The Magician's Blood

by Linda G. Hill

  “Herman,” Tarmien muttered, struggling to get up onto the bed. She slept still, blissfully unaware of what she had been through. He checked her pulse; her heart was beating steadily. Beneath her, a pool of blood soaked the white duvet. His second granddaughter was dead. He didn’t need any special powers to know it. He reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his phone, but his pocket was empty.

  From behind the curtain that separated the bedroom from whatever was on the other side came a groan. He crawled in that direction in search of the source of the voice, as well as a phone to call 911. George was there, just waking up.

  “You’ll be paralyzed for a while, but the feeling will come back,” he said, struggling to keep the grief out of his voice. “Don’t worry.” Tarmien patted him on the shoulder, and George’s eyes sprung wide open.

  “Herman!” he croaked.

  Tarmien froze. What could he tell the man about his daughter?

  “She’ll be okay,” he lied. He spied a landline on the desk and tried his best to muffle his voice even as he heard George grunt with the effort to move his numb limbs. Tarmien was still on the phone when George’s body hit the floor. He turned to see the man crawl off in the direction of the bed where Herman lay.

  * * *

  “HERMAN!”

  It was George’s agonized scream that snatched Stephen away from the grip of the demon. He blinked as though waking from a dream and stared at Nina’s barely conscious form below him. Standing, horrified at what he had done, he looked down at her naked body and she groaned. She gazed up at him and smiled drowsily.

  “Master,” she whispered as if in prayer.

  He held his hands up in front of his face. Blood. Nina’s blood. He had just enough sense about him to realize he might be looking at his cure. Before he tasted it, he needed to get out of the bath room. Without the key, which was still in the bookcase outside the room, there was no way out but to transport himself, and if he lost his powers …

  A feminine voice joined George’s lament, coming faintly to him through the ceiling from almost directly above.

  Herman.

  He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was in the darkness of the large wardrobe upstairs. He grabbed a white robe to cover himself and absentmindedly touched the tip of his tongue to the blood on his fingers. He stumbled out the door and up the stairs to his own room, rubbing his hands on the front of the robe as he went.

  Margaret stood just inside the hidden door to his room; his knees buckled at the sight of Herman bleeding upon the white covers. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

  He dragged himself to the bed and knelt beside her. “It’s okay, Herman,” he whispered. He kissed her cheek lightly in a spot that didn’t look too badly bruised. “Can you feel anything?”

  “No,” she mouthed without a sound.

  “Where is she?” George growled from across the room, near the curtain.

  “Safe,” Stephen answered without looking up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw George head for the office door. Knowing there was no way for him to find Nina inside the hidden bath room, he turned his attention back to Herman.

  “Stephen,” Herman whispered. He held her hand, even though he knew she couldn’t feel it. It was the only part of her that wasn’t damaged.

  “It’s going to be all right, Herman,” Stephen said.

  “No,” she whispered slowly. “You’re crying.”

  He swiped at the tears streaming down his cheeks, angry at himself for having given away that there was, indeed, something terribly wrong. Silently he thanked the heavens above that Herman could feel nothing. He wondered how long it would last.

  “What’s happening?” Herman asked, louder now but still slowly. “Is the baby okay?”

  Stephen heard Margaret stifle a sob from the door as a fresh stream of tears fell from his eyes, and Herman’s face crumpled. “Stephen, no, not our baby.” Her tears ran in large drops down her face to her hair on the pillow, and her breath hitched. “Not our little Peanut.”

  “You’re alive, that’s all that matters.” He stroked her hair, his voice strained.

  “What happened to me?”

  Unable to say, unable to speak at all, he looked into the eyes of the woman he loved with guilt flooding his heart. He choked remorse from his lungs and sputtered the words, “I’m sorry, Herman. I’m so sorry.” He lifted her hand to his lips and as he kissed it, Herman cried out in pain. The feeling was beginning to come back, starting with her bruised face, her throat, her collarbone that was likely broken.

  “Where the fuck is the ambulance?” Stephen yelled to anyone behind him. As though on cue, the doorbell rang, and at the same time he heard the distant cry of a baby.

  “Skye!” he said, turning to his father, Margaret, and now his mother, who had entered through the hidden door his dad had opened. “Where is Skye?”

  “In the playroom, in a play pen,” Margaret said over the sound of Herman’s wailing. “Mark’s looking after her.”

  “George …” Stephen said.

  Tarmien moved toward the door. “I’ll look for him.”

  “I’ll go get the paramedics,” Margaret offered. She used the wall to support herself as she passed through the curtain.

  “Hold on, Herman,” Stephen said, turning back to her. She was writhing, crying. Her breath came out harshly now that she could hardly withstand the pain. What to say to the ambulance driver, and what he would do with Nina, raced with his devastation in his head.

  “What’s … Oh my God,” he heard Daphne gasp from the curtain.

  “Daphne, go downstairs to the living room, and keep an eye on Herman’s mother,” Stephen snapped.

  “I’ll go,” Stella said, gently touching her son’s arm before she left.

  “Dagmar!” George appeared in the doorway with Tarmien close behind. George made a beeline for the bed. He touched Stephen’s arm and then turned to leave.

