She went for the heavy candlestick holders just like I’d trained her to.
I opened the door.
Standing on my porch was Tansy’s brother and my least favorite municipal employee, Vincent Wick.
“I’ve got something of yours,” Vincent said.
I lifted my hand to eye level. “This thing of mine, is it about this tall, with rust-colored hair, and found somewhere it shouldn’t be?”
Vincent leaned over to look past me at Zoey, who was clutching two candlestick holders in a boxer’s stance. Zoey and Vincent Wick had never met, but each knew about the other. He was so creepy that I hoped to delay their first interaction as long as possible.
“Close but not quite,” Vincent said. “We should talk in private.”
I gave Zoey the hand gesture to back down. “At ease, soldier. I’m going outside for a minute to talk to Mr. Wick.” I winked at her. “Mr. Vincent Wick.”
She nodded to let me know she understood who he was, and I went outside.
“I’m sorry,” Vincent said, his voice deep and serrated in the darkness. His apology was as unexpected as it was unsettling.
“No. I’m the one who’s sorry,” I gushed, only it wasn’t me talking. Tansy said in her gravelly voice, “Oh, Vinnie, this rift between us has gone on for too long.”
I glanced down to find myself gripping Vincent Wick’s hairy forearm.
I continued gushing, “I’ve missed you so much, Vinnie. It’s lonely on the estate without you dropping by like the good ol’ days.”
Vincent yanked his arm away. “Enough of your parlor tricks, witch. I’ve got your friend in a burlap sack in my van, and he’s not breathing so good.”
My skin prickled all over. Vincent Wick gave me the creeps at the best of times, but I’d never heard something so chilling.
I’ve got your friend in a burlap sack in my van, and he’s not breathing so good.
Chapter 27
Vincent Wick resembled a movie gangster in the darkness of the quiet street, with his angled features lit dramatically by street lamps.
His van gave me an equally bad vibe as I approached. And for good reason. The last time I’d gotten too close to his rear bumper, a booby-trap device had sent enough electricity through my body to run a hydroponics greenhouse for three days.
Vincent opened the back doors of the van. “Ladies first.” He waved me in.
I held back and waved him in first. “Age before beauty.” The words had come from the ghost within me.
“Tansy used to say that all the time when we were growing up.” He poked me on the shoulder. “Is my sister really in there?”
“What do you think?”
He looked down his hawk-like nose at me, his dark eyes beady under the streetlamp. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? You collect dead people. Like trinkets.”
Tansy took control of my arm. I lifted my hand, braced my middle finger against my thumb, and then thwacked Vincent right between the eyes.
He inhaled sharply.
“Dung beetle,” I said. That was Tansy’s childhood nickname for him.
“Hey, now,” he growled, rubbing the red spot above the bridge of his nose. “This ain’t how I wanted to spend my Sunday evening.”
“But here we are, so let’s see what you’ve got.” I climbed into the back of the van.
The interior of the vehicle was a miniature version of Vincent Wick’s control center underneath his office at the waste management station. He didn’t know I’d seen his secret lair, because I’d been there in spectral form. On the floor, illuminated by the eerie blue light of a dozen screens and monitors, was something inside a burlap sack.
I knew what the lump was even before I pulled open the sack.
A red fox. Curled on its side limply, its breathing ragged. Injured. Like he’d been that day in the forest, except worse.
I didn’t even ask what had happened. It didn’t matter. Now was the time for me to use my gift.
I put my hands on the animal’s fur and willed my healing energy to flow through to him.
Focus the way you would when threading a needle, I heard my aunt’s voice in my mind. Steady both of your sides, pull them in sync, and let go of everything else. Let go of every emotion and memory that doesn’t help.
My fingers didn’t crackle. They barely fizzed. Had I tried to heal before I was charged and ready? I pulled my fingers from the red fur, pressed my palms together, and closed my eyes. I heard the metallic clunk-clunk of Vincent Wick closing the van’s doors, and then the sounds of his breathing. His nose had a slight whistle. The left nostril. I knew without opening my eyes because Tansy knew. Vinnie had a deviated septum.
