Chapter Nine: Day Five, Thirty-Three, and Thirty-Six
Give us patience to endure,
Keep our hearts serene and pure,
Grant us courage, charity,
Greater faith, humility,
Readiness to own Thy will,
Be we free or captive still.
~Margaret Dryburgh (b. 1890 Sunderland, d. 1945 Loebok Lingau camp, Sumatra)
January 5th
Bet padded along the hallway of the Istanbul Conservatory in her pajamas, dressing gown, and socks. It was the middle of the night, but that hadn't mattered for days now.
She paused just outside Diego and Zahra's suite. Lynx had fallen asleep sitting against the corridor wall. Again. In fact, she wasn't sure if she'd seen him sleep in his bed since the healers ok'd him to leave it. She shrugged off the pink fluffy dressing gown and laid it over him.
Gripping the phone in her hand, she became much more self-concious about her pjamas when she turned to the door, and saw many more people than usual were inside the room.
Gathered in the sitting room of the suite were the heads of every major guild as well as Virgil's team.
They were standing or sitting around the table, or smoking out the window, all casting frequent glances towards the young man sagged in the corner armchair, a young woman seated on the arm, holding his hand and dabbing his forehead with a cool cloth.
Bet crossed to the one person she knew and held out the phone to Virgil, "It's Warren. He talked to the guards."
Virgil leapt forward and began speaking quickly in a low voice, barking out questions.
Bet kept her eyes on Diego. From a distance he just looked tired, until you noticed that every now and then he would twitch. Not a large twitch, but an involuntary one, the kind that feels bigger than it is, like when you kick out in a dream and your foot moves a tiny bit.
He wasn't in pain, physically, but a look at his face revealed he was in a whole different kind of torment.
Rasheph put an arm around her.
"Nothing?" She asked, as he led her to a couch.
"She's been drugged. Diego's sure of it, Virgil's sure of it, and one of the healers that linked up with Diego's connection to her is sure of it. And it fits with Warren's initial report from the prison that everyone was way too quiet the night she disappeared. Whole cell block got drugged, so no one was awake to hear her get snatched."
"And she hasn't called for help?"
"She's trying to use them but it's like being paralyzed and trying to walk. Best they can figure is a neurotoxin that specifically targets the channels fueling our gifts. They're all numbed and slippery. She can't speak telepathically, and Diego can't listen in, because the channel is effectively shut off."
"So she can't tell us where she is." Bet sighed. "But the connection to Diego-"
"It's an Empathetic link, drugs can't break that."
"Lucy doesn't have Empathy, she told me. Not a drop, never even trained in it."
Rasheph nodded "I asked Zahra about that. She said that wasn't exactly true, but it didn't matter. Diego's the most powerful Empath in the Circle. He can read the ungifted, and he's been able to sense Lucy remotely since she was four."
"But she can't sense him?" Bet shivered. "For all she knows, she's all alone."
Rasheph gave Bet's hand a squeeze, and they watched Diego in silence. He couldn't hear what was being said to Lucy, he couldn't tell what she was saying back. The only things he could sense were that she was terrified and in a great deal of pain.
Bet pulled her eyes away from Diego. She looked out into the hall where Lynx appeared to have nodded off. Still, he'd developed ears like a bat lately, so she whispered her fear to Rasheph.
"There's a reason that all the heads of the Guilds are here, isn't there? And it's not to join the search party."
Rasheph nodded grimly. Bet had always been a clever girl.
He eyed Lynx and leaned in close to her ear. "They came as soon as Diego could confirm that she was being kept in a conscious drugged state, as opposed to being knocked out."
Bet stared into Rasheph's eyes for a moment until the obvious reason came to her.
"They want to talk to her."
"More to the point, they want her to talk. And judging from the pain Diego is vicariously experiencing, Lucy's not cooperating."
Rasheph sighed and leaned back against the couch. "At least, she's not cooperating yet. It's only been 4 days."
January 15th
"There's got to be something we can do."
"Mr. Lane kindly hang that wig up, it is older and has achieved more than you."
"Sorry."
