The doors slid open, and I caught the eye of the young nurse behind the desk. Her gaze shifted away from mine too quickly, showing her discomfort with death and family—an understandable reaction. She disappeared through a rear doorway, and seconds later, an older, firmer, and more stoic nurse approached me, maintaining full eye contact. This was the seasoned pro prepared to deliver bad news and handle family emotional meltdowns. And I thought my job was hard.
“Mr. Kane, I’m very sorry for your loss. We’ve moved your cousin downstairs. I apologize for the speed, but I can escort you both.”
She made the rush sound like some sort of spontaneous, uncontrollable event, rooms needed for a multicar collision on the freeway or a building explosion. In truth, Anne had warned me that dead bodies on the wards upset the other patients, the visitors, and the nurses. Then there was the issue of what happens to the flesh and organs after death.
The goal is to move bodies as quickly as possible to refrigeration.
I nodded. We were ushered back into the elevator for a slow, silent progression back to the lobby and two levels below.
The nurse and the morgue technician left us in the cool chill of light blue walls and stainless-steel cabinets and tables. I didn’t even register they’d left.
The pale features of Samuel’s face looked too much like death, and I felt my chest tighten again. “You’re sure this will work.”
Decibel reached a finger to trace the boy’s cheek. “He’s only catatonic, Kane. This part is easy.”
“What of the cell where you’re taking him?”
She flinched at my term, but it was an accurate one. The cells deep in the demon enclaves provided immobilization, a torture of deprivation. Breathing was reduced to minimum, just enough to sustain a very long existence. The typical inhabitant would remain rigid in the confines of demonic energy, unable to speak or move, regardless of stimulus. Sight and sound remained active, enhancing the horror exponentially, with no outlet to voice the silent screams.
Granted, the cells weren’t always torturous, and I’d never heard of them used in Shalim’s clan, though I’d heard tales about other clans. I suspected that was where Abraxas would secure Chaz to isolate him from excessive stimulus. Sometimes less is better.
For Samuel, the cell would arrest the virus in his system and stem the weakening of his body’s defenses, a way to ward off death. Decibel would implement the process after reviving him from the toxin she’d administered. Samuel would likely remain in his coma and drift in a sea of whatever stimulus she designed. In theory, he could exist in that state for months or years and never change, never age. Such was the control of the demon domain.
“I already promised he’d come to no outside harm there. I’ll leave him with soft music, the sound of birds, and a gurgling brook, if you wish.”
I nodded and realized my silence had actually upset her, but my words were all stuck and jumbled inside of me. He looked every bit young, delicate, and cold on the steel table with only the sheet to cover him. I rubbed my hands over my face and looked at Decibel.
“Twelve hours of this and then…”
“Then I’ll transport him personally,” she said and gave one more caress to Samuel’s face before she pulled the sheet over his head.
My stomach lurched at her action, before I swallowed back the wasted emotion. I was doing all I could.
Even though I didn’t have a cure for him, I’d found him, dragged him to safety, and killed to keep him alive. Not able to accept the inevitability of his death from the Consortium’s actions, I had little choice but to trust in Decibel’s option. There were no guarantees, but we’d bought Samuel some time.
CHAPTER 15
“So explain to me again how you caused the crater in the clearing?”
Anne pursed her lips and leaned her head on the hand braced against the passenger door as she counted off the steps on her fingers. “First, I’d taken a candle to the clearing because I figured I wouldn’t burn down the cabin that way, and I’d placed it on a stump there. Then I just focused.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“The candle. No, the flame.” She shook her head. “Actually, I had a thought that if I’d learned this all sooner, I would have this under control and be on to bigger things. Then I realized how ridiculous this all was anyway.”
“Focus is key. It provides a container, like bottled water. Without the bottle, the water just goes everywhere. No focus and energy goes everywhere.”
I was on the interstate, headed back to the hospital. I’d left my two other female depictions of tragedy back at the apartment, banishing them to the second floor to give Jez all the room she needed without me. And providing Decibel all the room she needed to train Jez without involving me. I’d even dragged a mattress and some sheets down to the new chick-level of my building.
In truth, I’d bailed. I needed space and a moment of peace to think. My analysis had led me to retrieve Anne.
She wasn’t due back to work for another two days, but I needed information on the parasite’s role in Samuel’s deterioration, and my friend in patient records wasn’t going to be any help.
The good news was that when I arrived Anne was whole, and so was the cabin. The wildlife still flourished, unaffected. The huge car-size divot in the clearing was…a learning exercise.
“If you add emotions such as fear, regret, and anger, they amplify the energy but not in a controllable manner.”
She played on the thought for a minute. “I caused it to spill over?”
“It appears so.” I smiled, relieved to deal with a non-crisis, for a change.
Fortunately, she’d been outside the cabin, or I would have been minus one roof and precious walls. Luckily, the wards had a constraining effect on the area. No energy would leak out, but the burn patch had radiated a good thirty feet in diameter, and fortunately, Anne hadn’t been injured. Learning was hard. There were bound to be some detours on the path. I just hoped encouraging her in educational growth wouldn’t come back to bite me later.
