Memory is a fickle thing, a hummingbird that comes and goes at whim. It can escape us for a time, returning at the most inopportune moment. We’ve all had that sudden strike of insight at two in the morning that snaps us out of a dream.
It also haunts us, hovering behind us like the childhood monster in the closet lurking in the shadows, ready to devour us and leave us bleeding on the floor of own minds. We’ve all had those two in the mornings too, as Memory and Dream are often defined as lovers.
It’s always unfortunate when reality is worse.
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The blood in the warehouse was mine. The thought spun in my head as chaos erupted around me. Voices were raised, an argument breaking out, but all I could do was heave and heave and try to lose the memories that had suddenly flooded through my brain. The blood in the warehouse was mine, and the reason had been Valen Ravenswing.
My phone had rung, jarring me out of sleep, the caller’s dry voice a nearly whispered rasp. I was to return to the warehouse immediately; there was a problem. I’d thrown on a pair of pants over my silk shorts and tugged a shirt over my head as I had left the townhouse. I wasn’t the picture-perfect businessman, but that’s what you got when you dragged my ass out of bed at two in the morning.
I’d parked the rental at the trendy coffee shop, entrusting it to the green harpy or whatever that was to keep it safe. Granted, there was insurance for that, but I’d rather not have had to walk back to Tradd Street if I didn’t have to. As it was, it was a two-block walk across to the warehouse, and a near contortion act to get through the hole that someone had cut in the fence. Once inside the compound, I’d run up to the warehouse and let myself in.
“I thought I’d told you not to be too careful,” Ravenswing’s voice had whispered across the darkness. “I needed it to make a scene, to make a point, not look like nothing had happened.” Anger colored his whisper and as I’d turned to look to Ravenswing, I had been suddenly glad that I’d skipped any thought of a midnight snack.
“What the bloody hell happened to you?” To be honest, the last time I had seen him so injured was by my own doing back in the Eighteen Eighties. His skin had been burned away from his hands and face, leathery muscle corded under char, and his eyes were colorless irises swimming in whites floating in scorched sockets. My stomach lurched.
His voice was raspy, and his lips were almost nonexistent, so I’d had to focus on his words. It had suddenly made sense why I’d had to work to understand him earlier on the phone. I’d just thought it a bad cell connection. “Car bomb. His work, or near enough.” I’d stared at him, unable to tear my gaze away from the horror that he’d become and the knowledge that even though I hated him, his current condition almost made me want to pity him.
“You need to go to hospital… or whatever it is that you do to heal. You look…” I remembered running my hand over my own face, glad that I’d felt skin and hair in place where it belonged. “Well, not to be offensive or anything, but you look like a walking, talking Halloween decoration.” The look he gave me was almost worth the joke. Almost.
That dreadful clawed hand had risen, and he’d grabbed my shoulder with a viselike grip, moving forwards so that I’d had to back up. Oh, I’d had a fairly good idea what was coming, and I’d looked at him with all the smartassed attitude that I could muster. “Oh… is it me, Ravenswing? I think I’m honored. It’s only been a day or so since our last altercation… do you think standard rules apply, or would you prefer if I hit back this time?”
Something had flickered in those unnatural eyes, and without the benefit of eyelids, he couldn’t hide the emotion from me. The realization had hit me like an adrenaline rush, and I’d almost emptied my stomach then and there. He needed me in order to survive, needed to feed off of my pain and the pain that I could cause in return. Just as I was a slave to his command, he was a slave to my… what? What quantifying force was he drawn to? My emotions, my physical form? No, that hadn’t been it.
I’d realized what it was at the same time he backhanded me into the wall. When I’d landed, it had been a frantic moment to roll onto my hands and knees before I’d vomited at the impact of the knowledge. He needed my pain, my anger. He fed off of my emotions like a moth did the light of a flame… only in a very literal sense. Ravenswing wasted no time, and his foot caught me in the ribs as he slammed me into the wall again, and that had been the first time I’d blacked out.
