Immortally Embraced

chapter two




So this was it. I couldn’t believe it.

“Goddamn it!” I kicked a tombstone, which was a really bad idea. It hurt like hell. “Son of a…” Tears stung my eyes.

I liked the pain. I liked being pissed. Otherwise, I was going to curl up on the ground and cry like a baby.

Galen had no right, no business deciding anything for me. I didn’t know if he was protecting my secret or if he was shielding me from some other abomination of the gods, but it didn’t matter. He’d shut me out. Cut me off. He’d ended our partnership in the cruelest way possible, because he refused to even tell me why.

He’d decided for me, for us. Now he had peace. He had resolution and I had a gaping hole where my life used to be.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” I mumbled to myself, weaving through the tombstones, kicking up a small cloud of dust and decay. I ignored my aching right toe. It would heal.

As for the rest of me?

Hell and damnation. I had to move, think. Get away.

I couldn’t imagine what kind of military order Galen could get that would make him destroy me, end us.

Unless he really didn’t want me. The horrifying notion settled in my stomach like an ugly black rock.

Maybe I’d been just a fun diversion, something pleasant, like good food or a warm tent.

I barreled onto the main path and almost ran into a supply clerk. She reached out to steady me. “Hey,” she said, “sorry to hear about Galen.”

“Can it, Mitchell,” I said, stepping around her, the apology dying on my lips as I wondered how she knew. She had to be talking about the transfer, not the way Galen had just ripped my heart out. Still. Did the whole camp know?

Mitchell lingered. “He’s a hell of a guy.”

“Right,” I said, taking off for my hutch.

The sun had set and a cold wind whipped in from the desert. Daytime was stifling hot, but we had to fire up the heaters at night. I wrapped my physician’s coat around my body and hugged my arms tight as another gust of wind blew straight through me.

“Petra.” A few of the nurses clustered outside the officers’ club, waving at me to get my attention.

I took the long way around. I didn’t want to talk.

Galen had left me. Just like Marc. Only Marc had had an excuse—he was dead.

It was full darkness by now, which was good. I wanted to hide.

Torches lined the walk, casting scattered pools of light.

We’d talked the new gods into a generator for the hospital, but otherwise they insisted we go old school with lanterns and anything else we could set on fire. And we were supposed to be on the progressive side. Ha.

I trudged past the OR and the recovery tent. A few solders crouched outside the enlisted quarters, laughing as they raced baby swamp monsters and did shots of Hell’s Rain.

The laughter died down as I passed. Holy Hades. I was a walking party killer.

“Gentlemen.” I nodded to them as I passed.

I probably should have warned them that Colonel Kosta would skewer them for harboring illegal creatures, or that as a doctor I didn’t recommend drinking the 180-proof precipitation that fell from the limbo sky. But that would mean talking to them.

Yes, Galen is gone.

Yes, he left me to pick up the pieces.

Yes, I’ve been through it before.

I made my way to the officers’ tents and banged into the hutch I shared with a moody vampire and an oversexed werewolf. Lucky for me, the werewolf was home on leave. The vampire was another story.

Marius stood preening in front of a mirror we’d tacked up to one of the main tent poles. He’d lit every lantern in the place.

He wore a black leather jacket, black leather pants, and knee-high swashbuckler boots. His blond hair draped roguishly over one eye, and he gave himself a smoldering look before frowning at me. “I’m sorry to hear about Galen.”

“Does the whole camp know?” I asked, thwumping down on my bed.

“Yes.”

“He also broke up with me,” I said, pulling a blanket up to my chin. It was rough and scratchy. I hated it. Maybe I could sleep for a year.

The vampire tucked a six-pack of Oreos next to me.

“Where’d you get these?” I grudgingly inspected the pack. They certainly weren’t from his private stash. Marius didn’t eat. And the PX never had chocolate anything.

He showed his fangs. “I threatened to devour Phineus, the deliveryman.”

“You don’t even like werewolves,” I said, sitting up.

“Phineus doesn’t know that.”

I sampled a cookie while Marius opened a bottle of red wine and poured us both a glass. “Drink,” he said, handing it to me. “Doctor’s orders.”

I tried to give him a grin and failed.

Marius took a seat on his footlocker, and we drank in silence. The wine was good, smooth. Very Marius.