“I thought you were focusing on visibility within objects. Not so much on manipulation.”
She shrugged. “Watching the grass grow wasn’t doing much for me.”
I gave her a quick look. “Could you see it grow?”
She pushed a strand of ash-blonde hair behind her ear and laughed. “Yeah. For a few minutes. Then I got a little bored and, well—”
“Wanted to see some physical display of your abilities?”
“Something like that.” She waited a minute. “Sorry about your cousin. Friend. What was he really?”
“A kid in trouble. One I can’t help.” I’d given her sparse details. Enough to understand that Samuel wouldn’t recover where he was and the hospital was no longer safe for him.
“Yeah.”
“Another friend has made arrangements for Samuel’s body.”
“But he’s not really related to you, so why are you going to all this trouble?”
I glanced at her. “Someone should.” At the back of my mind nagged the thought that no one would bother for me. Then again, I was hardly a yardstick to measure anyone else’s life against.
“So what do you need me to do, since you don’t want a copy of his medical record?”
I took a breath. “I need you to try to focus on Samuel’s body and see what has infected him. If the basis is natural or induced or whether it can be reversed. Take some samples, carefully.”
Her hands twitched in her lap. “I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can.”
“A little flame manipulation or watching grass grow doesn’t qualify me to do—that.” She waved her hand at the dashboard.
“You’re a nurse. Your training provides you intimate knowledge of the human body, so you know what is normal. I need you to ‘watch the grass grow’ within Samuel’s body. Search through and see what shouldn’t be there. This is a practical application of your ability.”
“I don’t think
I can do this,” she whispered and looked out the window in silence.
“I know this seems tough. Trust me. However, there are much harder ways to have to come up to speed.”
“Good to know.”
We’d reached the hospital. I pulled around the corner to the back entrance and parked in a spot where I would be able to see everyone come and go and reached a hand to her shoulder. To her credit, she didn’t shake me off.
“Anne, I get this is new and weird. I get that people trying to kill you isn’t normal. Your skills aren’t typical, but this is now part of who you are. It’s no different than being able to drive or swim.”
She turned to stare at me, her gray eyes blinking a little too fast. “Hardly.”
I nodded agreement and put my hands on the wheel. My mind felt a brief brush, as if someone had called my name. Just a hint and then it was gone.
“Can you do this?” she asked.
“Run the check on Samuel?”
“Yes.”
I leaned back in the driver’s seat. “I checked him before his prognosis became fatal. But I looked for something specific.”
“And you found it?”
“Not initially. Not until I knew just what to look for.”
“What did you find?”
I remained silent.
Her voice came out soft, certain. “You checked to see if he was like me?”
I didn’t move. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t acknowledge her question. It didn’t need an answer. I hadn’t really wanted her to feel so connected to Samuel or so threatened by his demise. There was no avoiding either.
She sat there for a moment. We both did, just staring out the front windshield. Then she wedged her purse under her arm and opened the door. “You’ll be here?”
“Right here. I won’t leave without you.”
With that, she headed across the street and into the rear entrance.
I knew I had pushed her. I had no choice. I could feel her on the edge, alone, battling consequences that had no precedence in her life. No precedence in the life of anyone she’d known. That type of disconnect was hard to deal with and had the potential to invite erratic response, sometimes madness. So far she’d handled it well. And while I felt responsible for Anne’s circumstances, she was no different than the rest because I was rushing everyone.
Decibel was searching for any information on the parasite.
Jez was checking for signs of the data tinkering the Consortium might have used to lure us out.
I had pushed Aisha and Marco into the same learning space I had Anne, one they weren’t ready to deal with. One they might never be ready to deal with.
Each of these people was a time bomb. Each ready to explode, given the wrong sequence of circumstances. None of them played well with others. If they all found out about each other at the same time, I was doomed. I had amassed lethal protégés left and right, and I was the last person on earth with the skills to guide them, much less keep them safe.
That left Shalim, who waited on the fringes for answers.
And Chaz—he was his own peculiar version of a time bomb.
I’d had almost no chance to save Samuel. His death warrant seemed sealed before I’d shown up at the warehouse. It hadn’t stopped me from trying. I wasn’t even sure that his stasis in a demon cell would even hold him alive long enough for a cure. My ability to affect a positive outcome for others was a little unrealistic.
Damned if I did. Damned if I didn’t.
Given the choice, I opted for the sin of commission, since the sin of doing nothing struck me as neutral and tepid. I could live with committing an act and getting it wrong. Doing nothing and having things go wrong was worthless.
***
The push tingled against my brain again, fluttered, and then wisped away. I closed my eyes and caught the drift of the sensation as it receded. I followed the vibration across the city, the telltale signature a butterfly on the breeze. A distinctive scent—Jez.
So had she decided to test the bond or had something happened to activate the link?
With nothing else to do but sit and wait for Anne to get back, I tested as well.
