by D. D. Miers
“You really need to get checked out at the emergency room,” the angel solemnly insisted. “If you fractured a vertebrae and end up moving wrong and damaging it further, you could end up paralyzed.”
“I'm fine,” I insisted again, though I was less confident now. “And I definitely can't afford a taxi home from the hospital. You can just let me off here if that's easier for you. Tell 'em I hit you and escaped.”
He chuckled and I tried to ignore the way my heart melted.
“How about this?” he suggested. “Let us take you to the emergency room, and I'll give you a ride home as soon as you're released. Sound good? The alternative is I handcuff you to the bed because the concussion has made you loopy.”
I frowned, knowing he had me pinned, and gave up. I wasn’t going to convince anyone of my sobriety after I’d just spent several minutes waxing poetic about their resemblance to classical sculpture.
“Fine,” I said. “But only because you probably saved my life or something.”
He smiled at me again.
“Ethan Hewitt,” he introduced himself.
“Vexa Tzarnavaras.”
“That's really your name?”
“Yeah, my family is weird. Don't ask.”
Several hours later, well past dinner time, I was finally free of the emergency room. As I'd hoped, I was mostly fine. My head needed staples from where I'd hit the window. I had some painful whiplash and a lot of ugly bruises and a few lacerations from the broken glass. But no broken bones or major injuries, which was a relief because I was already going to have a hard-enough time paying for this. Not to mention car repairs . . . I rubbed my aching head, crowded with worries about the missing candle and my vanishing finances. I'd had a headache since I woke up that no amount of painkillers had managed to erase, though the Tylenol with hydrocodone they'd given me took the edge off, if not knock my ass out.
Lost in my own head, I almost didn't notice Ethan standing up to greet me as I entered the waiting room.
“You waited for me?” I asked, surprised.
“Of course,” Ethan replied with a friendly smile. “I promised you a ride home, remember?”
“I figured you were just trying to placate a crazy person,” I confessed. “I was just going to call my parents and deal with their flip out.”
“You've got a head injury,” Ethan said, pushing the glass doors of the emergency room. “If there's ever been a good excuse for avoiding parental flip outs, that's one. Come on, my car is parked right out here.”
I followed him because I couldn't think of a good reason not to. He was gorgeous, and a paramedic, which probably meant he was at least a half-decent guy. Even if he wasn't, I was fairly confident in my ability to take care of myself against normal, non-necromantic dudes.
He had a Jeep, the kind with the heavy-duty tires and the rack for bikes or camping equipment. It was older and battered but in good shape. He helped me up into the passenger seat before he climbed into his own. I buckled myself in, grimacing as the belt dragged over the bandages where my seat belt had earlier tried to fuse with my collarbone. As soon as the car started, I tensed up, which my bruised muscles didn't appreciate. Ethan noticed and smiled sympathetically as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
“It's normal to be stressed out by cars for a while,” he said. “Don't worry about it. Just give it a few days.”
“I'm fine,” I lied. “It's just been a long day.”
“Hey, it could have been a lot shorter,” Ethan reminded me, and I laughed.
“Yeah, true,” I agreed. “Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to just going to bed.”
“That's a good idea,” he confirmed. “Those painkillers should knock you out. I'd call into work and let your parents know what's up before you take it because you won't be waking up before noon tomorrow, I promise.”
“Good to know,” I told him. Silence fell for a moment. I leaned against the cold glass of the passenger window, closed my eyes, and tried to stop my stomach clenching every time he tapped the breaks. “Thanks for the ride, by the way. You really didn't need to. I hope you're not missing work for me.”
“It's not a big deal,” Ethan assured me. “My partner doesn't mind covering for me for an hour, and the address you gave me isn't that far from the hospital. Besides, I was worried about you.”
That set off a storm of butterflies in my stomach.
“Which reminds me,” he said, as I smothered my nerves. “Did you find your thing?”
