by Zoe Forward
The car rocked into free fall.
****
Had someone whacked her mid-forehead with a sledgehammer? Astrid cracked her eyelids, which resisted as if swollen. An overhead fluorescent light burned her retinas. She slammed her lids shut with a groan. Why did her ribs and legs ache?
Oh yeah. The car had swan dived off an overpass. So much for Christian’s promise to protect her, if she got drunk.
The steady beep-beep of nearby electrical equipment set off a metronome of rhythmic spiking pain in her brain. Artificially fresh disinfectant tickled her nose with a smell she knew only too well after years of gone-to-shit ops and from the weeks after Zannis skewered her. A hospital. She pushed her mind beyond the drugged drowning sensation and gasped for breath. You will not lose it right now. Pull it together and get your bearings.
A second eye open didn’t hurt quite so much. She took in her hospital bed, digital monitoring equipment, and IV pole.
Her stomach lurched with a red-alert warning. When she attempted to sit, restraints around her wrists and ankles prohibited more than a pitiful abdominal crunch move. She twisted, but couldn’t break free. Crap, she was going to vomit on herself.
The restraints miraculously unlatched at the moment her stomach lurched. She rolled to the edge of the bed. A trashcan appeared beneath her head. A hand held her hair as her stomach emptied copious amounts of foul fluid.
She wiped her mouth with the moist washcloth handed to her, and fell back against the pillow. Her savior glowed. Actually, only his hair glimmered as its long blue strands traveled a wavy path to his mid-back. Blue? That punk style had gone out decades ago. A woven gold, blue, and red beaded collar lay over his darkly tanned, naked neck and sculpted, smooth chest. And he wore a sarong-style skirt. Maybe she was finally dead, and he was an angel or god or something.
But who vomited when dead?
“You are not dead, Astrid.”
He could read minds. And knew her name. That weirded her out.
He chuckled.
“Where am I?” Her voice came out scratchy, and her throat burned as if she’d had a breathing tube. Surgery? She didn’t think the magi’s healer needed much more than her magik touch. She scanned her surroundings. The Spartan too-worn furniture screamed authentic hospital decor. No person with even a hint of taste would choose that saccharine green color for a chair.
In his deep, singsong tone, the glowing being announced, “They will arrive soon for you. But that is not why I am here.”
“Who’s coming? The magi?”
He nodded.
“Who are you?”
“Amun-Ra.”
“Should I know you?” Based on his glower, she guessed so. “You’re glowing.” And I’m hallucinating. “That means you must have something to do with them.”
“I request you not discuss this visit with anyone, especially them. Or him.”
“Him as in Zannis?” Astrid threw a hand over her eyes. “I’m dreaming. Why can’t I just be allowed to finally die in peace?”
Amun-Ra pulled her hand off her eyes. “Look at me.”
She stared into his shimmering gold eyes, mesmerized and unable to break free of his gaze.
“You must trust the energy within you.”
“What are you talking about?” Astrid demanded her eyes moved away from his, but they refused to respond.
“The power that enables you to open portals.” He released her arm and broke their ocular connection.
As if she’d ever fully trust herself with that ability since the three times she’d accidentally opened a doorway, it led to him. Her gaze dropped to the deity’s right forearm. A small blade handle protruded. The blade was embedded to the hilt. Yet the skin was smooth as if healed around it. Without thinking she reached for the handle. When her hand encircled it, he sharply inhaled. She released. Her gaze darted to his. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have touched. It just didn’t seem like it should be there.”
“Did you experience any discomfort when you touched the blade?” His eyebrows rose.
She shook her head.
“Then, do it. Attempt to remove it.”
She reached for the blade again and smoothly pulled it from his skin, which instantly healed around the site. She held out the blade for him.
He ran a hand over the area on his forearm. His golden eyes swam with surprise when they met hers. He closed her palm around the blade. “Keep this. You can use the blade once. None can take it from you, and you cannot gift it to another. This is yours alone to command. It will destroy whatever being you choose to use it upon.”
