Savage: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 2)

by J. C. Staudt

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better today. It’s a good thing, living in a hospital. When you get sick, you just go to your room.”

  “I’m sorry I used you the way I did.”

  “Think nothing of it. I’m glad to have been used for such a distinguished purpose.”

  “Your magical energy saved our butts. Hope you’re on your feet soon.”

  “I’d better be. I don’t want to miss out on tonight.”

  “What’s tonight?”

  “A crossing.”

  “Which is …?”

  The orc frowns. “It’s what we do. Our commission is to guard the pathways between worlds.”

  “Someone’s crossing over from the otherside tonight?”

  “Indeed.”

  “How do you know?”

  Urdal smiles, adjusting his spectacles. “We have our methods, your majesty.”

  “Do you know who? Or where?”

  “Where, yes. Whom, we never know until the moment arrives. We often must decide between friend or foe in a matter of seconds. Sometimes it’s easy to tell. But only sometimes.”

  “How do you make that determination?”

  “I believe Ryovan intends to invite you tonight so you can begin to familiarize yourself with our process. We cannot possibly act as gatekeepers for all the creatures who enter this world, yet we do our best with the ones revealed to us.”

  “I’d love to come. I’ve got nothing better to do until my half-fiendish master shows up. When does Ryovan usually get home from work?”

  “Around dinnertime.”

  “Is he actually the president of Fitzroy’s Dairy Corporation?”

  Urdal’s look is curious. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

  “Oh, Shenn told me a lot of stuff, and I’m still trying to sift through it all to figure out what’s a lie and what’s true. I thought maybe the Fitzroy thing was just a made-up logo you put on your milk trucks to make them less suspicious.”

  He laughs. “It does make them less suspicious. That’s the point.”

  Chapter 22

  Janice has her hands full between her three patients, so I spend the morning helping her with Quim, Lorne, and Urdal while I wait for Calyxto to make his miraculous and timely appearance. It would be more miraculous than timely at this point. I find myself feeling a twinge of worry for the half-fiend, and it makes me wonder if any mortal in the history of time has ever worried about the wellbeing of an agent of the underworld.

  Though I’m anxious about Lorne’s state of mind, I keep my distance from him and concentrate my efforts on Quim and Urdal. Quim wakes up while I’m wheeling him toward his hospital room. He’s back to his old self. Panicked expression, heavy breathing, twitchy response to bright light, and sheer terror when he realizes he’s woken up somewhere besides the safe isolated cave of his apartment.

  “You’re fine, dude,” I tell him, a bid to preempt his oncoming anxiety attack. “I’m here. There is nothing wrong with you aside from a few cuts on your left hand and a lingering depression over having been dumped by Felita Skaargil.”

  He groans. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “You owe it to yourself to remain aware of your predicament. You took the ring off and passed out from what I assume was the overwhelming pain caused by its delaying influence.”

  He lifts his head to look around. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in my hospital.”

  “Your hospital? Was I asleep that long?”

  “I didn’t buy it. My father willed it to me. Or rather, he entrusted it to me, legally speaking.”

  “Why am I here? Did I hurt myself?”

  “You came because I asked you to.”

  He drops his head onto the pillow, deflated. “Now I remember. You tricked me into coming with promises of a hot tip on the Red Wings game. How long do I have to stay?”

  “You can leave as soon as you’re feeling up to it. I’d like you to be here when Calyxto comes around, though. I’ve got questions for him.”

  “What questions?”

  “Do you remember what I told you about Lorne? He’s awake, and we don’t know whether he’s a thrall or which vampire might’ve enslaved him.”

  “Yeah, okay. I remember.”

  “Good. Let’s review. To find an object, Calyxto requires a biological sample from the creature who owns it. To find a living creature, he needs an object owned by that creature. Now, what if I want to find a creature who owns another living creature?”

  “Lorne’s vampiric master.”

  “Bingo.”