"And if you insist on kicking the furniture might I suggest the desks in the clerks' office, mine happens to be an antique."
"Sorry, it's, er, lovely."
"Are you mad, boy? It's horrendous, but Mrs. Abernathy is very fond of it and I am ridiculously in love with Mrs. Abernathy, so please refrain from kicking her monument to Baroque monstrosity."
"Yes, sir."
Abernathy sighed, and settled himself across the Baroque monstrosity from his youngest clerk.
"This client, Miss Montero, was a friend of yours?"
"We were in the International Society together."
"Ah yes, your little club. She was also a Gryffindor?"
"She is a Gryffindor."
Abernathy sighed. "Warren- I- I don't mean to be cruel but there just isn't a delicate way to say this. In these cases, it's very rare that the person who disappears is ever found again. If they are found, they are always de-"
"It doesn't make any sense. She's not important, not even a particularly good witch. Why go to the trouble of snatching her?"
"Usually victims are taken for ransom-"
"There's been no contact. And Lucy's a scholarship student, so money can't be the object."
"- or because they posses skills that can be of value-"
"My great Aunt Theodora possesses more valuable skills and they wouldn't have to break into a secret prison to seize her."
"- or because they posses knowledge that is of great value."
"She's just a student. What could she possibly know?"
Abernathy sighed. He liked Warren Lane, Merlin knew he didn't want to be the one to explain to him how cruel a place the world was. But he promised all his clerks that he would never lie to them, or withhold vital information, which, to Abernathy, was the same thing as a lie.
"Mr. Lane, all I can tell you is that we should hope for one of the former sets of circumstances, they give your young friend the highest chance of survival. If they are after information, then I promise you, they will get it. And after they do, they will no longer have need of her."
Before Warren could react to the dire prediction, Preserved knocked on the door jamb.
"Hello! Abernathy old man, you look younger every day. Hope I'm not interrupting? I brought breakfast for your serf, since his was so rudely interrupted. Mine too, for that matter." He presented Warren with a thermos of coffee and a bag of cinnamon rolls.
Warren took the lot to his small desk in the corner, on which Preserved planted one hip and helped himself to a cinnamon roll. Warren breathed in the coffee with a sigh. "Thanks mate."
"Well, our new 'suitors' from the Ministry weren't terribly hungry, which is surprising, given the amount of energy they expended trying to locate a 17 year old fugitive under our settee. This being our third early morning rendezvous, I felt bound by my superior breeding to buy the poor chaps a meal. How many more times do you think they're going to search the flat? If this keeps up much longer I'm going to have to meet their parents and take them on a mini-break." Preserved shivered, then winced and massaged his temples. "And I'm going to have to start scheduling my hangovers in advance."
Not to mention the difficulty he'd endured finding a temporary storage solution for the contents of the coat closet.
"Maybe we should just stop cleaning up, leave everything out like that, it would save them time."
"Well at least my overnight guests have started to find it thrilling rather than terrifying. Having this become a habit could have put a serious crimp in my social calendar."
"Speaking of, I thought you were going to stay home this morning and clean up." Warren raised an eyebrow.
"Anna and Heather are doing it."
"Hannah."
"Heather."
"Hannah."
"Really?"
"Did you call her Heather?"
"Yes."
"To her face?"
"Yes."
"And she still agreed to clean up your flat after it was ransacked by Aurors? Again?"
Preserved sighed, "Warren, you consistently seem to forget one very salient detail."
'Which is?"
"That, while I may not choose to waste it on you, I do have a great deal of charm at my disposal."
January 16th
On a bench in a completely ordinary room of the National Gallery, a pair of perfectly ordinary visitors admired The Execution of Lady Jane Grey.
"You're sure?"
"He was very clear."
"This can't wait for the scheduled Paris rendezvous, someone must leave tonight."
"There's a train leaving in the next hour."
"I'll put one of the musicians on it."
"I can go-"
"Handlers don't leave the city. You can be connected to the source, a messenger can't."
"Fine, but…" there was an awkward pause, "it probably shouldn't be a female agent."
There was another pause, then a groan. "He still encodes the notes in-"
"Yes. Which a girl would have trouble explaining if they were found on her person."