“My thing?” I repeated, confused.
“When I first pulled you out of the wreck,” he said, “you were talking about someone taking your thing. You think you were hit intentionally? Why? Judging by the fact that you didn’t make a statement to the police while you were at the hospital, I figured you must have changed your mind.”
“Oh.” I barely remembered the first half of the ambulance ride. And considering I couldn’t really explain why I’d had the candle in the first place without explaining why I’d taken it from the funeral home, talking to the police probably wasn’t a good idea. “Yeah, yeah I found it. I was, uh, pretty out of it when you picked me up.”
“Does that mean you weren’t serious when you said I had raw heroic magnetism?” he asked, pouting as though I’d wounded him. My face burned as I tried to think of a way to salvage my pride. Which would be a lot easier if he wasn’t staring at me with those big, brown, puppy-dog eyes.
“Eyes on the road, hot stuff,” I told him, half to stop my heart from racing, half because it genuinely made me nervous. He’d been making an obvious effort to drive slowly and carefully for me, but I was still on edge. “If you get me into a second car accident today, I’ll downgrade you from Bernini to Donatello.”
“I’m going to be honest,” Ethan said with a sheepish grin, “the only Donatello I know is the turtle. Not sure who Bernini is, either.”
“Disappointing,” I said with a small laugh. “But not unusual. Of the four best David statues, Bernini is my favorite. Donatello’s I don’t care for as much. Verrocchio’s gets extra points because the model was supposedly a young Da Vinci.”
“Da Vinci!” he said excitedly. “I know that one!”
I laughed, some of the tension of the day easing off.
“You know,” I said after a moment, deciding to go for it, “there’s a copy of Donatello’s David at the Slater Museum in Norwich. I’ve never been to see it, but I hear it’s pretty great.”
“I’ll have to check it out sometime,” he said with a knowing smile. “Apparently my art history knowledge could use some improvement.”
“Maybe I could show you around?” I suggested, my heart beating a little too fast. “Tell you all the cool info too scandalous to put on the museum tour.”
He bit his lip and my heart sank at the conflicted look on his face.
“Listen,” he said, “you’re gorgeous and also smarter than me, which is exciting as hell. But you’ve also just been through a major trauma and you’re probably not in the best state of mind to be getting into a . . . thing with anyone.”
“It’s not a thing,” I said, stung. “One date is not a thing.”
“I know, I know,” he said taking one hand off the wheel to make placating gestures. “But this isn’t the first time I’ve pulled a girl out of a wreck and had her decide it’s meant to be. It doesn’t end well for either of us. And I don’t want to be the kind of guy who takes advantage of someone while they’re emotionally compromised.”
“This isn’t that,” I said a little more sharply, shame burning under my skin, worried he was right.
“Maybe it isn’t,” he said quickly. “I’d sure as hell love it if it isn’t. I’m just saying you’re not in a position to be making an informed decision right now.”
I looked away, a bitter taste in my mouth. I’d recognize how reasonable he was being later, but at the moment, I felt like an undesirable idiot. I wanted to dig a hole, bury myself, and never emerge.
It wasn’t muc
h farther and we drove the last few minutes in relative silence. I pointed out the turn to my apartment, and he pulled into my driveway, turning off the Jeep.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said, terse with embarrassment, opening the door and sliding carefully out, trying to hide my wince at the pain it caused my battered muscles. “And, you know, everything else.”
“Don’t mention it,” Ethan said with a smile. “And hey, give it a week or so, and if you still want to check out that museum, maybe give me a call.”
I swallowed my heart as it jumped into my throat.
“I’ll think about it,” I said with a shrug, deciding to play it off. “But don’t get your hopes up. I don’t know if I can be seen with a guy who doesn’t know his Renaissance masters from his Ninja turtles.”
He laughed, shaking his head.
