Blood Moons (41 page)

Jeremy heard sirens approaching and met John's gaze. The older man shook his head, his fingers pressed to the inside of the killer's wrist. Just as well. It was cheaper to bury a psychotic serial killer than have him stand trial. Jeremy holstered his gun and went to intercept the ambulance.

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374

Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

August 14th, 3028

Two months later, the story of the Blood Moons killer was still in the headlines. With the killer dead by a confirmed case of animal attack, the police were happy to tell the public that his latest victim, Katie Grayson, had been retrieved and, after a short stay in the hospital, returned to her family safe and sound.

The city of Gray Dublin returned to its artificial routine, none the worse for wear. It seemed that everything was happy and normal again.

But it wasn't.

Not in a claustrophobic hospital room with a small window looking out onto another building where Tristan sat by Dara's bedside, watching over her sleep. A coma, the doctors said.

The blow to her head—or a number of them—had caused enough damage that, after Dara had lost consciousness out there, she hadn't woken up.

Bandages were still wrapped around her broken ribs. The cuts and bruises she'd sustained were healing rapidly. Minor surgery had fixed her broken arm. A more involved operation had done everything humanly possible to stop the intercranial bleeding and mend her skull. But the damage to her brain, they warned, could possibly be permanent.

She might not wake up—ever.

Tristan had run out the last doctor who'd said that to him.

Only nurses came in now, bringing him food and checking on 375

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by Alianne Donnelly

Dara's vitals, making sure the intravenous fluids were okay.

They'd talked to him in the beginning. Now they came in, hastily did their job, and left again.

For the first couple of weeks, the little girl Pixie had showed up too. She'd never come in, just peered inside around the door at him, watched him for a few minutes in silence, then disappeared again. Then her brother had come in one day to tell him that he'd done all he could to clear Tristan's name.

The Special Unit had been given custody of him, and they would be responsible if he got out of hand. Calen had told him that no one at the unit believed he would be getting out of hand anymore. He'd assured Tristan that they wouldn't be following him or checking on him anymore, but might drop in for a friendly visit, and not to take it personally. Apparently, some of the younger ones had taken a liking to him.

And they did continue to show up, at least once a day, to look at the weretiger guarding Dara. They even talked sometimes.

All of it fell on deaf ears as Tristan read Dara's favorite book to her. He ignored everyone who came in, focusing all his attention on her. Because if he slipped, even for a second, he had no idea what might happen. He couldn't breathe. His stomach was in knots constantly. He rarely slept anymore because every time he did, he dreamed of her. But it wasn't his Dara that floated like a vision through his unconscious mind. It was just a projection of a ghost, a memory.

Dara was sleeping, far away where he couldn't reach her.

He couldn't even find her in her mind. At first, he'd been 376

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frantic to find her. But as the days had gone by and still there'd been no sign of her, Tristan had realized that the brain damage might have cut her off from him telepathically.

The only recourse he had, then, was to reach her with his voice.

So he read. He'd read her favorite book to her three times now. It was a story set in ancient Scotland, in a mighty castle sheltered by the sea on one side and a forest filled with mythical creatures on the other. The story had clan battles, magical faeries and demons, political struggles and even murder mysteries. But at the core was the tale of a man and woman, a chance meeting, and a fated love that overcame all adversity.

Such a simple concept—love overcoming anything. He understood now why she would read this story over and over again. Understood every heartfelt phrase she'd highlighted and bookmarked. Even before all this, Dara had known the world as only few people could ever know it. She hadn't had the luxury of ignorance; every dark corner of people's hearts and souls had been open to her from the first.

Faced with so much darkness, she'd turned to the only light she could find, flickering softly between the pages of books where everything always ended happily. He wanted to give her that happy ending. Even if she never knew it. As soon as the doctors cleared her for transport, he wanted to take Dara someplace beautiful. To build her a fairy tale she could dream about, wherever she was.

Tristan turned off the electronic reader and set it aside. He rubbed a shaky hand over his face and unfolded from his 377

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seat. His entire body was cramped, but he didn't care. He sat on the edge of Dara's bed and watched her sleep. Bandages were wrapped around her head, but the bruises on her face had already faded to almost nothing. Soon there would be no sign left that she'd ever suffered so much pain. He took her hand in his, brought it to his cheek, wishing he could take the pain for her.

He brushed her cheek, kissed her still lips. Cursed whatever power or universal design had brought this all down on someone so wholly undeserving of it. "Dara, open your eyes," he whispered. "Please, baby. I need you. Wake up."

She didn't respond. The monitors showing her heart and brain activity never even flickered. Tristan stayed close, needing to feel her breath. He strained to hear even a whisper of her thoughts.

There was only silence.

"You've been sitting in here for hours," a nurse said from the doorway.

Tristan didn't acknowledge her.
"I love you."
He sent the words as deep as they would go. Dara had to hear him; she had to know.

"You should go outside for a while. Take a walk. Go eat something."

"No," he said. If Dara woke up and he wasn't here ...

"Dara,"
he tried again.
"Come back to me. Ah, God, love,
save me."
Or, if not him, then everyone else
from
him.

"Your friends were here again, but since you told us not to let anyone in anymore..."

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Blood Moons

by Alianne Donnelly

Tristan touched his forehead to Dara's. Her steady breaths assured him that she was still alive, her heart still beating.

He'd give his life a thousand times over to see her awake again. If he thought it would help, he'd jump out the window, smiling all the way down. If she would just wake up.
"Wake
up..."

"She's not waking up," the nurse said peevishly. "Maybe it's time you moved on."

"
Get out!
" he roared at her, turning feral, glowing eyes on her.

