My Wicked Enemy (12 page)

Nikodemus leapt onto the table and unleashed a stream of blinding heat at the same time she inhaled burning air. The fiend attacking him went down with a crack and didn’t move again. She saw Rasmus’s body fly across the room. He landed ten feet away on his hands and knees. The energy came from Nikodemus—she felt the cold leaving her for him. Magellan shouted, but his grip on her wrist didn’t lessen. Above her, Nikodemus’s eyes flashed silver. Xia caught the bulk of that flash. He bled from a cut on his cheek.

Magellan yanked on her wrist, the one clutching the stone carving. The talisman in which a mage had imprisoned a fiend. Above her, she heard him say something and saw Nikodemus somersault backward, thrown by an invisible hand. His knife descended again. Her wrist burned icy-hot, and she convulsed, a scream shredding her throat. Magellan lost his grip on her hand and she hit the floor. Why? She rolled, awkward, heart racing, clumsy with fear. Pain cut her off from everything except the jangle of injury.

Magic boiled through the room, raging with such force it pushed through her like Niagara Falls. Not cold any longer but burning hot. A counterpoint warred with his magic, battering her, combusting the air she breathed. Memories came on, one image after another, a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, people and scenes that belonged to someone else’s life. Unimaginable pain lanced through her. A surge of energy burned her inside, leaving just enough space for the pain.

All she could do was lie on the floor and struggle to make her lungs work. Nikodemus shouted, screamed at her to focus, and she didn’t know how or why. Without warning, the heat in her flashed out again. Air condensed around her and vanished at the point where her fingers curled around the figurine. Like a slap at the back of her head, it was over. Feeling roared back; all the saved-up pain hit her brain at once.

She would have puked if she hadn’t been paralyzed by the agony. When the sensation eased up, she rolled onto her back, cradling her arm against her chest, afraid to look, afraid Magellan had cut off her hand. She couldn’t feel anything below her elbow.

Magellan lay on the floor, eyes open. Very much alive but unable to move or, it seemed, speak. Xia wasn’t much better. He was on his hands and knees, head down, arms trembling. Rasmus had collapsed, and two fiends lay dead.

Nikodemus helped her up, but she couldn’t stand without swaying. Her head was a whirlpool inside, thoughts and feelings churning cold, then hot. He caught her around her waist, stopping her from falling to her knees. His biceps flexed against her back, and his strength comforted her. “Whoopsy-daisy,” he said. He glanced at the mage and Xia. “This is going to last ten minutes, tops. Fifteen if we’re lucky.”

“Durian,” she said. “What about Durian?”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

She went up the stairs on legs of rubber. She tried to move her fingers and couldn’t. And then came a horrifying recollection of hearing about ghost pain and stories of amputees feeling long-missing limbs. “Nikodemus,” she said in a voice thin with terror. Her eyes were stuck on his. “Tell me I still have my hand. Tell me he didn’t cut it off.”

He looked but kept them moving. “You have two hands, Carson.”

“Thank God.” What if he was lying? She laughed, a crazy sound. The truth would wait for later.

They headed for the door. Outside, Nikodemus muttered something, and Carson thought she might have seen a glow around the edges of the door. He was sealing it, she thought. Sealing it so they couldn’t easily be followed. Every minute’s delay worked for them and against Magellan.

The pain in her arm was so intense she couldn’t tell where she hurt most. Her wrist? Her fingers? Her palm, where the sharp edges of the talisman cut into her skin? The pain remained icy-hot. He loosened his hold on her arm, but she had Jell-O for legs, and he grabbed her quickly.

“You okay?” Nikodemus waited for her to nod. “Good,” he said. “Because we’ve moved on to plan C. Run like hell.”

By the time they reached the bottom of the drive, he was freaking about the possibility she’d been poisoned. He didn’t bother asking why he cared what happened to a witch. He’d long ago stopped thinking of her as his enemy. She was, fucked up as it seemed, his ally. His. Hadn’t he just watched her face Rasmus and Magellan, with him completely confident that she would put everything on the line for him? And she had. She was one tough little witch.

