Her voice was husky as she continued. "So... we're halfway through the service and my dress is too tight and my stomach is killing me and that f**king oatmeal of my father's has sprouted vile roots and is grafting itself to the inside of my gut. And the priest comes up to the lectern to do the eulogy. He was straight out of central casting, white haired, deep voiced, dressed in ivory-and-gold robes. He was the Episcopal bishop for all of Connecticut, I think. Anyway... he gets to talking about the state of grace that awaits in heaven, and all this horseshit about God and Jesus and the Church. It seemed more like an ad for Christianity than anything to do with Hannah.
"I'm sitting there, not really tracking, when I look over and see my mother's hands. They were clasped together in her lap, totally white-knuckled... like she was on a roller-coaster ride, even though she wasn't moving. I turned to my left and looked at my father's. His palms were on his knees and all of his fingers were digging in except for the pinkie on the right, which was out for a jog. The thing was tapping against the fine wool of his slacks with a Parkinsonian tremble."
V knew where this was going. "And yours," he said softly. "What about yours?"
Jane exhaled on a little sob. "Mine... mine were utterly still, utterly relaxed. I felt nothing but that oatmeal in my stomach. Oh... God, my sister was dead and my parents, who were about as emotionless as you could get, were upset. Me? Nothing. I remember thinking Hannah would have cried if I had been lying on satin in a coffin. She would have cried for me. Me? I couldn't.
"So when the priest finished his infomercial on how great God was, and how Hannah was all lucky to be with Him and yadda, yadda, yadda, the organ lit off. The vibration of those bass pipes rose up from the floor through my seat and hit just the right frequency. Or the wrong one, I suppose. I threw up that oatmeal all over my father."
Fuck it, V thought. He reached out and took her hand. "Goddamn..."
"Yeah. So my mother stands up to take me away, but my father tells her to stay put. He walked me over to one of the church ladies, told her to take me to the bathroom, then went into the men's room. I got left alone in a stall for about ten minutes then the church lady came back, put me in her car, and drove me home. I missed the burial." She sucked in a breath. "When my parents came home, neither of them checked on me. I kept expecting one of them to come in. I could hear them moving around the house until it was all silent. Eventually, I went down, got something out of the fridge, and ate standing up at the counter, because we weren't allowed to take food upstairs. I didn't cry then either, even though it was a windy night, which always scared me, and the house was mostly dark and I felt like I'd ruined my sister's funeral."
"I'm sure you were in shock."
"Yeah. Funny... I was worried she'd be cold. You know, cold autumn night. Cold ground." Jane batted her hand around. "Anyway, next morning my father left before I got up, and he didn't come home for two weeks. He kept calling and telling my mother he was going to consult on another complex case somewhere else in the country. Meanwhile, Mother woke up every day and got dressed and took me to school, but wasn't really there. She became like a newspaper. The only things she talked about were the weather and what had gone wrong with the house or the staff while I was at school. My father came back eventually, and you know how I knew his arrival was imminent? Hannah's room. Every night I went into Hannah's room and sat with her stuff. The thing I couldn't get was how her clothes and her books and her drawings were still there, but she wasn't. It just didn't compute. Her room was like a car without an engine, everything where it should be, except all it was was potential. None of it was going to get used again.
"The night before Father returned, I opened that bedroom door and... everything was gone. Mother had had it all cleaned out and the bedspread changed and the draperies switched. It went from being Hannah's room to a guest room. That was how I knew my father was coming home."
V rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "Jesus... Jane..."
"So that's my revelation. I threw up oatmeal instead of crying."
He could tell she was jumpy and wishing she'd throttled back, and he knew how she felt, because he did the same thing on those few occasions he got personal. He kept up with the petting of her hand until she looked over at him. As silence stretched out, he knew what she was waiting for.
"Yeah," he murmured. "They tied me down."
"And you were conscious through the whole thing, weren't you."
His voice got reedy. "Yeah."
She touched his face, running her palm down his now bearded cheek. "Did you kill them for it?"
He lifted up his gloved palm. "This took over. Glow flashed throughout my body. They both had their hands on me, so they went down like stones."
"Good."
Shit... He so totally loved her. "You would have made a fine warrior, you know that?"
"I am one. Death is my enemy."
"Yeah, it is, isn't it." God, it made such sense that he'd bonded with her. She was a fighter... like him. "Your scalpel's your dagger."
"Yup."
They stayed like that, linked by their hands and their eyes. Until, without warning, she brushed his lower lip with her thumb.
As he inhaled with a hiss, she whispered, "I don't have to be asleep, you know."
Chapter Twenty-three
When John regained consciousness, he had a raging fever: His skin was made of flames, his blood a lava flow, his bone marrow the furnace that drove it all. Desperate to get cool, he rolled over and went to pull off his clothes, except he had no shirt on, no pants. He was naked as he writhed.
"Take my wrist." The female voice came from above and to the left, and he tilted his head toward the sound, sweat running like tears down his face. Or maybe he was crying?
Hurts, he mouthed.
"Your grace, take my wrist. The scoring is done."
Something pressed against his lips and wet them with wine, rich wine. Instinct rose like a beast. The fire was, in fact, a hunger, and what was being offered was the sustenance he needed. He grabbed at what turned out to be an arm, opened wide, and drank in hard sucks.
God... The taste was of the earth and of life, heady and potent and addicting. The world began to twirl, a dancer en pointe, a carnival ride, a whirlpool without end. In the midst of the spinning he swallowed with desperation, knowing without being told that what was going down his throat was the only antidote to dying.
The feeding lasted for days and nights, whole weeks passing. Or was it the blink of an eye? He was surprised that there was an end to it after all - wouldn't have been shocked to learn that the rest of his life would be passed at the wrist that had been given to him.
He loosened his sucking hold and opened his eyes.
Layla, the blond Chosen, was sitting beside him on his bed, her robe white as sunlight to his tender eyes. Over in the corner Wrath was standing with Beth, the two of them wrapped in each other's arms, looking concerned.
The change. His change.
He lifted up his hands and signed like a drunk, Is this it?
Wrath shook his head. "Not yet, it's coming."
Coming?
"Take some deep breaths," the king said. "You're going to need them. And listen, we're right here, okay? We're not going to leave you."
Shit, that was right. The transition was a two-parter, wasn't it. And the hard part was yet to come. To combat his fear, he reminded himself that Blay had made it through. So had Qhuinn.
So had all the Brothers.
So had his sister.
He met Beth's dark blue eyes, and from out of nowhere a hazy vision came to him. He was in a club... in a Goth club with... Tohrment. No, he was watching Tohr with someone, a big male, a Brother-sized male, whose face John could not see.
John frowned, wondering why in the world his brain would cough up something like that. And then he heard the stranger speak:
She's my daughter, Tohr.
She's a half-breed, D. And you know how he feels about humans. Tohrment shook his head. My great-great-grandmother was one, and you don't see me yakking that up around him.
They were talking about Beth, weren't they... which meant the stranger with the blurred features was John's father. Darius.
John strained to get the vision in focus for a single look into his dad's face, praying for clarity as Darius lifted his hand to catch a waitress's eye before pointing at his empty bottle of beer and Tohrment's nearly dry glass.