SkinThief

by Sonnet O'Dell

  Chapter Seventeen

  There is a difference between dreaming and unconsciousness—you never know your unconscious, but you always know when you’re dreaming. I was definitely dreaming. I came out from complete darkness, and I stood in a dark tunnel. There was no light at the end of it; it was a tunnel I had seen many times in my dreams. It stretched out behind me in the darkness, and as I stood with my back to it, I knew what was going to happen. I had had this dream before, many times. The cry of a bird made me cover my ears and turn to face the tunnel. A giant red bird, deep scarlet and glittering, was flapping its wings frantically in the small space, trying to fly toward me. I didn’t know what was beyond me, but the cries of the bird told me that’s where it was trying to go—it was trying to get to me. I’d never been afraid of birds, but this creature in my dreams frightened me. I don’t know what about it scared me; all I knew was that gazing upon it filled me with a spine-chilling, primal fear I didn’t understand. I kept my hands over my ears, trying to block out its cries as it flew ever closer to me.

  “What is that, pet?”

  Aram was standing by my side, and I definitely knew I was dreaming. Aram felt real, felt like he had before when he had entered into my dreams, separate from my consciousness. I uncovered my ears.

  “I don’t know. I can feel it; it’s coming for me, and I don’t know why. It’s always here, always here in my dreams. It frightens me.”

  Aram reached out and took my hand; he squeezed it tightly and pulled me away from the creature. He wrapped his arms around me and, pressed against his chest, I felt safer.

  “Then we must not let it get you this night.” He pulled me away from the tunnel, into the darkness, and through sheer force of will we were somewhere else. It was his room in the back of Dante’s, or a dream version of it. “I cannot be here long, Andra; it is too close to when I must sleep.” He swept me up and carried me to his bed; he gently tucked me in under the sheet and stroked my head. He took a deep breath, pressing my hair to his nose.

  “Why do you smell like blood, pet?”

  “I was hurt,” I said weakly. I closed my eyes, and it was like the whole scene played out on a little screen before us: my being thrown through the glass door, the shard of glass he’d punctured my shoulder with, and the screaming pain of it all. I had to cut it off before it could overwhelm me again. Aram stroked my head.

  “You should not put yourself in such danger,” he said, kissing my forehead. “You will break my heart.” I placed my hand on his chest where his heart was and felt no beat. He looked down at my hand, placing his over it.

  “You are warm enough for both of us,” he said, squeezing my fingers and laying my hand down by my side. He tucked the blanket tighter and kissed my lips.

  “Rest, pet. Sleep a little so that you can heal. I will keep your nightmares away for as long as I can.”

  “Promise?” My voice sounded like that of a small child, but I was too tired to care how I sounded to him.

  “I promise. Sleep.”

  I closed my eyes and slept. I didn’t dream again.

  * * * *

  When I woke, I felt like I had snakes roiling in my belly. I tried to sit up but could feel a tube in my nose pinning me back. I reached up my right hand to jerk it away but caught the IV that was plugged into it on the bed railing. My eyes were bleary with the long period of unconsciousness and then the sleep that had followed; my half-remembered dream threatened to reclaim me. I didn’t want to go back there, though, because I knew it was daytime and I would be alone. Until I came to this world, I had never believed that a dream could hurt me, but nothing was certain anymore.

  I started trying to sit up again and the back of the bed rose. I blinked, looking toward the end of the hospital bed, where there sat a blond doctor whose pinched face looked familiar. She was holding a small vile of something in her hand.

  “Back with us, Miss Farbanks?” she asked. Her voice resounded within my head, through my memory, and twanged on something I couldn’t quite bring to the surface. I croaked, a bare whisper of a sound. My throat was dry; I tried to lick my lips. They were chapped. I looked at the jug on the side table and then back at her. She was studying me curiously.

  “Water.” I coughed out the word like my lungs were full of dust and I needed to exhale it. She got up, placing the thing in her hand on the sheets by my feet, and fussed with the water pitcher. The test tube next to my feet was like the usual ones you saw at hospital labs. It was filled with blood, dark ruby but glittering strangely, like it was flushed with tiny specks of gold. A glass was thrust under my nose, and a colorful plastic straw bobbed in the water. I curled the fingers on my left hand; my arm felt heavy, but slowly I made it reach up and take the glass. I was not going to be fed like some invalid. The doctor moved back a step, surprised. I took a long drag through the straw, then pulled it from the glass with my teeth, spitting it onto the bed. I swallowed the cool, refreshing water down in great big gulps like it was life. I held the emptied glass up to her.

  “More.”

  She took the glass from me and refilled it.

  “You shouldn’t be able to use that arm,” she said, placing the glass back in my left hand; I sipped it a little more slowly this time. “The shard of glass you were stabbed with sliced a tendon; you shouldn’t even be able to move your fingers for at least a week or two.”

  “I take a lickin’ but keep on tickin’,” I said wryly. “Maybe it just wasn’t as bad as you thought.” I rested the glass gently on the hollow between my knees and pulled the tube off my face. It stung my nose as it came out, but I felt all the better for not having it there.

