She smiled, though the expression never reached her eyes. “Do you stick your hand in tiger cages, too?”
“Did someone attack you?”
“Right now I’m more concerned with what has happened to you,” she replied. “I have a feeling that you have had an interesting couple of days. Walk with me, and tell me, what—exactly—did the Shantel elemental say when it spoke to you?”
“Um …” He followed Rikai back to her study, trying to find the right words. Rikai didn’t seem to notice his hesitation as she walked with a tightly controlled stride, not limping but obviously trying to conceal an injury of some sort.
“Well?” Rikai prompted as she settled into one of those ominous chairs and gestured for him to do the same.
“It said it was going to destroy Midnight,” Jay admitted.
“Exactly that?” Rikai asked.
“I think—” He broke off. What exactly had it said? She will be all I need to destroy those who hurt her. “Well, it said it would destroy those who hurt her. Which is Midnight, right?”
Rikai took a deep, bracing breath, and then let it out in a slow stream.
“A few hours ago,” Jay said, trying to get all the information out before Rikai responded, “something happened to Brina. I went to her, and I heard the elemental again, and it offered to protect me. When whatever was happening was over, Brina was human.”
Rikai quirked a brow, but her next question wasn’t for Jay. Rather, she picked up her phone and dialed a number. When the line picked up, she didn’t waste time with pleasantries. She just asked, “Is Xeke all right?”
Jay couldn’t hear the reply, but Rikai nodded thoughtfully. After she hung up, she said simply, “He’s dead. Now, we—”
“Dead?” Jay interrupted, feeling his stomach drop. He hadn’t intended … And Rikai, sitting there like it didn’t matter … I have to call Sarah. If Xeke was dead, then what about—
“Still dead,” Rikai clarified, with an impatient wave of her hand, “as opposed to alive and human. He is a vampire, after all. His partner says he is fine. Get a grip.”
Trying to swallow the panic that hadn’t yet subsided, Jay stammered, “Well, um, g-good. That’s …” He took a deep breath. Had she done that intentionally? “What is going on?”
“I would like to examine Brina.”
“And I would like you to answer me!” Jay snapped anxiously.
“Of course you would, but unlike you, I try not to blather answers until I know what they are. Now, where did you leave Brina?”
“SingleEarth,” Jay answered, resigned.
“Excellent,” Rikai said. “I’ll get my tools, and then we will go.”
CHAPTER 17
BRINA WOKE FEELING disoriented, thirsty, and heavy. Sunlight was streaming in through a nearby window, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, impossibly loud. Standing up took a monumental effort, as if she were moving the weight of a small building.
Her gown started to slip off her shoulders, and she snatched at it with confusion before realizing that someone had undone the buttons down the back. She couldn’t do them back up on her own, and standing there clutching brocade was hardly dignified, so she shimmied out of the heavy gown and stood in only her chemise. She could breathe more easily that way, anyway.
Why am I breathing?
She tried holding her breath, but doing so made her dizzy, and made her chest and head hurt. When she stopped struggling not to, her body automatically kept breathing, as if it always had.
The rushing, pounding, slamming, overpowering noise in her ears, then … was that her heart?
She swallowed. Her throat was sore, and she was … hungry. She didn’t like being hungry. It reminded her of days she didn’t like to think about.
Brina stalked to the door, which was standing open. Where was she? Someone had brought her here, and made her alive, and they wouldn’t have done so without anticipating that she would need them.
The pretty witch!
She smiled, and then frowned, as she recalled him. He had been kind to her at the party, but then he had stolen Pet. Then he had agreed to help her in Pet’s place, and then—
Something had happened after that. It had been like people screaming and shoving her from all directions, ripping at her, furious and terrified. Somewhere in the chaos she had seen the witch.
He had brought her here.
He would help her.
But there was no one in the hallway to bring him to her.
Her chemise was more decent than many outfits modern girls wore, but Brina still stepped gingerly into the hallway, wishing she had another option. Her bare feet were cold, and she mentally added slippers to the list of things she wanted as she put on a proud face and tried to pretend she didn’t feel frightened, hungry, and half naked.
Most of the rooms she passed were occupied by sleeping people. Eventually, though, she found a large room that might have once been a ballroom or a gymnasium. It had been decorated for Christmas, but the unlit tree and bright decorations had been shoved aside to make room for a makeshift sick ward. Effort had been made to keep the ill comfortable, but blankets and pillows could not conceal their restless movements or the stench of their sweat.
Nurses circled like buzzards picking at the ill.
The world rushed around Brina as she looked around, and the pounding of her heart in her ears became louder and more rapid. There wasn’t enough air in this room, and what air there was she couldn’t draw into her lungs fast enough. There were so many here, coughing and gasping and calling for help.
She didn’t want to faint again. She fought against it; her knuckles went white as she gripped the doorframe, struggling to stay standing.
“Can I help you?” someone asked, taking her arm.
Brina shook her head, and at the same time she asked, “What is this plague?”
The human winced, and said, “It’s the flu. We think it may even be the one this year’s flu shot protects against, since none of the humans have it.” As she spoke, she touched Brina’s brow and the back of her neck. “How do you feel?”
