Firestorm (25 page)

Imara's lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, but she didn't move. Eamon leaned back, then slipped off me with a creak of bedsprings. He used the knife on the ropes, quick slashes, and I rolled over on my side. I felt hot and sick. Drugged. Too drugged to do much. Eamon patted me on the shoulder. “There, there. You'll feel better—well, if you make me happy. If not, you'll slip into a coma and die.”

Imara was up on her feet in one fluid motion. Her hands were at her sides, but I could see the gleam of claws, and threw her a warning shake of my head. “He gave me a shot,” I said. “Can't—just wait. Wait.”

Eamon hauled me to my feet. Cold air hit my skin, and I remembered with a bleary shudder that I was naked. He barely glanced at me, just shoved me forward into Imara's arms. “Get her dressed,” he said. “Don't think of trying anything tricky. If you cooperate, we'll be saying our fond farewells in just a little while.”

“Mom?” Imara sounded scared, and pissed as hell. “Should I kill him?”

Funny, I'd been blaming David for murder in the name of self-preservation just a little while ago, hadn't I? But if I hadn't had Sarah's life depending on this, as well as my own, I'd have cheerfully watched Imara debone the bastard right in front of me. Flexible ethics. The key to a happy life.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

She opened up a bag that was lying on the floor behind her. Clothes. Nice ones. Silky, formfitting underwear. A silky pair of gray microfiber pants. A pull-on black velvet scoop-necked top.

And a pair of elegant black shoes, sculptural and spike-heeled.

“Manolo,” my daughter said. “For moral support. There's a more practical pair underneath.”

The other pair was Miu Miu flats. I swallowed hard and slipped them on. Perfect, of course. I kissed Imara on the cheek and smiled at her. Weakly.

“I'll kill him for hurting you,” she said.

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But for right now, let's just see what he wants.”

“What he wants,” Eamon said from where he reclined on the bed, “is to get your lovely bums out of here and into the car. Shall we?”

I nodded. The room did a greasy, unpleasant spin, but I hung on.

“Fine,” I said grimly. “The faster we can get you out of our lives, the better I'm going to like it.”

“Ah,” he sighed. “Just when we were starting to bond.”

He'd said a couple of hours. Actually, in most cars it would have been about four; in the Camaro, with Imara behind the wheel, it was closer to two.

No small talk. I sat in the backseat, with Eamon; he had his knife out and tapped the flat of it restlessly against his knee. I felt sicker than ever, my head pounding so hard that I started to worry about an aneurysm. Resting my left temple against the cool window glass seemed to help. A little.

I roused to find that Eamon was taking my pulse. He seemed competent enough at it…. He looked up when I tried to pull away and held on. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I'm dying.”

“I can give you something for the headache.”

“The last thing I want is you medicating me. Again.”

He shrugged and went back to tapping his knife. Imara was watching us in the rearview mirror. I nodded slightly to let her know I was all right.

The rest of the trip was conducted in tense silence.

We arrived in Boston just after dark, and Eamon gave directions in terse, single-turn increments. I had no idea where we were going, and it was a bit of a surprise to pull up in the parking lot of a huge granite building. I'd been expecting some deserted warehouse, some place where his sleazy business—whatever it might be—could be conducted in private.

This was a hospital.

“Out,” he said to me, and prodded me with the point of the knife when I didn't move. Imara growled, low in her throat. “Let's all behave nicely. We're nearly done, you know. I'd hate for you to screw it up now.”

I got out of the car and had to brace myself against the cool finish. Oh,
God
, I felt sick. Nothing in my stomach, or it would have been on the pavement. Imara took my arm, and Eamon slid the knife into a leather sheath that he concealed in a folded magazine.

“Right,” he said. “After you, please.”

We went in through the front door, just another concerned little family crowded together for support. All hospitals look pretty much the same; this one had a lived-in feel despite the constant application of astringents and floor wax. Lots of people in scrubs walking the halls, which were decorated with soothing framed prints. I barely noticed. I was too busy thinking about whether or not, since I was in a hospital, I should start shouting for help. The fact that the knife was still in Eamon's possession was a cause for concern, though. He could hurt innocent bystanders.

And would.

“Easy,” Eamon whispered in my hear, as if he'd sensed my inner debate. “Let's not get tricky, love. On the elevator, please. And push six.”

A long, slow ride. It was just the three of us. I calculated the odds of whether or not Imara could take him before he could stab me, and I could see she was doing the same math problem. She slowly shook her head. Not that she couldn't take him—she could—but that she didn't think it was a good idea.

Neither did I.

The doors dinged open at the sixth floor, and there was another long, clean hallway. Deathly still. We moved down it, and as we came even with an inset nurse's station, the woman on duty looked up and smiled.

