FoM02 Trammel (16 page)

“Let me take him,” Ylli offered. Lindsay could tell by the waver in his voice that he was trying to tough it out. “I’m way stronger than you are.”

“Be careful with him.”

Lindsay helped Ylli get Noah into his arms and followed him out of the van. There wasn’t much room between the van and the back of a large building, and enough light that Lindsay could make out that they were in an alley behind—if the faded paint on the brick was to be believed—
Val’s Barber Shop: best shave
in town
. The door Kristan must have gone through was closed, and there was no one to be seen. Aside from the distant noise of the city at night, all Lindsay could hear was the struggle of Noah’s breath and muffled sniffles from the girl in the front seat.

“They’re coming,” Ylli said moments before the door popped open.

“I didn’t see it happen,” Kristan was saying. “I have to get out of here fast, so let’s get on with it.

Ylli!”

“Bring him in.” The healer in the doorway was the same one Lindsay had seen when Noah and Kristan had gotten into it back at the house, the same one who had only yesterday taken care of Cyrus.

Negasi, they’d called him. Had it been only yesterday? The chaos at Wildwood seemed so long ago already.

“Quickly. And you’re not going yet.” Negasi snagged Kristan as she slipped past. “I may need you to get more help.”

He held the door for Ylli to carry Noah inside. Lindsay waited long enough to gesture for Zoey to join them, then followed him in. The back room of the barbershop looked like Lindsay’s pediatrician’s office—

the last normal doctor he’d been to—except for the runes etched into the base of the exam table, the painted drum hanging on the wall, and the faint smell of tobacco in the air.

“On the table.” Negasi turned the light on over the table and gestured at Kristan. “Go to the shelf in the corner and light the three pillar candles.”

Kristan looked dubious—the candles were clustered around the feet of a brass idol—but she did what she was told.

Zoey huddled near the door, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the floor. Lindsay hoped she wouldn’t bolt in the confusion. Ylli laid Noah down, keeping his face turned away. As soon as he was free, he scurried back to Zoey’s side. Whatever he was saying to her sounded consoling.

“Let me take a look,” Negasi said cheerfully. The next moment, as he actually did look, the air went out of him sharply.

“I know,” Lindsay said quickly. “I know it’s bad. But he’s alive. He’s not hurting. I made sure of that.” They just had to help him heal. That was all.

Negasi nodded slowly, then shook himself. “I will do what I can. It won’t be enough. I will need another for help, if I can stabilize him. His life is sliding away.” He steeled himself and started to peel Lindsay’s jacket off of Noah’s flesh. “There are linens in the hall, in a closet.”

“I’ll get them,” Ylli said quickly, heading for the door.

“You’ll go to the van,” Kristan snapped. “Cyrus will fucking kill us if we lose that girl. Take her home. Talk about your war game or something. Compare motherboards.” She shoved him toward Zoey, who had started to sniffle quietly again. “Move. Get her home. I’ll get whatever the doctor needs.”

Ylli left, tucking Zoey under one wing. Once they were gone, the absence of Ylli’s revulsion and Zoey’s sniffling brought Lindsay a relief so sharp it was physical. Now, he could focus on what mattered—

Noah.

“Can I do anything to help? I’m keeping him from feeling the pain, trying to keep his brain convinced there are no burns so his lungs won’t swell up too much for him to breathe, but I don’t...” Lindsay didn’t know what else to do. Noah’s body was failing—he could feel a dark chill creeping over the back of his mind—and he didn’t know how to fix any of it.

“You will need to stop. That is what you can do,” Negasi said. His dark face had gone ashen. “I do not want there to be any accidents. His body must know it is wounded before it can heal.”

“Here.” Kristan came back in with a stack of paper-wrapped linens. “What needs doing?”

“Cover him. He cannot keep himself warm and he needs all his energy. We are too late to worry about keeping him clean.” Negasi glanced at Lindsay. “I will tell you when to stop.” He placed one hand on Noah’s forehead and the other at the nape of Noah’s neck and closed his eyes.

“You take that side, I’ll take this one.” Kristan had one of the heavy sheets unwrapped and started to spread it over Noah’s body. Lindsay helped, straightening it where it caught and bunched on Noah’s seeping wounds.

