Marked (5 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

B
y the time Cacy crawled into the back of the ambulance, Eli was already shouting for hospital staff and wrenching her father’s stretcher off the rear deck of the rig. He plowed through the double doors of the emergency department, hauling the stretcher by himself instead of waiting for the nurses to help. Cacy’s father lay still and pale atop it, the autocompressor doing its futile work.

Cacy already knew it was too late.
She’d
seen it with her own eyes, through the lens of her Scope. Her father had been Marked.

She climbed off the back of the ambulance, thinking vaguely that she should follow, that she should be doing
something
for her father. But her legs couldn’t hold her up, and she collapsed to the ground.

“Cacy!” Eli jogged back through the emergency department doors. He gathered her in his arms and climbed into the back of the ambulance, clutching her to his chest. “Did you hit your head when you fell?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered. He tried to lay her on the bench, already reaching for his biolight. It was clear he was planning to examine her, like she was one of his patients. But that wasn’t what she needed. What she needed was something to hold on to, something to keep her from falling, from tumbling over the edge of the world. Her fingers curled around the thick muscles of his shoulders, hanging on tight. She buried her head in the crook of his neck. His fingers nudged under her chin and tipped her face up to his. He gave her a long, searching look. Then he sat on the bench and wrapped her in his arms.

“I told them you were his daughter. They said
they’d
give us a status update as soon as they could.”

She nodded.

“I’m so sorry, Cacy.” His voice was rough. “There’s still a chance—”

“No,” she choked. “Don’t, Eli. He was dead when we pulled into the ambulance bay. You know that.”

He didn’t argue. He might be optimistic, but he obviously wasn’t stupid. Instead, he held her tighter. The warm, clean scent of him filled her up, keeping the darkness at bay for the moment. She couldn’t push him away. She needed this feeling of safety too much.

“I feel like I failed you,” he said.

She shook her head. “You were amazing, and you did all you could.” She didn’t want him to feel bad. Her father had been doomed before they even arrived on the scene. A black void of sorrow opened its mouth wide in front of her, threatening to swallow her whole. She hid her face against Eli’s body, not wanting him to see her fall apart.

Eli sighed and laid his large palm against her cheek, his fingers burrowing in her hair. His other arm held her against him, like he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. She was surprised how good it felt. They were practically strangers. And she planned for it to stay that way, in all the ways that counted. But for
now . . .
she focused on the deep rise and fall of Eli’s chest, the whoosh of air from his lungs, the pulse in his neck. She counted the beats, pinning her thoughts to each number so she wouldn’t picture the doctors with her father, their fruitless attempts to jolt his silent heart back into motion.

They sat like that for a long time—quiet, alone and yet together. Eli held perfectly still for her, like he knew one move would remind her of where she was, of what they were waiting for. She pressed her palm over his chest and took refuge in the solid strength of him. Maybe, if she could stay there forever, the darkness wouldn’t find her. Maybe she could hold off the moment when her father’s death became real just a little longer—

The swooshing sound of an automatic door opening stole her breath. Eli’s arms became steel around her. His heart pounded beneath her hand. Hers felt like it had stopped.

“Ms. Ferry?” asked the doctor as he strode forward to look into the back of the ambulance. He was a wispy little fellow, and Cacy had delivered many a patient into his competent care. She knew the message
he’d
come to deliver by the well-practiced mournful tone of his voice.

“Dr. Umber,” she said, proud of the evenness of her voice as she pulled away from Eli.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “We were unable to restart your father’s heart.”

Cacy nodded, sparks and spots crowding her vision. The only thing keeping her from hurtling into a black abyss of helpless sorrow was Eli. “Can I see him?” she asked, fighting to keep her fragile control from breaking.

The doctor looked hesitant. “He hasn’t been cleaned up—”

“I can handle it.” She hopped off the back of the rig, feeling surprisingly steady, then looked down and realized she was holding Eli’s hand in a white-knuckled grip.

Dr. Umber stepped back and gestured toward the hospital doors. “The forensic team is on its way, but I don’t see the harm in a few minutes.”

