by Alexia Purdy
He appeared too weak to get out of the car without help. She pulled a water bottle out of the back, uncapped it, and coaxed him to drink. She uncorked a small bottle of alcohol she had bought for later and spilled some onto his wound.
He gasped, flinching at the pain.
“I need to tell you something, Thalia. I’m running out of time.”
“No. Don’t talk like that, Matt. We’ll get through this. I’m taking you to a hospital. You’ll be fine once I get you there.”
Thalia tried to keep her tears under control, but they stung the back of her eyes, threatening to pull forward and down her face. Why did they have to shoot Matt? They could have shot her, and she would’ve survived just fine. He was mortal and easily hurt.
Dammit, Ichiro was going to pay.
Matt reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. It was covered with blood, but she ignored it. “Don’t cry, Thalia. It’s okay. When you make it to Heaven, remember to look me up, all right? I just might be in the neighborhood up there, and it’d be nice to see you again. But I’ve got to tell you something first, and I don’t have much time. Go back to my forge. I left a fireproof box hidden inside the bedroom chimney. Another of my mother’s books is inside, but I didn’t have time to smash it open before. I think it has more information in it about your locket. I don’t think it was her journal, but she did write in the margins. I’m afraid she probably stole it from someone who knew something about the locket, but she could never decipher what was inside it. It did say that there is another realm and that there was a gate into Heaven from there. I want you to have it. Take it.”
“God, no. Matt, you’ll show me where it is yourself. Just hold on, okay?”
She pulled her phone out from her inside jacket pocket and typed “hospital near me” into the search engine. She hoped she wasn’t in a dead zone. The small processing circle whirled around as it searched, the signal strength drifting between one bar and two. Turning back to the steering wheel, she tossed the car back into drive, peeling out of the parking lot and back onto the road, her fingers sticky with drying blood.
Please work, she begged it silently. Find me a hospital.
The nearest hospital was five miles away. She gritted her teeth and pressed the gas pedal harder, revving up the engine. What if Ichiro’s men came after them at the hospital? It was possible, but hopefully they hadn’t noticed they’d gotten Matt during the shootout. What if police questioned them? Matt had just admitted that he was a wanted man… how bad could it be? Could he have murdered someone?
She snuck a glance at him, but he was unconscious once more. There was no right answer to her concerns except to get him help, maybe in secret, or even by force. How easy would it be to find a surgeon to work on him in secret until she could sneak him out of the hospital? Maybe she could get him help and break him out later? That might be better. Or maybe….
She sighed, grabbed his wallet, and flipped through it, looking for his ID. She smiled at the name on the card. Of course, being a wanted man, he’d already have his fake identity all set up. He made weapons for powerful people. She had to assume everything would check out if they investigated it. After all, it had been good enough to get him past the security checks at the airport.
But what if they took fingerprints and discovered who he really was? Maybe she could help him with that. She’d have to cause him more pain, but they wouldn’t be able to identify him afterward. The discomfort was better than the alternative of letting them arrest him and lock him up in a place where she wouldn’t be able to save him. He’d never be able to return to his forge to salvage whatever was left if the cops got ahold of him.
With her mind made up, she slowed the car as they entered a town. She spotted the hospital, pulled into the nearest parking spot, and shut the engine off.
“Matt! Hey, Matt, wake up. Please wake up.”
She tried to rouse him, but he wouldn’t come around. She groaned. Maybe it was better that he was out of it while she did what she had to do.
“Okay, Matt, I apologize in advance for this, but I have to do it.” She grabbed his hands, bloody and sticky from pressing on his wound, and laid them palms up on his lap. He remained unconscious and would hopefully not feel a thing. Breathing in deeply, she grabbed the dagger she had stuffed into her boot, held it between her hands, and ignited the blade with a spell, whispering the words into the cool night air. The dagger crackled and burned white hot for a moment. The flames died away, leaving the blade a bright orange-red color, like a branding iron. She held up Matt’s hands and began pressing it against the pads of his fingers, causing the flesh on his skin to sizzle and blister, obliterating his fingerprints.
The moment she pulled the dagger away, she began to chant the words of another spell. The skin began to heal, slowly at first, but quickly enough that there would only be residual pain in the area and no sign of the burning. The scalded fingertips began to reform, new shapes appearing. When she was finished, he had all new—and untraceable—fingerprints.
Before the blade cooled, she pulled away the T-shirt and inserted the tip into the small hole. The flesh sizzled until she pulled it away, hoping it would stop the bleeding long enough for a surgeon to remove the bullet and stitch him up. That’s when she realized Matt was bleeding from his head.
Jumping up onto her knees, she turned his head slowly and found a tiny flesh wound at his temple, leading into his hairline. He’d been hit by another bullet, but it appeared to have ricocheted off his skull. No wonder he was so drowsy and out of it. Beneath that small wound, his brain was swelling.
“Oh, crap!” she cursed, fighting back her panic.
Matt snapped awake, inhaling a sharp breath and jumping in his seat, staring at her with wild eyes. “Geezus! What did you do?” He pressed his hand to his wound but then pulled it away, staring in horror at his still-red fingertips. “Why do my hands hurt? It smells like barbeque in here.”