Kristan looked grim but didn’t flinch. After Ylli’s reaction, Lindsay understood what a blessing her willingness to help really was. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she muttered. “I hope he’ll be okay. Cyrus really gets us in the shit.” She unwrapped another heavy cotton sheet and laid it out. “Starting to question all this. Later, I guess.”

Lindsay fought down a fresh wave of guilt and focused on keeping Noah’s body caught in his illusion while he and Kristan wrapped Noah in layer after layer of cotton. Negasi wasn’t even healing Noah yet and the man looked like he was going to pass out.

All of this was his fault. It had started with him, with his father’s desperation to have him “cured”. He had to wonder if Moore would have gotten even half the power and funding she had if he hadn’t manifested by setting his father on fire—with an illusion, yes, but the awfulness of the parallel hadn’t escaped him.

“We need Beppe,” Negasi said, opening his eyes and focusing on Kristan. “My wife has our car tonight, but Beppe is only three blocks west. A green door next to a music shop.” Three blocks. In this part of town, that was a long way.

“You are leaning fucking hard on my good nature,” Kristan muttered to Lindsay.

Lindsay met her eyes. “I’ll owe you.”

“You both can, when he’s better.” Kristan searched her pockets, coming up with what looked like a keychain can of pepper spray. “I’ll call if anything holds us up.” She left and the back door slammed behind her a moment later.

“It is time for you to leave as well.” Negasi sounded like he was under some great strain. “Step outside and, once you are there, take back your magic.”

Lindsay looked down at Noah for a long moment, looking past the burns to see the man who was his.

The man who trusted him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and then he turned and walked away.

Outside, he closed his eyes and slowly withdrew the magic that was keeping Noah safe.

There was dead silence and the total absence of
Noah
. Lindsay had become accustomed to him all the days that he’d held Noah’s magic in trust for him. On the drive here, at least he had known Noah was alive.

Now, there was nothing.

The air was split open by a sound Lindsay couldn’t even name until he realized it could only be Noah, screaming.

He spun and had his hand on the door handle, ready to rush back inside to help, when he realized this was why Negasi had sent him out. If he’d been in the room, he wouldn’t have stopped to think before he took away Noah’s pain. With the door between them, he was able to gain perspective—if his magic were to

interfere with Negasi’s healing, it would mean further disaster. He let his head fall forward against the door and took a slow, deep breath. If he wanted to be there for Noah, he would have to accept Noah’s pain.

Slowly, he pulled the door open and stepped inside. “May I come in?”

There was no answer. Negasi was rigid, his face streaked with sweat, and he struggled to hold Noah down. Noah was fighting him as though he would rather use the last of his energy on getting free instead of living.

“
Noah
.” Lindsay rushed across the room to put his hands on Noah’s shoulders. “Noah, I’m here.

Listen to me. You need to be still, Noah.”

Something seeped through because Noah fell still. He was shaking violently and, when Negasi moved the placement of his hands, he screamed again before subsiding. Suddenly, his eyes opened and he looked right at Lindsay.

“I’m here. I won’t leave you.” Lindsay met Noah’s gaze and hoped his presence made some difference to how much pain he knew Noah must be in. “You’re going to be all right.”

“I did not expect him to have so much strength,” Negasi said tightly. “He might live a few hours if nothing goes wrong. As for the rest, we will have to see.”

The other voice didn’t draw Noah’s attention, he was fixated on Lindsay. His lips moved, but Lindsay couldn’t tell what he was saying, because his face was so ravaged. Now that he could see Noah clearly, he wondered what had made him certain Noah could be saved.

“It’s all right, Noah. We’re with the healer. Negasi is trying to help you. I need you to let him help you.”

Noah seemed to understand, because his breathing changed, like he was trying to get control of it.

Sometimes, he lost focus as his gaze wandered, but he would calm as soon as he got Lindsay back in his line of sight. Negasi kept working, his hands pinning Noah’s down as he tried to repair some of that damage there.

Outside, there was the roar of an engine as a car pulled up. It coughed and died and, moments later, the door banged open.

“Beppe,” Negasi said by way of explanation. “He’s human, but I need his drugs for this, and his equipment.”

“How bad is really bad?” The man who came in was older, tall and dignified with nearly white hair. “I never can tell.” He carried a large black bag, and he had a bright red duffel with
EMERGENCY
printed down it slung over his shoulder.

