time to get to a legitimate facility. I’d found and delivered the monitor hooked up to Marco, at Ray’s request.
“Aisha?” I left it open-ended. It was her call. Stay or go.
She looked from Ray to me. Fear and fatigue warred in the lines on her face. She was really too young for this kind of burden, though I don’t get to decide that. I’d seen enough to know she needed to make her own decision to survive. The decision wouldn’t give her any false hope of control, but none of us have any control over our fate.
“Ray can help Marco when he wakes up. He’s done this kind of thing with addicts before.” I held up a hand as she opened her mouth in her brother’s defense. “It’s won’t matter that he didn’t want the drugs. Physically, he’ll have all the same withdrawal problems. You both can have a roof, food, and some help here.”
“And then?” she whispered.
“Then we’ll deal with the people who want to find him.”
“Not Marco.” The angry flare was back, strong and bright in her eyes, a match to the tension in her fists.
“Aisha, if I’d wanted to dangle your kid brother as bait on a line I wouldn’t have brought you here. I get that you think you two don’t need anyone, but you can’t handle this situation by yourself. You’re going to have to give an inch to get the help you both need.”
Her shoulders caved in as her fight deflated, but suspicion still flickered in her eyes. I had a sad feeling that distrust would ride shotgun for the rest of her life.
“Okay. But just until Marco’s better.”
“How about we start with twenty-four hours?”
She nodded.
Ray handed her a blanket and the plate. “Eat something and then sleep. I’ll watch your brother.”
She eyed the sandwiches without moving. I took a grilled cheese, bit off the corner, and put it back on the plate. After a swig of water from a fresh bottle, I tucked that in the blanket by her side, as well.
Never trust—a good motto for survival on the streets. Sad she had to rely on it now. The sandwich and water could be drugged in devious ways, but sometimes you just had to risk it.
Her bites of my sandwich were timid, but she couldn’t stop the quick look of pleasure in response to hot food.
My phone’s low hum interrupted the silence.
Mercy Hospital. The boy was awake.
CHAPTER 8
“Social Services is moving the boy to the county hospital unless you can provide paperwork for proof of custody or a relationship to the child.” The man held his pathetic shield of a briefcase in front of him.
“Like I carry paperwork around with me.” I pushed in close to the face of the Social Services worker. He was a slender man who had evidently developed calluses against intimidation. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass what I did, though the nurse next to him had backed up a step or two.
I had left my name and number for the boy, indicating I was his cousin and that he was a runaway. Probably not far off the mark—he was someone’s runaway. I knew the hospital would probably hiccup on my information sometime in the insurance paperwork process. I just figured I would have a little more time. The county hospital was a bad option, with a predictable reputation for understaffing medical and security personnel. Not to mention that snatching this boy in transit would be easy for the sorcerers if they wanted him back.
I swiped my hand across the back of my neck, though it did nothing to ease the tension pounding in my brain.
The rate at which I was accumulating stray teenagers and their problems was squeezing my time and patience. The urge to eliminate a few problems swelled, the stubbornness of the worker in front of me providing a bit too much temptation.
I turned to the nurse. “Look, if it’s about the money, I can pay off his current balance and put a deposit down for his further treatment.”
The social services guy shook his head. “We’re beyond that at this point. I’m going to have to take the boy into custody unless you can produce some proof of relationship. Frankly, there’s no record on the child and a pretty scant amount on you, Mr. Kane—” He stopped as a hand tapped his shoulder, and a piece of paper slid before his face.
“This would be a birth certificate for one Samuel Oren Jessup, cousin to Thaddeus Kane. Also documentation of custodial award at the time of Samuel’s parents’ death, last year.” Decibel stood back from the man, posture erect, snappy navy blue suit pristine. Her brow tilted as she waited to smack down a rebuttal.
“And you are?”
“I’m the family’s legal representative.” Her look slid past the man to me in a dare for me to contradict her. “I’m retained by the Jessup and Kane estates.”
The social services worker seemed to ignore Decibel’s aggressive approach, but the slight shake of the papers as he reviewed them indicated he wasn’t completely immune to intimidation after all. Guess it just took pixie-packed power in high heels. No wonder I had no effect.
“Looks like the paperwork’s in order. I’ll have to get these checked. For the time being, the boy can stay here.” He glared at me and shoved the papers into the bowels of his briefcase. “He’s not to be released until I make confirmation.”
