by Rhys Ford
I wasn’t worried about the men. No, what had me concerned was the thick-barreled gun mounted on the heavy steel stabilizer between the scooter’s handlebars.
“Can’t buy a damned converted tank with a slingshot, but those arses have a semiautomatic.” Jonas groaned on the ground by my feet, and I placed my hand on his chest, wishing one more time for the arcane powers my father had over flesh. “Sorry, buddy. I’m going to have to move you around a bit.”
Jonas’s link was live, or at least with enough juice to punch through the heavy interference from the layers of concrete and steel separating us from the surface. I hit the emergency transponder and ducked another scatter of dumpster bits as they rained down on my shoulder.
I couldn’t worry about Jonas. Not now. I either had to get us both out of the crossfire or die trying, because there was no way he was going to survive a piggyback haul anywhere. His dark skin glistened wet where his clothes were torn away from his massive chest and thick thighs. A flickering door light on a nearby tenement was enough to see it was blood when the flashes of white hit us, and his eyes rolled about, trying to focus on my face.
There were two Glocks on me, and a quick pat down of Jonas’s side gave me an old-school Beretta I shoved into my waistband. There wouldn’t be a lot of reload time, so I was going to have to hit Ferret and Scooter hot and quick. The knife I pressed into Jonas’s hand. Knowing the district, anyone in the neighborhood would see him lying against the dumpster and try to shake him down. Piranhas envied the suck-their-bones-dry mentality of the understreets, and I wouldn’t put it past anyone to steal from an injured man struggling to breathe.
“Hang in there, man,” I whispered. “I’m going to get you out of this.”
“Kai…,” he gasped, his body seizing into a hard plank of tortured flesh for a single terrifying moment. Then he slumped back down again. Jonas’s fingers trembled, his arm twisted about at an off angle, but he still tried to grab at my hand. “Take… care of my kids.”
“Shit, you take care of your own damned kids.” My throat closed in around the pain crawling through me. My body would heal. Hell, it was already healing with my elfin skin sealing up and pulling my shirt and jeans into the knitting wounds, but I wasn’t ready to lose Jonas, not so close to finding out about Dempsey. I couldn’t take having both of my foundation stones kicked out from under me. “You stay here. I’m going to go get my chocolate.”
I came out guns blazing.
There was no recon. No tactical strategies or focused strike. I wasn’t a cop. I carried a government law enforcement badge and was licensed to take down monsters, no matter how many legs they had or if they could hold a conversation. SoCalGov gave me express permission to use deadly force when fired upon, and I ranked a rocket launcher pretty high up on the list of firepower.
I also didn’t like it when someone grabbed at my nipples without asking.
So I let my guns register my displeasure at everything from the missile to being groped while hanging from a seat belt strap.
Ferret went down first. He was nearly framed up for me underneath the one working streetlight on the block, and his knee splattered apart when I unloaded a few rounds into him. His screaming echoed around us, the popping snap of the Rover’s heating cells beating a fast tempo beneath his high-pitched keen. He clutched at his ruined leg, cursing up a storm while calling out first to someone named Walter, then his mother. I couldn’t see a weapon on him, but I couldn’t take the chance. I knew too many people who were taken out by a dying man who’d chosen murder to be their last act on this Earth.
I had no intention of becoming anyone’s swan song.
Scooter was a harder target, dashing off as fast as his modified Vespa could take him. Ducking back behind a parked, mostly dismantled tik-tik, I took a breather and stuck my head out to see if I could spot Scooter, but the street was empty of anyone but Ferret.
I now had two injured men on opposite sides of the street and a broken-down Rover threatening to blow. The fire from the leaking gas tank was small but furious, eating through upholstery and anything else it could consume. Running across the street to drag Ferret to safety meant opening myself up to a possible hit, but I had to take the chance. Someone knew I was coming below, and from what little I could hear through the fuzz of the explosion, they thought I had something they needed—something about the Merge—a something I hadn’t been involved in up until a few days ago when Ryder walked through my front door dragging his pet professor with him.