I let the whistle of his nose fill my head without fighting it. I amplified the sound, so that it was a rushing wind, white noise to aid my concentration.
Something brittle cracked within me, like ice breaking on a winter pond. Finally, the blue fire manifested between my palms, cool yet hot, like cinnamon candies swirled in mint ice cream. Sweet and liquid, like nectar from the petals of flameweed, Tansy noted.
Holding focus carefully, I cracked open my eyelids and carried the healing energy, cupped in my hands, over to the fox.
“This makes us even,” I whispered. “I don’t know what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into now, but I don’t care. Don’t bother trying to talk your way out of this one. You’ll be packing your bags first thing in the morning.”
The blue fire flowed downward between my fingers like melting ice cream and then guttered like a drowning candle flame. I shook and cupped my hands. No more healing energy.
Why wasn’t it working? I’d practiced dozens of times with Zinnia. I was holding my focus, threading the needle, balancing both sides, even holding the tip of my tongue in a sharp point the way she’d coached me.
I heard a voice in my head. A cut flower cannot grow.
I growled at Tansy’s spirit. Hey, thanks for being my personal gardening Yoda, but does it look like I’m arranging a bouquet?
Vincent’s hand landed on my shoulder like a chunk of sod. “We don’t have time for second thoughts about your witcher-i-doo techniques. Do what needs to be done before the creature expires inside my van.”
I ran my useless fingers through the fox’s red fur. “What happened to him, anyway? I can’t locate the injury site.” I gently rolled him over and check his flank in the area where he’d needed the stitches four days earlier. Half the stitches were gone, chewed or plucked out. The wound wasn’t bleeding, but the skin didn’t look so healthy, either. The partly healed flesh was puffy and asymmetrically swollen.
Tansy’s spirit had me lean forward, sniffing the wound. Sickly sweet, she noted. Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It was a common yet serious infection.
“He’s got an infection,” I told Vincent. “And a burning fever.”
Either my father hadn’t followed the veterinarian’s aftercare instructions, or the pills and creams hadn’t worked on his human form. Or my magic was to blame. I’d forced him to shift while injured. Now he was very ill, and my powers weren’t doing anything to help.
Panic rose up in my throat like a wash of acid.
If he dies, it’s my fault. If he dies, I’m letting down Zoey.
Then Tansy gave me the ghostly equivalent of a slap across the face. She calmly showed me exactly which plants we needed to combat his infection. Unfortunately, even if I’d had the herbs, I didn’t have the time to prepare the ointment. And the veterinary clinic was likely closed for the day.
I asked Vincent, “Did you find him like this?”
“Not exactly,” Vincent said.
“What did you do?”
“He may have been shocked.”
I whipped my head around to glare at the sharp-featured older man. “He may have been shocked?” I trembled at the memory of my own blast that had come courtesy of Vincent Wick. “Why would you electrocute a harmless little fox?”
“Calm yourself down,” Vincent said. His command h
ad the exact opposite effect.
“Tell me everything,” I growled.
“I was out at Tansy’s place, finishing up some plant disposal, and I found this critter inside the house, using Tansy’s computer.”
“So you electrocuted him? With what? Was her computer booby-trapped like your stupid van?”
Vincent lowered his head as though shamed. He slowly pulled a gun-like device from his jacket pocket.
“With this,” he said. “It was only supposed to stun him, but he was sick. You said so yourself. He’s got a fever and an infection. He was already sick from something else before I shocked him.”
“Then you brought him to me,” I said. “How’d you know he was mine?”
Vincent lifted his chin with unmistakable pride. “I’ve got access to every database in this town, and then some. The most recent hit for a fox was your visit to a veterinarian.”
