| |
THE CELL WAS QUIET, which should have been just about perfect for meditation, but the truth was I hated silence. Humming in the back of my throat was the only thing I could think to do to keep the silence from driving me batty.
“I’d kill for some MC Yogi right about now.”
Of course, that was a poor choice of words considering I was serving a life sentence for murder.
My accommodations weren’t terrible. I had a double bed in one corner with unadorned but warm blankets. Against the wall across the room was a desk and chair along with several stacks of books to occupy my time. Of course, it was hard to concentrate when I spent so much time puking my guts up.
I was cross-legged on the floor, hands perched atop my knees with my eyes closed trying to concentrate. I’d been wracked with chills earlier, but now I was hot and sweaty. The cold stone beneath my body felt heavenly. The magical prison wouldn’t let me use any of my magic, which meant my sickness would continue to progress to more than just an inconvenience. I’d only allowed myself to get this sick one time years before. I would be pleading for death before long.
My ears honed in on footsteps outside the cell. I opened one eye and listened. To my chagrin, I heard the jangle of keys just before the large bronze door opened. Two sets of feet entered, and I knew one of them was Vicente.
“Red,” he said his voice so strong it echoed throughout the chamber. “You have a guest.”
My eyes snapped open, and I frowned up, giving him my strongest go to hell look. “Go away.”
I knew he wouldn’t and that pissed me off. Just seeing him, smelling him, having him so close I could almost touch him was a sort of torture all its own. And that made me even more livid. I wouldn’t get any more meditation done now, that was for certain.
I smacked my hands down onto the floor to pivot my body so that my back was to him and his companion. Mentally I willed them both to go away.
“You have some sort of a block on her, don’t you?” the woman asked, and I detected a note of disapproval in her tone.
“Well, you can go now, Mr. Prieto,” she told Vicente as she crossed the room behind me. From the corner of my eye, I saw her place a medical satchel onto the desk and begin to remove items from it.
“I mean it.” Her voice was acerbic now. “If you want my help, I want to be alone with my patient. Now.”
The heavy bronze door grated against the stone frame as it closed. She was looking at it, studying it and I knew what she was thinking even without her saying a word.
“He’s there. Make no mistake about it. The man gives me almost no privacy.”
Our eyes met for a lingering moment as I studied her. She took a few steps to me, then knelt down so that she could slip a blood pressure cuff onto my arm. I was pretty sure she was a werewolf, though there was some other element mixed in her blood as well. It was hard to know at this point whether she was friend or foe, so I said nothing and just let her work.
“How long have you been here?”
My lip curled up into a lopsided grin. “One year, two months, ten days and three hours.”
“And your sentence?”
It wasn’t intentional, but my glare turned hot and intense as I answered, “Life, of course, doctor. I’m here for the rest of my life.”
“You mean this life.”
Ah, so she knew what I was as well. Had Vicente told her or had she been able to figure it out on her own? “Yes, doctor...”
“Call me Rhiannon. So, what seems to be the problem?” She was gazing at the pressure gauging, and I could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind. It would be nearly impossible for her to know what normal would be for a creature like me. I was an avian shifter of sorts, which meant my readings would be different, such as a higher than expected blood pressure
I forced my thoughts back to her question, sighing long and deep. “I’m cursed.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.” She pressed the stethoscope to my chest. “Sure, you’re imprisoned for life, but the digs aren’t so bad.”
Did she really just say that? I let my head fall to the side in a serious stare.
“Take a deep breath and hold it. Okay, now exhale slowly. Good. Breath normally. Good.”
No sooner had she put the stethoscope and blood pressure cuff away then she pulled out a thermometer and popped it into my mouth. I tried to keep my annoyance to a minimum. After all, she was being nice and trying to help. It wouldn’t do any good though. My fate was certain at this point.
“One fifteen.” She announced the reading on the thermometer and I wasn’t at all surprised that it was so high. I could feel my temperature rising again. “What are your symptoms exactly?”
“Fever for one.”
Rhiannon nodded, a smile turning up her lips. “You are a smartass, aren’t you?”
