Matter of fact, she looked exhausted, like he was one more hassle in her castle and she didnt have the energy to deal with the shit he pulled when she was around.
I spoke with the doctor, she said. Hes closing in the OR now, so its going to be a while. He would like me to draw some blood-
Im sorry, Rehv blurted.
Ehlenas hand went up to the collar of her uniform and she pulled the two halves closer together. Excuse me?
Im sorry for playing you. You dont need that from a patient. Especially on a night like tonight.
She frowned. Im fine.
No, youre not. And no, Im not reading your mind. You just seem tired. Abruptly, he knew how she felt. Id like to make it up to you.
Not necessary-
By treating you to dinner.
Okay, he hadnt meant to say that. And given that hed just gotten all self-congratulatory on keeping his distance, hed also made a hypocrite out of himself.
Clearly his next tat needed to be more along the lines of a donkey.
Cuz he was acting like an ass.
In the wake of the invitation, it was entirely unsurprising that Ehlena stared at him like he was insane. Generally speaking, when a male behaved like he did, the last thing any female wanted to do was spend more time with him.
Im sorry, no. She didnt even tack on an obligatory, I never date patients.
Okay. I understand.
While she got the blood-drawing supplies ready and snapped on a pair of rubber gloves, Rehv reached over to his suit jacket and took out his card, hiding it in his big palm.
She was quick with the procedure, working on his good arm, filling up the aluminum vials fast. Good thing they werent glass and Havers did all the testing himself. Vampire blood was red. Symphath ran blue. The color of his was somewhere in between, but he and Havers had an arrangement. Granted, the doctor was unaware of how things worked between them, but it was the only way to be treated without compromising the races physician.
When Ehlena was finished, she capped the vials with white plastic stoppers, snapped off the gloves, and went for the door like he was a bad smell.
Wait, he said.
Do you want some pain meds for the arm?
No, I want you to take this. He held out his card. And call me if youre ever in the mood to do me a favor.
At the risk of sounding unprofessional, Im never going to be in the mood for you. Under any circumstances.
Ouch. Not that he blamed her. The favor is forgiving me. Got nothing to do with a date.
She glanced down at the card, then shook her head. Youd better keep that. For someone who might ever use it.
As the door shut, he crushed the card in his hand.
Shit. What the hell had he been thinking, anyway? She probably had a nice little life in a tidy house with two doting parents. Maybe she had a boyfriend, too, who would someday become her hellren.
Yeah, his being your friendly neighborhood drug lord, pimp, and enforcer really fit in with the Norman Rockwell routine. Totally.
He tossed his card into the wastepaper basket by the desk, and watched as the rim shot circled, then dropped in amid the Kleenex and the wadded-up papers and an empty Coke can.
As he waited for the doctor, he stared at the discarded trash, thinking that to him most of the people on the planet were just like that stuff: things to use up and throw away with no compunction whatsoever. Thanks to both his bad side and the business he was in, hed broken a lot of bones and cracked a lot of heads and been the cause of a lot of drug overdoses.
Ehlena, on the other hand, spent her nights saving people.
Yeah, they had shit in common, all right.
His efforts kept her in business.
How. Perfect.
Outside the clinic in the frosty air, Wrath was chest-to-chest with Vishous.
Get out of my way, V.
Vishous, of course, was having none of the back-off. Not a surprise. Even before the little news flash about the Scribe Virgin having birthed him, the fucker had been a total free agent.
A Brotherd have better luck giving orders to a rock.
Wrath-
No, V. Not here. Not now-
I saw you. In my dreams this afternoon. The ache in that dark voice was the kind normally associated with funerals. I had a vision.
Wrath spoke without wanting to. What did you see?
You standing in a dark field alone. We were all around your periphery, but no one could reach you. You were gone from us and us from you. The Brother reached out and grabbed hard. Because of Butch, I know youre going out into the field alone and Ive kept my mouth shut. But I cant let you do this anymore. You die and the race is fucked, to say nothing of what itll do to the Brotherhood.
