Honeyed Words (32 page)

“Bub, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” came his muffled reply.

“Please stay here. I’d rather no one saw you, if you understand.”

“Of course,” he called back.

I opened the door. “Come on, Skella. Let’s go see what’s going on.”

The closing of the car doors echoed through the chilly parking structure. The rain muffled the sounds of traffic out on the main road, and it seemed as if we were in a separate world—a world of secrets and pain.

We dashed across the open space and ran along the side of the hospital to the emergency entrance.

Katie and Julie were sitting inside, huddled together, and Gletts sat several seats away watching the fish in a very large aquarium.

“Katie?”

God, she looked great. I hoped I never grew tired of being surprised by her—how someone like her would be with someone like me.

She turned. Relief and worry warred on her face the second she saw me. She rose, walked hurriedly toward me, casting an ugly eye toward Skella.

“Hey,” I said, stepping close to her.

She leaned into me. “Hey, yourself.”

I put my hand on the back of her neck and she tilted her face up toward mine. I fell into her kiss. It was cautious at first, then for a second I forgot anyone else was there and pulled her to me, relishing the taste of her, breathing in her scent. We kissed until I forgot to breathe and we pulled apart with effort.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she said breathlessly.

I hugged her for a long time, letting our hearts align, feeling her energy wash over me.

“Get a room,” Julie called, laughing.

I turned with my arm over Katie’s shoulder and waved my left hand. “Hey, boss.”

“Glad to see you finally made it,” she said, nodding at the clock. It was well after eight. I’d taken about two hours longer than I’d promised.

“I was giving you ’til eight thirty,” Katie said, snuggling her arm around my waist. “Then I was calling out the troops.”

“Sorry,” I said, slipping out of her grasp and pulling her down into seats beside Julie, holding her hands in my lap. “How’s Anezka?”

Katie looked down at our hands before answering. “She’ll live,” she said quietly. “Melanie was out a minute ago, said they had the bleeding stopped and that she was sleeping.”

“Good. She needs to sleep.”

“There was no baby,” she said. “Something was wrong for sure, but no baby. Melanie said they were doing an emergency hysterectomy. Only real chance to save her.”

“Shit.” I leaned back against the hard plastic of the chair and covered my face with my hands. “That’ll send her over the edge.”

“Is she unstable?” Julie asked.

I lowered my hands, glanced at Katie first, and then looked at Julie. “Depression for sure, maybe bipolar.”

“Treatable,” she said, settling her hands on the head of her cane. “She’s one of ours, you know. Blacksmith guild will look after her. Besides, she’s in on the secret.”

Katie kinda shrugged with her face—raising her eyebrows, tilting her head. She wasn’t surprised.

“And what about those two?” Julie asked, pointing to where Skella and Gletts sat huddled together.

“Couple of scared kids way in over their heads,” I said. “Long story that I’d rather tell with the Black Briar gang in tow.”

“Okay,” Katie said. She took out her cell phone and began punching numbers. “I need to let Jimmy know you’re okay anyway.”

“Not tonight,” I said quickly, waving my hand at her. “I’d really rather wait for the light of day.”

She nodded as she got up, cupped her hand over one ear, and spoke softly into the phone. I laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. Man, I hated hospitals.

“Smell drives me bat-shit,” Julie said.

I cracked my eyes open and glanced at her.

“Hospitals are the suck,” she said.

I laughed. “I was just thinking how much I hate these places.”

She patted me on the shoulder and stood up, only leaning on her cane a little. “I’m going down to the cantina to get a soda. You want something?”

“Water, maybe?” I asked. “No caffeine; I’ll have a hard enough time sleeping tonight.”

She motioned over to Katie. “I’m sure she can think of something that would help you sleep.”

I grinned at her. “Has your mind always been in the gutter?” I asked as she turned and walked away.

“Noneya,” she said, waving one hand at me over her shoulder.

Yeah, yeah … noneya damn business. I shook my head and leaned forward, hands on my knees.

Just being here with Katie and Julie, even with the uneasy vibe from the hospital, made me more comfortable than I’d been in days. But I needed to settle one thing.

I walked over to where Skella was wringing her hands and chattering at Gletts in a language I didn’t recognize. She wasn’t happy.

“Everything okay here?”

Gletts turned his languid gaze at me and smiled. “You got a nice apartment,” he said.

Skella looked over at me, a frown turning her mouth down. “He will not listen to reason.”

I squatted down, putting myself more on their seated level. “What’s the problem now?”

Gletts rolled his eyes. “She wants to go home, back to Vancouver and scout around, try and find out where those bastard dwarves took our family.”

“Seems reasonable to me,” I agreed.

Skella gave him a smug smile.

“I think, however, that we should just stay with you a few days, let things settle down.”

Oh, great. Two angsty goth elves in my apartment along with Julie and the cabbage smell from Mrs. Sorenson. Fun times.

“He just wants to rummage through your things,” Skella said, punching him in the shoulder.

“Not a good choice,” I said, giving him a stern look. “You did a fair enough job rifling my things in Vancouver.”

“Whatever,” he said, standing up. “Fine, let’s blow this place.”

Skella stood hurriedly and gave me a guilty smile before crossing to her brother. “I’ll contact you when we find out where they have taken them,” she promised. “You’ll have a plan, yes?”

“Sure,” I said. “When you call me, I’ll come up and kick some ass.”

This seemed to reassure her, and she took Gletts’s arm.

“Besides,” Gletts said, “this place, this whole city, smells like death.”

“And dragon,” Skella said in a whisper.

Nidhogg stank over the whole city. Nice.

The two of them walked around behind the aquarium to a floor-to-ceiling mirror that ran along one wall.

