Abra Cadaver (19 page)

She gave his hand a squeeze and got up to answer the door. Her mother immediately overpowered her, choking the breath out of Holly with an embrace.

“Holly Berry! You’re all right. You’re okay.” Mona stroked Holly’s hair with one hand while the other rubbed her back.

“Where’s Keane?” Charlie had his medical bag in his hand.

Holly untangled herself from Mona. “On the couch right here.”

Charlie followed her and whistled when he saw Keane. “Shit, son. You look like roadkill.”

“I feel like roadkill.”

Mona leaned on the couch back and peered down at Keane. “Oh, honey, who did this to you?” She touched his chin and turned his head toward her. “He’ll need stitches on that, won’t he, Charlie?” She indicated the slice on his cheek.

Holly had thought the same of that injury, but hadn’t wanted to say anything to worry Keane. She assumed he hadn’t had a chance to see his face, and she thought it was better that way. He was already in shock about being beaten. No need to layer on the anxiety with a visual picture of the wreckage.

“Give me a minute to check him out.” Charlie stepped past Holly and set his bag onto the coffee table. “What hurts the most?”

“Shoulder,” Keane said.

Charlie donned his glasses and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. He pulled scissors out of his bag and gestured to Keane’s T-shirt. “Hope it’s not one of your favorites.”

Keane shook his head. “I prefer shirts not stained with my own blood.”

Charlie cut away Keane’s T-shirt to expose his chest and shoulder. Holly got a glimpse of all that muscled perfection and bit her lower lip. Heat flooded into her veins, and her fingers tingled with the need to touch him. To both comfort and arouse him.

Not the right time for this, Holly.

Her gaze swept over the snake tattoo around his left bicep then settled on a scar that forged across Keane’s otherwise flawless stomach. It started at the base of his ribcage and arrowed to the opposite hip. He’d told her about the sword wound that had almost killed him on the battlefield centuries ago. The wound that had prompted his brother to take him to the witch. The wound that caused Keane to be cursed. Something about that scar made Holly see both his remarkable courage in fighting for his people, and his tragic vulnerability in becoming what he was today. She knew he didn’t like what he was. She wished she could change it for him.

“That looks like it must have hurt like hell.” Charlie ran a gloved finger over the scar. “What did that?”

“Sword.”

“Didn’t get many sword wounds in my ER,” Charlie said.

Holly searched her mind for something to say. Though her father wasn’t as blunt as her mother, she knew Charlie would come back to the sword comment and expect an explanation. How much could she tell her parents about Keane?

Luckily, Charlie focused back on Keane’s shoulder. He tried lifting his right arm, but didn’t get far before Keane sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.

“Can you feel your fingers?” Charlie asked.

“No,” Keane replied. “My entire hand is numb.”

Mona, who had been unusually quiet while Charlie examined Keane, held out a hand. Holly felt a little foolish for wanting to hold her mommy’s hand, but she took it anyway. Mona tugged her closer and circled her arm around Holly’s waist. That simple contact settled Holly’s nerves. She had a ridiculous desire to tell her mother everything. To start with her car accident and dying, plow through the months that had followed, explain about Keane, and unload what she was feeling for him.

Could Mona handle it?

“Shoulder is dislocated,” Charlie said. “I can pop it back into place, stitch that cheek, then take you to the hospital.”

“No!” Holly and Keane said at the same time.

“No?” Mona turned Holly to face her. “What do you mean? Look at him, Holly Berry. The man needs some attention. Your father is good, but he doesn’t have x-ray vision. Keane could have other broken bones we don’t know about. There could be internal bleeding.”

“Nothing else hurts,” Keane said. “It’s just the shoulder. Everything else is superficial. A day or so, and I’ll be fine.” A great speech except for the waver in his voice as he took in a breath in the middle of it.

Charlie shook his head. “We’ll see if you feel the same after I do what I have to do to your shoulder.”

“Just do it.” Keane balled the quilt Holly had draped over him in his fist as he braced for Charlie.

Holly stepped away from her mother and came to the armrest Keane’s head was on. She sat on the end of the coffee table and pried his hand off the quilt. With one hand she traced a finger along the black snake coiling around his bicep. She wove the fingers of her other hand between Keane’s and offered him a weak smile.

