Fairytale (35 page)

“Bridin, you don’t understand. He’s the
reason I can’t go back with you. I love this man.”

“We can’t let him die.”

“No, we can’t let him die,” Brigit said
softly. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked up at her sister.

“I thought you said it wasn’t a killing
blast?”

“For a fairy, it wouldn’t have been. For a
mortal...” She shook her head sadly.

“Is there a way we can...help him?”

Bridin stared into Brigit’s eyes. “I can help
him. But if I do, you have to promise to come back with me. I want
your word. Give it to me, and I’ll save your Adam’s life.”

Brigit’s heart twisted into a hard little
knot. But she looked down at Adam, so still in that bed, and she
knew she had no choice. She couldn’t let him die. Brushing a tear
from her cheek, she nodded. “Yes. I promise. If you help him, I’ll
go with you.”

Bridin seemed to sag a bit in relief. Then
she bent over Adam, laying her palms on his temples, closing her
eyes. Seconds ticked by, and Brigit waited, watching, praying.

And right before her eyes, the crystal point
dangling from Bridin’s neck, hovering just above Adam’s face, began
to glow very softly. A gentle white gleam suffused the quartz. And
it beamed downward, touching Adam’s face, bathing it.

Brigit blinked and rubbed her eyes, but the
apparition didn’t go away. Not until Bridin shook her head, and
stood straight again. “I’m not strong enough. Not by myself. There
are still too many of their chemicals floating around in my
bloodstream, diluting my magic. You’ll have to help me,
Brigit.”

“M-me?”

Bridin looked at Brigit’s neck, frowned.
“Where is your pendant?”

“I...” She gave her head a shake, and thrust
a hand into the pocket of her jeans, pulling out the pewter fairy,
with its broken chain and blackened crystal.

“Well, it’s no good like
that,”
Bridin
said. “Cleanse it. And hurry up. We don’t have all night.”

Brigit frowned, just staring at her.

Bridin’s eyes softened. Her tone gentled.
“I’m sorry, little sister. It’s so vital to me to get back. I’ve
been waiting so long for this day. I...I’m being impatient and
short-tempered with you, forgetting you don’t understand the
ways...”

She stepped closer to Brigit, took her hand,
and laid it across her own upturned palm. “But you know you have
magic in you, don’t you Brigit?”

Brigit nodded. “Yes. I know. I think a part
of me has always known. But I didn’t understand...”

“Close your hand around the pendant, little
sister.” And as she said it, she closed her own, delicate hand
around Brigit’s, so the pendant was trapped in their fists. “Close
your eyes, and work up your energy. Get mad. Think about the Dark
Prince and the way he hurt Adam.”

Still unsure she could control her own
abilities, Brigit complied. She closed her hand tighter and
squeezed her eyes simultaneously. As if summoned against her will,
that scene at the ball park came rushing back to her. And she did
feel angry, despite the distractions at hand.

“That’s it. Now, focus all that anger on the
evil caught in your crystal. It’s his evil, Brigit. Aim your anger
at it and fire, just the way he did when he hurled his evil at you.
Use your anger as a weapon, and your goodness to blast that evil
out of the crystal.”

That odd state of focus that always came over
her when she was painting began to steal over Brigit again, right
now. Only instead of fixating on an image she wanted to reproduce,
it was all directed toward that evil creature that had hurt
Adam.

“Send it back where it came from,
Brigit.”

From the tips of her toes, a wave of
something
rose, up through her body, filling her, rushing
upward tingling every nerve ending like an electrical charge. Her
lips parted and it escaped, bursting from her in the form of a
shout. “Get out!”

And then the feeling was gone, and she felt
weak, as if she’d just run a mile.

Bridin’s hand over her fisted one eased, and
with her free hand, she gently pried Brigit’s fingers open. When
Brigit looked down at the necklace resting in her palm, the quartz
point was as clear and as sparkling as a flawless diamond. She
blinked down at it, then up at her sister.

“Magic,” she whispered. “You’ll get used to
it. Now, you have to do it again. For Adam.”

Her gaze went to Adam, lying so near death in
that bed, and her heart tripped over itself with the force of what
she felt for him.

