Dawn of a Dark Knight

by Zoe Forward

  The magus pulled her toward him and whispered, “I know what you are. I foresaw your coming.”

  He knew what? She tugged against his hold, but he didn’t release.

  “Take my totem. Keep it safe. Whatever goes down, don’t let them get it.” He pushed a hefty gold wristband into her hands.

  Potent white energy heated her palms. “I can’t take this.” She rolled the piece, marveling at the intricacy of its patterns, which looked like mini-hieroglyphics.

  No reply came back. She glanced up sharply. The void of death greeted her in his dilated eyes. Sorrow settled in her gut.

  Now was not the time for regrets about another Grim Reaper win. The they he indicated had to be a Hashishin or somebody else of the same ilk. Someone she had no desire to meet.

  The nurse had moved on to a patient a few beds down.

  Back to the blond…and decision time. Traditional medicine wasn’t going to cut it. He’d die long before they got him booked into an OR. Magically healing him would risk exposure. She had no desire to be swept into his world, fearing not necessarily him or the other magi, but their enemies. Ashor’s untimely plea for help slid into her mind. Coincidence? Probably not. She didn’t believe in fate, but the odds of these guys ending up in her hospital when Ashor needed her were pretty slim.

  To better evaluate the blond guy, she peeled the upper few inches of bandaging away from his chest. Deep slashes ran diagonally in furrows that wept blood. Massive tissue bruising from blunt trauma covered most of his substantial torso. She could imagine only one creature capable of this level of force and viciousness. A daemon. She’d seen one. Once.

  She should walk away. Right now. This wasn’t her fight.

  Her long-dead father’s French-accented voice echoed in the recesses of her mind. Magi are all that stand between us and daemons, ma petite. They are the guardians of our realm. Our protectors. We must do everything we can when one is in need.

  And didn’t that just make her feel like a shit for even considering walking out. Thanks, Dad.

  But could she help this guy? The extent of her healing ability was an unknown. Truthfully, she’d barely taken the power for a test drive. The last time…the only time she intentionally used it was ten years ago. With Ashor. And the results had been a bit disappointing.

  She pulled a chair beside the magus’s bed and swallowed her apprehension. With a light touch on his arm, the healing energy within revved up. Effortlessly it flowed into his body. She visualized clearing the blood around his lungs and closing his external wounds. A dizzying weakness indicated she’d expended enough energy. Any more and she’d pass out. A peek beneath the bandage showed only puckered pink scarring. No more cavernous lacerations.

  It worked. Wow.

  He needed a transfusion to replace the blood he’d lost, but there wasn’t time. She was pretty sure she could not give back what wasn’t there.

  The bedside monitor beeped faster as his heart rate picked up. He shifted restlessly for a few seconds and then stilled.

  Laser blue eyes popped open and zeroed in on her. They filled with distrust. Feral, smoldering power surged from his body. He grabbed Kira’s wrist roughly, yet demonstrated great control. A bit harder and bones would snap.

  Kira detected his power swelling to an explosion. Adrenaline fear surged. Her heart beat so loudly, she was sure he could hear it.

  Although he looked human, he most certainly was not. Not all magi might deserve the honor she credited them with. Awaking this unfamiliar warrior may have been a colossal mistake.

  Swallowing her fear, she said as calmly as she could manage, “I’m Dr. Hardy. I mean you no harm. Your friend said you must get out of here as fast as possible.”

  He scanned the area, his gaze landing on his deceased comrade.

  “He’s dead. I’m sorry,” she whispered. “There’s something or someone evil approaching, which I assume are the people your friend wanted you to avoid.”

  The magus relaxed his grip on her arm, but didn’t relinquish his hold. Instead, he turned her wrist to examine the underside. His eyes flared.

  His voice rumbled deeply, “It is an honor to meet you, Dr. Hardy. We have been waiting a long time for you.”

  His words puzzled her. Did his dead friend tell him of her impending arrival?

