I gave her the physical she dodged earlier by her interruption of the line. Sure enough, the cause of the heart attack—typical: athersclerotic plaque build up in an epicardial coronary artery which caused a near-fatal arrhythmia—was something I could've at least predicted by various indicators and obvious lifestyle choices. (While I couldn't get a verbal medical history out of her, as she was unconscious, the tattoos decorating her body told vivid, and somewhat vulgar, stories of life-threatening, high-stress experiences.) Removal of the dead heart tissue would be necessary, but thanks to the severity of the clot, removing dead tissue would involve removing most of the heart. It was a miracle, in fact, that the defibrillator had even managed to get the bloody thing beating again. Thankfully, the prison had just enough money to squeeze out the funds for a state-of-the-art mechanical heart. (There is one thing I will say about the intergalactic community: the pooling of multiple medical techniques from multiple species has resulted in medicine far more advanced than any I had ever seen.)
Naturally, I got plenty of guff for putting such advanced technology into the chest of a convicted criminal. Hoshiya wasn't up for capital punishment, though, so the argument couldn't be made that the heart was going to absolute waste.
Mostly, I ignored the ethical gripers. For my own purposes, I needed Hoshiya alive. Though she was the one who had cursed me, she also held the keys to the cure. Magic couldn't be fixed by medicine; thousands of Feathers throughout history who had had unfortunate mishaps with Faerie magic had tried to rid it via Feather methods, always to result in failure. I was dependent on Hoshiya if I wanted to lift the curse. Every time I flashed my palm upwards I was faced with a chilling reminder: the mark.
Post-op, I flushed her system with immune-suppressants so her body wouldn't frantically attack the foreign, synthetic organ. She slept fitfully through the night—I know because I sat next to her with two large cups of coffee, anxiously awaiting her awakening for the second time in two days. When dawn approached, the door to her room creaked open; I spun around defensively, my nerves wired with caffeine.
"You're not authorized to be in here!" I shouted reactively. I could practically feel the purple bags tugging at the underbelly of my eyes.
"Relax, Franky, it's me." The hulking figure I had assumed to be hostile in the doorway transformed into the silhouette of Gormos as he entered the room. He squinted his eyes against the slits of sunlight bleeding into the room through the shades. Graciously, he positioned himself in front of the window so I didn't have to visor my own eyes, his back to the sun. "I heard about the debacle down in admissions. When you weren't home at twelve, I figgered you had a late night surgery. Figured you'd stay by the patient, like the good surgeon you are. Brought you breakfast." He held out a plate piled with limp pancakes over Hoshiya's body, a spork protruding from the stack like a white plastic flag. I took the plate from him. I lifted the top pancake suspiciously, where the bite marks of a very big mouth were clearly visible. Through the missing pancake, I gazed up at Gormos skeptically. Gormos' face shifted in the Kougra equivalent to blushing: whiskers turned downwards, one incisor revealed sheepishly. "Heh, sorry buddy. Got a little hungry on the way over."
"The cafeteria is only one flight above the medical wing," I said dryly.
"Hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, huh?" He reached behind him and pulled up the chair to Hoshiya's bed that was directly behind him, sitting down with a loud exhalation. Slowly, I began dividing the pancakes into pieces with my spork, supporting the plate on Hoshiya's stomach for lack of table. "That's right, Frank. You show that unconscious girl how professional our prison's doctor can be," Gormos said sarcastically, leaning back in his chair.
"Oh, hush up. She owes me her life. The least she can do to repay me is lend me her washboard abs for surface area," I replied, sticking some pancake in my mouth. "By the way, why'd you skimp on the syrup?"
"Figured this was supposed to be a clean area or something."
"Nah. Once you're out of the operating theatre, sterility's out the window. Hence the frequency of hospital acquired illness."
"That's reassuring."
"Hey, you want me to lie to you?" I asked, cramming my mouth full of pancakes. I stabbed a particularly large slice of pancake just shallow enough to hurl it across the room, and readied it like a catapult. "Mouths up, Gormos." He leaned back, opening his enormous maw, revealing a set of teeth comparable to cabinet of knives. Sticking my tongue out in the interest of concentration, I aimed the pancake for the sizeable target. Still, Gormos had to lurch forward to catch it on his extended tongue.
