“They’ll pull the plug on him,” I said. “What about Gorgonblood?”
“Tried it, didn’t help. The Russian house stole something from the vamps, an awesome healing stuff with aggressive compounds called Carpenter's blood. It accelerated your recovery. Unfortunately, he isn’t responding well to the treatment. He’s resistant.”
“Svetlana said it involves mystic chemistry. What else can we do for him?”
“I can try to keep him alive this way, or I can ship him to an expensive facility and see if they can keep him alive.”
“Or I could contaminate him,” Erik said.
“No way. His name is Ashe. We aren’t going to make that decision for him as if he isn’t a person.”
“He’s going to die, Kaidlyn. I can smell it.”
“God, Erik, don’t push me to make a choice. It isn’t fair.”
He snorted. “When is life ever fair?”
“He saved me. Helped me kill the vampires.” And now he lay comatose, waiting for someone to pull the plug. I would have to tell my father. Rage pushed my heart. “I told him! I said it was dangerous, to leave me alone. No one listens, goddamn it.”
“If he listened, you’d probably be dead.”
“Hmph. You’ve explained how he found me, but how did you?”
“The dummy didn’t know how to properly hide a phone,” Rainer said. “I tracked Zelda’s call to your father and your father’s call to Ashe’s cell.”
“What else did you find? What about the vampires?”
“Dead. Burned to dust and bone. It's over, sweetie. Rest. Recover.”
I ran my hand down the length of my body to feel what kind of mess Svetlana had made of my underbelly. Pain rose upon contact, like needles jabbing the skin underneath my palm. It didn’t hurt nearly as bad as it should have. My hand, in fact, felt brutalized while my abdomen only felt tender. “How does my hand hurt when my sides have healed?”
“Tatka said reoccurring injuries can be stubborn. You've ravaged those bones so often, now you'll have to be patient. Bed-rest should help with everything else.”
There was something they weren't telling me. I looked at each of them, thinking of how they only spoke when spoken to, and they didn't say anything beyond the minute concerns I voiced. The four of them were hiding something, and I began to panic for no apparent reason.
“Get Svetlana. I want her now. Right freaking now.”
They looked at each other, sharing a dismal expression.
“Quark, sweetheart,” Rainer said. “Svetlana is dead. She died before we found you. We tried everything to resuscitate her. At one point, her heart pumped a few times, but it didn't hold. She's been legally dead for two days.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true,” Erik said.
I shook my head and turned my face to the pillow. Hot tears leaked, but I didn't try to stop my silent crying. “Did they bury her yet?”
“No,” Davey said. “There was talk about sending her back to Russia to be buried, but Peter won't let anyone take the body. When they tried to remove her, he hospitalized three mutts. He sits and talks to a corpse, Kaid. He doesn't eat, hasn't slept. He doesn't talk to me. He won't let anybody near her. He acts like one day she'll snap out of it.”
“Dead two days,” Erik said. “No brain activity, no heart function, no breathing. People don't come out of that.”
“Does he understand she's dead?”
“Kaidlyn, he's lost his mind,” Davey said. “He sits in the room and reads to her. He brings her food that goes uneaten. Every day, he sets a beer next to her bed. Every day. And he sleeps next to her. Next to a corpse.”
The image made me sick. “Oh, God.”
“There's no talking to him.” Davey’s eyes were red rimmed, the skin bruised. Alexei's death may have killed Svetlana, but its aftermath might kill Davey.
Marc touched my arm. “I saw Peter, Kaid. Convince him to change his mind or he might kill somebody.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can't leave her body to rot. We'll have to take it away soon, and he's not going to let it go easy.”
It: Svetlana, the corpse.
“Svetlana is in your bed,” Davey said. “Peter thought the smell of you might rouse her.”
“Huh.”
“Where are the twins? And Tatka?”
“Don't get mad,” Davey said. “The Russians bought a second house near Casa Grande. Many of them will stay there while construction commences at the original house.”
“A second house? How many mutts are invading my state? How many does she have, Davey?”