“Cold,” Brina admitted. “Horrified. There are so many.”
“I know it’s normally considered rude to ask at SingleEarth, but … what are you?”
Brina blinked at her, startled. “I’m … not sure right now.”
“Not sure?”
“I imagine that’s why I was brought here.”
“Then you could be at risk,” the nurse said. “If you’re not already ill, you shouldn’t be here. You’ll be exposed.”
“I’ve had the plague before,” Brina whispered.
“Then maybe you’re—” The human broke off, frowned, and finally asked, “I’m sorry, are you a resident here?”
Brina wasn’t listening anymore. She needed to see what was happening.
She followed meandering paths through the sick, taking note of all the colors around her. Onyx hair, fair skin, and eyes like emeralds. It wasn’t the fever that made the skin seem pearlescent and the eyes that tracked her movement with dazed hope look like polished gems; it was the distinctive coloration of a serpent shapeshifter. At another pallet, she glimpsed feathers beneath the sweat-matted hair of a young boy whose brown hair and hazel eyes suggested he was probably a sparrow. Next, a mane of rich auburn, shorn short—a fox, a rare breed to find out of their enclave.
Brina had hundreds of years of practice; she knew how to recognize an individual’s breed and state of health at sight. She wouldn’t have paid a pence for any of these pitiful creatures if they had been human, and since they weren’t, they shouldn’t have been in this condition. Only magic could do this to the nonhuman.
At the next bed, she found a young woman who was kneeling to tend the sick. Her head was bowed and her hands were splayed in front of her on the floor, as if that was all that was keeping her from toppling over on top of the unconscious shapeshifter in front of her.
“Whose spell is it?” Brina asked.
“Spell?” the kneeling girl echoed, without seeming to comprehend.
Brina resisted the urge to kick the girl to get her attention, but only because doing so would probably knock her over. Instead, she said as clearly as possible, “Yes, spell. They cannot just be sick.”
Saying the word drove another chill through her, brought a memory of a wailing baby. She pushed it away. Now wasn’t the time.
There is no good time to remember that day.
“They are sick,” the girl snapped in response. She shoved herself to her feet, only to stumble and nearly fall. Brina jumped back, narrowly eluding the woman’s fever-hot hands as she sought some way to balance herself.
The would-be healer glared at Brina with blue eyes that then widened as she said, “Brina.” Before Brina could correct her, the girl said, “Lady Brina. Whatever you call yourself. You should be sleeping. I put you to sleep. Used my power.”
“You do not look like you have the power to put a mouse to sleep,” Brina observed. The girl must have fancied herself a witch, one of those who supposedly ran this SingleEarth place. “Tell me what has happened to me, and what has happened here, before you faint.” The girl’s face was already pale, and her lips had that cerulean hue that suggested unconsciousness was imminent.
“Caryn, you shouldn’t be up,” another voice said. Brina bristled as a young man pushed his way past her, jostling her without apology as he hurried to take the sick witch into his arms.
“I need to do something,” the girl responded.
“Your fever is back,” the solicitous young man said.
“Can’t focus my magic,” Caryn whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“Some of the shapeshifters are responding to human medication. I know you said these medications don’t normally do anything for your kind, but you’re going to try.”
She nodded, but then added, “Only treats the symptoms.”
“The symptoms are boiling your brain,” Brina interjected. “You need a witch.”
“I am a witch!” the girl snapped, showing previously unseen spirit.
“You’re a useless witch,” Brina replied.
“Who are you?” the boy demanded.
“I am Lady Brina di’Birgetta,” she replied, drawing up to her full height. “In the last day, I have had my property stolen and been assaulted in my own home, and now I’ve been abducted and brought to this plague ward against my will. I have been as patient as I intend to be, and now I demand to know what is going on.”
The boy just stared at her.
“Are you simple?” she asked.
“She’s a vampire,” the little witch whispered to him. “Or was. Jay brought her in.”
“Jay,” the boy answered, shaking his head. “He—” He broke off, his face going pale as he asked slowly, “May I ask what century?”
“Not the time for historical curiosity,” Caryn chastised him.
“When were you changed? Please, um, my lady. It may help me answer your questions.”
“The year 1665,” Brina answered. How was that relevant?
After drawing a deep breath, he asked, “Europe?”
“Italy.”
“Nurse!” Brina jumped as the young man raised his voice to call to yet another man across the room. “We need to get her quarantined and onto antibiotics. The flu is bad enough in a population without a single antibody. I don’t know what happens when a vampire turns human, and I don’t want to test it. From that era, you could be carrying the goddamned bubonic plague.”
Brina wasn’t listening any longer, not since he had said the word quarantine.
Deaf to anything but the heartbeat in her ears, she slammed an elbow into the stomach of the first nurse stupid enough to touch her. The doctor had lied to her, had told her he could help her, just to get the information he would use to imprison her.
She fought tooth and nail, but she was weak. Pathetic. Human doctors and nurses swarmed, irreverent and immoral, intent on trapping her again, confining her with the dead and dying—
She twisted her head with a snarl as she felt a sharp pinch in the meat of her arm. She looked just in time to see the needle in her flesh. Her previous weakness was nothing compared to the way her body now seemed to collapse, her innards folding into origami. Flowers and paper cranes, made of swirling colors and fancy lights.