She palmed the small knife, wondering why it had been embedded in his arm.
He flicked his wrist and an intricate gold chain linked itself to the end of the now-sheathed blade. “Wear it,” he ordered.
She traced the golden chain with a finger, but didn’t place it around her neck. “Thank you. Why do you care what happens to me?”
A tragic expression transformed his face. Overwhelmed by a bizarre need to comfort him, she squeezed his hand.
His expression morphed into deadly. “Those who have hurt you… their time is at an end.”
She plucked her hand from his. “You’re here to protect me from Zannis?”
His face screwed up with confusion. “He sent me to you.” Then, he disappeared.
Within seconds she passed out.
****
“Astrid. Astrid Scarre!” a woman screamed.
Astrid’s teeth clicked together when someone shook her. Who screamed her name? All she wanted was to snuggle deeper into this warmth for just a while longer.
“Give her more of the reversal,” a dictatorial female ordered.
“Ma’am, she’s had enough. She needs that pain relief. She’s scheduled for surgery in an hour,” a male replied.
“Give it!”
Throbbing pain jolted her to abrupt consciousness. She bowed against arm and ankle restraints in a failed attempt to sit up. Her head swirled like someone spun her on a carousel. With a lurch her stomach warned.
“Don’t you dare puke. Astrid, I need to know where you’ve been. Who tried to kill you?”
Astrid struggled past the pain haze. A woman loomed into her visual field. She squinted making out brunette hair cut into a neat bob surrounding a face that was my-way-or-no-way tough. Her old boss, Colonel Holly Greene, director of operations at the Company. Had she dreamed up magi and the guy with glowing blue hair?
That bar scene had seemed so real. She also remembered the ripping pain of bullets searing her body when she rescued that kid, Cy, from the Hashishin compound a few days ago. Maybe she’d dreamed everything that occurred after she rescued Cy, and was in the hospital from those wounds.
The skin tats from magikal healing would confirm the magi as reality. But a few ineffective tugs against the arm and leg restraints proved glimpsing her skin a futile endeavor, at least for the moment.
“Where’s Kane?” Colonel Greene demanded.
Even through the fog of pain and dizziness, a soul-deep protective instinct pushed her to silence. The Company didn’t need to know about magi. If she mentioned them or the guy with glowing blue hair, they’d no doubt invite a shrink to visit her.
She wished all of it to be real. As an outsider for most of her life with the bizarre doorway-opening problem and then having a wall-banging one-nighter with a supernatural guy from the past, she longed to find someone that might understand. With those magi she might’ve found a group that accepted magikal weirdness without judging her to be several cards shy of a full deck.
Her right fist closed tight around something sharp. The knife from Amun-Ra’s arm. Relief whooshed through her. You’re not crazy. It’s not a dream.
Then logic hit. Why wasn’t the colonel disarming her? Maybe she couldn’t see the blade.
The world shifted eerily, and her stomach rendered a final warning. “Gonna puke.” Seconds later stomach contents coated her and the colonel.
�
�Damn it,” the colonel complained, swiping debris from her face. She gripped Astrid’s chin and lowered her face close. “Lieutenant Scarre. Focus. Where is Langford?”
Kane? Ingrained military submissive behavior had her replying, “Don’t know.” Technically, that was correct even though a vision of the magi estate flashed through her mind.
The room teetered. Her stomach clenched again.
“All right. That’s enough!”
She recognized the voice. She squinted through complaining eyes to see the too good-looking blond in green scrubs and a surgery cap.
Christian’s gaze swung to hers. He pushed a pair of wireframes up his nose. With a disdainful sigh he said, “My God, what is this hospital coming to? Where’s the nurse? I demand to know who allowed my patient to sit in her own vomit.”
“I don’t know who you think you are, but this is my operation. Get out,” Colonel Greene ordered.
“No. You’re done here. She is my surgical patient. Now she has to get a bath before prep. Christ, I hate being behind schedule.” He rolled his watch and drama huffed.
