Immortally Embraced

chapter twenty-three




I took a seat. “Okay, Fitz,” I said, grabbing the dagger, wrapping it in my bloodied scrub top.

The soldier’s expression was oddly peaceful. I reached down and closed her eyes.

Then I eased the knife into my pocket and shifted into gear. We made a sharp 180, sending Fitz scrabbling against the vinyl backseat of the jeep. “Let’s go back.”

We lurched over scattered stones. The hellhound rode directly behind me, his head out the side and his tongue lolling. I was glad one of us didn’t know what we were in for.

I just hoped we weren’t too late.

The shadow of the hell vent loomed across the desert ahead. It was both heartening and scary as hell. Every primitive instinct in me screamed to turn back. I braced myself. I could do this. I had to.

My stomach churned. Just a few more minutes and we’d be there. I just hoped the fruit wasn’t high up in a tree. I wasn’t sure I’d be that great at climbing, especially if it was built like a palm tree. Why didn’t Father have a rope in his exorcist kit? Or as long as I was wishing, a ladder?

I pulled the jeep close to the wrecked Humvee and returned the soldier’s body to where she had almost died. The old army would be searching, and I didn’t want her family to wonder.

Then I drove south a bit and killed the engine.

Fitz jumped out, wagging his tail. Merde. The dog was the least of my problems. It’s not like I could tie him up. Or lock him in a jeep with no top.

My nerves jangled. I double-checked my cross, and the holy water in my pocket. As for the dagger? I didn’t think it was going anywhere.

A sweet-smelling breeze blew from the vent. Palm trees swayed, inviting me to enter.

“Okay, doggy. We need the fruit from a finut tree. It’s round. It’s purple.” That’s all we knew.

I’d just have to gather anything and everything that looked close. The dog whined as we drew closer.

“Believe me, this isn’t how I’d plan it,” I said, focused on the tree line as Fitz trotted next to me. “Father is real sick. This is an emergency.”

Bracing the cross and the knife in my arm, I unscrewed the holy water and dipped my fingers. I touched them to my forehead, my chest, and both shoulders, ready to take all the divine intervention I could get.

“Here, buddy.” I reached down and touched some to Fitz’s collar. If we were overdoing it, well, I had a feeling the Lord would understand. I just hoped He was watching.

I returned the bottle to my pocket as we skirted the edge of the jungle. I could hear rustling in the trees, and then a child’s laugh. My hair stood on end. “Maybe I should get the exorcism book.”

Then again, I had to wonder if my soul was pure enough for that.

Damn. Padre had better pull through this.

An ugly knotted tree rose among the dripping foliage. It was maybe ten feet in.

Fitz barked and dashed straight into the hell vent. “God almighty,” I said, pushing my way into the dense foliage, refusing to look down, trying not to touch anything more than the branches blocking my way.

Please let me get out of this alive.

Wet leaves smacked against my arms and legs. I held up the cross, keeping them away from my face as my flashlight bounced off Fitz’s dark form. The air smelled fresh. Flowers bloomed all around us. I could hear the chatter of the birds and the rush of water nearby.

Then the darkness lifted and it was beautiful. It was like the sun had risen over the most perfect day I could imagine. I felt warm and alive and glorious.

I knew it was an illusion. It couldn’t be real. But I wanted to run and play. My hips wiggled despite myself. I felt free.

I clutched the cross tighter, the wood digging into my skin.

Heart pounding, I began my search, trying not to get distracted by the exotic flowers or the chattering monkeys swinging in the high trees. Father didn’t have much time. And I worried I’d get so turned around I’d never make it out of here.

Fitz stopped in front of an ugly tree.

“That’s disgusting.” It was twisted and knotted. The trunk was too thick and leaned to one side. It had dense, scraggly leaves on the top, along with wilted brownish purple fruit. “It’s rotted and—yuck.” Those weren’t leaves on the higher branches. They were locusts.

Fitz dug his paws against the thick trunk, spewing rotten bark. The trunk oozed thick pus.

That couldn’t be it.

There was beautiful fruit in the trees all around me. If I just wandered more, searched harder, I could find the pretty purple ones.

I blinked hard, remembering my Catholic school. The devil delighted in temptation. He specialized in making evil irresistible. So if I was supposed to keep my hands off something … I took another look at the tree Fitz was pawing and tried not to wrinkle my nose at the small purple fruit on the high branches.

Do it.

Before I could think about it too much, I scrambled up the curved trunk and grabbed hold of a piece. It wouldn’t come off the tree. Blast it. I tucked the cross under my arm again, unwrapped the knife, and sliced it free.

