by E. A. Copen
I chuckled at that. “And he’d be high out of his mind, unable to fight. I have to admit it was a good plan.”
“Yes,” he said, and then his smile faded. “Except that it didn’t work. I had already cut into him twice with my dagger and gotten one good draw cut against his arm. He pinned me against a wall and drove his sword into my chest. To this day, I have no idea how he could withstand such a high exposure. That dose should have made him unable to stand. Instead, he staked me to the wall. But they didn’t kill me. Emiko stopped them. She…” He trailed off and had to try twice to continue, his voice thick with sorrow. “She traded herself for the rest of us. I had to watch, helpless, and staked to a wall.”
Marcus lowered his head and touched his fingers to the center of his chest. Two strands of auburn hair loosened from where he had them tied behind his head and fell to hide his face from me. “So, you see, Emiko would never willingly harm a child, nor would she ever return as a ghost or otherwise. She gave her life willingly so that I might live. To bring her back is to spit on her sacrifice.”
My throat had grown tight as Marcus recounted his tale. I didn’t even bother fighting the sympathy. He deserved it. No one should have had to watch that. Whatever Seamus had done to Crux in Faerie, the bastard deserved it and more. Now I had answers. There were enough breadcrumbs that I could put everything back together. “Cynthia must work for Seamus.”
Marcus nodded in agreement.
“And it was her who made the first strike that Sunday when she was at your house. I’d be willing to bet she’d laced your cup with whatever she used to get the Ghost Sickness started.”
“That’d be corpse powder,” said Sal from the doorway.
Neither of us had heard him come in, and Marcus jerked his head toward the door. The two of them glared at each other for a minute, and my heart skipped a beat as I remembered what I’d done. I wondered if Marcus knew. When he gave Sal a wary smirk and tipped his head, I thought he must have, although neither of them spoke about it.
“He would have needed access to your wife’s remains,” Sal continued once their non-verbal exchange was over. “Even something small that you would have kept, but definitely a literal part of her body. Ashes, bones, blood, any of it would do.”
All the amusement went out of Marcus’ face. “Why does it matter what he used? If you know the cause, can’t it be undone?”
“Not easily, no.” Sal pushed off the doorway with a hip. He strode into the room with his arms crossed and refused to look at me. “I need to recreate the same powder, mix it with a few other ingredients, and then…” He gave me a hesitant glance. “Someone has to intentionally take the sickness into their body. I think I know a way to keep it from being fatal…mostly. At least permanently. Whoever takes the powder will be, for all intents and purposes, dead. We’d be counting on a mix of medical science and my magick know-how to bring them back.”
“That’s an insane risk,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “What kind of fool would do that?”
I pushed myself up away from the pillow behind my head. The room spun and there were flashes of light in my vision, but I managed it without throwing up. “I will,” I said.
“No.” Marcus rose, pointing at me. “I won’t let you. You’re too valuable.”
“I’m the ideal candidate,” I argued. “As far as I know, I’m the only one who can see the ghost. She knows me, and we’ve fought before. I seem to be the only one who can do anything about her, and I’m the only one in this room who isn’t already at risk of being killed. Not to mention, someone with magick will have a better chance of success. Am I right, Sal?”
Sal set his jaw and glared at the floor.
Marcus gestured to Sal. “He can do it. Or someone else. Judah, there is no shortage of magick practitioners here.”
Sal glared at Marcus. “I can’t do it, because I have to be on the outside to monitor her progress. If I go in, there’s absolutely no chance of me coming back, and no offense, but I’ve got a little girl to come back to.”
“Judah has a son,” Marcus growled.
I was stunned to see him jumping to my defense, although it hurt a little that Sal was so willing to risk my life. At least I deserved it.
“It’s all right, Marcus,” I said quietly. “It has to be me. It’s my fault Mia came to you in the first place. I’m the one that let Seamus take Crux. Indirectly, I’m responsible for everything. Sal will take care of Hunter if things don’t work out and I don’t come back. I can trust him to the pack.”
