“Southwest corner of Vancouver General Hospital, please. Laurel and West Tenth Avenue, I believe.” Kett leaned back from speaking to the taxi driver, who took a quick right onto Vine Street to loop back east toward the hospital. The morgue, specifically. I imagined all hospitals had morgues, but this was the first time I’d thought about it. Actually, I’d never even been to the emergency room at Vancouver General, not once in twenty-three years.
I realized I was subconsciously leaning as far away from the vampire as I could, and therefore cramming my left shoulder into the car door. Though he’d shown up at my apartment looking almost human, I was still riding in the back seat of a taxi with a vampire who was stronger, faster, and far more deadly than I. The fact that his skin looked almost pink-tinged didn’t thrill me either. I imagined that meant he’d recently fed.
“So … the morgue,” I said. “We breaking in?”
The vampire — Kett, I had to keep reminding myself — turned his icy eyes from the road and looked at me. I didn’t meet his gaze. Everything he did had this deliberate quality to it, as if he thought about moving and then moved. Which was just fine, as I really didn’t want to see any more provoked movements on his part. My memory of the chunks of bridge cement in his hands was still fresh, and it was a little freaky if I watched him too closely.
“No,” he answered. Well, that was informative. He was in a chatty mood.
“Sienna tells me that vamp … your people don’t like being around the truly dead.” I slanted my eyes toward him. It looked like he was staring at my chest, but it was my necklace that had his attention — again. A girl could develop a complex around him. I’d only wound it around my neck twice this afternoon, and currently had the fingers of my left hand twined through a few of the rings — an unconscious mimicry of the vampire’s grasp in the club bathroom. I had my other hand resting on the invisible knife sheath at my hip. When had I become this wary, cautious person? Overnight, it seemed.
“Myth,” the vampire finally answered. I’d almost forgotten my question. He turned his gaze out the side window and I tried to not shudder my relief.
I’m not sure I could ever get used to this. I fought off the urge to call or text someone, anyone, as I turned to look out my window.
It was raining again. Big surprise.
∞
The taxi ride took twelve minutes that felt like hours. We didn’t speak again. I let him pay for the cab.
Though we were parked in front of the emergency entrance at Vancouver General Hospital, the vampire stepped out of the cab and crossed to a nondescript door toward the middle of the sprawling building. Buildings, actually. The hospital grounds were large enough to take up an area of three blocks on the side. It was currently quiet, even in emergency. No speeding ambulances or intense, dramatic doctors. So TV didn’t get it right every time.
I guessed I was to follow Kett, though he gave no indication whether he cared one way or the other.
The unlabeled steel door opened to an elevator. The vampire hit the down button.
Great. I totally wanted to be in the tight confines of an elevator with a vampire as we travelled beneath the earth … to a morgue. Damn — internal sarcasm usually settled me … but not this time.
The ride was quick and painless. The elevator opened to a tiled hallway. Then the smell hit me — that of heavy-duty cleaning agents attempting to cover … darkness. Yes, now darkness had a smell. It was faint and gritty. Kett strode forward and paused at an office to speak to a nurse or attendant of some sort. She seemed immediately enamored with him, so I assumed they knew each other. Obviously, he didn’t look or move inhumanly to her human eyes. She didn’t notice me at all.
She led us down the hall and through double swinging doors into the morgue. And this the TV shows got totally bang on — creepy lighting and everything. Well, maybe I was the only one who thought it creepy. One wall was lined with steel, cubby-like cooler racks with numbered doors. Everything else was either tile or green-painted walls, if that’s what passed for green in a morgue. Washed out, dirty green. Dull, dead green … all right, I was aware I was obsessing about the wall color.
The nurse wandered over to the cubby labeled number six, pausing oddly with her hand on the levered handle. She turned to look back expectantly at Kett, and he turned to look at me.
It was only then I realized I wasn’t hearing properly. He moved his lips again. I inhaled and raised my hands partway to my ears before I understood. Magic. The vampire had been using some sort of magic, and I’d been caught in the wake of it.
In fact, I now suddenly seemed to be in the middle of a mild panic attack, like my body had recognized the magic and immediately fought its effects before my brain kicked in. I inhaled again, attempting to filter the almost toxic smells that coated the air here to find the oxygen my brain needed.
Sound came back, though the room was still deadly quiet. The vampire was watching me like I was some sort of mildly interesting science experiment.
“Are you ready then, Jade?” My name sounded foreign, as if he had to think to pronounce it.
I nodded.
He turned back to the nurse, who had just been standing and staring at him. She smiled and then opened cooler door number six. He’d spelled her — maybe speaking to her telepathically, perhaps compelling her movements. It seemed effortless for him to do so.
My stomach rolled with fear.
The nurse pulled out a long, telescoping tray from the cooler. A body, barely covered in a white sheet, occupied every inch of this tray.
Hudson. All six-foot-something of him. I’d thought he’d be in a body bag … or … I don’t know. I wrapped my hand around the hilt of my knife, and it helped steady me.
The nurse abruptly turned and left the room without a single glance around. Kett’s attention was on the body and some sort of chart I hadn’t noticed before. He’d probably gotten it from the nurse.
