bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered

by Sam Cheever

  My father touched her shoulder and she jumped, giving a little cry. Flick jumped too.

  I giggled and he glared at me.

  “Darma, honey, are you all right?” Father bent closer in concern.

  Slowly her blonde head turned and she focused glazed, blue eyes on him. Then she blinked once, twice and her mouth found a word. It was creaky but whole. “Wow.”

  Father looked at me and I shrugged.

  Flick lifted a hand toward Darma and it suddenly held a glass of water like the one he’d spewed on us a moment earlier. “Would you like a drink, Darma?”

  She turned slowly toward Flick and reached for the glass. Her movements were stiff and robotic. She took the water, sipped and handed the glass back to him. The glass disappeared as soon as it touched Flick’s fingers.

  Her blue eyes widened. “Things just appear and disappear. How do you do that?”

  He shrugged, “It’s the cloud.”

  “Show me how.”

  I shared a look with father and he smiled. Apparently Darma was getting over her fear of magic.

  Flick grinned, “Well, you just think of what you want and it appears.”

  Darma screwed her face up and a chair appeared behind her. She clapped her hands in delight and then squinted her eyes. The chair disappeared. “I like clouds!” She said with a grin.

  We all laughed. We watched Darma create ice cream, a cool pair of red shoes and matching dress and then Torre—who looked as if he wanted to puke when he saw where he was.

  She kissed him quickly on perfectly sculpted lips and sent him on his way with a blush.

  Father frowned and shook his head.

  And thus ended the entertainment portion of the visit.

  I turned to Flick. “We need a lab rat. And you’re it.”

  Flick’s nondescript brown eyes widened in alarm and he exploded. “You what! No way. Not this angel.”

  My father glared at me and I shrugged. “There’s no sense soft selling it to him. He needs to know what he’s signing up for when he agrees.”

  Father reached a hand toward Flick and my wretched guardian disappeared, reappearing across the room with a stubborn scowl on his plain face and his arms crossed belligerently over his chest. His white robes swung with agitation.

  “What Astra is trying to say in her not so delicate way, Guardian Flick, is that we need to discover how you recovered from the plague so quickly. We’ve determined that the plague is tied somehow to this veil. If we can establish how to beat the plague we think we can beat the veil.”

  Flick’s stance became slightly less belligerent. “You think they’re one and the same?

  “I shook my head, “No. Not the same but connected somehow.”

  Darma nodded, “Historically they’ve shown up at the same time and at the same levels of intensity.”

  “What we hope to discover is a way to ‘heal’ the veil, like your plague was healed.”

  Flick was starting to look uncertain. “And you think you can figure this out by examining me?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at the floor for a moment and shuffled his feet around a few times. Then he looked up at us and sighed. “Okay. What do you need from me?”

  Darma’s professional demeanor kicked into gear. She crossed to him and put a hand on his shoulder, looking oh so much like one Seraphim James. “We need to get you to a lab. They’ll want to take some blood and other bodily fluids, run a scan over your aura to look for discrepancies.”

  He nodded, “I can deal with all that.”

  “Maybe do a bone biopsy.”

  Flick’s brown gaze shot wide, “Whoa!”

  Darma smacked him on the arm. “Man up, Guardian!”

  So much for the nurturing medi-personnel persona.

  She turned to our father. “Where can we take him? Is there such a thing as a lab up...here?” Her eyes swung around the cloud, looking dubious.

  Father smiled, “You’re asking if the Big House has a medi-center? You’re kidding right?” He waved a hand and we were standing in a pristine corridor filled with immaculate people scurrying to and fro with perfect, white clipboards.

  I turned to Flick, “Don’t you people ever get tired of white?”

  He grimaced, “A little.”

  “I mean, don’t you ever just run screaming to the color gods and demand something red?”

  He grinned and his white robes turned a stunning red. A wide, bright green sash gathered the robes in the middle. He lifted the robes and showed me purple slippers with emeralds on them. I gave him rock knuckles and then stood looking at him with a critical eye.

  No. It just didn’t work. Against all that white he was like a festering boil on a perfect, white backside.

  A door opened to the side of us and a woman dressed in white emerged. She spotted Flick and gave a violent start, dropping her clipboard on a gasp.

  He turned to me and lifted one eyebrow.

  I nodded, “I see your point.”

  He went white again.

  The woman retrieved her clipboard and straightened, glaring at Flick. “Guardian Flick?”

  He nodded, looking a bit sheepish. “That’s me.”

  Her face didn’t soften, “Follow me please.”

  He gave me a pleading look as he disappeared through the spotless white door. I patted him on the shoulder, sharing his concern that the cranky medi-tech would hold his brief excursion into color against him and poke him a few extra times with the needle.

  I threw Darma a look and she nodded, following them through the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Searching for the Truth

  Our miss did send her power forth, to nurture and to heal,

  Only to find she’d hit a wall and no hope could she feel.

  “They didn’t find anything at all in his blood or other bodily fluids. He had antibodies for the disease of course, but nothing unique. They’re testing his aura right now but don’t expect to find anything. A quick, surface scan didn’t turn up much.” Darma slumped in the chair beside us, her pretty face clearly showing her disappointment.

