Flux of Skin

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Maybe they should go out and kill the Seraphim. Right now, in the middle of the day, in front of the entire town of Rock Springs. Quickest way to calm down his family.

  Then can I come in? Sister could come in, as well. We would no longer need to watch the parking lot. We cannot see the other side of the building. A pause. We do not like it up here.

  Sister sighed. Sister-Dragon must have also pushed her the truth of why the dragons wanted down. Too hot, too secluded, too far away. Their hides prickled and their stomachs growled. And they couldn’t see what their humans saw.

  Derek’s head swiveled as if he watched a tennis match. He squinted, taking in his wife’s body posture, then rolled his shoulders when he looked at Ladon.

  But next to Ladon, on the narrow bed, Rysa pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs, squeezing into a ball. She pulled out of his arms and pulled in on herself.

  All his annoyance and anger vanished. His love didn’t know what to do any more than he did.

  “We need to find Lucinda de la Turris. Or another healer.” Ladon stood up. They could borrow a laptop from one of the nurses and Derek could research Rysa’s father.

  Or maybe they should introduce Paige to the dragons. She and many of the other staff knew “squirrels” moved on the roof whenever Ladon or Sister came in. No one commented on it. No one pried. They took care of Derek and his royal form of hemophilia and they never once asked questions that put any of the family in jeopardy.

  They were, in many ways, as much family as Ladon’s Legio Draconis had been centuries before. These normals who worked tirelessly to keep the city healthy—even that impertinent emergency doctor—were as good as any of his soldiers.

  But Sister would not allow the dragons inside. “Normals keep records.” She crossed her arms. “They take pictures. Every moment the dragons are visible is a moment someone might click a damned cell phone camera. And then the whole world will know.”

  Sister looked like she was about to throw her arms into the air, but she stood perfectly still, staring at Ladon.

  Sometimes Ladon wondered if it would be for the best to once again walk free among the people of the world. To let the dragons come inside. He didn’t like the separation any more than the beasts. It felt wrong. It felt unsafe.

  Very unsafe.

  He didn’t feel Rysa’s seers, but danger crawled on his skin like ants. Maybe Rysa’s subconscious was thrusting another bit of “luck” into his mind.

  She let go of her knees.

  “Rysa?” Ladon said.

  The phone on the cabinet between the two beds rang.

  Shrillness filled the room and reverberated off the walls and the hard tile floor, loud enough to make Ladon cringe and Dragon gouge the roof under his talons. For a split second, their perceptions blended, and Ladon felt tar sticking to his fingers. He heard not only the harsh alarm scream of the phone, but two echoes as well—one inside the room, and one above, as the sound pierced the hospital’s pipes and concrete.

  Rysa sat up straight. Her eyes took on a hint of glaze, as if she was about to fall into a vision.

  Ladon dropped to the bed and gripped her shoulders. “Control it! No visions. Your fever will come back.” Unsafe wafted not only from the phone but from Rysa. Fever blotches crept up her neck. She felt warm again, but not as hot as she had when he’d carried her into the Emergency Department.

  “Can you breathe?” Her body’s internal battles did true harm. What if she stopped breathing again? The nurses might not be able to stop it a second time.

  She nodded yes but didn’t say anything.

  The phone rang again.

  This time Derek reached for it.

  “Stop!” Rysa’s voice held its own shrillness. She wasn’t calling her seers. Ladon felt her effort as tension invading her chest and neck—but a hint of her abilities’ music skipped across the edges of his mind.

  And the edges of Sister’s mind. She lunged at Derek, climbing over his bed and on top of him, to pull back his arm.

  Another ring screeched through the room.

  “It’s him. It’s him. It’s him,” Rysa whispered. “The one who tried to hurt me. The enthraller from the store.” She rocked slightly. “It’s him.”

  Derek snapped back his hand.

  When it rang a fourth time, the entire top of the cabinet vibrated, and the roll of surgical tape next to the phone fell over.

  Ladon picked up the receiver.

  “Hey, douchebag dragon boy, remember me?” the voice on the other end said. The connection hissed but Ladon picked out the modulation in the Shifter’s voice.