“Eamon!” She looked ridiculously happy to see him. Did she not have any idea? No, of course she didn't. He was turning on the charm for her. “You're coming kind of late. Visiting hours just finished.”

“Sorry,” he said. “My cousin and her daughter got held up at Logan. Is it all right—?”

“Logan? That figures. Sure. Just don't stay too long, okay?” The nurse gave us an impersonal smile, half the wattage she'd reserved for Eamon. She focused in on me, and frowned a bit. “Poor thing, you look done in. Long flight?”

“The red-eye from hell,” I said. Before I could say anything else, like
Call the police, you idiot
, Eamon hustled me onward. “All right, what is this?” I hissed. “Why are you taking us to a hospital?”

“Shut up.” He pressed the magazine in my side. Sometime when I'd been distracted he'd slid the knife free, and it pressed a sharp reminder of his intentions into me. “Six doors down on the right side.”

Some of the doors were shut, with medical charts in the holders out front. The sixth one was propped open. Eamon gestured the two of us to go first, outwardly polite, inwardly measuring the distance to my kidneys. I stepped in, wondering what kind of trick he was about to play.

None, apparently. No gang of scary people lurking in the corners—not that they'd have been able to do so, in such a small, clean, brightly lit room. Nothing to hide behind. Just some built-in cabinets along the walls, a hospital bed, and the woman lying in it.

Eamon closed the door behind us. We stood in silence for a few seconds, and I stared at the woman. She was maybe twenty-five—it should have been a pretty, vital age, but she was pallid and loose and limp, her skin a terrible sickly color. Her hair looked clean, and carefully brushed; it was a medium brown, shot through with blond. Her eyelids looked thin and delicate and blue, veins showing through.

I waited, but she didn't move. IV liquids dripped. There was a tube down her throat, and a machine hissed and chuffed and breathed on her behalf.

I opened my mouth.

“You're about to ask me who she is. Don't.” Eamon gave me a bitter, thin smile. “Just fix her. You don't need to know anything else.”

“Pardon? Do what?”

The smile, thin and bitter as it was, faded. “Fix her. Now.” He enunciated it with scary clarity. He transferred his stare to Imara, who frowned and glanced at me. “Don't even think about saying no, love, or I'll do things to your mum here that not even a hospital full of surgeons can fix.” He grabbed me with his forearm around my throat, pulling my chin up, and set the knife to my exposed neck. I stood on tiptoe, fighting for balance. Fear gave me a sudden bolt of clarity, but there was nothing I could do or say, not like this. Too risky.

I had to trust Imara.

She slowly extended her hand toward him. Graceful and supplicating. “Sir, please understand,” she said. “You didn't have to do it this way. If my mother had known what you wanted, she would have tried to help you without the threats.”

“Maybe. Couldn't take that chance, though, could I? But still, here we are, and since you're suddenly taken all warm and fuzzy, go on. Do your good deed of the day.”

Imara slowly shook her head. “I'm not—like that. I can do only a few things. I can't heal. Certainly not something as grievous as this.”

His arm tightened, compressing my throat. I made a muffled sound of protest and teetered on my toes.

“Please! If I could save this woman, I would, but I'm not
capable
, don't you see?”

“Then go get someone who can.”

“There
isn't
anyone who can, not among the Djinn or the Wardens. There are rules, and they're larger than your desires or your needs. I'm sorry.”

I couldn't see Eamon's face, but I couldn't imagine that cold, crazy man was letting that be the last word. He didn't have a ready comeback, though. I felt a tremble go through him, and the knife dug just a bit deeper into my skin.

“All right!” Imara said sharply. “Don't hurt her! I'll try.”

She put her hands on the woman's face, turning it gently to one side so that it faced toward me and Eamon. I thought I saw the translucent eyelids flutter, but nothing else happened. The frail chest rose and fell under the pale nightgown. IV fluids dripped.

And then, with the suddenness of a horror movie, the eyes flew open. Blank and clouded, but open.

The eyes of the living dead, nothing in them at all.

I felt Eamon's reaction through the connection of his arm, a shudder that might have sent him reeling if he hadn't kept hold of me. Which he did, for a blank second, and then he shoved me away and lurched to the bed. The knife fell to the floor, forgotten, and Eamon bent over the woman. “Liz? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Imara let go as the woman's body went into a galvanic spasm, practically leaping off the bed. Convulsions. Bad ones. I looked at Imara, speechless, and she looked as shocked as I did.

“I told you,” she said. “It's forbidden.”

Eamon turned on her with the speed of a cobra. “No. You're holding back. Wake her up.”

“I can't.”

“Wake her up!” he shouted, and turned to pick up his knife. “I need five bloody minutes! Five!”

“I can't give it to you. I'm sorry.”

“You're going to be!”

