Scarlet Rain Part 4

She threw back the sheets to reveal her naked body. "Do I look like another?"

"I-" Alek's gaze roamed her shimmering slopes and stilled on her luscious b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her long, frost-colored hair twirled in an invisible wind.

"Is this not what you have wanted all along, warrior? Me, on my back, giving you permission?" A smooth grin parted her lips as faint laughter flooded his ears.

Alek lifted his gaze to hers and studied her expression. "This is not your true form, only an illusion. I have witnessed what lies beneath," he said, pushing away the memory of her shuddering eyes and rancid mouth. "What have you done with Eva?"

"You do not know?" She chuckled and propped herself on her elbow.

"Know what?" he asked, picking up his shirt.

"I felt you walking lost in this dream world. Your body screaming for the Oracle. Your pa.s.sion penetrated me and sank into my bones." She closed her eyes and let her fingers wander down the curves of her softly glowing skin. "You have let her cloud your judgment."

"Dream world?" He stuffed his arms into his shirt and threw it on over his head. "I've had this talk before, but cannot remember its end. Bring Eva back to me."

Her gaze locked on his. "You command me? You have not been here long, yet your mind is already betraying you." She stood, her skin pulsing soft amber. "Do you forget the power I possess?"

Alek inched backward as the specter grew nearer. "No, I-"

"Silence!" she commanded with a guttural growl. "The warrior within you is fading, young immortal." She closed her eyes and c.o.c.ked her head to the side. "Can you hear him? He cries for battle, for vengeance, for blood. He screams and claws within you, yet you do not heed him." Her eyes fluttered open and settled on him. "He pulses through your veins, powering your heart, yet he goes unnoticed. She must accept your heart for her own sanity, but you will never be fully hers. Your true heart, your warrior's heart, is chained to Tartarus. Refuse him, let him die, and what creature will you be?"

Alek stiffened. "I am an immortal warrior of Tartarus. I will avenge my home and save the Mortal Realm."

"Then why do you rot here? This will never be!" Pythia screeched. Her body swelled in size, and her translucent skin ignited into fiery gold.

Amber light poured from her, and Alek shielded his eyes from the glow. "I will never betray my duty," he shouted through her echoing screams.

As quickly as she had become enraged, her color cooled, and she returned to her lithe, elegant form. "Young immortal, I feel your warrior strong within you. This gift is his." She floated toward him and pressed her frosty lips against his forehead. "I will heal your mind. Free you from this illusion." Amber smoke poured from her mouth as she spoke. It blanketed his lips and crept onto his tongue. He felt the gentle smoke seep into his chest, and a refreshing burst of cool energy popped within him. "Now return and fight!"

With Pythia's aid, Alek released his grip and closed his eyes as the room around him melted, claimed by the blackness of sleep.

Six.

A p.r.i.c.kling rawness irritated the back of Cal's throat. Her mouth tasted like pennies. "What happened?" She lifted her head off the pavement and rubbed her fingers through her wet, matted hair.

Kevin hovered over her. "Just stay still. You hit your head pretty hard. It knocked you out for a little bit. The bus driver called an ambulance." Worry turned down the corners of his mouth and creased his forehead, and Cal regretted ever being annoyed with him for running late.

"I sure did," the driver said. "It should be here in a jiff. They'll take you to the hospital and get ya all checked out."

"Hey, you closed the door when those bug things were swarming me. That was an a.s.shole move." Her lungs tickled, and she let out a short burst of wet coughs.

"Yeah, man. Not cool at all," Kevin agreed.

"Waitin' on you two was already making me late. Couldn't afford to fill ol' Big Bess here with bugs. Imagine the phone calls my boss would get."

"You call your bus Big Bess?" Kevin held his hand in the air and waited for a high five.

"Anyway, what were those things? I think a bunch of them got in my mouth." She sc.r.a.ped her tongue along her top teeth.

"Mayflies, I suspect." The driver smoothed back his sweaty hair. "And you're not going to like this, but I'm pretty sure you sucked up most of 'em."

"Dude, what the f.u.c.k? She doesn't need to know that."

"Yeah, I'm positive I didn't need to know that I vacuumed up an entire cloud of bugs with my mouth. Ugh. Now my stomach is upset." She clutched her stomach and again attempted to sit up.