Right now, she wasn’t doing so hot. Though she walked doggedly beside him, keeping pace who knew how, his link with her was to a mind in a state of chaos and on the edge of physical breakdown. He gripped her upper arm when she tripped. That earned him a glare.

“I’m not helpless,” she said. But her coordination was failing. Any fool could see that. Well, you had to admire her spirit if not her sentiment.

“No,” he said easily. Blood covered her sweater. “You’re not helpless. But sweetheart, you’re slowing us down when we ought to be hauling ass. Let me help you so we can get out of here before Magellan regroups and sends his good buddy Kynan after us.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” He propelled her forward. “Quit telling me you are. You’ll get us both killed with that shit.” So what if she was pissed at him? He went deep into her head and did what he needed to get her moving faster. And when he did, his stomach hollowed out. Whoa. He was looking down a lava crater and her magic was seething magma about to blow. Had to be magic from Magellan taking a whack at her. She kept up with his longer strides, but her body moved herky-jerky even with his assistance. She lost her balance.

“Right, sweetheart,” he said, catching her in time to prevent another fall. “Fine. You’re absolutely fine.” At the car, he released her to fish out his keys. She fell to her knees on the edge of the roadway and threw up.

Doubled over, she put a hand on the ground to steady herself, keeping the other tucked against her torso. Her supporting elbow wobbled and gave way until she was on her haunches, chest to her thighs. His link with her flashed on, strong enough to make him dizzy with the effort of keeping her in check. Whatever the hell Magellan had thrown at her was taking her down, and badly. Her magic came full-on, cut off, sputtered back, ramped up, then cut off again. Carson collapsed.

“Oh, fuck.” He knelt on the ground next to her. Blackberry thorns caught his jeans, and he withered them to dust without hesitation. He didn’t know much about human physiology, except that humans were frail compared to his kind and slow to heal when they were injured. He got nothing from her mentally. Nothing. Anxiety constricted his chest. He touched a hand to the side of her throat to reassure himself she wasn’t dead, just shut off.

He got her into his arms and finagled open the passenger-side door. Inside, he got her seat belt fastened. Her head lolled back, but she was conscious again. Barely. Twisted magic swirled in her, out of control, a hurricane without an eye. He recognized his magic in there. Stood to reason some of his magic would be there. Magellan’s, too, and that’s what was wreaking havoc inside her at the moment.

Out here in the damn boonies of Wildcat Canyon Road, there wasn’t anyone to see him vault over the car. The interior light came on when he got in the driver’s seat. Push in the key, start the engine. Carson’s breathing changed. Shallow, rapid pants, gusts from the storm raging inside her. Fresh blood darkened her sweater. He smelled the copper tang. Hell. He didn’t know enough to understand which was the bigger threat, her physical injuries or the magic trying to find a way out of a human body unable to absorb it. Getting the fuck out of here was at the top of his to-do list, but she might bleed out on the way.

He twisted on the seat and lifted her arm away from her chest. Blood scent rose from her sweater, some of it Durian’s, but more of it hers. She let him stretch out her arm, but her hand stayed fisted tight. The slice across her inner wrist was deep. The edges gaped, and blood pooled in the valley. With each beat of her heart, blood welled from the wound. The smell hit him hard. Sweet, sweet scent of blood.

“Am I going to die?” she asked.

“Die on me, and I’ll put you in a world of sorry.” He looked around the car for something to bind up her wrist. Nothing. He jumped out and found an old shirt of his in the trunk, left over from something or other. He got back in and grabbed her wrist. A shirt bandage wasn’t sanitary; humans were susceptible to infection, but if he didn’t get the bleeding stopped she wasn’t going to live to get infected.

She opened her eyes. “I don’t want to ruin your car.”

