Fallen Angel of Mine (30 page)

Black hair spilled from beneath, now
freed from its confines, and splayed out across the fair skin of
the female's face.

My legs collapsed underneath me, and I
crashed into the chair I'd been sitting on, catapulting the pitcher
of water and causing it to splash everywhere. Lina sputtered as
water streamed down her face. But I couldn't take my eyes off the
Templar, off her face.

"Are you okay?" Lina said as she
cleared a curtain of soaked hair from her face. "What's
wrong?"

"Elyssa," I said, my voice a low
whisper. A playback of the night's near-death experiences flooded
my chest with horror. I could have killed Elyssa. Kicked her into
the jet engines and never known it was her. Another thought
pummeled my stomach and the pain in my heart squeezed tighter until
it ached like someone had shoved a silver dagger inside me. Had she
been trying to kill me?

Not once had she called my name or
identified herself. Her insane actions screamed her intentions. If
her father had followed through on his threats, then Elyssa and I
were strangers. I was just another perp she wanted to bring to
justice.

My body shook and a voice penetrated
the haze of discombobulation muting my senses.

"What's wrong, Justin? Answer me!"
Lina's face appeared inches from mine.

"The Templar. Her name is Elyssa. She's
my girlfriend."

Lina growled a stream of
something that sounded suspiciously like cursing in Spanish and
glared at the unconscious form on the cot. "If this is your
girlfriend, she has serious mental problems. That
chica
tried to kill
you!"

No, I realized, she hadn't been trying
to kill either of us. Elyssa wasn't someone who gave up—ever. I
tried to puzzle things out, if only to push aside the painful
emotions throwing ninja stars into my heart. What in the world was
she doing all the way down in Colombia, for starters? And how much
of her memory was gone? Dozens of questions boiled in my head. The
instant the healer arrived, he absolutely had to wake her so I
could find out what in the world was going on.

I checked her pulse by pressing two
fingers against the creamy skin of her neck. Her heart beat strong.
A sharp needle of ivory protruded beneath her red lips. I pushed up
a corner of her mouth to reveal fangs. She must be
starving.

"Do you have any blood
packs?"

Lina curled a lip in disgust. "No, but
Bella probably does." She stood and regarded Elyssa's slumbering
form for a moment. "I saw what you went through to get into the
jet, Justin. What kind of girlfriend tries to kill you?"

"She's not in her right
mind."

"
Si
, she is
loco
!"

"No, it's just—ugh, it's really
complicated to explain."

"I can listen," she said, kneeling in
front of me and taking my hand in hers. "I want to
understand."

I forced a grin and pushed a wet lock
of hair dangling in her face behind an ear. "Would you mind getting
some blood from Bella? Then I'll tell you whatever you want to
know."

She leaned forward and
kissed me on the cheek. "I will be right back,
guapo
."

Once she left, I knelt beside Elyssa
and kissed her gently on the lips. God, how I'd missed those
perfect lips. I peeled back an eyelid and looked at the sparkling
violet iris beneath. She didn't so much as flinch. Whatever Bella
had done to knock her out was pretty strong, apparently. I found
another tiny button to release the top part of the uniform. After
putting a blanket atop her for modesty, I used her gloved hand to
press the button. The gloves and shirt melted away into the lower
part of the uniform. Thankfully, she had a sports bra on beneath
that looked painfully tight. The last button released the pants and
strange, five-toed shoes she wore, all vanishing into a thin belt
of material which remained around her waist. A pair of purple boy
shorts, which, coincidentally, matched her bra, were
revealed.

Without the dark uniform in the way,
crusted blood stood out in stark contrast to her fair skin. Bullet
wounds pockmarked both legs, leaving swollen welts on her skin, one
in the hamstring, the other on the side of her thigh. Another
bullet had impacted her lower back while yet another had lodged in
the shoulder of the same arm she'd used to hold onto my leg. I
didn't know how in the world she'd managed to cling to me so long.
The burn in my own wounds was a constant throb, at this point, and
each minute increased the pain factor. Franco must have known
Templars might try to break up his organization. These bullets
could be laced with silver or something even nastier to stop
supernaturals.

"My word," said an older gentleman as
he stood in the doorway. He was Caucasian and pronounced "word"
like it started with a "v". "Let me have a look." He pulled a chair
next to Elyssa, not even taking the time to wipe the water I'd
spilled earlier off the seat. "Cursed bullets."

"Yeah, damned things."

He pushed a pair of thin spectacles up
the bridge of his nose. "I meant that quite literally. These
bullets were enchanted—or cursed as I like to call harmful
enchantments—and made specifically to penetrate protective charms
and kill supernaturals who are vulnerable to silver."

"Can you heal her?"

He reached into a quaint doctor satchel
and pulled out a thin rod. "I will need to remove the bullets and
give her something to thin the amount of silver in her
bloodstream." He noticed the blood on my leg. "Were you
hit?"

I nodded.

"Let me know if the pain becomes too
much. In the meantime, we should get these out of her first." He
looked me up and down, apparently taking stock of my condition.
"Can you assist, or will you faint?"

"Just tell me what you want me to
do."

He offered me a pair of latex gloves
and put a pair on himself, then checked the skin around Elyssa's
shoulder wound. Silvery-blue lines veined her skin around the
puckered wound. "Silver poisoning for sure," he said and reached
into his bag for what looked like a set of stainless steel clamps.
"Hold these against the skin like so." He pressed them flat to
either side of the wound and opened them. The skin splayed wide to
reveal the gristly hole beneath.