With that mystery solved, I turned my attention to the fox. He was sprawled limply on the rubber-matted floor of the van. His fever was so strong, the heat radiated through his fur. His paw pads were burning up. I scooped him up, using the bottom of my sweater as a sling. He hardly weighed anything.
Vincent’s nose whistled.
I tried charging my hands and applying my healing energy to the fox, but it still wasn’t working.
“Maybe it’s because of the electricity from your Taser,” I said, thinking out loud. “This power I have in my hands is specialized for battle injuries. Cuts, and bone breaks, and arrowhead wounds, and the occasional limb detachment.”
“You can reattach limbs?”
“Let’s find out, dung beetle.” Tansy’s spirit twisted my mouth into a wicked grin. “You go first. Chop your arm off.”
He gave me a sidelong look. “Worm? Is that you?”
“She’s around,” I said. “You two must have had an interesting relationship.”
Almost as interesting as my relationship with my father. I looked down at the fox cradled in my sweater. He was still breathing, but his eyes hadn’t opened.
“We need to get him to a medical center,” I said. “Now.”
“Who is he to you?”
There seemed to be no point in lying. If Vincent didn’t already know, surely he would soon enough.
“My father,” I said.
Vincent swore an oath and got to his feet. “Why didn’t you say so?” He shot past me to the front seats of the van and started the engine.
“Zara, find something to hang onto,” he called back over his shoulder. “We’ll be breaking some traffic bylaws.” A few jostling movements later, he added, “And possibly the laws of physics.”
Chapter 28
Where do you bring a supernatural creature in need of medical treatment?
The Department of Water and Magic, of course.
We approached the DWM via a different underground entrance than I’d used previously, but I recognized the security equipment at the entrance, as well as the female voice coming out of the speakers.
Vincent Wick was doing a lousy job of convincing the female voice that we had legitimate business at the DWM. And the more agitated and demanding he got, the worse he communicated.
I asked him, “Don’t you have an access card?”
“I don’t work for the DWM,” he said. “I’m an independent contractor.”
“Can’t you just hack into their system and get us in? I thought you were some sort of top-level hacker, with access to everything.” It had certainly seemed that way when I’d spied on him in his underground lair.
“Patience,” he barked at me.
The limp fox on my lap twitched at the loudness of Vincent’s voice. We were both up front, in the passenger seat. I had moved up when Vincent’s driving had threatened a new wave of injuries.
“I’ll be patient if you’ll be competent,” I muttered under my breath. Why had he brought us there if he couldn’t get us in? I should have called Chet. I should have run next door rather than staying in Wick’s van.
Vincent shot me an evil look before turning back to the security panel.
“Connect me with your supervisor,” he barked into the speaker. “I demand to speak to someone on the A unit.”
A familiar female voice poured out of the speaker like cool, rolling fog. “It’s past ten o’clock at night on a Sunday, sir. As far as you’re concerned, I am the A unit. Me and my curvy buttocks, which you’re welcome to—”
“Charlize!” I leaned over to the driver’s side of the van and called out to her in front of Vincent’s chest. “Charlize, it’s me, Zara.”
The speakers crackled with static. “Zara!” The cheerful pronunciation of my name was followed by a sibilant hiss—probably her gorgon hair snakes getting excited.
Charlize had taken an immediate liking to me when we’d met. I had gone the other way, despising everything about her, especially how other people found her dumb jokes funny. But ever since our boozy slumber party at Chessa’s cottage, my feelings toward her had mellowed. There were times, like now, when I actually liked her, and appreciated that she and Chloe considered me an honorary sister. Their other triplet sister, Chessa, had been neutral toward me, which was fine. I would take neutral over having my skull used as a candy dish.
Charlize asked over the speakers, “Are you the one who’s hurt?” She sounded genuinely worried.
“Not me,” I answered quickly. Vincent Wick had been vague when demanding access, so I couldn’t blame her for the misunderstanding. “The sick patient is my father,” I said. My throat clenched up, making it hard to get the next words out. “He might be dying.”