Sal turned his head away from me.
“This is madness. There must be something else we can do. Given more time, I can find another willing participant.”
“We’re out of time.” I turned to Marcus. “The doctors were able to bring Mia back this time, but there’s no guarantee it will work next time. Next time, she could slip away for good. I won’t let that happen, not on my watch.”
I threw the blanket aside and used the energy I’d gathered to swing my legs over the side of the bed. My legs were still too weak to hold me when I tried to stand. I would have fallen over if Sal hadn’t darted forward to catch me. “Thanks,” I mumbled and tried to brace myself against his arm to stand. He didn’t let me.
“I need for you to arrange her discharge,” Sal said to Marcus and scooped me up in both arms. “I know you have enough pull to make that happen.”
Marcus showed Sal his fangs and clicked them together once. “Do not presume to order me around, wolf.”
“And don’t you presume I won’t kill you where you stand. You had my daughter. I don’t even want to know what you were planning to do with her. Whatever it was, you can forget it. If I hear you’ve been within twenty feet of her, you won’t have to worry about the fae killing you.”
It was a bold threat, one he shouldn’t have made. Marcus still held a lot of power in Concho County. If Sal so much as looked at him wrong, I was certain the vampire could arrange for Sal to die and not lose any sleep over it.
Marcus didn’t take him seriously. He gave another velvety chuckle that turned into a roaring belly laugh as he threw his head back. “Oh, wolf,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes when he was finished. “You’ve caught me in a nostalgic mood, one of few. Lucky for you, I am also a father to a daughter. One father to another, I understand your anger. I’m not sure I would have yesterday or that I will tomorrow. But for now, I do.”
There was a wicked glint in his eye as he smiled at me and lifted his IV bag from the post near my bed, carrying it even with his head. “If you’re so intent on dying, Judah, I can’t stop you. I can’t stop him from helping you.” He tipped his head to Sal, offering a wink and a smile. “Give the devil hell, you two.”
Chapter Thirty
At some point, the nurses had changed me out of my clothes and put a spotted, blue hospital gown on me. Or maybe I’d done it. My head was so fuzzy from the drugs and strange magick I’d used that I couldn’t keep anything straight. The nurses seemed a more likely culprit, considering how neatly folded my jeans and t-shirt were. They’d even placed my boots together under the chair.
The cool, sterile air of the hospital bit into my exposed arms and legs. Sal’s body radiated heat and the comforting scent of him, earthy and warm. The side of my cheek rested against the exposed skin of his bicep, which was hot enough that I would have been sweating if he were all around me. Instead, I shivered at the cold and instinctively pressed in tighter. Had we been in that position just a few hours earlier, it would have been romantic. But I knew the heat and the loud thump in his chest was from anger. Sal sat down on the edge of the bed, arms curled around my body. He squeezed me tighter to him but refused to look down at me.
He spoke to me through grating teeth, his voice muffled by whatever damage Emiko had done to my ears. It was healing, thanks to Sal’s intervention, but I hadn’t yet gotten sound back to normal.
“How long have you known?”
I closed my eyes. “Since that first time
Marcus brought me to the hospital.”
Sharp silence droned on. Occasionally, he hugged me tighter or squeezed one hand into a fist only to release the gesture. His jaw muscles flexed and released. He fought with the wolf, trying not to let it out. I ached to say something, anything, to make everything better, but the time for that had come and gone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I swallowed and fought the urge to tear up. My nose ran anyway, and I wiped it with the top of my hospital gown. “Marcus made me swear not to. Him and Zoe both. They said if I told you, they would hurt Hunter or you. I couldn’t…” I stopped to work against the swollen feeling in my throat again. “I know it was selfish and the wrong thing to do, but I didn’t want to lose you. I promised Marcus that, if nobody died, I would keep the secret. But Chanter…” When I blinked, a tear trailed down from the corner of my left eye. My hand shook as I raised it to my mouth and choked, “I’m sorry. I never wanted anyone to get hurt.”