  Our father nodded but seemed lost in thought. While Darma had been in with Flick, I’d been filling father in on our little trip to the shadows with dear old mom. As usual, mention of her brought melancholy, deep and hideous, into his pretty blue eyes.

  I was kicking myself for even mentioning her.

  But when he spoke, I was surprised to hear that his thoughts had been running in another direction. “They’ll need to test others of course to create a baseline.”

  I realized then what he’d been thinking. “You’re going to let them test you?”

  His gaze swung to me and the pain in its depths was like a kick to my shin. He was still brooding over mother. He nodded. “Yes. And they’ll need to test one of the infected too.”

  He stood up and drifted over to a medi-tech behind a high, white counter, speaking softly as the lowly tech nodded, her eyes huge.

  Darma scoured me a look. “You told him about mother?”

  I bit my lip. “I wish I didn’t have to. But he needs to know she’s involved.”

  Much to my surprise Darma nodded. “Yes. He does. But it will take at least a month for us to get that look out of his eyes.”

  I nodded in complete agreement.

  Father came back to us. “They’ll be bringing an infected angel in soon. I don’t want you to be alarmed. Although it looks really bad and can be extremely painful, Devil’s Plague isn’t fatal.”

  I frowned. Why was he telling us that? The medi-tech emerged from behind the counter and moved reluctantly in our direction, her clipboard clutched to her white-clad chest like a shield. I knew the angels from the higher choirs were held in great reverence by the general population in the Big House. But I had trouble with the concept of anyone feeling real fear of my father. No kinder soul had ever walked the Earth...or the clouds for that matter.

  “I can take you in now, sir.” The young wo
man’s face clearly showed her fear. Another time my father would have placed a calming hand on her shoulder but at the moment he was too distracted. He smiled and turned away.

  We sat back down again to wait. A few moments later, we heard footsteps in the hallway and looked up. A gurney floated toward us on legs of air, a medi-tech walking just behind it with a guiding hand.

  The form on the air gurney barely made a bump in the white sheet that covered it. I watched with a curious gaze as it neared us and then jumped in surprised recognition as the gurney turned the corner into the room where we waited and I recognized the frail form resting there.

  I leapt up. “Myra!”

  The splotchy, bloated face turned in my direction and my knees wobbled. Darma moved ahead of me to the gurney. I’ll keep the tech busy so you can have a few minutes.

  I glanced at her gratefully, Thanks.

  My sister barked something at the medi-tech and drew him away to the high counter. I was too distracted by the pitiful lump on the gurney to hear or care what she said to him.

  I reached for the pale, splotchy hand resting on top of the sheet. It was unnaturally hot and dry. “What have you gotten yourself into, angel?

  The cracked, swollen lips curved upward. “I didn’t want you to know.”

  I glared, angry at no one in particular and everyone in general. “You should have told me.”

  She shrugged, the movement feeble at best. “There was nothing you could do.”

  “I could have tried.”

  Her shoulders twitched again.

  As if exhausted by the small communication we’d shared she turned her face away and seemed to drop into sleep.

  I glanced at Darma and she nodded, knowing what I wanted to do. The tech behind the counter was frantically searching through a large, white book for something. Darma saw me glance at him and gave me a smug smile. There were benefits to having powerful family connections.

  I placed one hand on Myra’s clammy forehead, trying to ignore the doughy, unhealthy feel of her flesh, and one over her heart. I sent my power into her, searching for something I could fix. The damage the disease had wrought was overwhelming. It felt like every one of her internal organs was swollen and struggling. The pain she must have been suffering made me wonder how she could just lie there calmly on that gurney.

  I knew the damage I was sensing probably wasn’t permanent or life threatening but it was extensive enough to be alarming. I replaced my sensing power with a healing level of power and, almost immediately, I hit the same barrier I’d hit when I’d tried to heal Flick. I pushed harder, determined to do some good, but the barrier didn’t even wiggle.

  It was an odd structure. Although it was a barrier in the sense that it kept me from using my healing power to help, Myra, it didn’t deflect my power as I would have expected. Instead, I understood with a start, it appeared to be drawing my power in and using it somehow.

  Which meant that sending more power in would only cause it to draw more of my power. For all I knew I could be strengthening it.

  Reluctantly I withdrew the power and gave Darma a tiny nod.

  She said something to the medi-tech and stalked back to me. “Anything?”

  I shook my head but didn’t speak as the medi-tech arrived to take Myra through the same door that had consumed both Flick and our father.

  When the door closed behind Myra and the tech Darma swung to me, “What did you feel?”

  I shook my head, a thoughtful frown on my face. “There’s some kind of barrier there. I think it might be the disease itself. That’s why no one’s had any luck curing it I think, it self-protects.”

  She frowned too. “A self-protecting disease. That’s frightening.”

  I nodded, “And this barrier, whatever it is, didn’t deflect the healing power I threw at it, it absorbed it.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Self-strengthening?”

  “I certainly hope not.”

  We slumped together into the chairs to wait. My head whirled with worry and questions. Finally I turned to my sister. “She looked really bad didn’t she?”