“You’re controlling her, aren’t you?”
“We aren’t exactly authorized to be here.”
“And the ends justify the means,” I muttered. Kett looked up at me as if puzzled. I had to stop drawing his attention. Though, now that I had it …
“Could you spell me like that?”
“It doesn’t seem so, though I haven’t tried very hard to ensnare you.” He returned his attention to the chart.
I thought about fleeing the room but took a firm step forward instead, just to dampen the flight instinct. So … mind control, just another reason to stay far away from vampires. Not that I needed more reasons.
Yes, I recognize that I was avoiding dealing with the body on the tray table before me.
I stepped up to the head. The sheet masked but didn’t completely obscure the outline of Hudson’s strong facial features … high brow, long nose, square jaw. The vampire stood on the other side, a few feet away from the body. He looked up from the chart — at me, not the body — but didn’t speak. Then again, he didn’t need to; I knew why I was here.
I shifted the sheet off Hudson’s face with a suppressed moan. If he wasn’t so pale and not breathing, I could have pretended he was sleeping.
I slipped the sheet farther down his chest and shuddered in relief when I didn’t see the autopsy cuts I’d prepared myself for. His chest was almost as perfect as it had looked in yoga. Except for the not-breathing thing. That really was the exception to everything, wasn’t it?
“How does this work? How do you stop the medical community from discovering he’s a … was a werewolf?”
“Religious beliefs, usually. But if it appears to be a murder, or when we’re too late, memory spells and misplaced reports, of course. How do you not know that?”
“It’s never come up before. I’m a witch, born and raised by witches. We read as human.”
“Not if someone looked at your blood closely enough. If they knew what they were looking for. And you — you wouldn’t read human at all. How many times have you
been to the hospital? Or the doctor?”
“Many times. Countless.”
“How many times were you the patient?” The vampire’s voice was low, nonconfrontational. It raised my hackles immediately.
“I just answered you! Many, many … times …” Wait. I hadn’t actually ever broken any bones or needed any stitches. There had been those spell accidents with Sienna, but I guess we hadn’t gone to a doctor then. Surely, I’d had my blood drawn for some sort of test? When had I suffered anything more than a cold?
I’d had a terrible fever when I was little. I remember Scarlett — I’d called my mother that even then — icing over wet hand towels with a whispered spell and placing them all over my body. Had she taken me to the doctor? I could distinctly recall the strain that the use of so much magic had placed on her as the evening wore on. She’d also mixed poultices and cast other healing spells. Funny, I couldn’t remember where my Gran had been that day. Scarlett had curled up next to me at dawn, just after the fever had broken. She hadn’t been much bigger than me, even then. She’d fit on one side of the twin bed no problem. The early morning sun had glinted off her strawberry hair, the glow of her magic the dimmest I’d ever seen it …
The vampire was smirking. What did he think he was implying?
“How quickly do you heal, witch?”
“None of your business,” I snapped. “As quickly as any human.”
He tilted his head. It could have been mistaken for some sort of concession, but it wasn’t. I tore my attention from him and looked down at Hudson.
On closer inspection, Hudson’s lips looked pale, bloodless. And a faint reddened outline of the trinket marred his neck and collarbone. I hovered my fingers over this burn but couldn’t bring myself to touch. “Werewolves heal fast, don’t they?”
“In optimal health, yes.”
“So, the burn? It would have occurred near or after death?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m not a doctor!”
“You’re a dowser. Use all your senses, witch. I prefer to linger no longer than necessary.”
I thought about ripping his head off, but then dismissed the idea. Where was a good cupcake when I needed one? Right — at the bakery, where I should be.
I touched the burn mark that crossed Hudson’s right collarbone, the one closest to me. I ignored the inert feel of his skin and tried to concentrate on the magic.
“His magic is almost gone,” I whispered.
The vampire sighed at my apparent stupidity. “That’s a side effect of death for most.” Except him, of course, being a vampire and all. I didn’t point that out. Undeath was supposedly a prickly topic for vamps.
“But before he died, then … there’s a greater residual concentration in the burn marks and … has he … has he been drained? Of blood, I mean?”
The vampire moved with that creepy deliberate swiftness, flicking Hudson’s left wrist over the sheet. His lower arm was slashed vertically, though it looked like it had had a few days to heal. I slowly turned over his right wrist. Same slash marks.
“On the femoral artery near the groin as well, if you care to look further.”
I ignored this upsetting suggestion. “Drained of life blood and magic.”
“Yes.”
“While he was alive, because the wounds have tried to heal.”
“Yes.”
“… because our blood holds our magic?”
“Basically, yes.”
“Except she wanted all of it. Any magic she couldn’t collect in the blood … so she siphoned off the rest into the trinket?”
“Interesting. Possible, except the trinkets are left behind.”
“Through the trinket then, into another vessel or … her.”
“Her? The magic has a female tinge?”
“No … sorry, him or her.”
“Look closer, witch. A witch or sorcerer couldn’t do any of this without leaving a trace of their own magic.”
“There’s none. Just the trace of the trinket —”
“Your magic.”
