by DAVID B. COE
I opened the car door and got out without making a sound. And then I slammed the door shut.
Q started, straightened up. When he saw me, a big smile lit his face. “Brother Jay, Brother Jay, Brother Jay. What brings you to Q this lazy summer day?”
Like I said: weird. Q often referred to himself in the third person, which was strange by itself, but on occasion, for no discernable reason, he also spoke in verse. I didn’t know why or when he had started doing this, but I wasn’t sure he even noticed anymore. I didn’t think he could stop if he tried.
I walked toward him, and he peered at me over the narrow rims of his glasses, his smile melting. After a few moments, he pulled off his shades altogether. “What the hell happened to you?”
“You’ll hear about it on the news. Suffice it to say, I’ve had a crappy day, and I’m not in a mood to screw around.”
“Fair enough.”
I blew out a long breath. None of this was Q’s fault. “I’m sorry. How’re you feeling, Q?” I asked.
When Etienne de Cahors went on his final killing spree a couple of months ago, he did serious damage to Q’s shop, and the one-room apartment above it, and came close to killing Orestes in the process. The shop still needed repairs, but Q looked better.
“Brother Q is feelin’ fine. How are you doin’? Q sees you got those casts off your arm and leg.”
“Yeah, I’m better, thanks.” I reached for the extra chair Q kept by the shop entrance and paused, waiting for his permission.
He nodded. I sat.
“Q assumes this isn’t a social visit,” he said, setting his glasses back in place.
I reached for my wallet, pulled out a twenty, and held it up for him to see. But I didn’t give it to him. Not yet.
“What do you know about dark magic?”
He regarded me again, his gaze lingering on the blood stains, his lips pressed thin. “Enough to understand you shouldn’t be askin’ about it out on the street.” He pushed himself out of his chair and stomped into the shop. I followed, half expecting him to shut and lock the door in my face. He didn’t.
“What the hell, Jay?” he asked, as soon as I was inside with the door shut. “You come around here, lookin’ like you been through a war, and you ask Q about dark magic out where everybody can see and hear. That’s crazy.” He shook his head. “Q’s not even sure it’s safe to talk about it inside.”
I wanted to ask him who he thought would be listening, but he stopped me before I could get the first word out. A moment later, magic buzzed the air. Q glanced around the shop, the walls of which now glimmered with orange light.
“Wardin’ spell Q came up with,” he said, pride coloring his voice. “It should muffle our voices a little.”
“Who are you hiding from? Who do think might be listening to us?”
He shook his head. “Q don’t know.”
“You never know, until I pay you.”
“This time Q really isn’t sure. There’s strange things happenin’. People are talkin’ about new powers. Not new mystes, mind you, but new powers. Q ain’t never heard that before. He’s not even sure what it means. Mysties are scared, though. Q’s sure of that.”
“I don’t doubt it. What can you tell me about Regina Witcombe?”
Q’s eyes narrowed. “Who’ve you been talkin’ to, Jay?”
I shook my head. “I can’t tell you that.”
He frowned. “You do that a lot,” he said with quiet intensity. “You come here askin’ Q all sorts of questions, and expectin’ answers. Today especially, covered in dust and blood, and refusin’ to explain yourself. And then Q asks a question of his own, and suddenly you’re all secretive and shit. That can bother a man, make him feel used.”
“First of all,” I said, “you’re not paying me for answers.”
Q’s gaze slid away, but he chuckled, deep in his chest. “Well, that’s true. And second of all?”
“Second, if I tell you, it could get both of us killed. And no, I’m not exaggerating.” I paused to gesture at myself. “All of this, the blood, the dust—it’s because there was a magical attack on a restaurant I was at. When you hear about it on the news, they’ll call it a bombing, but I know better. It was directed at me.”
“You look all right. A mess, but all right.” He nodded toward the blood. “Unless that’s yours.”
“It’s not. It’s from the woman I love.”
“Shit, Jay. Q’s sorry. She gonna be all right?”
“I hope.”
“How do you know this magic bomb was for you?”
“Because a voice told me it was. She said it was a warning.”
“She?”
I nodded.
“Well, all right then. Regina Witcombe is that rich woman, right? The one whose husband died on a boat?”
“That’s right.”
“Thought so,” he said. “Yeah, there’s some who say she’s into the dark stuff. Q’s heard no proof—rumor, nothin’ more. But it comes from sources Q trusts.”
I found this oddly comforting. As much as I didn’t want to be caught up in anything having to do with dark magic, that ship was already way, way out to sea. And I found it reassuring that Jacinto Amaya had been straight with me.
“What do they want, Q? Whoever is using this dark magic, what are they after?”
“Well, that’s the question, ain’t it? Used to be, they was happy to cast their spells and make themselves more powerful with blood and such. But they’re changin’ now. There’s talk of mystes makin’ war on each other.”
Jacinto had mentioned that, as well.
“A war for what?” I asked.
“Q don’t know. But there’s rules, things mystes ain’t supposed to do. You know that as well as Q does. Dark mystes don’t like those rules. Someone with money, power—like that woman you’re askin’ about—she’d be someone Q would want on his side, when the fightin’ started. You know?”