I suppressed a gag and held the clamp
against her skin while he inserted the thin rod carefully into the
gap, muttering words in what sounded like Latin. The rod shimmered,
seeming to turn almost liquid, but held its form and the healer
eased it out. At the tip was a flattened silver slug clinging like
a drop of mercury to the end. He pulled a metal container from his
duffel bag, muttered a word, and the bullet slug dropped inside
with a clink.

"Continue to hold that open," he said
and inserted a tube made of some sort of flexible metallic-looking
material. A few words later, a thin stream of watery blood dripped
from one end and into a transparent container.

"Is it sucking out the silver?" I
asked, captivated by the strange device.

"It can be attuned to draw various
substances from the blood. In this case, it is indeed targeting the
silver in the blood."

As it leeched the poisons, I noticed
the silver-hued veins in her skin lighten until they looked just as
healthy as the surrounding tissue. In fact, her flesh began
knitting itself together before he'd even removed the tube. Before
I could point this out, however, he smoothly withdrew it and moved
to the next wound. Sweat dripped down my face and it wasn't because
I felt squeamish. The pain in my own injuries had increased
substantially. What had started as a sharp throbbing now felt like
fire. I tore one of the bullet holes in my pants a bit wider and
grimaced at the bluish-black color of the skin beneath.

Devon looked where I was looking and
drew in a deep breath. "Good heavens! We should tend to that
straight away."

I shook my head. "No, let's finish
Elyssa."

He glanced back at the darkening skin
around her wounds and back to mine, obviously torn about which
patient to work on first. "Perhaps we should do yours
first."

"Do you have anyone else who can do
this? An assistant?"

"No, and even if I did, I have only one
extractor and one cleanser. The wound must be purged right after
removing the bullet so the flesh doesn't try to heal and seal the
poison inside."

"We finish Elyssa then."

He returned an uncertain look but
finally nodded and returned his attention to her.

Lina returned as I placed the clamp
over the darkening wound in Elyssa's thigh. In her left hand, she
held a jar filled with what had to be blood. "How's it going?" she
asked, resting her hand on my shoulder.

For some reason, I felt hyper-aware of
her hand and the heat radiating from it, though I wasn't exactly
uncomfortable enough to ask her to unhand me or anything. My body
had no complaints about a cute girl touching me, but my conscience
had trouble with it, especially with my unconscious girlfriend
right in front of me. Sweat trickled down my forehead, coming to
rest in a bead at the tip of my nose.

"Smoothly," Devon said. "But we are on
a time limit here. The silver poisoning is spreading further with
every moment and each wound will take much longer to clear than the
last."

"What about Justin?" Lina
said, her mouth open in disapproval. "Why aren't you helping him
first?" Her eyes grew wide as she examined the blistering gash on
my leg. "
Madre de dios
! Look at him!" She knelt and gently touched the skin. "Why
have you not removed this?"

Devon sighed and, while extracting the
bullet from Elyssa's leg, explained in patient tones what he and I
had just discussed. He inserted the tube into the wound. The last
time it had removed watery blood. This time, the blood came out
thicker and almost purple. It smelled like death. Lina made a
choking noise and backed away. It took almost twice as long before
the skin looked healthy enough to heal on its own.

Elyssa's breathing, which to this point
had been quiet, burst into a shallow fluttery cadence, each gasp
carrying a desperate note with it. Her body shuddered and her hand
gripped the edge of the cot so hard, the metal crumpled.

"What's happening?" I asked, trying to
hold her still.

Devon's calm demeanor transformed into
that of a battlefield commander under fire. "Lina, get me some
diamond fiber, now!"

She raced from the room. He looked at
me. "Get her off the cot and onto the floor before she breaks that
thing in half."

Fighting against my own agony, I lifted
her so he could slide the cot away and then set her down on the
rug. One of her flailing hands smacked me in the face and a galaxy
of stars burst into my eyes as I stumbled backward from my
squatting position and cracked my head on the chair behind
me.

Lina returned with several thick
crystalline strands of diamond fiber. The healer instructed me to
hold Elyssa down while he secured her extremities. Her entire body
abruptly went limp and my heart thudded against my ribs like a lead
hammer.

"What happened? Is she okay?" My chest
constricted with panic. The oxygen seemed to have vanished from the
air and I could hardly breathe.

"Tie her down," Devon commanded to
Lina.

She tossed a couple strands to him and,
within seconds, they immobilized Elyssa's arms and legs by pressing
the diamond fiber to the floor where it seemed to meld into
it.

Nausea poured into my guts like molten
vomit and the taste of acid splashed against the back of my throat.
"Is she okay?" My words came out thick and I couldn't hold myself
in a sitting position any longer. Tears of pain or worry—I didn't
know which—obscured my vision.

"Justin!" Lina said.

"Help me, girl," Devon said, glancing
back at me. "Help me now, or we'll lose both of them."

"Oh my," said another familiar voice. I
looked up into Bella's concerned face. "Can I help,
Devon?"

He spoke to her, his voice clear as
ever, but for some reason, I couldn't hold onto his words. Couldn't
make sense of what he was saying. A dull roar, like distant ocean
waves crashing against a rocky shore rumbled in my ears and I felt
my mind drifting away.

I fought against the oncoming oblivion,
but the strength in my body melted away like butter on hot asphalt.
Lina's face appeared close to mine, her brown eyes wide, her lips
moving. Tears glistened and ran down her cheeks.

The last thing I heard was Devon
saying, "We're losing her."

I stood at my bedroom door, looking up
and down the hall, the doorway at one end bathing the silhouette of
a man in a top hat in brilliant white light. The other end of the
hallway oozed dark wispy shadows from a gaping hole in the wall. I
looked at my tiny hands and said, "Hello?" in a midget voice. I was
back in a dream I'd had before, obviously the result of the
traumatic memory of when my Grandpa Conroy abducted my baby
sister.