by E. A. Copen
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Sal jerked his hand away. Han leaned into the crib and rolled Mia over onto her side. Han’s eyes were wide and his forehead was creased with worry, but his moves were practiced. Sal and Han weren’t the only creatures standing beside Mia’s bed.
Right about the time Mia started seizing, Emiko materialized in a blue-white cloud of energy over her. She leaned forward with her mouth open, mandibles flexing. The eagle talon thumped loudly against my chest, and I reached up instinctively to grab it, watching in horror as the small wormlike head wriggled out of Emiko’s throat.
Mia’s heart rate monitor went berserk, the sudden pitch of sound drawing Emiko’s attention away. The numbers on the screen jumped, dropped, and then stopped registering altogether.
Within seconds of Mia flat-lining, the two burly nurses I’d seen in the lobby of the ward, along with Nurse Uhl barged into the room and shouldered everyone out of the way. Everyone except for Emiko.
“What the hell’s happening?” Sal growled, his rage directed at the orderly who was trying to shuffle him toward the door.
“Sir, please step back and let us help her,” the orderly was saying.
Sal wasn’t having it. He growled at the other man and showed his teeth in challenge.
“Sal,” I said, stepping up to stand between him and Emiko. Emiko’s gaze had shifted away from the crib and onto Sal, her eyes glowing blue pinpricks of cold flame. “You need to leave right now!”
“Like hell, I will.”
Nurse Uhl started CPR on Mia. More medical personnel filtered into the room, one of them speaking into a pager-like device, presumably with someone in the emergency room.
Emiko tilted her head. A creaking, rattling sound came up out of her throat. I took it as a gesture of challenge and started pulling energy in, readying it for…For what? Was there even anything I could do to stop her? I didn’t have time to decide. In a strobing, blue blur, she charged straight for me. Magick surged out from the center of my chest, down my arm, and into my fingertips, the charge of it dark, electric, and painful. When it left my fingers, it was in wisps of shadow and fire.
The darkness whipped out through the air like ink in water, wrapping around Emiko with all the grace and strength of a boa constrictor. Flames trailed behind the shadow, licking at it as if it were gasoline. Both wrapped around Emiko four times, pinning her ghostly arms to her sides. She screamed so loud the room shook.
Everyone but me pressed their hands to their ears to block out the painful screech. I didn’t have any hands left to spare. My left was tangled in the necklace of gifts Chanter had given me while my right was tied to whatever instinctive spell I had wrapped around Emiko. Something thick, warm, and wet trickled down the side of my neck from my ears. Blood. Emiko was still screaming, but I only heard muffled cries. I jerked my right hand back and closed my fist around the black streaks of flaming magick in my palm, holding them like a rope. Another pulse of magick went down into the power I held in my hand, this time intentional. The wisps of shadow tightened around Emiko until, suddenly, she disappeared.
The magick I held backfired and raced at me. It felt like holding onto an electric fence. White, hot pain overloaded every other thought and instinct in my body until all I could do was stiffen and let it hit. It seared into me and threw me back into Sal and the orderly, who were standing behind me. They tumbled over and I landed on top of them, awake, aware, but unable to breathe or respond.
Panic should have taken over. Deaf, paralyzed by a magickal electrical shock from a power I didn’t even know I had, and now unable to breathe, I should have been terrified. Instead, an overwhelming sense of calm settled into my bones. Even as I lay there, staring blankly up at the orderly who was mouthing something at me, even as he pressed his ear to my chest and searched for a pulse, I wasn’t bothered. It was like lying in a hot bath without any of the feeling but all the comfort. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and go to sleep.
Sensation slammed back into me like a cement brick. Everything hurt, and I mean everything, even the body parts I’m not normally aware of. Unless you’ve been seriously hurt, it’s normally difficult to point to where every single internal organ is in your abdominal cavity. When I got feeling back, I knew where the blood vessels in my eyes were. Every nerve lit up in a single, burning flash of pain. Air wheezed out of my lungs in a fiery breath.
“Ouch,” I managed and winced. My voice still sounded horribly muffled.