I wasn’t sure what a war between mystes would be like but I had a feeling that I’d seen a preview of it today at Solana’s. I felt queasy.
“All right, Q,” I said, handing him the twenty. “Thanks.” I stepped to the door.
“Brother Jay.”
I stopped, expecting his standard parting line: Brother Q has one favor that he’d ask of you; Please don’t tell a soul that you heard it from Q.
But when I faced him again, his expression was still as grim as it had been.
“A couple of months ago, you mentioned to Q that you had a runemyste who was trainin’ you.”
“I remember.”
“You need to ask him about this stuff. Q only knows so much, but a runemyste—he might be able to help you.”
I wanted to tell Q that Namid didn’t respond well to pointed questions, and that the laws of his kind prohibited him from interacting with our world in a meaningful way. But I kept these things to myself.
“I’ll give that some thought,” I said instead, and left.
I went back to my house and changed my clothes, faltering with my shirt in my hands, my eyes drawn to the blood. I was going to toss it in the hamper, but I reconsidered. The blood had set; it wasn’t coming out, and I never wanted to wear that shirt again. I threw it in the trash.
Before putting on another, I crossed to my mirror and examined my arms, my back, my chest. Not a single mark. I wasn’t even sore. I thought again of my confrontation with Mark Darby at the loading dock behind Custom Electronics. Twice now, a magical spell of unknown origin had kept me from harm. This second time, the sorcerer who protected me was the same one who had saved the passengers aboard Flight 595, and who had killed James Howell.
Why would a weremyste who used dark magic care about saving my life? Yes, she had conveyed a warning as well, but had she also blocked the bullets from Mark Darby’s pistol? Were she and her friends tormenting my dad? Were they behind the killings Kona and Kevin had been investigating?
I pulled on a clean shirt and called out, “Namid!”
> He didn’t like to be summoned, and usually I would have respected his wishes, but I had too many questions, and Q was right: If anyone could help me, it was the runemyste.
But he didn’t materialize. I called for him again. Nothing. I hadn’t expected that.
Unsure of what else to do, I drove to Banner Desert Medical Center and after getting the runaround for some time found out where Billie was—still in surgery—and where she would be when they were finished with her—probably the trauma center in Tower A on the second floor.
The receptionist had nearly as many questions for me as I did for her, and it didn’t take me long to realize that no one was going to let me anywhere near Billie unless I was family. So, I lied, told her we were married, but that Billie kept her maiden name for professional reasons. At some point she and I would laugh about it. Or she’d be royally ticked off.
The receptionist gave me a clipboard with enough paperwork on it to make me feel like I was back on the police force, and sent me on my way.
I went up to surgical waiting, with its bright lights, plastic plants, and rows of patterned chairs, and found the room overflowing with people who looked as worried as I felt. There were no seats available, no windows to look out, nothing to do but lean against a wall, fill out forms, and wait. Eventually I must have closed my eyes, because some time later I jerked awake, and almost toppled over.
“Mister Fearsson?”
Hearing the nurse say my name, I realized this wasn’t the first time she’d called for me.
“Yes,” I said, straightening and stepping away from the wall.
“You’re Miz Castle’s husband?”
“That’s right.”
The nurse nodded once, but eyed me doubtfully. Or maybe I was imagining it. I’d never been a very good liar.
“Can you come with me, please?”
I followed her out of the waiting area and past a sign that said Pardon Our Appearance and described a bunch of renovations taking place in the Intensive Care Departments. We walked through a series of corridors, all of them lined with heavy plastic tarps. At intervals I saw stepladders lying on their sides or propped against walls, and gaps in the ceiling where panels had been removed. I saw a few workers and heard others above me, crawling around in the space overhead. At last we came to a pair of twin wooden doors marked Intensive Care Unit.
The nurse halted outside the doors and asked me to wait there.
She went into the ICU and reemerged a few moments later with a doctor, an Indian woman who appeared to be about my age.
“Mister Fearsson?” she said, her accent light.
I nodded. My mouth had gone dry.
“I am Doctor Khanna. I am the hospitalist here. Miz Castle, she is your wife?”
“Yes,” I said, lying yet again. At some point I was going to pay for this. I held up the clipboard. “Still doing the paperwork.”
“Do you have identification?”
I dug out my wallet and flipped it to my driver’s license. “She kept her name,” I said, as the doctor peered at my picture. “She’s a blogger and has a big following. She couldn’t afford to change it.”
“Of course,” she said. She met my gaze again. I slipped the wallet back into my pocket, feeling guilty.
“Your wife hasn’t woken up yet. If all goes well, she should begin to come around soon, but with head wounds and concussions, things are sometimes slower. Don’t be worried if she takes a bit of time to wake up. Because of her head injury, the surgical and anesthesia teams took every precaution with her anesthesia. You should also know that even after she does wake up, she’s going to be woozy for a time, and a little disoriented. In fact, it isn’t uncommon for patients with brain injuries to exhibit some short-term memory loss.”
“Of course.” I was struggling to keep up, but belatedly that got my attention. “Wait. Brain injury? Is she all right?”