The mewling Ferret was my only source of information, and I’d be damned if I let him get blown to pieces.
I made it halfway across the street when the curling, metallic howl of a short-range rocket slammed through the air.
Funny thing about the underside of the city, things echoed oddly, bouncing and zigging around until it was nearly impossible to find the noise’s source. The growing whine was one of those noises, sharp and cutting through my throbbing skull, a razor-sharp thread of sound drilling past the lingering buffer of my blown-out eardrums. There wasn’t enough time to think. Not enough space to hide. Not with the scream of a rocket coming in hot down upon me, and I could only curl up, hold on to my head, and pray to one of the many damned gods who would do nothing but laugh as I died.
Whoever was manning the rocket launcher was damned good. It hit the Rover, and for a brief instant, the undercity was lit up as if it were the surface, bathing in a white-hot glow strong enough to burn shadows into the ground. The wave hit me a heartbeat later, flipping me over, and I rolled, caught in the force of the Rover’s fuel cells being slammed with whatever payload the rocket was carrying.
Then it all went black.
“I DON’T know what his BP is. He’s a damned sidhe,” someone snapped. It was a man with a carved granite voice strained to the point of breaking. “Did anyone call the fricking Court to come get him? We don’t have the facilities to deal with his kind here. Dump him in the lobby and let them deal with it. He’s just taking up a bed, and there’s humans who need it.”
His kind. Beds. That unique smell of sickness, astringent, and unwashed greasy human flesh. It could only mean someone’d dragged me to Medical, or at least a clinic. Blinking seemed like too much work, and I was cold, shivering beneath the weight of something pressing me down.
Jonas.
Sitting up was the wrong thing to do. My stomach let me know that, and I made it to half a breath before the rich chocolate I’d eaten in the Rover painted the white linoleum floor. The weight turned out to be a blanket, something I was thankful for because someone’d stripped me clean down to my skin, and I could only hope it was done on the streets where they could use the clothes. From the feel of sheets on my bare ass, my briefs were history as well, and no one had the good sense to at least drape one of those hideous butt-baring hospital gowns on me.
If someone thought it was a good way to keep me in bed, they were sadly mistaken.
From the sound of the machines beyond the curtains, it was a large facility. Shadows flitted back and forth with loud voices shouting in codes and orders I only half understood. There was no telling what time it was. I couldn’t see a clock, and I’d been put into a windowless corner, cordoned off by thin drapery and a wall of neglect. I didn’t blame the staff for wanting me out. They could do nothing for me. Med centers were for human care, so it was very rare for any medical facility to take in an elfin patient, and even fewer would. The conflicts ran deep and dark in people’s hearts—especially among those who cared for the dead and dying—and prejudices were about as rotten as an abandoned dragon’s egg and just as rank.
“I am looking for Stalker Kai Gracen.” The words were golden, a pour of sidhe elegance wrapped around the solid bedrock of necessity-born Singlish. As uncomfortable as I was with being bare-assed naked and thickheaded, I was damned glad to hear Ryder skillfully shunting away any objections to his walking through the emergency ward.
“Sir, if you just wait a minute—sir!” A woman thr
ew a half plea, half order into the air, and I could hear Ryder’s boots cut a sharp beat on the floor, not missing a step as he hunted for me among the cubicles.
The curtain at the end of the bed jerked open, and I was treated to the sight of an enraged sidhe lord standing by my feet. He recoiled at seeing me, anger warring with something oddly tender over his fine-boned face. Then Ryder closed the space between us and wrapped his arms around me.
It hurt like fucking hell, and I might have let out an unmanly whimper, but he wasn’t letting go. Not even when the ward nurse came up behind him and tugged at his sidhe-cut leather jacket.
“Sir—”
He let go of me, but his fingers were in my hair, stroking at a sore spot near my ear. “It is Lord Ryder, Clan Sebac, Third in the House of Devon and High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, San Diego to you, and—”
“Can’t you just say he’s with me and not get into the whole X begat Y thing?” I liked the touch of his fingers on the ridge of my ear, an erotic point for most elfin, but the pressure along my head was getting to be too much for me to handle, so I reluctantly pulled away from Ryder’s hand. He shot me a slightly hurt look, and I took pity on him, explaining softly, “Bashed my head open, I think. Hurts like hell.”
