“We don’t know if it’s doing anything bad,” I said, rolling onto my side and watching him.
“It radiates pain that is getting progressively worse. Sounds perfectly healthy to me.” He threw me a look that said don’t act stupid before the shirt he was putting on covered his face. He moved next to open one of the drawers I’d taken over and tossed a shirt and a pair of jeans at me. “Get dressed.”
I propped myself up on one arm, thinking of the merits of removing it and the main reason I didn’t want to. It was the sticking point that made me hope that every time it hurt, it would end up working out. “I don’t want to be cut off. I don’t want to think that this is it for me. I don’t want to walk this Earth forever.”
“Is this existence that bad?” he asked.
I sensed he was taking it as a personal insult. It was a ridiculous notion since I’d be walking this Earth alone. Not once in all the time we’d been together had he mentioned deeper emotions and it wasn’t for lack of opportunity.
“Forget it,” he said with an edge in his voice. “It doesn’t matter. It’s got to come out. Cutty will do it.”
I gathered my hair up into a ponytail, realizing I wasn’t going to be adding any hours to the sleep count tonight. He wasn’t going to let this go. “Cutty does stitches. How the hell is he going to handle this? It’s a little different.”
“He’ll know.”
My stall tactic not working, I realized I was going to have to keep pursuing my true argument and probably the real reason I never wanted anyone to know it was a problem. I didn’t want this to be it. “I still haven’t agreed to do it.”
“I’m with Fate,” an old gravelly voice declared.
I snapped my head towards Paddy, who was standing in the middle of the room.
Fate turned his full attention to him, both fists clenched as if he were struggling to maintain his temper. “Popping into my bedroom is off limits.”
“Fine,” Paddy said, all of a sudden making use of his cane as if he were too weak to stand on his own.
“Were you spying on us?” I asked, finding the timing to be a bit more than coincidental.
“Absolutely not!” He lifted and banged his cane to the ground before quickly moving back to the subject of the tattoo, or more accurately, the piece of him that resided there. “But it has to come out. I fear it was a grave mistake and I need it back.”
“Can you take it back?” Fate asked.
“And will I be cut off forever when you do?” I added.
He shrugged and looked at both of us. “I don’t know.” He walked over to the opposite edge of the bed I was sitting on and looked like the old man he appeared to be for a minute. “When I gave you a piece of me, I did it in part thinking it would make you stronger, more able to help with this Malokin situation. It was never supposed to grow.”
Paddy rolled up his sleeve to the place he’d pull off the chunk of himself he’d donated to me. It had been a pinch, unnoticeable after he’d done it and his skin had sealed back up. Now, a large chunk of flesh was missing, like he’d suffered some accident and lost part of the muscle from his arm.
“This is the thing of it, what I am, what I’m comprised of, likes to stay together in one unit. This I knew. It’s the same with the four. We like to be close, or used to, but we wouldn’t drain each other.
“What I didn’t realize was how strong you would be. I figured if there were a pull, it would be exerted from me and I could control it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, you pulling from me. I didn’t even believe it was happening at first. I thought it was Malokin somehow, but then…” His eyes went to mine and I knew he was thinking back to the day at Kitty’s. “I realized it was you,” he finished, cutting off what I believed he’d meant to say.
He slowly got to his feet again and this time I almost believed he did need the cane. “If we leave it in you, I’m not sure what will happen.”
“Can you get it out?” I asked, feeling like I was quickly losing any other options.
“I don’t think I should,” Paddy said.
“Why? You put it there, just suck it back out somehow. Do whatever it is you can do?” If it was going to happen, I wanted it done as quickly as possible so I didn’t have any time to dwell on the implications of the loss.
“If you’re already draining me from a distance. It’s not wise.” He stood and moved across the room, putting some distance between us, as if the thought of me having such power unnerved him.
Fate stepped forward, blocking my view of Paddy. “I won’t have one of your three do it,” Fate said, talking about Fia, Fith and Farrah.
“Surely you’d feel comfortable with Fith?”
“Why would I possibly trust him?”
“Well, considering—”
“No. Cutty will have to do it.” He turned to me again. “Get dressed.”
I didn’t bother arguing. I already had my clothes in hand and was already heading to the bathroom.
Chapter Thirty
An hour later, we walked into Lars’s closed tattoo shop, Fate’s hand firmly wrapped around mine. I’d given up on my rule to keep all affection to a minimum once I realized I was not only possibly dying, I was killing Paddy along with me. It didn’t matter that he’d been the catalyst. I was sucking him dry and it was a hard thing to live with. Hurting Paddy was unintended, but so were lots of other things, like giving someone the flu. It still felt like shit.
“Hey,” Lars said as we walked in. I smiled even as I noticed he seemed more uptight than he had been the other night. Cutty was there as well. Paddy, who had said he’d meet us here, was flipping through tattoo books as if he were contemplating getting a piece done. I wouldn’t have been surprised by anything he did.
Then I saw her—Lars’s guest—the one they called Faith. I wouldn’t have missed her. She still had patches of her human karma clinging to her new form. It was as if the brightest sunlight I’d ever seen was filtering through the leaves of a tree while she sat under it on a spring day. I’d never seen anything like it. And the smell. I breathed deep and started walking towards her, before Lars stepped in my way aggressively and pissed me off. All I wanted to do right now was get near some good karma. It was like a steak dinner complete with a chocolate cake desert when I hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“You can’t hurt her.” He was deadly serious. I could see it in the set of his mouth, the way his eyes stared me down. He’d take me out before he’d let me touch her.
I looked over at Fate, not from fear but annoyance. I didn’t fear any of his men because I trusted Fate to always have my back. Still, it would’ve been nice to get some help to move the hulking form out of my way.
Fate shrugged a silent response I read to mean yeah, I know he’s all out of whack but just let him get it out of his system.
I shook my head, patience wearing thin tonight.
“I don’t want to hurt her. I just want to say hello and introduce myself.” And maybe stand close enough to get the stench of the bad karma I’m surrounded by constantly off of me, even if it was only for a precious few minutes. I needed this before they started digging into me.
“Just remember, I was the grim reaper and I was fucking good at it.”
I looked over at Fate again, trying to not roll my eyes. Really? How long am I supposed to do this?
I interpreted Fate’s shrug and bounce of his head to mean, I think he’s almost done.
“Lars, I promise, I will not touch your pretty princess.” I withheld now get the hell out of my way but with major strain.
“Are you giving me your word?”
“Yes. Now step aside. I feel like you’re a dark cloud hovering over me.”
Finally he stepped aside.