  Quim thinks. “You want to know if Lorne counts as an object or a creature.”

  “Exactly. Or both. Can Lorne be used as an object through which to find his master?”

  “Good question. Really good question.”

  I push Quim into Room 154 and set the wheel locks on his bed. I unbuckle the restraining straps and adjust the bed so he’s sitting up. “So how do you think Calyxto will answer that question? Can he find Lorne’s master? Because if not, we’re in trouble. I’ve got no idea how else we’re going to find him.”

  “Why hasn’t Calyxto shown up yet?”

  “Wish I knew. I’ve been on edge all day, and it would really put my mind at ease if he did. Maybe I was wrong about him having a connection to the Nerve Ring.”

  “The Nerve Ring. Where is it?”

  “I have it.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No way, Frodo. You’re done.”

  “But I want to see it.”

  I make a buzzer sound. “Wrong answer. You’re not getting the ring. Get over it.”

  Quim hangs his head and starts crying.

  “What’d I say?”

  “Felita doesn’t love me anymore. I can’t stop thinking about her. It hurts.”

  “Yeah, it’s going to do that for a while. That’s how breakups work.”

  “This sucks. I want the ring back.”

  “Don’t be a pussy.”

  “Why do you have to be such a jerk, Arden? Or should I start calling you Cade again now that you’ve got all these new friends who know the real you?”

  “They know my name. They don’t know me. Not like you do, Quim.”

  “Who are they? How did you end up here?”

  I tell him about Shenn, the concert, the vampire attack, my father’s hospital, and my run-ins with the various Guardians over the last few days. “Apparently they have a way of determining when and where othersiders are crossing over. There’s a portal opening tonight, and we’re putting together a welcoming party. Do you want to come? You can’t leave here until they can spare a driver to take you home anyway. Maybe a little adventure will help you get your mind off Felita.”

  “Sounds like front line stuff. You said I didn’t have to do front line stuff anymore.”

  “Fine. Stay here then.”

  “I’d rather stay here. Can I get up and walk around?”

  “As long as you promise not to do anything rash.”

  “The last time I did something rash, I wound up tied to this gurney.”

  I laugh. “Do a lap or two around the ward and see how you feel.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get my stitches.”

  I remove the spellvault belt on my way to Janice’s operating room, cracking into my natural form complete with cuts and bruises and scrapes from last night’s scuffle. There I strip down to my boxer shorts and fling myself onto the table. “Fix me up, Doc.”

  She examines me. “You’re going to need stitches in at least three places. I’ll get you patched, but you’re not going to walk out of here like you didn’t get thrown around by a bunch of vampires last night. You’ll feel every cut for a while.”

  “I can take it,” I assure her.

  She removes my bandages and cleans each wound with something that burns, inspecting them for any glass Shenn might’ve missed. Then she uses a syringe full of numbing agent around the wounds requiring stitches
and proceeds to sew me up. Seeing the syringe gets me thinking. This being a hospital, there must be a massive supply of needles and syringes hanging around. I haven’t used blood magic since the night I killed Krydos, but if I’m going to be killing vampires I ought to bring out the big guns.

  I’m not addicted. I’m in love.

  Janice finishes stitching the final wound and rifles through the drawers for something she can’t seem to find. She snicks her tongue and stands up. “Be right back. I’m out of gauze.”

  The second she leaves the room I’m on my feet, opening drawers and cabinets one after another. Syringes are hard to come by when you don’t have a good excuse for needing them. Quim was able to procure a few for me in the past, but it was a chore, and one he doesn’t like doing now that he knows why I want them. I’ve refrained from using AnonymCity to acquire this particular contraband due to its illegality, though I’d consider it if times got desperate.

  The fourth drawer on the right is filled with needled syringes of various size packaged in plastic. I shove three of them into my pocket. Now if Durlan can only find me the demon blood I’ve been after, I’ll be set.