Wraths eyes strained to focus on Vs face, but the security light over the door was a fluorescent and the glow from the thing stung like a bitch. You dont know what the dream means.
And neither do you.
Wrath thought of the weight of that civilian in his arms. It could be nothing-
Ask me when I first had the vision.
-but a fear you have.
Ask me. When I had the vision first.
When.
Nineteen oh nine. Its been a hundred years since I saw it first. Now ask me how many times Ive had it this past month.
No.
Seven times, Wrath. This afternoon was the final straw.
Wrath broke out of the Brothers hold. Im leaving now. If you follow me, youre going to find a fight.
You cant go out alone. Its not safe.
Youre kidding me, right. Wrath glared through his wraparounds. Our race is failing and you want to bust my balls for going after our enemy? Fuck that for a laugh. Im not getting stuck behind some bitch-ass desk pushing papers while my brothers are out there actually doing something-
But youre the king. Youre more important than us-
The hell I am! Im one of you! I was inducted, I drank of the Brothers and they of me, I want to fight!
Look, Wrath V assumed a tone that was so reasonable it made a guy want to knock all his teeth out. With an ax. I know exactly what its like not to want to be who youre born as. You think I get off on having these fucked-up dreams? You think this lightsaber of mine is a party? He held up his gloved hand as if the visual aid was a value-add to their discussion. You cant change who you are. You cant undo the coupling of whatever parents you had. Youre the king, and the rules apply differently to you, and thats the way it is.
Wrath did his best to cop to Vs calm, cool, and collected. And I say Ive been fighting for over three hundred years, so Im not exactly a greenhorn out there in the field. Id also like to point out that being king doesnt mean I lose the right to choose-
You have no heir. And from what I hear from my shellan, you shut Beth down when she told you she wanted to try for one when she has her first needing. Shut her down hard. How did she say you put it? Ohright. I dont want any young in the foreseeable futureif at all.
Wraths breath exhaled in a rush. I cant believe you just went there.
Bottom line? You end up dead? The fabric of the races society is going to unravel, and if you think thats going to help in the war, youve got your head so far up your ass youre using your colon as a mouthpiece. Face it, Wrath. You are the beating heart of all of usso, no, you cant just go out there and fight alone because you want to. Shit dont work like that for you-
Wrath grabbed onto the Brothers lapels and slammed him against the clinic. Watch it, V. Youre walking a damn fine line of disrespect here.
If you think roughing me up is going to change things, have at me. But Ill guarantee you that after the punches are over and were both bleeding on the ground, the situation will be exactly the same. You cant change who youre born.
In the background, Butch stepped out of the Escalade and jacked up his belt like he was getting ready to break up a fistfight.
The race needs you above ground, asshole, V said. Dont make me pull the trigger on you, because I will.
Wrath shifted his weak eyes back to V. I thought you wanted me alive and kicking. Besides, shooting me would be treason and punishable by death. No matter whose son you are.
Look, Im not saying you shouldnt-
Shut it, V. For once, just shut your damn mouth.
Wrath let go of the guys leather jacket and stepped back. Jesus Christ, he had to leave or this confrontation was going to escalate into exactly what Butch was bracing himself for.
Wrath jammed a finger in Vs face. Dont follow me. We clear? You dont follow me.
You stupid fool, V said with total exhaustion. Youre the king. We all must follow you.
Wrath dematerialized with a curse, his molecules scrambling across town. As he traveled, he couldnt believe V had thrown Beth and the baby thing under the bus. Or that Beth had shared that kind of private stuff with Doc Jane.
Talk about having your head up your ass, though. V was crazy if he thought Wrath was putting his beloveds life at risk by impregnating her when she went into her needing a year or so from now. Females died on the birthing table, more often than not.
He would give his own life for the race if he had to, but no fucking way was he putting his shellans at risk like that.
