by Jenn Stark
“Right. What you’re saying is, they know, they’ve simply left me here to work things out on my own.”
She finally looked back at me. “That’s correct.”
Sweet Christmas. I’d been cut off. Well and truly cut off. The shock was almost worse than the pain coursing through me despite the morphine drip.
Almost.
“They tell you why they put me in time out?” I asked, my tone as bleak as an executioner’s blade.
Sells apparently didn’t share my dismay at being cut off from the Council. “Do you actually want their help?” she shot back, her gaze challenging.
I squinted at her. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m not,” she said. “From all accounts, you’ve managed to bring yourself back from death’s door with no outside intervention. That’s nothing short of miraculous for the average human, or even the above average Connected. Believe me, I’ve seen my share of gifted souls.”
“Well, don’t get too excited. I had help.” I looked down at my chest. “Wait. Where’re Soo’s pendants?”
She frowned, stepping toward me. With a gentle touch, she lifted the collar of my gown away from my neck—but there was nothing there. Not even a scar to mark where Soo’s necklace had lain.
“You had nothing on you when you came in except your clothes, which were pretty badly singed and bloodied. We gave those to the police for evidence.”
I winced, imagining Brody getting a load of that laundry, but Sells continued. “Which is why I say your recovery appears to be completely self-generated, and as such, it’s something you should be proud of. Celebrating, even.”
Reaching over with my swaddled right hand, I tapped the tube feeding into my left arm. “There’s a lot of morphine going into me right now, yeah?”
She pursed her lips, then nodded. “There is.”
“Well, I still feel like road-rash flambé. Ergo, healing clearly hasn’t been a bundle of fun. Ergo, yeah, all things being equal, I could use a little outside help.”
Sells chirped something supportive, then spent a few minutes more going over my recovery points—skipping neatly over the one thing that worried me most. As she wrapped up her assessment of my no longer broken bones, torn muscles, deep bruising, and blood loss, I fixed her with as steely a glare as I could, given that my head was wrapped in fluffy white gauze.
“What about my brain?” I asked.
She quirked a look at me, playing Doctor Stupid. “I’m sorry?”
Her careful tonality made my stomach tighten into a thick knot. “My brain. I overheard doctors talking about possible brain damage. What’s. That. About?”
“Your preliminary scans have been…anomalous,” she said, again with the hesitation that ratcheted my worry yet tighter. “There’s almost too much activity, and in quadrants of the brain not consistent for where your injuries are greatest.”
“So my eggs have been scrambled is what you’re saying.” I stared at her, unable to force my gaze away. “Nothing’s working right.”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” she replied, too calm, too cool in the face of my clammy-skinned fear. “Your abdominal organ functions were not affected by the attack—nothing shot, barely a scratch—yet that section of the brain has been lit up since you arrived.” She peered at me intently, clearly fascinated by the medical mysteries I presented. I couldn’t drum up the same enthusiasm. “It’s as if your sacral core needs attention, despite the fact that it has no injuries.”
I frowned, then flopped my own bandaged hand in the general direction of my sacral core. Nothing happened. Nothing, at this point, was good.
“The areas of the brain associated with extrasensory cognition have also been engaged to almost alarming amounts, and your metabolism has become increasingly erratic.” Sells said. Then her eyes widened. “Let me get some food in you before you pass out again. You removed—”
“I’ve heard.” I blew out a pensive breath even as she pulled out her cell phone and tapped on it quickly. “Straight up, Dr. Sells. What happened to me? If the Council didn’t heal me, how am I still here?”
She dropped the phone back into her pocket, and for the first time since she’d entered the room, her smile seemed natural…even a little dazed.
“We don’t know, Sara,” she said quietly. “You should’ve been dead. Without Council intervention, you would have ordinarily been dead before you even reached the hospital. There was significant cauterization at the bullet wound sites, blood vessels sealed off, muscles held in stasis. But there’s nothing to account for such a large heat event at the crime scene. It’s as if something burned through you and out of you, then was gone.”