"Babe, stay still. Your stomach is messed up because you hit your head, not because you ate all those bugs. They're protein. And, dude," he said, turning his attention to the bus driver, "have you ever actually seen a mayfly?"

"Sure have. In them videos of that bridge covered in them over in Pennsylvania all those months back." He pursed his lips and whistled. "What a sight that must've been."

Kevin shook his head. "Well they don't look like red mist, which is what just swarmed my girlfriend. This was something else."

Ambulance sirens sounded in the distance, instantly kicking Cal's heartbeat into overdrive. "Thanks for calling 911 and all, but I don't think I need to go to the hospital. I'm fine, really."

"Sure, you think that now, but you could end up having a stroke, or a blood clot, or-"

"Man, you are not helping. At all," Kevin said.

The blaring ambulance cut its siren and slowed to a stop behind the Tulsa Transit bus. A lanky EMT unfurled himself from the pa.s.senger seat as his equally tall partner rounded the front of the vehicle.

"If everyone would please get back on the bus," the second EMT instructed as she shut the door and herded the nosy onlookers toward the front of the bus. "I'm sure you're all in a hurry to get to your destinations. There's no need to keep you any longer. And sir?" With a gloved hand, she tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Thanks for all your help, but we've got it covered. You can leave now."

"No problem. Just doin' my humanly duty and all. Best of luck on gettin' better and don't go rushing into any mayfly swarms in the future." He grinned, and nodded politely to Cal before hopping up the steps of Big Bess.

The male EMT kneeled next to Cal, pinched her wrist with his bony fingers, and studied his watch as his partner asked questions.

"Hey there." The woman smiled warmly at her. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Her name is Cal and she-"

"Sir, if I could get you to step back a bit, that would be great." Her voice was soft, but her expression made it clear that Kevin had no other option. She continued only after he'd sullenly shuffled to the bus bench and plopped down. "It's really better if I hear everything from you."

"My name is Calista Rowland."

"Calista. I'm Megan, and this is my partner Darnell. Can you tell me what happened today?"

"I guess I fell and hit my head on the sidewalk. I was unconscious for a little bit. I don't know how long though."

"You fell and hit your head," she repeated. "What caused you to fall?"

"There was this swarm of gnats or something. They attacked me, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground with this nasty knot on the back of my head."

Darnell released Cal's wrist and disappeared for a moment, returning with a long orange board and a duffle bag. He dug through the bag and pulled out a plastic collar. "I'm going to put this around your neck to stabilize it."

Cal winced as Megan gripped the sides of her head, and Darnell gently snapped the neck brace around her throat. "This is not comfortable at all," she mumbled.

Darnell smiled down at her. "Wish I could tell you this next part was going to be better."

"We're going to make sure you're immobilized by putting you on this backboard. It may not be comfortable, but you'll have an interesting story to tell your friends," Megan said.

"First, I need you to tell me if you can feel this," he said, squeezing both of her feet.

"Of course I can feel that. I fell onto the sidewalk. I wasn't hit by a car." She instantly felt bad for having an att.i.tude with the people trying to help her.

Megan crossed Cal's arms over her chest, and the two EMTs rolled her onto her side and onto the backboard before she could utter an apology.

"As soon as we finish strapping you down, we'll get you loaded into the ambulance and you'll be on your way to St. John's Hospital."

"Thank you," she said, the straps across her body tightening as the EMTs locked them into place. The tickling in Cal's chest returned as they lifted her onto the stretcher. With each stifled cough, the dull pain in the back of her head thundered to life.

Megan studied her face. "We'll be there soon. Do you want your friend to ride with you?"

She tried to shake her head, but only her hands were free to move. "No. But will you tell him he doesn't need to come to the hospital right now, and that I'll call him as soon as I get the chance?"

"Sure thing." Megan disappeared, and Darnell finished loading her into the ambulance before hopping in behind her and shutting the metal doors.

Heat gnawed at Cal's lungs, and she coughed against the pain. "Can you please take this thing off of me?" she asked, her fingers clawing at the plastic neck brace.

The etched creases in the EMT's forehead deepened as he lingered over her. "Sorry, no can do. They'll remove it at the hospital."

