by Jade Kerrion
Absent-mindedly, Jeremiah picked at the slivers of wood on the table as he watched Danyael work with easy expertise. He prided himself on being a perceptive observer of situations and people. One did not become—or stay—the ruling mob boss of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, without accurately assessing and understanding underlings, friends and enemies. The whore who had stuck him with a HIV-tainted needle was a different matter entirely. He had been thinking with his other head. Besides, she was dead now, and her severed head had been delivered to the mob boss of East New York who had hired her to kill him.
The doctor was different though; Jeremiah trusted Danyael implicitly, but still, something seemed off. So, Jeremiah did the only thing he could; he observed the doctor.
Danyael set the stethoscope against Jeremiah’s chest and closed his eyes, ostensibly to block out distractions while listening to the heartbeat, but motion flickered rapidly beneath Danyael’s closed eyelids. Jeremiah frowned; what was that about?
He said nothing though when Danyael asked him to roll up his sleeve for a blood pressure test. Danyael pumped air into the blood pressure cuff, then stared blankly at the peeling paint on the far wall. A muscle in the smooth cheek twitched. Danyael closed his eyes slowly; his jaw muscles tightened as he clenched his teeth. As the pressure of the blood pressure cuff around Jeremiah’s bicep released, Danyael inhaled and exhaled and finally opened his eyes.
Danyael offered Jeremiah another faint smile. “You’re all set, Jerry. I don’t think you need to come back, but if you don’t feel well, you’re always welcome to stop by.”
Jeremiah stared at the young man. He had not imagined the subtle hints of pain he had seen in the doctor. Remnants of it lingered in those dark, fathomless eyes. He nodded. “Okay.” He hesitated. Something about Danyael discouraged personal questions. In fact, it was hard even to feel like he should care enough to ask. It required a conscious act of the will to voice a simple question. “You okay, doc?”
Surprise flickered in Danyael’s eyes. “I…I’m all right. It’s just been a long day.”
“Those people out from Brownsville ain’t giving you any more shit?” Those mobsters from Brownsville had apparently decided to threaten the doctor with death and dismemberment unless he agreed to work at the free clinic at Brownsville instead. Jeremiah had not been happy to hear about it. Nobody took his doctor away. Nobody.
Danyael’s rare grin flashed. “No, they’ve backed off ever since you decided to station five of your biggest thugs outside the clinic.”
“They be awful hurt to hear you call them thugs, doc.” Jeremiah grinned, not at all offended. “Besides, they’re not the biggest. I have way bigger, but didn’t want to scare all your patients away.”
“I think they’ve scared enough of them away. The volume dipped a bit last week, and I don’t think it was because the mob fights decreased. Could you ask them to stand across the street instead?”
“Sure can, doc.” Jeremiah nodded. He pushed to his feet and stretched. His extended arms almost touched the walls on opposite sides of the room. “You got a damn small place in here, doc.”
“Go tell that to the New York City Department of Public Health,” Danyael said, also rising to his feet. He held open the door of his office and ushered Jeremiah out before him. The two bodyguards lounging in the waiting room stood and flanked Jeremiah, who marched toward the door. “You can call your team off for the night too, Jerry,” Danyael called out. “We’re wrapping up here.”
“Sure thing. You take care, doc.” Jeremiah strode out and waved an arm imperiously. The five thugs skulking outside the free clinic peeled off the brick wall and concrete sidewalk to tag along behind Jeremiah and his bodyguards.
Danyael chuckled softly as he watched them go. “We’re done here,” he told his nurse’s aide seated behind the receptionist desk. “And it’s late.”
“That surgery set us back,” Marsha pointed out, a faint note of complaint in her voice.
The emergency surgery had saved the life of a three-year-old in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the crossfire of a gang fight. Danyael considered his time well spent. Marsha was tired and irritable, though. He might have tried to alter her mood, except that he was exhausted too. Between saving the child’s life and making sure that Jeremiah was fully healed, he felt drained. “Go on home.”
“What about cleaning up here?” Her voice rang with hostility.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You gonna mop the floor?”
“Yes, and I’ll wipe down all the surfaces too. Go home.”
She hesitated and scowled. “Cleaning the damn place is my job.”
“You’re tired, Marsha. I’ll take care of it today.”
“The damn Department of Public Health doesn’t pay you enough to clean the place.”
“It doesn’t pay either of us enough to do it,” Danyael said with a weary smile. “I’ve got it covered today. It’s all right.” He did not have the energy to keep arguing with her, and it was easier to amplify her negative emotions. He glanced at her as his empathic mutant powers surged, subtle and controlled, yet as unstoppable as the tides.
Marsha huffed—a sharp, exasperated sound. She grabbed her purse and stormed out of the clinic without a backward glance or a goodbye.
Danyael watched her leave, then slumped against the counter and pressed his closed fist against his forehead. Just a little too warm. Great, now he had a fever to accompany the pounding headache in his skull. He needed a break from the constant vigilance. More than anything, he needed to rest. One out of two wasn’t bad, though. A faint half smile curved a corner of his mouth. He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and as he exhaled, he relaxed his psychic shields.
