Immortal Coil (3 page)

Her essence poured through the connection he’d made and he scrambled to sever the flow. She hated her name, no one could pronounce it. But her mother had loved that one quarter of herself that was Greek, honored her connection to that ancient society. She’d become a professor of Greek mythology, married a good Greek man, and named her daughter after an Amazon warrior—

He shoved the rest of
Anaea’s
essence back, shaken by the strength of her will even when she was asleep. He wasn’t going to do that again, not even to find out who’d attacked him.

Stopping at a red light, he glanced around the empty intersection. No sign of trouble, but the roads before him and to the left curved sharply up around snow-draped hills. If anyone was coming, he’d have little time before they were on top of him.

He squeezed the steering wheel, testing his new vessel’s grip while fighting the urge to gun the car and draw unwanted attention to
himself
.
Anaea’s
body was less than desirable. It astounded him that she could function while so
weak,
making him all the more aware of what he’d lost. Damn, he was going to miss his old body, miss its strength, even if it was only human.

Mother of All, he needed a new job. Collecting Saber’s soul for supposed treason should have been an easy contract, but someone had tipped Saber off and the hunt had lasted months instead of days.

At least the medallion with Saber’s soul in it hadn’t been lost in the river. Bully for one good thing coming out of this mess. Saber could be reborn and become a pain in Hunter’s ass again in another couple hundred years.

The light changed green. He urged the car up the hill. Not too fast. Don’t draw attention. People were looking for him and with so few cars on the road at this hour a speeding vehicle would draw interest. It was only ten minutes to the hospital. He’d practiced being unnoticed in the human world for almost two thousand years. He could handle ten more minutes. No matter how much he wanted out of this body.

* * *

At the hospital, he bypassed the emergency entrance. With his appearance, he was sure he’d get swarmed by nurses and rushed through triage, even if he was gaining strength by the minute. It was after one in the morning and the main entrance was locked, so he continued around to a side door of the four-story structure, avoiding the construction scaffolds covering the massive sagging and stained building.

The snow in front of the door had been packed down and an ice-filled metal bucket sat precariously on a drift against the wall. Yellow and white cigarette butts dotted the ice in the
container
.

If bad human habits held true, the door would be unlocked so the smokers could get back in. Unlike many dragons, Hunter hadn’t completely embraced human behavior, just enough to hide among them. But a smart drake still knew as much as he could about it, as baffling as it was.

Besides, who was he to argue? He’d smoked, too, for a good hundred years. It had made him feel more like the fire drake he’d been before, puffing small clouds of smoke from his nostrils and hissing it out between clenched teeth. But the thrill had worn off and he was left with the bitter reminder that the smoke would never be of his own creation ever again. Not since the Great Scourge so many years ago, when the
last of the
natural
human sorcerers had banded together against his kind.

He tried the door. Not locked. It opened into a narrow hall, and at the end
lay
a wider, brighter corridor. He eased to the intersection and glanced around.

Laughter to his right made him draw back. Two nurses left a room one door down and headed away from him. Smokers would take the exit closest to their staff room, and usually near that was a storage room where he’d find scrubs and physicians’ coats.

He slipped around the corner, reading the labels on the doors and finding the storage room. Inside were metal shelves filled with mundane supplies; anything specifically medical was kept in more secure closets. He peeled off his still damp sweater and jeans, quickly noting
Anaea’s
slim figure and plain bra and panties before looking away
—
it
wasn’t polite to stare when a lady wasn’t awake to blush.

Everything about the woman he possessed screamed sense and practicality. A warm sweater, jeans
that were
thick enough to keep out the winter’s chill, and winter boots with rubber soles to protect against slipping. Even her choice to kill herself had been practical. Given the option, he’d pick a quick death over a long, slow diminishing one, too.

For a fleeting moment, he wondered if she’d been less practical prior to her illness. From his quick glance, he knew she’d done everything she could to destroy the cancer. It showed in every aspect of her body: noticeable ribs, elbows and wrists just a little too bony, and a red puckering scar peeking from the edge of her bra line. In spite of that, he couldn’t deny she was beautiful. Even as a human, she would have caught his eye.

He could have really liked her. Maybe he could still get to know her. She had a few months left, if she didn’t kill herself first.
After he returned to the
Dragon Court
with Saber’s soul in the medallion,
he could come back and visit her. Just because he didn’t tend to have trysts with humans didn’t mean he couldn’t, although there were laws concerning how much could be revealed and how long the relationship could last.

He shoved her clothes to the back of a bottom shelf, put on a set of green scrubs, and threw on a lab coat. Grabbing a larger set of scrubs, he left the linen room and looked in the next door, the room where he’d seen the
nurses
exit.

Sure enough, it was a staff room. His luck held and it was empty. He chose the combination lock on the nearest locker, twirled the dial, and listened for the clicks that released it. Inside
,
he found a purse and took enough money for a taxi along with a bobby pin to pick the key
lock on
his emergency supplies
locker at the train station. With that done, he headed to the basement to find the morgue.