“I’ll send you the bill, Carson,” he said. It was all he could do not to bend his head to taste her. She was a goddamned walking high to a freak like him. So, yeah, maybe he did taste a little. Maybe he did shudder with the warm taste of his kind’s ancient prey. But he stopped, didn’t he? It’s not like humans didn’t have their own predatory instincts to satisfy now and again. From up the hill, a motorcycle engine started up, a loud Harley motor. He wrapped his shirt around her wrist even though there was more to be had. He got himself under control. She didn’t deserve to die. Not because of him. Not after the way she’d put herself out there for him.

He slid back to the driver’s seat. Foot ready to hit the gas, he did what recon he could. Nothing ahead but deer, raccoons, and some bats. He heard the motorcycle before the headlight appeared in the rearview mirror. Nikodemus killed his lights and clamped down hard on Carson’s magic.

“I need my medicine,” she murmured. He knew she was feeling high, because that’s what happened to a human who was still alive enough to know what was going on during a near total indwell. He didn’t know how else to keep her alive, and right now he was so close to being in full possession of her that he might as well be indwelling. Wouldn’t that be something? Indwelling in Carson Philips. He doubted she’d ever let him. But wouldn’t that be nice?

He buckled up, grabbed the steering wheel, and shifted into neutral. His Mercedes rolled downhill. He didn’t start the motor until he’d steered around the corner. The ER was out of the question. All kinds of freaks staked out Berkeley’s Alta Bates hospital. If he took her there, they’d have every mage in the county down on them. He headed for downtown and one of those twenty-four-hour places likely to have a first-aid kit and needle and thread. Halfway down the hill, she started bleeding again, and when he touched her forehead, she was burning hot. “Shit.”

She was fading in and out, psychically speaking. Magellan’s magic was killing her. He had a good idea now what she’d been poisoned with and that she was having a reaction to that, too. Which meant he was going to have to take a risk. Great. If he was going to keep her alive, he had no choice.

Twenty minutes later, they were on Solano Avenue and he was looking at what must be the last independently operated twenty-four-hour pharmacy in the state of California. He cut off the engine. This wasn’t safe. Rasmus was the ranking mage in the East Bay, but with Carson seizing up the way she was, he couldn’t wait. She needed human first aid, and besides which, he didn’t know how much longer he’d be all right with the smell of her blood so strong and her magic switching between AC and DC. He faced her and thought she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. “You stay put. I’ll be right back.”

She was slumped on the seat, but her eyes opened partway. She nodded, and then her eyes slowly closed. He took on Durian’s form, shaved head included, and got out of the car. He hoped this would work.

Inside the pharmacy, a balding man of about sixty looked up from a computer screen when Nikodemus set the little bell above the door to tinkling. A plastic name tag above his breast pocket read
“Harsh”
in squared-off red letters. Nikodemus got nothing but human from him, which was creepy, seeing as this was a mageheld pharmacy. Was the old guy human or not?

Nikodemus smiled at Harsh. The front of the store was shelves of human products, divided between snacks and sundries, toothpaste, deodorant, and over-the-counter medicinals. A selection of condoms lined one wall. Right by the home pregnancy kits. Yeah, give me an extra box of Trojan Ribbed, please. So he could save Carson’s life and then spend the next few days of his life making love to her. He had a fucking serious thing going for her. Way beyond anything safe.

Harsh the pharmacist sat behind a counter in the rear of the store with shelves of prescriptions waiting to be picked up by humans who didn’t know the pharmacy wasn’t legit. Blue light flickered on the old guy’s face. A stack of manga sat to the side. One of them was open facedown on the counter. “You’re here late,” said Harsh. Funny, he didn’t sound like an old fart.

Nikodemus shrugged.

“What can I do you for?” He picked up a can of Red Bull and drank from it.

“Copa. Pure if you have it.” He grabbed the biggest first-aid kit he could find, then went to look for a sewing kit.

“Huh,” said Harsh. He sent a longing glance in the direction of his manga. “You mageheld gofers always want pure.”

