Love Is in the Air (8 page)

He must have read her concern, for he gave a sad smile. “I will only take from he who gives permission.”

“They’re just newborns. They can’t communicate yet.”

“As your scrying box could not understand your intent?”

For every logical, scientific reason she gave for not going along, Tyr countered with an equally illogical, unscientific anecdote that she knew nevertheless to be true. The two refused to coexist in her mind.

“Fine. Then I’m drawing the blood.”

Tyr cocked his head, as if he didn’t understand English, or, more likely, that she was speaking gibberish. “You are live blood.”

“So?”

Speaking to her as if she were a child who needed to be told not to put wads of dirt in her mouth, Tyr explained, “You are not dead blood.”

“Dead blood?”

“Those that have no essence in their blood. Dead bloods. They are few and far between. Only one a generation or two. Are you saying your world has none?”

“I…Well, I’m not sure. I don’t even know what essence is, let alone know if I have it or not.”

He grunted, seemingly amazed at their backward ways. “Then let it be known. You, being live blood, cannot draw live blood.”

She waited for an elaboration, but he just stared at her. “Why not?”

Tyr groped for the words, again as if she had asked him a question as obvious as why people breathed.

“It would be as if you wanted to control a flame, yet set about kindling to capture it. The flame would consume that which meant to control it.” He paused, scanning her face for understanding. “Do you see?”

She didn’t, but Sal also didn’t understand how her shoes weren’t squeaking incessantly anymore, either. In the end, whether she believed or even understood the concept of live versus dead blood, did it really make any difference if she or Tyr drew the child’s?

Not believing she was agreeing to this, Sal nodded. “All right, I’ll find a nurse to let us in, then distract her while—”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Tyr took a tiny glass vial from his pocket and cracked it against the thick, locked, sliding glass doors. A dust flew up, coating them.

Clearing his throat, he spoke at full volume. “Ignore.”

Sal was going to explain how that wasn’t going to work, when the sliding doors whisked open and Tyr stepped into the NICU unobserved.

CHAPTER 22

Sal hurried after him. That door had been key-carded. A total of only ten people in the entire hospital had access to this room. Not even the Badger could get into the neonatal unit without an escort.

The duty nurse should have descended upon them, demanding that they don gowns, booties, caps, and masks, but the older woman just kept rocking the baby she was feeding, not even glancing up at their intrusion.

Tyr didn’t bother glancing in her direction as he slowly navigated between the plastic incubators, passing a hand over each child, and then moving on. Sal was almost glad he didn’t settle on one in particular. It meant the child still had hope.

“Why don’t they see us?” Sal whispered.

He just shrugged, his attention consumed by the children.

“It’s like…” She didn’t want to say it out loud, but someone had to.

“You use blood to create…” Oh, God, was she really going to say the word out loud? “Magic.”

Tyr snorted. “Only a witch would believe so.”

“I don’t—”

“My people call the working of blood upon the world ‘Praxis’.”

“What does…”

She aborted her questions as Tyr paused, his hand hovering above a plastic crib. Sal glanced at the baby’s chart. No wonder Tyr had taken an interest in this child. Not only did this two-month-old premature girl have severe icterus, but she also had bilateral thromboses orbital verices. The baby was so sick that her parents had already signed an advance directive to not resuscitate if the worst happened. Even they were ready to let go.

Tyr opened the plastic lid and placed his hand upon the tiny infant’s chest. Sal nearly panicked. There were strict protocols for these little preemies. They caught infections so easily.

His hand’s span was wider than the entire infant. Under two pounds, the baby girl hardly looked human. Her shriveled skin had a sickly yellow cast, and her little fingers seemed better suited for a doll than a baby.

With the closest thing to a smile Sal had ever seen from Tyr, he looked up at her, and his eyes misted over. “She’ll grow taller than her brother.”

She studied the chart again. That didn’t seem likely. Then Tyr picked up Sal’s hand and placed it over the child’s heart that beat like a hummingbird’s. The baby’s breaths barely raised the weight of Sal’s hand.

“Your papers mean little. It is the HeartsBlood that tells the tale.”

