Immortally Embraced

by fox, angie

  I glared at him over my mask. Our patient could hear him. They all could.

  “Don’t listen to him,” I said to the man on my table. A sheen of sweat coated his face, and blood gurgled from his lips. “I’ve got you.”

  “Get his uniform off now,” I ordered Hume. I readjusted the large silver light over my table, aiming it at his chest. I tried to keep the emotion out of my eyes as my nurse peeled the cloth away.

  Kosta stood next to me. “Basilisk venom.” He cursed under his breath.

  I’d studied it, but I never thought I’d see it. The hellish creatures were supposed to be extinct. The black goo had eaten into the soldier’s chest cavity, through it.

  “Make him comfortable and move on,” Kosta said into my ear.

  Goose bumps skittered up my arms. “I’m going to need blood and saline,” I ordered. He was going to be losing fluids. In a few minutes, there wasn’t going to be any skin left to contain them.

  My gaze flicked across the crowded ER. I didn’t want to look down at my patient. I didn’t have time to bond with him. There were more coming in.

  But I did it anyway. His eyes were unfocused, his skin cold. He was in shock, which was almost a blessing. I took his shaking hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

  He deserved to know.

  The soldier squeezed my hand back.

  I caught Father McArio’s eye and he hurried over.

  I dragged off my gloves as Father leaned close and murmured something in the man’s ear.

  “Robichaud,” Kosta hollered. “Over here.”

  I jogged down two rows of tables, hands bare. Kosta stepped back as they lifted one onto the table in front of him. “It’s just an arm,” he said, leaving to meet another case coming in the door.

  Just an arm.

  He was an Asian demi-god, built huge, with piercing gold eyes. His left hand was wrapped around his right bicep. Underneath, the entire right arm was black and oozing. “It’s coming off,” he said, through grit teeth.

  My heart pounded in my ears. “It has to,” I said, accepting gloves from Holly.

  His face reddened. We didn’t have much time. As it consumed his lower arm, the venom was moving up, looking for more.

  “We’re going to need to tie you down,” I said. Anesthetic didn’t work on immortals. He’d be awake as I sawed his arm off.

  “No. Don’t tie me.” He came as close to pleading as a demi-god could. He swallowed. His head came off the table. “I have a fear.”

  “Okay,” I said, quickly, accepting the bone saw from Holly. We didn’t have time. “I won’t do it. But you’re going to have to lie still for me.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “You can do this.”

  There were tears in his eyes. “I deserve it. I’m a killer.”

  “You’re a soldier.” We all were. “We do the best we can.” Sometimes, it wasn’t enough.

  He screamed as I cut.

  When the arm was severed, I tied off his wound, careful to make sure none of the venom touched his skin. He was clean. In fact, he was healing as I stitched.

  It was a good sign, a textbook case.

  He lay heaving, staring at the ceiling.

  I pulled off my gloves. “You’re going to be okay.”

  The tidal wave of patients had ebbed. And as I took in the bodies on the tables, I realized most of them were dead or dying.

  “Doc,” my patient said, his voice dry, his eyes pleading. “Does it even matter, what we did out there today?”

  I had to think it did, but I wasn’t sure. “We matter,” I told him.

  An orderly wheeled him away and I stood for a moment, eyes closed. This was awful. Inhuman. The official line was always the same. Immortals had to stay awake during surgery. It was impossible to put them under.

  I refused to believe it.

  I was on the verge of discovering how. I knew I was close. I had to figure this out. I would do it.

  I opened my eyes to find Holly watching me. “Do you really believe that?”

  “What?” I asked, wiping at my wet cheeks.

  “That we matter.” She watched me as if the answer meant a great deal.

  It wasn’t just the soldiers. It was all of us. We needed to know that we suffered for a reason. That death had a purpose. But did we make a difference? I didn’t know.

  “Of course we matter,” I said, dragging off my cap, plopping it onto her head. “Now leave me alone. I have to go see Kosta.”