  “How do we get out of here?” He yanked out the oxygen canula as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The sheet drifted down, revealing he was butt-naked except for the flimsy bandages around his upper body and arms. Stylized tattoos and scars coursed over every inch of skin on that sculpted body.

  Kira cleared her throat as her cheeks heated. She hit the power-off button on the monitor before alarms blared. “You really don’t want to draw that much attention. Pull that sheet around your waist or something.”

  With a smug smile, he wrapped the sheet low-rise style. He tugged at the line anchoring his hand to a fluid line.

  She grabbed his hand. “Stop. Don’t rip out the IV. I’ll get it.” With a quick pluck, she removed the catheter, and did a magical stop-bleed on the exit site. She clamped off the line so it wouldn’t make a pool on the floor.

  Everything in him quieted as if he detected the little cheat she just pulled.

  His mouth opened as if to comment, but she rushed to say, “I don’t see your clothes. You get to go in your birthday suit, but with the sheet, please. Lean on me and pretend you’re weak. We’re going to that bathroom across the hall.” They had to get out of this room, naked or not.

  “I’ve got to see my friend before we go.”

  “He gave me his wristband, if that’s your concern. Please, I need to get you out of here. We’re in a bit of a time crunch.”

  The magus nodded. He pretended to use her as a crutch, but didn’t apply much of his weight. He dwarfed her by more than a foot of solid muscle making her five foot five seem insignificant.

  Susan yelled, “Hey, he’s not allowed to leave the bed!”

  “He woke up and has to use the restroom. Most of his injuries were superficial, and the bleeding appears to have stopped.”

  Susan glared disapproval before returning to a patient a few beds down.

  In the hallway, they encountered three nurses-in-training. The girls in their cutesy print scrubs openly gaped. Kira rolled her eyes when the one with little rubber duckies on her scrub top batted her eyelashes and shot him a blatant invitation to join him in the restroom. She may agree this guy qualified as eye candy, but strangely, as gorgeous as he may be, she felt no sexual attraction toward him.

  He threw the girls a rakish smile.

  “Don’t you ladies have things to do?” She tugged the magus toward the bathroom and mumbled, “Stop encouraging them. Get in there and try to clean up a bit. I’ll be right back once I find you something to wear.”

  “Jealous?” He shot her a cocky smile as he entered the single stall restroom.

  “Hardly” she tossed over her shoulder. Her best bet was the stock room down the hall. In it were some worn, but clean, green XXL scrubs that proclaimed Hospital Property across the front. Returning to the restroom, she knocked. He answered, naked.

  “What if it hadn’t been me?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “If it had been that nurse from the ward, you’d probably have to give her CPR over the fact you’re healed. ’Course, you’d probably love it, wouldn’t you?” She eyed the puckered lines of scarring that remained as the only evidence of his previous wounds. Amazing, thought the medically trained side of her.

  “She’s not my type. I knew it was you.”

  “Here. Get dressed.”

  Seconds later he emerged.

  She frowned at his feet. “Sorry, but I don’t have any shoes for you. Follow me. Please, try not to attract too much attention.”

  “I’ll protect you, Doc. Lead on.”

  Commotion reigned in the ER. People rushed madly about to assist at least seven trauma victims simultaneously. In the middle of their trek thr
ough the room, acute, piercing pain lanced her stomach. Moaning, she grabbed her midsection and halted.

  The magus pushed her toward the treatment room exit. By the time they got there, she was breathless and a few tears had sprung from her eyes.

  Kira, where are you?

  She stumbled against the corridor wall just outside the ER, needing its support. Her stomach clenched. Relief and absolute exhilaration washed over her in reaction to the timbre of Ashor’s voice. He wasn’t dead. And she hadn’t imagined it before. She had to get to him ASAP. This pain had to stop.

  She closed her eyes to block out the chaos running around them and focused on telepathic speaking. Ashor, what are they doing to you? Where are you?

  “What’s wrong with you?” the blond magus demanded.

  She gasped when pain stabbed her chest again. Abruptly, it disappeared. She glanced up at the blond warrior. He was her ticket to get to Ashor. Somehow, she had to convince him to let her into his secret world.

