by Jenna Black
Jack said something under his breath that I think it was good I couldn’t hear.
Anderson carried me gently, but I felt every footstep reverberate through my body, bringing stabs of pain from my wounds. I gritted my teeth and held on, trying not to make any undignified noises or start crying.
Emma was watching me with narrowed eyes, and I realized she wasn’t at all happy about Anderson carrying me. It made me want to snuggle in closer to him just to piss her off, but I hurt too much to indulge in mind games. Instead, I closed my eyes and prayed for my supernatural healing to hurry up and do its job.
I think I passed out for part of the trip back to the cars, because we seemed to get there faster than I expected. Obviously, neither Jamaal nor I was in any shape to drive, so we had to shuffle passengers and drivers around a bit. I ended up stretched across the backseat of Anderson’s car, which I didn’t think was the smartest seating arrangement in the world, seeing as Emma was still glaring daggers at me. Anderson must have noticed—she had a few daggers in her arsenal to spare for him, too—but he ignored it.
I know I passed out for a while during the car ride, and based on the stony silence and bitter expressions I woke up to, it was probably just as well. Anderson was staring straight ahead, all his concentration fixed on the road in front of him, while Emma stared out the side window, her arms crossed over her chest. I hoped it wasn’t me they’d been fighting about. I thought they had enough issues without Emma’s irrational jealousy thrown into the mix.
The ride was long enough that I expected to be feeling somewhat better by the time we arrived back at the mansion, but everything still hurt, and I was still weak. In fact, I seemed to be even weaker, although that was probably because I’d let myself forget just how miserable I’d felt the last time I tried to stand.
Anderson wound up carrying me again, and I could tell Emma was just thrilled about it. Here I was, making friends and influencing people without even having to do anything.
Jamaal was still pretty out of it, although he was technically conscious. Maggie’s arm was around him, and he leaned on her heavily as he walked. I really wanted to know what the hell had happened back there in the cemetery, but I knew I wasn’t getting an explanation anytime soon. Jamaal looked like a stiff wind would knock him down, and he was shivering even though it wasn’t all that cold. By the time we got through the front door to the main stairway, he was completely spent, and Maggie had to carry him up the stairs. That he didn’t protest showed just how out of it he was.
Anderson took me up to my own room. I didn’t want him to lay me on my nice, clean bed when I was covered in blood, so I directed him to take me to the bathroom so I could get cleaned up first. When he put me down, I had to grab hold of the sink to keep from falling.
“I feel like shit,” I grumbled, wishing my supernatural healing would do its thing a little faster.
Anderson’s brow furrowed as he looked at me. “You’re looking rather pale.”
He had to help me get my ruined coat off, and that’s when we first got a close look at one of the bites. My stomach lurched, and I had to tighten my grip on the sink to stay upright.
The jackals’ fangs had left a series of deep puncture wounds, and they didn’t appear to have healed at all, even though it had probably been almost an hour since the attack. The flesh around the punctures was red and swollen, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn I had a raging infection.
“Why isn’t it healing?” I asked Anderson, wondering if I shouldn’t have just skipped the cleanup and collapsed into bed.
“I don’t know,” Anderson said grimly. He reached up and touched my forehead, and I realized for the first time that I was sweating. Anderson looked even more grim. “Feels like you have a fever, too.”
“But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?”
“I would have thought so.” There was no missing the worry in his eyes, and that didn’t do much to comfort me. “Lets get the wounds cleaned up and put you to bed. Maybe there’s some irritant in the jackals’ saliva that’s keeping you from healing.”
An “irritant” probably wouldn’t have given me a fever, but I felt too awful to argue.
“I’m going to need some help,” I said, though I knew it was obvious that I wasn’t up to cleaning and dressing the wounds myself. “I think Emma and I would both be happier if you sent Maggie in to help me instead of doing it yourself.”
Anger flashed in Anderson’s eyes. “Emma wouldn’t be so shallow as to be jealous of you in the state you’re in.”
Ah, denial. I’d seen the way she’d looked at me while he was carrying me, and I knew without a doubt that she was, indeed, jealous. Ridiculous it might be, but then, feelings often were. But that was not an argument for right now.
“Then forget about Emma,” I said. “I’m not much of an exhibitionist, so I’d really rather Maggie help me than you. No offense.”
“None taken,” Anderson said, though I wasn’t sure that was true. He reached over and closed the lid of the toilet, then helped me traverse the few feet between it and the sink so I could sit down. Instead of leaving me there and going to get Maggie, he actually called her on his cell phone. The idea that he was worried enough not to leave me alone for the five minutes it would take to go find her was not at all comforting.
My head started to throb, as if the wounds themselves didn’t hurt enough. When Maggie arrived, Anderson had a whispered conversation with her right outside the bathroom door. I couldn’t hear a word they said, but I didn’t think it boded well for me.
Things got a little fuzzy then, so I only vaguely remember Maggie helping me out of my clothes and cleaning my wounds. She had to use water at first, because the Liberi didn’t have things like alcohol or peroxide sitting around—who needed them when your body repaired itself in a matter of hours?—but somebody must have been sent out to raid a drugstore, because the peroxide came eventually.