How Sal wished she could believe him, but all she felt was a failing baby beneath her fingers.

A squall rose from across the room. Sal froze. Normally, a baby’s cry would have brought nurses flying across the room to attend to its needs, but the nursery remained still. The sole nurse in the unit continued her feeding, while another outside the glass barrier sat casually writing up a chart as she sipped a cup of coffee.

Tyr strode over to the bassinet. This baby seemed so healthy he didn’t even require oxygen as he squirmed vigorously. Not the typical NICU patient. As Tyr put a hand on the child’s head, Sal scanned the chart. The baby was far older than most in here, nearly five months old. Which didn’t make any sense, until Sal found the baby’s diagnosis.

The boy had been admitted into the unit to receive chemotherapy for a malignant neuroblastoma. According to the chart, though, everything was going well. The tumor had shrunk considerably, and there was very little organ damage from the toxic drugs.

“He’s due to be discharged tomorrow morning,” she noted, assuming Tyr would move on, but instead he moved her hand to cradle the baby’s head. The boy’s face screwed up into a grimace.

“Can you not sense it?”

As hard as she tried, Sal just felt a cranky baby under her palm. “No.”

Gently, Tyr rubbed his thumb over the boy’s forehead. “There is a knotting deep that will break soon. Can you not feel the pressure within?”

Again, she had to shake her head.

Instead of recrimination, Tyr nodded sadly. “Your own essence blinds you. It is… Your… It brims.”

Sal wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“It is time,” Tyr said, pulling his knife from its sheath.

In a panic, she grabbed his wrist. “No! Wait.”

It was one thing to consider taking a baby’s blood in theory. It was quite another when the baby fussed right under your hand. They couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. But Tyr brought his knife to bear.

Then she remembered his promise. “Not until he ‘agrees.’ “

Sal thought she had forestalled the crossing of this awful line, but Tyr held out his hand to the infant boy. “May I?”

Then the most amazing thing occurred. The baby placed his little hand in Tyr’s wide palm. Those icy blue eyes thawed just a bit as he looked over to her. “We are ready. Are you not?”

They both seemed at peace. A peace Sal didn’t think she’d ever achieve. What could she do but incline her head?

With quick precision, Tyr made the nick. The baby just gurgled a happy coo as the blood welled. The collection was a simple thing. Once Tyr capped the vial, he leaned over the child.

“Thanks be to you, little warrior.” Tyr kissed the top of the baby’s head.

The scene felt surreal. Was this little boy going to die tonight? Is this really how this night was going to end? With another death?

Unfortunately, Tyr’s words rang true. No, not just his instinct, but hers as well. For just the briefest moment, when she held her hand against that fuzzy scalp, Sal could have sworn she could feel the tangle of blood vessels that fed the baby’s tumor. She could even feel the fatal clot that was about to break off and cause a massive stroke.

No matter that the child’s toes touched the edge of the veil, his heart was still beating. Every instinct as a doctor screamed for her to help the baby. Could she just stand by and let the child die without at least trying? Maybe his Praxis couldn’t help stop a stroke, but she knew half a dozen ways they could possibly prevent the tragedy.

She grabbed the chart and began scribbling orders when a noise from the nurse’s desk made them both swing around.

It was Richard. He’d come looking for her.

Of course
, he’d come looking for her.

They would be discovered. How could they not? Tyr’s “ignore” edict couldn’t shelter them forever. And when the nurses found out they were inside the NICU without proper sterile garments, touching vulnerable children? She’d be lucky if she just got suspended. The Badger had terminated doctors for far less.

CHAPTER 23

Then Tyr’s hand was in her own, pulling her down into a crouch.

“Is there no route beyond those doors?”

Sal thought back to her neonatal rotation. “The director’s office.”

Scrambling between the incubators, they snuck to the back of the ward.

Sal tried the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

Why she thought that would matter to Tyr, she didn’t know.

“Because you did not ask,” he said, as he placed his hand over hers. The knob turned smoothly, not even giving a little resistance to make it look at least a little hard. The act didn’t even require blood.

Once inside, she led him to the other side of the room, where they spied through the blinds on the nurse’s desk. Sure enough, Richard was inquiring about Sal. Luckily, the nurse didn’t seem to have a clue.

