A Mate Worse Than Death

by J. L. Ray

  “But you’ve separated families before, haven’t you, you bastard. I looked into your past, you know. Akkadian isn’t a particularly common last name. It wasn’t hard to find out who you really are, you cradle-robbing freak!”

  “Dad!” Fred squeaked, appalled to see his father lose his temper so uncharacteristically and completely.

  Anthony ignored everything but Phil, who was stroking his beard again, a smile on his face that Tony would have itched to smack right off it if she had had her eyes open. “I make whatever deal is suggested to me by the interested party. I rarely set the terms of the deal. I simply collect the price of it.”

  Melly turned and looked at him, “You are so not helping here. And by the way, I looked you up, too. I know who you are.”

  Phil gave her a bow and salaam by way of answer, all the while still holding Tony’s right hand in his left.

  “You facetious wretch!” Anthony made a move to jump Phil, and Cal intervened. Ogre intervention is a sight to behold--except for Anthony, everyone else just stepped back to watch, and Phil made sure that Tony, who was peeking, stayed quiet beside him in her hospital bed.

  “Okay,” Cal said after he had Anthony completely immobilized. “I want you to stop and think about this, okay? What would Tony do? What would Tony want you to do? Would she want you to attack someone right after you got some bad news? No, she would not. Am I right?”

  Anthony had struggled for a few seconds, but he was too smart to keep up a pointless exercise in futility. He calmed down and listened.

  “You are right, my friend. You are right.” Then Cal kind of ruined it. “I mean, they aren’t even officially dating yet! Of course, the office pool now has 10 to 1 odds on that lasting more than another two days. Y’know, this guy could be your son-in-law.” When Anthony burst into movement, Cal realized that he should have stopped while he was ahead. Instead, he tightened his hold on Anthony until Phil interrupted him.

  “Calvin, do not think that I am unappreciative of your efforts on my behalf. Hearing that most of Tony’s friends and associates are betting on me to...” he looked at the rest of Tony’s family and changed his wording, “to manage a date soon is encouraging” adding, when he saw Fred’s nostrils flare, “date, I say, because I highly respect and admire Tony Newman.” He looked at Cal and spoke faster, “However, Cal, I think you may be cutting off Mr. Newman’s blood supply.”

  “Uh oh,” Cal muttered and loosened his grip. Then he tried to look around his massive arms at Anthony. “How you doin’ there, pal?”

  “Terrific,” Anthony squeaked out.

  “Gonna stay on this side of the bed, hear the rest of the story?”

  All of the fire went out of Anthony as he realized he had much more to worry about than whom his daughter dated. “I will stay by you, Calvin.” Cal loosened his hold.

  “All right then,” he looked at Phil. “I think Mrs. N. needs an assist here.”

  Phil looked at her with concern and pity. “I assume that when the two babies were born, Caridwen appeared in the hospital room?”

  Amanda nodded and continued her tale, “She seemed to stop time after Antonia was born. Only she and I existed, and the second child. She looked like some nightmare version of Snow White--skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, ruby lips.” She shuddered, “But her eyes. Her eyes sat like black stones in her face. She bespelled the entire room except me and made sure that I knew that she had come for my great, great grandmother’s tithe to her. She left our first-born, Antonia, but she took her sister, whom I had planned to name Adele.” Amanda turned to Phil. “They are identical twins. I think that is who Antonia sees in her Visions.”

  Phil nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  Anthony tapped on Calvin’s arm from underneath after carefully pulling one of his hands free. “Cal, my friend. I believe my wife needs me. You can let me go now.”

  Cal dropped Anthony to the floor and watched in relief as he saw his partner’s parents embrace.

  While everyone was distracted by watching the Newmans, Phil leaned down to Tony and whispered, “I believe you are going to have to open your eyes now and face your parents.”

  She gripped his hand harder.

  “Like a Magic-Aide, rip it off and look, a voila, no scab, yes?” he suggested.

  She sighed, and opened her eyes. It was a few moments before anyone noticed since Melly and Fred were asking their mother questions, and Cal and Anthony were trying to calm them down. Under normal circumstance, Amanda tended to be the calm parent and Anthony the excitable parent. They were in full role reversal, and it created an unaccustomed tension for the family. Tony’s condition came to their attention when the doctor came back to the room to check on her.

