And couldn’t see shit. Not only was the water dirty and murky, but whatever I was looking for was apparently very mundane to the normal eye. I resurfaced, hung on to the lip of the artificial island where the symphony frequently performed, and focused just long enough to open my Sight. This time I could feel as well as see the flickering red whatever beneath me. And I could also see the tendrils of green magic racing across the surface of the water at me like a vanguard of pissed-off snakes. Except these snakes were vines, and they weren’t there to bite me—they were there to drown me. So much better.
I gulped in air, dove again, and swam straight at the red glow. I got there in seconds, reached out, and grabbed it. As soon as I did, I let my Sight drop so I could see what the thing was in the mundane world.
It was a thermos. I’d just dashed across a field of thorns and jumped in water full of who knows what for a thermos. I surfaced and dragged myself up onto the island, then onto the concrete stage, hoping the man-made surface would give me a little barrier against the elemental’s attack, at least for a few seconds. I look down at the thermos in my hand and shook my head. That’s all I needed, an angry shrubbery and a magical thermos. I reared back to throw the stupid thing back into the water but felt something rattle in it and stopped.
I unscrewed the lid and held my hand under the mouth of the thermos. I gave it a little shake, and after a pint or so of pond water poured out, a small vial dropped out into my hand. I recognized the dark red substance as blood immediately since you don’t drink “wine” with my uncle more than once before you learn the difference in viscosity between Cabernet and O-Positive. I blinked and focused my Sight on the object in my hand. Sure enough, the vial of blood was the source of the red glow in the thermos, and it matched exactly the shade of red emanating from the tree-dude’s chest. I blinked away the Otherworld and threw the vial to the ground. I lifted my foot to grind the glass to dust under my boot heel, then remembered I wasn’t wearing boots. I decided I didn’t want to mix the blood coating my feet with the enchanted blood of whatever-the-hell the vial contained. That and stomping on glass with my already ripped and abused foot was just adding injury to injury. Instead, I found a nearby brick and smashed the vial to smithereens.
The tree-man let out a bellow, which was interesting since it had no visible mouth, and I watched as the red glow went out in its chest. I stood on the stage, waiting for the elemental to topple over and return to its natural state, like inanimate, but it didn’t happen.
“Shit, it’s always the hard way,” I muttered to myself, then yelped as I felt a tickle on my leg. I looked down and hopped away, wincing with every step. The stage was covered in vines, and every one of them was reaching for me, trying to turn me into a literal hedge wizard. I took two running—well, limping—steps and dove back into the pond, swimming underwater back to the sloping hill leading to the giant tree-thing.
I pulled myself out of the water and was immediately ensnared by winding grass and weeds. It seems the elemental had decided that shoving thorns into my feet wasn’t going to stop me, so it was going to mummify me in plant matter instead. Roots wrapped around my throat, cutting my air to a trickle, while super-grown grass wove itself into a blanket pinning me to the ground. I was very quickly bound up like Gulliver in Lilliput, stuck to the ground, face-down and unable to move except my lips.
Good thing my mouth is almost my deadliest weapon. I couldn’t touch the life force around me, and the ley lines were all out of whack with the powerful magic used to animate a tree giant, so I reached down deep into my own soul, focused my will, and shouted, “Incendiarus!”
It came out more of a croak than a powerful bellow, but it had the desired, if excruciating, effect. I burst into flames. Every inch of my skin turned into living fire in an instant. I burned myself like a goddamn roman candle, but in seconds, I was free. I released the spell and got to my feet in the middle of the scorched patch of earth I was pinned to seconds before. I was buck naked, burned to a crisp, and really, really pissed off.
I wasn’t exactly not on fire anymore, so when I took a step, I singed the grass beneath my feet. After a yard or so, the grass literally retreated from me, leaving me nice cool topsoil walk in. I stalked the elemental, smoke coming off my shoulders and the top of my head.
“You want to take the gloves off, motherfucker? Well, let’s dance, bitch.” I held up both hands and bellowed “Infernos!” Flames shot from my palms like water from a firehose, dousing the plant monster in fire and setting it ablaze. I let the fire die out from my hands and picked up a rock the size of a softball.
“Infammato!” I poured magic into the rock, and it burst into flames. The rock was on fire. I hurled the fireball at the elemental and caught it right in the head. I repeated the process with two or three other small rocks until I came to one of the boulders the thing had chucked at the cops earlier. I picked up the big stone with both hands, lofted it over my head, and screamed “Flambeé, motherfucker!”
I hurled the boulder, now basically just a mass of congealed lava, overhand at the now-smoldering Ent and hit it right in the center, where the old red glow used to be. Now there was a new red glow as the boulder punched a hole in the tree-beast, and it began to be consumed by flames from the inside out. The elemental teetered, then collapsed backward onto the lawn, breaking apart into just a collection of saplings, vines, twigs and leaves, all burning merrily on the grass.
I walked over to what had been the head of a ten-foot monster just seconds ago, kicked it into nothing but glowing cinders, then reached down into where its chest had been, pawing around for what I knew was in there but couldn’t see anymore. After a couple seconds, I pulled free exactly what I expected to find, a glass vial just like the one I pulled out of the pond. I reached in my pocket to pull out an evidence bag and was painfully reminded of two things. One, I had burned off all my clothes when I magically set my skin on fire. Two, I had set my skin on fire.
