by Cat Adams
She didn’t answer. Not good. I’d been hoping for a quick “yes.”
She straightened up and I realized she had missed one. A single, red scarab had rolled beneath the edge of one of the chairs. Without thinking, I reached down and picked it up. It was warm and I felt a slow pulse of power flow through me. It didn’t hurt. In fact, it felt really, really good. I was almost sorry to give it up, but I extended it to her, flat on my palm, carving side up.
I wouldn’t have thought she could pale further, but she did. White showed around her entire iris as she took it from me. But she pulled herself together. With a shaking finger she pointed at the edge of one of the chairs. “Is that another one over there?”
I dropped onto my knees. Nope. Nothing. I rose in a smooth movement and turned to her.
“I need to talk to my mother.” Almost slamming the lid shut, she shoved the box into my arms. “I realize it’s probably useless to say this, but try to stay out of trouble.”
And in less time than it took to blink, she was gone.
5
I sat in the visitor’s chair in Dr. Scott’s office. Not even 6:00 A.M., but I knew he was already on the grounds. I didn’t technically have an appointment, but I’d at least called ahead. The night receptionist, Autumn, had reluctantly agreed to let me into his office. Mostly because I told her there’d been a major security breach and I needed to talk to him right away.
Dr. Scott’s office takes up probably a fourth of the first floor of the administration building. It’s on the same side of the building as the group therapy room, with a similar wall of glass facing the ocean. The decorator had done a great job echoing the golden tans of the sand and the blues and greens of sea and sky. Everything was beautiful, tasteful, expensive, and soothing.
I wasn’t feeling particularly soothed. I’d found the visit from my “cousin” more than a touch disturbing on several levels. The curse mark remained fairly prominent. I kept glancing at it.
Curses, in general, are pretty variable. Say your coworker, sibling, mother-in-law, or whatever pisses you off. If you have any magical talent at all you can put a curse on them. How effective the curse is will depend on how much talent you’ve got. Someone like me, with no magic, equals no curse. Now someone like Bruno, who’s got so much talent he practically glows in the freaking dark (now that I’ve got vampire powers to see it), well, there’s not much he couldn’t do, up to and including arranging for your enemy to die.
I felt a shiver run down my spine from a combination of fear and rage. Sitting there, holding my little wooden box, I wanted answers, about the curse, about the gift Ren had brought me.
I don’t trust people. Never have. But I trust my instincts and my instincts were telling me that this “gift” was the magical equivalent of dynamite.
It wasn’t exactly reassuring when Dr. Scott stormed into the room, his expression thunderous. He isn’t that big a man, and normally he’s reserved and elegant, someone you’d expect to see on the cover of JET magazine or one of the major psychiatric journals. He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, but his attitude was anything but casual. “What the hell have you done now? Whatever you’re holding was felt by most of the staff and woke half of the guests.”
“What have I done? Oh no,” I snapped back. “You need to have a chat with Security, because someone slipped through the cracks. I could have been killed. Like Vicki was killed, in case you’ve forgotten. I thought you’d tightened security around here.”
He stopped in mid-stride, halfway around the desk. Taking a deep breath, he steadied himself, and I watched him very deliberately pull calm around him the way I’d seen a woman at my grandmother’s church put on a familiar and comfortable shawl. He changed direction to sit in the guest chair next to mine. We were close enough that he could easily touch me if he wished, and it gave him an unobstructed view of what I was holding.
“I’m sorry, Celia. You’re right.” His voice was tightly controlled. I could tell he was still angry, but he wouldn’t let the emotion control him. This was more like the Jeff Scott I knew. In fact, the fit of temper he’d shown coming in was so unlike him that I wondered if Ren wasn’t right and he needed therapy.
“This wasn’t your fault. May I?” He nodded toward the box.
“Are you sure you want to? Last time someone else touched it, it shocked the hell out of her.”