He rounded on me, and Imara reached out and knocked the knife out of his hand. It skidded across the floor in a hiss of metal, and bumped into a pair of shoes that had just manifested out of thin air.

I blinked away confusion and focused. Even then, it took me a few long seconds to recognize that David had come to our aid.

He bent down and picked up the knife. “Looking for this?” David's voice was reduced to a velvet-soft purr. The shine of the knife turned restlessly in his hand, over and over. “It has Joanne's blood on it, I see. Do you really think that was a good idea?”

Eamon froze. The woman on the bed stopped her galvanic spasms and went completely still again. Her eyes were half-shut.

“Yours?” David asked, and pointed at the bed with the tip of the knife. He looked—cold. Perfect and cold and furious, but absolutely self-contained. Rage in a bottle.

“Mine?” Eamon sketched a mad sort of laugh. “What the hell would I do with a girl in a coma? Other than the obvious, I mean.”

I remembered Eamon's taunts and hints, dropped all the way back when he'd revealed himself to me as the bastard he truly was. Drugging my sister.
I like my women a little less talkative and more compliant, in general,
he'd said. The possibilities nauseated me, together with the fact that the nurse outside had recognized him by name, as a regular visitor.

I took a step backward, until the wall was at my back. Felt good, the wall. I needed the support. My legs had gone cold, pins-and-needles cold. My balance insisted that the room was pitching and rolling like the deck of a sinking ship.

David exchanged a look with Imara, a nod, and she dropped her gaze and moved out of his way. Nothing standing between him and Eamon now. I saw Eamon register that, and lick his suddenly pale lips.

“Hang on a minute, mate,” he said. “I know it looks bad, but the truth is, I only need to wake her up for a couple of minutes. Less, even. Just long enough to say my good-byes and—”

“Don't lie,” David interrupted. The knife kept turning in his hand, drawing my eyes as well as Eamon's. “You have a reason, and it isn't anything so sentimental.”

Eamon's eyes narrowed, and I could see him trying to decide whether or not he'd be able to take the knife. He couldn't, but there was no way he'd be able to judge that for himself. I hoped he'd try. I really did.

“All right,” he said. “Nothing so saccharine. We were partners. She took possession of a certain payment, and she didn't want to share. I need to make her tell me where she hid the money.”

“Still not true,” David said. His eyes were terrifying—flames swirling around narrowed pupils. “I want you to speak the truth, just once before you die.”

“You don't want to kill me, old son. I'm the one with the antidote for your girl's poison, and unless you want to see her in a hospital bed next to my beloved Liz here—”

David moved in a streak of light, and suddenly he was pressed against the other man, chest to chest, bending him over the hospital bed in a backbreaking curve. His right hand was locked around Eamon's throat, and his left…

…his left held the hilt of the knife he'd buried deep in Eamon's side.

Eamon's eyes widened soundlessly.

“That,” David said, “is a fatal wound. Feel it?” He moved the knife helpfully. Eamon tried to scream, but nothing happened. “Shhhh. Nod if you believe me.”

Eamon shakily nodded, throat still struggling to let loose his terror.

“Good.” David pulled the knife free in a single fast rip. No blood followed, and there should have been fountains of the stuff. “I'm holding the wound shut,” David said. “But the second you disappoint me, little man, the
instant
I think that you're mocking me or even thinking about harm to my family, that ends. I watch you bleed your life away in less than a dozen heartbeats. Understand?”

Eamon nodded convulsively. He was paler than the woman on the bed.

“Now, you're going to get the antidote,” David said. “Which I imagine you have hidden somewhere in this room. You're going to give it to Joanne, and then you're going to go and give it to her sister.” He let go of Eamon's throat. “Move.”

Eamon edged out of the way, one hand pressed trembling to his side. Too terrified to move quickly. David watched him with glowing metallic eyes, and Imara did, as well.

I made some sound of effort, trying to straighten up. David had his full attention on Eamon, and his knuckles were white where he gripped the knife. I remembered Imara saying that he was fighting off the influence of the Mother, and how difficult it was. I wondered what would happen if he succumbed to that here, in a building full of innocent and helpless victims.

Not for me. Please, not for me.
I tried to send him the message, but I had no idea if he was listening. His attention was completely riveted on Eamon.

Eamon, meanwhile, was moving—slowly, carefully, with a hand pressed hard to the place the knife had gone in as if he could hold his life in with it. He walked to a wooden cabinet and dragged a floral suitcase—clearly a woman's—from a narrow cubbyhole. He opened it and took out a bottle filled with clear liquid that he held up in one shaking hand. His hair was plastered to his face in wet sweaty points, and I could feel the rage and fear coming off him.

“I hope we understand each other,” David said. “If Joanne dies, I take you apart. Slowly. I can show you things about pain that you've never even imagined. And I can make it last for an eternity.”