Remember what I said about pitying him? Yeah, I take that all back.
I could vaguely remember lying in that blood pool, and hearing a shocked voice faintly nearby before a hand experimentally touched my neck, seeking a pulse. Of course I had a pulse, and I think I even groaned in my reply, but my whole body ached. Things gradually started to filter into my awareness, those adept hands touching my arm, my legs, as if assessing injury.
The stench of blood and vomit was heavy in my face, and I hadn’t even been able to gather my wits to call up my phoenixfire and set the world to rights. Ravenswing’s beating had been brutal and I’d rather expected my skull to be cracked by the throbbing that followed my being rolled onto my back by several hands. Pain had flared through me, and remembered a gasped breath, followed by a voice speaking in surprise, but I’d passed out before I managed to figure anything out.
And then I’d opened my eyes in that hospital room.
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So it was my blood all over that warehouse, a message left to someone; most probably whoever had owned my target. I’d been too tidy, so Ravenswing had seen fit for it to be my penalty… in addition to using the power he gained from the pain I felt. Somehow I had to come up with a way to tell John Kelly that and make him believe it.
A nurse rested her hand on my shoulder, and I wandered out of my mental meanderings. The soiled blanket was being removed, the porter at the foot of the bed drawing it away from me. I looked to the nurse blankly, and she smiled, lifting a warm and wet washcloth to me. “There you go, dear… let’s just get you cleaned up and then you can lay back.” I ached from the effort of vomiting, and all I wanted to do was rest. I took the washcloth and wiped at my face as the nurse set the head of the bed at a gentle incline.
She helped me lean back, and took the washcloth, letting me settle back onto the pillows as the porter unfolded another blanket over me. Fatigue washed through me and I closed my eyes, waiting for the room to clear so that I could relax and bring my magic to my command. I needed to clear things up with Kelly and then get out of the hospital and away from Xelander before it dropped me into madness.
“I don’t care what you have to do; I’m telling you that it’s my blood all over that warehouse.” I stared at John Kelly, having repeated myself for the fifth time. “Have your lab run a blood type against mine. Hell, you can order whatever tests you want, I’ll willingly submit.” We’d been at this for an hour now, and while I had recovered from my morning’s… adventures, and Xelander had provided a set of scrubs for me to wear, I still hadn’t left the hospital. And I needed a cigarette.
“Even if I believed it was yours, which I don’t, Shestin, did you get a good look at that place? I’ve never seen a man walk away from that much blood loss, and there’s not a scratch on you. So stop bullshitting me and give me the truth!”
I should have done this from the start. “Give me something sharp. I don’t care what, just… do it.” Xelander started, looking at me as if to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind, and Kelly’s expression changed to one of disbelief. He handed me a small folding knife from his pocket, though, and I opened the blade and drew the sharp edge along the soft flesh of the underside of my lower arm, cutting in deep enough to make the point. Blood welled up, spilling down to drip from my elbow onto the blanket below. I let them watch for a moment, let the impact settle in before I let my magic free.
Electric blue rippled along my arm, settling into the injury and burning away the blood, bridging across the wound and restoring flesh to untouched, but blooded nonetheless.I wiped the blade off on the blanket and looked to Kelly as I offered it back. “I’m magekind. If you’d done your research, you’d know that. I shouldn’t have had to explain it to you. The next time you try to horn in on one of my cases, I’ll have a less than friendly discussion with your Captain. Now get out there, find my car, and stay out of my way.”
Sergeant John Kelly was as white as the blanket I had bled on. If I didn’t have my own aversion to blood, I’d probably have enjoyed his reaction more, but I wasn’t in any position to throw stones. I slid off of the bed onto the cold linoleum floor and paused as I passed Kelly, who had taken a step backwards and away from me. “Run the tests if you want; I’ll do you the favor of staying in town for a week, just in case you still don’t believe me.”