“Come on, Brigit. Help me bring him back. We
have to hurry. As soon as the Dark Prince recovers his strength,
he’ll be back here. And his henchmen will be looking for me soon as
well.” Bridin took the pendant out of her hand and put it around
Brigit’s neck, tying a knot in the chain because the clasp was
broken. “Now, go stand over there.”

Brigit moved to the opposite side of the bed.
She felt as if she were in a dream. Everything was out of focus and
surreal. Dazed, she watched her sister, imitating her every move.
When Bridin leaned over Adam and placed her hand against his left
temple, Brigit leaned over and pressed her palm to his right one.
Her cheek touched her sister’s, and their pendants met, the chains
twisting together right over Adam’s face.

“Now,” Bridin whispered, “Make him live.”

Strength surged through Adam’s body, shooting
out into his limbs and zinging through his veins more potent than
that electrical charge had done.

***

“Live!”

That command, spoken more fiercely than any
drill sergeant’s meanest bark, rang in his ears. And it took him a
full minute to recognize that beloved voice.

“Live, Adam! Be all right! Dammit,
live!”

Soft, warm hands were pressed to either side
of his head, and Brigit was shouting in his face. He thought he’d
better respond soon, before she slapped him or something.

“Adam, wake up!”

“All right, all right,” he rasped, forcing
his eyes open. “Give a guy a break, would you?”

“Adam . . .” she croaked.

She leaned over him, and her beautiful black
eyes brimmed with tears. Her lips trembled into a half-smile as she
searched his face. “Adam?”

Lifting one hand to the back of her head, he
pulled her closer, kissed her mouth, tasted her tears. And when he
let her go, and she straightened away from him, his vision was a
little clearer, his body a little stronger, as if he’d drawn
sustenance from that kiss. Damned if he didn’t believe he had.

And then he saw the other woman standing
nervously near the door, peering out on occasion.

She was beautiful, the other one. Not a
nurse. A patient, by the way she was dressed, and...

Ah, but what did it matter?

He met Brigit’s eyes again, and all that had
happened came rushing back to him. He shivered a little, shook his
head. “Brigit, what in hell has been going on here?”

The door opened and another woman came in.
This one, a doctor. Obvious by the white lab coat and the
stethoscope around her neck.

“Brigit, I know you want to be near him,” she
began, “but he needs to rest and—” She broke off, looking at Adam
as if seeing a ghost. And then she said a word that Adam was pretty
sure she hadn’t learned in med school.

“Brigit?” Adam prompted.

“I...I’m not sure.”

The doctor finally snapped out of her state
of shock, and came further inside, gripping Adam’s wrist, flicking
a pen-light into his eyes, muttering under her breath.

Glancing around at Brigit, the doctor said,
“You two are going to have to step out while I examine him.”

“No, Dr. Evans,” the strange, golden,
rail-thin woman in the hospital gown said softly. “I’m afraid we
can’t do that. Adam’s leaving. Right now, and so are we.”

Every eye in that room turned to the woman
who spoke with such quiet authority. And for some reason Adam
couldn’t figure out, he agreed with her.

“Who are you?” Dr. Evans asked. “Are you a
patient here, or—”

“No,” Brigit said quickly. Maybe a little
too
quickly for Adam’s peace of mind. “She’s my sister,”

Your sister!
He sat up straighter in
the bed.

“She wanted to take a nap and a nurse gave
her that hospital gown to wear.”

As Brigit spoke, the blond woman
surreptitiously moved one hand behind her back. But not before Adam
had seen the i.d. bracelet on her wrist. He also saw the pendant
she wore, and realized at least part of what Brigit had said was
true. She was her sister. The mysterious, elusive Bridin had
somehow materialized in his hospital room. And that meant—his heart
began to crumble into tiny bits of dust. That meant that his time
with Brigit was just about over. She’d found her sister, or her
sister had found her. And it was time for them to fulfill their
destiny, and for him to fulfill his, if he could.

Maybe he was still unconscious. Maybe this
was all a dream. A nightmare.

Brigit looked at him, with an unmistakable
plea in her eyes. And he responded, doing what he knew she wanted,
just as he always seemed to do.

He took the doctor’s attention away from
Brigit’s sister. “I’m all for getting out of here.”

Adam distracted them all by getting out of
the bed. Brigit looked relieved. She pushed past the flustered
doctor to yank open a closet and produce his jeans and running
shoes.