“I cauterized your wound and magically changed your fingerprints. You still need the bullet removed and a blood transfusion, but they won’t know who you really are. You need a CT scan of your head too. You were hit by a bullet, but it didn’t get that far. Still, you have a head injury. Come on, let me get you inside.”
Matt groaned and began to roll his eyes back into his head once more. Moving him without his help was damn near impossible. She gave up, jumped out of the car, and sprinted inside for a wheelchair. A nurse with mousey brown hair and overly large glasses yelled at her when she snatched one up from the hallway near the registration desk, but she paid no attention. Returning to the car, she dragged Matt out and propped him into it. He was delirious, drifting in and out of consciousness.
His injury had stopped bleeding, but he’d lost too much blood to function. His pallor concerned her, and as she wheeled him in, he passed out cold once more. She urged the triage nurse to admit him immediately, which, fortunately for Matt, she did after one look at him.
Once he was surrounded by a team of doctors and nurses, Thalia retreated into the waiting room and headed straight to the bathroom, where she rinsed off as much blood as she could from her hands and jacket. At least the jacket was leather and wiped off easily, but her shirt beneath it was ruined.
When she’d finished, she zipped up the jacket to cover the bloodstains and returned to the waiting room. There, she filled out the stack of paperwork the nurse shoved at her, using the pseudonym she’d read off Matt’s ID. After she handed it back, the nurse eyed her suspiciously as she retreated to a chair to wait. The woman returned to her computer desk and picked up the phone, tossing furtive yet fearful glances Thalia’s way.
The police were being notified, which she knew would happen, but she’d hoped they’d wait a bit longer so she could have news of Matt’s condition. It didn’t look good for her to linger, so she waited for the nurse to turn away before slinking out through the emergency room doors. She would return for Matt later, when he was more stable, but for now she had to find a motel off t
he beaten path where she could clean up and get some sleep. Being immortal didn’t give her a free pass from resting, but she did have more endurance than mortals. She’d wait for Matt to get better then break him out when he was cleared. Luckily, if they fixed him up, they’d force him to walk as soon as he was able.
Hospitals didn’t mess around nowadays. Years ago, they’d take weeks to discharge a patient. Now they needed empty beds and would boot patients out if they weren’t actively dying. It was a sad, cold fact, but one Thalia was suddenly thankful for.
She found a nearby motel, hidden behind several office buildings, and decided to pay for the room with cash so no one could trace her credit card. It had a false name on it—her Californian waitress cover—but she couldn’t be too careful. She just hoped the desk clerk wouldn’t get suspicious about it. He was an older gentleman whose soft smile calmed her frantic heart. He seemed interested in her weary appearance but didn’t ask questions as he handed her the room key and bid her a good night. The fewer questions, the better.
She hoped Ichiro’s men weren’t keen on finding her immediately, or there’d be no rest for either her or Matt. In the meantime, as she locked the grungy motel room door behind her, she relished the silence of the darkened space. She didn’t have to turn on the lights to know where the bed was. She could see well enough in the darkness, better than any human. She threw her jacket onto a chair beside the bed, tossed the blood-soaked shirt onto the dresser, and kicked off the heavy boots squeezing her feet before slipped beneath the bleach-scented sheets. Curling up into the pillows, she fell instantly to sleep, her mind dreaming of beacons and labyrinths she swore she’d never seen before but knew by heart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They were going to keep Matt for at least several days. He was in an induced coma, which could continue for a week or more once they decided to wean off the barbiturates and paralytics.
It was too risky for Thalia to stick around with all the cops crawling all over the hospital. After the first visit, seeing him became nearly impossible. She had no doubt they’d discovered the scene of the firefight on Theroniel’s property and suspected he’d somehow been involved. Fishing his chart out of the nurse’s station had been easier than visiting his room, with a cop perched at the doorway, reading a newspaper and eating Matt’s untouched hospital food.
Sitting in the small waiting room of the ICU, she tapped her foot, her nerves fried. Thinking of leaving Matt was driving her mad. She didn’t want to. She couldn’t. Never in her life had she felt more panicked and trapped at the same time. How could she move him when he was so ill? There was no way to do it without causing him harm. Mortals were so fragile, a concern she hadn’t thought about in years. What worried her more was Matt waking up by himself in the middle of the hospital room without any familiar faces to reassure him. But she couldn’t easily get past the stupid guard squatting at the nurse’s station. Even when she could sneak past him for quick peeks and words with Matt’s silent figure, she was always in and out, afraid to get caught. All she needed was a cop to run her ID. Even though it’d come back clean, she knew she’d be questioned, and that was just unacceptable.
She paced the waiting room, which was empty at this time of the early morning. Suddenly, an idea slipped into her mind, and it felt like a weight had been removed. She’d leave him a letter. The nurses couldn’t open a private letter left for Matt. It was the perfect way to communicate with him once he woke up and still get away so the Yakuza wouldn’t find her at his side. He’d remain safe and get informed the moment he awoke.