"Agreed. At least it won't be hard setting him up with a job. There's got to be over ten thousand cafes in that city."
There was a pause as they admired the haunting painting, the touching vulnerability of the doomed figure, her fear, the compassion on the face of the priest as he guided her hands to the block she could not see.
Galleries were wonderful places. Comfy benches, an environment where everyone spoke in hushed tones. And completely devoid of wizards.
Wizards hated paintings that didn't move.
"How serious do you think this is?"
"Well, it's not good."
"How not good?"
"Under the circumstances, the sooner that girl dies, the better."
There was a pause and they went back to studying the painting.
"The world is completely fucked up at the moment, isn't it?"
"Seems to be. But I've seen worse." With that the gentleman collected his umbrella, shook his neighbors hand as if they had just met and had an interesting conversation, and left the gallery.
His companion left after contemplating the painting for a further half hour.
January 17th
From one of the most expensive orchestra level seats in the Paris Opera, Darius sighed as the curtain came down for intermission. As the mortals around him swarmed into the lobbies to prattle to each other or into their telephones, he casually strolled forward seven rows and leaned over the orchestra pit.
The musicians had virtually vacated the space to chain smoke at the stage door, but the replacement second violinist remained behind to study the next act.
"Your Mimi has nothing on Cesira Ferrani."
The violinist inclined her head, but did not look up. "She wasn't available, and neither was Toscanini, but I don't hear the audience complaining."
Darius chuckled. "If I had a franc for everything mortals fail to appreciate I could buy this opera house."
"Yes, but you still wouldn't be able to bring back Toscanini."
"Well, not entirely in any case," Darius nodded, crouched down as if he had dropped something, and in the next second was standing behind the violinist in the pit.
"They said it was urgent." He gave the violinist high marks for not flinching.
"The system may be threatened."
"How?"
"The Hogwarts messenger was arrested-"
"We were already informed of that."
"You didn't let me finish." The violinist made a few notes in the score. "She was arrested over a month ago. 17 days ago, she was taken."
Darius froze. "By whom?"
"No sign. No body has been found, no ransom demanded, the only reason to take her-"
"Is for something she can give them." Darius cursed.
"That wasn't French."
"Neither am I. Reports?"
"In your back pocket."
"But I-" Darius reached into his back pocket and pulled out the addendum to the evening's program announcing the substitutions in cast and orchestra. He could feel from the paper that it was encoded.
But he hadn't felt the violinist slip it in.
"I've transcribed, and you should thank me. You wouldn't believe the filth the local agent on scene encodes his messages in."
Darius slipped the paper inside his jacket pocket. "You're good."
She bent over her score as she made a note, but he could hear the smile in her voice. "I have good hands."
"Indeed you do," he raised one to his lips. "I've seen this opera over a thousand times, and you are one of the most eloquent musicians to play this part."
She removed her hand. "You're good too. Most people can't hear me with an entire orchestra playing behind me."
Darius tapped his forehead. "I'm not people- and I caught every note."
She shook her head, smiling. "And I have already been well informed about your reputation."
Darius hissed. "Your conductor is a spoilsport. And frigid."
"Prudent."
"Same thing. Well, mademoiselle, I hope we meet again."
"Can I ask a question?"
"I may not answer, but you may ask."
"What did Ms Ferrani sound like?"
"Imperfect, in a beautiful way that made her seem all the more real, all the more doomed…but it was difficult to hear her at certain key moments."
"Why?"
Darius smiled. "Because I was playing your part at the time and our concertmaster was consistently overzealous with his dramatic crescendos."
The violinist dropped her jaw. And wondered what it meant she could coolly exchange intelligence with an undead undercover agent, but her knees went wobbly at the realization that said undead spy had been a part of the 1896 world premiere of La bohème.
She shook her head to clear it. Life and death, she had come here on a matter of great urgency.
"You'll warn them immediately?"
"And say a prayer for the girl's swift demise."
The violinist's blood ran cold. "She's only a child."
"And thousands of children will die if she doesn't, and soon. Believe me, her dying is the happiest outcome."