  Whatever heinous crime he wanted me for, I was almost glad. I’d pay whatever price he wanted, and then I’d argue my case for anesthetic research. I needed more time to focus, more resources, at least a decent lab.

  I charged into Kosta’s outer office. Shirley was sitting on the floor with a stack of files. “How’d it go?”

  “It was surgery,” I said, walking up to her.

  Shirley’s desk and filing cabinets were shoved up against the back wall, next to a thick wood door. The rest of the room was bare—well, unless you counted the banker’s boxes stacked everywhere.

  I gave her a hand and she stood. “Kosta in?” I asked.

  “He’s was just about to send our friend after you,” she said, glancing at the MP by the door. I hadn’t even seen him when I came in. Shirley dug through the top drawer of her desk and came out with lipstick and a small compact. The MP and I exchanged a look while she did her face.

  “You look gorgeous.” I said, wishing we could hurry it up. I wanted to find out exactly what Kosta had on me: going AWOL or theft.

  Then I’d ask him for a favor. This was going to go just dandy, I could tell.

  Shirley rapped on Kosta’s door.

  He gave a grunt and she entered, with me behind her and the MP taking the rear.

  The colonel’s office was straightforward, just like the man. He sat behind a standard military-issue desk, his shaved head bent over a stack of documents he was signing.

  Ancient battle shields lined the wall behind him, trophies from battles won. He’d been granted immortality after the campaign against Athens, but he sure hadn’t let it go to his head.

  “Thank you, Shirley,” he said, without looking at her. “Stay outside, Kryon. Sit your ass down, Dr. Robichaud.”

  I took the hard wooden seat opposite him.

  Just what kind of trouble was I in? I wished he would just come out with it.

  The door clicked closed behind me and Kosta kept writing.

  No doubt this was an ancient Spartan war tactic. Freak them out until they spill.

  I sat straight, shoulders back, and realized I’d forgotten to change after surgery. I was still wearing my pink robe.

  Merde. I gave in to the urge to retie the belt.

  At last, Kosta raised his head. He was rugged, fierce. A raised scar sliced down his left cheek and over his lip. The word in camp was that he’d gotten it in the Battle of Thermopylae.

  He looked me up and down, scowling. “This is out of uniform, even for you.”

  I gave up on proper military form and crossed my legs. “If I’d known the wounded were coming, I would have dressed up.”

  He tossed his pen down onto the desk. “Where have you been and what have you stolen?”

  “Nothing,” I said, quickly. “You know me.” He hadn’t exactly been a mentor, but we’d worked together for seven years now. He’d seen me with patients. He knew my character.

  “I was doing research,” I said, “working on the sphinx venom anesthetic.” It was almost true. I would have been doing that if Marc hadn’t convinced me to wander over to the dark side.

  Kosta grunted. “For thirty-six hours?”

  “I got caught up in the work,” I said, beginning to warm to my role. “It’s important. You saw what just happened in that operating room.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “So your colleagues just made up stories.”

  “We’re talking about Rodger, here.”

  He chewed on that one. Rodger could have ear
ned a PhD in bedlam and we both knew it.

  Kosta leaned back in his chair, still watching me. “Then who is the thief?” he asked, hands folded over his chest.

  Like I was going to accuse the goddess of chaos. “I think you know,” I said slowly.

  He watched me for a moment. Kosta had a solid gold bullshit detector. No question it was pinging like crazy. Only my explanation made a lot more sense than anything else he’d probably heard.

  He gave a sharp nod. “We won’t speak of it again.”

  I tried not to look too happy. “Gladly.” Treason wasn’t at the top of my to-do list.

  He scratched his chin. “It’s good you’ve been keeping up with your research.” His gaze wandered to the shields lining the wall. “Hell of a scene back there. I’d give anything if we could find another way.”

  Kosta glanced at me, his fingers drumming on the desk. “The visiting general was in the OR just now.”

  “Good.” I’d been trying to get HQ interested in what I was doing.

  It turned out, before I sicced Jeffe on an immortal, none of the sphinxes had dared to ever raise a hand—or I suppose in this case a paw—against a warrior.

