by Black, C. I.
Heck, from the power and light that had poured from the woman’s mouth, half of the town had seen the transfer.
He struggled to concentrate, but the woman’s soul fought against him, not knowing it was him making her numb and drowsy. She thought it was hypothermia. That at least helped. It made her weaker and easier for him to take over. But it didn’t solve the root of the problem.
Which was the complete loss of all his common sense.
It was the only explanation for whatever had compelled him to choose saving her instead of fighting his assailant. He couldn’t have done both. But when he’d transferred into the woman he’d been met with so much more than he’d anticipated.
The cut in her shoulder was insignificant to the cancer consuming her. And above it all, her strength of will threatened to subdue him. It took everything he had to divert a small portion of his soul magic from healing this new body to overpowering her consciousness.
Concentrating on the snow stinging his hands, he used the pain to anchor himself within her. He mentally boxed her up until she was contained and asleep, whispering to her that what she’d seen and experienced was all a dream. He could hold that for a few hours. After that, she’d wake to discover herself a prisoner in her own body and what she’d thought were dreams, were in fact reality. But he wouldn’t allow it to come to that.
He pushed up to his hands and knees... her hands and knees, and studied his surroundings. He stood on an unkempt riverbank on the edge of a fenced-in industrial yard. It was the likeliest place to find a car, since he wasn’t going to risk returning to the bridge.
Marching through the snow, he slipped through a break in the fence and stepped into a storage yard filled with long rows of rusting cargo crates piled two and three high. Shadows filled the pathways, giving ample coverage for him as well as anyone who wished him ill.
And there was definitely someone out there who wished him ill. It was only a matter of time before his assailant discovered where he’d emerged from the river, and that made haste essential.
He jogged down the closest path to what he hoped was the front of the property, scanning for trouble and a working vehicle. But after a minute, his breath burned in his chest and he had to slow down. He wasn’t healing fast enough, and his soaked clothes weren’t helping. His usually rapid ability had diminished to a level that barely sustained him.
The woman had been right when she’d told him she didn’t have to justify her suicide to him. Regardless of whether she’d killed herself tonight or not, she would die soon. Unless, of course, he remained inside her.
If he did, his soul magic would cure her cancer within four or five hours... along with the possibility that she’d go crazy and he’d become soul sick. It wasn’t likely; usually it took days or months, but to have it happen within hours wasn’t impossible.
At the end of the row lay an open, well-lit area. Hesitating in the shadows, he glanced around. The fence was taller here, with a gate wide enough for a transport truck. It was open, and beyond lay a road, void of any traffic. Beside the entrance sat a small security station, no more than a shack with a window. Light flickered within and noise from a television blared deafeningly through the thin walls. A few feet from the shack was a beat-up white hatchback.
There was no sign of anyone else around. Hunter stepped into the open area, sauntered to the hatchback, and tested the latch on the driver’s side door.
Unlocked.
How convenient.
He loved the human fallacy that if it was old no one would steal it.
Getting in, he hotwired the engine and drove out of the yard. The closest point of contact for a member of the Royal Coterie was almost four hours away in Newgate. The woman he possessed didn’t have that kind of time. Well, she did if he intended to kill her afterward, which would possibly be a blessing to her.
It wouldn’t be for him. He might be the Prince’s Assassin, but he’d lost the taste for killing humans centuries ago, particularly innocents who became involved in dragon business because of his mistakes.
Which meant Memorial General for a new, uninhabited body, preferably male, and while there were funeral homes closer to this end of town, he couldn’t guarantee they’d have a John Doe lying around. Of course, there was no guarantee the hospital would have a John Doe in its morgue either, but the odds were better.
This was such a disaster. Hunter didn’t even know who’d attacked him. Although if he had to guess it was probably one of Nero’s or Zenobia’s flunkies. The woman he possessed might have seen whoever it was—
No, he wasn’t possessing just some woman. Even if he was only with her for the next twenty minutes he could in the very least learn her identity. He drew her name from her consciousness. A-nay-ah.
Her essence poured through the connection he’d made and he scrambled to sever the flow. She hated her name, no one could pronounce it. But her mother had loved that one quarter of herself that was Greek, honored her connection to that ancient society. She’d become a professor of Greek mythology, married a good Greek man, and named her daughter after an Amazon warrior—
He shoved the rest of Anaea’s essence back, shaken by the strength of her will even when she was asleep. He wasn’t going to do that again, not even to find out who’d attacked him.
Stopping at a red light, he glanced around the empty intersection. No sign of trouble, but the roads before him and to the left curved sharply up around snow-draped hills. If anyone was coming, he’d have little time before they were on top of him.
He squeezed the steering wheel, testing his new vessel’s grip while fighting the urge to gun the car and draw unwanted attention to himself. Anaea’s body was less than desirable. It astounded him that she could function while so weak, making him all the more aware of what he’d lost. Damn, he was going to miss his old body, miss its strength, even if it was only human.
Mother of All, he needed a new job. Collecting Saber’s soul for supposed treason should have been an easy contract, but someone had tipped Saber off and the hunt had lasted months instead of days.