He gave her hand another brief kiss, and then appeared above her, leaning casually over the railing from the front row of the theater.
"You've seen La bohème over 1000 times?" She called after him.
He looked around, and decided no one listening would believe him anyway, so he answered. "1023, to be precise."
The violinist smiled up at him. "Anyone who watches this story that many times, can't be someone who has much experience with what a happy ending really is."
Darius smiled. "Perhaps you're right. I shall pray that you are, and that I am wrong."
But as he walked out into the night to deliver his news, listening to the rest of the final act in his mind, as it was first preformed so long ago, he also reflected on the fact that no matter how many times he wished Mimi would overcome her disease and live, the story always ended the same way.
January 18th
Kostya looked up from the letter Anna had placed into his hand.
"Well shit."
Anna raised an eyebrow.
"How did they find this out? We've heard nothing from Hogwarts."
"Another one of Odette's sources, I suppose. You know they have more eyes on the outside than we do because they're also monitoring the vampire situation. Seems one of their London sources stumbled upon this by accident."
Kostya sat down heavily on one of the sofas in the seventh year common room. He and Anna were alone, it was early, Boris and Stiva were in charge of supervising PT, and wouldn't be back from leading the morning run until 6:30.
Anna was preparing pots of coffee and cocoa over two of the common room fireplaces in anticipation of their return. She tried to concentrate on the stirring.
"She's dead, isn't she?" She blurted out.
Kostya folded the letter and placed it in his pocket, came over and crouched down next to Anna before the fire. Their knees bumped together as he took her hand.
"Anna, if she isn't dead, she will be. That is not what worries me."
Her eyes flashed. "Kostya how can you be so-"
"I am angry that she was arrested, angry that she was taken, but what worries me is what is happening to her now, what has been happening for the past two and a half weeks. Anna, don't you see that Lucy Montero is not the only one in danger?"
Anna shook her head. "She wouldn't betray us."
Kostya squeezed her hand. "You and I both know that she is going to have very, very little choice."
As if he couldn't stay still anymore, Constantine stood up and began to pace, long strides eating up the distance across the common room far too fast.
Anna watched him pace, scared, and fascinated. He so rarely displayed even the slightest loss of control. Golernishevs didn't lose control, they did the controlling.
"Kostya, what are we going to do now?"
Kostya didn't stop pacing as he flipped through the options.
"Her brother." He decided. "Boris said she left word with the International Society that if she couldn't do it, her brother would be capable. Until we hear otherwise, we carry on as planned. But,"
"But what?"
Kostya sighed. Their fates hung in center of a fragile web and it felt like every day another line was cut.
"Annushka, we have to be perfect."
Anna nodded, let out a deep breath, and collected herself as Constantine watched in silent admiration. She looked at the clock.
"They'll be back in two minutes," she turned back to the coffee. "You get to tell Boris."
February 2nd
It was dark. Wherever she was, it was dark. Diego could feel it, physically, like a weight pressing down on his chest. Her chest, their chest.
Lucy had never been afraid of the dark, not even as a child. She'd scared the death out of Antolin and the Espiritu elders by running pell-mell over the rooftop apartments, up and down ladders in the middle of the night. She'd led him through the dark when he was too scared to walk.
Well, she was damn well terrified of it now.
That part was almost worse. The quiet times. They were longer. The physical pain, the agony, that could last for hours, but the moments of quiet terror, when she was alone, in the dark, waiting for whatever it was to come back, those could last for days.
They'd watched a Discovery channel show about this once. How people trapped in caves in complete darkness only lasted a few hours before the sensory deprivation drove them insane.
Lucy had been in the dark for weeks. Even when she wasn't alone, she couldn't see. He could tell by her confusion, her disorientation, her dread.
She hadn't gone mad, yet, she hadn't broken completely. Because of that, he could still be used, his link could be used to try and locate her. He was supposed to be resting now, but he couldn't sit still. In a few hours Virgil would come transport him to London and use him like a human compass. Every day they whittled the radius of her location down smaller and smaller.
But she was fading faster now. The signal he picked up from her was weaker every day.