Fire. Agonizing internal fire. I did remember that, vaguely.
Dr. Sells shook her head. “As much as I don’t care for this word, you are something of a miracle.”
The door swung open, and she turned to the orderly who came in with a tray laden with dishes.
Nikki took the tray from the man and set it onto my bed stand, then reached for the silverware. “And now you’re going to be a miracle who eats,” she said sternly. “To make sure we can get you out of this bed as quickly as possible.”
“What—” I managed as I sat higher on the bed. “What happened to the rest of the men? The ones who survived?”
Sells grimaced. “They were treated and released after they were stabilized, apparently under the care of the LVMPD and Detective Brody Rooks.”
Nikki let out a sharp bark of laughter that was at odds with her haggard face. “Care, right. The men on the roof—hell, could have been women, I don’t know—they got away clean,” she said. “We figured there were three of them, no more. As soon as the sirens hit and there was nothing but a lump of bodies in the center of the alley, they apparently split. The attack was clean enough and professional enough that Homeland Security totally discounts homegrown terror. It was a hit, you were the target, the rest was collateral damage. No fatalities in the casino. Guns were shooting blanks.”
“Blanks!” My eyes popped wide with that, and I looked up from my Jell-O. “But Jiao and General Som were hit?”
Nikki shook her head. “Jiao was clean, and General Som didn’t get shot until she exited the casino. Even that was barely a skimmer. She’s fine.”
“But…” I’d seen them—their bodies slack, blood blossoming.
Had the Devil somehow…but no. It couldn’t be.
“Yep. Blanks,” Nikki said. “I had no idea either, until General Som dashed out and Brody started cursing a blue streak and hightailing it for the exit. Jiao was losing her mind at the gunmen, screaming in Chinese, so I followed Brody. By the time we cleared the second exit door, the snipers on the rooftop pinned us back, then unloaded on you.”
Nikki’s stark face spoke volumes about her reaction to the scene in the alley. “The generals didn’t fare too well, all in all. Brody’s got them under hospital arrest. Just to be on the safe side.”
I grimaced as I reached for my second grilled cheese sandwich. “I’d forgotten about the other generals,” I said, then spoke around a mouthful of gooey bread. “General Som able to explain their motives?”
“Jiao put the word out that the search for the Honjo sword would be commencing immediately,” Nikki said. “Some of the generals were apparently already in town, like General Som was, put two and two together that if the new head of the household needed a magical sword, chances were good she wasn’t awesome in a sword fight. They acted without sanction, according to Som, but…” she lifted one shoulder. “Who knows what kind of crazy is really going on there. The whole thing is dicey, you ask me.”
“The men who fell with you in the center of the alley, they wore body armor,” Dr. Sells put in, her glare intensifying until I reached for more food. “But it wasn’t enough to withstand semiautomatic gunfire. Not that much of it. The snipers unloaded military-grade artillery into them. That you were relatively undamaged beneath them was another miracle.” She smiled
wearily. “There I go with that word again. I’m losing my edge.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of that going around.” I once again visualized the moment that I realized the men had been running toward me—toward me, not away. My instinctive reaction had been to run—only I couldn’t run, not with my broken bones and so much blood loss. And then one had fallen on top of me, protecting me.
And then another.
Nikki’s voice interrupted my reverie. “There’s no word on who the external snipers were,” she said, her voice a little forced. I wondered how much of the scene I’d just relived in my mind that she could also see. Sometimes, a Connected’s gifts were as much of a burden as a blessing. “The remaining generals are unapologetic about their challenge but are uniform in their disavowal of knowledge of who their attackers were. Which makes sense, since they were the ones being shot at.”
As she spoke, another figure moved into the doorway of the room. At first glance, I thought he was Chinese, but his height and bulk seemed more imposing—possibly Mongolian or even Russian. He was dressed in loose clothes with one arm in a sling, and he looked…familiar.