“After recent losses, closer to a hundred, by my guess. I can’t be sure.”
“Many of the wolves are in the second home,” Marc said, “but Svetlana is at your house, along with Peter, the twins, Vanya, and a few others.”
I groaned. “Tell me they’re being discrete for the neighbors.”
“Kinda. It's a tight fit. Sleeping bags have taken over the living room. I think Sakura and I spent the last five days glaring at each other, and Erik is almost hoarse from chastising hyper kids. Alden broke two lamps and three plates. I think he’s also constructing a satellite in your backyard. Vadik and Kliment threw each other down the stairs and broke through the drywall.”
“Seriously?”
“I'm almost certain it was an accident. Zelda has been force-feeding Biscuit. Meanwhile, her horde of cats is having a fit. Vadik and Kliment turned your office into a mini concert theatre. The bathrooms are always occupied, and you're all out of food.”
“Wonderful.” I tried to sit up and decided immediately to take it slow. The room—or was it my head—somersaulted off a ten story building and splashed into an ocean of nausea. “Get me clothes.”
“You should rest,” Rainer said.
“Yeah. Get me some clothes.”
“Davey packed some things.” He pulled a gym bag out of the closet and brought it to the bed. “Let me remove the IV—”
I pulled it out. I'd had enough needles in me to know how they went in and out, that they hurt both ways. He helped me sit up, and I realized I was completely naked under a frail paper gown. I was in a room full of men, Davey and Erik included.
“Turn around, all of you,” I said. They obliged without the slightest hint the gesture was in vain. They had patched me up and certainly seen me in the buff. Anyway, I slipped the robe off and took a closer inventory of my body. Someone had stitched up the claw marks digging between my breasts to my gut, the sight of which made me pale and gray. It itched and looked like a six week-old injury. Carpenter's blood was awesome!
I struggled into a baggy, saggy jersey three times my girth. The effort exhausted me, considering I was recently mauled and eviscerated. I had to stand up to put sweat pants on, which required clutching Rainer's shoulder while Davey held the pants. I didn't bother looking in a mirror. I was guessing I fell somewhere between the shoulda-been-dead and the returned-from-the-dead look.
Standing was okay when two strong men acted as crutches. It was the moving part that took the real effort. “Where is my truck? I have to talk to Peter.”
“One of us should go with you,” Erik said.
“He won't hurt me.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Erik said. “I’m not taking the chance.”
“I’m not your goddamn wolf, nor am I your responsibility.”
“Shut up, Kaid. We’ll argue when you’re better. Promise.”
I snorted, and Marc offered me his shoulder to lean on. The door lurked impossibly far away, and a stairway waited beyond that. A physical feat of disastrous proportions. My boy lagged behind.
“Davey, aren't you coming?”
“Peter doesn't want to see me.”
“Don't be ridiculous. Of course, he does. Why wouldn’t he?”
Davey shrugged. “My absence makes this easier for him. And Rainer is real nice about letting me sleep in one of the hospital beds.”
“You're kidding
me. Peter effectively kicked you out of your own home? Not if I have anything to say about it! I'll talk to him.”
Davey hugged me, which was at first a surprise and then a comfort.
My truck wasn't there, so we loaded into Erik's obnoxious and roomy H2. Erik drove—rather slowly in my opinion. I wanted to see how fast the souped up ride could go. Instead, I fell asleep. I woke when the vehicle parked at my house. Lucy, Silvershot, and Vadik grouped on the porch, smoking. At least they weren't smoking inside. The sun was up, and the house looked different.
“What did they do to the house?”
“Repainted it,” Marc said. “It's the same color, but new paint. See, they were driving us batty, and so we gave them stuff to do. Kliment and Vadik replaced the rain gutters and eaves, and a whole slew of them remodeled the other side of the duplex. What else? A new post for your mailbox, fresh rock in the front yard, and Cebylle and the girls fixed your garden.”
“I don't have a garden!”
“You do now,” he said. It was home, but not home. Too many people. Sighing, I let Marc help me out of the Hummer and to the porch.