Foolish girl, something whispered to her as she sank into a drugged sleep. Even more frightened of life than you are of dying. I should hate you … but I suppose I must credit you with hiding my child away, when the hunters would have murdered her. You gave me time. So I will give you time.
Time for what? Brina tried to ask. But the words wouldn’t form.
CHAPTER 18
AS HE DROVE, the pain that Jay could sense coming from Rikai gradually built, until it was taking all his concentration to ignore it and focus on the slick roads. She hadn’t said a word or uttered as much as a grunt, but a few miles out from SingleEarth, Jay couldn’t stand it anymore.
“What is wrong with you?” he demanded.
“That remains to be seen,” she replied, voice perfectly level. All Jay knew about Triste magic was that it relied on total control of mind and body, regardless of pain or other physical ailments. That made it doubly concerning when Rikai’s next words—“We need to …”—faded out, replaced by a sharp hitch of breath. “Let me know when we arrive.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her rest her head on her hands on the window. He resisted the urge to drive faster, knowing that a patch of ice and a car accident could kill him just as surely as magical influences.
Why wouldn’t she talk to him? Was her pain related to what had happened to Brina?
His questions about Rikai were pushed aside by more pressing concerns as he reached SingleEarth and discovered that the parking lot was overflowing. Cars were parked wherever they could find space, many blocking others in.
“Looks like they’re having a party,” he said, feigning levity to cover his rising anxiety. “We’re going to have to hike a bit.” Jay stopped the car as close as he could get to the main building.
For the first time in hours, he got a good look at Rikai. Her face was pale and there were shadows under her eyes. More disturbing were the ropy scars he could see trailing out from her shirt cuffs to cover her hands. Another was starting to emerge from beneath her high collar, snaking up the left side of her throat to her temple.
He clenched his jaw against the echo of her pain and walked around the car to open her door. Rikai glared at him, as if she wanted to refuse his help, but then she reached up and took his arm. She leaned on him heavily as they began an agonizingly long walk to the door.
Halfway there, Lynx came bounding across the snow, his tufted ears back as if he had scented something foul.
What happened here? Jay asked.
Stinks like something spoiled, Lynx answered. Stay out here.
I need to go in to find out what happened.
Lynx hissed, and refused to follow as Jay and Rikai approached the threshold of SingleEarth Haven #2.
“What the hell?” Jay whispered as he stepped inside and discovered that the reception area had been turned into a triage unit. Nurses and volunteers were scampering among patients who had been laid out on blankets, towels, even yoga mats, while other workers made hushed phone calls desperately calling for more doctors. Though they struggled to appear professional, the panicky fear rising from the staff left a bitter taste on Jay’s tongue.
One of them glanced up, barely seemed to register his presence, and said, “Sign her in at the front desk. We’re trying to find space for everyone.”
“I need to put you down,” Jay said, warning Rikai but not asking her permission as he dropped the Triste and knelt next to the nearest patient. Rikai stumbled before she found her balance, but at that moment, Jay couldn’t have cared less if she fell.
The patient had previously been a receptionist at this haven. Jay couldn’t recall her name,
but he knew she was a leopard shapeshifter. She shouldn’t have been able to get sick, but the moment he touched her, he could feel the illness racing through her.
“Jay.” He looked up when Jeremy whispered his name. “You shouldn’t be here. The shapeshifters are getting it worst, but witches aren’t”—Oh, god, how did I let her get that bad before I noticed?—“aren’t immune.” Jeremy’s voice hitched in the middle, and Jay’s heart leapt into his throat at the image that came along with the human’s hesitation: Caryn fainting, her fever 102 degrees and climbing.
“Caryn’s sick?”
Jeremy nodded. “Her mother and aunt, too.”
“Vireo?”
“Not as bad as some of the others, but he started sniffling a couple hours ago. How are you feeling?” Jeremy reached forward as he spoke, but Jay was barely aware of the human touching his brow and taking his pulse. “You’re chilled.”
“We had to walk in the snow to get here,” Jay snapped, jerking back. “Where’s my brother?”
“He went with a busload of patients to Center Number Twelve,” Jeremy answered. “They have more resources, so those well enough to travel have moved. Caryn’s still here,” he added, a note of desperation breaking into his voice as he fought an internal battle with himself. If he tries to help, he could get sick. He needs to help. I can’t ask it of him.
“Where is she?” Jay asked.
Jeremy didn’t have the willpower to say any of the sensible things he knew he should say as a doctor, and that was good, because Jay didn’t have patience for an argument. He was already trembling as they entered Caryn’s room and he caught the first reek of fever-sweat.
Caryn’s eyes opened but didn’t focus. She was flushed, and her hair was matted.
“Jay?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse. “No, stay back. You’ll catch it.”
Jay flinched. Jeremy had said nearly the same thing, but all Jay had felt was his concern for Caryn. Suddenly Jay could feel the creeping fog of the illness, and for the first time, a more personal terror seeped in.