He spoke, startling Dr. Sells, but I couldn’t understand the language, and the words seemed almost like an incantation or a prayer, despite the harsh tones. As if he didn’t expect me to respond. I stared at him and shook my head, and he took another step closer.
“Sir—” Dr. Sells began, but I stiffened as he moved into my line of sight. And pressed back against the cushions of my bed when he half fell to one knee. Nikki was already up and at the man’s shoulder, whether to help him or to crack him in the temple, I wasn’t sure, but he stared at me with the same intensity he had the last time I’d seen him, his body bucking as a fresh wave of gunfire had strafed across his back.
“I am General Ma-Singh of the House of Swords,” he rasped in heavily inflected English. “From now until I die, I will serve you as the lawful head of our House.”
Chapter Twelve
I opened my mouth, then shut it again before I could gather my wits to speak. “You saved my life,” I started, but my voice cracked, and his stare grew more intense.
“Up we go, big guy,” Nikki said, dropping a hand beneath the general’s elbow. “You know you outweigh me by like fifty pounds, and I don’t think that fifty pounds is fluffy bunny weight. Cut a girl a break.”
That broke Ma-Singh’s stare, and he grunted in surprise as Nikki locked an arm around his waist and hauled him upright. She stayed that way as he leaned on her, and staggered a bit beneath his weight. Only then did I realize that all the color had gone out of his face.
“How bad is he?” I asked, turning to Dr. Sells.
“Should have been dead, no question,” she said, eyeing the man appreciatively. “He’s Connected, but low level—basically enough to help him fight, not much more. So what happened was even more unexpected. His body displayed the same anomaly you had, but more of it.”
At my curious look, she pointed at the general’s bandages. “Wounds cauterized from the inside out. Bullets pushed through—nothing left in the body, injuries clean and sterile. He’s got a recovery in front of him, but he will recover, no question. He’s in better shape than he has any right to be, given the givens. And he credits you with that, you should know. I didn’t even know he spoke English until that little declaration, but he’s said as much in Mongolian to anyone who will listen, once we got him a translator.”
I frowned. “The Council?”
“They say they had nothing to do with his recovery. And again, his results are similar in nature to what you experienced, though yours was in stages. When you arrived, your bullets were gone, but the cauterization hadn’t really taken hold. That happened later that night, after we set your legs.”
I winced, remembering that pain. Sells nodded, and Nikki moved to steer Ma-Singh out of the room, but he stopped, turning back. He made a slight move with his right arm and grimaced, looking to Nikki and pointing.
“You are so lucky you don’t know English,” Nikki said, but she gamely reached into his right trouser pocket as he watched her, his brow knit with concentration. She pulled out a packet and checked it, then her smile split her face. “Here you go, big guy,” she said, turning him back toward me. “We’d wondered where that went.”
The Mongol warrior limped my way again, his face set with pain but his manner resolute. He shifted his hands, and the paper fell away, leaving Soo’s necklace in his hands. “Broken—fixed,” he said, showing me the clasp. It had been reinforced to the size of a bicycle lock.
“Ah, thank you.” I didn’t remember him pulling the necklace from my neck but then again—there was a lot I didn’t remember about the Palazzo parking lot fight. I bowed forward to allow Ma-Singh to slip the silver strands over my neck. The new clasp clicked into place with a heavy thud, and the general straightened, clearly pleased. This time he did let Nikki lead him out the door, leaning on her a little more heavily than I suspected was necessary as she prattled to him in English.
“You’re going to need additional healing,” Sells said quietly after they’d gone. “What you’ve done is remarkable, but it isn’t enough.”
“I didn’t plan on going it alone.” I hadn’t planned on living through the gunfire, truth be told, but Sells seemed to understand my meaning.