He didn’t ask questions or try to talk to me, which was a relief. We just sat and listened to the tar swamp bubble out back. If he’d been on his way out the door before, he didn’t let on.

I swirled the liquid in my glass. “Men suck.”

Marius held up his glass in a mock toast. “Yes, they do.”

* * *

Shirley rapped on my door early the next morning. “Did you hear?”

I rolled over in bed. “I don’t want to know.”

She let herself in. Shirley was wearing red pigtails today. It was very … Heidi. “Things are gearing up again,” she said. “It’s all over the news. They say there’s going to be a new prophecy.”

“Lordy.” My head felt like it was filled with cotton, but I sat up anyway.

I ground my fingers over my eyes.

“Come on,” Shirley said, inspecting one of the wineglasses from last night. “The prophecies are exciting.”

I stood slowly. “Not the word I’d use.”

It was quite a trick—trying to save the world while being sneaky about it.

“I need a shower,” I told her, using my foot to dig the caddy out from under my cot.

My towel was still hanging off the clothesline strung across our tent. I was tired of blood and guts and war. Now Galen was gone, the armies were gearing up and I’d bet my last Oreo that the oracles were going to give us a prediction that would cost a lot of soldiers their lives.

I managed to make it in and out of the shower tent without anyone giving me any sympathetic clucking about Galen. Probably because everyone was in the mess tent watching the Paranormal News Network. PNN was our answer to CNN. It was Immortality’s never-ending news source. Or so they said. I supposed we mortals would simply have to take their word for it.

There was one television in the entire camp, an ugly, 1970s cabinet model with the carved wood and the curved gray screen.

We loved it.

We had it bolted to a makeshift stand on the far right wall of the mess tent. Today the place was packed. It seemed like everyone who wasn’t on shift was sitting on one of the long cafeteria tables, or in one of the chairs clustered up front. An undercurrent of fear whispered through the room.

Shirley and I wound through the crowd as we worked toward one of the back tables.

“Petra,” Holly waved from the front. “Come on up.”

People scooted aside as Shirley and I slid in next to her. I was surprised at the way people let us though. PNN watching was usually a full-contact sport.

“We heard about Galen,” Holly said, commiserating.

Ah, so this was a pity seat.

I could feel people watching me. I lowered my head and scooted in. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We all liked him,” said someone behind me.

Yeah, me too.

“Here. You need this more than I do,” said a round-faced nurse in front of me as she turned and handed me a Bloody Mary with a limp celery stick.

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to knock the bendy straw. I wasn’t about to turn down liquid fortification.

Her lips pursed. “If there’s anything I can do…”

“This is plenty,” I said, pulling out the celery stick. Any more of this sympathy and I was going to jam it in my eye.

PNN came off commercial break and everybody cheered. It was like feeding time at the zoo. The picture started skipping, and an orderly sitting on a stool next to the television stood up and pounded on the side of the set a few times.

A skinny young reporter huddled under an umbrella next to a sheer cliff face. I could tell he was new, and slightly terrified. Volcanic ash and bits of glowing embers rained down, but he pasted on a newsy smile in spite of it. Scalding winds whipped at his bright yellow lava-coat, and he gave a slight cringe as the ground under him vibrated.

“I’m Fletcher Turley reporting live from the Oracle of the Gods, where the sky is purple and the lava is flowing,” he said breathlessly. “My sources tell me we haven’t had a magma shower like this since they buried Pompeii.” He braced himself as the wind nearly blew him sideways. “PNN was the first on the scene then, and we are now as the oracles get ready to reveal the next chapter in the War of the Gods.”

The news anchor’s voice boomed from the studio. “Can we get a close-up on that lava shower, Fletcher?”

“Sure, Stone,” he said, microphone shaking. The camera panned down to the glowing embers bouncing off his polished brown dress shoes.

I knew what fiery stone looked like. I was more interested in how young Fletcher was going to make it out of that lava field.

The wind buffeted his umbrella and blew his hair sideways as he held out against the storm. “The crowds are growing out on the water, even though Lemuria is a lost continent,” he hollered, voice rising above the fracas, as the camera panned out. Everything from barges to sailboats to kayaks bobbed out on the water. “Officials are warning that observers not use wooden boats, as they are flammable.”