“What the shit,” I heard Sal say, but I couldn’t answer him, even if I could talk. I didn’t know.
Someone else in scrubs bent over me and said something, but his voice was too muffled for me to understand.
“No.” Sal pointed emphatically across the room to Mia. He stepped over me and left me alone with the orderly who had been checking me over with the stethoscope.
I tried to sit up and regretted it as I got smacked with another wave of blinding pain. “Mia,” I choked out as I barely managed to move my head.
The orderly caught my meaning and turned his head. “They’ve got a rhythm back. Taking her downstairs to be safe.”
Downstairs, I thought. To the emergency room where they’ll register her and process her just like any other patient.
Han had things handled. “She’s a special case,” he assured them. “I can take it from here.”
After a short argument back and forth, the emergency personnel eventually decided to listen. I didn’t get to hang out, though. Since they’d gone through all the trouble of bringing a gurney up, and since apparently my heart and respirations had stopped for just over a full minute, they decided I might as well benefit from the trip. I was still light-headed, barely able to move, and in a lot of pain when they loaded me onto the gurney and started shining lights at me, muttering numbers back and forth. As bad as I felt, I didn’t want to leave Mia unprotected. Emiko wasn’t gone, just hurt. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but I did. She’d be back.
I lifted a limp hand and tried to grab onto Sal, but my fingers wouldn’t work, so I just brushed my fingers over his arm. By the look on his face, he was both more worried and more pissed than I’d ever seen him. Still, he turned and frowned down at me.
“Ghost sickness,” I croaked out in a hoarse voice.
Sal was smart. He’d understand, even if he couldn’t forgive me. This was his daughter’s life at stake. He had to know that now, even though I hadn’t had time to explain everything. I still had to make sure he didn’t get sick, too. Emiko had seen him, and she’d wanted a taste now that Mia was fading. If I knew anything about Sal, the first thing he’d do now that he knew Mia was sick was try to heal her. That was the worst thing he could possibly do.
They started to wheel me away, but I grabbed for Sal again, this time slipping a hand under his arm to get his attention. He put a hand over mine and nodded. My head was pounding too hard, and if I kept my eyes open any longer, I’d throw up. I closed my eyes and let my hand drop.
Sleep didn’t come. Just darkness and the typical sounds of an emergency room. I tried not to open my eyes again unless the doctors or nurses came to tell me to do so. When I did, they shined a light at my pupils, and I saw green behind my eyelids for the next fifteen minutes or so. The pain lessened, but that probably had something to do with whatever they were giving me intravenously. Whatever it was, it was a warm, happy kind of drug that dulled my senses enough that I started humming.
I didn’t realize I was doing anything more than that until another voice chimed in at the chorus. My eyes snapped open against my better judgment and I winced at the pain the light caused. At least Marcus didn’t have a terrible singing voice. He finished out the chorus of “Take Me Home Country Roads” and paused at the end to chuckle. “Oh, you didn’t have to stop on my account. Granted, I was making you look bad, but you can almost carry the harmony.”
My nose twitched, a poor attempt at a scowl. “Oh, sure. Make fun of me while I’m on my back with God knows what in my system.
Bastard.”
I cracked open an eye to see him sitting in a chair beside me. Marcus looked odd in a plain white t-shirt and a pair of powder-blue scrubs. He’d also tied back his hair, which made him look thinner as he leaned on the IV stand he’d wheeled in there with him.
“You look pretty good for a dead guy,” I said, blinking and opening my other eye. I had to try to get back on my feet as soon as possible.
“I’m a vampire,” he said with a shrug. “A little blood and a little something pleasant, and my body mostly repairs itself.”
“Hard to believe that you retain any sex appeal at all under an insulin overdose. I might have lied a little when I said you looked pretty good.”
Marcus chuckled again, his voice as smooth as velvet. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Judah. Succubine is a BSI label, and it’s probably more misguided than correct. There are more avenues to pleasure than those of the flesh. Sometimes, a gourmet meal or a passionate performance on stage is enough. Sometimes, the memory of a kiss is better than the real thing.” When he spoke the last line, he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose.
