Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series (33 page)

     “It’s ok, Missy.  You can’t
kick all of these people out.  The party’s already been messed up because
of me.  I don’t want to ruin what’s left of it.  I can call you from
the hospital once I know what’s going on.”  To my relief, she nodded her
agreement.  If she didn’t have a houseful of people, it would have been
another story, I was sure.

     I turned to Gwen, ready to beg, if I
had to.  “Can I borrow your car?  Please?”

     She’d started shaking her head
before I even finished speaking.  “Not a chance.  You aren’t ditching
me with all of these people; I’m driving.”

***

     I turned to Gwen as we sped along
as fast as her little yellow Bug would go.  “Gwen, I need you to do me a
huge favor.”  My stomach was in knots already, as fear and adrenaline
raced through me. That blessed feeling of numbness had worn off quickly. 
Shock does have some value, after all.  I was starting to miss the
feeling.

     I didn’t know what I would find at
the hospital, but I was sure that I didn’t want Gwen near any of it.  As
she tilted her head in my direction, air from the heat vent blew wisps of
blonde hair blew back from her face. Thank God the Bug had a great
heater.  I didn’t feel the cold the way I used to, but the tiny little
Halloween costumes weren’t meant to hold up against cold weather, either.
  I pulled my jacket a little tighter around myself, more for comfort
than anything else.  

     The radio was blaring from earlier,
so she reached over to turn the volume down.  Gwen’s eyes never left the
road, but I had her full attention.  “And what might that favor be,
Cupcake?”  So, she was still mildly annoyed that I had tried to ditch her,
earlier. 

     “I want you to drop me off at the
visitors’ entrance, and then leave.  Go back home.  Keep your mom
away, too.  I know how she is; she will shut the party down and come try
to manage everything. This is something that even she can’t manage.  As
soon as I know anything, I swear I will call you with all of the details. 
Oh, and make sure she gets Jazzy, too, please.”  I didn’t want to worry
about my poor cat starving to death without me, and I was pretty sure that I
wouldn’t be home for quite some time.

     She turned to face me, for just a
split second.  One perfectly groomed brow was arched in disbelief. 
“Oh, you must be shitting me.”  She shook her head.  “I’m sorry, but
I’m gonna have to say no to that, Iz.  Yes to babysitting your demon cat,
but no to leaving you,” she clarified.

     “Please, promise me, Gwen.”  I
wasn’t above begging.  Picking a fight with her wouldn’t work.  Gwen
loved to fight, just never with me.

     “Nope.  No can do.”  Her
hands flexed on the steering wheel, smooth and graceful.  She was acting
all cool and calm, but she wasn’t fooling me.  Her knuckles were white
from the death-grip she had on the wheel.  Bless her little heart, she was
trying to hold it together. For me.

     Gwen braked for a red light. 
“Relax, Iz.  I know why you don’t want me to stay with you.”

     I stared at her profile,
incredulously.  “Other than the obvious reasons?”

     “Of course.  You’re afraid
that if I hang around and help nurse your dad back to health, he will finally
get around to that midlife crisis he’s been putting off.  Then, of course,
he’ll realize that he’s been madly in love with me this whole time. And then
things will get awkward between us, with me being your new step-mom, and
all.  But don’t worry; it will be ok, because in ten years your dad will
dump me for someone younger and hotter.  Then, we will hate that skanky ho
for stealing him from us, and
then
we will best friends again.”

     I just stared at her slack-jawed.
“You are completely insane.”

     Gwen pulled neatly into a parking
spot between two giant gas guzzling trucks, and cut the engine.  She
smirked at me, and then winked.  “Quite possibly, I may be insane, but you
should practice calling me ‘Mommy,’ just in case.”

     Unbelievably, almost painfully, she
surprised laughter out of me.  It bubbled up like water struggling out of
a dry tap.  It came in fits and starts, taking my breath, and choking
tears out of me.  My sides ached by the time I calmed down.  I needed
that.

     “You really are crazy,” I said, as
I wiped tears from the corners of my eyes.

     She shrugged.  “Maybe, but I
got you to laugh, so I’m happy.” She pocketed her keys.  “Come on. 
Let’s go see how my future ex-husband is doing.”