At least the medallion with Saber’s soul in it hadn’t been lost in the river. Bully for one good thing coming out of this mess. Saber could be reborn and become a pain in Hunter’s ass again in another couple hundred years.
The light changed green. He urged the car up the hill. Not too fast. Don’t draw attention. People were looking for him and with so few cars on the road at this hour a speeding vehicle would draw interest. It was only ten minutes to the hospital. He’d practiced being unnoticed in the human world for almost two thousand years. He could handle ten more minutes. No matter how much he wanted out of this body.
* * *
At the hospital, he bypassed the emergency entrance. With his appearance, he was sure he’d get swarmed by nurses and rushed through triage, even if he was gaining strength by the minute. It was after one in the morning and the main entrance was locked, so he continued around to a side door of the four-story structure, avoiding the construction scaffolds covering the massive sagging and stained building.
The snow in front of the door had been packed down and an ice-filled metal bucket sat precariously on a drift against the wall. Yellow and white cigarette butts dotted the ice in the container.
If bad human habits held true, the door would be unlocked so the smokers could get back in. Unlike many dragons, Hunter hadn’t completely embraced human behavior, just enough to hide among them. But a smart drake still knew as much as he could about it, as baffling as it was.
Besides, who was he to argue? He’d smoked, too, for a good hundred years. It had made him feel more like the fire drake he’d been before, puffing small clouds of smoke from his nostrils and hissing it out between clenched teeth. But the thrill had worn off and he was left with the bitter reminder that the smoke would never be of his own creation ever again. Not since the Great Scourge so many years ago, when the last of the natural human sorcerers had banded together against his kind.
He tried th
e door. Not locked. It opened into a narrow hall, and at the end lay a wider, brighter corridor. He eased to the intersection and glanced around.
Laughter to his right made him draw back. Two nurses left a room one door down and headed away from him. Smokers would take the exit closest to their staff room, and usually near that was a storage room where he’d find scrubs and physicians’ coats.
He slipped around the corner, reading the labels on the doors and finding the storage room. Inside were metal shelves filled with mundane supplies; anything specifically medical was kept in more secure closets. He peeled off his still damp sweater and jeans, quickly noting Anaea’s slim figure and plain bra and panties before looking away—it wasn’t polite to stare when a lady wasn’t awake to blush.
Everything about the woman he possessed screamed sense and practicality. A warm sweater, jeans that were thick enough to keep out the winter’s chill, and winter boots with rubber soles to protect against slipping. Even her choice to kill herself had been practical. Given the option, he’d pick a quick death over a long, slow diminishing one, too.
For a fleeting moment, he wondered if she’d been less practical prior to her illness. From his quick glance, he knew she’d done everything she could to destroy the cancer. It showed in every aspect of her body: noticeable ribs, elbows and wrists just a little too bony, and a red puckering scar peeking from the edge of her bra line. In spite of that, he couldn’t deny she was beautiful. Even as a human, she would have caught his eye.
He could have really liked her. Maybe he could still get to know her. She had a few months left, if she didn’t kill herself first. After he returned to the Dragon Court with Saber’s soul in the medallion, he could come back and visit her. Just because he didn’t tend to have trysts with humans didn’t mean he couldn’t, although there were laws concerning how much could be revealed and how long the relationship could last.
He shoved her clothes to the back of a bottom shelf, put on a set of green scrubs, and threw on a lab coat. Grabbing a larger set of scrubs, he left the linen room and looked in the next door, the room where he’d seen the nurses exit.
Sure enough, it was a staff room. His luck held and it was empty. He chose the combination lock on the nearest locker, twirled the dial, and listened for the clicks that released it. Inside, he found a purse and took enough money for a taxi along with a bobby pin to pick the key lock on his emergency supplies locker at the train station. With that done, he headed to the basement to find the morgue.
* * *
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, revealing a long, bright corridor, just like all the others in the hospital. A sign said the morgue was down the hall and to his right, and Hunter headed in the direction indicated, the rubber soles on his boots squeaking on the worn linoleum floor.
He turned the corner. The door at the end of the hall swung open and a man in a long black coat stepped through. A fedora shadowed his face and all Hunter could see of him was a pale chin and the hint of thin lips.
Adrenaline burst through Hunter and he sucked in a calming breath. There was nothing to indicate this man was trouble. And yet, there was nothing to suggest otherwise. Merely an instinct honed over hundreds of years.
Hunter didn’t need to look for a door. He’d already scanned the hall when he’d first entered and there were none. Which meant no escape but forward or back.
The man gave no sign that he noticed Hunter. He kept walking, his heels clicking on the floor.
Another burst of adrenaline made Hunter twitch and pain shot from the back of his head to his eyes. He stifled a gasp and stared at the man, searching for signs of assault. Those few dragons who had earth magic strong enough for an attack needed a gesture or word to focus it.
But the man’s hands hung at his sides and his mouth was closed. He wasn’t casting anything. Which meant the pain in Hunter’s head could only have originated from within. Anaea was waking, and much sooner than expected. Hunter needed to get to the morgue and make the transfer, but he was practically defenseless and he had a bad feeling about the stranger.