He waited for a moment longer, savoring the rare feeling of freedom, and then got to work. Fortunately, the clinic was tiny, consisting of a reception area, his office, a bathroom, and an operating theater barely large enough to contain an operating bed and a metal drawer of instruments. With mop, paper towels, and a bottle of antiseptic cleaner, he scrubbed down each room. He did not mind the physical labor, though he would have welcomed the opportunity to go to bed a half hour earlier. At least he was alone; he could not ask for much more, anyway.
Danyael worked thoroughly, and it was after ten o’clock when he put the cleaning supplies back behind the bathroom door. It was long past time to go home. His body screamed for rest. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head against the wall to brace himself physically as he pulled his psychic shields back in place. He hated the sensation—had never gotten fully comfortable, even though he had used psychic shields for more than sixteen years. Like steel bands, they clenched around his mind and heart with a stranglehold that made it a strain just to breathe. Every time he grew resentful of those barriers though, he reminded himself to be thankful for them. They were better than the alternative.
Danyael shrugged on his black leather jacket, grabbed his backpack off the floor behind the reception counter, and stepped out of the clinic. He lifted his face to the night sky. An icy, stinging wind cut through his jacket as he rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to dispel some of the tension that seemed permanently locked into his back muscles.
The sharp spike of a migraine pierced his skull as it had every night for a week. He winced and pressed a hand to his forehead as he ground his teeth against the pain. The pain did not bother him as much as the lingering exhaustion that would afflict him for weeks after the pain finally passed. The migraines he had suffered for decades had no apparent triggers, yet were consistent, taking place once every two months. This migraine was unusual, though. It was the first time a migraine had lasted for more than just a day or two.
Danyael released his breath in a sigh. The sooner he could get home, the better. With a little rest, he would be free of the migraine by morning, ready to face another long day at work.
As he turned the corner, brakes screeched, and a dark sedan pulled up alongside him. Damn, not now. Drive-by muggings
were among the daily joys of working in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Brooklyn. He would deal with it and move on. He was not even sure he cared enough to be subtle about it this time.
Danyael took a step back from the pavement as four men, dressed in suits and looking even more out of place than he did as a white man in a predominantly black neighborhood, stepped out of the car and approached him.
“Danyael Sabre?” the one closest to him rumbled out.
Danyael tensed. This wasn’t just a random mugging? He reached out with his empathic powers to probe for vulnerabilities, but could not penetrate their psychic shields. He did not recognize the energy signature, but there was enough power behind the shields to imply that an alpha telepath was at work. The men were protected. He could not touch them, could not affect them. They were prepared to go up against, and take down, an empath. Damn it. His mind raced, trying to work a way out of his predicament without hurting anyone else.
The man who had first spoken pulled out a SIG-Sauer P210 from his jacket, stepped behind Danyael, yanked off his backpack, and then jabbed the gun into the small of his back. “Get into the car.”
Danyael did not move. The pressure against his spine increased, a warning.
“I said, get in.”
Still he did not move, resisting the not-too-gentle shove against his back. From the corner of his eye, he could see the man’s hand come up. Danyael tried to evade the blow, but there was no place to run. The butt of the gun smashed against the back of his skull. He reeled, collapsing to his hands and knees. The feet of the men surrounding him wavered in and out of focus. Gritting his teeth against the gasp of pain, he tried to push to his feet, but another blow slammed into the back of his neck. This time, he slumped to the ground, his world fading to black.
Danyael awoke to the soft purr of an engine and a wretchedly painful headache. Was he on a boat? A plane? His eyes were blindfolded, his arms and legs bound to a cushioned surface that reclined almost all the way back. He tested the strength of his bonds and found them tight to the point of being painful.
The sly lick of panic clenched his stomach and coiled into nausea, but he stamped down the memories clawing their way to the surface. Focus, damn it. Focus.
No clues other than the sound of an engine, and a stale scent that typically plagued small closed places. He felt a small jolt. A plane perhaps, hitting an air pocket.
“Ah, you’re awake, Danyael.”
He turned his head in the direction of a nasal voice distinguished by its metallic undertone. The voice was disguised, artificially altered through a voice modulator.
“It’s fortunate we took all the necessary precautions. I suggest you relax. We will reach our destination shortly, and until then, there is nothing you can do.”
Danyael tensed against the warmth of a body beside him. He could scarcely focus through his headache but he forced his way through the pain. Fueled by the terror of the child he had once been, his empathic power surged, only to crash like a breaking wave against an impenetrable psychic shield.
The voice laughed. “You can’t get away from me, Danyael. I know what you are. I know exactly how to disarm you. But you needn’t worry for now. You’re in no real danger.”
Danyael tried to pull away, but realized that both his arms were completely immobilized, bound around his biceps and his wrists. Needles had been inserted into the tender vein at the joints of his arms.
A blood transfusion?
A live blood transfusion? Blood flowing directly between two parties? Nothing else would explain why the man was lying next to him or why he had needles in both arms. Was his blood flowing out of one arm to that man, and blood from that man to him through the other?