“I suppose I deserved that,” he said, his crooked smile making my heart skip a beat again despite everything. “Get some rest. Maybe I’ll hear from you in a week.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, waved, and shut the car door. He waited until I was inside to drive away, a small gesture but one I appreciated, considering how late it was and that my neighborhood was not great. He really did seem like a nice guy. Which made it all the more disappointing that I’d so thoroughly fucked things up.
Chapter 5
I lived in half of what was once a pretty nice colonial, which had been turned into a duplex and not been well maintained over the years. However, it was better than an apartment building. Apartments around here tended to be permanently overstuffed with college students attending UCONN. And I didn’t have to share it with a roommate.
This made up for the slightly rundown neighborhood, the numerous structural issues, and the occasionally unbearable neighbors. The current neighbors, a struggling young couple with four retail jobs between them and a three-year-old who spent most of his time at daycare, were vastly preferable to the noisy meth heads who’d been evicted about a year ago.
When they’d moved in, the young couple had a dog, a huge shaggy black mutt that I’d pegged for part wolfhound or overgrown Airedale. As I shuffled into my house, locking the door behind me, I realized why I hadn’t seen the dog around in a while. My newly heightened powers heard the poor dog’s bones, buried under the big tree in their half of the backyard. My powers couldn’t tell me cause of death, but I’d take a guess it was probably a car. It had been notorious for escaping the yard and wandering the neighborhood while its owners were at work, and our road was a busy one.
Mildly unsettled by how I suffered the animal’s death despite it being on the edge of my usual range for sensing human death, I headed for the bathroom, focusing on something else. I needed a shower. I smelled like burning car and hospital. I mentally downgraded to a bath, remembering I wasn’t allowed to get my staples wet for twenty-four hours. Grumbling, I shouldered my way into the bathroom and immediately froze as I saw myself in the mirror.
Jesus Christ, I thought, grimacing at my frazzled hair, melted makeup, and ruined dress. No wonder Ethan had turned me down. I looked like—well, like I’d just been in a car accident. I was now even more embarrassed about the whole encounter than before. Great. What a fucking day.
I soaked in the tub, letting the hot water soothe my abused muscles, turning over my worries about the candle. It was upsetting to have lost the candle and not just because Uncle Ptolemy had come back from the dead specifically to tell me to keep it safe. There was a weird, phantom limb sensation to not having it in reach, throbbing in time with my persistent dull headache. It was supposed to be with me. Its absence was like a missing tooth, a strangely aching gap.
I turned, reaching for the body wash and the tingling sensation grew stronger. I realized for the first time this was a genuine physical sensation, not just a psychosomatic reaction to my guilt at losing the candle. I frowned, sitting up a little higher in the bath and did a slow radar sweep, flinching as the tingle grew perceptibly stronger when my head was turned roughly west. I pressed my lips together, wondering if it might be some kind of damage to my neck the ER had missed, made worse when I turned my head a certain way.
Before I could probe any further, my cell phone buzzed loudly. I’d left it sitting on the sink and I winced as it vibrated off the edge and crashed to the vinyl tile floor.
I stretched over the side of the tub to retrieve it, eyes widening as I recognized Aunt Persephona’s number.
“Thank God!” she said as I picked up. “Or whoever necromancers pray to. I’ve been trying to call you since this afternoon!”
“Sorry,” I said immediately. “I haven’t even seen the missed calls yet. Some . . . stuff happened.”
“What kind of stuff?” Percy asked, sounding worried.
“In a minute,” I assured her, not ready to have that conversation yet. “How’s the cat?”
“The vet said she’ll live,” she said, still sounding worried but relenting for now. “She was definitely clipped by a car and might lose a leg, but if she makes it through the night, they think she’ll be okay. No sign of the owners unfortunately. No collar and she wasn’t chipped. This is why I’m always saying cats should be indoor pets only! Between dogs, cars, malicious humans, FIV, ticks, hawks, coyotes, and bobcats, they don’t stand a chance! Not to mention they’re—”
“They’re terrible for the environment, I know,” I said, smiling a little. “I’ve heard this lecture before.”