"No dice, Frank," Gormos said, licking his chops.
"I'm getting better," I replied defensively.
"Still not gonna be using the laser cannons on my ship anytime soon," Gormos snorted, and leaned back in his chair, supporting the back of his head with his paws. He allowed me to eat in comfortable silence until his inquisitive and chatty nature overcame him, as it always did. "Can't help but noticing you're sitting around an awful lot for this lassie, Frank. I've known you for a while, and for you, being so attention and … well, showing some caring ain't standard procedure. Also can't help but noticing the two of you share a remarkable resemblance. You related or something?"
"Told you, Gormos, I'm the only one left from my species," I answered, tonguing the plate to recover remaining crumbs. "And never, never suggest I in any way resemble a Faerie. Ugh." I folded the plate by snapping my hand closed. "Faeries and Feathers are enemies. Well, were enemies. I guess the adversity only exists between Faeries and me now. She looks all pretty and harmless now, but she's got a whopper of a temper. Not to mention she belongs to the species that destroyed mine."
"Then why save her?" Gormos asked, raising one furry eyebrow. "I mean, not that I'm a fan of revenge or anything. Think it's kinda pointless. But for you, I mean, this just isn't your style."
"S'not. Unfortunately, she left me with a little present before passing out." I transferred the plate to my free hand and held out my infected left palm for Gormos to see. Gormos reeled back instinctively, and then rocked forward to get a closer look.
"Jeez-loo-weez. What is that thing?"
"A symptom of the disease that wiped out my species. It's peculiar, though. I got this about twenty-four hours ago, and the darn thing hasn't spread. By this period in the infection, most Feathers were experiencing multiple system failures … not to mention the external consequences. Either she didn't complete the curse, or she was too weak to put a potent form in me. In any case, she and I need to have a little chit chat about what this is gonna mean for our … relationship."
"Just 'cause you saved her life, Frank, don't mean she's going to save yours. She's in the slammer for manslaughter, right? Bounty hunter? Assassin? Doesn't matter. Both're scum. It's just too bad she didn't slit your throat, 'cause this method might be longer."
"You're so good at being a comfort, Gormos," I said sarcastically, looking up at him darkly. "Thing is, it doesn't matter whether or not she wants to cure me. See, Faeries, being of a magical race, are bound by certain laws. Laws I'd almost forgotten over these years, but came back to me like a flash of inspiration while I was removing her blasted heart. Karmic law is especially valued in magical law. Bet every time this chick takes out another target, she has to offer some kind of bodily sacrifice to make up for her sins. Explains a lot of her tattoos, and scars." I lifted up her covers so Gormos could view a particularly detailed tattoo of an alien creature, clearly done by an amateur hand. "Because I saved her life, she has to offer me something equal in return. And since I gave her the ultimate gift—life—she's basically bound to do whatever I say. Like unleashing a genie from its prison, and receiving three wishes. Only I doubt this ice queen'll give me more than one."
"That's the first thing you've been right about, Dr. Frank."
Her voice floated up to me like an ancient monster giving its first garbled roars after hibernation. Gormos and my attention immediately snapped down to the delicate Faerie practically absorbed by the pillows and linen of the hospital med, built large to accommodate patients of all sizes.
It must've been surreal to her—a Faerie accustomed to magical cures waking up in a room outfitted for modern medicine. While it was considerably darker than most hospital rooms due to its situation inside a prison (the space station hospital at least attempted to simulate light—it was thought to be conducive to the healing process), it was still the standard setup for a Standard Intergalactic Integrated Medical room: television hanging from the wall opposite the bed (nonfunctional), door with medical charts to the bed's right, various medical posters plastered on the eggshell walls (including the classic pain gradient from beaming one to tortured ten), bed with reclining functions and call button (plus wrist and ankle restraints for the convicted criminal in your medical practice, her hands strung up in small black bags to prevent her from casting further magic), an IV to the bed's left dripping a constant stream of chemicals into the patient, telemetry ticking off the time of a mechanical heart to the right of the bed, and (of course) the sterile-sweet air of sickness and ennui.