The colonel closed in on him.
Christian squared off. “Don’t make me call hospital security on you, ma’am. I’ll have you and your cohorts locked out of this room faster than you can say don’t-you-dare.” Softly he said, “Please, leave Ms. Scarre’s room. All of you.”
To Astrid’s shock the colonel nodded, and all evac-ed.
Christian pulled a smart phone from his scrubs’ shirt pocket. His fingers flew over the keys for a few seconds. He waited for the phone’s soft ding indicating a reply before addressing her.
He approached with his back to the viewing door, where she glimpsed a too-avid audience. He wiped at the puke coating her with a towel and whispered, “I’m sorry about all of this, especially about how shitty you probably feel right now. And smell. Damn, you’re ripe. What a clusterfuck.”
“What’s going on?”
“Shhh. I can’t bring Kira in here to fix you. Too exposed. Too popular an area right now. So we’re going to have you out in a few minutes. On my count, the lights are going down. There will be a ten-second delay before back-up lighting kicks in. In those ten secs we gotta get from here to halfway down the stairs.”
“Don’t think I can walk. I can barely breathe.”
Christian smiled. “There are advantages to being a magus. One is speed. The other is strength.” His phone dinged again. He unlatched the restraints while counting, “Five, four, three, two, one.”
The room went black. Air rushed from her lungs in a moment of holy-shit-that-hurts when her injured ribs hit his shoulder. Before she could register how much his running jarred her pain into the stratosphere, the lights popped on. He took a flight of stairs a second. Her stomach lurched. She swallowed against the nausea, but her stomach didn’t care.
“Puke,” she warned.
“No, you damn well won’t on me.” He halted and held her to the side while her stomach emptied.
Without warning, he slung her over a shoulder again, and jostled down another flight. He cornered into a hospital hall and onto the elevator where Nate, dressed in scrubs, waited with a gurney. Christian dropped her onto the rolling bed, and covered her in a sheet.
As the elevator car zoomed downward Nate announced, “You’re late.”
“I hauled ass,” Christian replied, “but she had to have a puke break.”
After the ding of two floors, the elevator lurched to a stop.
“What’s going on?” Christian asked.
Nate reached for the control panel. Shocks flew from his hand. Fire roared from the number-pad. “Shit.”
“I can’t believe Ashor saddled me with the newbie fuckhead,” Christian muttered as he shouldered Astrid and stood on the gurney to push open the ceiling escape panel.
As he crawled onto the top of the elevator car behind Christian, Nate declared, “I’m no longer the newbie.” He waved at Astrid.
Christian pointed upwards, at the light peeking through the door opening at an elevator landing a few feet above. He lifted Astrid, indicating she hold onto his neck while he climbed. “When Astrid tries to charbroil me in an elevator, then I’ll call her the newbie.”
“Go to hell,” Nathan grumbled.
“You just tried to send all of us there,” Christian snarled. “I take getting torched in an elevator personally.”
“What happened in there?” Astrid asked as Christian started his ascent.
Christian moved upward, fast. “Mr. Firestarter over there had a malfunction. He’s got like zero control over his electrical ability. Just count your lucky stars that we’re not on an airplane right now. He tried to drown us a few days ago by crashing the plane into the ocean.”
Nate said from below them, “I did not have anything to do with the plane crash. Even Scott admitted there was probably computer tampering.”
Christian cursed. “Why the hell are you here without Dakar anyway? At least Dakar can stop the fires, when you screw up.”
“We get a special power when inducted into magus-dom?” She bit her lip to suppress a smile when Nate flashed his middle finger upward at Christian.
“Yeah.” Christian pried open the elevator doors, which opened onto a busy floor.
A thirty-something nurse in pink scrubs marched toward them. “What’s going on?”
Nate replied as he climbed through the door, “She’s a transfer. Just loading her on a bus, ma’am. But the elevator got stuck.”
Christian said in smooth tone, “We’ve got to get going. Thank you for your help. Why don’t you get back to your duties.”