* * *

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, revealing a long, bright corridor, just like all the others in the hospital. A sign said the morgue was down the hall and to his right, and Hunter headed in the direction indicated, the rubber soles on his boots squeaking on the worn linoleum floor.

He turned the corner. The door at the end of the hall swung open and a man in a long black coat stepped through. A fedora shadowed his face and all Hunter could see of him was a pale chin and the hint of thin lips.

Adrenaline burst through Hunter and he sucked in a calming breath. There was nothing to indicate this man was trouble. And yet, there was nothing to suggest otherwise. Merely an instinct honed over hundreds of years.

Hunter didn’t need to look for a door. He’d already scanned the hall when he’d first entered and there were none.
Which meant no escape but forward or back.

The man gave no sign that he noticed Hunter. He kept walking, his heels clicking on the floor.

Another burst of adrenaline made Hunter twitch and pain shot from the back of his head to his eyes. He stifled a gasp and stared at the man, searching for signs of assault. Those few dragons
who
had earth magic strong enough for an attack needed a gesture or word to focus it.

But the man’s hands hung at his sides and his mouth was closed. He wasn’t casting anything. Which meant the pain in Hunter’s head could only have originated from within.
Anaea
was
waking,
and much sooner than expected. Hunter needed to get to the morgue and make the transfer, but he was practically defenseless and he had a bad feeling about the stranger.

Just a few more feet and he’d be within reach.

Anaea’s
consciousness pressed against his and he could sense her
groggy
confusion. She wasn’t yet aware of her situation, a prisoner in her own body, but she would be soon.

Hunter picked up his pace. The pressure in his head increased, drawing more of his concentration. And while the stranger in black was still a potential threat, he hadn’t done anything
,
yet. Maybe luck was on his side again and there was nothing to worry about.

As they passed each other, the man seized Hunter’s wrist. Hunter dropped the extra scrubs and jumped back but
Anaea’s
body wasn’t fast enough to avoid the grab or strong enough to break it.

The stranger hissed something in ancient Egyptian and sharp pain lanced up Hunter’s arm.

Anaea
pounded in his head
...
her head. Her fear grew, filling his thoughts with cold, burning panic. She knew she was trapped. She screamed and clawed at his will
power.

Hunter jerked his arm, but the man’s grip was strong, like iron around his thin, feminine wrist. Damn this body. The brute strength he’d become accustomed to was no longer available
,
and he didn’t have time to search his memory for those years when he’d studied martial arts. It had been so long ago, and he’d never thought he’d need them. Not a Crusader like him.
But now h
e needed to know how to fight in her weaker body,
and he had no clue
how to do that
.

But she did. She had to. He delved into her wild thoughts, tapping
into
her knowledge of combat, what little there was. But before he could do anything, she poured into him, unknowingly taking advantage of their increased connection.

He fought to contain her, but couldn’t. Her will was too strong, wild with panic and fury and determination. If her cancer had been a man, it would have been long dead and buried, probably in dozens of little pieces. She had a will unlike any he’d encountered before.

The door at the end of the hall opened and another man in black strode in. He barked words
,
also in Egyptian
,
and bullets of ice materialized before his outstretched hand.

Hunter struggled against the first man’s grip. A fight against one drake mage while in a body that had yet to connect to whatever magical potential it had was difficult enough, but two was suicide. And if he didn’t contain
Anaea’s
consciousness they’d both be dead.

Anaea
screamed. Her body was numb and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t make it obey her commands. A fog pressed against her senses and wrapped about her, freezing her in place. She felt disembodied within herself, like she was floating through a dream, simply watching.

And
herself
was in danger.

Some man held her arm and another threatened her from down the hall. Somehow she knew she was in a hospital basement, but had no idea how she got there. She beat at the fog again and again. It swirled, thickening where she pushed. She clawed and kicked, and heard herself curse. No. It wasn’t her. There was someone else in the fog with her.

It was a dream, all a dream.

More like a nightmare. She struggled against it, regardless of how hopeless the situation was and whether it was even real or not.

Something nicked her side. Whoever was in the fog with her gasped, and a sliver of light sliced open the miasma. This had to be her chance, and she shoved through.

Her side stung, and the man had a bruising grip on her wrist. He squeezed, sending lightning shooting up her arm and across her chest. With a scream,
Anaea
realized she was back in control of her body. She rammed her fingers into her assailant’s eyes. He let go and she stumbled back.

Down the hall! Look!

She glanced at the second assailant. Tiny white balls—they looked like ice—shot toward her. This was a horrifying dream. It had to be. But even knowing it was one, her heart still raced.

She twisted sideways, but wasn’t fast enough getting out of the way. The balls nicked her arm, five sharp slices. Her fingers went numb and slick heat welled around the wounds.

The first man seized her wrist again and jerked her forward. She stumbled and contorted her body to the side, twirling him around as the next barrage of white bullets slammed into his back. He sputtered and sagged, collapsing on the floor, and she ran, knowing he was dead.

But they were in a hospital, weren’t they? Maybe her attacker had a chance at being resuscitated.

No, he didn’t. It was too late for him. It would be too late for her if she didn’t keep running.