The Isis Collar (31 page)

If that was true, and I believed her, then she was never going to change. She’d never be the person I’d loved, who’d loved me. We’d reached the end of the road. She made her choice. She loved the bottle more. I couldn’t live with her choices … no,
wouldn’t
live with her this way. It was over. But, oh God, how it hurt. She’s my
mom.
I wanted her to be my mom.

But she didn’t want to be.

I sat in my car and cried until there were no more tears left. I felt … beaten. And I stank. The fight with the zombie had been ugly and messy. I wanted a shower. I needed food. Since the office was closer than the house, that’s where I went.

Traffic thinned out the farther I got from the hospital. I’d bet if I was in a helicopter flying above the city, it would look like either a multistar benefit concert was happening at the hospital or a tsunami had hit the coast.

I was within a few blocks of the office when a black sedan cut in front of me with a screech of tires and blue, rubber-scented smoke, startling me enough to make me jump and jerk the wheel, curbing the car. Damned if they hadn’t tried to run me right into a tree. Palm trees don’t look like much, but they’re a hell of a lot bigger than my Miata. I probably would have wound up right back at the hospital.

My foot slammed down on the brake pedal until the air was filled with the scent of burning brakes. I gave in to the desire to blast the horn and flip off the driver. What I found interesting is that when I got back onto the road and sped up to write down the license number, the rear plate was missing. That turned it from careless to intentional, which ticked me off.

The next interesting thing was that the car pulled into my office’s parking lot at a speed that caused the muffler to scrape on the concrete when it hit the entrance—hard enough to raise sparks. Another screech of the tires made me fight to look around the palms, and when I saw the rear door open and a large object get thrown out, I put my foot to the floor and pulled in behind the sedan, hoping to keep them in the lot. But the driver was good—very good. He skittered past my sliding Miata by putting his car into a glide that might have looked like ballet to a passerby or at least a “professional driver on a closed course.” I couldn’t pursue the black car without running over the inert form lying on the pavement.

It was a body and it wasn’t moving. There was a smear of red across the concrete where the body had rolled. I threw the car into park and forced my sore feet into a run as I glimpsed the gold Rolex on the man’s wrist and the honey color of his hair under the crusted blood.

When I cautiously rolled the man onto his back I let out a noise from the back of my throat and my hand went to my mouth. “Oh God, John.” Creede’s face was a mess of bruises and cuts that had taken some time to bestow, including a gash over one eye that would need stitches and a split, purpled lip. I couldn’t feel any magic from him at all and that worried me most. Who the hell could do this to him?

He was breathing, thank God. When I tentatively touched his stubbled chin on the way to check the pulse in his neck, he stirred and his eyes fluttered open. I kept my voice soft and confident. But there was fear threaded among the words. Were the bruises only the beginning of the beating or, worse, were they not from a beating at all? What lay below the surface? “Just lie still. I’m going to call nine-one-one and get you to the hospital.”

I felt a surprisingly firm hand on my arm. “No.”

His eyes might not have their usual flames in the back, but there was fire there. Still, he couldn’t be serious. “You need a hospital, John. You could have internal injuries and—” No. I wasn’t going to tell him about M. necrose. All I had to do was get him to the hospital and they’d fix him. They had to fix him.

He started to pull himself up, using my arm like a rope climb. “Just get me upstairs. I’ll be fine.” He coughed shallow and then deep and then spat thick blood onto the sidewalk, not just red-tinged spit. Crap.

“Oh, for God’s sake. Just quit the tough-guy thing and admit you need a doctor. I’m calling an ambulance.” Now I was getting angry. A beating like this could kill him if he was bleeding internally. I shook him off and started around the car to get my cell phone.

“Celia.” The tone in his voice stopped me. I couldn’t describe it, exactly. But I turned and looked at the pain in his face. “The press would crucify me and my company. We’re already in trouble because of Miller’s death. We employ thousands of people around the world.
Thousands.
Just help me upstairs. Please.”