Just a few more feet and he’d be within reach.
Anaea’s consciousness pressed against his and he could sense her groggy confusion. She wasn’t yet aware of her situation, a prisoner in her own body, but she would be soon.
Hunter picked up his pace. The pressure in his head increased, drawing more of his concentration. And while the stranger in black was still a potential threat, he hadn’t done anything, yet. Maybe luck was on his side again and there was nothing to worry about.
As they passed each other, the man seized Hunter’s wrist. Hunter dropped the extra scrubs and jumped back but Anaea’s body wasn’t fast enough to avoid the grab or strong enough to break it.
The stranger hissed something in ancient Egyptian and sharp pain lanced up Hunter’s arm.
Anaea pounded in his head... her head. Her fear grew, filling his thoughts with cold, burning panic. She knew she was trapped. She screamed and clawed at his will power.
Hunter jerked his arm, but the man’s grip was strong, like iron around his thin, feminine wrist. Damn this body. The brute strength he’d become accustomed to was no longer available, and he didn’t have time to search his memory for those years when he’d studied martial arts. It had been so long ago, and he’d never thought he’d need them. Not a Crusader like him. But now he needed to know how to fight in her weaker body, and he had no clue how to do that.
But she did. She had to. He delved into her wild thoughts, tapping into her knowledge of combat, what little there was. But before he could do anything, she poured into him, unknowingly taking advantage of their increased connection.
He fought to contain her, but couldn’t. Her will was too strong, wild with panic and fury and determination. If her cancer had been a man, it would have been long dead and buried, probably in dozens of little pieces. She had a will unlike any he’d encountered before.
The door at the end of the hall opened and another man in black strode in. He barked words, also in Egyptian, and bullets of ice materialized before his outstretched hand.
Hunter struggled against the first man’s grip. A fight against one drake mage while in a body that had yet to connect to whatever magical potential it had was difficult enough, but two was suicide. And if he didn’t contain Anaea’s consciousness they’d both be dead.
CHAPTER 3
Anaea screamed. Her body was numb and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make it obey her commands. A fog pressed against her senses and wrapped about her, freezing her in place. She felt disembodied within herself, like she was floating through a dream, simply watching.
And herself was in danger.
Some man held her arm and another threatened her from down the hall. Somehow she knew she was in a hospital basement, but had no idea how she got there. She beat at the fog again and again. It swirled, thickening where she pushed. She clawed and kicked, and heard herself curse. No. It wasn’t her. There was someone else in the fog with her.
It was a dream, all a dream.
More like a nightmare. She struggled against it, regardless of how hopeless the situation was and whether it was even real or not.
Something nicked her side. Whoever was in the fog with her gasped, and a sliver of light sliced open the miasma. This had to be her chance, and she shoved through.
Her side stung, and the man had a bruising grip on her wrist. He squeezed, sending lightning shooting up her arm and across her chest. With a scream, Anaea realized she was back in control of her body. She rammed her fingers into her assailant’s eyes. He let go and she stumbled back.
Down the hall! Look!
She glanced at the second assailant. Tiny white balls—they looked like ice—shot toward her. This was a horrifying dream. It had to be. But even knowing it was one, her heart still raced.
She twisted sideways, but wasn’t fast enough getting out of the way. The balls nicked her arm, five sharp slices. Her fingers went numb
and slick heat welled around the wounds.
The first man seized her wrist again and jerked her forward. She stumbled and contorted her body to the side, twirling him around as the next barrage of white bullets slammed into his back. He sputtered and sagged, collapsing on the floor, and she ran, knowing he was dead.
But they were in a hospital, weren’t they? Maybe her attacker had a chance at being resuscitated.
No, he didn’t. It was too late for him. It would be too late for her if she didn’t keep running.
More bullets hit the wall by her head as she scrambled around the corner. The elevator sat before her, but she flew past it to the stairs. There wasn’t enough time to wait for it and she wasn’t dumb enough to try.
She yanked the door open and took the stairs two at a time. Her breath burned in her chest and her limbs ached. She wasn’t recovered enough from the chemo for this kind of exercise.
But she had to keep moving. They were going to kill her.
She just couldn’t understand why or where that thought had come from. For that matter, she couldn’t understand how she’d gotten to the hospital.
All of which didn’t matter right now. Someone was after her for some reason, and she had to keep going. The stairwell door below her clicked open and shut and rapid, heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs.
“Come on, Hunter. How far do you think you’ll get in that body?” a masculine voice thick with malice asked.
Anaea stumbled and caught her balance, a glimmer of relief forming in her chest. They had the wrong person. Maybe if she just—
But they didn’t care. She just knew they didn’t.
A bullet whizzed past her head.
“Don’t make this difficult.”
Pain lanced through her thigh. She careened around the corner, using the railing for leverage, and lunged against the door. It swung open and she rushed into a hall, empty of people and lined with construction equipment. The cinderblock walls were primed but not painted and the panels in the drop ceiling were missing, exposing the metal frame above. Doors lined either side and she ran to the first one, grasping the handle.