“How about some gum, then? Does that help the monotony?” Nikodemus reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper. He pretended to squint at it. “And uh, penicillin.”

“You got a scrip for that?”

He lifted his hands. “Boss treating you like shit, too?”

“Still an asshole,” Harsh said, toasting him with his Red Bull. “To asshole bosses. No allergies to penicillin?”

“Do I care?”

“Penicillin it is. How much does the patient weigh?”

He thought about Carson and her tiny but stacked frame. “One ten soaking wet.”

Harsh looked at him, giving him a long stare. “I hope she’s good in the sack.”

Nikodemus looked out the window at the car. He could barely see the top of Carson’s head. The pharmacist hopped off his chair like he had a brand-new set of titanium hips and knees and headed for the back. “Yeah,” he said. “Asshole bosses are the worst.” He stayed back there a long time. Long enough that Nikodemus found the sewing kit and had his purchases on the counter, ready to ring up. He glanced out the window and saw, oh, shit, Carson getting out of the car.

“Hey,” Nikodemus called. “My asshole boss is going to be plenty pissed if I don’t get back with the pure. She seriously needs her shit tonight.”

“A minute,” came Harsh’s voice from the back.

Nikodemus looked out the window again. The back of his neck itched. No, he didn’t like this one bit. Harsh came out with a translucent brown bottle in one hand. “This stuff’s hard to handle, you know.” He had brown eyes, gold-flecked, youthful in his sixty-year-old pharmacist body. He set the bottle on the counter but kept his hand on it. “Copa’s dangerous. You want to watch what you do with this.”

“Hopefully she’ll overdose and all my troubles are over.” He reached for his wallet.

The little bell over the door tinkled.
Fuck
. Carson came in, arm crossed over her chest, fist still clenched. The blood on her sweater had darkened to red-black. She looked at Harsh and then at Nikodemus. “I can’t move my fingers,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve been trying since you came in here.” Her voice never wavered, and her expression remained as calm as her voice, but her panic-edged eyes were fever-bright. “I can’t move my fingers.”

The pharmacy was on a corner with glass windows fronting the main street and the cross street. A dark Jag with tinted windows pulled up and parked on the cross-street side of the store. The engine roar of a motorcycle sounded from outside. The Jag’s rear driver’s-side door opened. The man who got out wore a suit. The other three were muscle.

Nikodemus faced Harsh. “You fucking ratted me out.”

Harsh lifted one shoulder. “I’m just another mageheld bastard like you, right? Gotta do what the boss says.”

The mage and his fiends walked toward the store. Magellan’s figure was unmistakable. He recognized Kynan, too. “No,” she said. She shook her head. “No.”

He reached for her good arm but missed because Carson took a step toward the pharmacist. Nikodemus locked the front door against the approaching fiends, but there were four this time, and one of them was Kynan Aijan, a freaking warlord. Playing games with the door wasn’t going to buy them enough time, considering his pal Harsh could be counted on to interfere with any attempt to slip out the back. Magellan wasn’t stupid. There’d be fiends at the back, too. Probably with Rasmus and his monster, Xia. Harsh, in fact, was already moving toward the half-door between his domain and the store proper, fast enough that his stack of unread manga toppled. He jumped over the dutch door. Goddamned spry for a senior.

“You.” Carson pointed at Harsh. Magic built up in her so fast even Nikodemus was taken by surprise. She walked forward, and before Nikodemus could stop her, she touched Harsh’s chest. The air went cold and then hot. Harsh jerked backward like he’d been punched. With a grunt, he grabbed his chest, staggering against a shelf of cold remedies. Whatever she’d unleashed against him knocked him out of his human guise.

As a fiend, Harsh the pharmacist was an impressive physical specimen. He stood just over six feet tall, long-limbed, densely muscled, and ready to fight. Shaved head all the way. Just fucking great. He was big enough to kick some ass. Nikodemus crouched, prepared to take him on. Except he could feel Harsh, and that shouldn’t be.