  Good thing Jeffe and I never realized that.

  And that the immortal in question was the forgiving type.

  We’d learned, quite by accident, that sphinx venom could knock out an immortal.

  I thought the discovery would get some attention, or at least some research money. I’d applied for an office, supplies, for any kind of help the new army could give me. So far, my requests had been met with stone-cold silence.

  “General Argus of Rhodes wants to talk to you,” he said.

  I stood. “Perfect. My paperwork is in the lab. I’ll meet with him anytime. Anywhere.”

  “Stick around. He’ll be here any minute.”

  I blew out a breath. Okay. Fine. I could do this. From the stories I’d heard, Argus seemed like a fairly logical guy. Hopefully, I’d be able to talk him into a trip to the lab.

  “The Argus, huh?” Finally a god I’d heard about. Argus had one hundred eyes. “Although I thought he was supposed to be off guarding Zeus’s lover.”

  Kosta looked put out. “Zeus’s wife turned her into a cow. That Argus is dead. This is his great-grandnephew. He only has four eyes.” From the look on his face Kosta wasn’t a fan. “He brought his mother.”

  Ah, yes, Eris, goddess of the sticky-fingered.

  Kosta eyed me and I heard his office door open.

  General Argus strolled in wearing battle fatigues with four stars at the shoulders. He was bald, soft, and reminded me of a fatted calf. Yet his gaze was calculating, wary.

  He inspected me like I came with the camp. “This is your doctor?”

  He had a heavy Greek accent. Obviously, he didn’t get out much.

  Kosta grunted. “She’s a model soldier,” he said, lying through his teeth. “This latest round of surgery pulled her out of the showers.”

  A sneer curled the general’s lip. “I won’t blow sunshine up your ass. The army has no interest in changing the way things are done.” He stared at me, as if he could see into me by force of will alone. “What happened in that OR was disgusting. You sure this drug of yours can work?”

  “Yes,” I said, adjusting my robe. I hoped. “But I need time, resources”—something besides a homemade lab on the edge of the minefield. “I’ve got a list of things that can make the research go a lot more smoothly.”

  “I can give you three days.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Shirley broke in. “General, you have a call from Apollo.”

  “I’ll take it in the VIP tent,” he told her.

  Argus turned back to me. “I have a meeting in three days. If you can give me solid proof that this drug of yours can work, I’ll back your bid for funding.”

  Impossible. “I need more time than that.” He saw the value. He’d said it himself.

  “Either you can do it, or you can’t,” the general spat. “Which is it, Doctor?”

  He didn’t give me time to answer before he strode out of the room to take his call. Kosta saluted him. I was too shocked.

  I needed this chance. Soldiers like the ones I’d seen today deserved it. But my work was preliminary at best. I didn’t know how I was going to pull proof together so fast.

  “He’s insane,” I hissed.

  Kosta gave me a hard look. “He’s willing to stick his neck out, at least temporarily. I’m glad you were at it hard these last couple of days.”

  “Me too,” I said, wondering just how I was going to get a month’s worth of work done in three days.

  I’d just have to live in the lab. Force Rodger to keep up my schedule at the hospital. He certainly owed me.

  I took a deep breath, making sure my robe stayed closed. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to work.”

  Or right to work, as the case may be.

  “Fine,” Kosta said, getting back to the papers on his desk. “And Robichaud—”

  I paused at the door.

  “Put on some pants.”

  chapter sixteen

  I headed straight to the lab. Well, I stopped to put on some pants first. Rodger had left the hutch, hopefully to consult with his rock club buddies. I didn’t even bother to move the new stash of geek-tastic action figures from my bed. Or from the top of my locker. Or the front of my bookcase.

  My mind raced with everything I had to get done. I needed something beyond sphinx venom will knock out an immortal. I needed to show how we could use that knowledge to develop a controlled anesthetic.