  “Oh good,” he said, walking through the tense family discussion as if he didn’t even see it. He went to the left side of the bed and addressed Phil. “I’m glad to see she’s come out of the faint she was in. I don’t think we would call it a coma, but it is better that she woke naturally.” He took her left hand and started timing her pulse.

  At that point, the rest of the room went silent. Then Anthony and Amanda came over to the bed, their arms around one another.

  “Antonia, are you all right?” her mother asked tremulously.

  “Hi little Mama,” Tony said. “I think so. My muscles are really sore, like I just ran the hardest obstacle course at the police academy about twenty times in a row. But other than that, I’m okay.”

  The three looked at each other for a minute. Then Melly broke the silence.

  “Well? Are you going to tell her, or what?”

  Tony sighed and told them, “I know.”

  Amanda looked confused, but Anthony looked at Phil’s hand twined around hers and said, “You woke at the beginning of this, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she paused and swallowed. “I guess I figured it’d be easier for Mama if she wasn’t telling me, so I kept quiet.”

  The doctor interrupted, “Well, you need to keep quiet now so I can examine you.” He turned to the rest of the Beings in the room, “and you all need to step out while I do that.” When no one moved, he added, “Now. That wasn’t a request. Move it.”

  The family shuffled out with Cal behind them.

  As they left, Tony suddenly barked out, “Shit!”

  The doctor and Phil turned toward her in concern.

  “What is it? Another Vision?” Phil asked her anxiously.

  “No, no. Did we find Serena? Was she caught?”

  “Calm yourself, detective. We caught her. You were out when it happened.”

  Tony looked up at Phil, “Seriously? How?”

  “That story can wait,” the doctor told her and then turned to Phil. “You can stay, just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Tony asked, wincing when she moved her arm.

  “In case I need him to bring you out of another of the seizures you’ve been having,” the doctor told her, earning a frown from Phil.

  Phil attempted to reassure her, “The seizures are probably done with. We are far away from any portal. And now that we know the cause, I can work with the hospital’s magical practitioner to shield you from the effects of your Visions.”

  “If you shield me, then I won’t be able to See what is happening to my...my sister.”

  “My dear, whatever is happening to her right now is about to kill you, and I don’t think that your mother will survive losing you as well as little Adele.”

  Tony looked up at him, stricken. “I have to know, Phil. I have to know what’s happening to her.”

  The doctor interrupted them. “Mr. Akkadian is correct, Detective. If you continue to have the Visions that induce these seizures, I believe that you will go into cardiac arrest.”

  “I’m twenty-eight years old, so how in the hell could I die from cardiac arrest?”

  The doctor shook his head. “I could show you the action images of you having a seizure, and then I think you’ll see why. It’s almost like
you’re being hit with a defibrillator, but worse. Great if you were having cardiac dysrhythmia, but not so much when you aren’t.”

  Phil frowned at the doctor again. “Doctor Miller, I believe that your bedside manner leaves much to be desired. Please finish and send in the magical practitioner, Ms. Beaumont so that I can work with her.” And Phil turned his back on the man, three thousand years of living near the top of the Supernatural food chain apparent in his dismissal of the Natty doctor. Doctor Miller, having survived Natty medical training filled with egos to rival even Mephistopheles’s, rolled his eyes, winked at Tony, and left.

  “One minute I’m in your office fighting off wolves, and the next I feel like Alice down the rabbit hole.”

  “She was such an annoying child. What a relief when she made it back to her own nursery.”

  Tony shook her head. “I have got to hear that one.”

  “It will cost you at least one date.”

  Tony stared at him. “We’ll end up proving the office pool was right, which I kind of hate, but I really do want to hear that story.”

  He stroked the hand he had yet to drop from his own. “I hope that date will lead to getting more from me than stories.” He waggled his brows at her.

  She snorted. “Keep it slow, buddy. As you just found out, I apparently come with more baggage than Edgar Allen Poe.” She put up her other hand, palm out. “Don’t you dare tell me he was a client as well!”