  The phone cord bounced against Ladon’s thigh. The part he held to his ear and mouth smelled of the same chemicals the hospital used to clean everything—a sharp astringent stench screaming “artificial.”

  “Threatening a hospital is not wise,” Ladon growled.

  This Shifter could modulate all the ‘comply’ his little boy voice could muster but Ladon only heard I’m weak.

  “We’re not threatening the hospital, lover boy. Heck, while we’re here, we’ll help out. Maybe do some construction. You know, for the good of society.”

  “Leave. Now.” Vivicus had hired these idiots? “You will not benefit from your attacks. Not on us. Not on Pavlovich.”

  “Is that so?” His voice modulated deeper, his words taking on the auditory tang of a sound carrying too much information. “Pavlovich’s a thorn in The Bishop’s side. He doesn’t understand the order of things, like who’s in charge.” A sour groan punctuated his pause. “Son of a bitch Russian asshole sent in his toadies after you tickled my neck.” Another pause. “He deserves everything he gets.”

  Vivicus’s arrogance had the Seraphim fighting on two fronts—one to take down Dmitri, his political rival, and one to capture a Fate. “A Shifter civil war will cause your people great harm. Harm from which your little cult is supposed to provide protection.”

  The voice paused. Ladon heard rustling, as if the bastard was adjusting himself. “He’s the one looking for a civil war. We fight Fates. And here you are in a shithole backwater hospital in your shithole backwater town shacking up with one of the enemy. You know what they say: He who fucks the enemy gets fucked himself.”

  “This time, I will snap off your head. It won’t be a clean break. Some of your tendons and nerves will stay connected. I’ve been told it’s a painful way to die.” Ladon bluffed. He’d find a way other than killing to end this. One less violent, for Rysa. But the Shifter didn’t need to know that.

  The Shifter sniffed. “Hey, listen, it’s okay.” A hint of ‘fear’ filled in the back currents of his voice. “Tell you what. Come on out. We’ll talk about it. The Bishop says she’s special. He says negotiation might be worth all our time.”

  “I will come out.” He’d walk right out the front door and into the middle of their little gang. “I will snap more than your neck if my people are threatened.”

  The Shifter rustled again. “Whatever, old man. This time you won’t sneak up on me.”

  Ladon heard a gun click.

  The Shifter snorted again. “Is that what you need to do? Sneak around because the world’s got leash laws and you can’t take your pretty dino-dog into the grocery store? Leave him in the car. Just make sure to crack a window.”

  “How many of you have come to annoy me today?” The bastard was dumb enough, and full of enough bravado, that he might just answer Ladon’s question.

  “Good one. You’re a comedian, huh? Is that why the sweet young thing likes you? She’s got a nice rack on her. Nice and soft and sweet for a Jani Fate.” Kissy sounds followed.

  The old need to strip muscle from bone reared into Ladon’s consciousness. He’d told Sister no more killing. He’d told himself no more killing. But this bastard had earned an exception. Ladon’s threats might become reality, no matter how he fought his own desires.

  “Don’t worry, cuddlekins. We’ll be nice when we take her in.” More kissy sound
s. “You better come out now. Just you. The other Dracae is supposed to stay inside. The Bishop says he’s got no beef with the little lady and her tsarina.”

  Sister and Derek could leave. This, they’d use to their advantage.

  “Yeah, you come out. Because me and my boys, we’re bored. We’ve got all this equipment out here, just sitting here, and we got nothin’ to do. So we’re thinking of helping out some. You know, doin’ some work for the hospital. Filling a pot hole here or there.”

  His voice dropped low again, taking on the thick information density of a voice enthraller pushing a new command. But this time he didn’t push ‘comply.’ No, this time, he pushed ‘alarm.’

  “Or maybe we’ll do some roof work.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ladon whispered the Shifter’s words to Rysa, so she knew. “No one touches you.”

  She nodded, but didn’t look at him. She stared at the window.

  “Trust me, love.” He’d solve this problem. Then they’d talk.

