Aichmophobia
Carlisle
My office was open and a strange squeaking, like someone writing on a whiteboard, came from within.
Malakai was standing near the wall, his back to me. I was what he was doing before he turned. "Are those horns coming out of Caius's head?"
The squeaking stopped. Malakai laughed guiltily and half turned. He spun the dry erase marker in his hand. "Well, he is the spawn of Satan, after all. It seemed fitting."
I stepped closer, more curious to see what he'd done than angry at him for defacing my personal property—a priceless antique at that.
"It'll come off," he apologized quickly. "I really couldn't resist though. I had the marker in my pocket and Aro's creepy little face was begging for it."
Aro was sporting a bear and mustache combo akin to that of Jesus Christ. An odd choice, I thought.
"I couldn't decide between Hitler and Santa Claus," Malakai explained upon seeing my perplexed expression. "I gave him both."
I laughed when I saw what he had done to Marcus. Marcus, the most solemn of the Volturi, had his usual somber mouth replaced with a very wide, very uncharacteristic grin, dimples and all.
"That's very clever," I said.
Malakai had on a smile to match. "I always did have a soft spot for Marcus, poor bastard."
"Have you been to see them lately?" I walked across the room and swung the third bookcase open on a hidden flight of stairs.
He tossed the marker on my desk and shrugged. "Decade or so. Aro requested me, actually. Said something about an immortal child. He said it was my duty as—" He broke off when I ushered him into the room at the top of the stairs. "Wow."
My lab was still a work in progress. Nearly everything had burned with the house four years ago and I was very slowly putting it all back. So far, I had an X-ray in one corner, an EKG machine and a fully functioning O.R. along the east wall, a few microscopes and such, as well as number of other common medical items. The largest was an MRI I hadn't had the opportunity to use yet. Nothing out of the ordinary. And certainly no cause for Malakai to say, smirking, "What kind of freaky experiments you got going on here, Doc? I mean, I've seen some kinky stuff before, but this—"
"Shut up." I didn't want to hear it. Besides, I was more interested in what he had been saying before about "an immortal child". A decade ago would have been right around the time Bella had given birth . . . it seemed so much longer than that . . . Could he have been there? No. He would have said something already if he had. I asked anyway.
"Did you go?"
"Hm?" He picked his eyes off the room and quirked a perfect eyebrow to me. "With Aro? No. I was dealing with an important personal crisis at the time and bloodthirsty infants half a world away didn't seem worth the effort."
"Personal crisis?"
He shed his silk sports coat, tossed it over the nearest chair. He watched me carefully as I gathered my supplies from the cabinet I kept stocked for situations like this. "Keyword being personal."
"Ah." Clearly, it wasn't a subject he wanted to discuss. I found the elastic bands on the third shelf. "Which arm?"
He rolled up each sleeve carefully. "Surprise me."
I tied the band above his left elbow. He shivered. "Something the matter?" I asked.
"Your hands are cold."
"I'm sorry." I retrieved the needle. "Now," I warned him, "I'm not entirely sure this will work."
"Excuse me?" His blue eyes got very large. "What? No. Nonono. I will not be subjected to needles on a whim of yours. I—" He tried to get up, I sat him back down.
"Kai, relax. I was kidding." This was a lie. I only said that to calm him down. I honestly had no idea if this was going to work. "You will be fine."
He relaxed marginally. "Just get it over with."
I think may have stabbed him a little too hard.