by Zoe Forward
Kira pulled away from Ashor, her cheeks pink and lips puffy. She whispered something to Ashor that none but the two of them could hear before she shifted her attention to Dakar. “Before we return to the plane, we’ve got a little detour that I think you’ll find interesting, Dakar.”
A few minutes outside the city, the car halted in front of several rundown dusty stucco buildings. Painted black letters to the side of the main door read Centro Médico. Loiterers watched the car with unmasked curiosity.
“What is this place?” Ashor asked.
“I need to take Dakar on a little field trip. Little exchange for the assist you guys needed,” Kira replied. She addressed the occupants of the back seat. “Dakar, you can’t go in there looking like that. Dead giveaway for recent prison bust, not to mention that style went out a while ago. Nate, give Dakar your shirt.”
“What? I like this shirt,” Nate complained.
“Oh, suck it up and give it over,” Kira directed.
Nate jumped out of the car. He pulled off his black tactical vest, unloaded two knives from the shirt’s pockets, and then unbuttoned the shirt to reveal a gun holster at his belt and a knife hanging on a chain around his neck.
Dakar commented, “You doubt yourself with a scimitar, Lightning?”
“No. Prepared. Just take the damn shirt.” Nate thrust the blue button-down toward Dakar. He collected his weapons and resumed his seat in the SUV with a sulky snort.
“Give him your shoes too,” Kira ordered.
“Seriously?” Nate asked.
Kira quirked an eyebrow. “His boots have holes in the bottom.”
Nate rolled his eyes, unlaced his shitkickers and tossed them next to Dakar.
Dakar tore off the tattered remains around his chest. He hopped out of the car and turned away from the others after a few seconds of several too-intense body evals. He wasn’t particularly self-conscious, but their abject curiosity irritated him. In the brief moments his muscled back faced them, he knew they scanned the multitude of scars and dark blue tattoos littering his back, evidence of previous akhrians’ mystical healing. No doubt the black non-healing gash that ran diagonally down his back in a ribbon of necrotic tissue would be a curiosity magnet. Necho’s rib hit was almost healed, which they’d know even for a magus was fast.
After he finished tying the shoes, he turned. His eyes found Kira’s, daring her to comment on what she’d seen.
In a manner of a medical professional, her face locked down all emotion and she nodded.
Ashor exited the vehicle and blocked her path. He towered over her by more than a foot, clearly intent on forbidding his woman go out of sight. Looked like intimidating her into submission was his plan. They stood for a few moments in a staredown, obviously having some sort of mental shouting match that none but the two of them could hear. Ashor’s face mottled red with anger.
Kira shrugged and said out loud, “He was a complete gentleman in the prison and that’s the end of it. You can’t go with us. Look at your shirt and your face. It’s a mess of blood, as is Ethan’s. You two would attract too much attention, especially in a hospital. Christian and Dakar will be with me. Don’t worry. I’ll call if there are any problems. I promise you can kick Christian’s ass if he allows anything to happen to me.” She removed a baseball cap and a hair band from her shoulder bag and handed it to Dakar. “Pull your hair up with this. It’s a little too memorable.”
Dakar stretched the hair band between his fingers unsure what it was.
Kira went on tiptoes and had his hair banded in a few seconds. She pushed the cap onto his head.
His face hadn’t burned from this much humiliation in thousands of years.
“I don’t appreciate being volunteered for an Ashor ass-kicking. And what was that shit about Dakar being nice to you? If you aren’t careful, Ashor will padlock you at home and never let you leave,” Christian said to Kira as they entered the hospital.
“The truth will only make him lose it. We all know a rage-crazy Ashor is tough to rein in. He’s not in a good mood today. Eric phoned before we deplaned and admitted he borrowed Ashor’s car.”
Christian’s face paled. “Not the supercar?”
“Yeah. He wrecked her.”
“Fixable?”
“Not so much. Kind of drove her off a bridge. Sounds like he neglected to use the brakes on a curve.”