The camera cut back to the PNN studio where a perfectly coiffed, overly tanned werewolf sat behind a news desk. “Thanks, Fletcher. You’re doing a fine job out there,” he said, in perfect news monotone. “As you can see, we have some severe eruptions in the south. Let’s check in with PNN Weather for the update.”

The camera cut to a skinny redhead in front of a radar screen. “Thanks, Stone. We have a severe eruption warning from Lemuria all the way to the Atlantean islands.” She flipped back her hair as she posed in front of a map of the lost islands dotting the Indian Ocean. “We’re getting reports of falling lava rocks the size of golf balls. PNN Lava Radar shows continuing storms for the next two days, suggesting that the oracles will indeed be shaking things up for a while longer.”

I turned to Shirley. “I don’t want to wait a few more days.” Then again, maybe I did. Who knew what disaster they were going to predict?

Shirley chewed at her lip as the reporter droned on.

“The heat index in the impact zone is one eighteen. But where we are, Stone, you’re looking at a breezy seventy-five.”

I was feeling restless. I needed to know what might happen next. It might even give me some clue as to what was going on with Galen.

The newsman smiled, his teeth blazingly white. “Thanks so much. This is Stone McKay and you’re watching PNN twenty-four-hour live coverage of Oracle Watch 2013. More, after this break.”

They cut to a commercial for Fang-zite. The all-natural Male Fang Enhancer. A handsome vampire held up a bottle and winked at the camera. “Show her you’ve got a little something extra … with Fang-zite.”

Ew. I slid off the table. “I need to move.”

Shirley caught my sleeve. “Are you sure you want to be alone right now?”

I glanced at half a dozen pairs of sympathetic eyes. “I’m sure.”

There were no secrets around this camp, which meant I’d be hearing about the prophecy about a minute after Fletcher Turley, junior reporter.

The last batch of oracles had been a pain in the butt. Maybe this time, they’d go easier.

And maybe I’d grow wings and fly.

The TV blared behind me. “Tune in tonight, when we take a special look at supernatural hoarders. We’ll visit a voodoo queen buried in bones. A vampire who can barely fit into his coffin. And a pet-hoarding MASH surgeon. The doctor is in, but she can’t even get into her tent!”

I winced. Would they quit it with the reruns? My roommate had accidentally bred a gaggle of swamp creatures, and in doing so scored the only successful prank ever pulled on our camp commander. Rodger snagged the prize—three weeks leave. I’d gotten cleanup duty, and a reputation.

My dingbat colleagues could never resist a practical joke. When PNN showed up, my friends made me out to be some crazy cat lady of the swamp. I was both impressed and horrified.

Add that to the footage PNN shot of me wrangling the beasts and Supernatural Hoarders had their best ratings in years.

I had to believe they’d stop running it. Eventually.

Ever since peace broke out, PNN seemed to be having trouble filling the twenty-four-hour news cycle. There was no slow period for them, no downtime. Not with vampires, werebats, and other nocturnal creatures in the audience.

Maybe they’d have more to report on after the prophecy.

What an unpleasant thought.

Lucky for me, the clinic was busy. I spent the next several days focusing on my patients, rather than dwelling on gods, newsmen, or my less-than-stellar personal life.

Just as bad as Galen leaving me was my complete inability to understand what had made him do it. I turned it over and over in my mind until I was sick.

Those weeks with him had made me feel more alive than I had been in the ten years since Marc’s death. I didn’t want to go back to that. It hurt too much.

How was I supposed to simply move on?

I treated a werehyena with a bad lung infection and one of our motor pool mechanics for a broken arm. I also saw a fury with a heart condition. Heart issues were common in the more high-strung of the supernatural races, which was no excuse, really. This was where preventive medicine really paid off.

As the days wore on, my colleagues bugged me less and less about how I was feeling. It didn’t stop me from hoping that Galen would come back safe and that somehow, someday, we could put this war behind us forever.

Marius burst into the recovery tent as I was walking up front with a demi-god.

Dang, the sun was down already?

My patient was moving slower than I liked. I shook my head. “That’s it. I’m keeping you overnight.”

The wiry young soldier held up his hands, his Celtic war braid winding over one shoulder. “Lay off, Doc. I’m fine.”