By the time I was laid out in bed, my wounds all bandaged, I was sweating and shivering at the same time, and all my joints ached. I’d never been this sick in my life, and I spent some time complaining to myself about how life wasn’t fair. Here I was immortal, invulnerable, and I was sick and hurting and scared I was going to die anyway.
My sleep that night was sporadic at best, interspersed with nightmares that would have made me sit up and scream if I’d had the energy.
EIGHT
I was no better in the morning. In fact, if anything, I was worse.
I was burning up and freezing cold by turns, aching down to my bones while the bite wounds continued to throb. I made the mistake of checking under one of the bandages, and the sight brought bile into the back of my throat.
Not only were the wounds not closed, they were seeping with pus, the redness and swelling spreading. When Maggie came in to check on me and change the bandages, it hurt so much I couldn’t stop myself from crying like a baby. And the worst part was there was no sign cleaning the wounds or changing the bandages was doing any good.
Whatever was wrong with me, I knew it was bad when Anderson brought Steph in to visit me. I was sure he’d brought her because he thought I was going to die, and based on how much she cried despite efforts to put on a brave face, she thought the same. She sat by the side of my bed, holding my hand as I drifted in and out of sleep.
I wasn’t even vaguely inclined to eat anything, and though Maggie had left a glass of water by my bedside when she’d put me to bed last night, it was still full. Steph urged me to drink, and I knew she was right and I ought to. Considering how much the fever was making me sweat, I had to be pretty dehydrated. With her holding my head up off the pillow, I lifted the glass to my lips, but I couldn’t muster the will to swallow.
“It’s no use,” I told Steph, handing her back the glass. “I’ll just puke it back up if I drink it.”
In actuality, it wasn’t that I felt nauseated. I just didn’t want to drink. I couldn’t have explained why if you’d asked me, but just t
he thought of taking a sip made my throat close up.
I have some vague memory of Steph trying again to get me to drink, more determined this time. I think I ended up shoving her away, making her spill the water all over herself, but I wasn’t sure if that was real or just one of the nasty dreams I kept having.
The next time I woke up, Steph was gone. I was as miserable as ever, and I tried to turn over in the vain hope that I could find a more comfortable position. That was when I discovered the restraints fastened to my wrists and ankles.
Another nightmare, I told myself as I tugged weakly at the restraints. The movement made all the aches and pains flare up, and I discovered the skin around the restraints was red and raw, as if I’d been struggling against them. If I had, I didn’t remember. But the fact that it hurt so much told me this wasn’t a nightmare after all.
I tried to call out for help, but my mouth and throat were so dry I couldn’t get any sound out. Instead, I closed my eyes and willed myself back into unconsciousness.
When I woke up again, it was dark out. There was a nightlight on in my room—someone must have brought it in from the bathroom. It took me a moment or two to assess my situation, to realize I was still deathly ill and in restraints, but when I did, panic seized me, and I started struggling as if my life depended on it.
My rational mind knew I couldn’t fight free, that fighting the restraints was only causing me more pain, but I couldn’t help it. I had to get loose, had to be free. I couldn’t stand being in that bed for another moment, never mind that I wouldn’t be able to walk two steps without collapsing.
“Nikki, please calm down,” Anderson’s soft voice said from beside my bed, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from thrashing.
I tried to talk, but it came out as an incoherent screech.
“She’s probably delusional just now,” said a voice I didn’t recognize.
The sound of an unfamiliar voice reached my panicky core in a way that Anderson’s soothing had not, and I stopped struggling as I strained my eyes in the darkness to see who was there. Someone turned on the bedside lamp, and when I got over being blinded, I blinked a few times and saw a stranger hovering over me.
She was a plump brunette with a round face and hard blue eyes, maybe around forty. An iridescent caduceus glyph marked her cheek, and I gathered that meant she was some kind of healer. I didn’t think any kind of healer was going to do me much good. Whatever was wrong with me was impossible, so it was hard to believe someone could magically cure it.
“Why am I tied up?” I croaked.
“Because you’ve been hallucinating,” the healer said, sitting down on the side of my bed. “You tried to get out of bed a few times, and it didn’t go so well.”
I didn’t remember any of that, but Anderson wasn’t contradicting her, so I guessed it was true. I didn’t want her there, didn’t want a stranger so close to me, especially not when I was so vulnerable. I glanced over her shoulder at Anderson, who was standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a tight, unhappy expression on his face.
“Get her away from me,” I said, scooting over as much as the restraints would allow. The panic tried to rise again, but I fought it with everything I had. I didn’t need any more raw spots on my wrists and ankles.
“Nikki, this is Erin,” he said, ignoring my polite request, surprise, surprise. “She’s a descendant of Apollo … and she’s a healer.”
I recognized her from the files I’d been examining for Anderson before hunting a serial killer became my top priority. I made a mental note to myself to put her file at the top of my list, seeing as she’d compromised her cover identity by coming here.
Erin reached for me, and I let out a screech of warning, thrashing wildly, my heart pounding and my breaths coming in gasps. I was conscious of everything I was doing, but it felt like my body was not my own, like the sickness was driving me. I wanted to stop thrashing around, if only because of how much it hurt, but everything within me rebelled at the thought of this woman touching me.