They walked down the stark-white hall of the emergency department and into the operating theater where
they’d
worked on her father. Eli didn’t try to get his hand back, and she didn’t let it go.

Her father lay on a table, covered up to his neck with a
crimson-stained
sheet. His face was white and bloodless. His eyes were closed. His cheeks were sunken. Cacy stared, trying to reconcile this image with the understanding
she’d
had of him. Immortal. Timeless. Strong.

“Do you need me to call Dec?” Eli asked. “Give you some time alone?”

Dec would already know; Len would have called him. But she nodded and finally released Eli’s hand. She had to get her father’s Scope before the forensic team arrived. She had to get ready to help her brothers and sister deal with the enormous fallout. And she had to get some distance from Eli. She had to make sure she didn’t start to need him.

“Yeah. Thanks. For everything.”

He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and headed out.

When the door to the operating theater slipped closed behind him, Cacy reached out and pulled the sheet away from her father’s neck.

His Scope was gone.

“Motherfuckers,” she whispered as she pulled the sheet back up. Someone had already taken it. She reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The forensic techs would be pissed if anything was disturbed, but Cacy didn’t care. She needed to find out why this had happened. She flipped open the scanning port in her phone and aimed the needlelike beam at the matching port in her father’s phone. It took all her concentration to begin the transfer and keep her hands steady until the upload was complete, and then she slipped her father’s phone back into his pocket. She looked down at her phone’s display, hoping to find out who
he’d
talked to and met with recently, anything that would give her clues. But it was password-protected.
She’d
have to give it to Rylan and see if he could figure it out.

She started toward the door, but it flew open just as she
reached it.

Dec strode toward the table, and Cacy followed him, pointing to their father’s neck. “His Scope’s gone.”

Dec’s face didn’t change. “Of course it is, Cacy. He gave it up this afternoon.”

It felt like
she’d
been punched in the gut, and she wrapped her arms around herself to stay upright.
Of course.
She hadn’t been thinking straight at all. Their father had retired this afternoon, and
he’d
given his Scope, the symbol and source of his power, to Rylan. She suddenly knew that if they turned over their father’s body, the raven tattoo would be gone.

“I called Rylan and Aislin,” Dec said quietly. “They’re on their way. And I met Eli in the hall. I sent him back to the station.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug, never taking his eyes off their father’s face. “We’ll do this together.”

If he hadn’t been holding on to her, Cacy would have fallen down. “I don’t know if I can, Dec.”

“Trust me—you’ll regret it forever if you don’t.” Dec was speaking from experience. He hadn’t come into the Veil to wish their mother good-bye all those years ago.

Dec reached out and lifted the sheet. He swore when he saw the wound. Cacy stared at the hole, the size of a bottle cap, with ragged edges. Something inside her stirred, huge and dark. This was no way to treat a great man. “Dec, the Kere violated the treaty.”

Dec sighed. “If he formally gave up his Scope, he gave up his immortality. He was fair game.”

She wrenched herself away from him. “That’s bullshit. How is this
fair
?”

He backed away from her and crossed his arms over his chest. “Life isn’t fair, Cacy, and neither is death. Stop acting like a child.”

Angry tears burned in her eyes. “Stop acting like a heartless asshole.”

“Cut it out,” snapped a voice filled with arctic chill. Awesome. Aislin had arrived.

Cacy whipped around and glared at her older half-sister, who stood, lean and elegant, in the entrance to the room. She wore a light-blue silk suit that perfectly matched her eyes. Her hair was coiled into a neat bun at the base of her neck, not a strand out of place. Her expression was absolutely composed, as usual. “Declan is right, and this is not the time to fight. Three of our Psychopomps employees are in critical condition, and one is dead. Father would want us to fulfill our duties to him and them, not engage in childish name-calling.”

Aislin gave Cacy a look that said,
You disappoint me
, which was also as usual, then approached their father’s bedside and pulled the sheet back up to his chin. Cacy blinked. She must have imagined the tremble in her sister’s hands, because when Aislin turned around, she was steady as an iceberg.

Her eyes focused on Cacy’s neck. “Where’s your Scope?”

