“The doctor is in surgery and the rest of the staff are with other patients, but I’ll have a colleague come take your vitals as soon as I can.” The nurse left him like somebody had just coded down the hall and she was the only one with paddles.
Rehv got up on the table, keeping his coat on and his cane in his palm. To pass the time, he closed his eyes and let the emotions in the place seep into him like a panoramic vista: The walls of the basement dissolved away and the emotional grids of each individual emerged from out of the darkness, a host of different vulnerabilities and anxieties and weaknesses exposed to his symphath side.
He held the remote to all of them, instinctually knowing what buttons to push on the female nurse next door who was worried that her hellren wasn’t attracted to her anymore…but who had still had too much to eat at First Meal. And the male she was treating who had fallen down the stairs and cut his arm…because he’d been into the booze. And the pharmacist across the hall who up until recently had been lifting Xanax for his personal use…until he’d found the hidden cameras put in place to catch him.
Self-destruction in others was a symphath’s favorite reality show to watch, and it was especially good when you were the producer. And even though his vision was now back to “normal” and his body was numb and cold, what he was at his core was just banked, not spent.
For the kind of shows he could put on, there was an endless source of inspiration and funding.
“Shit.”
As Butch parked the Escalade in front of the clinic’s garages, Wrath’s mouth did some more pull-ups on the curse bar. In the headlights of the SUV, Vishous was spotlit like some frickin’ calendar girl, all sprawled out on the hood of a very familiar Bentley.
Wrath unclipped his seat belt and opened his door.
“Surprise, surprise, my lord,” V said as he straightened and knocked on the sedan’s hood. “Musta been a short meeting downtown with our buddy Rehvenge, huh. Unless that guy’s figured out how to be in two places at once. In which case, I need to know his secret, true?”
Mother. Fucker.
Wrath got out of the SUV and decided the best course was to ignore the Brother. Other options included trying to reason his way out of the lie, which would suck because of all V’s failings, none were intellectual; or in the alternative, instigating a fistfight, which would be only a temporary diversion and would waste time when they both had to get their Humpty Dumptys put back together.
Going around, Wrath opened the rear door of the Escalade. “Heal your boy. I’ll deal with the body.”
As he lifted the civilian’s lifeless weight up and turned, V’s stare locked on a face that was beaten beyond recognition.
“Goddamn it,” V breathed.
At that moment, Butch stumbled out from behind the wheel looking like a hot mess. As the smell of baby powder wafted over, his knees went loose and he barely caught the door for support in time.
Vishous flashed over and took the cop into his arms, holding him close. “Shit, man, how you doing?”
“Ready…for anything.” Butch clung to his best friend. “Just need to be under the heat lamp for a bit.”
“Heal him,” Wrath said as he started for the clinic. “I’m going in.”
As he walked off, the doors of the Escalade shut one after the other, and then there was a glow like clouds had broken free of the moon. He knew what the two were doing inside the SUV, because he’d seen the routine once or twice: They were wrapped around each other, the white light of V’s hand suffusing them both, the evil that Butch had inhaled leaching out into V.
Thank God there was a way to cleanse that shit out of the cop. And being a healer was good for V, too.
Wrath came up to the first door of the clinic and just stared up into the security camera. He was buzzed in immediately, and the instant the air lock had resealed, the hidden panel to the stairs popped open. It took no time at all to get down into the clinic.
The king of the race with a dead male in his arms wasn’t stopped for a nanosecond.
He paused at the landing as the last door lock was sprung. Looking into the camera, he said, “Get a gurney and a sheet first.”
“We’re coming right now, my lord,” said a tinny voice.
No more than a second later, two nurses opened the door, one turning a sheet into a privacy curtain while the other rolled a gurney right up to the bottom of the stairs. With strong and gentle arms, Wrath laid out the civilian as carefully as if the male had been alive and had every bone in his body fractured; then the nurse who’d handled the gurney flapped another sheet out of its folded square. Wrath stopped her before she draped the body.
“I do that,” he said, taking it from her.
She gave the thing over to him with a bow.
Speaking sacred words in the Old Language, Wrath turned the humble cotton sheath into a proper death shroud. After he was done praying for the male’s soul and wishing it a free and easy carry unto the Fade, he and the nurses had a moment of silence before the body was draped.
“We don’t have ID on him,” Wrath said quietly as he smoothed out the edge of the sheet. “Do either of you recognize his clothes? The watch? Anything?”
Both nurses shook their heads, and one murmured, “We’ll put him in the morgue and wait. It’s all we can do. His family will come looking for him.”
Wrath hung back and watched as the body was rolled away. For no particular reason, he noticed the wheel on the front right wiggled as it went along, like it was new on the job and worried about its performance…although this was not because he saw the thing clearly, but rather from the soft whistle of its miscalibration.
Out of whack. Not pulling its weight.
Wrath could so relate.
This fucking war with the Lessening Society had gone on too long, and even with all the power he had and all the resolve in his heart, his race wasn’t winning: Holding steady against your enemy was just a case of losing by increments, because innocents kept dying.
He turned around toward the stairs and smelled the fear and awe of the two females sitting in the plastic chairs of the waiting area. With a mad shuffle, they got to their feet and bowed to him, the deference resounding in his gut like a kick in the balls. Here he was delivering the latest, but far from the last, casualty in the fight, and these two still paid him respect.
He bowed back to them, but couldn’t marshal any words. The only vocabulary he had at the moment was full of George Carlin’s best, and all of it was directed at himself.
The nurse who’d been on shield duty finished folding up the sheet she’d used. “My lord, perhaps you would have a moment to see Havers. He should be out of surgery in about fifteen minutes? It appears you are wounded.”
“I have to get back to the-” He stopped himself before the word field slipped out. “I’ve got to get going. Please let me know about that male’s family, okay? I want to meet with them.”
She bowed at the waist and waited, because she wanted to kiss the massive black diamond that rested on the middle finger of his right hand.
Wrath squeezed his weak eyes shut and held out what she was seeking to pay homage to.
Her fingers were cool and light on his flesh, her breath and her lips the barest of brushes. And yet he felt flayed.
As she righted herself, she said with reverence, “Fare thee well this night, my lord.”
“And you with your hours as well, loyal subject.”
He wheeled around and jogged up the stairs, needing more oxygen than there was in the clinic. Just as he hit the final door, he ran into a nurse who was coming in as fast as he was busting out. The impact knocked her black shoulder bag off, and he barely caught her before she hit the ground along with it.
“Oh, fuck,” he barked, dropping to his knees to get her stuff. “Sorry.”
“My lord!” She bowed deeply to him and then obviously realized he was picking up her things. “You mustn’t do that. Please, let me-”
“No, it’s my fault.”
He shoved what seemed to be a skirt and a sweater back into the bag and then nearly cracked her with a head butt as he shot to his feet.