  “Follow him,” he said to his father. “He read my mind; he knows where Nina is.”

  The two men passed the ambulance attendants on the way through the curtain, just as Herman screamed out in pain. One, an overly muscular woman in uniform, stepped around the gurney that they had hefted into the room, and turned to Stephen.

  “What happened?” she asked over Herman’s loud moans, as her partner, a wiry bald man, began to inspect Herman’s wounds.

  “She was beaten up,” Stephen said.

  She glanced at the blood stains on Stephen’s robe and hands. “The police are on their way,” she said sharply.

  Stephen bent to speak into Herman’s ear. “You’ll be okay, my love.”

  “We’re going to give you something for the pain,” said the male attendant. He nudged Stephen aside.

  “She was pregnant,” Stephen said into the woman’s ear. “Her doctor works from Kingston General. Charlene Fletcher.”

  “We’ll call ahead and have her meet us there.”

  “Can I ride in the ambulance?” Stephen asked.

  “You’re not going anywhere until the police talk to you, Sir,” the woman said, looking him up and down again. He pulled his robe tighter around him.

  The attendants worked quickly, moving around each other, barely speaking. They hooked up an IV and administered drugs that helped calm Herman while they prepared to move her to the stretcher.

  “They’ll take good care of you,” Stephen said to her, brushing her hair off her forehead. “I’ll come as soon as I can.”

  She winced, then looked at him lazily. “I … I …” was all she said.

  Stephen followed them out of the bedroom, through the office, down the stairs, and to the front door, passing people but not having any sense of who they were, or what they were doing there. He needed to be with Herman. His chest was heavy with guilt; this was his fault, as much as if he had beaten her himself. She stared at his face as they carried her out the door and put her in the am
bulance. Aunt Aggie stood at her side, glaring at him.

  He watched the ambulance disappear down the road. When he turned, everyone was gathered behind him. Margaret held Skye. Only one was absent.

  “I lost George,” Tarmien said. “He left through the front door. I had to stop and look after Doreen.”

  “And Nina?”

  “Gone too. George found the book to open the door before I even got down here. Nina broke through the windows of the greenhouse and ran. Her tracks led to the barn, but she wasn’t there. I assume you still keep extra coats and boots in there, so she’ll be long gone. George’s prints followed hers.”

  Stephen turned to look at Herman’s mother. She sat on a bench beside the living room door, rocking back and forth, a nurse on either side.

  “Did you …”

  “I did everything I could to help them forget.”

  Stephen vaguely remembered Doreen coming partway up the stairs, supported by Tarmien, to see her daughter on the stretcher. He remembered Doreen’s scream and her tumble down the last couple of steps.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. The police were on their way.

  Stephen sat on the stairs and began to cry.

  CHAPTER 45

  It took a full four hours for the police to talk to everyone, take evidence from the scene, and take blood samples from beneath Stephen’s fingernails. Afterward, they drove him to the station for fingerprinting, despite the word of almost everyone present that it was someone else who had beaten Herman. Stephen was worried, however, because he knew the blood on his hands would match the samples they had taken from the windows of the greenhouse where Nina had cut herself getting out. If the police found her before he did, and before she could have her hysterectomy, the entire family would be in danger. She had to remain in the employ of the family for the sake of the curse, and she could only have the hysterectomy if he hadn’t impregnated her again. In short, the entire situation was a mess.

  While the police were busy with their investigation, Tarmien had managed to get in touch with Reed to see if Nina had shown up at home. Reed was surprised to discover that she wasn’t still in Antigua, but he promised to look for her, and if he found her, to hide her.

  It was the middle of the night by the time Stephen finally arrived at the hospital with the hope of seeing Herman. Intensive Care didn’t have visiting hours as long as the visitor was a close relative. He explained to a nurse at the reception desk that he was her fiancé, and then he waited. Three agonizing minutes later, another nurse came out. When she spoke his name, it felt as though his heart had dropped out of his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dagmar, but Miss Anderson can’t see you,” she said.

  “Why? Is she okay?” he asked, close to panic.

  “She’s stable,” the nurse assured him. “But her father is with her, and he explained that your presence would upset her further.”

  Stephen looked around the waiting room as though an answer might be lurking in the corner. Confusion quickly turned to anger.

  “Could you ask Mr. Anderson if I could have a word with him, please?” Stephen asked through clenched teeth, his hand tightly clutching the hair at the back of his head.

  The nurse took a small step back, and said she would ask, if he would hold on a minute.

  Stephen ran his fingers through his hair and forced his breathing under control. He hoped to find out what George had done with Nina, without pummeling him. The quiet of the closed-off passageway between the barn and the house would make a good place to question him, but only if he could get the man alone to transport them both—assuming Nina’s blood hadn’t taken away his powers. That was the last thing he needed at the moment. But first, he needed to see Herman.

  He wasn’t really surprised when he looked up to see two large hospital security guards walking determinedly toward him. They detained him without explanation until the police arrived to take him into custody.