A small frown crossed his face, but he was nothing if not determined. He set his jaw and reached out. “I’ll take my chances.”
I passed the box to him. He didn’t flinch or hesitate and it moved into his grasp without event. I was glad. My hand was still tingling from earlier.
“What is it?” he asked, running his fingers carefully over the intricately carved wood. Lifting the lid, he set it on the desk beside him.
“It was a gift from my siren visitor. She called it a Wadjeti. It’s used for some form of divination.”
“Sirens.” His expression soured. “I suppose that’s how she affected me—made me do things without my remembering?” He shook his head and let out a low growl. “I wouldn’t have believed it if my conversation with her hadn’t been on one of the security tapes.” His tone of voice made it clear how annoyed he was about this.
“Probably,” I admitted with a shrug, “but don’t ask me how it works. My gran said it’s a form of psychic ‘call,’ but she didn’t have much more information to give me than that.” Actually, she’d told me quite a few things, but none of them applied here and I wasn’t inclined to share them.
“The woman this morning manipulated me. She appeared in my home through a dozen magical barriers and I was compelled to bring her here and take her to your rooms. Then she sent me off, told me to get myself a cup of coffee. And I had to do it. Wanted to. Anything to please her.” He shivered. “Birchwoods is supposedly secure against teleportation, but my home was not.” He scowled. “I didn’t think it was necessary. My home address is not common knowledge among the staff.” He paused, his expression souring. “Of course, she could have persuaded someone to tell her.”
There was a tension to his body that wasn’t normally there. His gestures were too sharp, his voice just a couple of notes higher than normal. I might not have noticed had Ren not mentioned it, but Jeff didn’t seem quite right. He was trying too hard. It was almost as if he was doing a really good impression of himself.
“It’s possible, I suppose.”
“Did she give you a reason for the visit?”
“She said she wanted to give me a gift.” I indicated the Wadjeti.
“You don’t believe her?” His face said he agreed, but he couldn’t help but slip into doctor-patient mode every time he saw me now.
“Mostly I got the feeling she was trying to stir up trouble. Ren doesn’t get along with Adriana and wants to make her look bad.”
“Adriana being the siren from the wake?”
“Yes. The gift was just an excuse.”
“Are you expecting any more visits?”
I shrugged. “No. But I wasn’t expecting this one, either. You have to remember, until very recently I didn’t know much more about sirens than that they existed. I still don’t—and I need to. I’m caught up in the middle of some sort of political mess and I don’t know what the hell is going on. I don’t like it. And I really don’t like that they can just come and go as they please.”
He nodded. “Nor do I. Is there anyone you can discuss this with? Find out more of what’s going on?”
“Not really. My grandfather might have known something. But he’s been dead for years. Gran told me everything she knew. Maybe somebody at the university can help me. If nothing else, they probably have some information in the library. One way or another, I think I’m going to need a day pass.”
He scowled. “You aren’t due for a day pass. You certainly haven’t earned one. More to the point, I’m not positive the courts would approve. Whatever it is can wait until tomorrow when you have your hearing.”
“Can it
?” It was a pointed question. “You’re the one who was complaining about the magic that thing’s giving off. I’d like to get it into the safe at my office. The layers of wards should be heavy enough to block whatever the Wadjeti is giving off.”
If I did get a pass I was also going to find an expert to check out the death curse. But I didn’t want to tell Jeff that unless I absolutely had to. It wasn’t easy with him sitting so close to me, but I was doing my best to make sure that he didn’t get a glimpse of that palm. Less easy but just as important, I was trying not to think about it so that he wouldn’t “overhear.”
Death curses are nasty, nasty business, dangerous to not only the victim but also those around them. My having one might get me kicked out of Birchwoods. I don’t think Jeff wanted to see me in the state prison/asylum, but I absolutely believed he was anxious to get away from me. And if I got kicked out of here, there was a good chance no one else would take me—and that would mean the state facility, unless charges were dismissed at my hearing. I wouldn’t need a death curse to get killed there.