The red lights on the gate in front of us turned green.
“You should have said so in the first place,” she replied with kindness and professionalism. “Take the vehicle up to Bay Five. I’ll have the medics waiting. You’re in luck, actually. Some of the A unit are here.”
“Good,” Vincent Wick said gruffly.
I settled back into the passenger seat just as Vincent’s sister took over my speech. “The phrase you’re looking for, dung beetle, is thank you. Why not spread a little sunshine to help your relationships grow? It would be a fine complement to the fertilizer you’re always spewing.”
“Stop doing that,” he growled.
“I would stop her if I could,” I said, which wasn’t true at all.
Once we reached Bay Five, the medics carefully loaded the sick patient onto a gurney. The limp red fox was so tiny on the large gurney; he looked like a mere throw pillow on a king-sized bed. We could have fit two dozen foxes on the gurney.
“He’s so small,” I said, to nobody in particular. My eyes were burning.
Vincent Wick answered, “Those gurneys are larger than average, and reinforced. Each unit costs a small fortune. Look at that smooth movement. They roll with an electrical power assist.”
“Very smooth,” I agreed weakly. When you have a sick family member, they look tiny and helpless no matter the size of gurney.
A glass door slid open, and the gurney wheeled away with an electric hum, unguided by human hand.
The attending doctor was a woman whose lavender eyes were even more striking thanks to the rest of her face being concealed behind a green mask.
She introduced herself. “I’m Dr. Ankh, and I’ll be looking after your friend.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” I said, my eyes on the receding gurney. “Go. Save him.”
“I will,” she answered confidently.
“Why are you still standing here wasting time?” I glared at her.
The strange purple eyes blinked. “Since he’s incapacitated, I’ll need to ask you some admission questions. Are you his designated next of kin?”
“Yes.” Short answers only, Zara. Let’s get through this quickly.
“And what is the patient’s legal name?”
“Rhys Quarry. He’s my father.”
Her light-purple eyes opened wider. “Can you prove this?”
I stared
at her, transfixed by those strange lavender eyes as much as I was stumped by the question. How could I prove the helpless, rust-furred creature was my father? He was currently a fuzzy forest creature. He wasn’t wearing clothes, let alone pants with pockets in which to carry his driver’s license.
“I guess I can’t prove it,” I answered. “Does it matter?”
The corners of Dr. Ankh’s lavender eyes crinkled up like a smile. Had she really said her last name was Ankh, as in the Egyptian symbol for long life?
“It’s not important,” she said with a lilting, singsong melody. “He appears to have an infection. Who is his primary care physician?”
“Dr. Katz.”
“I’m not familiar with that doctor. Does she work for the division?”
“Dr. Katz is a male, and he’s a veterinarian in Wisteria.” I quickly explained how I had brought the fox into the vet clinic on Wednesday for treatment of a wound.
“How did your father receive this wound?”
“He says it was from a flying monster. A bird who was growling and had sharp talons.”
She blinked rapidly. “There’s been another bird attack?”
“Honestly, I think that was just something he made up. We have a complicated history. He probably inflicted the wound himself. It was one of his scams. He played the victim, so of course I had to rescue him and then take him in. All so he could turn my whole house against me, literally and metaphorically.”
“What an intriguing relationship.” Dr. Ankh’s lavender eyes deepened in color, becoming burgundy. “This is what happens when two kinds mingle indiscriminately. It’s the children who suffer. The offspring. They always suffer in the ensuing complications.” She watched me with unblinking intensity. “I have so many questions.”
“Save it for your medical journals,” I snapped. “Would you please go save him now?”
The burgundy of her irises turned to a deep, dark scarlet. Barely perceptible, I heard the word “mutt.” Or maybe I just imagined it.
With a more civil tone, I said, “Please, Dr. Ankh, get my father patched up, and I promise you can ask me all the questions you want.”
Watchful Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries Book 4) Page 20