The tree shook, and a scream shattered the night. I dropped the cross. Hell and damnation.

I leapt to the ground. Run.

A red, potbellied demon landed on the path directly in front of me. It spewed black venom as it cackled.

I waved the dagger at it. Fat lot of good that would do me. The thing would have to be on me before I could use it.

Panic seized me. I was going to die in a hell vent, eaten by a demon.

A thunderous growl split the night. I was afraid to look, unable to move. The demon’s eyes grew wide as a giant black beast stalked out from behind me.

It was half dog, half wolf, and growing larger by the second. Fire licked at its fur. Red eyes tore through the darkness. It snarled and snapped up the demon, devouring it whole.

Clutching the knife and the fruit, I ran. I ran like I’d never run before. I zigzagged past trees, I leapt over a stream. Holy hell. I was turned around. But I couldn’t stop.

Run.

Monkeys chattered in the branches on both sides, making chase, playing as I made a mad dash for my life and my soul.

The jungle grew darker, denser.

I pushed forward, through the blackness. Through the biting cold. Branches smacked me in the face, tree limbs ripped at the fruit in my hand and the dagger in the other. The chattering monkeys morphed into fanged monsters. They leapt on my back, tearing at my skin and my hair.

The beast snarled behind me, snapping up monsters and biting them in half, their bones crunching.

I burst out of the hell vent. I stumbled over the rocks of the desert, afraid to look back.

The raging beast rocketed past me, leaping onto the jeep. It tore off the back gate as it climbed into the rear. It was Fitz! He was shrinking, but not fast enough.

I shoved the fruit in my pant pocket, threw the knife out the window, and fired up the jeep. I gripped the steering wheel and gunned it due north.

Pain seared my neck. I touched it and my hand came back covered in blood.

I clutched for the purple fruit. It was still in my pocket. Hallelujah.

Please don’t let me be too late.

We bounced over the desert in a blur of fear and panic.

Fitz jumped into the passenger seat, looking normal—for a possessed hellhound. He jammed his head out the window as we sped for home.

We made it across the desert, through the minefield, past the mangled helicopter. I cornered around the Hickey Horns van and towers of scrap metal.

The air was sour, the dirt was up my nose. I was back home.

I had the antidote. I didn’t succumb to the hell vent. Or to Father’s pet.

Now I just had to pray it wasn’t too late.

I brought the jeep to a screeching halt outside the lab and rushed inside.

“He’s in the back,” Marc said, wide-eyed. “What happened to you? You’re bleeding!”

I pushed my way through the curtain. Father lay pale and unmoving.

“He’s bottoming out. His pulse is at fifty,” Marc said, coming up on the side of me. “Let me see your neck. Something bit you.”

“I’ll live,” I said. Father might not. He was weak, but alive. Thank heaven. I braced the fruit against my chest, tearing into it like a ripe tomato.

He wasn’t conscious. He couldn’t eat, so I dripped the juices into his mouth. They ran over his cheeks. I touched the soft flesh to his tongue. “Father? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

His eyes flew open and he coughed.

Hallelujah.

“Drink down the juice.” I said, ripping off a fresh piece.

“Goddamn it, Petra,” Marc said, checking Father’s vitals, then going back for surgical gauze and antiseptic for my neck. He treated me while I treated Father. “I had no idea whether you were alive or dead. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

“Yes.” I did. “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

I returned to Father. Some of the color was coming back to his cheeks.

He’d passed out again, which was actually good. His body would heal better that way.

Father coughed. Marc checked his pulse, glaring at me the entire time. “He’s at seventy.”

“He’s stable.” Thank God.

“Then come on,” Marc said, not taking his eyes off me. “We need to talk.”

This should be fun.

“Outside,” I said, standing.

“Now,” Marc said, hot on my heels as I pushed through the curtain and strolled through the lab. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like trying to save him while the whole time, I’m thinking I should be saving you? You were out there. Alone. You could be getting stabbed, blasted to hell, sliced up by imps. Did you even think before you took off?”

We charged out of the lab and he got a good look at the half-trashed jeep.

“Holy shit,” he said, turning me around, “What the hell are you doing taking these kinds of chances?”

“Right. But it’s okay for you to make me shoot you and wonder if I killed you.”

He balked at that. “I survived.”

“I didn’t know that!” My voice broke as I shouted.

Goddamn. It actually felt good to finally let it out.