"What happened?" she murmured, unable to muster the strength to make a stronger assertion. She attempted to reach for the IV on her arm to pull it up—came up short from the restraint on her arm, and leaned forward to remove it with her mouth. Easily, I pushed her head back with my hand.
"Take it easy, tiger," I said, sticking the fork in my mouth to fulfill an oral fixation. "You're on a whole boat-load of immuno-suppressants. Inhale the wrong bug now, and you're guaranteed to get infected. And for the time being, you'll probably have a pretty sever fever and some sort of swelling." I turned her head towards me with my healthy hand, holding her cheek so she couldn't look away. The other hand I thrust in her face, five fingers splayed and nearly rubbing the mark in her face. "Now, let's discuss a little something."
"Forget it, Feather," she said, retreating her head as far as she could. It had the effect of crumpling her chin to create a tiny dulap, collapsing her jawline. "I put that curse on you for a reason. I'm finishing the job the Faerie Queen couldn't."
"And who exiled you, you idiot? Jeez. For an assassin, you have an awfully ignorant attachment to loyalty," I snarled. "And the only reason we're even having this conversation is because I saved your life. You know that little pressure in your chest?" I dug the index finger of my healthy hand into her chest. She winced in pain, and I returned my hand to her cheek. "Wasn't just a little heartburn, honey. 'Fraid you had a bit of a myocardial infarction, killed most of your heart tissue. Know what's serving as your ticker right now? A heart I ordered for you, and got a lot of crap thrown at me for putting into you. So let's see—I manned the defibrillator that restarted your heart. Then, I put the heart into you that's going to keep you being a flighty, ditzy Faerie until the end of time. So I'd say you owe me one favor. One veeeeeeery big favor. At least."
She studied my face, glaring through my fingers to where my features fixed themselves into a determined expression. Gormos watched on, a blinking spectator not willing to get caught between the crosshairs of two mortal enemies. Jerkily, she turned her head, escaping the grasp of my healthy hand.
"It's slow-acting. I wasn't powerful enough to cast the complete curse on you. It will destroy you, though," she said stiffly. I sighed in exasperation.
"You didn't answer the question, sweetheart. Although it was really more of an imperative statement than interrogative. They teach you sentence structure in Faerie school, or just evasion?" I asked.
"I wasn't powerful enough to put the full curse on you, and I'm not powerful enough to lift it," she snapped, moving her head so she could stare into my eyes. The truth burned in those two pupils embedded in scarlet irises. It hadn't struck me until then that we shared an eye color. Though seemingly meaningless, the revelation hit me like a wall of water, along with her startling confession. "The curse was made so that only the Faerie Queen could lift its effect."
I swallowed. Upon remembering ancient Faerie magic laws, I had thought the curse would be cured immediately upon her awakening. That glimmer of hope had carried me through the long night far more effectively than the coffee chugged every hour. In an instant, she had smothered that light. The inside of me felt dark and cold, though not with the hollow sense of apathy. The cold was piercing. Acute fear: it ran through me like a charge, lifting every hair on my body in terror.
Gormos, as always, ruined the self-pitying atmosphere I had created (so comfortable to languish within) by speaking. "So what's the big deal? Can't we just find this Faerie Queen and ask her to lift it?"
Both Hoshiya and my heads snapped over to Gormos in surprise, having almost forgotten he was in the room. "And who are you, furball?" she demanded, visibly ruffled.
"Name's Gormos. I'm a Kougra." He extended a paw in a friendly gesture before remembering her hands were tied down. Sheepishly, he drew back his hand. "Uh, anyway. I'm Frank's friend, and I really wouldn't like to see him go out any time soon. So, maybe you could tell us how to find this Faerie Queen, or … something."