The nurse nodded without comment until the man had left the hallway. “There really wasn’t anything I could do,” she said.
“I understand completely. I received a message that…Sam was awake.”
“Yes, he woke briefly. An hour or so ago. W
e administered more sedatives because he was so agitated.”
I scowled at the ceiling and let out an exasperated breath. One step too late. I needed to get ahead of this situation. I turned back to the nurse. “Can I be called as soon as he wakes up and maybe request a delay in sedation until I’ve had a chance to talk with him? It’s very important. I think my discussion will ease his anxiety without the need to drug him.”
“I’ll add your request to his chart. If it’s on my shift, I’ll keep an eye out. I can’t make any guarantees.” She shrugged and left to respond to a page.
“Wasn’t I clear that I didn’t need your help?” I turned on Decibel with more relief than annoyance.
She crossed her arms. “Not from where I stood. You’re welcome.”
I tried to scowl at her. “Where did you come up with those papers?”
“Demon, remember?” she smiled. “Besides, the kid really is Samuel Oren something or other. It’s just a little tweaking of the truth; safest that way.”
“Great to know.” I closed my eyes again and shook my head. I had a demon partner from another clan leeching me for favors, and she wanted to play detective. I glanced back at her. “What other info do you have on him?”
She pursed her lips, running through some mental checklist. “Not much. Kid was under the custody of an older brother, who died in a hit-and-run about two months ago. The kid’s been on the streets since.”
“The hit-and-run an accident?”
“Does it matter? You can’t bring him back. If someone’s gone to this much trouble for the boy, then this is a little bigger than you playing Shalim’s number-one bloodhound.”
“You know too much about me.”
She leaned in close. “The better to deal with you.”
“I’m not yours to manipulate.”
The shrug didn’t quite make it to casual. “We can play it that way, but if you decide you won’t help me, I need a little leverage.”
“How about we just stick with the cards on the table? I’m much better with the straightforward—” A series of vibrations sent off alarms in every nerve as I turned quickly, scanning the people in the hall.
Several nurses gathered at the far end of the hall, none of them a sorcerer. However, there was definitely a vibrational dissonance and the waft of asphalt. The sensation was recognizable as the same head-banging drumbeat from my previous sorcerer run-ins. Perhaps the mentor of the one killed by the dragon or some close associate. Yet something was off about the vibration, not a consistent thrum, but a rhythm my mind processed in an inconsistent pulse.
I gestured Decibel closer to the boy’s room. She nodded and moved with me. Her body brushed mine as we discreetly canvassed each room we passed. These rooms were all open. Unlike Samuel’s restricted ward.
The sensation increased as if two radio stations were playing different songs on each side of my brain, the result sickening and disruptive to my equilibrium.
We reached the end of the hallway, the security doors blocking us from Samuel’s wing as the door opened out, and a man dressed in blue scrubs and sporting a Mercy Hospital badge passed us. The reek of dark wizard assaulted me as Decibel grabbed my arm. An overwhelming odor of blood wafted through the air a second after his exit.
“Stop him.” I spun and grabbed for his arm, but he’d bucked through the group of nurses and pushed one to the floor before he sprinted for the stairwell on the far end of the hall.
I lost a few seconds to avoid plowing over the nurse and slammed against the closing stairwell door after him. He would need only seconds to open his own portal, and then I’d never catch up with him. However, he needed open space and privacy.
Not happening.
I jumped over the stairway railing and leapt a half floor at a time. I launched at him as we passed the second set of floors, my fingers grasping the back of his scrubs enough to stop him. He turned with a snarl, one hand clenched around a package of blood and the other grasping the amulet chained around his throat.
“Let me go.”
“Not on your life.” I grabbed for his amulet with my free hand.
He dropped the blood pouch, reached behind him, and swung an athame at my face. The blade, still wet with Samuel’s blood, missed my eye by a hair.
I jumped back but kept my grip on his amulet, which ripped free in my hand.
He vaulted at me, crazed, his rage palpable, the vibration radiating from him now clearly definable from the other night. Another fledgling apprentice. Not a mentor. He was channeling for the sorcerer, and the signature betrayed him. I’d probably just missed this apprentice at the warehouse when I’d left with the boy.
“I should have tracked you down the other night,” he snarled again. No new tricks in this guy’s anger repertoire. Neither bright nor eloquent.
“Downright sloppy of you.” I lunged to the side.