  “If he had just returned to Fairie where he belonged!”

  Tony rolled her eyes, but then got a bit serious. “Look, I know you think blocking me from Adele’s projection is a good idea, but I need to find out...” she paused, not sure of her next word, “well...everything about her.”

  “I will help you. I sat through the three episodes, from the office to the hospital. I also recorded the images.” Phil grimaced. “Now I’ll sound like that incompetent doctor of yours. It will be very disturbing for you to watch those images, but I think it will convince you to allow me to shield you. It may help you remember what you Saw.”

  She gripped his hand again. “Let’s do it.”

  At that moment, Cal and the Newmans came back in, having seen the doctor leave.

  “Do it? Do what?” Cal held out a meaty hand. “Never mind, never mind. I do not want to know anything specific.”

  Tony grinned and told Melly, “Give that ogre a smack for me, would ya? Cal, get your mind out of the gutter. I was talking about work!”

  Melly shook her head, “Any ogre smacking that happens in this room comes from you, sis.” Then she looked stricken at having used the “s” word.

  Tony got the problem immediately. “Hey,” Tony told her, “none of that now. We are sisters. We have another sister. I hope we can find her and help her, but there is no way you need to tiptoe around me.” Then she looked at her mother. “You either. I can’t believe that you have had to walk around with that secret all these years and felt couldn’t tell us. You must have felt like Jacob Marley’s ghost, hauling around a pile of chains.”

  Amanda smiled a bit at her daughter’s whimsy, but the smile died as quickly as it lived and she teared up, “There were times that I wished that creature had erased my memory, too. I did tell your Aunt Elise and Uncle Francis so they didn’t have to tell your cousins about the...situation. My mother warned all of us on our wedding days,” and then she burst into tears.

  “Mama,” Tony finally let go of Phil’s hand and held hers out to her mother. “Come here, Mama.”

  Cal and Phil looked at each other and nodded.

  “Okay! So who wants some ice cream?” Cal asked Melly and Fred.

  Melly rolled her eyes. “Uh, Cal? I’m twenty-one years old.”

  “You’re never too old for ice cream, kiddo, right?” Cal told her, gesturing at the bed.

  “Oh,” Melly shrugged. “You’re so right. C’mon, Fred. Let’s go get some ice cream,” and she tugged his arm.

  Anthony looked away from his wife and oldest daughter to the rest of the group. “I think I should take them for ice cream, Cal. Aren’t you expecting Lieutenant Azeem soon?”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s on his way.” Cal nodded. “I’ll stay here.”

  Anthony reached over to shake his hand. “It has been an interesting week, my friend. I am glad to have had your help.”

  “Back atcha, sir.”

  Anthony left, Melly and Fred in tow, and Phil and Cal went out to sit and wait for the Lieutenant in the hallway so they could give Tony and her mother some privacy to deal with the new normal.

  When Lieutenant Azeem arrived, he found Cal and Phil sitting and eating ice cream just outside of Tony’s room in ICU. Phil had worked with Ms. Beaumont to put together a shield for her that they hoped would keep her free of any more Visions for the moment, at least until they could consult and find out why she had such violent physical reactions during those Visions. Since she had now gone several hours without any kind of Vision or accompanying seizure, the doctor indicated that he thought she might be moved out of ICU soon.

  The Newmans had stayed with Tony while Phil and Ms. Beaumont had created the shielding spell, but Tony convinced them to go home after it was in place.

  “Hey, Phil’s here in case I need more magical help, and Cal and the Lieutenant and I need to talk. I’m hoping to get this case registered as solved tonight and protect the Beings who would be collateral damage otherwise,” she told her family, convincing them to go home and go to bed.

  Azeem paused at Tony’s door and looked at Cal and Phil, “Let’s wrap this up. I want her to get some sleep.”

  Cal nodded and juggled his ice cream while he grabbed more containers and carried them into the room. Tony had been napping, but when they came in, she rolled over, stretched, and then winced.

  “Hello, sir,” she told Azeem.

  He padded over to her bed. “Hello, detective. I hear that you have had an interesting evening.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, that old Chinese curse--I’m living in interesting times.”

