Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
T wo Alder was a gorgeous sprawling bungalow cantilevered over a cliff surrounded by trees and rocks. Not exactly the urban Seattle I’d been thinking. Isolated was a good description but a bad one for our current circumstance because I needed help.
Wald was barely conscious, and white as jasmine rice. Somehow, I managed to haul him to the front door, but he groaned repeatedly with the effort. That meant not dead, and anything better than not dead was fine by me.
On the porch, he slumped to the ground, pulling me down with him. His jacket and the shredded black fabric were wet with gore, which was way beyond my ability to deal with. I contemplated calling an ambulance. “Get me inside,” he croaked, tearing my heart out.
“This house better have a built in ER and a team of doctors,” I replied, trying the door.
“My fingers,” he said, raising his hand weakly.
His face was shaded with hollows and shadow.
I peeled his glove off and then helped him get his fingers onto the sensor pad.
He was barely able to move his hand on his own.
The door clicked open, but I didn’t have the strength to pick him up now that his eyes weren’t open.
I grabbed the strongest part of him that wasn’t flesh, his jacket. It took a ridiculous amount of time and effort, but I managed to haul him into the entrance hall by the collar, leaving a horror-show of a red trail over the threshold.
“What now?” I asked no one, collapsing on the floor beside him.
Tears of despair poured down my cheeks. Exhausted, I buried my face in his chest, nuzzling into his feverish warmth.
He stroked my hair. I had to hold it together because I was his only chance.
I sat up and shifted his head into my lap.
The house was a regular house with a coffee table, an expensive leather sofa, and a bar cart.
We needed help, not cocktails. I should have driven to a hospital. I pushed back his hair and pressed my lips against his clammy forehead. A tear landed on his nose.
He groaned, and his eyelids flickered.
“It’ll be okay, Tails,” he whispered, and I swiped at my wet cheek. “Call Britannia.” He coughed. The racking sound gutted me.
“Britannia? You’re kidding? You’re almost dead because of her.”
“265-0048. Number in phone.” Then his yellow eyes closed, and his body went limp. I pressed a hand to his neck. There was a pulse, but he’d passed out.
I set his head down carefully on the slate entry floor and got up, my over-stretched muscles groaning with every move.
I scanned the room, babbling, “Phone, where do you keep phones?” The place was Scandinavian style with bare wood floors, leather, and wood furniture in shades of bleached gray and red-tinged browns.
There wasn’t anything electronic in the vicinity.
Nothing on a flat surface that even hinted at electronics.
I stumbled into the kitchen. Sleek oak cabinets were on every wall. I couldn’t even find the fridge, no matter the phone. There was a pad on the wall like the one on the front door. I pressed the screen, and it lit up.
“Hello, guest of Wald. How may I assist you today?” The woman’s voice was throaty and with an accent not unlike Wald’s.
After a moment of shock, I blathered, “Call Britannia. I need to call Britannia.” I searched for a keypad.
“Certainly. You would like me to call Britannia. Dialing Britannia.”
The wall rang, or something did. It rang and rang, and Britannia’s voice answered in an annoyed snippy tone. “Well, hello there. This had better be good,” she said, and then it beeped for voicemail. I balled my fist. She’d almost tricked me.
“Hang up,” I said, feeling extra proud as the call ended. Then reality hit me. I was back to being alone with a dying Wald. My heart pounded as I pressed the phone book type icon on the screen. Britannia had two numbers, and the second was the number Wald had read out.
“Wald, what are you doing in Seattle?” Britannia was her usual annoying self.
“You need to come now. Wald is dying. Like might already be dead.”
“Harlan? No can do, I’m nowhere near you. If he’s dying, he’ll be more passed by the time I get there.”
“Passed?” It sounded like a nice word for dead, but I was not okay with anything in the dead category. “He cannot pass or die. You need to come and fix him right now.” I was entirely rational at this point. I dragged his sorry ass here, and he wasn’t getting to pass on during my watch.
“What’s wrong with him?”
How do you describe stuff that made no sense?
I did my best. “Shot with funny hollow bullets, and then a big-monster-mouth thing with caramel drippings made him bleed. I mean Monster-mouth had an appendage with talons or claws, which sliced his side. He’s bleeding, though not as much as he was.
Oh and the bullets were poisoned.” Out loud that sounded even more bizzarro.