He was in pain, the idiot. I didn’t care how fast demi-gods healed. He needed a twenty-four-hour stay. It was my personal minimum after doing this type of hernia surgery. But the new army hadn’t come out with non-combat surgical guidelines yet, and of course this yahoo was in a rush to get back to his unit. I couldn’t force him back to bed.

“No heavy lifting,” I warned him.

He puffed out his cheeks at me.

“Petra.” Marius stood behind me.

I held up a finger. “Just a sec,” I said, focusing on the demi-god. “I’m not the one who tried to impress a girl by lifting a manticore.”

The soldier crossed his powerful tattooed arms over his chest, looking everywhere but at me. “I feel fine, Doc.”

“You come right back in if you detect any tenderness or swelling,” I said, handing over his release forms. Just like that, he was out the door, letting in a gust of warm air. “You’re welcome,” I hollered after him.

Antiseptic and desert dust. This place always smelled the same.

Marius stood watching me. “We’ve got a prophecy.”

“Oh wow.” My stomach sank. He didn’t look happy. “Were you there?”

He kept his eyes on me. “Yes,” he said, leaning against the nurses’ desk.

“So what’d they say?” I adjusted the stethoscope on my neck, trying to keep my breath steady.

“The peacekeeper will find love,” Marius began.

I blinked twice. Okay, that was good. My heart surged. Maybe Galen would come back.

“As,” he continued, “a hideous new weapon is born.”

Aw hell. “We don’t need any more weapons.” The old-fashioned swords and cannon fire were destructive enough.

“You can’t beat love,” Marius said simply.

Did he suspect?

I’d deny it like my life depended on it—which it did.

Still, I could understand his interest. The prophecies predicted an eventual end to the war—if they all came true. Marius had a bigger stake in that than anyone.

Every last one of us was enlisted in the army until the end of the conflict. Since I was a half fairy, I’d be here for about 150 years. Shirley was a valkyrie. She’d beat me by another 150. But Marius was immortal. He was here for eternity.

* * *

Long after lights-out that night, I lay awake and thought about it.

The peacekeeper will find love.

I’d found it already. Twice. And they’d both left me. Marc I couldn’t fault. Galen was another story.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder. Maybe this meant he’d misinterpreted his orders, or that he’d have a short mission. Maybe he’d be back. He could be sorry for how he’d ended things.

He should be.

I woke the next morning still thinking about it.

What would I do if he did come back?

Marius had gone into his death sleep, either in his footlocker or—more likely—in the makeshift lair we’d cobbled together out by the tar swamps. I glanced that way, watching firebirds as they soared and dove for bog beetles. I sat up and saw a note fluttering on the outside of our door.

If it was another sympathy note, I was going to scream.

I took it off the door on the way to the showers.

Meet me by the burned out officers’ showers.

My heart squeezed. “No way.” I had to read it twice.

Galen had always found it amusing the way we tended to go through officers’ showers. It wasn’t my fault, though. They seemed to get caught up in a lot of practical jokes.

Hell’s bells. I read the note again, and then shoved it into the pocket of my robe. You’d think he’d come into camp if he could. He was sure popular around here. Unless he couldn’t show himself. Had Galen left his unit? I hated to think of him going against orders again, especially when the consequences had been so severe the last time.

Okay. I took the fastest shower in history and changed into a fresh set of scrubs. I could roll with this. I combed my fingers through my wet hair. If he’d come back, we could at least talk. We could set things right before he headed off to war again.

I barged out the showers and ran straight into Holly.

“You’re not on shift today, are you?” she asked, righting herself.

“No,” I said, already halfway past her. “Sorry. I’m meeting a friend in the minefield.”

“Way to rebound.” She gave me a mock salute.

“It’s not like that,” I said, walking backward, eager to be on my way.

We called the unit junk depot “the minefield,” only because the field beyond the cemetery was so full of broken-down vehicles, half-wrecked buildings, and machinery parts that the bored among us had seen fit to rig it with practical jokes. It was pointless and immature, but that’s why we liked it.

You’d think that people would avoid the place, but you had to go through the minefield in order to make it to the prime make-out spot—the only place you could really count on being alone—the rocks.

I’d never been to the rocks. Scratch that. I’d been there once. And it had been amazing. But most of the time, I went into the minefield to see Father McArio or to work in the makeshift lab I’d set up out there.

But it never failed. If you braved the minefield, people always assumed you had a date on the other side.