  “Well, I believe we can relieve your mind of some of what weighs on it.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Wait,” Cal told her. He came over with two containers heaped with ice cream. “The kids brought extra for you and the Lieutenant.” He handed her a cup with coffee, almond, and caramel ice cream in it. “They got your fav mix up!”

  “That was sweet,” she smirked at her own pun.

  Phil rolled his eyes and handed the Lieutenant a cup that Cal had passed to him.

  “They seemed to think you would want peanut butter and chocolate. I have never warmed up to peanut butter myself, but I hope it meets with your approval.”

  Azeem purred, “It is the oddest thing, isn’t it? A nut, but not! Tony must have told her siblings about my weakness for this butter form!”

  Tony paused in scooping up ice cream to ask Phil, “Do you really not have ice cream in Fairie?”

  “We don’t have these flavors. Trust me, detective, ice cream alone has convinced many a Super that being stuck in Mundania isn’t all bad,” he told her as he lifted a huge spoon of cherry chocolate to his mouth.

  “Dude, brain freeze!” Tony said as he winced at the pain. “Take a smaller bite next time, why don’t ya?” Then she muttered, “Good to know you have some flaws. “And of course,” Cal pointed at his cone, “no Oreo cookies in Fairie, so no Oreo cookie ice cream, right?”

  For a few minutes, the four simply enjoyed being alive and having ice cream. Lieutenant Azeem finished first, and though he had a disconcerting way of running his enormous tongue over his face pretty frequently for the next ten minutes, they were all so accustomed to seeing him clean his face that no one really commented. They sat up as he began his report on Heraphina’s apprehension.

  “Detective Kelly and I went to the Casters’ cabin and found Heraphina there.”

  “Cal said she’d been poisoned, but survived it?”

  “Yes, I called him when I left her in order to
tell him she had made it through detoxification.” Azeem paused. “She told me her story, and I have it recorded for the official report. The short version of it is that she was used by Serena Melinoe to create the vampire.”

  “How did they create it?” Tony asked. “I thought vamps were one of the few examples of Mundania’s magic.”

  “Oh, they are. It takes a great amount of belief to make a vampire. Serena found herself the perfect raw material. Haldis Hostrom,” he nodded to Phil, “one of your clients, found out that she was dying from a very rare disease, one that only attacks Supers, and only those in Mundania. It doesn’t happen in Fairie. The disease is a wasting illness, and Holdstrom had only just been diagnosed.”

  “That turned her into a vampire?” Cal asked.

  “No, hope did,” Azeem pronounced. “Holstrom had been with Monster-Mate for over five years and had found her perfect match, Lilith. Until she was diagnosed, she had not found the courage to declare her true love to her father. But when she found out that she was dying, she wanted to live so that she and Lilith could be together. She asked Serena for help, and Serena sent her to Heraphina Caster, who offered to cure Haldis as a favor to her own true love, Serena.”

  “Whoa! Heraphina and Serena?” Cal said. “Bizarre! Am I right? ”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Tony nodded. “I really thought...well...only one sister got to...” Tony started tripping over her own stereotypes and finished lamely, “please continue, sir.”

  Azeem nodded. “Of course, it was a set up. Serena was behind everything that happened. Apparently, Heraphina had had her eye on Serena as a lover since the day she started working at Monster-Mate. Until Serena came to her for help with Haldis, she had never given Heraphina any encouragement. Serena told Heraphina that she wanted to save her friend Haldis by using a piece of Mundane magic, and that if Heraphina helped her, then she would make Heraphina’s dreams come true.

  “Did she love the witch?” Phil asked.

  Azeem snorted. “Serena knew that Heraphina would do anything she asked, so she asked her to turn Holstrom. She gave Heraphina the spell because Heraphina is a magic-wielder with a higher mpsi rating than Serena has. Heraphina took the spell, an old artifact of the Christian church, and a desperate Super, and when she put the three together, they had themselves a vampire. As they killed her, they told Holstrom that they were ‘curing’ her disease, and she wanted to believe,” Azeem’s head drooped. “Serena wanted Holstrom in order to attack Lilith, an old lover of Phil’s so that she could implicate him in the murder at best, or as a fallback plan, have the Geas do all the work for her.”