The press? I thought about it for a long moment while I stared at the hideous damage to his body. I knew his partner’s death had hit him hard personally, but it had never occurred to me how it would affect the company. Miller & Creede was the best of the best. But to have one owner die while trafficking with demons and the other … shit. It was one thing to protect your client and get beat up. That happened to all of us. It was another thing altogether for a bodyguard, not to mention a defensive mage, to be snatched, beat up like a mugging victim, and dumped. He was right. I hated it, but he was right. I let out a harsh growl. “I’ve got some medical charms in my office. We can at least get that cut near your eye fixed. It’s bleeding pretty bad.”

He shrugged as best he could and I got the feeling he’d had worse in the past … another thing he should have told me about. “It’s a head wound. They bleed.” I helped him to his feet and got an arm around his broad back. At the first step he put his full weight on my shoulder before pulling in a hiss of air. “Hope one of them mends bones. I think my leg is broken.”

A frustrated sigh slipped out of me. “Yeah. If it’s not fractured too bad. Can you put any weight on it at all, or do I need to carry you up?”

He turned his head enough to look at me as if I’d lost my mind … even though he probably knew I
could
carry him up two flights of stairs. His voice was dry and firm. “I’ll manage.”

My eyes rolled automatically.

Men.

21

It
took
nearly half an hour to reach the third floor. Thankfully, the cat had realized now wasn’t a time to be affectionate and weave between our legs. She’d taken one look at us and gone back to her favorite perch on the windowsill. I was just glad we hadn’t tumbled down the stairs. The treads are narrow and it wasn’t easy to keep our balance while he hobbled and hopped.

We paused by my office door for John to catch his breath. That’s when I found a note taped on the paneled wood.

Tenant Meeting on Tuesday at 10:00. Be there.

Ron

I yanked it off the door and crumpled it in one hand before throwing it on the floor. Yeah, I’d be at the tenants’ meeting all right. I couldn’t wait to see the look on Ron’s snotty face when he found out I was the new building owner. Maybe I’d kick his ass to the curb.

John was pale and sweating from the stress of the climb up the stairs, but he wasn’t making a sound. I had to give him credit. “Okay, it’s only a few more feet to your office.” John’s office was right next to mine. He’d rented it a few months before during the blowup with Miller. I wasn’t quite sure why he’d kept the lease after Miller’s death. “Hang in there for just a few more seconds and you can lie down.”

“There’s nowhere to lay down in there. All I have is a desk and a safe.”

Okay. Change of plans. I pulled out my keys and opened the door to my own office. In a few minutes, I had John settled on my couch. When I put one of the pillows under his head, he grunted. “It’s comfortable.”

I had to let out a small chuckle. “Glad it suits you. I bought it after the last time I wound up sleeping on the office floor. It’s good to sleep on after long nights. Hang on while I get the med kit out of the safe.” He turned his head so he could watch me open it. He’s mentioned more than once he finds the whole process fascinating. He should. The safe is top-of-the-line and takes a good part of my income to maintain. The day we’d first met, John had planned to stay outside the building and watch the perimeter while guarding his movie star client, but the sheer power of the safe’s magical wards had intrigued him enough to come inside and check it out. He could still feel the energy from the look in his eyes. I shifted position so he wouldn’t see me enter the combination, looking at him over my shoulder.

At my move, a glimmer of humor returned to his face, which was nice to see. “Always the professional. I wouldn’t expect any less. Besides, I don’t mind the view.” He looked me up and down once, slow. “Nice outfit.”

He was being sarcastic, of course. I looked down. The splatters of zombie goo were now accented by splotches of John’s blood. Oh shit, zombie goo, in open wounds. What the hell had I been thinking?

“John, you’re going to
have
to go to the hospital. I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t think. But I fought a zombie—a guy who’d been infected with M. necrose.…

To my surprise, he only shrugged, then winced. “I’ve been vaccinated.”

I looked at him with disbelief. “Don’t bullshit me, John. Nobody gets vaccinated for a weird disease like that.”

He chuckled. “You do when you’re guarding a group of doctors from Physicians Médecins Sans Frontières in Papua, New Guinea. Especially when M. necrose is what they’re going there to treat.” Maybe my disbelief continued to show, because he shrugged. “It’s on the list of immunizations in my passport in the safe in my office. When I can walk I’ll show you.”