“I’ve actually seen Dad set a dislocated shoulder before,” she said. “Don’t crush my knuckles, okay?”

Keane turned his head to look at her. “You sure you want to risk it?”

“Yes.”
I’d risk anything for you right now
.

“On three,” Charlie said. He counted, snapped the shoulder back into place, and yelled at Mona to stop screaming. “He’s the one who felt that, Mona. Jesus.”

“Sorry, but that was a horrible, horrible sound.” Mona held a hand to her chest and shook her head. Her skin had never been that shade of green before.

“How are you doing, Keane?” Charlie asked.

Keane had been silent while his shoulder bones crunched. Holly hadn’t enjoyed the sound any more than Mona, but she’d managed to keep a lid on her own scream when Keane hadn’t hollered.

“Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, I guess. Burns a li—” Keane’s hand went limp in Holly’s as he passed out.

“So nice when the human body tries to protect itself by shutting off consciousness,” Charlie said as if he were overseeing a science experiment. “We’re going to let him rest, and Holly, you are going to tell me what the hell is going on here. You’re going to start from the beginning and not leave out a single detail.”

Holly’s father didn’t make demands often, but when he did, you did the only thing you could do.

Surrender.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Marked with the snake,

in you I wake,

the power to shed

death from the dead.

The hag’s voice echoed in Keane’s head. The words of the curse crawled along the inside of his skull like a million insects. In the blackness behind his eyelids, he saw his brother’s face. Eliah reached out a hand, and Keane swore he felt Eliah’s touch on his sore shoulder.

“Brother,” Eliah said. That one word pulled all the ache out of Keane’s body. “It is not time for you to be here.”

“To be where?” As far as Keane knew, he was on Holly’s couch. The last thing he remembered was an inferno of pain coursing through his shoulder as her father wrenched it back into place. He raised his right hand and rolled his shoulder surprised to find no pain now.

“The Perfect Land, Keane,” Eliah said. “The Valley of Eternal Rest. The Meadow of the Afterworld. You are not welcome here yet.”

“I’m finally dead?” Keane ran a hand over his chest and stomach. “I don’t feel dead.” He had wished for this day for so many centuries. To join Eliah and all the kin he’d lost on the battlefield. To have his existence end like every other human.

Why didn’t he feel the joy he’d expected to feel upon his death?

“You’re not dead, Keane.” Eliah shook him gently. “You’ve merely slipped between worlds for a moment. You’ll be heading back to where you are meant to be shortly.”

Keane scoffed. “Where exactly am I meant to be, Eliah? Only one time was truly mine. I haven’t belonged in any time since.”

“Haven’t you?” Eliah angled his head, his long brown hair falling around his shoulders. “Haven’t you found a place you
want
to belong?”

Keane recalled the feel of Holly’s fingers intertwined with his as her father set his shoulder. Her lilac smell and the medley of delicious tastes her lips offered.

“I want to belong wherever Holly is,” he said softly.

“Even if that means another human can hurt you?” Eliah motioned for Keane to follow him toward a small pond that had appeared.

Kneeling beside it, Keane studied his face in the water’s surface. His bottom lip was cracked in two places. Black stitches held a slice in his left cheek closed. The skin on either side of his nose was purpled, and part of the white of his left eye was red. He had never seen himself in this condition. So fragile, so breakable.

“You would want to be with her even if it meant you’d be vulnerable to this?” Eliah pointed to Keane’s face reflected in the water.

“It sounds foolish, but yes. I want to be with her more than anything.”

“Then the second part of the witch’s spell has begun.” Eliah pulled Keane to his feet.

“Second part? What second part?”

“You do not remember, brother?” Eliah gripped both of Keane’s shoulders and stared at him with big blue eyes. Eyes like Keane’s.

“I only remember the wretched curse. It’s what I’ve been living with all these years.”

“Ah, I see.” Eliah grinned and pulled Keane into an embrace. “Enjoy what is to come.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see.”

