Chapter 8
Gods, Mace hated Underworld General.
He’d practically grown up here, in the hospital that was basically the family business.
His parents, Lore and Idess, worked here, too, although their jobs didn’t really involve saving lives.
In fact, both worked with dead people—Lore in the morgue as the medical examiner, while Idess spent most of her days guiding human spirits out of the place.
But with as much time as he’d spent here in his early years—first in the nursery and then later, roaming the halls with his cousins—he now avoided it like the plagues the staff treated.
Medical shit creeped him out. He didn’t like the sickly odors of death and disease, the wailing patients, or being reminded of his mortality.
A five-hundred-year lifespan probably sounded like forever to humans, but it seemed like a pathetically short amount of time to him.
Especially when so many of his friends were immortal.
Like Scotty.
The thought of her living for thousands of years after he and Blade died sat in his brain like a tumor, metastasizing more on every passing birthday. One day, the malignant mass would consume him, and he had no idea what he’d do then.
“You need to tell me what happened,” Talon said as he guided Mace to an exam room, and none too gently, either. “Instead of cussing me out under your breath. I have excellent hearing, you know.”
“Obviously, not that excellent,” Mace growled. “It wasn’t aimed at you. Not everything is about you. I was cursing at the situation.”
“Uh-huh.” Talon gestured to the exam table. “Hop up. Do you need help?”
“I’m fine.” Mace shrugged out of his brother’s grip and hauled himself up onto the paper-covered pad. It hurt like hell, but he bit his tongue. No way was he showing weakness in front of Talon.
As Mace leaned back, Talon palpated his leg. “You going to tell me how this happened?”
Mace explained, mostly through clenched teeth, as Talon poked, prodded, and channeled his excruciating power into the spreading black flesh. It was nearly to his knee now, the dark veins stretching into healthy flesh all the way to his hip.
He hadn’t truly been worried before, but the way Talon’s mouth tightened into a grim slash was starting to freak him out.
“This is magic damage,” Talon said. “You need a specialist. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Where the hell did Talon think Mace was gonna go?
Shaking his head at his jerk of a half-brother, Mace glanced down at his wrist comms. He tried pinging Scotty and Blade, but naturally, there was no signal coming from their units. Then he groaned as an avalanche of pain roared down his leg.
“You okay?” Talon’s voice pierced the bubble of agony.
“No,” he admitted. Begrudgingly. “Where’s that specialist?”
“Coming. I sent for your dad, too.”
“Which one?” Normally, when Mace said something like that, it was to get under Talon’s skin. He hated reminders that they shared a biological father. But this time, Mace was genuinely curious. Hoping for Lore.
It wasn’t that Mace didn’t love Wraith. He did. Blade claimed Mace hero-worshiped him a little, and Mace denied that shit, but Blade was probably right. Mace and Wraith were so alike—more so than Talon and Wraith. More so than Mace and Lore.
But Lore had always been Mace’s dad. Wraith was Wraith. Lore was Dad.
Talon’s movements were a little jerky as he prepared a surgical tray. “Don’t be a dick.”
“Whatever, Stewie,” Mace muttered, using Talon’s childhood nickname, which usually annoyed the shit out of him.
Clenching his jaw tight, Talon tossed some scissors onto the tray.
Then some syringes. And what was that one wicked-looking thing?
Forceps? Catheter? A speculum, maybe? He’d heard those terms bandied about, but he’d never cared to learn medical terminology or how to use anything more complicated than a Band-Aid.
Mace relaxed as much as he could and tried to concentrate on anything but the pain. “Remember that time I crashed my bike, and you stitched me up with your mom’s sewing needle and bright pink thread?”
A rare, faint smile curved Talon’s mouth. “You were afraid you’d get in trouble because you were grounded. We both ended up in hot water. Eidolon thought I did a great job, though.”
“His opinion was all that mattered to you back then,” Mace murmured.
“And Wraith’s was all that mattered to you.”
That was fair, but there was more to it. Mace wasn’t sure why—maybe it was the pain, or maybe it was the faintest tingle of fear that he wouldn’t make it out of here alive—but he wanted Talon to know how he’d felt back then.
“Your opinion mattered,” he said.
Talon’s surprised gaze flicked up to Mace, but how could he be shocked?
Mace had toddled after his big brother since the day his parents sat him down and explained how he’d come about.