Christian whistled low. As they entered the hospital, he said, “You two wait for my signal.” He sauntered to the reception desk and flirted in Spanish with the ladies. He waved behind his back, allowing Kira and Dakar to slip by.
As they walked down the hall, Kira said to Dakar, “The woman you seek had a little accident. No one knows what happened. An unknown man brought her in a month ago. He paid a lot of money up front for her to be cared for. For the first week, her chart says she was in and out of consciousness. After that, she slipped into a coma from which she has yet to wake. They don’t have a lot of resources here, which means I’m not sure how good her care has been.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
The windowless room they entered housed four different comatose patients. A few flies buzzed around. A solitary fan at the window did little to diminish the stifling heat. Kira pointed to the far corner near the wall. The bandaged head and immobile form was visible above the sheets. A clear bag of fluid hanging from a metal pole dripped liquid slowly through a tube connected to her arm. He’d never seen anything like it before.
Dakar couldn’t tell if it was Shaiani. Outward appearance meant nothing. The gods gave them different forms when reincarnated. Except for his streaky hair. That he would do almost anything to get rid of.
Gently, he pulled away the covers and eased up one side of her head bandage. Thick, dark red hair peeked out. The breath he hadn’t realized he held whooshed out. This had to be the woman from the church. That auburn mass had flapped wildly behind her in the wind outside the church when she launched herself like a goddess at the daemon’s back. With horror, he’d watched the daemon sideswipe her, jettisoning her over the cliff into the ocean. Because of her distraction, he’d been able to decapitate the daemon.
His gut clinched tight. She suffered. Because of him. He couldn’t tolerate her pain. “What’s her name?” he asked crisply as he glimpsed beneath the bandages, prying them up as far as they’d allow. Swelling and bruising distorted her features. Bandages wrapped her chest, making it impossible to find the one identifying mark he knew could confirm this pitiful woman was she.
“No name here,” Kira replied as she flipped through a chart that had been hanging on the wall.
Hard-wired protective instinct demanded she be healed. This impulse warred with resentment that she didn’t wake up immediately and recognize him. He loved that moment when he nudged her mind to remember. Shock, surprise, and desire would coalesce on her face as millennia of memory hit in her brain.
“What is wrong with her? Why does she remain asleep?” he asked.
“Head trauma, eye trauma, nose crushed, and some internal injuries. All not good. They did reconstruct her face and did eye surgery.”
He opened himself with use of seichim to feel out her energy. Head pain pierced his skull with an intensity that weakened his knees. He threw a hand against the wall. And halted his evaluation.
Bloody hell.
She may be comatose, but she suffered. A lot. He could handle their earth-shattering mutual desire and her inevitable homicidal hate, but not her pain.
The akhrian could heal her. This was her purpose. He stalked to the healer, grabbed her arm, and dragged her nearer the woman’s bed.
“Mend her. Now.”
Kira shook her head. “No can do.”
“What do you mean you cannot? This is easy for you.”
“Besides the fact you didn’t say please, how about you step out of your box of selfishness for a minute? Doing this would expose us…well, me. If she miraculously woke up completely healed, I guarantee freakies from every z
one of the world would appear. So the answer is no.”
Dakar shook Kira. “Heal her.”
Kira kicked his shin and punched his groin. He released her with a curse. She slapped the metal chart against his face. He groaned and backed away, nursing his bleeding nose.
“Keep your paws to yourself,” Kira huffed.
Christian entered the room and announced, “We’ve got to go. Got about ten to fifteen minutes before they come to get her. They’re evac-ing her to the U.S. today. Heli arrived and they’re driving in to pick her up right now.” He looked between Dakar and Kira. “Goddamn it.” Christian punched Dakar, knocking him backwards into the wall. Christian grabbed his shirtfront, which kept Dakar from falling to the ground. “Look, I am not getting my ass kicked by Ashor. The rule is don’t touch Kira. Ever. Got it?”
Dakar’s gaze narrowed on the healer. Blood dribbled from his nose and split lip. “I need that woman to wake up.”