It was uncertain what, exactly, they were going to recover when they found her.
Without opening his eyes, he felt a new presence in the room- his room, not Lucy's. It was a warm aura, and it sparkled pink, like the nail polish of a 13-year-old girl.
He relaxed. Zahra. She hated that her aura glittered like that, was disgusted that it was so girly. Diego thought it was perfect. Vibrant and unabashedly feminine.
Zahra balanced the tray in her arms and eased the door open with her hip. Diego was paler than when she had left him, something she hadn't thought possible.
He was also still pacing the room. The pulse was throbbing at his temple, she could actually see it, and he had the crease across his forehead, the one that always appeared when he was intensely focused on his gifts.
Lucy got the same crease, only it was between her eyebrows.
She sat on the sofa, holding out the plate. "Sit, and eat, before you collapse."
"I'm not hungry,"
He opened his eyes when Zahra snorted, an undignified sound her mother abhorred, and her father had found- did find- endearing.
"Diego Alvarez, I've known you for two years, and never in that time have you refused so much as a fruit snack. Sit down and eat this or I will have Mustafa and Sidi from the med wing come in here and tranq you."
She gave him a Look which Diego took to mean that she still hadn't forgiven him for drugging her tea a few days ago to force her to take a rest. He eyed the sandwich suspiciously.
Zahra rolled her eyes, "No, I did not tranq the damn food. I'm trying to be reasonable- you should try it some time."
Diego took a seat on the couch, leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "I really am sorry about that."
She placed the sandwich quarter in his hand. "Just eat."
Diego chewed mechanically, continued to chew and swallow as she handed him food and sipped when she held a straw to his lips. His eyes stayed closed, and she knew that his head was miles away, someplace dark.
"The scouts just went out," she said, "Virgil and Mercelo think they should be ready to go again in a few hours."
When he had finished and still didn't speak, she placed the tray on the coffee table, pulled a knit throw over his legs, and settled in next to him with a book she was translating for the library.
After awhile, Diego grabbed her hand and squeezed.
He let out a long breath, and his voice shook. "She's scared, so scared, she's never been this afraid of anything in her entire life. All I want to do is pick her up and take her home, and I can't help her."
His eyes opened- bright and blue and burning into hers. "I'm supposed to take care of her. I'm her brother."
Zahra dropped her work and pulled Diego back against her, her arms banded around him, holding him still.
"You are taking care of her," she murmured into his ear. "You're helping them find her." Her voice was steady and even.
"She doesn't know it." He shook his head. She was alone, in the dark. "Lucy-" he swallowed hard, "she has no enhanced Empathy. She can't feel mine the way I can sense hers. She doesn't know I'm here, she's all alone."
"She's still conscious, isn't she?"
"Yes, it's quiet now."
"If Lucy didn't think you were there, that you were trying to find her, she would have yanked her consciousness like you both did last Christmas. Do you really think she'd give up on you?"
Diego shook his head.
"So don't you give up on her."
Diego grew quiet, his breathing grew steadier. She needed him to calm down. When things got very bad for Lucy his whole body would respond as if he were the one being hurt. Since no one could persuade him to loosen the connection, he needed to take the rest as it came.
She knew he wouldn't sleep, that he hadn't slept properly in days. She gently scratched his head as he played with the ends of her hair.
At length, he spoke.
"This happened once before, you know. When she was six."
"What?"
"Well, not this exactly. We were in Brazil, I hadn't been assigned a mentor yet and Professor de La Vega had taken us into the Amazon to spend a month with the Lost Schools.
"We hadn't been there a week when the summons came. I don't remember what the Council was meeting for- never found out- but it was an emergency.
"Children were not permitted at the High Council, and we were considered too young to be shifted- Antolin hated the practice himself. But it was a three day journey to get there- so it was decided that we would stay behind in the village, a tiny place in the middle of Amazonas state. He left us with the local shaman, who was a Circle affiliate and an old friend of Antolin's.
"The first night we fell ill. Probably been coming down with it for days, but the fevers started that first night after Antolin left. At least mine started at night. I had malaria, my fever would spike at night. It would come down during the day, at the same time that Lucy, who had yellow fever, would spike her temperature.
