Most of Mirabilus's thugs were gone. Philip said they rounded up one minion holed up under the bar in Purgatory-Baldy, who turned out to be the same low-rent gun thug that had gone after me during the stage show but ended up plugging 'Mirabilus'. True to form, the former stage magician had used a plant to 'fake' (or at least keep control over) his own shooting. They also picked up a confused and astounded chauffeur who had been waiting for Mirabilus and company to return to his rented car, but Philip seemed to have already checked the guy's story out by the time he got back to me, two hot steaming coffees in his hands.
'Mirabilus is dead,' he said, looking back at the Masquerade, 'but you're right-no sign of Transomnia.'
'Transomnia helped me at the end,' I said. 'Said Mirabilus was using him.'
'He's an accessory to murder,' Philip said. 'You're not suggesting we let him go?'
I pulled back my right lip to expose my missing molars. 'You won't hear that from me,' I said, 'but you won't see me going after him, even if I thought I could take him.'
'Fair enough,' Philip said. He sighed. 'The medics did what they could to revive him but… we were too late to save Wulf.'
'I know,' I said. 'I know.'
He reached out and took me into his arms, kissed my forehead, held me while I cried. 'I know,' he said. 'I know.'
'He just wanted my help,' I said. 'Just wanted a normal life-'
'Hey,' he said. 'You saved a young girl today, and your friends. We lose some, but we win some.'
'Fair enough,' I said, wiping my cheek. 'What about North Carolina?'
'Goose chase,' he said. 'We're holding the girl. She claims she was just trying to create trouble for her boyfriend, but she's got a relatively new magical tattoo-'
'Controlling charm,' I said.
'Given what I saw of Mirabilus and Wulf,' Philip said, 'Oh yeah.'
'I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner,' I said.
'Kidnappings always make for tough calls,' he said softly. 'You did the right thing. Jinx's boy Doug tried to call it in-'
'Good for him,' I said. 'Good Doug!'
'Ha,' Philip replied. 'But he got routed to 911 hell, very hinky-'
'Mirabilus again,' I said bitterly. 'He was bragging about it.'
Philip nodded. 'By the time he'd given up and drove down to the police station, the shit had already hit the fan.'
'At least he tried,' I said. 'More sense than the rest of us-'
'None of this is your fault,' Philip said. 'None of it.'
'I know, I know,' I said. But I had trouble believing it, looking over at the ambulances, at the one pulling away, and the one waiting on a body bag to be loaded. 'But still… I just have one question.'
'Shoot,' Philip said.
'That damn box,' I said. 'Mirabilus didn't use it to take down Buck, and it didn't look like he was going to use it in the ceremony on me. He went on and on about the Children of this and the Inheritance of that, but never mentioned the box. But it was far too sophisticated a magic to imagine it was just a trophy. So… what the fuck was it for?'
'I have a better question,' he replied. 'Mirabilus was killing people and taking their tattoos to put on that damn box,' Philip said. 'But it wasn't his damn box.'
I just stared at him.
'When we got the lid, we also got some of his notes,' Philip said. 'I've read them. From what I can tell… up until recently
Mirabilus was just eliminating the competition. The tattoo harvesting is something new, just a silver lining, so to speak, that turned his hobby into profitable work he could do for someone else. The box was a commission.'
'So, if it wasn't his…' I said, horrified.
'Then who was it made for?' Philip said, touching his hand to his ear, 'Yes, this is Special Agent Davidson. Yes, I'm with Frost. No, she-there's a problem with her what?'
'What is it?' I asked. Philip's eyes had bugged and he was looking at me strangely.
'No, I don't think she has a-yes, that was the-' His eyes narrowed and his face grew hard, stony. 'We'll be there right away.' He took his hand out of his ear and stood, motioning to me. 'We gotta go. We'll take a Shadowhawk-it's faster.'
'What's wrong?' I asked, standing as well. 'Where are we going?'
'Emory,' Philip said. 'Cinnamon is dying.'
45. SILVER SHOCK
Cinnamon lay in the hospital bed, bedraggled and alone.
The rest of us recovered quickly. Buckhead healed on his own. Alex needed only minor patching. I ended up back in the hospital for one more day-mostly scrapes and bruises, but the real problem was my hands-the doctors said that if Transomnia had heated the pitch to boiling, my hands would have been scalded instantly, and the complications could have killed me. As it was, I escaped with minor burns, where goop had collected at the forks of my fingers.
Jinx was recovering as well. When Valentine opened her eyes, he dispersed the fungal opacity and let in far more light than her shrouded retinas were ready to handle-but not enough to cause damage. Her spooky geode eyes now have black snowflakes, letting her see a little. For now, she was stuck wearing darkened shades, but the doctors said that eventually, when her retinas finally adjusted, she might regain as much as ten percent of her vision. Who knew what that would do to her magic?
As for Cinnamon…
At first the doctors called it 'hyperargyria'-silver shock-a kind of blood poisoning peculiar to shapechangers that can be caused by just trace amounts of silver in the blood. With her massive dose, she slipped into a coma, face ashen gray and gums blue, heart palpitating every time they laid her on her back. When we got to the hospital she was in the middle of a seizure, and they came damn near close to losing her.
But they didn't. She survived the night, barely, and they called in specialists who knew how to handle silver shock-rolling her on her side to stop the shaking, clearing her blood of trace silver with something like dialysis, and feeding her intravenously to build up her strength.
But apparently silver poisoning also wreaks havoc on shapechangers' immune systems. Not a week into her treatment, just one day after she came out of her coma, her fever shot back up and she started hallucinating. An opportunistic pneumonia had settled in her lungs, sending her back into the ICU; and when the doctors fought that off with one cocktail of drugs, she picked up another kind of blood poisoning, a flesh eating bacteria called MRSA- same brand that had attacked Valentine's projectia-that they think she picked up from a bad IV administration. They moved her to a special ward of the hospital, and we all had to wipe our hands with sanitizer every time we left her room.
It took until damn near Thanksgiving for her to fight it off, but at long last, her fever broke and she finally started improving. I was there, every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes on my break, sometimes in the evening-often, all three-talking with her, cheering her up, slipping her coffee or eclairs, bringing her teen magazines and audiobooks of Laurell Hamilton and gossip about the boys back at the werehouse.
So now it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and everyone was out of town or off at parties-Philip back in Virginia, Savannah with her vampire clan, the werekin with their mundane families, the collegiates back in their hometowns, even the hospital priest was gone, helping out with a benefit for the homeless.
And so it was just up to me to show up at the hospital, seeing Cinnamon, lying there like a bedraggled cat, suddenly brought back to life when I walked in the door; and then suddenly we began talking and joking and laughing at all the were-mistakes in Underworld: Evolution as it played on the hospital TV.
And it was only then that I noticed she was wearing on her wrist one of those snap-on hospital nametags,