He was a mundane, and I was angry enough for it to be believable, which was the only reason I managed to get away with the bluff. Xelander didn’t know the difference, and Suzu wasn’t in the room to give me away. She’d been in the waiting lounge the last I knew, so I left the patient room and walked down the hall to find her. If she was there, I’d get her to take me to the rental car, and if she wasn’t, I’d walk. It was a straight shot from Roper Hospital across Calhoun; half an hour would have me there. The fact that I was barefoot would suck, but I’d lived through worse. This morning was a prime example of that.
Suzu wasn’t there, and I turned to head down to the front when Xelander caught up with me and herded me back to the patient room. Kelly was seated in the visitor chair, talking on his cellphone, and I couldn’t keep track of his half of the conversation while Xelander spoke to me. “Teimhean… stay. It is nearly time for me to be offshift, and I will take you wherever you need to go.”
My brain switched gears, and I remembered that I needed the rental car keys. “Kelly,” I snapped, looking past Xelander’s shoulder at him. “Your team found car keys at the site. I want them back.” It wasn’t a guess; I didn’t have them, which meant they were on the floor of the warehouse and any crime scene investigator worth his or her paycheck had already processed them. “You can find the rental car up at the coffee shop on Calhoun at Alexander. I’d call it fair if it arrived in my driveway this afternoon. Washed.” Kelly gaped at me, and then seemed to realize that the person on the other end was talking.
I looked back to Xelander and shrugged. “I can get into my townhouse, but until I have the rental keys back, I’m at a loss for transportation beyond my own two feet.” I didn’t want this, didn’t want Xelander back in my life in any form or fashion, but I wasn’t being given much choice. I couldn’t be sure which one it was, but I was pretty certain one of the Fates was busy laughing her head off at me.
“I’ll take him home.” Suzu spoke as she entered the room, and ended any chance of being trapped in a car with Xelander. I turned to see her standing there with a knowing smile, and flashed a grateful smile to her in return. “I left some things at your place that I need to pick up, anyway, Jedah.”
I could almost see the wide eyed gaze of surprise on Xelander’s face, and I knew better than to turn and look at him. Suzu made it a point to hover next to me, the perfect image of statuesque blonde girlfriend worrying over her companion. It was entirely too believable and all the more heart wrenching for it. I loved her. She had to know; she was a thoughtmage.
Suzu owns a 2007 MX-5 Miata hardtop… and she drives it like a bat out of hell. Then again, considering that she’s a vampire, one could find the bat joke entirely too appropriate, but on the other hand, it wasn’t as if she was going to get killed in a car accident. Neither was I, for that matter, and I rather enjoyed the madcap zipping through traffic. She was a natural, and I’d have put money on her in a race.
We very nearly executed a slingshot around the end of the parking lot, shooting out onto Calhoun, and I looked at the woman who in some lights could be considered an angel, no matter her vampiric tendencies. “Thank you… for everything, Suzu. Let me get home and clean up… and I’ll buy you dinner later?” She snorted as she flung the car around the interchange and neatly slid into afternoon traffic on Lockwood. I didn’t know how she avoided tickets.
“Dinner? Will he be blond, or do I get a brunette this time? Oh, oh, I know! Redhead!”
I had to laugh, even though I knew it had been coming, and we were on Broad Street before I could reply. “And she says I’m a smartass. You know what I meant!” Her idea of dinner wasn’t mentionable, and my idea of dinner usually involved going out and pushing food around on our plates while talking and people watching.
We turned down Rutledge, heading for Tradd, and she was silent until she stopped the car in front of my walk. I had my hand on the door handle when her hand rested on my arm. I turned back to find her a breath away from me, teal eyes searching mine intently for a moment before she smiled quickly and pulled away. We said nothing as I exited the Miata and I headed up the brick path to my house. She was gone back round the corner before I even got to the front door. Oh, yes. She knew.