If I remembered correctly, the burned-out officers’ showers should be about halfway through the maze of junk, right after the mangled helicopter.

I rushed through the city of scraps faster than I should have. Hulking skeletons of half-rotted bed frames and jeeps lay rusting on either side of the rock-strewn path. I ducked past leaning heaps of particleboard and a mashed-up refrigeration unit, breathing in the tinge of rust and dirt. A slight left after the gutted ambulance took me past my workshop and almost to the officers’ showers.

The limbo suns beat down. I stripped off my scrub shirt, glad to have a tank top underneath. Of course I’d forgotten to wear a bra. Again. But it’s not like Galen would mind.

A low peeping made me stop. Dukkies. They were tiny, red birds with black horns and sharp little beaks.

In the egg stage, you could eat them. In the adult stage, they might try to nest in your shoes. But in the just-hatched, baby stage, they’d bond with you like you were a mother duck.

I lifted my foot and searched for trip wires. Two steps ahead, I spotted them, half buried in the dirt. They led to an innocent-looking box.

Ouch. I’d be sure to tell Father McArio. He worked with a group of nuns who did creature rescue. In the meantime, I stepped over the wires and continued on my way.

Just past it, I spotted the burned-out showers. The door was ajar.

“Galen?” I called, walking carefully, keeping an eye out for any more dukkie-style traps.

I could see a shadow moving inside. The two front stalls had been ripped out, leaving one main tent support.

Maybe Galen was trying to be subtle. Yeah, well, subtle didn’t work on me.

“Did you finally realize you’re being an ass?” I barged in the door and nearly fell over.

The shower-turned-shack was small and dim, smelling of charred wood and rotting canvas. Light filtered from loose boards in the ceiling.

And there, standing right in front of me, was Marc.

My pulse pounded and my head swam. I hadn’t seen him since New Orleans.

He was larger than I remembered, harder, with slashing green eyes that made him look like he wanted to eat me alive. I could feel the heat of them through my thin tank top.

His blond hair had been shorn hard, so that it spiked at odd angles as it grew out. He needed a cut, but I doubted he cared. Marc was never one for rules that didn’t suit him.

He’d been drafted ten years ago into the old army. He’d been killed ten years ago. And while I had a special talent for seeing the dead, I could tell right away that Marc was very much alive.

Holy hell. I’d sat in his mother’s living room and grieved with her. I’d helped bury an empty casket.

“Marc?” I choked.

His face was unreadable; at least I had no reference for it. Not anymore. He wore the tan fatigues of the enemy, with a green Ankh emblazoned on the sleeve. I shook my head. Of course. He was with the medical corps. They’d taken him from Tulane Hospital on a cold day in February. I’d run my fingers over his sharp, angled cheeks, kissed him through my tears. That was the last time I’d seen him.

Until now.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. What do you say to a dead man?

He took a measured step closer. “It’s been a long time, Petra.” The light fell on him, and I saw a jagged scar along his neck.

He’d suffered.

Hadn’t we all?

A chill skittered up my spine, threaded into my breasts until my nipples stood in hard points. My heart hammered in my chest. “You’re alive.” All those years, I thought he was gone. I mourned him. I missed him. “What the hell?”

He took another step closer, and I caught my breath. If I could have ever imagined having this kind of second chance, I would have thought I’d rush into his arms, or wax poetic. Or at least touch him. But I couldn’t even bring myself to move.

He looked older. Leaner. There was an unfamiliar hardness about him.

He shook his head ruefully, the same way I’d seen him do it a hundred times. Only he looked different doing it now. He’d changed.

So had I.

He began to reach out to me, then stopped, swearing under his breath. “It’s good to see you.”

It was all so surreal. “What happened to you?”

He glanced toward the door. “I don’t even know how—” he said, his words heavy with regret. “First, I need to ask you something. I don’t have much time.”

“No kidding.” He was in an enemy camp.

He blew out a breath, as if he’d read my mind. “I can’t believe you’re here.” A trace of light skittered across his features.

“Why are you?” I asked, standing opposite him, as if we were separated by a great divide instead of two feet of dirt.

It pissed me off. He was no better than Galen. Scratch that. Marc was worse. He hadn’t even had the decency to tell me he was alive.

He clenched his jaw, determined. “I need someone I can trust.”