I couldn’t help the smile that sprang to life on my lips, as I put my palms onto the cold stone and lifted myself to stand. My muscles were starting to ache, and I issued a little moan before I could stop myself. The good doctor put a hand under my arm and took up nearly all of my weight. She was one strong werewolf. When I got to the bed, I let my ass drop down onto the thick blankets, panting with the exertion.
“I’m cursed,” I told her between gasps. “In the sense of black magic. The kind of black magic that you never want to run into.”
“Ah. I see. Sorry about my confusion. So, tell me what this curse does exactly.”
“It progresses over time, and I’ll get sicker and sicker. First fever, aches and pains like human flu. My bones will hurt, deep down inside where nothing can numb it. I’ll eventually become hemorrhagic. And vomiting. You know what people say about throwing your guts up?”
“Uh huh.”
“Literally. It’s not a pretty sight. Not a pretty sight at all, and I’d rather just skip it if it’s all the same to you.”
“In other words, you want me to help you die before we get to that part.”
“I don’t need your help for the dying part. I can do that on my own—that is, if I weren’t under a block. They aren’t going to let me die. No matter what you do, they are determined to keep me alive.”
Rhiannon put out her hand and helped ease me back against the pillows. “You can’t die because of the block, so you’ll just ...linger like that ...” Even for a doctor she sounded a little squeamish about it.
“I have no idea what will happen. But I’m certain it will include the kind of suffering I’m not interested in experiencing.”
Narrowing her eyes, Rhiannon sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at her medical bag for a few minutes. “Well, this certainly wasn’t what I was expecting, and I’m not really prepared. But we can try some things to keep you comfortable. Maybe the curse can just work its way out of your system.”
A pained laugh hissed from between my lips. “Curses don’t work that way. But I don’t mind trying out ways to keep me comfortable. Meditation’s helping a bit, but I’m in the early stages. It can only get worse.”
I closed my eyes, but I could hear her riffling through her things. There was a tiny sound of glass striking wood, and I figured she was pulling out vials of some sort of medicine. “I wish I had some copaiba, but I don’t. I’ll be sure to bring some when I come back. Take one of these every six to eight hours as needed. If you feel any ill effects—I mean besides those you would expect from the curse—have Prieto contact me. We could do a skin test for allergies, but I don’t really have time to wait around for that.”
I opened one eye and looked in her direction, noting the little pills she was mixing. “I’ve used oils before. I don’t know of any that I’ve ever been allergic to.”
I rolled over, tucking my legs close to my body and making a ball. All of my blankets were wrapped over me but I was still shaking like a leaf.
“You need a heater in here, too. This cold stone isn’t doing you any good.” She slipped the pills into a bag and then brought them to the little table beside my bed. Crouching down into a squat, she got close to me. “What exactly is your crime?”
I opened my eyes and stared into hers. After a few seconds, “I’m a murderer. That’s what an assassin becomes when she kills an innocent. And maybe to some that’s enough to justify this curse, even if the curse preexisted the crime.”
I was too tired to talk. My eyes fluttered closed, and I pulled the blanket up over my head. The sound of the heavy bronze door opening was unmistakable, and I breathed a sigh of relief at being alone again.
But that was short-lived. I could feel him there, his presence like a magnetic pull, tugging at my psyche. I peeked out to find him standing above me, arms tight behind his back. He looked stiff and stuffy and not very happy at all.
“Just go. If you go, then maybe you can wipe that frown off of your face.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’ve been here all of two months, Bennu. Why lie about it?”
I chuckled, a hoarse, grating sound. I hated that he called me that now. It was the name that marked me as the phoenix, a brand of sorts. He said it with derision. He said with disgust. He said it to deny the intimacy we’d shared and to remind me of how far I’d fallen in his eyes.
“Maybe I just wanted to fuck with her.”
“Maybe you just wanted to provoke her sympathies.”
“Maybe.”
He snorted. “Ever the manipulator. It won’t work. You were tried, convicted and now you’ll serve your sentence.
“Tried? Is that what that was, a trial? But then how would you know? You weren’t even there.”
He said nothing more, just turned on his heels and left the room.