  Sister also watched the trucks visible from the room’s window. “They show no signs of weapons capable of harming the dragons.” The vertical blinds rustled when she dropped her hand away. New shadows fell across the room.

  Ladon didn’t notice. The Seraphim threatened the dragons. His dragon. His woman. His entire family. And now Rysa wouldn’t look at him.

  They’d had squabbles, but Dunn, the Shifter Progenitor, always reined in her descendants. Always spanked Vivicus for his insolence. Always kept the balance of power between the Shifters and the Fates stable. But Vivicus’s ego outshined his psychoses, and the prize sitting in the bed next to Ladon might just be worth threatening the lives of the dragons.

  Ladon slowly lifted his hand away from Rysa’s arm, and stuffed his t-shirt into the jeans he now wore. She glanced up and nodded her acceptance. Finally.

  He nodded to Sister. “Come down to the entrance with me and bring Sister-Dragon inside.”

  He’d switched pants with Derek—he wasn’t going to fight in ill-fitting sweats. Denim restricted movement but he was used to it.

  Derek had not been pleased. His brother-in-law sat on his bed in the sweats and his boots, his t-shirt next to him on top of the sheet, a hospital gown draped over his shoulders.

  Sister scoffed at Ladon’s command, her chin out and her finger wagging between Rysa and Derek. “And leave them in the room alone?”

  “Then go!” Ladon yelled. Why did she argue? Her dragon had been threatened as well. “Go down to the entrance now and ask Julie at the desk to walk outside and then walk back in, so the doors are triggered by someone other than you. Do not let them see you, do you understand, Sister?” If Sister-Dragon came in, she’d be safe—or safer. The Seraphim were not likely to come inside.

  Do not reveal yourself! Ladon shout-pushed to Sister-Dragon. You, either, he pushed to Dragon.

  “They wouldn’t dare—”

  Ladon cut off his sister. “They attacked us with heavy artillery. They threaten the dragons.” He waved at the phone. “Vivicus does not care who we are. He’d kill his own mother if he knew where she was.”

  Derek cringed. Not the “don’t slap me” cringe Ladon saw most often from normals, but a held-in shudder of disgust. Every time someone mentioned Dunn, by name or otherwise, Derek had the same response, and with good reason. She’d caused as much hell in his life as she’d solved.

  Ladon squeezed his brother-in-law’s shoulder. Derek need not worry. The Shifters would not touch any of his family—Rysa, Derek, and Sister, too.

  Rysa watched from her bed, silent and with distant eyes. He had no idea what she was thinking, nor did Dragon. Nor did he feel her seers. The vacant look worried him, though.

  She is on the verge of a vision, Dragon pushed. But she controls it. He paused. She uses her talisman.

  Dragon’s talon still hung around her neck. Her Legio Draconis insignia still wrapped around her wrist. No nurse or doctor had touched either piece.

  “Get the IVs out.” He strapped the holster and the gun Sister had given him around his chest, adjusting it so it didn’t press on his damaged ribs. They ached less, and the fractures healed, but he needed to be careful. “And get dressed.” He nodded toward Derek’s t-shirt. “We go as soon as I clear the lot.”

  Derek pressed the call button to summon a nurse. “They won’t be happy about pulling the IVs.”

  “I’ll do it.” Sister leaned over Derek’s bed.

  “No!” Ladon pushed her back. “Fetch Sister-Dragon now.”

  Sister yanked open the door with one hand, checking her holster and adjusting her jacket with the other. The door slammed against the wall and a low bang rolled through the room. Outside, nurses laughed at their station across the corridor. A custodian mopped the floor, her mop swishing back and forth, filling the already-chemically-tinged hospital air with the stench of antiseptic.

  Sister’s shadow fell into the room as she stepped into the corridor’s fluorescent lights. Then she vanished, walking fast toward the front entrance.

  Sister goes.

  “We will be fine. You go.” Derek checked his pistol, and small clinks from the weapon mixed with the still-beeping machines.

  I have moved as far from the edge of the roof as is possible.

  Dragon had been wise to move back. Ladon’s connection to the beast stretched and the familiar feeling of needles raking every inch of his skin made his throat tighten. He didn’t answer Derek.