"If we had been two normal kids we would have been treated and probably been fine, he was a good shaman. But we were two kids with gifts and shoddy control. When our fevers would spike, our gifts went a little haywire. Lucy's telekinesis would make things fly all over the village. She upset pots, sent flaming pieces of firewood flying through the air, tormented the livestock. And at night, when she would rest, I would start. I was inside everyone's heads, making their worst nightmares seem real, or at least the fear seemed very real. I was so scared."
Zahra squeezed his hand. "How old were you?"
"Nine. The shaman tried his best, but we were too unpredictable. Before he could come up with a solution that wouldn't hurt us, we were run out of the village as demons. They marched us out one morning until we were far enough away that the village goods stopped flying. And they left us. The shaman came with, poor man. I think he intended to take us to Antolin. But he never got the chance.
"That first night, Lucy got up, and she pulled me to my feet. I was sweating and delirious and so scared, but I trusted her. I knew she was there. She told me we had to follow it. I couldn't see anything. But she swore there was a yellow bird and we had to follow it.
"I didn't see any bird. I just followed her.
"We walked all night. Through the jungle, following Lucy's bird. When day came she just sort of stumbled into the roots of a tree and curled up. Her fever would rage all day, and I would rest while she battled it. Then at night she would pull me up and off we'd go."
He stopped playing with the ends of her hair and shook his head.
"Three nights, walking through the Amazon, a pair of delirious kids, we should have been dead.
"But on the morning of the fourth day she suddenly stopped, and she started to cry. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she couldn't find the bird anymore. She just sat down and pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed like she'd lost everything.
"And then I heard the voices. Her crying had woken up a village that the trees were hiding from us. And I look up from where I'm sitting with my arm around her, and there's Professor de La Vega, reaching down to scoop us up.
"I passed out. Woke up a day later in a school in Manauas, hooked up to an IV with Lucy asleep in the bed next to me. Antolin was sitting between us, holding her hand. He asked me how in the name of the Lady we had found him, and I told him about the bird. I asked him what kind of bird that could be.
"He didn't answer, just smiled and kissed her on the forehead.
"The thing was, when Lucy's fever broke and she woke up, really woke up, she didn't remember a thing. Denies it ever happened."
Zahra chuckled at the frustration in his voice.
"S'not funny. She claims I made the whole thing up."
"How annoying."
"She was- is, constantly. Said- says it's her job. That's what little sisters are for."
"She takes the job seriously."
"What about mine?"
Zahra put a hand on either side of his face. "You're doing your job. But you can't keep this up forever, not like this. So you are going to finish eating this lunch, then you are going to sleep for at least three hours straight. And I'm going to see to it that you do. Because that's part of my job. And I take it very seriously."
Diego sighed, pulled Zahra in, holding her nestled against his shoulder.
"You're right."
A smile fought to escape the corner of her mouth. "Could you say that again? In like, five minutes- give me a chance to find an audience? Or better yet- a camera?"
"Once was enough. Thank you for that."
"Anytime."
February 5th
Virgil hit the corridor at a dead run. Puck and Tuck were ahead, pushing each door open before he hit it, sprinting past him again and again to open the next set so he never had to slow down. Maintainers could dematerialize, but after coming out of the gate that was deemed too dangerous.
"Call the OR and get it prepped. Rigid abdomen, likely internal bleeding, get plenty of O negative on hand."
"Virg- her hands-"
"We stabilize her first."
As they turned a corner and started up the final hallway towards the medical ward, doors began to fly open. People lined to corridor. At the end of the hall, Diego Alvarez burst out of the library.
Shit, was all Virgil could think. The guy had been hanging on by a thread, but one glance at what Virgil carried in his arms put murder in the man's eyes.
It was a bloody, bruised, broken tangle of a human body. And it had Lucy's face.
Diego lunged forward, but was held back by the gentle touch of the willowy girl behind him. She shook her head, not releasing Diego to follow until Virgil had passed.
"She's alive," Virgil called out as he passed by. He heard the pair following him at a run.