I brought Jez up in my mind’s eye, the look of her black hair, the dark-oak color of her eyes, the fresh scent of her youth with the energy to match. I pushed a thought, like the waft from a fan across a room. If her test was premeditated, she would get a hint of me in that breeze. If she had connected accidentally, she would feel only the stir of air.
I let the connection drop and waited.
The pain I received in response was instantaneous as the bond’s floodgates opened. My hand seared with a fire’s heat where Shalim had connected us both, the image of my master’s face grossly distorted with evil in a vision of Jez’s creation.
My reaction was equal to her response but on a completely different level. I had a thing or two to teach Jez about a cooperative bond. Not every interaction had to be an altercation. Not everyone was out to get you, even if the odds didn’t appear to be in your favor. And not every demon wanted to kill you.
She wasn’t the only one to struggle, and she wasn’t alone and isolated, as she wanted to believe. If she wanted to throw stones, then she needed a little time in the other person’s shoes. If she wasn’t up for empathy, then experience would have to suffice.
I reached deep and framed the memories of my first indoctrination into demon-fighting instruction. My limbs and legs had developed fleetness and agility, while my peripheral vision developed anticipation and alertness, all the result of my maneuvers through a small obstacle course to avoid Abraxas’s whip of fire. I was actually better than average at the course, surpassing several neophyte demons, and considered the memory semi-harmless.
I wrapped my images and threw them across the connection. It took some effort to dim our connection, but my experience and strength far exceeded hers.
Before I had a chance to wipe my thoughts, a vivid image of Brazko erupted before my eyes. Not a solid image but a violent, lucid one, lush with his anger and rage, layered with awe and fear. Not an image that matched my own, for what Brazko evoked in me was instantaneous calculation and strategy for fight and survival.
This was Jezrielle’s image of Brazko, her idea of threat and violence. Brazko was larger than reality with the flame, teeth, and claws of a monster. Shalim reappeared, darker, transparently evil in total black, the crushing strength of his grip and claws transferred to my skin with her impression.
Intending to target my fear with the image, she instead reflected her own. The scene twisted, not as the outcome had evolved in Shalim’s court, but with me pummeled by Brazko and hauled broken and bloody before Shalim to endure a wrath of fire and brimstone. How cliché.
I suppressed a laugh. The depictions were of demons from human literature and fairytales.
Then she followed with another quick shot. A woman curled on a floor, a child visible beneath her arm. An older man a few feet away, presumably her husband, his body positioned in a gross version of a question mark. The room shifted. An image of Moloch moved across the space, intersecting with the dark spattered walls. His claws dripped with black ooze. The distinct rumble of Shalim’s growl permeated the stillness. The total effect delivered in a gradation of gray to black, the overall image grainy and false. Not a physical memory of Jez’s but a view from pictures, meshed with a terrified imagination and her fears.
I clamped the connection shut.
Whatever her issues, this was not the way to play nicely with someone you were bonded to and couldn’t escape. She had no concept of my true demons, but I could give her a taste. She didn’t need to conjure falsehoods for me.
I closed my eyes and dredged my mind for the sensations and memories I’d worked hard to submerge. To bring them forward, I needed to feel the bruises, the raw sting of open cuts, and the deep aches of bones broken slowly. I swirled the sensations around in my mind and opened the gateway to Jez.
I didn’t bring forth the
picture of the cave before the stone rolled into place, permanently sealing me in for my death, because I hadn’t really seen it. One eye had been swollen shut and the other had been so caked in blood it was almost useless.
Instead I gave a brief image of the rocks that gouged my flesh and clubs that struck broken, swollen limbs and fingers. The long string of the Hunta tribe members lined in a gauntlet, my one-time saviors turned final executioners. Men, women, and children, their attacks almost stoic, funneled my progress up the steep slope of the mountain. They efficiently severed my feeble connection from their social network and secured my end as I lay in my filth on the dirt floor of my tomb.
I couldn’t see. Yet I was aware of the change from light to emptiness around me as the villagers maneuvered the stone into place. To say that the cave was black was sort of like saying night is dark. It’s a little underdone. I lay for a long time and waited for death to take me. It didn’t happen. The cuts and bruises on my body throbbed in a harsh drumbeat along my nerves. If I didn’t move, the nausea from several broken ribs and the broken arm died down. I would just lie in one spot, forever.
But then I heard things.
Quiet, sporadic slithers came from beyond my head while I embraced the dirt. Indistinct shuffles from unknown locations rebounded off the rock walls and confused my senses.
I crawled to the rock and leaned against the cold, rough surface. What had seemed small when I had landed on the floor of the cave was more than my height, more than my arm span and hopelessly beyond any energy I would have to dislodge it.
I slid facedown on the ground with a dry sob of panic. I’d never leave this cave. I wouldn’t survive, and no one would ever know. No one would ever care.
But Itzel had cared, and that was why I was here. I was fifteen years old, and because of her death, I deserved this. I didn’t kill her, but I couldn’t save her. My fate was to die here. If I tried, perhaps I could see her beautiful young smile before me while I died.
The Mark of Kane Page 20