Gormos' cluelessness might've been endearing had the situation not been so dire. I pressed my fingers to my temples, giving them a deep-tissue massage to stem the headache that brewed in the blood vessels. "I don't need to know how to find the Faerie Queen. I know where she is. She's … hovering above my home planet like a … like a wasp, with her little wasp colony of Faeries." Gormos blinked stupidly.
"I thought you said everyone on your planet was gone, Frank," he said slowly.
"They are," I said impatiently, "but there's a separate species, Faeries, to which Hoshiya here belongs, who live above my home planet. Who also happen to be responsible for the untimely demise of my species." I shot a hateful look down at Hoshiya, who stuck out her tongue, revealing a stud in the shape of a skull.
Gormos picked at the fuzzy inside of his ear with his foreclaw extended. "Well, jeez, man, you never told me that. Some sixty years of living together and you think you know a guy. Jeez." There was a note of hurt in Gormos' voice that made me bristle like a husband detecting his wife's reluctance to clearly identify what was bothering her.
"Oh come on, Gormos, this is not the time to gripe about our communication problems," I groaned, pulling my hands down my face. "The point is, I can't go back to Faerieland because I'm a Feather, and they'll shoot me down on sight, like they did my entire species. Hoshiya here can't go back because she's an exile, unless …."
And that's when a new dawn excited my hope, rekindling that fledgling flame that I thought had permanently expired. That one 'unless,' that single clarification, had reopened a path to salvation, bypassing the dismal road to destruction I had stared down moments earlier. I snapped my fingers in delight, and then pointed at Hoshiya powerfully.
"Ok, this is going to happen. Give me that map you were telling me about before you started writhing around on that containment bed. Gormos and I will find that … well, whatever the Faerie Queen wants found, and then we'll bring it to her. Then she'll owe me a favor."
"No longer so skeptical, are we, Frank?" Hoshiya sneered.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," I said with a shrug, and then motioned with my fingers for her to hand over the map. "Now make with the map, sweetheart. Gormos and I don't have much time."
"I don't remember agreeing to this!" Gormos called from the sidelines. I ignored him.
"It's useless, Frank. The map is made for Faerie hands, and Faerie eyes. If it's touched by a foreigner's hands, it will turn to dust, and then it will do nobody any good. If it's read by a foreigner, it will read like jibberish. It's only useful in Faerie hands."
"No problem," I said coolly, and by the expression on her face, she clearly didn't expect this response. "We've got a Faerie right here, now don't we? You'll be our interpreter."
"What in the Faerie Queen's name do you think is going to compel me to help a Feather like you?" she demanded, her eyebrows turned down over her eyes.
"Simple, sweetie—you owe me." I reached out with my infected hand and slowly stroked the area just above her heart. The way she attempted to escape my caress, her face twisted with disgust, was absolutely priceless.
"Forget it, Feather! I'm not helping you!" she shouted, her whole body struggling to get away from my hand.
"That so, sweetheart? Well, let me show you something." I walked to the other side of the bed to the telemetry equipment, and picked up a tiny remote placed on top of the machine. It was of an oval shape, with several colored buttons arranged in a vertical row on its face. I held the remote in front of her face so she could see it clearly. "Give a good long look to this little remote, Hoshiya. It's the predictor of your fate. See, these little buttons control the speed of that heart ticking away in your body. Since it's not organic, it doesn't know how to do it on its own. And since we were giving such a valuable piece of equipment to a convicted criminal, the manufacturers were so kind as to add on a button that covered our butts in case this bionic inmate made any attempt to escape." I let my thumb hover over and fondle the red button at the very bottom of the row. "One push of this baby, and your borrowed time is up." Hoshiya tried to maintain a collected demeanor, but her face drained of its color, leaving her almost as white as a typical Faerie.
"Are you trying to blackmail me, Dr. Frank?" she asked, keeping her voice low so I couldn't detect a tremble. I heard it anyway.
"Just doing what I have to to say alive," I answered calmly.
A struggle raged just below her facial features, making her face distort and twist into ugly shapes. Finally, the internal battle seemed to have a victor, and she looked away from me. "Fine," she said quietly, so quietly that I could barely hear her. "I'll help you."