“You’re not telling me everything.” Dr. Scott leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his lips.
“Well . . . no,” I admitted, “but I’m not lying. And you really don’t want to know everything, do you?” That was a guess but a good one. The longer we talked, the more obvious his unease became.
He stared at me for a long moment in silence, his dark eyes burning with intensity. The tension built until he could stand it no longer. He spoke in a quiet voice, but his entire body was quivering, as if it was costing him everything he had to maintain control. “It doesn’t bother you at all, does it? We were kidnapped . . . tortured. You killed people.”
He sounded so damned judgmental. I felt sorry for him, but I was also angry. I’d saved his ass out there. They were going to kill us both. He knew it. He’d seen it in the driver’s mind. “What the hell was I supposed to have done? It was a professional kidnapping. We could have died—would have if it hadn’t been for Ivy’s intervention and my fighting abilities. You want someone to blame? Fine. But it damned well better not be me, because it wasn’t my fault.” I met Jeff’s gaze without backing down. I was pissed. How dare he sit there acting all high-and-mighty?
I continued. “Of course it bothers me. And it scares the hell out of me. Because they were pros—pros with police connections. But it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine, either. And if it’s a choice between me and them, I choose me. I made up my mind about that a long time ago.”
“It’s not that simple.” He crumpled in the face of my anger. He was whispering and looking down at the palms of his hands in the classic “Lady Macbeth” pose. He was suffering, really suffering. He needed professional help.
“Yeah, it is.” I spoke as gently as I could. “Ultimately, it really is that simple. You don’t need to feel guilty. You didn’t kill anybody. And I only killed those who would have seen us dead.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.” He looked at me, his eyes haunted.
“It doesn’t?”
“No. You can’t imagine what it felt like to have him inside my mind—slicing, cutting just to hurt me. . . . It was—” He swallowed hard. “He laughed when I screamed and then did it again.” Dear lord, they’d raped him, as surely as if it had been his body. He’d been tortured. Just like I’d been, with Ivy. “I can’t even close my eyes at night without seeing flashes of raw magic.”
Well, shit. Then I really didn’t know how to help. I started to touch him and then realized it would be the wrong thing to do. Too personal. “Look, Jeff, you need to talk to somebody. You really do. Post-traumatic stress can do terrible things to a person if they don’t get help. You know that better than anyone. I know it from firsthand experience. You’ve been tortured. Just because you don’t have scars doesn’t mean you don’t have scars.”
I watched him fight to pull himself back together, saw the pleasant mask slide into place. In a minute, two at the most, he looked like his old self. It was a good act. Anyone who hadn’t seen him break down would never guess there was anything wrong.
“You can have the day pass. I’ll take care of the paperwork. It’ll be ready for you in a half hour.” He stood, the usual signal that it was time to go. I rose but didn’t move toward the door.
“I meant what I said. You need to get help. I know you don’t want anyone here to know, but if you go somewhere else—”
“Word can still get around,” he said sourly. “People talk. Oh, they don’t use names. But it always gets around. It’s too juicy not to.”
“Not if you make them take binding oaths.” My voice was cold, hard.
His eyebrows rose high enough to disappear beneath his hair. Obviously, I’d surprised him. Maybe it was that I cared enough to suggest it. Or maybe it was the whole “binding oath” thing. Most people aren’t willing to take a true binding. It impinges too much on their free will. And it’s not an easy thing to do. Only a top-flight magical practitioner or a true-believer cleric can pull it off. But if you can get it done, they are completely reliable.
“I’ll think about it.” I hoped he would. But I wasn’t sure.
He gestured toward the door with one hand. I was being dismissed.
I felt bad, but I couldn’t think of anything more I could do for him. So I left.