“I know you don’t want to talk to me about Emiko, Marcus, but I need to know what happened to her.”
He closed his eyes even tighter and turned away.
“Someone summoned her for a reason, and it wasn’t to hurt Mia. Mia’s been the victim of a sort of bloodline curse, one that was meant for you. Now there’s been another attempt on your life. I’ve seen Emiko three times now, and the ghost causing the sickness might as well be a carbon copy of that painting of Emiko in your study.”
“Someone meant to use her against me?” His shoulders heaved with another deep breath. “And Mia bore the attack instead. Cynthia.” He turned around, lips drawn into a tight line as he regarded me. “How did you know?”
“That she was an assassin?” I tried to shrug. My arm wiggled a little. That was good. “Partly her aura. It felt fake. I knew she was hiding something. I just didn’t know what. And let’s face it, Marcus. The only reason you’ve been alive for so long is that you’re paranoid. I’ve seen the security you keep around. Plus, the Kings are on your payroll. A guy like that doesn’t hire a woman whose last name he doesn’t even know and invite her into his home, leaving her alone with a fed when she’s a new hire.”
Marcus’ jaw fell open and then closed quickly. Something like anger but more curious flashed behind his eyes. “I didn’t realize I didn’t know her last name,” he said, eyes widening. His expression of surprise quickly grew into an enraged snarl. “Magick?”
“Fae magick, I think, which would explain why you’re so susceptible to it. Really powerful fae magick can be subtle.”
His face blanked again, back to that smug, businesslike mask he always wore. He crossed one leg over the other and folded his hands, lowering his gaze in thought. Marcus was connecting the dots, putting everything together as I’d already done.
I could have walked him through what I knew, but then, I was trying to focus all my energy on making my muscles work. Already, I’d moved my arm and wiggled a few toes. The cloudy numbness in my head lessened with every passing minute as I pulled in a little magick out of the air, pumping it into my tired limbs. It was dangerous and would result in me being flat on my back again later for longer, but I had more immediate problems to deal with.
“There’s only one thing Emiko and the fae have in common, and I was under the impression that Crux Continelli had been dealt with.” Marcus gave me a look that might have made children cry and dogs whimper if he’d cast it at them. Me, I was still too stoned on whatever they were giving me to know better.
“I would have loved to have killed that sniveling vampire, but there was a fae necromancer who had a bone to pick with him. Seeing as how Creven told me he was one of the major players in Faerie, I figured I didn’t stand a chance of going head to head with him.”
Marcus flashed his fangs and hissed a name through clenched teeth. “Seamus.”
“Yeah,” I said, tilting my head to one side. Awesome. I had control over my head again. “How do you know him? Kim tell you about him?”
Marcus was too involved in his rant to give me a definite answer right away. “I should have known he’d stoop so low. I knew the fae could be petty and vengeful, but this is a new low. To summon the ghost of my dead wife to destroy her own family through a curse? That’s cowardice, cowardice I would have expected from someone like Crux and not a formidable enemy like Seamus.”
“Wait…Seamus is your enemy?”
Marcus huffed. “Do you think I’m stupid? I’d sooner be open enemies with my own shadow than with one of the Kings of Faerie.”
“Kings of Faerie,” I repeated. Creven had neglected to mention that much.
Folklore largely only remembers the queens of Faerie thanks to great literary minds like Spenser and Shakespeare, both of whom drew similarities between Queen Elizabeth I, and what they thought fae queens might be like. Most experts agreed that neither Spenser or Shakespeare had probably ever met a fae and known about it, which meant that true accounts of who ruled Faerie came from further back and were largely contested.
A lot of old Irish sources spoke of a King Finvarra, the last Faerie King and husband to an elven Faerie Queen, Elphame. Supposedly, he was a badass underworld figure and the guy who negotiated the treaty that sealed the realm of Faerie from Earth. It probably wasn’t all true, especially with what BSI now knew about the social standing of elves. They were fae half-breeds, barely considered above animals in Faerie. One would never be allowed to sit on the throne and rule.