Lore was sterile, the result of human-Seminus DNA gone wrong, and all three of his brothers had donated genetic material to create Idess’s pregnancy.
When Mace was born, Wraith’s symbol at the top of his dermoire had revealed the father’s identity.
Mace had been thrilled to have another dad and a brother. But Talon hadn’t been as enamored with the idea, and nothing Mace did ever won him over.
Talon started to say something, but was interrupted when Idess swept into the room, just ahead of Lore, and smothered him in a hug.
“Hi, Mom.”
She pulled away, and his dad moved in to tug him into a brief embrace before focusing on his leg.
“Talon.” Lore glanced over at Mace’s brother. “Thanks for letting us know he was here. You said you paged Dr. Vale?”
“Vale?” Mace hadn’t heard that name before. “Is he new?”
“He?” A statuesque, bronzed female stepped into the room, her metallic skin stretched over a sharp, angular bone structure that could have been carved from flint.
Three curved, black horns burst from her skull, forming a hard Mohawk from the front of her head to the back.
She gave him a stern look, her ebony eyes glittering with contempt.
“And I’m not new. I’ve been here two sextas now. ”
Sextas, a Sheoulic word that measured time in units of six years.
So, she’d been at UG for twelve years, and he’d never once seen her?
He’d have remembered seeing a draak demon.
The dragon-shifters were rare, and even more rarely seen outside of the Draig region in Sheoul.
Which was good, because they were assholes. The males and females.
“Dr. Vale specializes in treating injuries caused by spells,” his mom said, casting Vale a smile, which was returned. At least, Mace hoped the baring of a million sharp teeth was a smile. “A vengeful spirit cast a spell on me last fall, and Dr. Vale broke it in about thirty seconds.”
Mace cranked his head around. “You didn’t tell me you were attacked.”
“Please.” Idess waved her hand in dismissal. “It was a wart spell. Beginner stuff.”
Dr. Vale ran a scaly hand over Mace’s leg and made a hissing noise. “This is definitely not beginner stuff.”
The room’s curtain swept open, and Logan, Scotty’s cousin and fellow DART agent, stepped in, his expression a mask of worry.
Mace scowled at Talon. “How many people did you call besides my parents?”
“I didn’t call him. Not everything’s about you,” Talon said, throwing Mace’s earlier words back at him. He turned to Logan. “We’re kind of busy right now—”
“Eva needs help.” Logan shoved the curtain all the way back, showing where Eva stood, her face gaunt, eyes dull, and her skin a ghastly shade of dead-body gray. “We need Eidolon. Please. Hurry.”
Idess’s long braid swung against her navy sweater as she hurried over to Eva. Gently, she reached up to touch Eva’s cheek. “No doctor can help this,” she said softly. “Not even Eidolon.”
Eva swallowed dryly. “Is it…Harvester’s Grace?”
Idess nodded, her face almost as pale as Eva’s.
Ah, damn. When Scotty’s grandmother, Harvester, was killed, her angelic Grace had found its way inside Eva. But the human body wasn’t built to withstand that much power, and unless someone found a way to remove it, Eva would die.
Eva swayed, her skin going waxy. Logan leaped for her, catching her before she hit the obsidian floor.
“Take her to Trauma Two,” Talon barked, rushing out after them. He stopped at the threshold. “Vale, I’ll need an update on Mace’s condition ASAP.”
She nodded crisply and returned her scaly hand to Mace’s leg. It was agonizing, but his thoughts right now were with Logan and his mate. Mace hadn’t liked the former Aegis spokesperson at first, but now she was family and working for DART’s media team. It turned out she was pretty great.
“Is she going to be okay, Mom?”
He didn’t like the worry in Idess’s eyes, or the way she squeezed Lore’s hand, her mouth drawn tight. “If Aleka can’t locate Harvester’s blood for a ceremony quickly, there’s nothing anyone can do for her. She needs an angel.”
“You’re an angel,” he pointed out.
“I haven’t had any real angelic power for decades.”
“But you have brothers and sisters. All the Memitim—”
“All my Memitim brethren together wouldn’t be enough power to save her. She needs an Archangel. They have dominion over Grace.”
“But aren’t all the Archangels trapped in Heaven right now?”
“Yes,” Idess said softly. “So, without Harvester’s blood, Eva will die.”