“If you find out, you’ll let me know.” McManus turned to Bianca. “Let’s get out of here.”
She nodded.
“Wait a minute. You broke into my property, saw things you shouldn’t have seen, and you think you’re just going to walk out of here?” Corey said, and crossed his arms. “Seamus here thinks we should dispose of you quietly. And trust me, he’s been wanting that for years.”
McManus tensed and turned. “If you wanted us dead, we already would be.”
Corey O’Shea grinned and shrugged. “I see you’ve been listening, Detective. For now it suits me to let you go. I trust there’s nothing you can do to hurt me.” He leaned close to McManus. “Nothing. You can speak of this place, but no one will believe you. It’s all part of the protection enchantment protecting this grove.” He looked Bianca up and down. “Besides, I think you both have secrets of your own you need to protect.”
O’Shea started to walk away, then stopped and turned. “I told you before. The only thing that interests me are my own interests.” He held out his arms toward the trees. “This is my interest. If I so much as get a hint you are jeopardizing this, I’ll let my brother loose on you.”
Seamus O’Shea smiled—cold and deadly, his flat soulless eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Get them out of here,” Corey said to a couple of his goons.
As McManus moved, the spear tip scraped against bone. He wrapped his hand around the shaft to pull it out.
“No,” Bianca said, stopping him. “Not here, you could bleed out if you hit a vein or something. We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Just get me out of here,” he said.
Li-anis buzzed out of a nearby tree and flew into a tirade of Faeish curses. Corey ignored her as he watched his men half drag the cop back through the forest. The witch followed uncertainly. He tilted his head, enjoying the way her ass swayed as she went.
“Do you think they know what they are,” Seamus said quietly.
His brother never spoke unless they were alone.
“Not yet,” Corey said. “The witch exudes power, more power than I have sensed in a millennia. The good detective—well, when he works out what he is, things are going to get very interesting. We’re going to need them to finish this. So, they can’t die. At least, not yet.” He smiled at his brother and slapped him on the shoulder. “Besides, McManus is one of our best customers.”
“We were lucky this time. If they’d discovered—”
Corey frowned and crossed his arms. “We can just be thankful they didn’t. It would’ve ruined everything we’ve worked for. Now, for those security guards that let them in here—” He looked at his brother. “Fire them, permanently. And tell Tyrone Jordan to send us competent ones this time.” He looked away from Seamus at the small building only visible through the trees because he knew it was there. “We’ve grown complacent, thinking our position protects us. Times are changing, my brother. The darkness is growing stronger.”
29
The Impatient Patient
“I’m not going to the hospital,” McManus stated as he leaned against his car. “There’ll be too many questions.”
“But you’re pretty banged up,” Bianca said. “That leg needs stitches.”
“This isn’t my first time. I have everything at home I need.”
“Then at least let me drive you. We’ll take your car.” She held out her hand.
McManus opened his mouth then winced. “Okay.” And felt around for his keys. “Shit, I think I lost them in the O’Sheas’s warehouse. We’ll have to take your car.”
Kedrax, hide.
She pulled out her keys and hit the unlock button, still having no idea how the dragon and the cat had gotten out. Then she saw it. The broken rear window on the passenger side.
“Looks like you’ve been robbed,” McManus said.
“That’s what I get for parking in this part of town, I guess.”
She opened the front passenger door and glanced inside to make sure it was all clear. There was no sign of either animal as she helped lower McManus into the car. She checked the back and saw a pair of golden eyes glowing low on the floor behind the seat. A pair of green feline eyes opened and blinked beside them.
“Sorry I’m bleeding all over your upholstery,” McManus croaked. His skin had taken on a rather disturbing pallor. She had to get him home fast. Although hospital was probably a better idea, McManus was right about it raising too many questions.
By the time they reached his building, he looked even worse. She tried to help him from the car but he stubbornly pushed her away and hauled himself out.
His knees buckled and he put his hands out, bracing himself against the back passenger door. “Give us a sec.”
“Okay, but the sooner we get you upstairs, the sooner we can get those wounds dressed.”
“What the fuck is that?” McManus shouted, looking even paler as he hurriedly pushed away from the car.
She swallowed. “Where?”
“In there.” He pointed to the car. “The blue thing with glowing eyes.”
Different people saw Kedrax as different things. “What does it look like to you?”
“Some sort of lizard, or . . .” He tilted his head and leaned into the car, looking closer. “Any other night I would say that’s impossible.” He turned his head in her direction. “But it looks like a fucking tiny dragon?”
“What?”
Kedrax jumped up on the backseat. “He sees me, the real me.”
“Whoa,” McManus said, backing up farther. “It fucking talks too?”
“He hears me too.” The little dragon looked perplexed. “This shouldn’t be possible.”
“Okay.” McManus straightened. “I think I need a drink before you explain to me why you have a dragon in your car.”
Vincent popped up onto the seat beside Kedrax.
“Come on, I need to get you upstairs and dress that wound,” she said.
McManus dropped his head. “Well you can’t leave that here, may as well bring it too. Both of them.”