“And they gave you nothing for it?” He frowned. “Why not?”
“Because human drugs are touch and go with us. You know that. Give me a cup of coffee, a pair of pants, and I’ll be good to go.”
I tried to slide off of the bed, but my feet and legs weren’t cooperating. Instead I ended up slumped against Ryder’s side, and he caught me easily before I face-planted into the tile.
“Okay, maybe two cups of coffee. How long have you been here?”
“Long enough. Luckily, an officer on the scene tagged you as one of mine, so word was sent to the Court. I came as soon as I heard you were brought in.” Ryder’s fingers were back, carefully splayed across my cheek. “Dalia called me. She was upstairs with Jonas, but they left you in here. Someone should have taken care of—”
“Less outrage and more information,” I said through a shot of agony along my side. The lack of clothes was probably a good thing, considering my torn-up skin would have meant cutting me open again to remove any fabric, but I was getting cold, chilling my battered body until I felt every bruise and bump when I moved. “How is Jonas?”
“He will be fine. They have him coming out of surgery now. A punctured kidney and a concussion. There was some concern about your moving him, but from what I’ve heard remains of his vehicle, relocating him saved his life.” His lips touched my brow, a shimmer of flesh against my icy skin, and I heard Ryder sigh. “I thought I lost you, and I am not quite ready to lose you, Chimera.”
“I’m like a roach.” Pulling away seemed like a good idea, but I couldn’t stand on my own just yet, so I leaned against the bed. He’d come for me, and disgustingly, there were bits inside of me that were very happy about the whole thing. “But he’s okay? We’re sure on that?”
“Very sure, but Kai, while you were down there,” Ryder replied softly, the worry turning the green in his eyes to a mottled forest dapple, run dark with blacks and browns, “Someone murdered Professor Marshall, and I’m afraid they are the ones who tried to kill you.”
Seven
I WASN’T going to take no for an answer. I didn’t like no. It wasn’t an option in life. It wasn’t some magical word whispered over a situation to let someone opt out of doing the right thing. No meant shit when someone I cared about was lying in a hospital bed a few floors above me and I needed to see him breathing with my own eyes.
So no could pretty much fuck off and die.
And since Ryder’d told me no nearly two hours ago when I said I was going to look in on Jonas, I’d told no to fuck off quite a few times.
It was hard to sneak around a medical facility when you’re elfin. Well, not like it’s easy to sneak around any human facility when sporting canines and a set of pointed ears, but I gave it my best shot. A burly intern tossed a set of scrubs at me when I complained about my lack of clothes and the cold. Ryder’d slipped off to see about officially liberating me, and I’d been torn between seeing Jonas and telling Ryder the truth about being elfin in a human world.
They’d sooner see me walk out of the door than worry about a bill, but Ryder insisted on getting me medical attention. It wasn’t like they’d actually done anything to me other than wash me down and take off my clothes. I didn’t even want to think about what was done to me while I was out.
“To be fair, can’t be anything worse than what’s been done to you already,” I reminded myself as I punched in the floor number on the lift’s display.
The booties on my feet weren’t going to last long. They weren’t made for roaming the vast halls of Central Medical, but while the giant split egg-shaped building was built like a labyrinth, I knew where I was going.
It wasn’t the first time I’d come to see a Stalker taken down by the job.
Perched on the edge of the city where the lower and upper levels met, Central Medical was a complex hive of research, development, and the occasional healing of humans, most of them wealthy. Or at least from what I saw. Designed to soothe, the walls and floors were white with curving lines of pale blue and gold lights undulating in spirals and waves in what was meant to be a pleasing, calm environment.
To me it looked like nests of Madagascar tapeworms hunting for a warm, wet place to burrow into and leave their eggs, but then my life experiences were probably different than the average Medical patient.