Cacy’s hand flew to the chain. “I . . . Shit. I must have dropped it on scene.”

Aislin looked at her as if she were the silliest, most idiotic creature on the planet. And for once, Cacy agreed with her. “Once we’ve escorted Father, you will retrieve it,” Aislin said in a flinty voice. “And pray it’s still there.”

Cacy didn’t have the energy to defend herself. Her fingers were curled around the chain where her Scope had hung since the moment she turned sixteen and accepted her birthright. Without it, she felt naked. Helpless.

“Father!” Rylan clutched at his ebony hair as he burst through the door and ran to their father’s side. His eyes were full of tears. “No, no,
no
,” he said through clenched teeth.

Cacy touched his arm. Apart from her, Rylan had always been closest to their father. “I’m sorry, Ry.”

He pivoted and pulled her against his chest so tightly she could barely breathe. “They said you were there, Cace. Are you all right?”

“I wasn’t there when it happened. I took the call, though, and brought him here.”

He looked down at her, rage burning in his dark eyes. “We need to talk, then. I want to go over everything you saw.”

“Rylan, with all due respect, that is ridiculous.” Aislin didn’t flinch when Rylan rounded on her, his fists clenched. “Going after the human culprit is police business.”

“I didn’t ask for your counsel.” Rylan stood tall, his arm around Cacy’s shoulders, glaring at Aislin.

“Do as you wish,” she replied icily. “
After
we take care of our father.”

Rylan’s fingers coiled painfully around Cacy’s arm, but she didn’t move. He stared at Aislin like he wanted to kill her. Or fire her. Cacy was in favor of both at the moment. Rylan didn’t need to be reminded of his duty to their father, and Aislin was a bitch for implying
he’d
ever shirk his responsibility.

“Come on, guys,” said Dec quietly. He stood next to their father’s head, still staring at his gaunt face. “Let’s just go. We can fight later.”

Rylan nodded at Dec and let go of Cacy. He unsnapped the ornate Scope of the Charon from the chain around his neck and ran his thumb over the raven etched on its surface. Jaw set and eyes steely, he pulled the ring wide. He held it as they climbed into the Veil one by one, silent and grim, preparing to say good-bye to their father for the last time.

CHAPTER NINE

E
li parked the ambulance in its spot at the EMS station. He sat in the driver’s seat and stared through the windshield, seeing nothing but Cacy’s face. His chest felt hollow. With a sigh, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It wasn’t even six in the morning, an hour before shift change, but he needed to hear his sister’s voice right now.

She picked up on the second ring. “Eli?”

“Hey,” he said softly. “I thought I’d be waking you up.”

She chuckled. “Oh, no, I never got to bed. I got back from the lab an hour or so ago, and I’ve been doing some unpacking. Campus security is great, if you were wondering. They drove me door-to-door.”

He smiled. She knew how much he worried about her. “Glad to hear it.”

After a few moments of silence, Galena said, “What’s up?”

Eli leaned his head back against the seat. “It’s been a long night. I’ve got this new partner—”

“I hope there’s no hazing at
this
EMS. Is he nice?” Now she was the one who sounded worried.

“
She
is all right. A good paramedic.”

“And?”

“And I think tonight might have been the worst night of her life.” Eli closed his eyes, trying to erase the image of Cacy’s grief-stricken face. But he couldn’t shake it, so he told Galena everything that had happened.

When he was finished, she said, “You feel guilty. Even though you did the best you could.”

“I want to make it better for her, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. I don’t even know her. Not yet.” He was surprised to hear himself emphasize that final word.

“And despite that, you want to be there for her.” Galena didn’t question it, didn’t make him feel stupid for his feelings. He loved that about her. And she was right. He couldn’t stop reliving those moments when Cacy had been in his arms. Despite the horrible circumstances,
he’d
felt like
he’d
been right where he needed to be. But he wanted to do more.

“I wish I could rewind this entire night and . . . I don’t know. Be better. Faster. Smarter.” It wasn’t the first time
he’d
felt that way.

Galena made a sympathetic noise. “Eli, you take too much responsibility for things beyond your control. Sometimes stuff simply . . . happens. What matters is what you do now. I’m sure she’ll appreciate you just being there.” Her voice faded to a whisper. “I know I did.”