Bianca looked at him for a moment longer, then opened the back door. “Okay, let’s go.”
The two animals scurried out of the car and looked up at her.
We’re sorry, Kedrax spoke into her head.
“It’s okay,” she said aloud. Just behave.
She shoved her shoulder under McManus’s arm before he really did collapse, and this time he didn’t fight her.
“I’ve lost my keys,” he said as they walked toward the elevator. “The desk has a spare.”
She leaned him against the wall and raced back to the desk clerk. “I need the key to Detective McManus’s apartment.”
“Lost them again, has he?” the clerk said, shaking his head, and unlocked a small cabinet on the wall. “That’s the second time this week.” Several keys hung on hooks. He took one and handed it to her. “Call the bar where you found him and they’ll have them.”
“Thanks,” she said, and hurried back to McManus, looking around.
Kedrax and Vincent popped out from behind the potted plant and entered the elevator before them. McManus almost collapsed when they reached his floor and the doors opened, but clutched onto her shoulder and steadied himself.
His apartment was only two doors down from the elevator, but it still took several minutes to get him there. Bianca fumbled with the key while holding him up but finally managed to open the door, and they stumbled across the threshold together.
It’d been a while since she was last here. His apartment was clean, as usual. The first time she’d come she half expected to find empty bottles and old pizza boxes lying everywhere, but McManus kept his home clean and tidy, if somewhat spartan. No pictures hung on the walls, no plants decorated the corners, and the furniture was plain and simple.
He disengaged from her to shuffle into his tiny kitchen, and opened the cupboard above the sink. He pulled out a bottle, unscrewed the cap with a push of his thumb, took a swig, then practically fell into a chair beside the small kitchen table. He took another mouthful and reached over to turn on the gas cooktop.
Bianca filled a pot with water and set it over the naked flame. She grabbed a knife from the block and sliced open his sweatpants from the bottom of the leg to the hip. Fresh blood seeped around the shaft joining the dried stuff caked to the skin.
“Where is your medical kit?” she asked.
“In the bathroom.”
“Watch him,” she said to Kedrax and Vincent. “Make sure he doesn’t move.”
Kedrax jumped up on the table and dropped his head with a little snarl. She couldn’t help smiling at the bemusement on McManus’s face.
The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was neat and orderly. She opened the cabinet under the basin, grabbed the first aid kit and unzipped it. It had everything she needed, scissors, sterilized gauze, tape, bandages, but seemed short of antiseptic.
She opened the medicine cabinet above the basin and found some, but as she reached for the bottle, she spotted a small cellophane package of blue crystals. She dropped her head. The urge to grab it and throw it in the toilet lasted about a nanosecond.
She took the antiseptic, closed the cabinet, and looked at herself in the mirror.
It’s really none of my business. “The fuck it isn’t,” she said aloud. “He’s my friend, and one way or another I’m going to help him kick this shit.”
“What did you say?” McManus called from the other room.
“Nothing.” She picked up everything she needed.
McManus and Kedrax sat eyeing each other. Vincent lay curled up on the back of the sofa and appeared to be sleeping, though his ear twitched her way as she moved back to the table. McManus held the knife she’d used to cut his pants away to the flame on the gas stove as he drank more from the bottle.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just a little street surgery,” he said.
He set the bottle down on the table and with one sweeping movement yanked the spear shaft from his leg and placed the red-hot blade against the wound. The smell of burning flesh filled the apartment, and he bit down on a pain-filled roar.
Sweat blistered McManus’s brow as he ground his teeth to silence his scream and picked up the bottle again.
“Give me that,” she said, snatching it out of his hand and placing it back on the table out of his reach. “You shouldn’t be drinking in your condition.”
“It seems the perfect time for drinking to me,” he said. “I need a little anesthesia.”
“How could you be so stupid?” she asked as she looked at his wound.
Except it wasn’t so stupid. The wound cauterized cleanly, and if she could stop the burn from getting infected, it should do nicely. She upended the antiseptic onto some gauze and cleaned around the wound.
McManus and Kedrax still sat staring at each other across the table in a Mexican standoff. Vincent had jumped up on the kitchen counter and sat watching them both.
Bianca placed a clean gauze pad over the wound and looked between him and Kedrax as she bandaged his leg. “You seem to be taking this surprisingly well.”
He laughed derisively and threw up his hands. “I just found out there’s a hangar full of carnivorous faeries. Why would a fucking toy dragon be a surprise? Besides, I’m still not convinced O’Shea didn’t just slip us a Mickey and this is all just a hallucination.”
“Hey,” Kedrax said with real annoyance. “I’m not a hallucination, or a toy.”
“Sorry, but you do look like a cereal box surprise.” McManus snorted again and reached for the bottle. “Now I’m fucking talking to it.”
So, not taking it as well as I thought.
“Remove your shirt,” she said, changing the subject.
He raised an eyebrow but did it anyway as she walked around behind him. A multitude of scratches, grazes, and some rather nasty cuts covered his broad muscular back. Most looked superficial, but it was difficult to tell under all the blood. His discarded shirt was soaked in it. The deep cut running across his right shoulder blade worried her the most; it would need stitches.