"But I don't have any injuries," she sputtered between wet barks. "I just b.u.mped my head."

"That head b.u.mp you have, that would be cla.s.sified as an injury." The ambulance started, and Cal winced from the jarring movement. "But we're not too far from the hospital." He settled onto the small steel bench and scribbled down a few notes. "I'm going to check your vitals again and ask you a few more questions," he said, slipping the blood pressure cuff around her bicep. "Can you tell me how you're feeling, and if you have any allergies to any medications?"

The strap securing her head to the backboard and the rigid neck brace gave her permission to stare only at the ceiling. Thick beads of spit rolled down her cheeks as she tried to stifle her coughs.

Cal's annoyance increased with each squeeze of the cuff. She desperately hungered to rip it from her arm, attach it around his neck, and pump the tiny ball until he could no longer breathe. "I'm fine," she growled.

"If something's going on, you need to tell me. I'll be able to help you a lot better if you tell me what you're feeling."

Pain and heat conjoined, forming an intolerable mound within her lungs. "My chest," she wheezed. "It burns."

"How long have you had this cough?"

Hearing Darnell's voice was infuriating, and the ambulance seemed to close in around her. "Get this off of me!" Cal hooked her fingertips over the top of the plastic cage surrounding her throat and tugged violently. Pinkish bubbles of foam popped around the corners of her lips as she gnashed her teeth and strained against the straps holding her in place.

He grabbed her wrists and leaned over her torso as he pinned them to the stretcher. "Hold still. You're going to hurt yourself."

No. We will hurt you. A voice purred between her ears.

She opened her mouth and let the coughs fly from her throat. Cal's lips twisted into a smile as Darnell recoiled and wiped the red-specked spittle from his face.

"I need to know how long you've been coughing like this. When did it start?"

"Centuries ago," she hissed, and shot a clawed hand out toward his face.

He banged on the part.i.tion behind Cal's head and shouted through the small opening into the cab. "We've got a problem back here. Light it up and get her there now. Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!"

The sirens whined, and the ambulance lurched forward with increasing speed toward St. John's Hospital.

Seven.

James punched the address into his GPS and mindlessly followed the talking prompts toward his destination.

"What the h.e.l.l did I just do?" he asked himself, beating his palm against the steering wheel. Again, he thought back to what had happened in the woods with Eva. "Say a word, and they'd have me out on psych leave before the end of the day."

The GPS directions led him down a winding, tree-lined street. Police cars dotted the roadway, and yellow crime tape was already hung around the perimeter of the front yard.

"Winslow!" James called to the tall, gangly officer as he climbed out of the car.

"Hey, Detective!" Winslow waved and awkwardly shuffled under the police tape to meet James on the sidewalk. "Where's your partner?"

"We drove separately. He'll be here soon." James looked around at the small crowd of neighbors gathered down the street. "What's going on?"

"We've got two bodies. Both roughed up something fierce. One upstairs and one outside on the back patio."

"Any IDs on them yet?" James dropped his keys into his pocket.

"Yeah, and you're not going to be happy about it." He thumbed through the pages of his small notepad. "A married couple, Monica Carroll and Tyson George."

"Okay. What about them is supposed to make me so unhappy?" James asked.

"What, they don't have Carroll Groceries wherever you're from?"

"I've been in Texas for awhile. And no, can't say they have them down there."

"First, you might want to keep that Texas heritage to yourself. It is football season, after all. And B, Carroll Groceries is more than just a chain around here. The Carrolls have donated bazillions of dollars to charities all over the state. Mainly because of the good-hearted Monica, who happened to be the Carrolls' only child and sole heir to their fortune," Winslow explained.

"s.h.i.t," James mumbled. "Double check the victims' info. I want a solid confirmation before we run with the names. And keep it quiet."

"Sure thing, boss."

"I want to hide this from the media for as long as we can. Captain's going to have a heart attack if we don't handle this one correctly." James studied the outside of the house. Its burgundy stones and circular tower reminded him of the European architecture he'd seen while on holiday with his fiancee and her family.

"Yeah, I heard he's been fuming about the incident over in Mohawk Park. What did happen over there anyway?" Winslow asked.

"Let's try to stay focused on one case at a time."