And even if she were guaranteed to live through it, he didnt want his son ending up right where he wastrapped and choiceless, serving his people with a heavy heart as one by one they died in a war he could do little if anything to end.
SEVEN
The St. Francis Hospital complex was a city all unto itself, the sprawling conglomeration of architectural blocks erected from different eras, each component forming its own mini-neighborhood, the parts connected to the whole by a series of winding drives and sidewalks. There was the McMansion-style administration section and the suburban simplicity of the ranch-level outpatient units and the apartment-like inpatient high-rises with their stacked windows. The sole unifying feature on the acreage, which was a godsend, was the red-and-white directional signs with their arrows pointing left and right and straight ahead depending on where you wanted to go.
Xhexs destination was obvious, however.
The emergency department was the newest addition to the medical center, a state-of-the-art, glass-and-steel facility that was like a brilliantly lit, constantly humming nightclub.
Hard to miss. Hard to lose sight of.
Xhex took form in the shadow of some trees that had been planted in a circle around some benches. As she walked toward the ERs bank of revolving doors, she was at once in the environment and utterly away from it. Though she altered her path around other pedestrians and smelled the tobacco from the designated smokers hut and felt the cold air on her face, she was too distracted by a battle within herself to notice much.
As she entered the facility, her hands went clammy and cold sweat bloomed on her forehead, the fluorescent lights and the white linoleum and the staff milling around in their surgical scrubs paralyzing her.
You need some help?
Xhex wheeled around and brought her hands up, snapping into fighting position. The doctor whod spoken to her held his ground, but seemed surprised.
Whoa. Easy, there.
Sorry. She dropped her arms and read the lapel of his white coat: MANUEL MANELLO, M.D., CHIEF OF SURGERY. She frowned as she sensed him, smelled him.
You okay?
Whatever. None of her biz. I need to go to the morgue.
The guy didnt seem shocked, as if someone with her kind of moves might well know a couple of toe-tagged stiffs. Yeah, okay, that hallway over there? Take it all the way back. Youll see a sign for the morgue on the door. Just follow the arrows from there. Its in the basement.
Thanks.
Youre welcome.
The doctor walked out the revolving door shed come in, and she went through the metal detector hed just passed through. Not a peep, and she shot a tight smile at the rent-a-cop who was once-overing her.
The knife she carried at the small of her back was ceramic and shed replaced her metal cilices with ones made of leather and stone. No probs.
Evenin, Officer, she said.
The guy nodded her along, but kept his hand on the butt of his gun.
Down at the end of the hallway, she found the door she was looking for, punched through it, and hit the stairs, tracking the red arrows like the doctor had said. When she hit a stretch of whitewashed concrete wall she figured she was getting close, and she was right. Detective de la Cruz was standing farther down the corridor, next to a pair of double stainless-steel doors marked with the words MORGUE and AUTHORIZED STAFF ONLY.
Thank you for coming, he said as she got closer. Were going into the viewing room farther down. Ill just tell them youre here.
The detective pushed open one side of the doors, and through the crack she saw a fleet of metal tables with blocks for the heads of the dead.
Her heart stopped, then roared, even though she told herself over and over again that this wasnt her damage. She wasnt in there. This wasnt the past. There was no one with a white coat standing over her doing things in the name of science.
And besides, shed gotten over all of that, like, a decade ago-
A sound started off softly and grew in volume, echoing from behind her. She spun around and froze, fear so strong it stuck her feet to the floor
But it was just a janitor coming around the corner, pushing a laundry bin the size of a car. He was leaning forward against the rim, throwing his back into it, and he didnt look up as he passed.
For a moment, Xhex blinked and saw another rolling cart. One full of tangled, unmoving limbs, the legs and arms of the dead bodies overlapping like kindling.
She rubbed her eyes. Okay, she had gotten over what had happenedas long as she wasnt in a clinic or a hospital.
Jesus Christshe had to get the fuck out of here.
You okay to do this? de la Cruz asked from right next to her.