Adrenaline exhausted, the searing agony of being covered in extensive burns hit me like a Mack truck. I screamed, fell to my knees, screamed again from touching the ground, and passed right the fuck out. But I didn’t let go of that vial, and the goddamn plant monster was dead.
Chapter 8
“You’re an idiot.”
Those were the first words I heard when I regained consciousness. On the bright side, they were in Becks’ voice, so I had that going for me. On the less bright side, she was one hundred percent right.
“But I’m a cute idiot,” I croaked. It’s remarkably hard to speak when you’ve been choked by trees and set on fire. But I had the opportunity for a smart-assed comment, and I wasn’t going to waste it.
“Not right now, you’re not. You look like Deadpool. Only Deadpool if he had a skin condition that made him look even more fucked up.”
“So I’m like a less cute Ryan Reynolds? I’ll take that.”
“You look like a stunt mannequin of Ryan Reynolds that got blown up, dragged behind a truck for a mile, then dipped in acid. I don’t think there’s an inch of your skin that’s not burned. How are you even talking?”
“I learned some badass meditation techniques from a Buddhist monk in the sixties. And I didn’t set my lungs, throat, or mouth on fire. Just my skin. Have you called Luke?”
“Yes, and what? Did you just say you did this? Like on purpose?”
“Yeah. It’s a long story. That goes better with morphine. And tequila. And preferably many other narcotics.”
“Well, for now you’ll have to make do with a nice fresh red. While it’s recently decanted, I can vouch that it’s aged appropriately.” The new voice was deeply cultured, the dulcet tones of a man who had seen multiple centuries pass in front of his eyes. The voice of the man I referred to as “uncle,” but who had been a father to me for many years. The man, the myth, the many, many legends, Vlad Tepes. My uncle Luke, Count Dracula. He stepped to my bedside, every bit the European aristocrat even after decades in the States. Luke was tall, with
dark hair and the pale skin you’d expect from a man who hadn’t seen the sun since a century before Shakespeare was born. He wore a tailored suit that probably cost more than my entire hospital bill, with a pocket square perfectly matching his tie. I saw Uncle Luke ruffled once, in Europe during World War II. It wasn’t pretty, and I never wanted to see it again.
“Hi, Luke,” I said. I gave him a little wave.
“Hello, Quincy. You do understand that when I promised your mother I would take care of you, none of us believed that it was an endeavor that would require quite these great lengths, correct?”
“We didn’t expect me to celebrate my hundred-twentieth birthday, either, did we?”
“Well, if you insist on setting yourself on fire every time you face a difficult foe, you certainly won’t make it one hundred twenty-one. Oral, or intravenously?” he asked, holding up a wine bottle and an IV bag.
“Let’s just go for both barrels, Unc, This shit hurts a lot more than it looks like.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Luke said, handing me the wine bottle and hanging the bag on the IV stand beside my head. He quickly hung the bag to drip into the IV alongside the morphine, but in trying to get the blood to flow, he set off some kind of alarm that had a nurse rushing in seconds later.
“What is going on in…” She started off ready to read Luke the riot act, but he turned his gaze on her and had her under his complete control in seconds. Her face went blank, and she stopped in her tracks.
“Come over here,” Luke said to the dazed nurse. She walked over to the IV contraption. “Make this work. He needs this blood as quickly as our machines can put it into him.”
She pushed buttons and tweaked tubes, and the mixed blood and morphine started to flow into my veins together. Luke looked at her nametag.
“Nurse Banks,” he said. “You will disable all alarms on this equipment, then go to your station and ignore anything you see or hear from this room, or the three of us. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Her voice was flat and her eyes dull, but she pushed a bunch of buttons, then walked out.
“Holy shit, you can really do that?” Flynn asked.
“Yes,” Luke replied. “I find it distasteful, but it does prove useful at times.”
“So you’re giving Harker blood? Why couldn’t they just do that here?”
“The blood from the blood banks does not have my unique qualities, Detective.”
“Wait, you’re giving him your blood?”
I decided that there was nothing to be gained from me being part of this conversation, so I lay in my bed and drank my merlot mixed with Dracula blood and kept the fuck out of it. I felt the morphine, and I felt the wine, but most of all I felt the power and healing properties of Luke’s blood coursing through my veins. My skin began to heal itself, rebuilding itself on an almost cellular level underneath the sheets and the gauze that covered me. I felt better immediately, but I knew from unfortunate past experience that it would be a while before I was back to full strength.
“So you’re giving him your blood to heal him, like he did with me.” Flynn’s face was knit in concentration. This was all new to her. A year ago, she didn’t even believe in magic. Now she was kinda dating a dude that was born in the nineteenth century and still looked in his late twenties.
“Exactly.”
“And you know this will work because you’ve done it before?”
“My dear, I am over half a millennium old. I’ve done almost everything before.”
“Wow.” She sat down in the chair and started to stare at me. “Will I be able to see it?”
