Chapter Twenty-Six - Lucifer #3
How long had she been sick? Could she keep fluids down? Any pain? Any bleeding? Any dizziness? Any fever?
I answered half of them before Evie could.
He eventually looked up at me over the rims of his glasses and said, very carefully, “Forgive me, sire, I cannot examine her and determine what’s wrong if you do not let me.”
I stared at him. He held his ground. Damn him. I clenched my jaw and took one step back.
Malach immediately summoned a female demon nurse from the hall, either because he had planned better than I liked or because he valued his own continued existence. She entered briskly, efficient and unbothered, and went straight to work, starting an IV in Evie’s arm while Malach continued the exam.
“Fluids first,” the nurse said. “And I’m giving you ondansetron for the nausea.”
Evie gave her a tired look. “Please tell me that’s a magical not-throwing-up drug.”
The nurse’s mouth twitched. “Something like that, yes.”
I stayed close enough to interfere and far enough not to get thrown out.
Within twenty minutes, the hard edge of her nausea had eased enough that Evie no longer looked like she might crawl out of her own skin.
Malach finished his exam and straightened. “I don’t think this is her magic.”
That snapped every muscle in me tight. “What is it, then?”
He glanced at Evie, then at me, then back again with the kind of expression physicians wear when they think they are being tactful and are therefore already on my nerves.
“I think an ultrasound might be helpful.”
Evie barely reacted. She looked too relieved not to be vomiting to care what kind of machine he wanted to point at her.
I, on the other hand, was already on the phone before he finished the sentence.
Half an hour later, a technician was being ushered into the room with a rolling ultrasound machine, and that somehow made the whole thing feel even more serious.
The tech spread a towel low across Evie’s stomach.
She looked at me. “If I survived Heaven just to get slapped with some divine complication, I’m going to be so pissed.”
Malach’s mouth twitched faintly. “Understandable, my lady. I’d still prefer evidence before I start blaming Heaven.”
The technician applied the gel and set the probe to her belly. For a second, there was only static and a strange grayscale blur on the screen.
Then Malach went very still. “Yes,” he said.
The technician froze with the probe against Evie’s stomach.
Malach’s gaze locked on the screen. “Hold that image.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Measure the first structure,” he said.
“Malach.”
“Crown to rump.”
The words meant nothing to me, which made them worse.
The technician clicked something, dragged a line across the gray blur, then glanced at Malach.
He nodded once. “Now the second.”
My entire body went cold.
“The second what?”
No one answered quickly enough.
“Malach,” I said, and my voice dropped low enough that the monitor flickered. “Tell me what I’m looking at,” I said, trying to make it sound like a command instead of fear. “Speak plainly.”
He didn’t reply at first as the technician adjusted the probe, angling slightly, pressing more carefully. The image sharpened. One large dark circle appeared with two smaller forms, close together, in the same shadowed space.
Malach leaned in, his whole expression changing. “Yes,” he said again, more softly now. “I thought this might be it.”
Cold went through me so fast it felt like a blade sliding between my ribs. “Malach of the Selpulcher Ward, what is it?” I asked.
Evie’s head turned on the pillow, her voice rough. “What’s wrong?”
Malach looked between us, and to my increasing irritation, he was smiling.
“My liege,” he said, sounding almost delighted. “Nothing is wrong.”
I glared at him as he stepped aside slightly, enough for both of us to see the screen better.
“There,” he said, pointing. “That’s the sac.”
I looked where he pointed. The large dark shape.
Then he touched the screen again, one finger indicating a small pale curve within it.
“And there,” he said, “is one.” His hand moved only slightly. “And there is the second.”
I stared harder. Now I could see them. Two tiny shapes, folded close together inside the same dark circle. They were wiggling.
Evie gasped, “What?”
Malach’s voice gentled into explanation. “Babies, my lady. Here are the heads. You can see the arm buds there, and there. These are the legs. Still early, of course, but very clear.”
I looked back at him. Then at the screen. Then at him again.
“There’s…” I swallowed. “Two?”
Malach’s smile widened. “Yes, my liege. Two… babies.”
Then, my entire body went rigid.
No.
For one hideous, blinding second, the room vanished into red, but I cut off the growl that nearly escaped me.
Him. That gilded fucking bastard. My fists flexed hard at my sides.
No.
I didn’t care if they’d said He couldn’t be killed. I was going to find a way. I was going to do whatever I could until His false light went out for good. And when it did, I was going to enjoy every second of it. The rage hit so hard I could taste metal.
Malach didn’t seem to notice that I was seconds from ripping the machine in half.
He glanced down at the screen again while the technician kept moving the probe, measuring, tracing, watching. “Yes. About twelve weeks,” he said.
Evie asked, “Twelve… weeks?”
Malach nodded. “Approximately.”
She lifted her head off the pillow. “Wait.” Her voice was rough with sleep and sickness and shock. She looked between us. “How long was I… gone?”
Everything in me stopped. I frowned. “What?”
“I couldn’t tell,” she said. “I couldn’t tell time because His goddamn light was always the same. I couldn’t tell night from day.”
I started at the screen as something cold moved through me.
“Two months,” I said quietly. “You were gone about two months.”
She stared at me. Then, to my surprise, some of the fear left her face instead of deepening.
“Oh,” she breathed.
I looked at her. “Oh?”
She swallowed. “I thought…” Her voice thinned. “I thought maybe I’d been trapped there for years.”
I stared at the screen, and for one second, I couldn’t speak. Two months. Twelve weeks. The math hit all at once, and I reached for her hand. It wasn’t… None of that fit. Only one thing did. Only us from… before.
My knees felt abruptly unreliable. I sat down hard in the chair beside the bed and looked at the screen again like if I stared long enough the world would rearrange itself into something smaller.
Babies. Two babies.