“Mr. Reid,” Dr. Evans said, “a few hours ago
you were clinically dead. We had to electrocute your heart three
times to get a rhythm. We weren’t even sure you were going to pull
through. There is no way you can simply walk out of this hospital
and—”

“Look, doc, no offense, but I’d really rather
see my own M.D. It’s a short drive, really.” He pulled on his
jeans, snapped them, tugged up the zipper, and stuffed his feet
into his shoes.

Bridin closed her eyes, seemingly intent on
something. Then Adam heard that universally cloned, hushed voice
come over the P.A: “Dr. Evans to E.R., STAT. Dr. Evans to E.R.,
STAT.”

Dr. Evans blew a sigh. “Nobody leaves,” she
said. “I’ll be back shortly and we’ll discuss this.”

She waited until Adam shrugged and sat down
on the bed. “All right, if you insist.”

“I mean it,” she said. And then she left.

Adam got up. “I’m assuming there’s a reason
for the hurry.”

The P.A. fired up again. “Security to the
sixth floor. Security to the sixth floor. Code green.”

“That would be the reason,” Bridin said. “One
missing patient, who might be a little bit off in the head.”

Adam paused, staring from one to the
other.

“It’s all right, Adam. She’s right. We really
do need to get out of here.”

“Of course you do,” Bridin said. “The man you
met earlier knows exactly where you are.

He’ll make us both his prisoners if he finds
us, and probably kill you, Adam.”

Adam met Brigit’s eyes. God, there was so
much he wanted to say to her, to tell her and to ask her. But he
saw the urgency there. He’d find time to tell her...to tell her
everything, before she left him for good.

And then he’d proceed to spend the rest of
his life aching for her.

The three of them slipped out of the room,
moving fast toward the elevators.

“We have to get Raze,” Brigit whispered as
they hit the elevator button.

“I already did that,” her sister said
softly.

“What do you mean? You’ve been with me the
whole time.” Brigit went silent when the elevator doors opened to
reveal a skinny, white-haired, stubble-faced man, grinning
sleepily.

“My girls,” he said, arms opened wide. When
they both hugged him, Adam knew he had to be the legendary
Razor-Face Malone.

Brigit insisted they couldn’t go back to
Adam’s place. Or to her own. She even felt it wouldn’t be safe to
go back to Ithaca. Nor was it, she insisted, to remain in
Binghamton.

They wound up renting suites at a hotel in
nearby Vestal, and they sat around in one of them until the wee
hours became dawn. Raze and Bridin filled Adam and Brigit in on
everything. How they knew each other. Why Bridin had painted Rush
in the first place, and how she’d put an enchantment on the
painting before sending it out to find her long-lost sister. Which
was why the Dark Prince couldn’t just destroy it himself, and why
he’d hired Zaslow to do it for him. But Bridin’s magic had been
strong, and the painting had done its job. It had brought the
sisters together again.

“The fairytale is true,” she told Adam. “And
now Brigit must return with me to Rush.”

Brigit looked right into his eyes, and he saw
the tears pooling in hers. He wouldn’t make this harder on her. “I
know,” he said softly. “I’ve known all along she had to go back.”
He reached across the table, took Brigit’s hands in his. “It’s
okay,” he told her, because he knew she was hurting as much as he,
and he wanted to make it easier for her to leave him. “It’s okay.
I’ll be all right.”

Raze cleared his throat, and sent Bridin a
silent message. She nodded, and they both rose and went to their
own rooms. Brigit got to her feet, and stumbled into the bathroom,
closing the door behind her, and Adam knew she’d gone in there so
he wouldn’t see her crying. She wanted to spare him from knowing
how much this was hurting her, the same way he’d been trying to
spare her seeing his pain.

Damn, if this didn’t kill him, he didn’t
think anything ever would. After a while he heard the shower
running. He sat on the bed, telling himself he could get through
this, knowing it was a lie.

Brigit came out of the bathroom, wearing one
of the complimentary hotel robes, and all of a sudden, it didn’t
matter. He’d fall apart. He knew damned good and well he would. But
not until after she’d gone.

She stood there, right beside the bed, and
she stared down at him, and her heartache was in her eyes. He held
up his hand, and she took it.