  Quickly, I changed into surgical scrubs and a pair of tennis shoes. The limbo suns beat down hard, making the inside of the tent steamy and the outside even worse. Sweating, I scraped my hair back into a ponytail as I made my way out of camp and up through the cemetery.

  There was no way to predict how fast research would go. The idea of doing several weeks, months, maybe even years of work in three days was staggering.

  I shouldn’t even attempt it.

  It’s not like I could just phone this one in. Surgery was pressure enough, and that was the part of the job I enjoyed. I was never meant to be a researcher. I would never have taken this on, except that it was important.

  Sphinx venom could knock out an immortal. It was an amazing discovery as far as I was concerned. Frankly, I was shocked HQ hadn’t given it more weight.

  No, they wanted proof that I could use it.

  It seemed I wasn’t going to get any investment until we had a sure thing, which negated the need for a lot of investment.

  I wanted to punch something.

  We were talking about a potential breakthrough here. I understood the gods didn’t necessarily rush to embrace change, but come on.

  I kicked a rock and reached into my pocket for a stick of Fruit Stripe gum as the leaning heaps and jutting peaks of the junkyard greeted me. It was hard to make a difference in this war. This was my shot.

  My responsibility.

  My current lab was just inside the minefield, past a large char mark on the ground where my last lab had been. I preferred keeping caustic experiments away from camp. Plus, the minefield offered a degree of privacy. People had to go out of their way to bug me.

  It still didn’t stop them—not completely.

  I shoved open the door marked CRITICAL CARE. I’d commandeered it from the pile of junk that had been the old intensive care unit. After a patient escaped, HQ approved steel doors and double-thick walls. I’d taken the leftovers.

  In fact, most of my new lab was our old unit. It had been designed to break down quickly and easily, in case our unit needed to re-deploy in a hurry. So Marius relocated it here. As a vampire, he was super strong. Plus, he understood the value of a good lair.

  The pinewood walls were smooth and clean. I had a basic floor and a roof. This was junkyard luxury.

  As usual, the place smelled like desert dirt and the sweet, fig scent of sphinx venom.<
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  It was dark inside. Marius had sawed two windows that let in some light, but mostly dirt and dry air.

  I lit the lanterns that hung throughout the long, narrow room. Electricity would have been nice, if only to hook up the steel refrigeration unit I’d acquired, and even some of the plug-in burners.

  It was dangerous to have fire around some of the fluids I was testing.

  But I’d applied for an electric hookup along with everything else I’d asked acquisitions to provide. HQ had denied it lock, stock, and barrel. Said it was unnecessary. Extravagant. As if the generals in charge knew what that meant.

  Father McArio had built me a small desk in the center of the lab to hold all of my papers and reports. I’d positioned old cafeteria tables on the walls to the right and left. The only other furniture was a small cot Father had set up in the old storage hold in the back.

  When you got right down to it, a separate room was a needless luxury. I could sleep in the lab.

  I rubbed my eyes as I opened my notebook and prepared to get started. The key was to find a solvent to mix with the sphinx venom that would allow us to control the amount of time an immortal was knocked out.

  As soon as the venom got into a person’s system—mortal or immortal—it completely took over. I’d never seen a toxic agent run so rampant.

  The venom on its own could put an immortal under for up to seven days, which was dangerous. Any anesthesia carries a risk. I wasn’t about to submit critical patients to a week of it. Plus, it was impractical. Recovery would be overwhelmed. And if the old army knew our soldiers were asleep and defenseless, they could slaughter them in their beds.

  I pulled up a stool and studied my notes.

  We had to be able to manage the delivery and effects of the venom. Caustic chemicals that were deadly to mortals, but like candy to the gods, seemed to work best. The challenge was finding the right amount and then stabilizing it.

  In three days.

  Still, work felt good. It was better than focusing on what I’d done to Marc, or on everything I’d lost.

  Death had been certain the last time. Marc was gone. I had no choice but to move on. Now I wasn’t sure of anything. I didn’t know if Marc was alive or dead. I didn’t know if the world would end or not. I didn’t know what part I had to play to stop it all.