The place was pretty, done up in soft tones and with alcoves set up with tiny rain forest gardens and waterfalls flowing over inset rocks into gazing ponds lined with gluts of little, delicate flowers. Enormous goldfish bobbed about, their balloon eyes tracking seaweed-scented flakes tumbling from an auto feeder tube jutting from the wall. Holograms flitted about fern fronds and dieffenbachia leaves, jewel-hued hummers and crimson-headed sparrows augmented by faint strains of chirruping and bird song and a ripple of burbling white noise.
It all made my teeth ache.
Despite the scrubs—or maybe because of them—I was getting looks from the staff, and none of them were good. I probably smelled, and my hair was dusty from the explosion, but none of the hospital staff stopped me. A woman standing behind a nurse station pointed me in the right direction, and I limped off, my paper booties scratching out a long shush with each lurching step I took. From the orange-tinted black sky framed out at a waiting room window, it was pretty late, but from the soft murmuring voices and worried glances from the four women and two men standing around a table, dawn was still a ways off.
“Kai!” One of the women broke off from the group, a tall ebony goddess with sloe eyes and a graceful sway when she walked. “What are you doing out of bed?”
She’d probably thrown on whatever clothes were nearby when she got the call about Jonas, but the slight dishabille suited her. A wrinkled gold swath of fabric pulled Najiri’s waist-length braids away from her face, their ends caught up with tiny orange rubber bands and morning-sky-colored beads. Her long red dress swirled about her legs, then caught on mine when she reached me, and her hands were dry and cold, icy on my only slightly warmer palms.
“Najiri.” Her lips on my cheek left a hot stain on my skin, guilt at walking around while Jonas lay flat on his back somewhere behind a door. “How are all of you doing?”
I’d have expected resentment from anyone else, but Jonas’s close-knit marriage was built on tolerance and acceptance, something I wasn’t sure I deserved at the moment. I got it anyway.
“We are fine. He is fine.” Najiri put her hand on my back, lightly guiding me toward an open door off the main corridor. Jonas’s marriage murmured at me, consoling words meant to lift my guilt, but instead it simply settled into the cracks in my heart. “The doctors say he will be back on his feet in a week or so.”
“The Dawn Court lord has offered to pay for his stay and for the contr
acts he will miss, but….” Angus, Jonas’s slender, pale husband, joined us, placing his hand on Najiri’s back. “We told him we are okay. We can manage.”
“Yeah, chances are, the bill’s already been paid. You don’t know him.” I had no doubt Ryder would take care of it, but even if he did, I would pay him back. Somehow. Jonas’d been down there because I’d asked him to. His injuries were on me. “Is he awake?”
“Perhaps, but you shouldn’t be here,” Najiri said, frowning. “You should be healing as well. Angus looked in on you just a while ago, and you were asleep. In a private room. Where you should be right now.”
She had a good mother’s frown, honed sharp on the many children running around the Wyatt household, including her own son, Razor, whom I accidentally nicknamed after Najiri’d yanked a piece of Jonas’s hair from his scalp while she’d been in labor. Her mother skills were strong, and I almost quailed beneath her glower.
Almost.
“Yeah, I’m checking out. It’s a battle of wills. Ryder wants me to stay in Medical. I want to go home. He’s slowly getting used to a new reality where he doesn’t get his way. It’s character building. Good for him, really.” I shrugged as Angus bit back a smile, but I saw the edges of his mouth quiver. “I just needed to check in on Jonas.”
“You can go in, Kai,” Angus said softly. “He might not be awake—they have him on medication—but a few minutes will do him good. He will still be able to hear you.”
“Five minutes,” Najiri asserted. “Then you are going to find yourself in a bed, Kai. And do not think I won’t put you there.”
I moved as quickly as I could. When Najiri said five minutes, she meant four minutes and fifty seconds, and injured or not, she’d pull me out by one of my ear tips if I crossed her. She could have at least warned me Jonas wasn’t alone, because I sure as hell wasn’t expecting to find Dempsey sitting in a chair next to the bed.