I took a step closer to him. “And what about what you did when we were breaking into the lab? You just jumped into that vent without a gas mask.”

“I’m a dragon. I can handle it.”

“I didn’t know that! You’re always running off. Thinking you can sacrifice yourself. Expecting me to suffer and you don’t even think about what it’s doing to me.”

His eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about me. I sacrifice. I gave up everything so you didn’t have to sit back there in New Orleans and wait around for me for the rest of your life.”

That was rich. “You think you’re so f*cking noble. Well, you’re not. You’re taking the high road. It may sound moral and superior, but what you’re really doing is running away from the people you love. You’re not sacrificing. We are.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “That’s bullshit.”

It was the truth. “You’re asking me to be there for you and then you keep putting me through this.”

He stood for a moment, silent. “You just ran off on me.”

“It feels pretty shitty, doesn’t it?” It was twisted. It was f*cked up. “I may have shot you, Marc, but you stepped in front of the bullet.”

He’d always had to be the noble one, and it sounded great on paper, but what it really meant was that he left people like me holding the bag. “You want it all. You want me. You want things to be the way they were. You think you can have it for a few days or a week or however long we happen to be together until I never see you again.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t choose that,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“No, you didn’t. But you’re asking me to do something that you’re not willing to do yourself. You’re asking me to love you. You’re asking me to be with you. But you’re blocking yourself. You’re playing it safe. I can feel you holding back. I know it, Marc, because I’ve had the real you. I had you when you were sweating it out with me on the roof of your walk-up. I had you when we couldn’t think of anything but what it would be like to finally graduate and be together. I had you when I found that ring.”

It was like I’d slapped him. “I was going to ask you on your last day of residency.”

All the fire drained out of me. They’d come and gotten him the Sunday before. “I know.”

“How?” The pain in his eyes stole my breath away.

“Because I know you, Marc.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they held a sorrow so deep it tore me in half. “I can’t do it,” he said.

I nodded. The kicker was, I understood.

It was just too hard.

He stilled. “So where does this leave us?”

“Alone.”

“Petra?” Father’s voice called from the lab, weak and questioning.

We rushed to the back room, where our patient was trying to sit up. He had his hand to this throat.

“Are you thirsty?” I asked. I helped him lean his back against the headboard.

“I’ll get him something,” Marc said, brushing past me.

He brought back a bottle of water and helped Father tip it to his lips.

I wiped the sweat from the priest’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay, I think,” he said, looking around, as if wondering how he’d gotten into my back bedroom. “My head could be better.”

Marc checked his blood pressure as Fitz jumped up on the bed and lay next to his owner.

“What happened to me?” Father asked.

I removed his boots and pulled the covers up over him. “It’s called medusa water. She gets mad and it boils.”

“She’s a patient of yours,” he said, reaching down to stroke Fitz. “Be careful. Medusa has been banished. She’s not of the immortal world and she’s not of ours.”

“What are you saying?” Marc asked.

The priest considered the question. “Medusa is an entity unto herself.”

Marc didn’t look too happy about that.

“So is Fitz,” I said as the puppy rolled over so Padre could scratch his belly.

Father glanced past me. “Is there supposed to be smoke in there?”

We headed into the lab and sure enough, red vapor billowed from the medusa water/sphinx venom vials. I shared a glance with Marc.

“I’ll take a look,” he said. “Why don’t you take care of Father?”

Father was trying to roll to his side. “If it’s all the same to you, this father would rather rest up at home.”

“Actually,” I said, taking a closer look at his dilated pupils, “I’d rather have you in the recovery ward.” Better safe than sorry.

He made a face. “Is that truly necessary?”

“Medically speaking? Yes.” He’d be under strict observation, unlike here. “Besides, Jeffe is on shift tonight.” Father had been teaching the Sphinx how to play poker. It would give them both something to do.

Father nodded. “Very well.”

I brought a wheelchair up and we got him moved and settled in. After Marius examined Father again and practically tossed me out of recovery, I made my way back to the lab.

Marc was busy at the microscope. “Anything?”

“Yes,” he said, angling the microscope toward me.

I looked through the eyepieces and adjusted the microscope until I could see fat, round cells. The medusa water had neutralized our sphinx venom.

We did it.

Numb, I pushed away from the sample. “Well, that’s it, then.”

“It is,” Marc said. “Good news. You don’t have to deal with me anymore.” He moved past me toward the door, careful not to touch. “I’m going to take a walk. Why don’t you announce it to the general?”

I should have stopped him, but I didn’t as he banged out of the door and out of my life.