“I will
always
be there for you.” He rubbed at the ache in his chest. “Hey, you ever heard of the Ferrys?”
And do you know why your name was Patrick Ferry’s last word?

She laughed at the abrupt subject change. “No, is that some paramedic superstition around here?”

“Ha ha. I’m not talking pixie dust.” He spelled the name. “They’re an important family in town, and they own this company called Psychopomps Incorporated. Ever heard of it?”

“Uh, no. Should I have?”

Eli relaxed a little. He had probably been hearing things. After all, it had been loud in the back of the ambulance and Patrick Ferry’s voice had been so weak. Plus, Boston was a big place. Even if Cacy’s father had said “Galena,” he probably hadn’t been talking about
his
Galena. “No. No worries. I was just wondering.”

A bang on his window jerked Eli’s head forward. Len peered up at him, waving a bottle of Powderkleen.

“Hey, G, I have to go.” Eli raised one finger at Len. “My new supervisor’s got some issues.” One of them being Cacy, but he didn’t have time to get into that. “Love you, sis. Thanks for the advice.”

Eli clicked off his phone and opened the ambulance door. Len shoved the bottle in his face. “You’ve got some work to do, Sergeant. Your rig’s a dump.”

Eli took the bottle and leveled a somber look at the night shift supervisor. “Cacy’s dad didn’t make it.”

Len gave him a curt nod. “That lets Cace off the hook, but not you.”

“It wasn’t an excuse,” growled Eli. “I just thought, since you claim to care about her, that you’d want to know.”

Len’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I already knew. And so do the others. They know you’re the medic who let Patrick Ferry die.”

Eli’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t thought of it that way. On his first night on the job,
he’d
lost one of the most prominent men in Boston. The Chief’s father. Would Cacy feel the same way? Sure, in the shock right after it happened,
she’d
told him
he’d
done everything he could, but would she feel differently tomorrow? Would the Chief?

Eli avoided the stares of his new colleagues as he cleaned out the rig. He scrubbed until his hands were raw, wishing it were enough to bring Patrick Ferry back. As he worked, he overheard a few guys talking about the attack, speculating about what had happened. Apparently, they hadn’t caught the person who did it. The police officer had chased the assailant into Boston Common, the wild, overgrown swampland at the edge of their emergency response zone. It was pretty much a lawless hideout for canal pirates, so the officer, alone and without backup, had given up before going too deep.

The killer was still on the loose. No big surprise, but Eli had hoped the Boston police would be more effective than law enforcement where he came from. Apparently, they were as understaffed and underequipped here as everywhere else.

Eli used an entire bottle of Powderkleen on the rig. By the time he finished, his nose and throat felt burned by the chemical scent. Len had walked by a few times to tell him what a crap job he was doing. Eli had put his head down and gritted his teeth to avoid succumbing to the temptation to turn Len into a bleeding pile of human wreckage on the garage floor.

He finally punched out after what felt like the longest shift of his entire life. His fellow paramedics were already shunning him, his supervisor had it in for him, and for all he knew, the Chief might blame Eli for his father’s death. What a shitty start to his new life in the East.

As tired as he was, though, he didn’t head straight home. At the hospital,
he’d
noticed Cacy’s pendant was no longer around her neck. It must have fallen off in the chaos of getting her father to the ambulance. No matter what she thought of him,
she’d
probably be glad to have it back.

He caught a bus to Boston Common. A few people got off at the same stop, and all of them scattered quickly, jogging away as if someone might leap out and drag them into the swamp. Probably a realistic fear. Eli scanned the edge of the Common. A low fence had been built around it, as if that would keep its inhabitants inside.

In her excitement about moving to this city, Galena had read him an entire book of Boston history on the bus ride from Pittsburgh. Apparently, every year, the water crept a little closer to the center of town, and the city tried to keep up by building more canals and reinforcing its buildings. Unfortunately, it had let some of the “less desirable” neighborhoods flood, so the residents had ended up homeless and unprotected. Many of them lived in the nearby shantytown that used to be the city’s theater district.