Kira squinted at Dakar for a long few seconds while chewing her lip. “I’ll tell you what, puzzling magus-who’s-been-around-the-block, I’ll help her. But just a little bit. In exchange, you must vow to return with us and talk with Ashor once we’re home. We need to figure out why you’re here and what you know.”
He hadn’t decided if his path was to stay with the Scimitars. Traveling with them equaled a commitment to stay. At the moment, though, he didn’t have much of a choice. If the woman on the bed awoke, then he could confirm it was Shaiani. And nudge her mind into remembering the past. Only then, once she remembered, would their dance toward death start.
At that point, his whereabouts would not matter so long as he was with her. His death and hers were inevitable. “Just do it.” For good measure he added, “Please.”
Kira sauntered to the bed and touched the comatose woman on the arm.
After a brief time, Kira stepped away. “She should wake up shortly.”
The patient’s breathing increased. A soft moan escaped her. Her right eye blinked and then closed again. Dakar leaned in front of her face.
Christian fidgeted impatiently. “We’ve got to go. Like now.”
Dakar ordered, “Fight through it. Wake up.”
The woman’s right eye opened and stared through the bandages at him for a full ten seconds before she passed out again. He couldn’t tell anything in that time. They didn’t connect telepathically like in the past. Instead, his mind slammed against a void.
Perhaps she wasn’t Shaiani. Maybe he just wanted it to be her. Their tango before death was always unforgettable—wild, passionate, and worth every second.
Why she had aided him, he would never know. He didn’t want to leave her, but rationalized she was safer with her own people, especially if she didn’t belong with him.
“Okay, that’s it. They’re coming and we must get out of this room,” Christian announced. He grabbed Dakar’s arm and dragged him to the door.
Puzzled, he let Christian pull him into a room down the hall. An orange jumpsuit-clad group pushing a rolling bed entered the room they’d just vacated.
Dakar’s gut clinched. He needed to see what was being done to her. The gut cramp exploded into an imperative drive to reach her. To protect and defend. That woman had to be Shaiani. He must follow wherever she was taken.
As he moved to pursue her, Kira clamped onto his arm.
Dakar glared a get-the-hell-out-of-my-way. A buzz of energy entered him where she touched his arm.
“You’re not reneging.”
Chapter Five
Quiet voices registered in Dakar’s groggy mind. His barely conscious brain translated the English to his native Egyptian, but not fast enough to keep up with the breakneck jabbering. He attempted to stand, but found himself strapped into a beige leather chair, confined in a small, oblong room. The other magi sat near him, most sucking on drinks that based on smell were no doubt alcoholic. What was this vehicle? He felt the motor’s buzz. Had to be another modern means of transport.
The healer bitch had knocked him out. His indignation changed to reluctant respect. No previous healer had pulled that one on him.
He felt down his side. Ribcage healed. But festering wounds…the same.
“Look who’s decided to wake up,” said Ethan.
Dakar fiddled with the belt around his waist, frustrated when it didn’t release. The moment his frustration reached the fuck-this-rip-it level, it unlatched. He half rose from his seat, but Ashor’s warning glare halted him.
“Stay seated,” Ashor ordered. “You’re on a plane. An airplane. I’m not sure you know what that means since I suspect you’ve returned to us from some point in the past. It means you stay still. You are in the air. As in flying.”
Dakar glanced out the small round window. Clouds below? That was not a perspective from which he had ever imagined viewing them. He fell back into the seat, his stomach churning. His mind swamped him with images of falling from this vehicle in the sky and splatting on the ground. People were not meant to fly.
In addition to Ashor, Charm-boy, reincarned Khyan, and Sparky, another magus sat at the front of the airplane. He closed his eyes to focus on the one operating the airplane. The mentalist. That one’s ability to not only read thoughts, but also alter memory unnerved him, especially since the guy never quite achieved control over the skill in any lifetime Dakar had seen him pass through. The guy might be a brilliantly skilled warrior, but spent most of his time brooding and angry.
He craned his neck to glance at a teenager seated in the back with shaggy blond hair falling into his face as he focused on a small electronic device. Not a magus. “Who’s the youth?”