     “Gwen, wait,” I hurried after
her.  “Please don’t go in there with me.  There’s more to this than
you know.”  I hadn’t told her the whole story; not the part about Fate
using me to get back at Asher.

     She hiked her purse up a little
higher on her shoulder and started walking towards the entrance.  “I already
know plenty, so I suggest you make it quick, and don’t leave out any of the
good parts.”

     I made it quick, and she got the
whole, sordid story on the ride up in the elevator.

***

     This mess had just about come
full-circle.  It had started in a hospital, it only seemed right that it
be finished in one.  That sharp, antiseptic hospital odor brought back
unpleasant memories of pain and sickness.  I stood in the doorway and just
looked at my father, for a moment.  Watching him made me want to break
down and bawl like a little kid, but my eyes remained dry.  The impotent
rage I felt had burned away all of my tears. 

     My dad looked so frail lying in the
hospital bed.  He seemed diminished, somehow, and much younger than his
forty-one years.  I was so used to him being up and on the move that
watching him sleep seemed like the ultimate invasion of his privacy. 
There were tubes coming out of him in all directions and a ventilator hissed
and breathed behind him.

     It was all so damned unfair. 
My dad had never done anything to deserve this.  He’d never done anything
bad in his entire life, as far as I knew.  An act of Fate.  If it was
the last thing I ever did, I would find a way to make her pay for this.

     The doctor finally got around to
talking to me about an hour after Gwen and I got to the hospital.  My dad
had suffered a small aneurysm, apparently.  It was in an inoperable spot
in his brain, but they were hopeful that it had not done any major damage. The
doctor assured me that he was getting only the best care, and that he was on
blood thinners and a cocktail of other drugs to prevent further damage. 

     My dad was in serious, but stable
condition, and he had a private room just down the hall from the ICU. 
‘Private room,’ turned out to be a misnomer, because there was no
privacy.  Nurses came in to check on him constantly.  They pulled so
much blood, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t have much left by the time they got
through.

     And through it all, he slept. 
The doctor said it wasn’t a true coma, but that his body had suffered enough of
a trauma, it was trying to heal itself.  He said my dad was lucky to be
alive.  He said a lot of things.  Not that it made any
difference.  I’d stopped paying attention after I heard his condition
hadn’t changed since he’d collapsed.

     The good thing about Dad being in
constant care, was he was only allowed two visitors at a time.  Since I
refused to leave, that only left room for one extra person.  Gwen ran a
lot of interference for me with my dad’s friends and employees.  Best of
all, she kept a constant supply of caffeine coming my way; not that I needed
it.  I was already wired, from waiting for the other shoe to drop.

     Gwen’s mom, Missy called and
offered to come by to check on us.  It took some doing, but we finally
convinced her to keep the party going.  There was no reason to ruin
everyone’s Halloween.  We had everything under control, or as much as
possible. 

     Gwen’s dad had already taken the
house key I’d left them and collected my cat, so that was one less thing to
worry about.  James loved Jazzy, and Jazzy tolerated him, so she would be
alright with them until I could take her home.

     Missy tried to get Gwen to come
home, for a little while, to pack an overnight bag for me.  I was all for
it. Anything was better than letting her stay and put herself in danger.
 Also, I really wouldn’t have minded a change of clothes and some
toothpaste.  Gwen, however, wasn’t biting.  She stayed, and ran back
and forth between the hospital room and the waiting room.

     Finally, visiting hours were over,
and I settled into an intensely uncomfortable green chair next to the head of
my dad’s hospital bed.  Gwen was down in the cafeteria, trying to scrounge
up something for us to eat.  The nurses gave up on getting rid of me, and
just learned to work around me. I propped my feet up, and settled in for the
long haul.

     My newly enhanced hearing made it
so I could have heard a mouse fart in the room next door, but even without the extra
abilities, there is nothing quiet about a hospital at night. Machinery wheezed
and beeped.  People constantly wandered in and out, or talked in the
hallway as they walked past open doors.  Carts rattled along with squeaky
wheels that wouldn’t turn. Water gurgled in the old pipes.