Eli turned in place at the corner of Tremont and Boylston. The sulfurous stench from the swamp was stronger now that the sun was rising, along with the temperature. A trickle of sweat snaked down his back. People were starting to emerge onto the streets, their eyes darting anxiously back and forth, their footsteps hurried. The road was potholed and fissured. The building Patrick Ferry had fallen against appeared to be abandoned. His blood was still pooled on the sidewalk and smeared across the stamped-concrete wall. This was clearly a terrible part of town, a world away from the gated, guarded Back Bay a few blocks away. Galena had told him that the city had even built a bypass around the Common to enable people to avoid it. So why had Cacy’s father come here?

A police cruiser was parked at the corner, and the area was loosely taped off. Eli waved his paramedic badge at the officer eyeing him from inside the vehicle. “I’m looking for something my partner dropped when we responded to the call. Is it all right if I poke around?”

The officer nodded at him. “Just stay outside the tape.”

Eli searched the ground, praying someone hadn’t snatched up the shiny piece of jewelry. It had looked valuable, and it was obviously really important to Cacy. Her fingers often drifted up to touch the pendant, and the Chief wore one exactly like it. Maybe it was a family heirloom or something. Eli squatted down at the edge of the road.

There, amid the shattered glass of the amphibious sports car, he saw it. Eli reached out to retrieve it but drew his fingers back with a gasp as a bolt of sensation zapped across the palm of his hand, so cold it almost burned him. He stretched his arm out again, ready for the feeling this time. The medallion was small but much heavier than
he’d
expected it to be. He plucked it from the glass and closed his hand around its frigid surface, relieved to have found it.

While the bus carried him to the place he would be calling home, Cacy’s pendant continued to send icy spikes of pain across his palm. He would have expected it to be warm by now, clutched as it was against his skin. Instead, it seemed to pulse with cold. Bizarre. He shoved it into his pocket.

He got off at a stop next to Harvard and followed the map in his phone until he reached the low, square apartment building. He punched in the security code Galena had texted him and pulled open the door. The apartment was spare and basic, and probably would remain that way. Neither of them had the time or inclination to decorate. He padded silently around the small space; Galena was probably grabbing a few hours of sleep before heading back to her lab.

Eli tossed his rucksack to the floor in the empty bedroom. Galena had taped a sign to the door that said
Eli’s Room, Keep Out!
in childish handwriting, like they were still kids and this was their clubhouse. He walked over to examine the barred windows. They were sealed shut. Damn. It was stifling in here, and he could use some fresh air.

He threw himself onto the bed, which sagged under his weight. Galena had made it up for him, and he smiled at her thoughtfulness. He should be thinking about sleep, since he had another shift tonight and
he’d
have to be sharp. But the cold fire of Cacy’s pendant was almost literally burning a hole in his pocket. He pulled it from his pants and examined it. A set of scales was etched on its surface in amazing detail. He turned it over to see a fierce-eyed bird, wings spread as if in midflight. Engraved below the bird’s feet were three words, but Eli couldn’t quite make them out. He held the disk close to his face and brushed his thumb over the letters.

A low yelp flew from him as an icy pulse shot through his fingers and frigid shocks traveled up his arm. He squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The pendant was now a ring with a transparent, swirling center. Heart racing, he clutched the edges to hold it up to the light, but it expanded in his grasp until he held a large hoop in his hands.

“What the hell?” he whispered. His skin tingled as the room began to swim in front of his eyes; he realized he was holding his breath. His chest expanded as he drew in a lungful of the cool air flowing from the hoop. He peered through its center and could still see his room, but everything looked different—gray and dull. And . . . oddly familiar, like something from a dream, like a memory he couldn’t quite touch. His trembling fingertips
penetrated
the skin of the swirling bubble, sending a shiver throughout his body. He reached forward until the cold engulfed his entire arm, turning his skin pale, and he suddenly needed to see what lay on the other side of the ring. Already knowing this might be the stupidest thing
he’d
ever done—but unable to fight the bone-deep curiosity and his certainty that
he’d
seen all of this before—Eli stepped through the ring.