“Armaeus Bertrand is a complicated person,” she said. “I’ve been on the Council’s payroll for nearly twenty years, and he has altered more in the last few years than in all the years combined before, and in the last two months more dramatically still. I can attribute that to you, of course, but there’s more to it than that. Something’s changed fundamentally in him this time.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. Right now, all that seemed to have changed was that he’d decided I was yesterday’s news. Which was fine. I wasn’t a big fan of him either of late. He’d hung me out to dry so many times, my soul was starting to bleach out.
I leaned against the pillows, unreasonably tired as Sells signaled for the orderly to take away my hospital fare. “How much longer am I in here?”
Her smile was intent. “I think in more ways than I usually intend the phrase, that is entirely up to you.” She nodded at my startled blink. “Good night, Sara. I look forward to tracking your continuing progress.”
I was out before she left the room, unconsciousness lapping at my heels for only a second before it dragged me under and sat on me.
I drifted in a place where there was no pain, the sensation so welcome and familiar that I nearly groaned with relief. I could move my arms, my legs. My fingers stretched wide, and I fluttered my hand, reveling in each set of muscles firing in response to a thought. I drew in a deep breath, and it filled me up, redolent and pure. The entire world smelled of cinnamon and spices and—
Awareness struck me less than a breath before I connected with the rock-solid planes of Armaeus’s chest.
“You!” I jerked back, but he moved with me, rolling over on top of my body, surrounding me with his warmth, his solidity. The Magician of the Arcana Council channeled a very particular kind of magic, based in profound sexual energy. As a result, he wasn’t always big on subtlety, but when he did finally show up to party, he was very, very good at what he did. Right now, it appeared that he was ready to heal me. I struggled for another second, then abandoned myself to the jaw-dropping relief the touch of his body brought to every inch of mine.
Armaeus, for his part, didn’t push—nor did he smirk. His dark golden eyes stared down at me impassively as he poured his energy into me, the quirk of his lips the only betrayal of his amusement as I moaned again, arching my body beneath his.
“Took you long enough,” I groaned, reveling in the sensation of burned blood vessels opening up and reaching out again, muscles knitting and swollen dermis shedding its pain and inflammation. “Wanna tell me why?”
“You pushed me away quite effectively,” he said, or at least I thought he said that. It was a little difficult to hear over
my garbled sighs. Then he paused, apparently reconsidering his words. “At first,” he amended. “I knew the moment you fell, was there to assist, but your reaction was—singular. You pushed out, and I remained out.” I could sense his shrug, even in my dream state. “After that, it became more interesting to watch than to intervene.”
“More interesting to…” I frowned, my brain slowly catching up to my ears, processing both his words and their underlying meaning. “You mean you simply watched me try to heal myself. I was in pain lying in a hospital room, and you decided it was more interesting to hang out and watch me instead of doing anything about it?”
“You hadn’t asked for my help, hadn’t opened your mind to me,” he said, and we rolled again. I didn’t know if we were in water, in the ether, or in his bed, and I didn’t much care. “I could push through your defenses, yes. But in your state, I considered that unwise.”
“My state.” My lips twisted around the words. “Since when are you worried about my state?”
“Since you could do damage to me, intentionally or otherwise,” Armaeus said succinctly. “Or, far worse, damage to yourself without realizing it.” He pulled me up until my face was level with his and stared at me, his expression inscrutable. “Your abilities have intensified, Miss Wilde. You should not have been able to heal yourself as well as you did. By my calculations, you should still be in a self-induced coma.”
I frowned. “For how long?”
“Approximately seven months.”
“What?”
“I would not have allowed that to continue, of course. Your work with the Council is too important, and your position with the House has been thrown yet more fully into question, albeit for unexpected reasons. You will need to resolve that question before you can make decisions about your role clearly and without prejudice.”
“Back to what’s important here. You could have come in—at any time—even if I didn’t want you to?”
“I just did.”
I considered that, and Armaeus’s eyes glittered. “There are many things I could attempt over your protestations, Miss Wilde. That has always been the case. And now, you are weak. If I pushed, you would push back. But if I wanted to, I could overrun you.”