He raised his hand and, with a quick jerk, slit his palm with the athame. “You stupid demon idiot, you don’t have the intelligence of pond scum. I’m going to send you to a hell not even Satan’s dreamed up.” He raised his hand and clenched it. Enough blood trickled from his cut to coat the tattoos blanketing his arm.
A stairwell door below us slammed, and feet pounded on the stairs. Mercy Hospital security had finally decided to show up.
The pull of the sorcerer’s power pressed on my eardrums, a sensation of diving underwater too far and too fast. As he released his spell my way, I lifted his amulet and pushed a little buffer of my own around me. A shocked look rippled across his face before the flame bellowed from his hand, rebounded off the amulet, and exploded back to engulf him. He danced within the fire, a scream without sound, as the fire closed in on itself, sucking him into whatever hell he’d planned for me.
Lucky me.
I turned for the stairwell door behind me as the security guards rounded the stairs and pulled a gun.
Hands raised, I stepped back. “He went through that door. The nurses upstairs can vouch for me. I was trying to catch him.”
One guard spun me around by the shoulder toward the nearest doorway. “Let’s go check that out, why don’t we?”
***
The security door to the psych ward was propped open, a crash cart visible in the hallway outside Samuel’s room with a chaos of nurses and staff. Decibel stood arguing with one nurse next to the cart.
The security guard behind me hailed the nurse. “This the guy?”
She shook her head and waved him away. “Mr. Kane, I’m so sorry about your cousin. We are very strict about not allowing unauthorized personnel back here.”
“Samuel?”
She shifted and glanced back at the room’s interior with a worried expression. “He’s lost a great deal of blood, and we’ve had to resuscitate. I don’t want to give you false hope. He’s just hanging on.”
“We need a guard here twenty-four seven.” Decibel crossed her arms, leaned against the wall, and narrowed her eyes. I couldn’t determine her primary concern, given that security guards would hardly stop another sorcerer from accessing Samuel, though it was better than nothing.
The nurse looked back at me. “I’ll get with administration on that.”
Apparently more red tape to wade through. I ground my teeth in frustration. This kid wasn’t getting a break and neither was I. He would be lucky to survive the night at this rate, much less live long enough to give me any details that would help. However, it was unlikely the sorcerer would send another fledgling, and I felt compelled to give Samuel any edge I could. “Tell them they can bill me. I want a guard here round-the-clock.”
The nurse nodded and left me with Decibel, who just looked smug. “Sucker. Is there anyone you won’t save?”
“Not helpful. Did you find out anything?”
“Only that that sorcerer almost drained the boy. They’ll be pumping blood back into him for days.”
A tremor skittered up my spine. I glanced behind me as a second nurse returned with a security guard and motioned
for him to take position by Samuel’s doorway. “There will be an officer here on rotational shifts, Mr. Kane.”
“Thank you. And you are?” I held out my hand to the woman, roughly late forties, pleasant-looking, with soft wrinkles around her eyes, short blond hair and rather subdued.
“Nurse Kidd. Anne Kidd.”
She took the offered hand, and I froze every instinctive response I had. I regulated my breathing for scent while my other senses pulled in information. With a brief nod to the woman, I turned slightly, averting my face from Decibel’s scrutiny. Irregular, light, and harmonious vibrations continued up my arm. I held Anne’s hand a second longer, waiting for a reaction from the nurse.
She seemed totally unaware of the exchange, which confused me as much as the vibrations and the lingering sweet smell of chocolate, spices, and pine. Anne Kidd had a much stronger scent than I’d identified on Aisha, but given her age, it was possible scents changed and matured over time.
“I need to be contacted if there’s a change in Samuel’s condition.”
“Of course, Mr. Kane.”
I put a hand on Decibel’s arm to propel her before me toward the elevator. She started to hang back and opened her mouth. With a look between the nurse, the guard, and me, she seemed to decide against whatever she’d planned to say. We reached the elevators and entered in silence.
The doors slid shut, and Decibel swung around to me, hands on her hips, her eyes flashing a rather vivid cherry orange shade of hellfire red. “What the hell was that about?”
“Where’s the trust, partner?”
“Right now, I don’t trust you farther than I can spit.”
“What happened to wanting my involvement?”
“Don’t pussyfoot with me. Why did you hustle me out of there? What aren’t you telling me—again?”
The doors slid open to the lobby. I wrapped an arm around the angry demon to usher her by people waiting for the elevator. She shrugged off my arm and glared at me in what seemed our regular scenario.