“See me heal? I don’t know. I assume so, but I’ve never been hurt in quite this way before, so I don’t know exactly how it’s going to…ow fuck!” I knew one thing, re-growing all your skin at once hurt like a bitch. I wasn’t sure which hurt worse, the burning it off or the growing it back. I was pretty sure the burning it off part. And I really wasn’t looking forward to the itching as all my hair grew back.
“Are you okay?” Flynn leaned forward.
“I will be,” I said. I took another long swig of wine, then followed that with a long gulp that drained the bottle to the halfway point. “I’m going to need to get in the shower soon. I think all my new skin is growing back under the old, burned skin, and I’m gonna need to get that off me.”
“Like a snake shedding its skin?” Becks asked. Her eyes were bright and curious, and I could only chuckle and shake my head.
“Yeah, kinda like that. Luke, did you bring me some clothes?”
“I did. These were in your rooms at my house. I hope they are adequate.” He held up a small shopping bag.
“They’ll be fine. I just need to be able to walk out the door without everybody seeing my junk.” I lay there for a couple minutes, alternating drinking from the wine and just letting the morphine and blood infusion take effect. I started to feel better, stronger, more whole within seconds. By the time I knocked off the bottle of wine, I was loopy as hell from the booze and morphine, as well as on a rush of healing energy. I was ready to take on the world, if not so much walk a straight line.
“Help me stand up,” I said, tossing back the bloodstained sheet that covered me. “I think I’m pretty good, Luke. If you want to disconnect the IV, I should be able to go shower.”
“Lay there for a few more minutes. You need all the blood you can get.”
“I don’t have time, Uncle. I only had three days until the solstice before I lost an entire day in here. And has anybody heard from Smith? I figured he would have blown up my phone by now.”
“You didn’t have a phone when you got here, Harker. I think between the swimming in the pond and the setting yourself on fire, you probably lost it, destroyed it, or melted it,” Flynn said.
“I think melting it counts as destroying it,” I replied with a grin.
“Oh, shut up, you drunk. Anyway, I talked with Smith. Told him what happened, and that I would be here with you until we could get you moved. He said something about research and questioning suspects. Then he asked what happened, so I told him,” Becks said.
“And how did you know what happened? As far as I knew, I was alone in the park with the tree-thing.”
“Oh, Harker, that’s so cute. Like anybody is alone anymore. One of the cops you rescued videotaped the whole encounter with his phone and his body cam. He said he didn’t think anyone would believe his report without proof, so he made sure to get it all on tape, so to speak. I told him that his burden of proof didn’t include YouTube, then confiscated his phone and body camera. That was a helluva fight.”
“Yeah, you should see the other guy. I flattened him.” I giggled, and that’s how I knew I was really high. Giggling—not my thing. “Oh, I left my boots and my gun—”
“On the roof of the concession stand. Yeah, I’ve got them,” Flynn said.
“Good. Those are my favorite boots.”
“And the gun?”
“Nah, I like my Colt 1911 better. The Glock is nice and easier to conceal, but that Colt has some sentimental value.”
“Which he’ll be happy to tell you about later,” Luke said. “Some time when he has less alcohol and narcotics in his system. But right now, the IV is finished, so you may go bathe. If you can manage to walk to the bathroom.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. I swung my legs onto the floor and stood up, fresh as a daisy. Then almost fell over and had to grab the handrail on the bed because I was a very drunk daisy. Under normal circumstances, one bottle of wine will give me a good buzz, but mix it with a couple doses of morphine, and I was blotto.
I looked over at Flynn. “I could probably use a hand getting to the shower,” I admitted.
She looked at Luke, who shook his head. “I brought the wine and donated blood to the cause. It is your turn to suffer for your association with our dear Quincy, Detective. It happens to us all eventually.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that, so I kept my mouth shut.
I gave Flynn my best puppy-dog eyes, and she let out a huge sigh and took my elbow.
“I am not getting any closer to you than this, Harker. You’re still oozing a little, and I really like these clothes.”
“They’re nice clothes,” I said, trying to be the good boyfriend. “They cover almost all of you, and those pants definitely do not make your butt look big.” I was being sincere because I was too drunk to lie. Her butt looked great in those pants.
“I don’t think that comment had the effect you were looking for, Quincy,” Luke said.
“Why not? Her ass looks great,” I protested.
“Can we not talk about my ass with your five-hundred-year-old uncle?” Becks asked.
“I guess, if that’s what you want,” I replied. “When can we talk about your ass?”
“I’m not answering that,” Becks said. She got me to the bathroom door and had me sit on the toilet while she set up the flip-down chair in the small shower.
I reached out with one foot and pushed the door closed. “Alone at last,” I said, in my most romantic voice. Or at least, my most very stoned romantic voice.
Becks straightened up and said, “All set.” Then she reached for the door, but I kept it closed with my foot.
“What if I need you?” I asked.
“I’ll be right outside.”
“I’d feel a lot safer if you were in here with me.”
“I’d feel a lot safer if I weren’t in a bathroom with a drunk burn victim.”
Heaven's Door (Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter Book 6) Page 5