  She touched my knee and a sudden sense of calm flowed through me. “She’ll be fine. It’s a terrible disease but it’s rarely fatal.”

  My eyes widened, “Rarely?”

  She frowned as if angry at herself for the slip, “Very rarely.”

  I blew a frustrated breath out through my lips, sick of sitting there feeling helpless. I needed to do something. I needed to kick some ass.

  The door opened and father and Flick came through it together, followed by a senior medi-tech.

  I jumped to my feet. “What did you find?”

  The senior tech held up a hand. “I’d prefer to withhold my findings until we can test the infected angel...”

  “Myra!”

  When the poor man frowned at my outburst Darma said, “She has a name.”

  My father touched the tech’s shoulder, “She’s the girls’ aunt.”

  The senior tech nodded and, though his look was stern when it fell back to me, it held new understanding. “After I’ve had a chance to examine Myra I’ll need to compare all the results to determine if I have anything new we can use.”

  Though I tried to wheedle and coerce the man he wouldn’t give up any further information. When he’d gone back through that hated door I turned to my father. “Get me the Hades out of here. I need to go...do something!”

  He nodded grimly. “I know the feeling.”

  He looked at Darma. She shook her head. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay here for a while. Maybe there’s something I can do to help.”

  He touched her cheek gently. “With His Blessings, daughter.”

  He peaked an eyebrow at my impatiently shuffling feet and gritted teeth. “Where do you want to go?”

  I thought about that for a moment. “To my office, I need to see what kind of damage has been done there, contact Emo and get the booger...”

  As he touched my shoulder and time and space shifted into nothingness, my mind swirled with everything I suddenly wanted to do. I knew, on some level, that it was my way of coping with my worry for Myra but it didn’t matter. Whenever I felt as if I had no control over something, my way had always been to move forward. I didn’t always move in the right direction and sometimes I made things worse before I made them better but as long as I was moving I could breathe.

  And right at that moment, more than anything, I needed to be able to breathe.

  ~SC~

  I stood in the center of what was left of the Angel Network offices. It wasn’t much.

  Fire had ravaged most of the building, leaving a smoking skeleton that was propped up here and there by a scorched wall that had somehow managed to escape the hungry flames. I kicked a big chunk of debris out of my way and moved to Emo’s desk.

  Scrubbing a thick layer of soot off the face of the televisual, I touched the power pad. “Engage and play messages.” The unit blipped and whirred and then gave a sick ka-chunk and the screen went black again. I’d known it was a useless exercise but figured it was worth a try.

  I was heading toward my office when I heard the sound of a throat clearing behind me. I turned to see a familiar face standing in my doorway.

  He was dressed in fire-resistant clothing and held a helmet under one arm, his handsome face was soot darkened and smudged, with a strange arc of pale skin under each eye, as if he’d been wearing goggles.

  He was wearing the same look of incredulous disbelief he’d been wearing the first time I’d met him, in the smoking ruins of Demonica. His lips lifted in a smile as he recognized me. “No. Don’t tell me, you left your purse in here too.”

  I grinned, feeling as if my day had just gotten a little brighter. It was the cute fireman I’d met when I’d gone to investigate the fire at Demonica, demon king Abrine’s nightclub and headquarters. “Have you seen it?”

  He laughed, “If it was in this building I’m sure it’s a small pile of ash somewhere.”


  I nodded, the smile sliding away. “This was my office. My business.”

  He let his smile fade too. Pity slid into his pretty green eyes. He had the longest, thickest lashes over those pretty eyes. “I’m sorry. We did all we could...”

  It occurred to me that he felt somehow responsible for the loss of my building. I shook my head. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped the fire, or the people who caused it for that matter. The world is just...” My throat clogged suddenly as it hit me, like a poisonous wave, how ugly everything had become.

  He lifted a hand in a silver glove as if he wanted to reach out and make it all better. “I’m really sorry, ma’am.

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Did you lose any...are your employees all safe?”

  “Yes, thank Him for that. Our neighbors helped us get out in time.”

  He nodded, looking down at the helmet he was holding between his hands like a barrier.

  I suddenly realized he wasn’t crazed and violent. And he was human. I decided there might be some useful information that could be gleaned from that. Why were some of the humans apparently resistant to the effects of the veil, while others had become little more than animals.

  Then it occurred to me. I narrowed my eyes and he shifted from foot to foot in sudden nervousness. It was very endearing. He was big and strong and very...male...and yet I was able to cause him to squirm with a single look.

  Sometimes it was pretty cool to be a woman.

  I knew I needed to ask but I was somehow reluctant. And I was pretty sure he would pretend not to know what I was asking, given the present mood about all things magic and magical. But we were well past the time for caution and careful manipulations. In the grand drama that had become my reality, we’d entered the eat-or-be-eaten phase. And I very much needed to keep men like the human before me from being eaten.

  I stepped toward him, wanting to be within touching distance when I asked. I let my sensing power drift away from me as I stopped in front of him, close enough to grab his arm if it became necessary. “I need to know. And I need you to be completely honest with me.”