“Not really. I mean the trace magic of the trinket. Yes, I’ve noticed a residual layer of my signature on the actual trinkets, but I have no capacity to infuse my magic into an object.” I was aware I was stumbling around the subject, stumbling around my knowledge and understanding. “Yes, if you work with an object long enough you can get residual, but no one has the power —”
The vampire laughed. God, he sounded human. He’d actually thrown back his head — his long, pale-skinned neck like carved marble — so that a deep, full-throated laugh emanated from within. I, or rather my ignorance apparently, amused the hell out of him. Or was that heaven in the vampire’s case? Where did religion place vampires in the heaven/hell spectrum?
“This is not funny, vampire!” I shouted, my fists clenched at my sides. I was suddenly furious. Furious that I was here at all, that I’d been dragged into a situation that was so beyond me … every fucking step, every fucking guess. “I’m trying! I’m here. I’ve never even seen a dead body. I’ve never even dowsed for magic like this, and you’re laughing at me. Laughing at my ignorance as you rip my life apart!”
The vampire stopped laughing as swiftly as he’d started. I was surprised he heard me over his own din. I was surprised he cared enough to stop.
“It is not I who’s ripping your life apart, Jade. Look beyond the magic of the trinket, as you call it. Please, we should not dally. The shapeshifters will become impatient, and they do not have my talent for subtlety.”
I dropped it. I already knew that wringing information out of him was next to impossible, so why bother asking any more questions. Plus, I had an inkling I was mixing a bunch of different feelings and confusions into one pot and that always brewed trouble for me.
I could have loved Hudson, had I managed to get beyond my own shit. I could have loved him.
I touched the half-healed slashes on his right wrist. I imagined the knife that had made the cut. I imagined the position of the wielder. I touched the burn at the edge of Hudson’s neck. I imagined the killer placing the trinket over his head. Had he been conscious? Had he fought? I remembered the taste of Hudson’s magic in the club, in the yoga studio. The perfect flow and depth of it … except …
Except that instead, I caught the taste of … a trace of something reminiscent of the scent of the morgue … something dark but not evil, of the earth, of …
Oh, God. I think … I think I knew this magic.
I ripped my hands away from Hudson and met the eager eyes of the vampire. I opened my mouth. No, I was wrong. I couldn’t vocalize. This magic wasn’t capable of killing a werewolf at the height of his power. This magic was —
“What is it, witch?” Kett demanded.
I snapped my mouth shut. I took a step away from the table, from the body, but really from the vampire.
My eyes were still locked to his icy gaze. I knew this was wrong, that I should look away. I felt the wall of his mind magic hit me full force. I actually staggered back and put up a hand as if to block the assault.
“Stop it!” I managed to say through fritted teeth. “Stop it!”
Another layer of magic twined through the vampire’s — a magic that couldn’t be here, in this room, this strong. A magic that felt wrong, felt different than it ever had before, stronger, darker …
“Stop it!” I screamed at the vampire, who was still trying to crack into my mind. “Something is wrong. Something is happening!”
The pressure of Kett’s magic dropped away from me and I stumbled forward. I’d never felt someone use magic against me in such force before.
The wrong feeling grew. It wasn’t coming from him.
“Articulate your thoughts, witch.” Kett sounded pissed. He sounded human again. I was starting to hate that he could do that, that he could play with my fear centers like that. Human or not human. Blood sucking monster or accessible, even sexy, guy.
“It’s … it’s …”
The body on the tray table moaned as if releasing its dying breath. Then it sat up.
I didn’t scream. No, I did something even worse. I threw myself forward and wrapped my arms around Hudson’s neck while joyful tears coated my cheeks. “Hudson,” I cried. “Oh, Hudson! … I thought you were … dead …”
Hudson, or what remained of Hudson, slowly and ponderously turned his face to me. I gazed up into his clouded eyes. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see me. He didn’t see any more at all. He was dead. Someone else was looking through his eyes. Not that I knew that for sure, but I was damn sure someone was piloting Hudson’s body and that I currently had my arms wrapped around the neck of a zombie.
“Step away, witch!” Kett yelled.
The zombie’s head swiveled toward the vampire. Then the creature lurched forward.
And I, for some utterly unknown and stupid reason, hung on. So I’m a slow learner, sue me.
The zombie didn’t like me decorating its neck, so it threw me across the room. Literally. As in, I hit the far wall, smacked the back of my head on the tiled surface, and then dropped in a crumpled heap. I’m guessing that last part, because I pretty much lost consciousness when I hit the wall.
∞
I thought there was a chance I’d broken my neck. But I wasn’t dead, so I guessed not. The room was dim, patchy through my blurred vision, which certainly didn’t bode well for brain damage. I think my nose was bleeding and I was definitely confused, because the sound of pained grunting drew my woozy attention to the zombie — who had the all-powerful vampire pinned against a wall.
The room was torn apart. Literally. As in, chunks of wall and floor tile were strewn about the room, the ceiling lights ripped down and hanging from their wires. The zombie was missing an arm, or at least I was pretty sure that’s what I could see a few feet away from my head. It seemed to be trying to claw its way back to the zombie.
Oh, God. I took a moment to roll over and throw up.
Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic Page 12