     No, there is nothing quiet about a
hospital at night, but there is something completely unnerving about one. 
It’s like a train station between the living and the dead.  For some
people, a lot of people, this is their last stop.

     I wondered how many Reapers were
walking the halls at that particular moment.  Then, of course, I wondered
where
my
Reaper was.  It wasn’t like Asher to go missing for long.  Granted,
he thought I was mad at him, but still, he would never leave me to face this
alone, if he knew anything about it.  He would never ditch me when I
needed him most.  Something had to be wrong, or he would’ve been
there.  I was worried about him, but I couldn’t leave my dad.  There
was no question Asher could take care of himself.  My dad, on the other
hand, had never been so vulnerable.

    My nerves were stretched so tight I’m
surprised they didn’t snap. I wanted to
do
something to help my father. I wanted to find Asher, and tell him I was sorry
for everything.  Instead, I sat quietly, watched my dad sleep, and waited
for Fate to make her next move.  I shifted in my chair; my butt was going
numb. Hospital furniture isn’t meant to be comfortable.  I think they do
it on purpose, to discourage visitors.

     Dad’s eyes darted back and forth
under his lids as he slept.  I hoped he had good dreams; I didn’t want him
trapped in a nightmare.  Reality was bad enough.  

    There was just a little sliver of light
stretched out across the floor from the light in the hallway.  The lights
in his room were all turned off, except the ones on the monitors, but their
little blue and red lines didn’t do much.  My dad didn’t need to be
disturbed in his sleep, and I didn’t need them to see by.  Everything was
as clear as day to me, now, if painted in shades of
grey.    

     Power tingled just under my skin, a
constant reminder of the gifts Asher had given me.  I wondered if there
was any way to harness that power and wake my father up.  If I
concentrated hard, there was a shimmer along my hand: my Will, manifesting
itself.  The problem, of course, was that I didn’t have total control of
it, yet.  The one time I had managed to use it properly had resulted in
someone’s death.  The power I held was the power of destruction.  I
wiggled my fingers and the shimmer winked out and disappeared.  Better to
save the light show for another time.  I went back to sitting in the dark,
and waiting.

     It wasn’t really that much of a
surprise when the Reaper appeared out of nowhere.  I sat up a little straighter,
on full alert now that something was finally happening.  Just as I was
getting sick of waiting, he was there between one breath and the next.  If
I hadn’t been watching for something to happen, I might never have seen him.

     Black eyes glittered in the
shadows; he didn’t look surprised to see me, either.  There isn’t much
point to being sneaky when most people just refuse to see you, anyway.  At
least Gwen wasn’t there for it.  She’d gone down to the cafeteria. That
was something to be thankful for.

     “I thought she’d send someone
else.”

     “She might have sent someone else,
if I hadn’t volunteered to come,” he said, taking a smooth step forward, and
into the dim light.

     “Grim, isn’t it?”  He bowed
his dark head in acknowledgement.  He was acting very much the gentleman,
especially considering the way he’d acted the few other times we’d met. 
He came forward slowly, cautiously.  I threw a protective hand across my
father’s chest and leaned forward. “Well, Grim, why don’t you just back the
hell off?”

     “Careful, little sister, lest you
do the job yourself, by accident.”  I moved my hand a fraction away from
my father’s heart, just in case.

     “You can’t have my father.”

     The Reaper laughed, dryly. 
“It just so happens, that I’m not here for him, I’m here for you.”  I just
stared at him; I wasn’t falling for it.  He backed off a little, giving me
room.  “Look, this whole scenario,” he gestured towards my dad stretched
out in the hospital bed, “is a test.  One that you’re about to fail,
miserably.”

     “Tell me all about it,” I said,
dryly.

     “You don’t strike me as
particularly dim-witted, so I’m going to make this quick. When, not if, but
when, Fate sends a Reaper in here to take your father, the first thing you’re
going to do is defend him.”  I nodded for him to go on.  “Asher isn’t
here to take the blame this time.  It’s all on you.  He will be
exposed as a liar, and you as an…” he stopped and seemed to swallow what he’d
been about to say.