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do,” the doctor growled, losing all trace of her bedside manner. I ran my hand back into my hair; it was dry, and there was still some blood dried into it. My arm complained as I tried to raise it above my shoulder joint. My face pinched.

  “Does it hurt?” She was suddenly my doctor again and intensely worried about my health. She moved to examine me, but I pulled away from her.

  “I won’t be hailing any cabs for a while, so you’re going to have to call me one.”

  “What?” She blinked her big eyes at me.

  “A cab? A taxi? I’m discharging myself.”

  “I don’t advise that.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at me.

  “Then I will sign one of those ‘against medical advice’ forms.” She looked at me crossly until I started to pull on the IV in my arm. Her hand fluttered over my arm and carefully removed it, blotting the spot with a cotton pad. A red dot blossomed in the middle of the pad.

  “I’m going to get that tested, you know,” she said, nodding to the small vial of blood. I gathered from this that it had to be my blood in the vial. I didn’t even take a minute to register that my blood glittered like a bloody disco ball. I threw back the covers, and she snatched at it so that she didn’t lose it.

  “What do you think I’ll find when I do?” she asked me.

  “Your guess is as good as mine at this point, Doc.” I swung my legs out from the bed and put my weight onto them tentatively. My knees wobbled as I stood, so I kept a hand fastened to the bed. My duffle was next to the bed, a fresh set of clothes in it. God bless Magnus, who must have brought it here from my apartment.

  “I’d like to get dressed,” I said, smiling at the doctor over my shoulder. She raised her hand up to the curtain, pulling it aside.

  “I’ll get that form.” It swished closed behind her. I felt around my neck and found that my locket was still there. I sucked in a deep breath of relief; it meant I was still in the alternate world. I focused on the locket; it was at about fifty percent power, which meant I had maybe a day and a half of the grounding spell left. I rummaged through the bag, pulling out socks, panties, my boots, a faded pair of blue jeans, a bra, and a T-shirt that rea
d “Bomb Squad. If you see me running try to keep up.” I started at my feet and got my jeans on when I heard footsteps coming back toward me. I yanked at the hospital smock thing to get it to come off as the curtain swished open and closed again.

  “Stop,” the doctor cried. I froze, and the resonance of her voice finally made me remember who she was. She was the same doctor from the emergency room, the one who had seen me vanish at sunup. I cursed silently under my breath. I felt an indent on the bed behind me, and her fingers started running over the spaces of skin on my back.

  “What?” I asked, frightened.

  “There are no scars.” Her voice was filled with bewilderment.

  “That’s a good thing though, right?” I said, confused.

  “You had eighteen shards of glass in your back, and not a single scar. That’s beyond miraculous, Ms. Farbanks. No human can heal this fast.”

  “Maybe I’m just lucky,” I said and wriggled away from her fingers. I kept my back to her, putting my bra on, and she stomped around to the front of me. She whacked the strap down on my left shoulder, where there was healing tissue; she prodded it, and I jerked away from her in response.

  “This is a week’s worth of healing in just a night. It’s not possible.”

  I looked down at the T-shirt in my lap. I couldn’t look her in the face; she was speaking to some of my deepest fears about my changing body.

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Look, can I finish getting dressed? Please?”

  She backed off and let me pull the T-shirt over my head, and I got my arms through with just a little difficulty on my left side. I turned, and she passed me over the form and a pen. I signed on the dotted line.

  “I called your boyfriend; he’s coming to pick you up.” I grimaced.

  “I asked you to call me a cab.” I was more than a little perturbed that she had gone and gotten Magnus deeper involved in this.

  “I know what you asked, but I think it’s better if you go home and rest. He was so concerned for you—I know he’ll make you go straight home.” She took a step closer to me and lifted my locket up so she could look at it properly. I pulled back, forcing her to drop it or choke me. “He was so insistent that as soon as you were patched up, we had to put it back on. Is it some kind of healing spell or something?”

  “Or something,” I said, getting very tired of the doctor’s interfering attitude. She took the signed form from me and clipped it to the notes that hung from a chart at the end of my bed. She looked at them, a deeply intrigued and puzzled expression never leaving her face. She was as curious about what was going on with my body as I was. I took a deep breath and pushed it out again.

  “About those tests you intend to do on my blood?” She looked at me suspiciously. “Don’t you need my permission?”

  The doctor stumbled over her words. I had her cornered, and she knew it. I didn’t need a blood test, and if someone else were to call into question why she’d had it done, she could end up in a lot of trouble.

  “Look, I won’t tell on you, but I have a condition before I give my permission.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to know what you find.” She looked at me skeptically and then extended her hand.

  “Deal.” I shook her hand and gave her my home number so she could call me when the tests came back. I finished dressing, getting my boots on my feet and picking up the duffle. Magnus must have taken what was left of my clothes back to my apartment; I was probably going to have to wash blood out of another pair of jeans. I wasn’t looking forward to that.

