I don’t know quite how to feel. Some of the apathy from the dream still clung to me, I guess. The… infection, for lack of a better word, of the black cells had spread to my midsection somehow. If it had spread from my extremities, around an inch in a year, what did that mean for another patch, roughly centered? Would that be half the time left I had until I was completely infected? Quarter of it?

If this thing was a cancer, I’d be fucked. Cancer’s lethality spiked when it hit a major organ. And now a portion of my intestines, maybe even my kidney, was infected. I didn’t even know what this thing was doing to me, except making my skin a little tougher and my nails metallic. Hell, I hadn’t used the Limbs of the Other Side in over a year. I wasn’t sure they were the source of this problem. Maybe just an instigator?

Just… fuck me.

“Colm?” Alice asked, looking concerned.

I realized Alice had been saying something while I was deep in thought. I blinked and focused on her. “Sorry, I… what did you say?”

“We should probably get you to Doctor Cross,” she said gently. “We’re back in the area, and—“

I sighed and shook my head, then paused. I was gravely wounded, and the doc was already working on my problem. I turned my head to the side and saw Bogo waiting. I swore softly.

“We have to find the end of the trail,” I said. “We’ve been delayed too much already.”

“Colm, finding your brother is super important, but you won’t be able to help him if you’re fucking dead,” Alice said with some heat in her voice.

I nodded slowly. “I agree, but Bogo over there can’t eat until he finds his mark,” I said. “It’s part of what makes him such a good tracker. If the hunt takes too long, he’ll be yanked back by his owner and I’ll suffer the backlash. I’m not sure I’d survive that even if I was healthy.”

Alice made a frustrated noise. “That would have been nice to know before you went ahead and summoned him!”

I nodded slowly, with a wince. “Yeah,” I said with no energy. “Things kinda went tits-up.”

Alice made a frustrated noise. “I’ll see if she can meet up with us. She doesn’t do house calls but this is an emergency.”

“Tell her I’ll pay her whatever she wants,” I said.

I thought about that. “Within reason. I’m not a billionaire.”

Alice muttered something. I caught “crazy idiot” and “killing himself” as she tapped on her phone a few times and walked away.

Bogo appeared at my side and made a whining noise, which showed his monstrous mouth briefly. I reached over and rubbed his head. “Yeah, I know,” I said. “We’ll get moving as soon as we can.”

“Hff,” Bogo said and nuzzled my hand. He turned and crossed to a corner of the room where he lay down, his head resting on his front paws, his big sad eyes on me.

I should get a dog when this is over. One that wasn’t half mouth.

* * *

I must have drifted off because the next thing I felt was a sharp pain in my side. I hissed through my teeth and flinched.

“Sorry,” Ida said. “Changing your dressing.”

I opened my eyes to see my bare torso, with Ida holding a new pad of gauze over my wound. She was about to start taping it down when I grabbed her hand. “Wait,” I said. “L-let me see it.”

Ida paled a bit but nodded, lifting the gauze.

It wasn’t gaping open like it had in Alice’s picture, which I guess was good. Someone, likely Alice, had stitched it closed. But the edges of the wound were the same black as my hands and feet. But unlike my limbs, little tendrils that reminded me of the one from my dream were poking out from the wound, making it resemble a shitty drawing of an amoeba.

It was also steadily leaking a brown, clear liquid that smelled like shit.

“Yeah, okay, I’m good,” I said and closed my eyes.

I kept my hisses of pain to a minimum as Ida cleaned the wound again and covered it up. Her ministrations were short and confident, and I was taped up in under a minute.

“Alice said she managed to close up most of the internal damage,” Ida began as she started to put away her supplies in a little carrying case… no that was a straight-up tackle box. “But she had to rush as she didn’t have a lot of that ointment. You’ve been leaking that stuff since.”

I opened my eyes to study her. She wasn’t looking at me, but rather at her disposable gloves on her hands. She was kneeling on the floor, the old dressings in a plastic back tied off to keep the smell contained. “We almost took you to the ER, but shortly after she had to stop, you stopped bleeding and you seemed to get better.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I’ve made some changes,” I said softly. “I’m a bit heartier than I was on the island.”

She looked up at me, and I could see there was some emotion in her eyes. She hadn’t been crying, but there was a weight there that I empathized with. It felt similar to my own emotional turmoil.

“Enough to heal this?” She asked, tilting her head toward my wound.

“Eeeehh,” I said. “It’s kinda hard to test these kinds of improvements, you know? I’m not about to impale myself to measure recovery rates.”

She gave me a strained smile and nodded. After a few seconds, she pulled off her gloves and rolled back onto her heels, and was about to walk away until I grabbed her hand again. “Hey, uh…”

Ida turned and looked at me curiously.

“I just…” I began, not really sure what I was trying to say. “I—I wanted to thank you, for coming along for all of this. This was supposed to be a fun get-together, and—and another one of my fucked-up problems gobbled up our time. I—Thank you. I mean it.”