Apart from all the fresh injuries, there were several old ones. Scars from bullet wounds, knife attacks, and a long puckered line under his left shoulder blade that looked more surgical than anything else. Bianca traced the scar with her fingertips, and McManus shivered under her touch.
She filled a bowl with some of the boiling water from the stove, added cold water and some of the antiseptic solution.
“So where did it come from?” McManus said.
Bianca glanced at the dragon. “His name is Kedrax and he’s always been with me in a way.” She smiled fondly at the dragon.
She slipped on a pair of latex surgical gloves from the kit, dipped the gauze in the solution, and began wiping away the blood from the wounds, starting with the nasty gash on his shoulder. Fresh blood welled when she wiped the deep cut.
“I’m going to have to stitch this, but you don’t have any anesthetic.”
“There’s a needle and thread in there,” he said, nodding to the kit on the table.
You can heal him with magic. Kedrax’s words entered her head.
No, she answered. He can’t know.
She threaded the needle and placed it in a kidney tray with undiluted antiseptic.
“You sure you want to do this?” she asked, needle poised.
“Hang on.” He reached for the bottle of scotch and drained several mouthfuls before slamming it back on the tabletop. “Now, I am.”
McManus sucked a breath in through his teeth as the steel bit into his flesh, but that was the only sign of pain he showed.
“Kedrax? Where did you get a stupid name like that?” he asked.
“It’s my name.” The little dragon’s eyes flamed with anger.
McManus chuckled. “And it has a temper.”
“Play nice you two,” she warned as she finished the last stitch and snipped the thread.
As she moved around to his front, he looked up at her. “What do you mean he’s always been with you?”
“Can’t we just drop it?” Her hand went automatically to where her pendant used to be.
“That necklace you don’t seem to wear anymore has something to do with this . . .” He tilted his head to the side and frowned.
Bianca didn’t answer and kept her head low so she wouldn’t have to look at him. She moved between his thighs and leaned over to dip fresh gauze in the antiseptic solution. His torso was even worse than his back. She lifted his chin to dab the cut on his cheek and his eyes met and held hers. A wicked smile played on his lips as he put his hands on her hips.
“Behave yourself,” she said with a frown.
His hands moved to her waist and she smacked them away. “I said behave yourself.”
“Oh I am,” he said with a mischievous gleam. “If I wasn’t, I’d do this.” He grabbed her around her waist and pulled her into his lap, his right hand resting on her thigh as his left trapped her against his chest.
She pushed up and out of his reach. “Be serious, McManus. I need to get these wounds dressed.”
“Okay,” he said, with mock contriteness.
Bianca tried not to look at him, but couldn’t help it. She snuck surreptitious glances out of the corner of her eye. His muscular chest didn’t have that over-worked-out look of body builders but was well shaped, and the cuts only seemed to enhance his physique. Artemisia had sensed his attraction to her. Thankfully, she’d learned to block the fact that she also found him attractive from her mother, and anyone else, including herself at times.
As soon as she came back within reach, he grabbed her a
gain. She could’ve fought harder if she wanted. In that moment she didn’t want to. After everything that had happened over the last few days, it was nice to be held. He looked down at her, the smile sliding from his face, and leaned forward to claim her lips. His mouth tasted of whiskey, which wasn’t as unpleasant as she thought it would be. Hard muscular shoulders bunched under her fingers as he ran his hand down her thigh and the warmth traveled from her lips to her core.
McManus pulled back and looked at her. “Are you okay?”
All she could do was nod; his kiss had stolen her voice. Her fingers traced a raised surface above his collarbone. A mark, not a scar or a fresh wound, became apparent now that she’d cleaned the blood away. An oddly shaped purple birthmark sat just below where his neck joined his shoulder. She looked up at him and back at the birthmark.
“You know, this looks strangely like a—”
“Yeah I know,” he said roughly only inches away. “Like a dragon.”
She swallowed hard. “Please. Let me up.”
“Why?” he asked. “Don’t you like this?”
“You’re drunk, McManus.”
His face clouded over. “Do you think I only find you attractive when I’m drunk?”
“It’s the only time you ever make a pass at me.”
He ran his fingers down her cheek. “Oh, Sin, you are too beautiful for words,” he whispered, intensely staring at her lips. “Too beautiful.”
Then he let her go. “You’re right, I have been drinking.” Except now he sounded very sober.
With shaking hands, she continued to clean his scrapes and mend his cuts with butterfly plasters from the first aid kit. None of the others seemed serious enough for stitches, though.
“Bianca.” McManus grabbed her wrist and swayed. “Suddenly, I don’t feel so good.” And he slid from the chair and fell to the floor. The blood loss wasn’t that bad. Something else must be wrong.
“Kedrax,” she yelled, and fell to her knees beside him.
The little dragon jumped from the table and sniffed at the tip of the six-inch little spear. “It’s been poisoned, an old magical poison. You’ll have to heal him.”
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