“Should-be-dead-an-hour-ago bad,” Negasi clarified. “I’ve done what I can for now.” He wiped his face on his sleeve. “He needs fluids and drugs.”

“That would be bad,” Beppe agreed. “I’ll see what I can do. Hello there.” He leaned over Noah and spoke to him. “I’m going to give you something for the pain. Do you have any allergies?”

Noah tried to shake his head a little.

“Excellent. Not that it matters much at this point, but it’s good that you can hear me.” Beppe was putting on gloves with a snap-snap. “You’ll need to move back, young man,” he said to Lindsay.

“I’m going to move to let the doctor help you,” Lindsay told Noah. “But I won’t be far.” He waited to see the understanding in Noah’s eyes before he stepped away.

“We have a problem,” Kristan hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him all the way out of the room before he could protest. “Huge.”

Lindsay stared at her for a moment. A huge problem.
What now?
He took a deep breath. “Tell me.”

“We have to get out of here. Not back to the house. They know where it is.” Kristan actually looked distraught. “Vivian didn’t say how they found out or where she is. She just said we can’t go back. We have to leave as soon as we can.”

Glancing at the door, Lindsay nodded slowly. “And the others?”

“She contacted them too. We can find them again when it’s safe.” She took a breath, and let it out.

“We’re going to Detroit. That guy in there, Beppe, he’s gonna fix me up with a car. I have cash. We have to go as soon as Noah can be moved.”

Lindsay didn’t know when that would be. “I’ll ask them to make sure he can travel.”

“I know how to find another healer. We have to go where one of us knows people and...” Kristan left it at that, shrugging. “I’m going to get some cigarettes and something to drink. I’ll get some food too. Go on back in.” She nudged Lindsay out of the way, toward the healer’s room, on her way to the door.

Lindsay stopped with his hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath. Noah was going to be all right. Negasi and Beppe were going to help him. He had to be all right. And then they would leave Atlantic City and find another place to stay. Again.

Chapter Seven

Dane knew where he was before he was conscious. Not precisely where on a map, but he knew by the sound and the smell of it that he was on a cargo plane. He also knew something was worse than wrong. He couldn’t remember being in this kind of pain, a pain that had him biting through his tongue to try to pretend he wasn’t awake. His body felt sticky with blood, and there were streaks of searing heat through his flesh that never faded. His mouth slowly filled with blood from the marks of his own teeth in his tongue, and there was no abating it.

“Pray hard.” The voice came from a few feet away. He knew it, but he’d never heard it sound that way before.
Jonas
. “Maybe you’ll die.”

They didn’t. Couldn’t. Dane opened his eyes and found his vision cut in half. One eye worked, he had no idea what was wrong with the other. When he winced, dried blood crackled on his face, and he didn’t want to know. He tried to move, and when shifting didn’t spill his guts on the floor, he pushed himself to sitting up. It was like he weighed a hundred pounds more than he had when he’d last been conscious. He had to turn his head to locate Jonas just beyond the bars of two cages—one for each of them.

Anything that was wrong with him faded into irrelevance when he managed to focus enough to see the condition Jonas was in. The other feral was naked. Most of him was naked. The rest of him was gone.

Missing.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“Time.” Jonas was missing his arms from the elbows down and half of his head. There was no bleeding, as though he’d been halfway through healing when someone had stopped him. He lay in the corner of his cage like he’d been thrown there, and his legs were bent oddly in front of him.

Time
. Dane’s good eye adjusted to the low light and he made out the glimmer of something around Jonas’s neck. His fingers told him the same thing was locked on him, made of something cold and too heavy for its size. His stomach twisted and he thought he was going to be sick.

“What did you do?” Dane couldn’t think of a reason why he and Jonas would end up in the same hellish situation. They were on opposite sides. That was part of the whole scheme of the universe.

“When you don’t behave,” Jonas said thickly, “Mother takes away your toys.”

It wasn’t what Jonas had done. Funny, because Jonas was such a fucking asshole, Dane could totally understand why someone would want to amputate his limbs, cave in his head, break his legs, and take away his healing magic. In the end, though, it was Lourdes who had gotten him in the shit.