I won’t repeat the names I called her as she inexorably planted her hands on both sides of my face, holding me down with the weight of her forearms on my chest. The touch of her fingers on my skin made me scream, and I think I even tried to bite her.
Anything to get her off me.
But between the restraints and the weakness, I was no match for her, and she held me with little difficulty as her hands began to glow white.
That glow sent me into another paroxysm of sheer, unadulterated panic. My throat was hoarse from screaming, and if I’d been any stronger, I’d probably have broken bones in my wrists and ankles in my attempts to escape.
Erin said nothing as she sat there with her glowing hands on my face, her eyes closed. I was vaguely aware of Anderson saying soothing things, but I couldn’t make out the words, and I was incapable of being soothed, anyway.
Eventually, the glow died down, and Erin dropped her hands from my face.
“Well?” Anderson asked before she had a chance to speak.
“She has rabies,” Erin said simply, the words sucking all of the air out of my lungs.
One of my foster mothers had had a rabies scare when she’d been bitten by a stray dog. She’d gotten the preventive treatment and was just fine, but everyone in that family had learned more about rabies than we ever wanted to know. Like that it was fatal once the symptoms started to show.
“Can’t be.” I gasped. “Not long enough.” The words didn’t make much sense, but Erin seemed to know what I was trying to say.
“If you were a mortal who’d been bitten by a rabid animal, no, you wouldn’t be showing symptoms yet. But this isn’t normal rabies—that wouldn’t affect a Liberi. There’s something different about this strain. I’ve never seen anything like it, but if I had to guess, I’d say the virus itself is supernatural in nature.”
“What can we do?” Anderson asked, beating me to the question.
Erin gave us both an apologetic look. “Even in humans, rabies isn’t curable at this stage. There’s nothing I can do for her.”
“There has to be something!” Anderson insisted, and I’d have been touched by the depth of his concern if I weren’t fighting the realization that I was going to die.
“I’m sorry,” Erin said. “There’s nothing.”
“If I die from this,” I whispered, “do I get to come back?” A Liberi could come back from death by decapitation. Surely a little rabies wouldn’t keep me down …
Erin shook her head. “Let’s hope not. Your body will still be infected when you die, so even if it heals the damage, you won’t be in any better shape.”
I shuddered and had to fight a scream. It would be like what Emma had gone through for ten years in the water—coming to life only to find yourself back in the same situation that had killed you in the first place, a fate worse than death.
“What if we killed the virus?” Anderson asked, and I could tell by the look on his face that he had an idea, but I wasn’t getting my hopes up. “If she could come back to a body that was virus-free, she’d be fine, right?”
Erin nodded cautiously. “I suppose so. But I don’t know how you’d go about killing the virus. I can’t do it, and there’s no medicine on earth that can do it either.”
“What if after she … dies … we burn the body?”
I must have made some kind of panicked noise, because Anderson nudged Erin out of the way and sat beside me, taking my hand and giving it a firm squeeze.
“You can come back from that,” he assured me in a soothing croon. “If your body is entirely destroyed, then you’ll just generate a new one. I know Liberi who have done it. The immortal seed isn’t a physical object, isn’t something that can be destroyed, and it’s the seed that brings us back when we die.”
“It might work,” Erin said. “Burning the body would kill the virus cells. If your body has to regenerate from scratch, there’s no reason it would regenerate the virus, too. At least, no reason that I
can think of. But having never seen anything like this before, I can’t make any promises.”
Anderson reached out and brushed my hair out of the tear tracks on my cheek. “It’s the best chance we have.”
“I don’t like this plan,” I whispered. A sudden chill seized me, and I shivered so hard I practically bit my tongue. My eyes were burning fiercely, but there wasn’t enough moisture in my body to produce any more tears.
“I don’t much like it, either,” Anderson replied, fingers absently stroking my hair like he thought the gesture could soothe me. It couldn’t. Nothing could.
“We can just let nature take its course, if you prefer,” Erin said, not sounding as sympathetic as Anderson. “Die, come back, be miserable, then die again, lather, rinse, repeat.”
Anderson glared at her. There was something about the way they looked at each other, some kind of invisible sparks, that told me they’d been a couple once. I’d seen enough love-gone-sour looks in my days as a P.I. to recognize it when I saw it.
“Your work is done here, I think,” he said. “You can go.”
Erin laughed. “What do you think I am? Your servant?”
“No. I think you’re a healer who’s outlived her usefulness in this situation.”
Erin’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think this gets you out of anything. You owe me, whether I could cure her or not. I took an enormous risk coming here, and—”
“Yes, yes, I owe you,” Anderson said impatiently. “That was the deal. Now, please go instead of terrorizing your patient just to get to me.”
She laughed hard at that one, shaking her head. “You have an inflated opinion of your importance to me.” She dabbed at imaginary tears of mirth in her eyes, and then her expression hardened. “You mean nothing to me,” she said, an obvious lie. “And you’ll pay handsomely for this visit.”
“Get out.”
Still looking mighty pleased with herself, she turned and headed out the door, not looking back.