My knees went weak with relief, and I had to steady myself for a second. The thought that I could’ve infected him …

“I’m glad it matters so much to you, but could you get a move on? The leg really hurts.”

No doubt. I pulled myself together and hurried over to the safe that takes up most of the wall behind my desk. The charms, like most of the really valuable stuff I keep on site, were locked inside.

My safe is both magically and scientifically biometric. After I entered a code onto the keypad, a palm plate popped out to test my DNA and fingerprints. The display reminded me that I was nearly at my “due date.” When I was turned, the safe didn’t recognize me anymore. My software guru suggested I use the pregnancy override to account for my changed body. It worked, but when the nine months were up, the safe might not open. I was going to have to remember to clean it out completely before my “due date.” It’s a
big
safe, so that will be a pain in the butt.

Once the lights all turned green the locks disengaged with heavy thunks and the door cracked open. It’s easier to open now that I’ve got the extra strength, but I’m still glad the door is well balanced. The med kit held all the new stuff I’d bought at Levy’s. I hadn’t planned to use the charms quite this fast. “Okay, let’s see what we have here.” I dumped everything on the coffee table. The one I wanted landed on top. “Here we go.
Leg Set.
” I read from the back: “‘For relief of simple breaks of toes and legs. Not for use on ankle or knee joints or when bones protrude from skin. Severe breaks should be treated by a physician or licensed healer.” I looked at his left leg. “I don’t think you could have walked at all if the bone was protruding. You probably would have passed out. But we should probably check. Upper or lower?”

He raised his leg slightly and turned his foot toward me. “Lower. Feels like it’s just above my ankle.”

At least he was wearing sneakers, so I didn’t have to worry about getting a boot off. I carefully pulled up his pant leg and took a look at the leg. He had really nice calves. He must swim or run. The whole front of the leg was definitely swollen and red, but there was no lump that might indicate that the bone was separated. “You’ll need to get an X-ray even with the charm to make sure there aren’t any chips in there.”

He raised his brows. “Of course. But let’s get it to where I can walk on it.”

I opened the package and wrapped the hook and eye fastener around the area and then squeezed the plastic vial inside the covering until I heard it crack. A glow enveloped John’s leg and he sucked in a sharp breath. “You didn’t mention the stinging.”

A quick glance at the warnings revealed the answer. “Ah. ‘May cause swelling, itching, or burning sensation for first thirty minutes. Reaction is generally mild to moderate. Leg should not bear weight for thirty minutes and patient should not run or attempt strenuous activity for twenty-four hours. If pain continues for more than sixty minutes, a spiral fracture may be indicated and professional treatment should be sought.’ So, I guess we’ll see, huh?”

He nodded. “Actually, it’s starting to fade already. Or at least it’s not as bad as when you first put it on.”

“Your lip’s bleeding again. Try not to drip on the rug.” He shot me a sarcastic glance and opened his mouth to say something, but I didn’t give him the chance. “How about we just fix it?”

He shook his head. “Eye first. It’s swelling enough it’s getting hard to see.”

That was easy, but, “Well, that should take your mind off the leg.” I smiled, but he didn’t. Oh, well. It was the truth, because I was going to have to sit down on the couch next to him and hold the cut together while I poured on the skin-mend powder. Nothing like squeezing an open wound for sheer, raw pain.

Worse, it was a long cut and tricky to hold. I finally wound up positioning John’s fingers on one half. He blistered the air with swearing as I poured, but he didn’t move. Soon enough he had a thin, angry red line over his eyebrow instead of the once-nasty cut.

“Okay, then. So—” Next was his mouth. “Any loose teeth?”

He nodded. “I probably took one or two kicks. One molar and an upper canine are loose. But at least they’re all there.”

It was time to bring it up, while I pulled another package from the stack on the table. “So, what happened? Who messed you up?” He was silent for a long moment while I read the instructions for the charm. I decided to break the silence. “Oh, this is the ‘new and improved’ version. I need water. Hang on while I get a cup.” I paused before I left the room. “You can decide what you want to say, but I think I’ve earned an answer.”