“We’ll have to wait until they move off,” she commented, trying hard not to notice Tyr’s brooding presence right beside her. He radiated a heat that seeped through her clothes and pressed against her skin.

As the seconds dragged on, Sal realized that Tyr had what he’d come for. The baby’s blood. She knew he would honor his promise to leave and never return. These fleeting seconds trapped in the office might be her last chance to gain some measure of closure around Maria’s death.

“Please. I need to know. What killed my friend?”

Tyr kept a vigilant gaze toward Richard and the nurse. “Many call such a Venificus, but it is no more than a beast.” Shifting his gaze to her, he frowned. “Does such knowing make your loss any the less?”

Once the words were out of his mouth, she found that Tyr was right. No knowledge could diminish her loss. Her mind might accept that, but her heart felt the need to cast about for a reason to stop blaming herself.

“No… I just… If I hadn’t sent her for the blood. Or if I’d just gone down to find her earlier…”

Tyr turned back toward the window. “If anyone is to blame for her death, it is I.”

CHAPTER 24

“You?” Sal asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“In tracking the beast, I tracked a scent which covered your friend. I thought her his next victim.”

“So it was you in the ER, during the lightning flash?”

Tyr nodded slowly, then hung his head, taking several breaths before elaborating. “But the scent was not hers. It was another’s—with whom she had lain.”

Oh, God. Jeremy. The blood bank attendant. Maria must have worked her way around to bedding the buff college student. While Sal loved her friend greatly, it was no secret that the head nurse was considered the hospital’s very own welcoming committee.

“Here’s your employee orientation booklet and a quick lay. Once you’re done, return them both to Human Resources and enjoy your tenure here.”

No wonder Maria had been so eager to go on such a meager errand.

Knowing the head nurse, she probably thought she could squeeze in a quickie before she was missed. While this information should have relieved Sal, the knowledge that she was in no way responsible for Maria’s death gave her no solace.

Tyr clenched his jaw. “By the time I double-backed on the trail and found the true source…”

They both knew what happened. There was no point in speaking it.

CHAPTER 25

The intimacy created by their shared grief became unbearable. She wanted to comfort him in the same instant that she wished to be comforted by him. There was something powerful and binding about skulking in the shadows together, doing forbidden acts.

Breaking the tension, Sal looked out the window. Richard didn’t look like he was going to budge anytime soon. Damn it. For such a pacifist, he could be a pit bull when he wanted.

“He is familiar to you?” Tyr asked.

His raspy voice brought up goose bumps along her neck. She didn’t even know you could get them there. “Yes, he’s… he’s my fiancé.”

She knew Tyr well enough to know that tilt of his head meant he didn’t understand her phrasing. “We’re promised to be married,” she explained, while showing him her engagement ring. It felt like an odd conversation to be having, given the pheromones permeating the small room.

“You are bound to him?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly…” Oh, what did
it
the syntax matter? She knew what Tyr meant. “Yes.”

Sal watched Tyr as he surveyed Richard through the blinds. She tried to read the effect that the news had on him. The slight squint to his eyes that deepened his tan crow’s-feet. The rippling of his jaw muscles as they clenched and unclenched. Or how his stubble swirled as it coursed up his cheek.

Tyr turned to her. “You love him?”

Startled, Sal stumbled for an answer. “Yes. Of course.”

“Is it ‘
yes
,’ or ‘
of course
?’ “

She flushed red as he stared at her. Even without his demanding tone, he could still unnerve her. Sal cleared her throat. “Yes.”

“Truly? With no reservations?”

Cheeks burning, she rushed to answer—not so much out of passion, but to end his appraising look. “I said, ‘yes.’ “

His expression was inscrutable as he brought out the tiniest of vials. It seemed cut from a glacier, and it sparkled in the low light.

“Of all the essences that blood holds, love is the most potent. Its use is rare, but irreplaceable…” As he looked at the vial, his face clouded over. “It has been empty too long.”

Tyr extended his hand to her, as he had done in that crimson hallway and again to the baby boy. “May I?”