“Blood and poisoned, huh? Yeah, that was definitely a Grigores. You could try the cabinet. Otherwise try soda.”
Her calmness was maddening. “How is a cola going to fix him?”
“No, Ohio. Soda is a local healer. Her number will be in the phone pad. She doesn’t usually do house calls, but if you tell her it’s Wald, she’ll make an exception. Don’t tell Wald though…”
I was already pressing the wall screen and had figured out how to scroll through the book. Soda Poppy was listed. I hit her number, and it hung up on Britannia mid-sentence. “Don’t…”
It was too late now to find out what not to do. The call connected.
“Soda?”
“You are not Waldemar. Who are you?”
“I’m a friend of Wald’s. He’s injured and needs healing. It’s desperate. Britannia can’t get here and said to call you.”
The silence at the other end made me wonder if she’d hung up. “Hello?”
“I’m here, processing your spewing drivel. What’s wrong with him? ”
“Skewered, blood, poison. How the hell do I know? He’s not moving at the moment but still breathing.”
“Poison? How long ago?” Her tone was sharp like a toothy bite.
I did mental math. “An hour ago, maybe a bit more.”
“Do you have birchweed?”
“Birch what? No, I have nothing,” I yelled at her. “I have never been here before.”
“Wald’s place?”
“I guess so. Yeah, Two Alder.”
There was a pause. “Okay, well, there’s likely nightshade in the cabinet or maybe birchweed. Can you ask him?”
“Hell no I can’t. He’s passed out.” I had been watching him through the cutout from the kitchen to the living area. I had a good view of the entry. His eyes snapped open.
“Hang on, maybe I can.” I walked away from the wall phone and ran the rest of the way. I dropped to my knees and cradled his head, combing fingers through his silky hair. He couldn’t die on me.
“Wald, can you hear me? Soda says I need to find nightshade or birchweed?”
“SODA?” Wald’s eyes narrowed, and he growled, half sitting up with far more strength than I would have guessed he had. I leaned back, supporting his weight. “Oops, I wasn’t supposed to mention Soda. Where is the nightshade?”
“Bathroom, left of sink,” he said, looking down at the mess of his chest.
“Bathroom?”
“Off the black bedroom.” He raised a hand weakly, his eyelids fluttered closed, and he went limp in my arms. My throat went dry.
I set him down, the clock ticking in my head.
Bedrooms. Of course he had a black bedroom.
I sprinted across the living room, realizing I should probably have tried to get him to the couch while he was conscious, but that door had just closed. I was all about second chances.
The first hall had two wall panels. I slapped them, and the doors slid back. Both bedrooms were in shades of off-white. I reversed and tore across to the other side of the living room. A short hall ended in a wide black mirror.
Looking at myself for the first time since the post-dying, almost-dying kidnapping. I grimaced, hiked up the bodice of the trashed catsuit, and pounded on the black mirror surface with flat palms. Nothing happened.
Nine hells.
I raced back to Wald. He was out cold. I trailed my fingers down the sides of his face. “Wald? The bedroom?”
Nothing.
“Wald!” I gently shook him, but he didn’t open his eyes. My stomach was hollowing.
“Come on, you can’t leave me.” I smacked his cheeks. He groaned. I kissed him. His lips tasted salty, but his eyes flickered open. This was a pleasant and disturbing trend.
“How do I get into the bedroom?”
His eyes shut, but he feebly moved two fingers.
“Can you help me get you there?”
His head shifted in a no. “I need to rest now.”
“This might be unpleasant.” I grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled his dead weight across the living room.
Thank God, the floors were wood. It still took far too long.
I fell over a couple of times, but I got him next to the wall.
I pressed his hand against the shiny surface, and the door slid back revealing a dimly lit room with no windows.
“You okay for a minute?” I asked. His eyes were closed, and he was unresponsive.
With the power of save-the-hero fueling my soul, I tore into the bedroom.
The walls were covered with mirrors, kind of like Agatha’s but black-on-black.
The massive bed in the center filled most of the floor space.
One of the walls had to be a panel. I madly smacked them, leaving palm prints all over the mirrors.
Finally, the wall to the back left of the bed slid open.
The bathroom was a pale spring green with white accessories and lots of glass.
The windowed walls were frosted, spilling natural light into the room.
I ran to the sink and smacked the wall. The panel whirred.
I was expecting a medicine cabinet, not a set of stairs leading down.