  “Can all you guys speak to each other in your head?”

  The magus’s jaw went slack with a startled say-what before his lips turned upward into a grin. “Fascinating. Which one of us speaking to you?”

  “I don’t trust you. I may know what you are, but I don’t even know your name. And I definitely don’t know that you are one of them for sure.”

  “Smart. I like that.” His focus shifted to a closed door at the end of the hall. He went hostile. “They’re here, Doc. Fastest way out?” the blond magus demanded.

  “Stairs at the end of the hall. Down and outside.” She waved weakly toward the end of hall. She’d never fainted, but suspected the vague dizziness in her head was a prelude.

  “You go. I’ll just rest here for a bit.” She put her hand against the wall for support.

  The magus clamped down on her wrist and dragged her to the stairs. Once to the door, he threw her over his shoulder and descended.

  “Not helping the vertigo. Put me down. I can do this on my own.”

  “Quiet.”

  At the lowest level, he dropped her to a sit. A shiver tickled her spine in reaction to the malevolent auras that had just entered the stairwell above.

  She whispered, “They’re up there.”

  “Stay,” he ordered over his shoulder as he ran back up.

  The sound of flesh impacting and grunts drifted from above. A body thudded down the stairs, coming to rest on the landing one floor up. Unable to resist a peek, she edged around the corner. Based on the angle of the guy’s neck, he was dead. Muted sounds of the struggle echoed in the stairwell. That magus was down several pints of blood and without shoes. Definite disadvantage.

  Maybe she could help. She searched the dead man for something useful. All she found was a brutal-looking knife with a five-inch curved blade. She gripped the weapon and tiptoed to next level. An aura scan revealed only two malicious male auras and the magus.

  A quick peek showed the magus had a gash on his forehead from which a river of blood streamed down his face. A Hashishin with a sickly yellow pallor made more pronounced by his receding brown hairline restrained the magus in a chokehold from behind. A second Hashishin of about her height and a thickly muscled frame chanted foreign words while he prepared to carve in the magus’s chest.

  The small hairs on the back of her neck rose in reaction to the evil energy spreading in the air. His chanting crescendoed and climaxed with a surge of vicious energy. It bounced off the magus.

  Amateurs. Guess they missed the memo on magi immunity to dark-magik spells.

  Despite the futility of the spell, the Hashishins looked to be seconds away from eviscerating the only person that could locate Ashor for her. The knife felt heavy in her hands as she turned it.

  Without hesitation, she moved behind the would-be carver. With a quick jab, she angled the knife straight down behind his collarbone toward his subclavian artery. The man latched onto her wrist upon withdrawal. Cold burning traveled up her arm at the contact. A snake slithered from his sleeve and wrapped around her wrist. The Hashishin unexpectedly let go and fell over.

  She screamed as the manifestation of her worst nightmare continued its twirling trek up her arm.

  The magus slammed his choker-attacker into the wall. He pulled his assailant’s head forward. With a pop, the man’s luxated vertebrae echoed in the hall. The magus didn’t turn to watch the body fall. He grabbed the snake and twisted the head off its still writhing body. With a careless toss, viper parts slammed against the wall.

  “I thought I told you to stay,” he thundered.

  “Sounded like you needed some help.”

  “I was fine. Let’s go.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her downstairs.

  Outside, she shivered in the icy air and hugged her arms to her body. She jogged beside the silent magus to the parking deck. Even shoeless in the wimpy scrubs, he didn’t look at all affected by the arctic chill.

  Her silver nineties Japanese coupe sat like a rotten egg among German beauties in the staff section on the third level. Thank God for the hide-a-key box. Finally, her paranoia about locking her keys in the car was about to pay off.

  The magus cursed when he whacked his head on the passenger door in his haste to claim the seat. He held his hand against renewed bleeding on his forehead.