  When Janice reenters the room, she stops briefly and cocks her head at me before returning to my side. “Find what you were looking for?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, cucumber-cool.

  “I may be dead, but I’m not dumb. Your energies are all over this room, kid. You’ve been snooping around.”

  “So?”

  “Chill out. I’m not accusing you.”

  “You’re not?”

  “This is your hospital. You get off on stealing your own stuff, that’s none of my beeswax.”

  “I took three syringes. I’m going to need every advantage I can get against Mottrov.”

  Janice unrolls her gauze and starts bandaging me up. “I’d rather not lecture you on the dangers of blood magic. Or cast judgment on whether confronting vampires by yourself makes you a hero or an idiot. You’ll get plenty of commentary from your friends, I’m sure.”

  “My friends. That doesn’t include you?”

  “Friendship isn’t what you want from me, kid. I can sense your life’s essence. I always know how you’re feeling, sometimes before you’ve figured it out yourself. Friendships based on emotional x-ray vision will only lead to pain and suffering.”

  “Earlier you said you’d tell me how you got this way.”

  “I told you to ask me again. Didn’t say I’d answer.”

  “You don’t remember anything about your life on the otherside?”

  “I’m not from the otherside. Your dad wasn’t my king, and you’re not my prince. I was just your average medical professional, living a good life in the city, doing my thing, until death and magic came along and hit me with a one-two punch. Most effective duo since the chocolate-vanilla swirl. I just happened to get caught up in some bad juju and wound up here, for lack of a more fulfilling postmortem existence.”

  “You can say a lot without really saying anything, you know that?”

  “It’s a gift.” Janice finishes my last bandage, pulls open a drawer, and lifts the lid of a painted wooden cigar box to withdraw a zippo lighter and a fat brown stogie. The skull motif etched into the zippo’s casing is ironic, given its owner.

  “Did you smoke this much when you were alive?”

  “I smoke this much because I’m dead.”

  “Do the others know how you became a lich?”

  “It’s not a story I enjoy repeating.”

  “Even to a captive audience?”

  She stokes the cigar and returns the lighter to its box in the drawer. “Alright, fine. Once upon a time I was in my early thirties, fresh off a successful medical residency and on the verge of opening up my own practice. I was on top of the world. Thought I was gonna live forever. So a colleague drags me to a charity fundraiser for cancer awareness in the middle of a busy week. I take a bite of my jumbo shrimp and head to the bathroom. That turns out to be my last mistake. That, and buying knockoff heels.

  “One of my six-inch stilettos breaks off in the crack between two floor tiles as I’m going through the bathroom door. I trip and hit my head against the wall, and somehow manage to suck the damn shrimp down my throat and get it lodged there before I pass out. In a banquet hall full of doctors you’d think everyone would know the Heimlich, but by the time Bucko McFucko or whoever it was runs back to get help, it’s too late. I’ve already asphyxiated.”

  “You choked on a shrimp?”

  “While I was unconscious. Lucky me, right? So I wake up at the morgue two hours later and realize something’s gone horribly wrong, because I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be dead. Turns out I’ve been brought back from the great beyond by a necromancer on Woodward Avenue who made a typo in his spellbook and trapped my soul in the automatic hand dryer in that bathroom at the Hilton. He felt so bad about it he tried to revive me, only he botched the operation and flipped half my consciousness, give or take, into this decrepit shell of a body. To this day, every time someone mashes the button on that hand dryer I get the undeniable urge to moan like a goddamned humpback whale. Just thinking about my shitty luck makes me want to punch a kitten. After everything I went through to make something of myself, you know? After all of that, I died on a fucking Tuesday.”

  “Tough break.”

  “Yeah, no shit, kid. People always say ‘what a way to go’ when they hear about someone dying in a stupid accident. There are stupid accidents, and then there are so depressing you have to laugh because otherwise you’d cry accidents. No one ever gets to tell their own death story, though, so that’s been kind of an emotionally eviscerating experience every time I do it.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Your pity will never outclass my misery, kid.”