“That’s Eric’s son, Scott,” Ashor replied. “You probably don’t remember Eric by that name. He’s the one with telekinesis and object-bending ability.”
“Right. The prolific one. He must have pleased the gods at some point early on to always get more time with his girl than the rest of us. Why is his son here?”
“He does IT for us.”
Dakar shook his head in incomprehension.
“Computer stuff. New technology. Keeps humans from noticing us.” Ashor worked his jaw back and forth while gazing at Dakar for a few seconds. Finally he asked, “Are you close to the Turn?”
“Are my eyes the darkest black with the kem-seki stain that you have ever seen on a sane magus?”
“I’ve executed a few magi with less staining that were lost to its madness. I can’t even tell what color your eyes should be. All I see is the swirling darkness.”
“I can walk the edge of Turning forever and not fall victim to its insanity.”
“That’s not possible.”
They must have no living magus with past-life memory. “The kem-seki and I are old friends. We have been together for a very long time.”
“Have you found a secret to control its madness that does not involve your senariai?”
“For me, ’tis complicated, and different than for you or the others. By now you must realize the gods love to muck around with us.”
“Gotcha on that,” Ashor snorted. A shadow passed through his eyes, and his gaze darted to Kira.
Ah, so Ashor and Kira must be only recently reunited souls, and experienced some typical gods-related bullshit before being allowed together. “You need have no fear I shall fall victim to the kem-seki’s madness anytime soon.”
Ashor nodded as if discussion was closed. For now.
Dakar focused on the magus nearest him. “So, Lightning, how long have you been in this life?”
“It’s Nate, asshole. Not Lightning, Shock-boy, or Sparky.”
“I will call you Lightning until you gain control. ’Tis disgraceful. You damn near set me on fire in the church.”
Nate rose from his seat to tower over him. “Caveman wants a piece of this, does he?” The plane lurched and then the engines stalled.
Collective groans escaped from Ethan and Christian. Ethan grabbed Nate by the back of his shirt and pulled him back into his seat. “Cool of
f, hotshot.” He pointed at Dakar. “Don’t get Nate upset while we’re in the air. Bad things happen.”
The door to the cockpit flew open. A voice boomed in a crisp English accent from the cockpit, “Nate, you little pisser. Restart them, ’cause without the engines we’re going down.”
The plane dropped unexpectedly, throwing Nate onto the aisle floor. He placed his ear to the aisle carpet and closed his eyes. He yelled toward the front, “Javen, I swear it wasn’t me. The problem isn’t electrical. Can’t get ’em going again.”
“You think you could jumpstart them without blowing us up?” Ethan asked with a smirk.
Nate pushed to a stand and flashed Ethan a finger signal that Dakar didn’t recognize, but understood the fuck-you gist.
Nate gritted out, “Probably could. But it’s not electrical.”
“Then what caused it?” Ethan asked.
“Computer? Mechanical? Out of gas? I don’t know. Just wasn’t me.” Nate fell into his seat.
Javen projected his voice into the passenger cabin on an overhead voice system. “This is the captain speaking. We are approximately seventy miles off the Costa Rica coastline. If you would look to your left you see ocean. And then to your right you see…ocean. Nate has decided we are going in for a splash land in the Pacific.” Then louder he yelled, “Bloody hell, Nate. I will strangle you, if you live through this, which for your sake I hope you don’t.”
“I swear, it wasn’t me,” Nate tried again.
The plane nose-dived sickeningly toward the ocean and then leveled out. Dakar’s stomach soured against the sudden pressure change. Despite the fact he was always prepared for death in this human form, this wasn’t a way he envisioned it. Drowning was his number one nightmare.
None of the other magi seemed concerned about the fact they were plummeting out of the sky like a shot bird. Maybe this was normal. He tried to relax into his seat and appear nonchalant.
Ashor commanded, “Christian, get the rafts. Ethan, collect the weapons. Scott, computer shit.” He turned to Kira and said gently, “Get your things together, sweetheart.”