“What are you doing to me?” Was that low, stricken whisper his voice? His hands clenched and unclenched helplessly. “You can’t do this—”
“Why? Just because live blood transfusions have been banned? Why else do you think we’re doing this in secret? We have been sharing blood for almost sixteen years, Danyael. Believe me, this isn’t new for you, though it’s a shame the off switch stopped working.”
Shock expelled air from his lungs. The off switch? The piercing migraines that drove him to seek a dark, quiet place to rest? How often had the pain driven him to black out?
Far too often. This was the first time it had not.
“Relax. We’re almost done. I’ll see you again in two months, and if the off switch doesn’t work any better then, I trust you won’t put up as much resistance. It would be a shame to have to use other methods to subdue you, and believe me, I won’t hesitate. I know you, Danyael. I know what you went through many times as a child, before you learned to control your empathic powers. It’s been a while now, and you’ve grown strong. You may think the past is behind you, but it doesn’t have to be. I know how to break you, make you weak again. I’d suggest you keep that in mind before you put up a fight the next time. Would you rather share just your blood, or your blood and your body?”
Danyael clenched his teeth and shook his head. “I’d share neither.”
“Ah.” The man chuckled. “I did forget to account for the strength of will that got you through your childhood.”
Hands expertly eased the needles out of his veins. Cool, alcohol-soaked pads pressed hard against the small wounds to clean them and stem the residual blood flow. Sound rustled beside him and the voice whispered in his ear. “How do you think Lucien would fare in your place?”
He tensed. No, not Lucien.
“Because that’s what it’s going to come down to, Danyael.” The hand ran gently over the scar that marked the right side of his face. “Your choice.”
Silence followed. A long, blessed silence filled with the purr of the plane gliding down to a smooth descent.
Breathe, just breathe.
He swallowed hard, tasted bile in his throat, and felt sick to the pit of his stomach. I’ve gotten through this before. I can again. I have to.
Danyael braced himself for the landing, wondering what horrors would follow, even though his captor had implied that the torment was over, for the time being. He was unprepared for the hands that released the cuffs from around his wrists and ankles and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. The light in the plane, meager though it was, seemed bright in contrast. He squinted against the glare, raising a hand to shield his eyes.
“Your jacket and bag, sir.” The man who had knocked him out hours earlier held out his belongings. Unsteadily, Danyael rose to his feet, gripping the armrest for balance. He tugged on the long sleeves of his shirt to conceal the small bandages on the insides of his arms. The four men who had taken him in New York watched him, one of them standing by the open door of the plane. Who was it? Had it been one of them or someone else? Their expressions were equally impassive, their emotions completely inaccessible. His mind racing with questions for which he had no answers, he accepted his backpack and his jacket, and stepped out of the plane into the brisk cool night air.
A quick glance at the plane confirmed that it was a private charter. He committed the registration number to memory and looked around for some hint as to where he was. A black limousine awaited him, and standing by the car was a tall, distinguished man in his late forties. It was a familiar face, the face of a friend. “It’s good to see you again, Danyael.” Phillip Evans stepped forward, a cordial smile on his lips.
Danyael stared at him, unable to reconcile the physical violation with the realization that he was now safe, back among people he trusted. “Phillip? What…what are you doing here?”
Philip looked at him quizzically, as if puzzled that he would have to ask. “Lucien sent for you, of course. I know it was rather hurried, but Lucien insisted it was an emergency. I trust your flight was comfortable?”
Danyael turned his face away. He could not meet the concerned eyes of Lucien’s trusted aide. “I…Why did Lucien send for me?”
“He did not say. Just indicated that it was an emergency, and he w
anted you here before midnight.” Phillip glanced at his watch, a magnificent timepiece that cost more than what Danyael earned in a year. “We beat his deadline by about fifteen minutes. Let’s get you back to McLean. Lucien wants to talk to you as soon as possible, and I’m sure you could use some rest.”
The ride to McLean passed in awkward silence. Phillip made some attempt at small talk, but Danyael was too exhausted to maintain the façade of normality, and the conversation lapsed into silence.
The deep weariness that dragged at his limbs after each migraine was back, and he finally knew why. How much of his exhaustion came from the work he did at the free clinic, and how much from the live blood transfusions that he now knew he endured every two months?
And for sixteen years? How could he not have known? A violation so intimate, so consistent? How could he never have known?
Danyael pressed a hand against his temple. The off switch.
He was an alpha mutant. Of course he had heard rumors of off switches, ranging from technology surgically inserted into the brain or triggers psychically embedded into the mind, but the leaders of the Mutant Affairs Council had always categorically denied using them.
They had lied.
Had Lucien known?
Lucien had saved him. Lucien had brought him to the council. There he had learned to control his empathic powers, eventually clawing his way into a semblance of a normal life.
What had Lucien known? And just what else didn’t Danyael know about his own life?
Doubt raked through him. Betrayal coiled in the pit of his stomach. Danyael grimaced as his cursed mutant powers transformed emotional anguish into physical agony. He wrapped his arms around his midsection and clenched his teeth until his breath no longer caught with pain. Slowly, he raised his head and stared unseeingly out of the window. Some part of his mind screamed at him, warned him against appearing vulnerable, but at that moment, he did not have enough strength to care.