The nurse smiled dreamily at Christian and giggled.
Christian plunked Astrid onto a new gurney with all the care of a dog tossing its favorite toy. Lacerating pain spiked through her chest when her ribs hit. Stars lit up her peripherals.
Christian texted on his phone.
As they began to wheel the gurney away, the nurse followed, still glued to Christian with moony-eyes.
Christian groaned. He swept off his surgical head cap and ran a hand through his hair. With a slow pivot, he grinned at the nurse and touched her forearm. “Thank you, Cindy. I appreciate you offering your assistance, but we can take it from here, darling. Your patients are lucky to have your help.”
Cindy giggled like a teenager. “Would you like to grab dinner later?”
Christian leaned in and whispered in her ear. He kissed her cheek and pulled away.
Cindy caressed his forearm and stumbled down the hallway grinning like she’d won the lottery.
“Guess I’m not the only one that’s a little off today?” Nate smirked.
Astrid chuckled at Christian’s exasperated snort. Fire alarms screeched. Christian said, “I texted Scott to call the fire department. Last thing we want is this place’s oxygen blowing sky high. What floor was this?”
“Four,” Nate said.
Christian pushed around a corner, swerving to avoid a collision with another gurney. “Another elevator, then. And this time, Nate—”
“Yeah, I know,” Nate interrupted, clicking more times than necessary on the down call button for the service elevator.
As they stepped into the elevator, Christian muttered, “I will kill you if you set this one on fire.”
Nate texted while Christian pushed the gurney out of the elevator and onto the basement loading dock. He gripped Astrid’s forearm and asked, “You think you can walk about a hundred yards to the car?”
Astrid pushed up to a sit, disregarding her vertigo, and put her feet on the ground. When she attempted to stand, her knees buckled. “Nope.”
The elevator next to theirs opened. Colonel Greene and five agents emerged, guns drawn. The colonel ordered, “Halt. Or we will shoot.”
“Nate, get in the car,” Christian ordered.
Nate ran. Two agents shot. Astrid saw one bullet tear into Nate’s shoulder, but he didn’t stop. Her ex-boss’s gaze narrowed on hers. She’d been judg
ed a dissenter, and now a hostile. The colonel fired, but Christian blocked the path of the bullet. He swung Astrid into his arms and bolted for the SUV. The loud blasts of semi-auto gunfire echoed around them.
Christian cranked open the side door and threw her into the back seat. He dove onto the floor. The car squealed out of the emergency loading dock. Bullets whizzed through the vehicle’s door.
Bullet wounds leeched blood and saturated Christian’s scrub top. A glance around found Khyan at the wheel and Nate reclining in the passenger seat, unconcerned.
“Help me, Nate. He’s going to bleed out,” Astrid demanded.
Nate leaned around the front passenger seat. “You okay down there, C?”
“Yeah, I’m having a goddamned tea party.” Christian pushed off the floorboard and gingerly sat next to her.
“What can I do for you? Are you going to die?” Astrid asked.
Christian glanced briefly over the areas bleeding onto his scrubs. “I think one might’ve hit something vital since I’m feeling light-headed, but they won’t kill me.”
“You’ve got at least six bullet wounds. We should be carting you back to the ER.”
He shot her a cocky smile. “Welcome to being a magus, darlin’. Only thing that can kill you is a daemon or one of us.”
“Or one of the gods,” Nate chimed in from the back.
“Or your soulmate,” Khyan added.
“Don’t you feel pain?” She pointed at his bloody scrubs.
“Hell, yeah.”
“Then, why’d you do something so insane?”
Christian shrugged. He leaned back and closed his eyes.
She stared in silence, floored that this guy who barely knew her just took bullets to save her. “Why’d you come for me? I mean, the Company would’ve taken me back.”
Christian replied without opening his eyes, “You’re one of us now. We don’t leave anyone behind. Ever. Besides, Kane has been texting me about every two seconds to see if you’re alive. Him upset actually scares me more than a couple of bullets.”