  “Can you please try not to bleed all over my car? Here, use this.” She pulled a towel out of the laundry bag in the back seat. Guess she wasn’t going to make the coin laundry tonight. “I haven’t got enough left right now to heal that laceration and drive.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Before she started the car, she handed him the wristband weighing down her lab coat. The heated energy coming off the item felt to be burning a hole in her side.

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  After a few minutes of tense silence while she maneuvered the lower levels of the parking deck, she asked, “You got a name?”

  “Eric.”

  “Eric, I hope you don’t misinterpret that little healing thing I did. I have no interest in being recruited into your world. So, don’t try it. I do need you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “Swear you won’t tell anyone about this little episode, and then we’ll both forget it ever happened.”

  “What? Okay, whatever. I will never reveal this to anyone who would seek to harm you. But I won’t forget. You do know that you belong with us?”

  “I can assure you I don’t belong to you guys.” A spike of pain detonated in her head. Kira swerved the car onto the median and threw it in park.

  She rubbed her forehead. “God, Ashor. This has got to stop.”

  I need you here, Ashor commanded.

  “What the hell are you saying?” Eric asked.

  Unintentionally, she responded to Ashor’s request aloud. “Yeah, I got the message loud and clear over a half hour ago. I’m trying to get to wherever you are.”

  Something twisted inside her abdomen for several agonizing seconds. Then nothing. Gone as abruptly as it began.

  With a relieved sigh, she shifted the car back in gear.

  Eric grabbed the gearshift. “Oh, no, you don’t. What was that? What’s wrong with you?”

  Her face heated when she realized she’d spoken aloud. This telepathy thing was going to take more practice. Eric, however, wasn’t throwing the you’ve-gone-crazy glare, the one Markus gave her all the time.

  “I need your help to get to Ashor. He’s in some sort of trouble.”

  “Is he communicating with you? Is that what just went down?” Eric tapped his head.

  She glanced at him from her peripheral. He leaned forward with a too-keen wide-eye. She gave a quick nod.

  After an eternity of silence he relinquished his hold on the gearshift. “Okay. I’ll take you to him. But if you’re fucking with me, I’ll kill you.” Then his tone relaxed, “Got a cell on you?”

  “No.”

  “Pull into the closest gas station. Fill up while I use the pay phon
e.”

  “I don’t have my wallet and unless you have a credit card shoved up your ass, I think we’re penniless.”

  Eric smiled and winked. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t fret.”

  She watched Eric saunter into the Speedy Mart, grab a sixteen-ounce soda and approach the empty checkout. He laughed with the forty-something fake-redheaded clerk for a few seconds. She blinked twice to double-check her visual acuity when money levitated out of the cash drawer, around the counter, and into his hands. Smooth trick.

  He strolled back to the car and leaned into the driver’s window as she rolled it down. He said, “Fill ’er up. We got credit.”

  “Lemon soda? That stuff is disgusting.”

  “What, not even interested in how I paid?” His face lit up like a jittery teenager with a burning secret.

  She shrugged.

  His shoulders fell with a scowl. He tossed the soda onto the passenger seat through her window. With an abrupt turn, he stomped to the pay phone.

  Minutes later he was back at the driver’s side window. His brows were low. His tone subdued when he reported, “They’ve taken Ashor back to Florida. It’s not good. Why don’t you let me drive in case you have one of your episodes.”

  “Back to Florida again?”

  “What do you mean again?”

  “I may have been there recently. What’s wrong with him?”

  Eric ignored her and hopped into the driver’s seat. He cranked the car and placed a heavy foot on the accelerator. With a lurch, the car pulled away from the gas pump, cutting off a flatbed truck. The truck’s horn blared and its driver threw Eric the bird. Eric slammed the brakes and then punched the accelerator again.

  Kira whiplashed against the passenger seat. She tugged at the now-locked seatbelt and glared daggers. Eric didn’t care. Mad laughter bubbled from him a second before he pulled recklessly in front of a fast-approaching semi. Kira gripped the door and prayed they’d make it to Florida alive.

  Chapter Six

  “Terek, one of them is dead. I searched the body and he has nothing of interest on him. The other is gone.”