Vadik reached out and ruffled my hair. “Babe.” One look, and I knew he hadn't been sleeping or eating. I hugged him. His hands wavered with surprise.
“Peter will be okay,” I said. His muscles relaxed a bit and he hugged me back, hard and urgent-like. We parted. He smiled, a real-person, real-boy kind of smile. Silver lip rings danced as his lips widened into a grin. Kliment kissed my cheek. They smelled of pine, hard clay, and bacon.
“They are in your room,” he said.
The house was a mess: cushions off the sofa, blankets everywhere, dishes in the sink, a broken potted plant upside down on the kitchen tile, fast food boxes everywhere. It looked like a frat house after pledge week. Averill and Vanya played Monopoly on the floor with three others I didn't recognize, but they were really fighting over the money.
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Don't look.” Erik hurried me along to the bedroom, but he forgot the Queen of Moscow lay dead in my bed. Did I really want to see Peter hover protectively over a dead Svetlana? I told myself I had seen worse. I almost believed it. I grabbed the door handle without knocking. Surely, Peter could smell me, so an introduction seemed redundant. I opened the door and leaned against the frame. I wasn't trying to look cool; I was tired, breathless.
“Hi,” I said.
He slouched in my chair, holding a book, his legs stretched long in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His hair was so unkempt and snarled it might as well go to dreds, and he had the mass secured in a bulky ponytail. If Davey looked sleep-deprived, Peter resembled a drug addict on a bad bag.
Svetlana laid flat on the bed with a sheet tucked up to her shoulders. The gray streaks in her hair looked wider, brighter. Her face was flaccid, there was no movement under her eyelids. I walked around. My gut twisted, but I had to look at her. This close I could pick up her hand, but I didn't.
I didn't have to touch her to know she was dead. She had a look to her, an unmistakable pallor and weight. In death, all things are heavy, aspiring to weightlessness. Her face held the cinched smile of the deceased. The possibility she might not be dead slashed at my heart, and I discarded the hope. Rigor mortis was responsible for her death smile.
I looked away. A silver cross dangled from the lamp on my nightstand. It certainly wasn't mine. I remembered she had crossed herself before the fight to her death.
“Was she Catholic?” I said.
“If you speak about her in the past tense, I will toss you out the window.”
“Is she?”
He shrugged. “If she is, it happened before my time. Aren't you Catholic?”
“Nope.” Another chair sat in the corner of the room. I evaluated how much effort it would take to pull it bedside.
“Planning on staying?” he said.
“Yes.”
He rose, dragged the chair across the room, and set it beside the bed. I sat down, observing how his veins pushed against his skin, trapped atop muscle, uncushioned by fat.
“Have you eaten anything?” I said.
“Don’t pander to me. I know how this looks, and I don't give a shit. Svetlana is not going to be buried.”
“Then what? We keep her here while she decays in my bed?”
“What do you smell?”
“Odd question, but okay.” I inhaled. “Spring-scented fabric softener, rubbing alcohol, the kids smoking.”
“And?”
I sniffed the air, wading through it like water. A constant background smell lingered, like aromatic white noise. “Something sweet, like cotton candy and warm milk.”
He smiled, a real one. “Exactly.”
“What is it?”
“What do you think?”
“Svetlana?”
He nodded. Shouldn't she smell dead? I mean really, she's dead. Where's the odor? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. It was eighty-five degrees, yet she smelled sweet and clean. “Have you bathed her?”
“No,” Peter said. “She doesn't sweat, so there isn't a need.”
“Now, in theory, if she was dead, she wouldn't sweat.”
“If she was dead, she'd smell dead.”
“But there's no heartbeat, no breathing, no brain waves.”
“Nope.”
“Peter, we classify that as dead.”
“Humph,” he said, as though I was narrow-minded. He’d gone freaking crazy. Maybe I hadn’t asked the right questions.
“Have you tried to wake her?”
“I shook her, slapped her, and called her names. We tried ice water and adrenaline. The kids gathered around and pleaded with her. Vadik brought in his guitar. We even tried cutting her, thinking pain could bring her around. Nothing. We couldn't even draw any blood.”