One second they were there, the next they were gone, vanished back into the wilds of Stanley Park.

Gletts was a particular brand of teen I disliked, but Skella seemed sweet and earnest. I hope they stayed out of trouble. I watched the mirror, wondering when I’d stopped being the angry teenager. This made me laugh. Julie and Katie would totally disagree, but I thought my issues were beyond those I had ten years ago. Not really fair to Gletts and Skella I supposed. They’d spent their entire lives under the violent rule of a right sadistic bastard who happened to be a dragon. Not saying any of them were particularly lovely, but Jean-Paul liked to play with his food too much.

I made a warding sign and spit over my shoulder. May he rot in hell.

Katie, Julie, and I spent another hour in the emergency room waiting for Melanie to give us the lowdown. Anezka had indeed been rushed into emergency surgery. Once she was stable, she’d be in here for three or four days. I started to give the charge nurse my cell-phone number, but as I’d lost the phone, Katie stepped up and gave hers.

Later, we stood in the lobby, deciding our next moves. We were all exhausted.

“Why don’t you come to my place tonight?” Katie asked. “Then we can go out to Black Briar in the morning together.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling. “I’d love to.”

She kissed me quickly and went back over to the nurses’ station to get some things straightened out with Melanie.

“Told you,” Julie said, drinking the last dregs of her coffee. “I’ll get a hold of Frank in the morning, let him know what happened and that she’ll be okay.”

“Good thinking,” I agreed.

“One of you will have to take me home first,” she said, grinning. “Think you can keep your clothes on long enough for that?”

“Nice,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe you need to get laid, mouth like that.”

Julie laughed. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched Katie and Melanie talking head-to-head.

I’d gotten over my jealousy of Melanie, but we’d never really be close. Too much history. Well, between her and Katie. I wasn’t sure I’d ever really feel okay around her. She was too perfect, too pretty, and too damn talented. I didn’t think Katie would ever throw me over for her, but there were moments where that conviction wasn’t as strong as it could be.

Katie headed home to clean up, and I took Julie back to our place.

On the way I hit a drive-thru. I got a chicken sandwich, but Julie looked at me strange when I ordered seven double cheeseburgers. She grew even more worried when I pulled out of the drive-thru and climbed out of the car with the burgers. I opened the trunk, dropped them into the back, and closed it again.

Once we were on the road a few minutes, a very large belch reverberated from the trunk of my car.

“Long story,” I said.

She looked at me, squinting at the backseat. “And foul smelling.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, laughing. “Let me tell you about my new friend Bub.”

Julie didn’t ask too many questions, but the ride home was a most interesting conversation.

Forty-six

I let Bub ride in the front seat on the way over to Katie’s.

“Listen,” I told him. “Anezka is going to be okay, but she’ll need to be in the hospital a few days.”

“Okay,” he said, picking Styrofoam out of his teeth. “Can I see her?”

“Too many people, cameras, and such in there for you to visit,” I said. “Besides, just being around the equipment could fry it—could put her in danger.”

“Right, good thinking.”

He couldn’t see over the dashboard, and I hadn’t insisted he put on the seat belt. Besides, it would hit him across the face, and that wouldn’t be comfortable.

“I need you to stay in the car tonight; can you do that?”

“Sure,” he agreed. “I’ll sleep in the trunk.”

I looked over at him. “So, you do sleep?”

“I’m not a machine,” he said. “Different from you, but the same in many ways.”

“Okay, I need to know you’ll stay in the car, and that you’ll be okay.”

He grinned up at me, his rows of sharp, pointy teeth evoking the shark image again. “I can handle myself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just stay in the trunk, and in the morning I’ll hit another drive-thru. How do you feel about breakfast burritos?”

“Intrigued,” he said, licking his lips.

We pulled into the alley behind Katie’s apartment. Elmer’s Gun and Knife Emporium had long since repaired the broken window from the fight I had with the giants in the spring. The power lines had been restrung, and the landlords had repaired Katie’s door. The alley looked just the same, and I half expected to see Joe digging around in the Dumpster, but I was sorely disappointed.

“Don’t let anyone steal my car,” I said with a grin as Bub climbed into the trunk.

“You said you hated this car,” he squeaked as I pulled my pack out of the trunk.

I grabbed the garbage bag with my old bloody clothes as well. “That should give you more room.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, curling into a ball in the back.

“Sleep well, Bub.”

“You as well, master,” he said as I pushed the trunk closed.

Master? Man, this was getting complicated.

Katie buzzed me up as soon as I hit the intercom, and I bounded up the stairs two at a time. By the time I was on the second floor, she had the door to her apartment propped open with a shoe. I didn’t have a copy of the new keys, not since they’d repaired the place. After the way things crashed and burned a few months earlier, I was keeping a modicum of distance there. A minor precaution, I knew. She’d be more than happy for me to move in, but not today, not at the moment.

We made love with abandon. I don’t know if it was the proximity of Bub or the chaos of the last few days, but things were much, much more intense. There was a point where she was screaming so loudly, I thought someone would call the police. I’m fairly sure at one point I blacked out. It was crazy.

I lay awake after, listening to her sleep, thankful she’d said my name and no one else’s.

I placed my hand on her stomach, feeling her breathing, her life force filling the room. We had a connection like nothing I’d ever experienced. It scared the hell out of me, but I craved it. I’d isolated myself for most of my life. Well, since I was nine or so, when things at home got odd, after Da decided to protect his little girl from the whole bad world. I missed them: Ma, Da, and Megan. Especially Megan, the little runt. Only she wasn’t a runt any longer, she was tall and beautiful, suffering under the restrictions I fled. Things got hard there, and I left them, abandoned her, young and alone.