Healers poured out of every doorway as they hit the medical suite. The head trauma healer, Ruya, did a rapid assessment as Virgil carefully placed his burden on the gurney.
Her eyes widened at the extent of the injuries. She snapped orders and Lucy was wheeled in to start the blood transfusion and IV fluids. Ruya hung back to question the Maintainers.
"Did you find anything that would indicate how this happened?"
"There was nothing there, except-"
Virgil cut in before Puck could finish. "The cell was empty of any implements, and we didn't exactly wait around."
"There was a dragon," Tuck added, "but I don't think he was actually involved."
"Was she conscious?"
"Conscious but not lucid. I put her out myself when we were safely away."
"Why?"
"I don't think she knew where she was or who we were, she was struggling, fighting us, and hurting herself."
As Ruya turned to go scrub in, Virgil put a hand on her arm.
"The Guilds are going to want to access her memories soon as she's stable. But if she reacts the same way-"
"She could make things worse," the surgeon sighed.
Ruya ran through her priorities, mentally evaluating the skill of her staff and the extent of the injuries. "Get Diego Alvarez into a surgical gown, he's the only one who's likely to get through to her. And I'm going to need a specialist brought here immediately."
"Homer's team is home on break. He has fresh scouts that can escort him here within the hour."
"Her. Pikea Otago. And make it thirty minutes. And sorry, but I don't have the faintest idea where she is. Could be Tibet, could be Tahiti."
"Someone else?"
"There is no one else. Even without the X-rays, we're looking at bone damage like I've never seen, Pikea is Lucy's best shot."
As Ruya dismissed them to scrub, Puck pulled Virgil aside.
"You didn't tell her about the body."
Virgil nodded, "There's no reason for her to know, there was no trace of Lucy on him, he didn't touch her."
"I was thinking the other way 'round."
"He didn't have a scratch on him, Puck. And Lucy couldn't even stand."
Tuck had joined them, standing to Virgil's other side. He looked at Puck, then at Virgil, they were all thinking the same thing. If gifts had been involved, standing wouldn't be necessary.
"He had blood leaking out his ear." Tuck finally blurted out.
Virgil shook his head. "The neurotoxin, she couldn't use her gifts, and in her state she wouldn't have had enough strength to do that."
"If she was scared enough, she could have."
"Enough!" Virgil snapped. "Look at her!" He flung an arm, stained with blood, toward the windows on the OR doors. Through the portals the team members glimpsed a wall of healers and nurses swarming around the table, calling for more blood, suction, and the crash cart.
They winced as the sounds of Lucy's heart failing, then being restarted echoed faintly along the halls. When a rhythm resumed, Virgil let out a breath, and leaned his head against the wall.
As the healers worked to fix Lucy, Virgil's 1st and 2nd Lieutenants came marching down the hall in double time. Tess and Mercelo looked exhausted and smelled liked smoke.
"Where's Huck?" Tuck inquired after his fellow scout.
"In the Gate room, making sure our energy trail is obscured." Tess pushed back the black hood with distinctive red and yellow trim that identified her to all as a Maintainer. Her tussled blond curls made her look a little less fierce. "How is she?"
"Her heart stopped beating about two minutes ago- but they restarted it."
"Well, according to her brother that thing has never beaten correctly anyway, so maybe the shock will get rid of the arrhythmia."
As Virgil straightened up, his highest ranking officers came to attention.
"The body?" He turned to Mercelo.
"Taken care of." Mercelo said no more, and Virgil didn't ask.
"Witnesses?" He addressed Tess.
Her brown eyes flashed. "We waited as long as we were allowed, but no one came back." Unconsciously, her fingers clenched. Tess may look like a pixie, but she was Virgil's most skilled interrogator.
"Any problems?"
"The dragon may have a bit of indigestion," Tess shrugged.
"And I don't think that Ayşe hanım is going to be able to get the dragon breath out of these robes," Mercelo wrinkled his nose.
Virgil rolled his head towards Puck. "See, nothing to report."
Puck nodded and stayed silent. Virgil could be one scary sonofabitch.