  * * *

  The search party, consisting of Tarmien, Reed, and Hawkins, split their areas into sections of the estate. Hawkins searched around his house, while Reed—after a warmish reunion with his real father—took the road on foot out to the station. Tarmien looked for Nina, and possibly George, around the barn and the main house. It was Tarmien who eventually found her. After circling the estate once, he returned to the greenhouse and looked through the broken glass panel. Nina was soaking in the warm tub. The water against the white skin of her shoulders was red with blood.

  Gingerly, but as quickly as he could, he squeezed between the jagged edges of the broken pane, afraid that she was bleeding out. When he stood before her, however, she opened her eye and smiled with the half of her face that wasn’t split and swollen.

  “Mr. Dagmar,” she crooned. She stood, and he looked her over to ascertain whether she was bleeding profusely from anywhere while trying not to notice the milky water dripping from the nipples of her over-full breasts.

  “Are you …”

  She sat on the side of the tub, swung her legs over, and stood, legs apart.

  “Pregnant?” she finished for him. It wasn’t the question he was going to ask, but it needed to be answered. “I don’t know. Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  She reached for his crotch. Before she could make contact, he grabbed her wrist and held it. He took the other and held them both with one hand.

  “Mmmm, you like it rough, just like your son.”

  “Shut it, Nina,” he growled. “I wouldn’t do this if I had a choice.”

  He placed two fingers of his free hand at the opening between her legs and she moaned. “Come on, Sir, you’ve wanted this for years,” she whispered close to his ear.

  He ignored her voice, her breath, and his own demon’s sick desire as he slid his fingers into her, searching for the pulse of life. He knew immediately that there was none. It was insanely bad luck that at that moment the hidden door of the bath room slid open and Daphne appeared in the doorway, followed by Margaret, causing Nina to laugh hysterically.

  * * *

  “What the fuck are you holding me on?” Stephen yelled at the badly shaven cop who had been questioning him for the past hour. The man wore a gray suit that looked about as tired as Stephen felt. It matched the detective’s lanky gray hair, so it had that going for it.

  “I told you. Your girlfriend’s father swears that you’re responsible for her condition.”

  “And I told you I didn’t beat her. My entire family told you the same thing.”

  “Families do that. So what, you had a lover’s spat and you hired someone to do it? A guy like you with money doesn’t need to do the dirty work yourself.”

  “I love her. I would never hurt her!”

  “Not what George Anderson says.”

  “Fuck George Anderson!” Stephen cried, yanking ineffectually on the cuffs that held his hands behind his back. He knew it was his own fault. He had come to the police station livid. They thought they were cuffing him for their own protection, but it was George Anderson’s neck he wanted to wring. If it wasn’t for George, he’d be sitting beside Herman right now, comforting her and apologizing to her. He looked down, defeated.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked.

  “A confession would be nice.”

  “I. Didn’t. Do it.”

  “Then where did the blood come from that was all over your hands?”

  Stephen stared down at the table between himself and the detective, refusing to speak. It would take time for the blood samples to come back, telling them it belonged to someone other than Herman.

  “What did you use to beat her with?”

  “I didn’t fucking do it!”

  The detective stood and walked out of the room, leaving Stephen to bang his head on the table in private.

  * * *

  “Daphne, come with me,” Margaret urged her, gently tugging on the girl’s sleeve.

  “How can you do this to Mom
?” Daphne squeaked through the tears pouring from her eyes, blue like her mother’s.

  “Daphne, I was just …” He was cut off by Nina’s cackling laughter. His urge to backhand her across the other cheek was overcome by his pity for the girl. She was clearly mad. He stepped away from her, toward Daphne so she could hear him better, and two things happened: Daphne backed up into her mother, who chose that moment to walk in, and Nina collapsed. Then Tarmien noticed the blood dripping from his hand.

  “She’s bleeding. Margaret, call Charlie. See if she can get over here to look at her.”

  He looked at his wife and daughter and realized he could ask neither of them to request the help of Nina’s family. Instead, he grabbed a nearby robe, wrapped Nina in it as best he could, and carried her into the living room to lay her on the couch.

  * * *

  Stephen was staring off into a world of worry when the detective returned with a cup of black coffee. He put it down on the table in front of him.

  “Drink coffee?” the detective asked.

  “Yes, are you going to tease me with it?”

  “Are you going to behave yourself?”

  Stephen nodded, unwilling to argue that he would never have hurt anyone anyway, at least not anyone at the police station. The detective unlocked his cuffs.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “This is fine,” Stephen answered lifting the cup to his lips.

  “Where were you yesterday?”

  “That depends,” Stephen said, looking up at the detective with only his eyes. “What day is it today?”

  “January third.”

  “Time?”

  The detective lifted his eyebrows.

  “Just trying to figure out how long I’ve been awake.”

  The detective looked at his watch. “It’s 3:50 am.”

  Stephen nodded again. “I came home from Edmonton yesterday afternoon. With my family, my fiancée and her family, and some friends.”

  “Right.” The detective took a small notepad out of his pocket and flipped the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Apparently you were booked on a private jet that crashed, just east of Edmonton. Want to explain how you got to Kingston so quickly in a crashed plane?”