Eliah clapped his hands on Keane’s back, and Keane snapped awake on Holly’s couch. He sat up too quickly and realized pain still plagued his body. His shoulder felt as if someone had dragged him behind a truck by it. His lip stung, and his nose ached. When he looked around the living room—confirming that he wasn’t with Eliah by a strange pond—his eyes were gritty and dry.

He slid his legs off the couch and rested his elbows on his knees. He was shirtless, and his gaze rested on the snake tattoo.

Second part of the spell? What was Eliah talking about?

Keane focused on his encounter with Eliah, but the details were fuzzy.

Weird dream.
He slowly rose to his feet. The living room spun for a moment, then leveled off. Hanging on to pieces of furniture as he progressed, he made it to the hallway and down to his bathroom. He flicked on the light and grumbled at his reflection. Same one he’d seen in the dream.

He ran his fingers over the stitches and remembered Holly’s father saying he’d stitch the slice on his cheek. Were her parents still here? How long had he been sleeping or dreaming or whatever he’d been doing on the couch?

Where was Holly?

He washed his face, but the result was not much of an improvement. He got another T-shirt from his bedroom and changed his jeans to a pair that didn’t have blood and dirt all over them. Favoring his shoulder, he awkwardly slid into the T-shirt as he walked back down the hallway toward the kitchen. Voices stopped him before he entered.

“You expect us to believe this abra cadaver stuff, Holly?” Charlie said.

“Have I ever lied to you before?” she said.

“Well, no, but this isn’t scientifically possible.”

“It’s crazy, Holly Berry. Crazy.” Mona’s voice sounded quivery as if she’d been crying.

Keane leaned against the wall outside the kitchen. Holly must have explained what he was…or wasn’t for that matter. Sounded as if her parents weren’t taking the news well. Who would? Hearing that one’s daughter had died and had been brought back by a monster of sorts was tough to swallow, Keane imagined.

Sucking in a breath that reminded him his ribs were tender, he stepped into the kitchen and leaned against the threshold. Holly popped up from her seat at the kitchen table and ran over to him. She cupped his face in her hands first and looked at him for a moment. He risked a glance to her parents watching from the table. Their faces were a mix of confusion, concern, and…
was that a scowl on Charlie’s face?

Holly circled her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. Her head rested against his chest, and his own arms came around her shoulders. He closed his eyes and held her.

“I knew the ‘just friends’ line was total bullshit.” Charlie got up from his seat and pried Holly away from Keane. Placing himself between the two of them, Holly’s father folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t know what nonsense stories you’ve been feeding my daughter, jackass, but you’d better start giving me the truth or I’ll pull that shoulder right out of its socket again.”

“Charlie!” Mona came to her husband’s side, an odd expression on her face. Something caught between anger and revelation.

“What?” Charlie barked. “He’s been telling Holly fairy tales and science fiction. Swords and curses. Bringing people back from the dead. Murdering
demons
to keep saved people alive. It’s ridiculous, and she’s believed it.”

“Dad,” Holly said from behind him. “Keane didn’t make any of this up and neither did I.”

Keane wanted to say something, but he couldn’t come up with a single thing that would make Charlie believe. Holly didn’t have any scars to confirm she’d been in a fatal car accident. No proof existed that he’d brought her back from the dead. He didn’t have a fresh demon kill handy to show Charlie.

“You’re a man of science, Dr. Brimmer, but I cannot explain what I am, what I do, in terms of science. I only have my memories of being slashed across the stomach with a sword on the battlefield too many years ago to count.”

Keane pulled his T-shirt up to reveal his scar. “A killing blow and I was dying. My brother attempted to save me by taking me to a witch. Save me she did, but not without cursing me. I have lived in a cycle of saving and killing. It’s all I’ve been able to do since that crone marked me.” He gestured to the snake tattoo. “If I could have done something else I would have, but my life—if you can call it that—is not my own. I don’t get to make the decisions. The curse does.”

Mona’s eyes were filled with tears. “You poor dear.”

“Jesus, Mona,” Charlie said. “What he has said isn’t possible.”

“Maybe not,” Mona said as she approached Keane, “but he believes it to be true. Charlie, he’s got a…
condition
.” She said the last word as if she were trying to get something to click in her husband’s mind. They’d been married long enough that her goal was accomplished.