“It just drives me up a tree, Vexa. They’re such sweet creatures. They deserve better.”
“I know. Was the funeral okay?”
“Oh, yes, the graveside service was beautiful,” she said, her voice softening. “Ptolemy would have hated it. If he’d had his way there would have been whiskey and professional clowns. He would have hated to go to his grave without a scandal.”
“Well, hopefully sitting up in his coffin during his own viewing was enough of an incident to appease him,” I said with a small laugh.
“Oh, true. He would have loved that. Maybe that’s why he came back enough to speak. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life. I’ve read about people with the gift centuries ago managing partial true resurrections, but only with incredible sacrifice. Whatever it was you touched, that candle thing of Tolly’s, it must be immensely powerful.”
“About that,” I said with a deep breath, realizing I was out of excuses not to talk about it. “Ptolemy’s candle? I . . . lost it.”
“What?”
I winced at the near shriek on the other end of the phone.
“When? How?”
“Practically right after we split up,” I admitted. “Someone hit my car. Intentionally, I think.”
“Are you all right?!”
“Yeah, yeah, I went to the emergency room. I’m banged up but nothing serious. But while I was dazed, someone reached into the car and took the candle.”
“Why didn’t you call me earlier?” Percy sounded like she was close to hyperventilating. “Do your parents know? How did you get home from the hospital? Vexa!”
“I know, I know,” I said, trying to calm her down. “I’m sorry. I was kind of overwhelmed. I should have called.”
Aunt Persephona was silent for a long moment, working to get her feelings under control.
“We will talk more about this later,” she said with a sigh. “For now, I did some research into the candle. I didn’t have much to go off of, but I did my best.”
“Where do you even start to look something like that up?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I started with the books my father left me,” Persephona explained, and I heard the shuffle of pages as she spoke. “He didn’t have the gift, but his mother did. She passed down the books her father gave to her, which were given to him by some other gifted ancestor. Traditionally, they go to the person in the family with the strongest gift when the previous owner passes on.”
“What are they?” I asked, curious.
“Records, histories, rules, and rituals. You’ve
seen them before, you know. I had you read from one of them when you were smaller. A handwritten primer with exercises to help young children control their gifts. My great-great-grandmother wrote it herself.”
“I do kind of remember,” I said, squinting as I recalled vague images of sitting at her kitchen table with a thin and worn black journal, struggling to understand archaically worded meditations on directing your energy.
“It’s a good stack of books on the family history and practice,” she said. “I’ve read all of them a dozen times probably. But most of the family stuff appeared to be more tedious than you’d be interested in, and the rituals and practices were a bit . . . Well, considering you’re the first of us in a few generations who could probably put those rituals to genuine use, I thought I’d wait till you were older and more stable before I introduced you to those.”
“Aunt Percy,” I said, a bit offended. “I’m twenty-seven. I make my own car payments and everything.”
“You’re still so young,” Persephona said fondly. “You haven’t faced any real hardship yet. If you lost your job or got evicted or found out your boyfriend had cheated on you tomorrow, I didn’t want you to have the ability to throw a zombie army at your problems.”
“A zombie army?” I asked pointedly. “That’s a possibility?”
“Vexa.”
“I’m just saying it would have been a lot harder for someone to hit me with a car earlier if I’d had a zombie army!”
Persephona sighed impatiently.
“As I was saying. I didn't have very much to go on, but I assumed an artifact capable of magnifying power that way must have been mentioned in the histories. Unfortunately, I haven't found much more than mentions . . . references to the Candle of the Covenant. Apparently it's been in the family since time immemorial, passed down to the descendant with the strongest gift alongside the books. But it appears to have been lost several generations ago. I'd never even heard of it. I can't for the life of me fathom how Tolly got a hold of it.”