Sal’s chest heaved a heavy sigh as I finally gave in and let myself cry. He put a hand behind my head and drew me against his chest. “Whenever you lie, either by omission or by false information, someone gets hurt. It might take a while, but it’s going to happen. You’re a smart woman, Judah. One of the smartest people I know. You know that.”
He paused as I put my arm around him and hugged tightly. His voice sounded calm, but I knew, knew it was just the calm before the storm. Any minute, he was going to explode on me. Sal had every right to be angry. I knew that the one thing he’d wanted most in the world was a child. I had conspired with his ex-wife and a greedy vampire to keep him away from his child. I was a monster.
“You’re also one of the most stubborn people I know,” Sal continued. “Sometimes, that’s an asset. Most of the time, it just pisses people off, me included.”
I squeezed tighter. Here it comes, I thought. The one friend I have left in the world is about to desert me.
“You’ve got it in your head that you’re some kind of superhero. You’re going to save everyone, right? But when your back is against the wall, Judah, who’s going to save you if you go in half-cocked and without backup?” Sal squeezed me back and lowered his head to my shoulder. “When some asshole vampire threatens me, my family, or anyone I care about, you’re supposed to tell me, dammit! You’re supposed to call for help! Why the hell didn’t you let me help you from the beginning?”
“Marcus and Zoe—”
Sal pulled me back away from me and growled at me, “Marcus is full of hot air. He can’t lay a finger on me or mine without bringing the pack and the club into things. As for Zoe, she probably gets off on the idea of turning you and me against each other.”
I tried to control my chin when it started shaking. It was hard to do, looking up into Sal’s shining, gilded eyes. I hadn’t thought of that. At the time, I had been so busy trying to make sure everyone stayed alive and safe that I didn’t even consider Marcus’ threat wasn’t valid. He was a powerful vampire. He could kill Sal and Hunter. That didn’t mean he would. Doing something like that, especially after telling me that he intended to do so, would only make me hate him more.
I would have stopped working for him immediately to find some way to prosecute him for his crimes. It was in Marcus’ best interest to keep everyone I loved alive and happy so that I would turn my attention elsewhere. The vampire had lied to me, and I bought it hook, line, and sinker.
“Aren’t you mad at me?” I stammered.
Sal tilted his head away. “I’m pissed as hell. I understand why you did it, but I’m still pissed.” He turned back and lifted my chin with his free hand. “Just because I’m angry at you doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving you. You don’t get to run away that easily, not now that I’ve got you.”
I stumbled in my search for words and felt my cheeks flush. I must have looked terrible, splotchy faced, teary-eyed, and now blushing. Not to mention all the bumps and bruises, the hospital gown and—God, when was the last time I’d seen a hairbrush? Probably more recently than I’d seen a toothbrush. Sal didn’t seem to notice or care. He leaned down to kiss me, but hesitated, mouth so close that his breath tickled the skin of my cheek. “I love you, you know,” he said.
Those three little words triggered memories. No one, Hunter aside, had said that to me, not since Alex. I’d never let things get that far. Every time I got close to something real and deep, I found myself wracked by guilt. Even after more than a decade, the pangs of grief still sank their claws deep. I cared about Sal, maybe more than I had anyone else, but loving him still felt like betraying Alex.
But I didn’t have the chance to object before Sal leaned down to kiss me.
Sal tasted vaguely of sugary coffee, sweet, bitter, and dark with just a hint of salty sweat. It was brief, soft, and gentle, his lips on mine. All the things it shouldn’t have been. Under the surface, I felt the anger bubbling, knew it should have been more like that first kiss, the one in the ladies’ room at Aisling. It should have been angry and hard. It should have hurt to kiss him. His anger wasn’t allowed to feel good.
When he pulled away, I threw my hands up on either side of his face and drew him back down. This time, when I opened my mouth against his, I didn’t taste coffee and sugar. There was ash, the almost overpowering remnants of the last cigarette he’d smoked. Sandpaper stubble from his chin ground into my cheek. Teeth fought against the soft flesh of lips and tongues until the only taste in my mouth was the coppery taste of blood. He stole the breath from against my skin, and I dug fingernails into his arms and chest until he let me go long enough to steal it back.