Marcus had called Seamus a Faerie King and Creven had called him a necromancer, which lined up well enough with the Finvarra myth. I swallowed. “No way,” I said. “No way that’s him.”
“He’s not someone to make an enemy of,” Marcus said, his tone still fierce. “My father was an immigrant from Ireland. I know the stories they tell. I also know that civil war in Faerie does no one on Earth any good. Regardless of who he was in the days of myth, Seamus is a monster now, and I have a vested interest in maintaining political stability in Faerie for as long as possible. Seamus seeks to overthrow his brother, Oberon, from the throne of Faerie and would have cut a deal with me to get something he badly needs to do so.”
I shook my head. “What would you have that someone like him would want?”
Marcus crossed his arms. “Now that I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He pressed his lips together.
I sighed. “It’s not the immediate issue. Seamus had Crux. If I had to bet, I’d say he tortured him and got some information that he could use to blackmail you.”
“Get back at me more like,” Marcus scoffed. “I initially agreed to give him what he wanted but reneged on the deal after my daughter revealed he was also taking money from the Stryx to finance his Earth operations. I do not deal with anyone who engages in business practices with those…animals.”
I started to point out that his daughter, Kim, had taken Stryx funds to finance her night club along with the hobgoblin, Robbie Fellows. Marcus must have guessed what I was going to say and cut me off in the middle of my sentence.
“My darling daughter has and will continue to pay the price for her treachery. You needn’t concern yourself with that. When money blinds us to purpose, our true purpose, it can do nothing but corrupt.” He unfolded his arms and stood, pulling himself up by using the IV stand.
“I suppose I shouldn’t complain so long as there aren’t any bodies,” I muttered. “What is it between the Kelleys and the Stryx, anyway? Does this all go back to your duel with Crux?”
Marcus raised his chin. “The Stryx believe themselves to be the only true vampires, the keepers of our race. Ha! As if that gives them the right to police what the rest of us do with our private lives!”
“I know they disapproved of you and Emiko having children.”
Marcus’ eyes flared, and he squeeze
d his hand around the metal stand holding the IV bag up until it bent and made the bag of clear fluids droop. He regarded it coolly, then unhooked the bag from where it hung and slipped it onto the hanger next to mine. “My children should not have had to bear the brunt of their intolerance. Emiko was a loving, beautiful person, an attentive mother, and a better woman than I ever deserved. Because she was Jiangshi, an auric vampire and nobility, because they thought her too pure for the likes of me to taint, she was given an ultimatum.”
The tubing attached to his arm stretched as he reached for the chair and pulled it closer to plop down on it. “Kill her children and me, or she would be killed herself, and Alto Continelli’s sons would finish the job of wiping my family from the face of the Earth.” He closed his eyes and flinched as if he’d been struck. “I didn’t know. She didn’t even tell me. I believed I was defending her honor; that if I won, they would finally leave us alone and let us live out our lives in peace. It was a lie. The choice was never mine. They gave it to Emiko. They gave a mother an impossible choice because they weren’t vampire enough to face me. Cowards.”
I couldn’t help but agree. I’d had the unfortunate luck of meeting Crux, and if his father and brother were anything like him, they were the lowest of the low. Slimy cowards in every sense of the word.
“I would have lost,” Marcus continued looking down at his hands. “Crux is considerably older than me and more skilled with a blade.”
I could back that up, too. Just a few weeks ago, I’d watched Crux duel Abe and make short work of him, and Abe was damn good. “That was why he chose the challenge,” I said. “Because he knew he could win. How’d you get out of it alive?”
Marcus smirked up at me. “Crux forgot something very important about me. I am an American. I never play fair. He chose the challenge. I chose the terrain, and I chose one I knew well. You see, if I’d killed Crux, I would have incurred a blood debt against me. The Stryx would have had no choice but to avenge his death by killing me and mine. They thought it was a win-win situation. I never had any intention of winning. I was smart enough to coat my sword in the one weapon that is the bane of all vampires. Fae blood. A few cuts, and he would be reeling and stupid.”