6
It took me an hour to leave Birchwoods. Thanks to Jeff’s orders to the staff, I was able to get my keys, cell phone, and some of my personal belongings. I made a few calls, making arrangements, and decided to change into real clothes. I was almost deliriously happy not to be wearing gray. Stupid, I know, but still true.
Most important, I needed to eat—or, rather, drink. Oooooh, baby. I was overdue and it was starting to show. Thus far I’ve avoided actual uncooked blood, even animal. The longer I can keep it that way, the better, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, ewwww. And even if I eventually have to do the animal blood thing for nutritional reasons, that’s as far as it will go. I am never going to taste human blood. Period. End of story.
Of course nobody else seems to believe that. They tell me that once I taste human blood, I’ll turn into a full vampire. And everyone seems to believe that someday I’ll “succumb.” I refuse to. I am not a fucking bat and I have no intention of becoming one. Still, temptation is definitely something to be avoided.
On the plus side, the chef here has taught me that it’s possible to have shakes that actually taste like what they were in the solid stage. I asked him to put together some recipes. It’ll be worth the money. We’ve been experimenting with baby food in hopes that I can eventually work my way up to solids.
For the moment, I asked for a repeat of the waffle shake, with an additional protein component of some kind to get my day started on the right nutritional footing. They said it would take a few minutes to put together, so I took my time picking what I wanted to wear from among the extremely limited choices available to me at the moment. In the end I decided on my favorite pair of faded blue jeans and a polo in a shade of blue. My hair is naturally silver blond and while my eyes are gray rather than blue, the shirt was in one of the few colors that didn’t look odd with my new complexion I decided to bring along a long-sleeved denim jacket and hat for practical reasons. Slathering on heavy-duty sunscreen works for a while, but when it wears off I can wind up with second- and third-degree burns in no time. They don’t scar, but they’re painful as hell. So like it or loathe it, I cover as much skin as I can during daylight hours.
I wished I had my weapons. Any weapons. But I hadn’t brought any with me to the wake, so I didn’t have any at Birchwoods. Unless Bruno had hidden a couple in my car when he’d brought it over, I was going to have to do without.
I took a couple extra minutes to do my makeup. My friend Dawna did some extensive online shopping in the short period between my being bitten and her becoming disabled trying to find colors that don’t make me look like a clown. I ended up with a really minimal
ist palette that leans toward stark, cool colors. It’s made me understand the whole “vampires in black” thing. There just aren’t many colors that look good when you’re undead.
By the time the food arrived I looked presentable. I even had a cute little purse to go with the outfit. When I’m working, I just slip my wallet and phone into the pockets of my jacket, but I was feeling girly today. Seeing Ren looking so flawless had pricked my vanity a little, much as I hated to admit it.
I wolfed down the warm, buttery, maple-flavored slushy, suddenly sorry I hadn’t asked for two. It seemed hard to believe there was actually nutrition in it. Even better, the “meat protein” the chef had chosen was a maplewood beef sausage that went perfectly with my “waffle.” It tasted like real food and I’d have paid money for it in any restaurant, even before the attack.
I was ready to dive out the door when a nurse stopped by with a syringe and a tray of tubes. “What’s this for?”
“Your treating physician said we needed to test your blood to see if you were linked magically to anyone.”
We’d talked about that in therapy. I was confident my vampire sire was dead. King Dahlmar had taken care of that as an advance payment for helping him with his son and the demon. I was grateful enough to have my sire dead that I’d wrapped my body around the unconscious prince to protect him while a seriously ticked-off demon sliced and diced me. But there were still questions about other vamps and sirens and heaven only knows what. Yeah, I wanted to know who I was “linked” to. “Oh, right. Can you make it quick? I need to get going.”
“Do my best.”
It probably only felt like he drew as much as the bloodmobile would. Still, I managed not to complain. I am trying very hard to be a cooperative patient . . . with limited success. But I am trying. Several tubes later I was able to grab the Wadjeti and dive out the door.