A warm smile lit up her face and she lifted my hand to her lips and placed a gentle kiss on my knuckles. “You’re welcome,” she said.

She looked at the bag of gauze and the tackle box, sighed, and let go of my hand. She disappeared for a few moments before she came back with a folding chair. She plopped down into it so she was sitting beside me, her hands clasped in front of her as she seemed to wrestle with something. I frowned in concern but otherwise gave her time.

“I haven’t been completely honest about this visit,” Ida said at last. “You have so much on your plate already, I wasn’t even sure if I should bring it up.” Her eyes lingered on my wound for a moment. “But… things have been so hectic, I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to bring it up again. I don’t want some complication I’m involved in to blindside you.”

I felt a wave of guilt as Alice’s words from a little while ago echoed in my head. I pushed it aside as best as I could. “Are you in danger?”

She blew out a breath, blowing her bangs out of her eyes as she flopped back in the chair. “I can’t go back home.”

I frowned. “Like, to your mom's place?”

“To France,” she said with a sigh

“What? Why?”

“It is… a fucking mess,” she said with some venom. “After the cruise, there was an investigation done by Interpol. I took your advice and didn’t tell them about all the monsters and magic, and instead said that the traffickers believed in the occult and had methods that stopped me from being able to report in. The prisoners and people from the cruise were happy to shout about the magic and other craziness, and many began to disappear.”

She ran a hand done her ponytail and started to fidget with it as she talked. “No one liked the situation, and it became apparent I was going to be used as a scapegoat, or at the very least made to disappear.”

I had a dozen questions pop up. I pushed them aside for now. “I assumed they didn’t try you since you’re here?”

“No,” she said. “They did. But my father pulled some strings and got them to reduce the charges. But the investigation is still ongoing, and I kept being pulled in by one arm of the government after another. My father tried to shield me, but even his reach has limits. I had to flee the country.

“It was a compromise,” she said. “Someone was pressuring Interpol and the French government to quickly tie off the investigation. For my father’s cooperation, they allowed me to leave under an assumed identity. I can’t go back to Europe or the deal is off.”

I took a moment to let it soak in. “Holy shit…”

“As I said, I wasn’t even going to bring it up, but—“ she made a broad gesture. “More magical craziness keeps happening. We’ve traveled over two thousand miles in under a week!” She tugged on her ponytail again. “I didn’t want to have to suddenly explain why I had to stay behind if you had to go to Europe to find your brother.”

"Why didn't you bring it up on the calls?" I asked. "We've been Facetiming for months."

She made a frustrated sound. "I couldn't," she said. "My father said that any talk of the investigation or my involvement with the traffickers would give them, whoever 'they' were, more incentive to come after me. Honestly, he didn't even want me to be in contact with you at all, but you and Alice were the only people that made me retain my sanity. Everyone back home acted like I was a lunatic.

"After a few months, people acted like the entire two years I was undercover simply didn't happen. My exemplary work record, thousands of witness accounts, and piles of evidence. All of it was just shut away or disappeared."

She rubbed her face with her hands, and I saw them shake for a bit. "I survived two years amidst murderers and rapists, and my entire country not only wanted me to forget it, but also tried to make me disappear."

I didn’t know what to say, and my silence stretched until it became uncomfortable. I was dead tired and wounded, which was hampering my ability to process this. So instead of using my mouth, I held out my hand for her.

She took my hand and I brought hers to my lips and placed a kiss on her knuckles like she had done mine. Ida smiled sadly.

“That fucking blows,” I said, deadpan.

Ida snorted out a laugh and pretend swatted me.

“Seriously, though, is your dad a bigwig? You never talk about him,” I asked.

“He’s a pig,” Ida said callously. “But he’s a high-ranking member of the Ministère de la Justice. Providing my escape from the country might be the only good thing he’s ever done for me.”

“Shitty dad club,” I said weakly and held up my hand for a high five. She snorted and gave my hand a slap.

I smiled sadly and held her gaze. “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “If you need help, say the word and I’ll show up and… probably make everything worse.”

Ida’s eyes widened and she started laughing helplessly.

“I mean it,” I continued. “I have a gift. Demons, pirates, weird eldritch plagues. I should be listed as a hazardous material. I don’t know why you hang out with me.”

Ida laughed for a half minute before she calmed down enough to lean forward and press her forehead to mine. “Yes,” she said, her eyes boring into mine. “It is a mystery.”

We were about to kiss but were interrupted by an outburst of Spanish on the other side of the house. Ida straightened up with a frown.

“Sounds like negotiations with the doc aren’t going well,” I muttered.

“No, she got off the phone with the doctor half an hour ago,” Ida said. “The doctor couldn’t make it, but is sending her nurse who has a way with healing magic.”

I felt a dread I hadn’t been aware of melt away. “Oh, good,” I said, relief flooding through me. “Do you know who she’s on the phone with now?”

“Her mother.”

There was another burst of yelling in Spanish.

“Sounds like it’s going well,” I deadpanned.

Ida hummed in agreement.