It hurt, every touch of skin against skin, but it was more cathartic than what he’d intended. Pain meant we were alive, for now at least, and together.
Someone in the doorway cleared her throat, and I turned my head to look at a nurse in pink scrubs. Nurse. That’s right. I was still in the hospital, and hooked up to all those monitors. Sal had told Marcus to make them discharge me.
“If this is a bad time, I can come back.” The nurse tapped her fingers on the clipboard she was holding.
Sal hadn’t noticed the nurse, or if he had, he’d chosen not to acknowledge her in favor of kissing my neck. I pushed his head away and he let out a low, rumbling growl. It didn’t sound seriously threatening, though. I’d heard enough growling over the last two days to be able to tell the difference.
“No time like the present,” I said to the nurse and held my hands out for the clipboard.
Detached from all my monitors and dressed again, Sal walked me on unsteady legs to the parking garage. The nurses wanted to put me in a wheelchair since I was still too weak to stand on my own, but I wouldn’t have it. I was walking out of there on my own two feet or not at all. So, I slipped my left arm in Sal’s and walked close to the right wall, taking slow, steady steps.
“I just wish I knew what I’d done,” I muttered, limping along and leaning heavily on him. “I feel like an old lady.”
Physically, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me other than two perforated eardrums. The CT scan, MRI, EEG, and EKG all came back normal. They spoke of elevated stress hormones in my bloodwork, but no one seemed to think that explained my condition.
I had some ideas but no answers. I knew using the magick had drained me, the same way using magick to enhance my muscles did. Only this felt worse. A lot worse. I’d never seen a spell like that before, let alone learned it. Maybe it was some hidden, innate ability that I hadn’t ever used before. For something like that to surface at my age was rare. In fact, I’d never heard of it. Magick and abilities usually level off after twenty-five or so. My thirty-second birthday was coming up in a few months, so I should have been well past the age where I could expect new powers to surface. Maybe it was something else.
My right hand went to the talon and feather necklace hanging on my neck. I forgot to brace myself against the wall again when I went to take a step and almost went down.
“Easy,” Sal s
aid, pulling me up.
“Maybe I should have stayed in the ER for just a little while longer.”
“There’s nothing they can do for you here that I can’t do for you at home.” He tightened his grip on me.
I repositioned my arm and hobbled forward. “Zoe is sick too.”
“I know.”
“Did you leave any protections behind?”
“Salt, wards, and a thing or two extra that I know,” Sal answered, nodding. “And I called Shauna to sit outside the door. She’ll call if anything happens, but with what I put down and with Han watching over her, I expect her to make it to morning.”
We came to a ramp, and I grabbed the rail instead of the wall. A soccer mom with a blonde bob hurried by, gripping the hands of her two kids. Her son was so busy staring at his cell phone that he would have walked into a wall if she didn’t keep her hand on his head, directing his steps. The girl just a few months older than Mia toddled by holding her mom’s hand and shaking her pigtails. She was wearing a fairy princess get-up, complete with a tiara, pink, frilly dress, and light-up shoes with wings. A middle-aged man in a suit who looked like he belonged to the rest of the family walked along behind, stuffing the parking garage receipt into his wallet and calling for them to wait up.
For a moment, I wondered what it was like to live that life. Had there ever been a time when my biggest worry for Hunter was spending too much time staring at screens? Knowing what I knew about the fae, I couldn’t imagine Sal would let Mia dress like that. If Sal and I married, would we ever take our kids to doctors and dentists and worry about such mundane things? I couldn’t imagine it. That was a life that could have been, a life I thought I wanted with Alex. The Revelation had ripped that future from my fingers and painted it with memories of blood and pain. It was gone and buried, who I was before buried with it. Still, whenever I caught a glimpse of the woman, wife, and mother I might have been, I grieved for a loss that had never happened.