  “What was it like? The great beyond?”

  “People talk about a tunnel with a bunch of light at the end of it, yeah? That’s all it is, except the tunnel goes on forever. You never get to the end of it, and the light never gets any closer. Keeps staring you in the face, blinding you. An infinity of sameness.”

  “That sounds terrifying.”

  “You’d think so, right? But while you’re dead, somehow it makes sense. It’s like the alphabet, or counting up from zero. It’s in order. It’s how it’s supposed to be. Boring as fuck. Now get off my operating table and put some clothes on. You’re as good as you’re gonna get. No strenuous activity or heavy lifting for the next two weeks. No swimming, bathing, or showering for forty-eight hours, and no getting your dressings wet.”

  “Roger that, Doc. Thanks.”

  “Yep. Force be with you, or whatever.”

  By the time Ryovan and Shenn come home from their respective days at the office, they both look ready to shoot something. I wonder if job-related stress ever filters into their handling of new othersiders. Do they treat crossings like cops treat traffic stops, daring their subjects to provoke them? Can a disgruntled corporate employee encounter a creature from another world and treat it impartially? Do hideous monsters get a fair shake compared to non-threatening humanoids?

  These are questions I hope to have answered tonight when I accompany the Guardians on my first expedition. It’ll be a way to see what they’re about while insinuating myself as a temporary member of the group. Honestly I don’t care about the hospital. If they’re doing right by the otherside, they’re welcome to keep using the place in perpetuity. What do I need with an old broken-down medical building? I’m Arden Savage. Bounty hunter. Millionaire playboy. Erudite wizard. Once Lorne is back to normal, the Guardians and I can go our separate ways. Screw destiny. I understand when I’m not wanted.

  After donning the spellvault belt and shifting into a brand-spanking new Arden, I introduce Quim to everyone he hasn’t met, noting his complete lack of interest or enthusiasm. He’s stewing in his own juices, something he does exceedingly well. Ryovan takes us to a place the Guardians call their war room, where a huge map of the New Detroit metro
politan area adorns one wall. Rows of wide white desks face the front, and colored pushpins are scattered across the paper map with no apparent order or pattern. “Each of these pins represents a crossing at which we were present,” he explains. “Yellow pins represent crossings resolved peacefully, their subjects either allowed to go free or taken to Misthaven to convalesce.”

  “Let me stop you right there,” I say. “What’s Misthaven?”

  “A halfway house for othersiders. It’s a place where they can get the help they need to transition to this strange new world. A place to rest and, in some cases, try to recover their lost memories. Most of what we know of the old world stems from the bits and pieces assembled from the memories of various othersiders while they’re there. Your father stayed there for a time after he crossed over.”

  “Who runs it?”

  “A nephilim who calls himself Alan Magyar.”

  “He knew my father?”

  “They were close, at one time. As I was saying, yellow pins represent peaceful crossings. Red pins show crossings where we deemed the subjects dangerous and exercised force. White pins show the possible locations of crossings we’ve missed.”

  “What about the black pins? And how do you know about these crossings beforehand?”

  Ryovan shakes his head. “I don’t want you worrying about that right now. Let’s concentrate on how we’re going to approach the drop point tonight. The crossing is supposed to happen at a sewer outlet on the south side. We’ll need to keep coverage over a hundred and eighty degrees across the front. Is your friend coming with us?”

  “I don’t think Quim is up for it. Are you, Quim?”

  Quim is sitting at one of the desks, slumped forward with his head resting on his arms. He gives a noncommittal grunt.

  “Cheer up, QuimTak. You’re souring the mood.”

  “I’m not sour. I’m thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “When I called you Tuesday night, how much did you hear before Buster blew up the cafe?”

  “You said the Order of the Raven was a secret name, not used publicly.”

  “So you didn’t hear me say the Ascended vampire coven is using the group as a funnel to recruit new thralls.”