Virgil ran a hand over his scalp. "I'm proud of you." He met the eyes of his team, lingering on Tuck and Puck. "All of you. Now go get some food and go to bed. I'm sending a therapy team over to the barracks in 12 hours."
Puck looked alarmed. "Which one?"
"Bahar hanım's."
"The Spinecracker?"
"She's the best."
"Massage therapy shouldn't be so…painful."
"It's not if you relax."
"You'd be tense too if you were laying powerless under a woman capable of crushing your spine in a single movement and you happened not to have called after the third date."
Tess took charge and ushered the team down the hall. "You could always try flowers…."
Mercelo looked back. "Coming boss?"
Virgil nodded. "In a minute. Victor wants to be briefed as soon as possible.'
Victor was the head of the Guild of Maintainers- Virgil's superior.
Virgil sighed. Whether or not Lucy Montero had killed a man in self-defense was not something that was going in his report to Victor. The fellow was dragon food anyway.
As he glanced about for a gurney to nap on before his boss arrived, the OR doors opened and a figure with a cap of blond hair wearing a set of bloody healers blue scrubs stepped out into the hall, a gray bundle in her arms.
"Virgil?"
He wasn't surprised she knew his name- his team was based out of Istanbul. But he didn't know her- hell she was barely older than Lucy.
"Yes?"
"Diego said you'd know where to find… Warren." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't even know what that means."
"Warren is- who are you again?"
"Aislan Murphy, from Chadwicks? You came to our memorial service."
"You were one of Ann's healing students?"
"Yes, sir, before I specialized in trauma." She waited expectantly, a little in awe of the giant ebony man.
God he needed to sleep. He forced his brain to process her question. "Diego wants me to tell Warren we've found her, is that it? That can wait until tomorrow-"
Aislan held out the bloody gray bundle in her arms. "Diego said that Warren needed-" she paused, trying to remember the exact phrase, "needed a way to put Lucy at the scene. Proof. This is proof." She held forward an armful of gray.
Virgil paused, then lifted the fabric between two fingers and raised it up. It was a shirt, a filthy, blood stained shirt that flapped open where the healers had obviously cut it off their patient.
Virgil laid it on the floor and brought the two sides together. There over the right breast, was some kind of a seal, above a block lettered "24601-D". He flipped the shirt over, on the back was a number, 61213.
Lucy's number.
He sat back on his heels.
Prison scrubs. They'd kept her in her uniform all this time.
He stared down at the shirt, at the rips and tears and the stains. Damage that had obviously been put there before the healers cut it off- when Lucy was still underneath it. "Diego's seen these?"
"Yes."
Shit. Like the guy hadn't seen enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his natural life.
"He's still in there?"
Aislan shook her head. "They threw him out when she coded the first time. He's in the gallery, waiting to be let back in."
Virgil nodded, carefully gathering the fabric up. "You going back in?"
Aislan nodded. "Marie's assisting the surgeons, and I'm her energy conduit."
He had no idea who Marie was, but nodded his head.
"You tell Diego that I'll take these to Warren myself."
Aislan nodded, but didn't leave right away; she shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.
Virgil rose, raising an eyebrow. "Is there something else?"
Aislan nodded.
"Listen- I haven't slept in two days so-"
"She was conscious- just before she crashed" the Irish girl blurted out.
His head snapped up.
"She's fighting the anesthesia and before we could get her IV in she woke up. It wasn't pretty- by the time Diego got her calm we had started giving her the gas but she made a request of me before she went to sleep."
"And this has to do with me?"
Aislan nodded. "She asked me to do something for her."
Virgil thought of Warren, of his superior, and the diminishing chances for a powernap.
"Well, do it and let's get back to work."
Aislan took a deep breath, crossed the hall to Virgil, placed her hands on his arms as she balanced on her tiptoes- and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you," she whispered in his ear, before stepping back.
There was a pause before she spoke again.
"When you see Victor, tell him Ruya will let him see her in an hour. Unless…" Aislan shook her head at the possibility. "An hour."
Virgil nodded as the girl returned to the OR. He then quietly slipped into an empty patient room, raised a hand to his cheek, and sobbed.
%o%