She screamed and fled, slamming the door behind her. He could still hear her screaming all the way down the hall.

When he heard the door open again a few moments later, his claws sharpened, ready to kill someone.
Go away,
he willed silently.
Leave us be.

"You always did have a unique way with women."

Tristan looked up, disbelieving. "You..."

Amelia smiled a little, cautiously closing the door behind her and came a couple of steps closer, but not too close. "I heard what happened," she said. "I'm so sorry, Tristan. For everything." She looked so young, dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater with the sleeves rolled up. But her eyes showed the strain of her years. And a lot of it, he knew, he'd caused.

He didn't think he'd ever see her again. He swallowed past the lump in his throat to find his voice. "Can you help her?"

He dreaded the answer.

"May I come closer?"

He nodded, but didn't relinquish his place at Dara's side.

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Amelia approached with wary caution. "You know," she said, keeping her voice steady, "I read up on tigers a little.

They're very solitary creatures. They don't mate for life, and aren't possessive of their mates. Females raise the cubs alone and males have been known to kill another's cubs to mate with the female themselves." She took Dara's chart and read through every entry.

"So?"

She shrugged, glancing at him briefly. "Just saying that you can't blame me for your attachment to her. Your tiger instincts have nothing to do with it. If anything, they should work as an antidote for ... whatever you do suffer from." Her lips twitched, Tristan noticed. He didn't see any humor in the situation.

"Maybe it's fate, then," he said, turning Dara's hand palm up to trace her fingers. Texts ancient and modern were filled with stories of destiny and fated paths, people meant to find each other, fight each other or love each other. Was it all just human imagination, and if so, why would they place the power over their own lives so far out of their own reach? Why let someone or something else decide whether they got to be happy in their lives? Why bind themselves to someone who might or might not show up—might not even
exist
?

It almost seemed more reasonable to believe there
was
such a thing as fate.
Something
had given Dara the ability to witness a murder. Something had brought her to him light years away, on a different planet. Something had made him love her so much it killed him to look at her now and not see 380

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her looking back. That
something
needed to bring her back to him again.

"Stranger things have happened lately," Amelia said. She turned her attention back to the chart. "Says here she's on the mend. Her injuries are healing very well and her body should be back to normal very soon. They're blaming the coma on brain damage, but there doesn't seem to be anything in her scans to indicate where or what kind." She was still looking over the chart as she spoke.

"You're saying they lied?"

"No, not at all. The brain is a complicated organ. Doctors can estimate what a spleen, or liver, or stomach should look like, but the structure of the brain is unique for every individual, shaped by memories and experiences. By definition, a telepath would create different perceptions than other people. Hence, her brain structure is vastly different from, say, mine. It could be that they just can't see where she's hurt."

"But you scanned her in New Alaska," he said. "You could compare the scans and find the differences."

"Tristan," she said softly, "even if I could do that, it probably wouldn't help. I could fix the structure, the brain, but not what's inside."

"Her mind," he supplied. He hadn't really thought it could work.

Amelia nodded. "Can't you reach her?"

Tristan shook his head. "I can't find her. It's like walking through an empty maze. Even when I reach the center, she's not there." Could be she was just as lost and they kept 381

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missing each other. But if that was the case, it would take much more than just him to find her.

Tristan started. "Genius," he said.

"What? What did you figure out?"

For the first time in weeks, Tristan felt his mouth want to smile. He raced out the door, yelling back at Amelia, "Do
not
leave her side!"

It would take an army to find Dara in so much empty space. And Tristan realized he already had one. Amelia pulled some strings to have Dara moved to a bigger room, and now thirty-two telepaths crowded around her, eager to try a new experiment with their abilities. Half of them were trainees, but he couldn't afford to be picky. Their boss, MacMurphy, would keep them in line to keep them safe from Tristan.

Calen and his sister weren't there. They'd left Earth a few days ago, MacMurphy said
on vacation
, but they both knew that the siblings probably wouldn't be coming back. It bothered Tristan. The girl was strong, and she had something the rest of them lacked—an innate intuition about people and how their minds worked. If anyone would have found Dara, it would have been her.

"Listen up," Tristan said. "We'll go slow. You follow my instructions
to the letter
. This isn't playtime. If something goes wrong, Dara could die." Thirty-one people drew back a step. "We go in the order of experience. Seniors first, trainees last. One at a time. Understood?"

A fifteen-year old-boy somewhere in the middle of the throng raised his hand high to be seen. "What do we do when we find her?"

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Good question.
"You alert me. I'll take it from there."

Somehow ...
"Are we ready?"

"Wait!" Amelia pushed through the telepaths to reach Dara. "I think I have one last miracle in me," she said, holding up a syringe.

"What is it?"

"It's a kind of adrenaline cocktail. A neural stimulant. I haven't had a chance to test it properly, but if I'm right, it should make her mind more active and easier to find."

Another experimental serum. What a surprise. But this was Dara she wanted to test it on. "How certain are you that it will work?"

"Hey, if you can put together a search party, at least I can give you a beacon to follow. I'm ninety six percent certain it will work. There's a point two percent chance it will cause side effects."

"What kind of side effects?"

"Hyperactivity, possibly depression, maybe some minor memory loss. But they should be temporary." She was waiting for him to make the decision.

"Maybe we should go in first," MacMurphy suggested. "Get a feel for our surroundings. When something changes, it'll be easier to spot."

The man had a point. If this worked, it might be doable with fewer people. The less they interfered in her mind, the safer it would be for Dara. They were—
he
was—already taking a risk with this plan. "Okay, senior agents first. You'll follow my lead. Amelia, I'll give you a signal when it's time.