“All things considered, she is doing well. She has a concussion, some stitches in her scalp for superficial lacerations, and of course the broken arm. The orthopedist put a plate in to set the bone properly, but he was able to do all the hardware internally, so no external fixator or screws. This should mean a faster healing time and less chance of infection.
“She also has two broken ribs. One of them punctured her lung, causing a pneumothorax—a collapsed lung—which could have been much more problematic. Fortunately, it was only a partial collapse, and we were able to treat it in time. We inserted a chest tube, and she’s already breathing on her own, so I believe she’s going to make a full recovery. But between the pneumothorax and the concussion, she’s a had a rough time of it. She’s going to be staying with us for a little while.”
“I understand. Thank you, Doctor.”
“You’re welcome. If you have questions, or if she does once she’s fully conscious, have the nurses call for me.”
“We will. Again, thank you.”
The doctor nodded to the nurse, who said, “This way,” and led me into the ICU area.
It had been a while since my last trip to an intensive care area in any hospital, and things had changed. We walked between rows of beds, each one in its own glass cubicle, each one surrounded by banks of monitoring equipment. Within some of the glass enclosures, curtains had been drawn. The nurse stopped at one of these, opened the door and pulled the curtain aside, and gestured for me to enter.
I stepped through, and stopped, swaying, my knees almost buckling.
Billie lay on a bed that made her appear tiny. Her head was wrapped in a light gauze that was stained with patches of blood. Her arm, which rested on several pillows, was in a double splint and swathed heavily in what looked like the sticky purple bandaging usually used for sports injuries. A plastic tube snaked from an oxygen tank to a nasal cannula that had been looped behind her head, around her ears, and under her nose.
The nurse placed a gentle hand on my back.
“It’s always hard the first time you see someone like this. But she’s better off than she was when they brought her in.” She steered me to a chair. “Let her know you’re here, hon. Talk to her.”
I nodded, swallowed. But I had no idea what to say. I’m sorry I got you blown up. I’m sorry we can’t even have a lunch date without one of us almost getting killed.
“Billie,” I said, my voice shaky. “I’m right here, and I’ll be here when you wake up. Okay?”
The nurse patted my shoulder. “That’s good, hon. That’s good.” She left me there, closing the curtain and glass door behind her, and giving Billie and me what in a hospital passed for privacy.
I sat and stared at Billie, waiting for her to wake up, turning questions over in my head, and feeling rage at my own impotence build like steam in a kettle. Why would the same weremyste who killed James Howell go to such lengths to keep me alive? What did Dimples and Bear do with the homeless man’s blood? What was happening to my father? What did all of this have to do with Regina Witcombe and Jacinto Amaya, and why were so many mystes suddenly so interested in me? I tried again and again to piece it all together, but each time the result reminded me of a modern art sculpture gone wrong; everything seemed to jut in random directions. There was no coherence, no story line.
All the while, as my thoughts churned, Billie remained as she was. Despite the doctor’s warning that she might not wake for some time, I began to wonder if something was wrong, and if I ought to call the nurse back to check on her. When at long last she stirred, her eyelids moving ever so slightly and her uninjured hand shifting, I whispered a quick “Thank God” and sat forward in my chair.
“Billie? Can you hear me?”
She shifted her head maybe an inch and winced even at that. “Fearsson?” It came out as a croak, but it sounded like music to me.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“ ’M thirsty.”
I hesitated. “Let me get a nurse.” I slipped out of the cubicle and hurried to the nursing station. The woman who had brought me in was there with a couple of other nu
rses. “She’s awake,” I said. “She says she’s thirsty.”
“I’ll bet she is,” the nurse said, walking with me back to Billie’s bed.
It turned out there was a large plastic carafe bearing Banner Desert’s logo and a long flexible straw sitting near the bed, already filled with ice water. I hadn’t noticed. The nurse told me to let Billie have some. “But slowly at first,” she said. “Not too much.” She turned and checked the monitors.
Billie took a small sip and slipped her tongue over her dried, cracked lips.
“How do you feel?” A stupid question, I know, but it was all I could come up with.
“Like I got blown up.”
“Sounds about right.”
Her eyes slitted open at that. “Are you okay?”
I wondered how much she remembered from the restaurant, but we’d have plenty of opportunity later to talk about that. “Yes,” I said. “I’m fine. Are you in a lot of pain?”
“No. Drugs, I think. Where are we? Wha’ hospital?”
“You’re in intensive care at Banner Desert Medical Center. You have a concussion, a broken arm, a couple of broken ribs, and you even had a collapsed lung.”
“Holy crap,” she mumbled.
“No kidding. You’ve been out for a while. But the doctor says you’re going to be okay.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I have insurance.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Where did you say we are?”
I glanced at the nurse.
“That’s normal,” she mouthed.
“Banner Desert.”
“Tha’s right.”
That was how our conversation went for the next several minutes. We talked about nothing at all. She asked me to list her injuries again, and she wanted to know how long she had been unconscious. The more we talked, the more lucid she grew. Her eyes opened wider, her speech cleared. She sipped more water but told the nurse in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with food, at least not yet.