  Rysa stared at the window, still silent. He’d gotten her clothes from the closet and she’d pulled on her sweats and shoes while he and Derek had gone into the bathroom to switch out their pants.

  “There is a tunnel.” Derek pointed over his shoulder and in the opposite direction from the entrance and Sister. “It connects the hospital to the new power plant and the ambulance garage behind the main building. We will go out that way and come around to the side lot, where the van is.”

  Ladon would have to steal one of the Seraphim’s fake construction trucks, or either he or Sister would be stuck here. Two dragons and four humans would not fit in one van. “Try to get another vehicle.”

  Derek nodded. “We will find something.”

  The door swung open. A nurse walked in, her hands in her pockets and her hair pulled into a ponytail, as seemed to be the custom with women who worked in the hospital. She pulled a blood pressure machine behind her and glanced back to make sure the door didn’t smash it into the wall before she wheeled it in.

  Ladon pulled his gun and held it pointed downward. He smelled no enthralling scents, and heard no vocal modulations, but he’d never seen this nurse before.

  She moved like a normal—no loose joints or the swaying that morphers showed because of odd muscle and ligament connections. But he didn’t know. The Seraphim might send in someone he couldn’t sense, if they wanted to get to them in the room.

  “Mr. Nicholson, you ca—” The nurse stopped speaking when she saw Ladon, gun in hand, between the two beds.

  Behind him, Rysa shifted. He didn’t look back, but he heard the sheets rustle and the plastic of the mattress whiff as she moved.

  Her feet dropped to the floor. The nurse’s gaze moved from Ladon’s hand to where Rysa now sat on the edge of bed. Color drained from the nurse’s face and her fists clenched.

  On the edges of his mind, slight touches of music flitted across his consciousness, like out-of-view birds flying away.

  Rysa’s seers tickled just outside his perception.

  “Don’t. Your fever will come back.” He could handle this fight without a Fate’s help. He’d handled many fights without a Fate. He’d have to this time too, no matter how many bones he broke or how much trauma his body suffered.

  The nurse didn’t move, but her gaze returned to the gun in Ladon’s hand. “I’m… supposed to check her, too. Her temperature was still high two hours ago.”

  A different nurse had checked Rysa then. She’d also smiled and said there’d be new staff coming o
n for the afternoon shift. He glanced at the small board the nurses wrote information on—the room phone number, who was on duty—and saw a new name: Maria. He glanced at the nurse’s ID badge: Maria.

  Ladon relaxed his hand but didn’t re-holster the gun. He’d not chance it, in case she was a morpher.

  Behind him, Rysa rustled again. “The physician’s assistant is coming.”

  The door swung open. Paige walked in, her hands in her the pockets of her medical jacket and her head high, as was her typical behavior.

  “What now, my dear Russian—”

  The nurse sucked in her breath, and pointed at Ladon. “Gun.”

  Paige stopped the moment she saw the weapon. Her mouth snapped as tight as her neck muscles and she looked between Derek, Ladon, and the nurse.

  “We need our IVs pulled, Paige.” Derek held out his arm. “Please.”

  The nurse named Maria blinked. Confusion rippled through her body, moving from her face to her shoulders and into her limbs. But she kept her eyes on the gun.

  Shock began to seep out of her expression. Terror moved in, and pulled on every muscle around her eyes and mouth. Ladon had seen the same face many times from normals. The same slumped-forward body posture. The signaling of submission.

  Rysa touched his lower back. Startled, he glanced over his shoulder, his mind pulled from the nurse to Rysa’s overheated skin. But also to the sound of Paige’s too-fast breathing and the sight of Derek’s sharp gaze as he watched and processed and learned, but did not interfere.

  Rysa’s fingers glided over the fabric of Ladon’s t-shirt, but she didn’t look at him. She watched the nurse. “She’s not one of them.” Her voice had taken on more flatness. “Pull my IV first.”

  Her seers whispered along his edges again.

  Is she dropping lower? Ladon pushed to Dragon. The beast was concentrating more on hiding himself than on their connection to Rysa, so he might not have noticed.