  The doctor walked me down to the entrance, trying subtly to get me to agree to either stay or go straight home and rest, but I just smiled at her and didn’t commit to anything. I went to stand outside; the sun was bright today, and it was starting to melt the snow that still clung to the ground, desperate for winter to stay as it was. I hoped it was a sign that better weather was on the way.

  Magnus pulled up to the curb in his battered old brown Ford and honked the horn even though he’d pulled up right next to me. I grimaced as the sound of it rang through my ears painfully. He jumped out the driver’s side and took my bag from me.

  “Hey baby,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek, “how you feeling?” He threw the bag into the backseat and escorted me around to the passenger side. I climbed in while he held the door for me. He even stayed there, helping me to get the seatbelt into place. I grumbled at being treated like a little kid getting to ride in the big-girl seat for the first time.

  “I feel just fine, thanks,” I said through gritted teeth.

  He gave me a pleased smile, slammed the door and raced around the bonnet to get back in on his side. We pulled out and headed down the hill.

  “I’m glad you feel better, but the doctor said you still need plenty of rest, so how about I take you home, we can tuck you up in bed and I can make you soup.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said, and he looked very pleased until I finished my sentence, “but I’m going back to work. Drop me at the police station.”

  “No,” he said and focused on the world through the windscreen. I looked at him angrily.

  “I’m going back to work, Magnus. The case isn’t over—I need to finish it or I don’t get paid.”

  “Cassandra, you just got seriously injured, stabbed through the shoulder,” he said. I could tell he was trying hard to keep the anger and sadness out of his voice. “There was so much blood when they got you to the ER, they had to lay you on your side in case the glass got pushed any deeper. I think the police will understand if you take a couple of days off.”

  “A couple of days and Petrovich could kill even more people. Magnus, I’m fine. Better than fine—I’ve not got a single scar. It all healed overnight.”

  I could tell from the set of his jaw that he didn’t believe me. I lifted the back of the T-shirt and let him get a quick look at my back.

  “That’s not possible. You should be worried about this, Cassandra—you shouldn’t heal like that.”

  “I shouldn’t but I did, so I am going back to work.”

  “No. Please, baby, for me, rest. I don’t want to see you getting hurt again.”

  I growled and smacked my fist on the dashboard.

  “You’re not listening to me...”

  “No, I’m not, because you don’t seem to know what’s good for you and what’s not.”

  “You are not my father, Magnus, you are my boyfriend, and you do not get to decide these things for me. I need to finish this. I need to collect my fee. I have bills to pay too.” I was trying to be reasonable, and his face seemed to smooth out just a little.

  “I’ve been thinking about that. You should move in with me; then you wouldn’t have to work at all.”

  I stared at him, stunned. Not only that he’d asked me something like that right now, but that he was naive enough to think I would just say yes and the fight would be over.

  “Magnus,” I said, shocked that I had to state the obvious, “you know that wouldn’t work, not with my situation.”

  “We can find a way, a way to keep you here permanently. Your mother found a way to stay there; you can find a way to stay here if you look hard enough.”

  “What makes you think if I could find a way to stay put, I would choose this weird-ass side?” He looked at me, shocked, and I put my hands over my mouth. I hadn’t meant it to come out like that. Saying it like that sounded really harsh.

  “Me,” he said, and his voice lost all emotion. “I thought you would want to be here with me.” I tried to backpedal hard.

  “I do, Magnus. You know how I feel about you.”

  “Then why won’t you listen to me?” He smacked his hands against the wheel in what I knew had to be frustration.

  “Because you’re wrong,” I said, growling low. “You were so
proud of me when I started my own business, and now where has all that support gone?”

  “I didn’t realize how dangerous it would be for you to work these cases without real support. I don’t like it. I don’t want to lose you, not when I can stop it.”

  “I don’t need to be protected.”

  “Yes you do,” he shouted, thumping the steering wheel again, “from danger, from that vampire—but mostly, it seems, from yourself.”

  I shook my head and gave up on trying to convince him. I unsnapped my seatbelt, and he looked at me out of the corner of his eyes like I was absolutely crazy.

  “Pull over, I want to get out.” I grabbed the door handle to find that he had used the automatic lock from his side. I growled and banged at the frame, leaving a little dent in the metal.

  “No, you are going home to rest.”

  “Magnus, you will pull this car over right now, or God help me, I will stall the thing and get out anyway.”

  Magnus kept his eyes forward and didn’t show any sign that he was going to slow down. I lost my temper and smashed my fist down on the dashboard, focusing my power behind it. The car stopped, the hood blew up against the windshield, smoke rose from the engine and the car rolled to a stop. I opened my door and got out. Magnus was out of his side just as fast, surveying the damage to his car.

  “Damn it, Cassandra. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Call triple A! I don’t care. I’m going to work.” And I marched off, not even looking back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was pure silence when I walked into Homicide. I got the impression that the story of my trip through the glass door had been circulating. Hamilton looked especially surprised to see me and was the first to my side.