“Because dead blood coagulates.”
“Kaid—” Peter grabbed my wrist, hard, like maybe he planned on tossing me out the window.
“It's a fact! You couldn't get any blood because it either gunked up or Alexei bled her dry.”
“Kaid.” His eyes were bright, like he had been sitting on a theory he couldn't wait to test. “What was Svetlana doing when she died?
“So you admit she's dead.”
“What was she fucking doing!” It was a monster's voice.
“We were all bleeding to death, and she took Alexei's heart.”
“And then the bleeding stopped, right?” He grinned. “The only way a non-vampire can withstand a vampire is through chemistry and will, remember? She wanted to make sure she didn't die before Alexei could be killed, so she shut down her blood. Remember when the man came after you with a pipe bomb, she jumped on it, took the hit, and didn’t shed? She locked up the magic. Afterward, she didn’t shed—couldn’t—even though it would have helped her heal. Now, how is that possible? She shut down the wolf, Kaidlyn, and she did the same with Alexei. She stopped him from reaching her blood, Kaid. She stopped her blood altogether. Naturally, her heart refused to start again. She's on lock-down.”
In a freaky way, he almost made sense. “So she willed herself to death?”
“Her body may not be infallible, but her will is.”
“Without brain function, how will she realize Alexei is dead and it's okay to release her magic?”
“If I could knew—”
“Tell her.”
“I've tried, over and over I've tried. The children have tried. Dav—” He cut himself off.
“Why aren't you talking to Davey?”
“It's getting late.” Peter patted my good hand. “You must be tired.”
“Peter.” I could see the fear in him, in his pores, in his heart. “Help me understand why you are turning away from Davey. He doesn't get it, I don't get it. Nothing makes sense.”
He heaved a sigh and crossed his arms. Talking about feelings wasn't something I enjoyed, yet there I was, dragging Peter into the emotional muck to see what he shoveled out.
&n
bsp; “Svetlana came to America to find a safe place for us. She found someone to take care of the children, a place they could rest happily, a free place. With people who love them. She began filling the holes she would leave behind. Then Davey entered the picture…” He trailed off. “Do you know what she told me before she was taken by Alexei? She told me if it all went bad, she wanted me to save Davey instead of her. She had found someone to take care of me, and I let her. Christ, I practically gave her permission to die.”
I offered my hand, and he clutched it to his chest, grip hard and urgent.
“God, Kaid,” he said. “That night, I insisted she needed me, but I didn't tell her how much I needed her. What if she thinks I don't?”
“So you think if you refuse to love Davey, Svetlana will feel your need and come back to you?”
“God, I sound so stupid.”
“It's not stupid, Peter, it's desperate. And it's something Davey doesn't understand. He only sees you turning your back on him.”
“I love him so much.”
“I know.”
Peter reached out and held Svetlana's dead hand. “I can't replace her. I can't even begin to try.”
“Davey doesn't want to replace her. He only wants you to be happy,” I put my hand atop the dead woman's.
Ee-yeck.
Peter said, “What happens if she never comes back?”
“Then I imagine they will bury her.”
His gray-green eyes narrowed. “Shitty bedside manner.”
“I have as many as zero answers.”
He sighed and set his head back trying to get comfortable. He was wired and desperate. “I don’t know what to do, Kaid. For the first time since the Kriegsmarine, I am at a complete loss. Theoretically, the mutts in important positions have a plan for her demise, but that’s only theory. What am I—”
“Did you say Kriegsmarine?” I froze. He froze. “Isn’t that like…WWII?”
“Maybe I misspoke—”
“How old are you?”
“Rude! Don’t you know you shouldn’t ask someone their proper age?”
Quietly, I juggled the information. Watching Davey be romanced by someone I thought was fifteen years older was one thing. Watching my boy being toyed with by someone who was immortal… Christ on a stick. But then, wasn’t Davey immortal too, now? Provided we could keep him from getting shot to death or pulled apart by wolves? Too many questions.
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