It was brilliant, and she’d wished she thought of it earlier. She grabbed some copy paper and a pen from the nurses’ desk. No one ever noticed her; the poor nurses were overworked and continually short staffed enough that they rarely visited the desk. The constant ringing of the phone and lost families visiting was a problem. She wished they could have more help, but it worked to her advantage at the moment.
Back in the waiting room, she spent a few moments trying to come up with the right words, crumbling up sheet after sheet when they wouldn’t come. Finally, after much excruciating thought, she’d gotten what she needed to tell Matt down on paper. She folded it and stuffed it into an envelope, writing the name of Matt’s alter ego on the outside. Inside, she’d stuck to initials so only he would know who was writing. She hoped he got it. There was always a chance the police would open it, but there was nothing incriminating in it.
Dear M.,
I’m headed back to the big city. I couldn’t wait anymore. Please call me when you get better, and I’ll update you on everything. Get better soon, miss you already.
~T.
She slipped it onto his bedside table beneath a small vase of flowers she’d brought to decorate his room. Pressing a tiny kiss to his forehead as he slept, she felt her heart lurch once more.
“Goodbye, Matt. I’ll see you soon.”
Heading back to New York City without him felt odd. She’d gotten used to his company; his presence was comforting. Using spells, she cleaned out the blood in the rental car before returning it and hopping onto a plane back to New York. It was a bittersweet return.
Once back in town, she avoided her apartment, knowing Ichiro’s men were probably watching it. Instead, she took refuge in a daily prepaid room at a nearby hostel, where she could pay extra for a private room with her own space. There, she spent the day sleeping and trying to keep the pain out of her head. The chaos of the preceding days had taken a toll on her, and she forced fluids and food down her throat to restore her stamina. Immortality did not give her a free pass from getting sick, but it did stave off the more common human ailments.
Hiding there forever was not an option, though. She was tempted to run away. What would it be like to disappear again, without being tracked by archangels? A new life. Possibly with the opportunity for love? Would Matt run away with her? The thought of a life without murder, without worry, was a forbidden fruit. Life was never easy, nor would it ever be. Not for an immortal like her. It’d be best if she stayed as far away from Matt as she could. Maybe he could start over in some other town, away from this chaotic mess. At least he’d be safe and might even have a chance at love.
She stuffed her clothes into her pack, not really caring if they wrinkled or not. She had to find a laundromat soon; her blood-stained clothes were sitting in a plastic bag inside the backpack, fermenting. She wrinkled her nose at the thought. Washing it in the public laundromat at the hostel was probably a big fat no. She couldn’t risk anyone walking in and seeing them. Staying in one place too long was dangerous. Plus, she had to leave to get any decent food. Her stomach was already complaining from the diet of snack foods from the vending machine. She wanted to wait for nightfall, but if she didn’t eat soon, she was sure her stomach would just start consuming her innards.
The thought made her chuckle as she ran a brush through her long, newly dyed locks. She’d chosen a red magenta color with a splash of deep blueberry purple to fit in with the punk scene on this side of town. Without bleaching, it came out dark but would lighten as the days went by. Her natural medium brown hair had to be changed if she didn’t want to be noticed. Everyone had colored hair around these parts, where the young people sported hardware in their faces. She wasn’t about to go that far, but her hair now fit in nicely as part of the fashion status quo. She tied on her shoes then grabbed her jacket and swung it over her shoulders.
Staring down at her backpack, she decided to return for it. First, she’d get some takeout, bring it back and eat, and then find a place to do laundry. Sighing, she made her way out of the hostel, which was quiet at this hour. Most people were out for dinner, but teenagers and young adults filled the place when it got late. Luckily, most of them were good at turning a blind eye to one another. She kept her head low and tried to make sure she didn’t stand out in any way. There was no telling who might be desperate enough to point her out to any of Ichiro’s men who came lurking about.
There
was a burger joint around the corner. Perfect. She could use some rich sustenance. If she loved anything about being immortal, it was the fast-burning metabolism. She could consume whatever she liked. On the downside, she was constantly hungry.
“Burgers it is,” she mumbled to herself as she pulled open the restaurant door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After grabbing her order of two double bacon cheeseburgers and large curly fries, she dashed out of the restaurant to return to the hostel. Staying at the burger joint would leave her open as a target. She hated eating alone inside her room, but it’d be the only way she could feel less apprehensive and know she’d be left alone. A few doors away from the hostel, a wall of three men blocked her way.
“Great,” she muttered. Can’t even get home to eat in peace. Just lovely. She crinkled the top of her food bag and calculated how she could fight the men without ruining her dinner. She merely placed it next to a fire hydrant near her feet before facing the warriors. “Get on with it already.”
The one on the left approached first, swinging a large katana in exuberant circles, showing off his skills. Thalia rolled her eyes. The newly trained ones always had to be the center of attention. They usually went down the quickest.
She grabbed the angel-killer blade she’d stuffed discreetly beneath her jacket, unsheathed it, and slammed it against the katana, shattering the blade. The guy’s hardware was cheap. Probably got swindled by some knock-off vendor.
