Giving Up the Ghost (28 page)
And now it was Nick saving him.
Nick tossing salt at Grant, making the awful pressure on John’s chest ease, just a little, followed by what was left of the tea, a lukewarm splatter of translucent, aromatic liquid. What it did, John wasn’t sure, but he felt the challenge rise in Nick’s voice as he screamed at Grant, overpowering the uncertainty of a moment earlier.
“He’s mine! Leave him alone!”
Yours
, John thought, his vision graying.
Always
.
Everything got strangely peaceful then. His eyes closed -- it was too much effort to hold them open -- and sounds became muffled, distant. The pain in his chest increased again, taking the world away with it, even Nick, who was the last person John wanted to leave. He thought, briefly, of his mother, and of Michael, and then the ground tilted beneath him and he lifted away.
John opened his eyes. Or maybe they’d never been properly shut in the first place. Either way, he was floating just above his body, looking down at Nick and himself and Greg bloody Duncan, and for a moment it seemed that dying wasn’t as bad as he’d always imagined.
There was some sort of a scuffle, Nick grabbing the rest of the box of salt and throwing it at Grant, and then a spectacular explosion of lights like fairy dust, glittering and shining. When John turned his attention back to Nick, the man was kneeling beside him -- him, his body. Nick bent and breathed into his mouth, laced hands over his chest and pushed down. There were tears on Nick’s cheeks, and John felt a savage stubbornness flood through him; he
would not
leave Nick, not like this, not now, not ever if he had anything to say about it. And just like that, with an audible snap, he did a sickening flip down into his body.
The ground underneath him was hard and uncomfortable, and his chest hurt almost unbearably, but the only thing John cared about was Nick, who was repeating his name in a broken, desolate voice.
“‘M here,” he whispered, forcing the words out of a mouth that felt bruised and stiff. His tongue explored his lips carefully, finding nothing but a residual warmth from Nick’s attempts to resuscitate him. “Nick?”
It wasn’t working. Nick was still lost in sorrow and he didn’t have to be because --
“He’s still breathing.”
Nick didn’t ever have to go away, but when John tried to tell Greg that, all that emerged was a muffled groan, and he realized his earlier attempt to speak had been no better, no matter how clear the words had been in his head. He licked at dry lips again and took the deepest breath his aching chest could hold, using it to shape a single lie. “Fine.”
The sound Nick made hurt John’s chest as much as what had happened; warm hands touched John’s face gently. “John?”
“Zz ’e gone?” he managed.
“I think so. Yes.” Nick’s voice was incredibly beautiful to John just then. “God. John. I thought you were -- you were -- “
“Think I
was
.” The memory of floating, looking down, was hazing over. John focused in on what mattered. “Here now. Not going ’way.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Nick said fervently, and leaned his forehead down to rest against John’s shoulder. In the background, John could hear the sound of a siren growing steadily closer.
Chapter Sixteen
Nick sat up half the night at John’s bedside in the hospital. The guards at the crash site had known something was wrong, even if they hadn’t been able to say exactly what, and had called 9-1-1. Despite John’s assurances that he was fine, he’d been bundled into the ambulance and taken to the nearest hospital, where he’d been pronounced bruised but otherwise all right and admitted overnight for observation. The nurses had been surprisingly cooperative about letting Nick stay -- not that either he or John would have accepted anything else -- and had brought in a chair that unfolded into a fairly uncomfortable bed for him. But he’d spent the first three hours after John fell asleep sitting beside the bed, holding John’s hand.
He’d never worried before that his abilities might endanger John. Now everything had come crashing down around him; and yet, strangely, Nick felt more secure rather than less. Things had gone terribly, terribly wrong, but he’d handled it. They’d come through it okay.
Eventually, as much as he needed to gaze at John’s beloved face, he fell asleep sitting right there, slouched down in the chair with his head on his shoulder. He slept heavily and didn’t wake until sunshine was streaming into the room, a nurse adjusting the blinds and then moving over to the bed to take John’s pulse.
“How is he?” Nick asked. He was a little disorientated and sleepy but for all that he was conscious of a lightness of spirit. It made him wonder just how much Grant had been affecting him since they’d first made contact with each other, and he shuddered, the vivid picture of a leech stuck to his flesh coming into his head. Well, salt dealt with them, too, he supposed.
“He’s fine,” John replied, his eyes opening and his gaze finding Nick at once. A smile, slow and happy, spread over his face. “Good morning, love.”
“No talking,” the nurse said reprovingly, but she gave John’s hand a pat as she released it. “And, yes, you are. Doctor Carter will want to see you this morning, but if I were you, I wouldn’t bother picking what you want for lunch when they come around with the menus later.”
She gave Nick a sympathetic smile. “Rough night trying to sleep in that chair? If you want some breakfast, there’s a cafeteria on the ground floor. The coffee’s not bad, but I’d steer clear of the donuts this early; they’ll be yesterday’s leftovers.”
“Thanks.” Nick waited until she’d made a few marks on John’s chart and left the room before he sat up and leaned forward, reaching out to touch John’s arm, which was reassuringly warm. “How are you feeling?”
“Well, I’ve felt better,” John said cautiously. Nick watched John wriggle his toes and generally test that everything was working. “But to be honest, there’s nothing much wrong with me, barring the fact that I’m starving.” He reached out and captured Nick’s hand, his fingers curling around it with a comforting pressure. “How about you? You were the one doing all the hard work last night, after all.”
“I’m fine,” Nick said. He was. The night before had been unbearably taxing, but other than a slight crick in his neck from sleeping in a chair, he felt rested. And, as John had said, hungry. “I’ll have to call Melissa and tell her what happened.” He stroked the back of John’s hand with his free one. “I’m just glad you’re okay. That’s all that matters, really. When I thought you were -- you really were, weren’t you.” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word “dead” out loud.
“Dead?” John asked with a certain relish. “Aye, I was, or as close as I want to get for another fifty or sixty years, anyway.” Nick’s expression must have told John how much he didn’t want to hear that, because John’s face twisted and he gave Nick a contrite smile. “Right here,” he said gently, squeezing Nick’s hand hard for a moment. “See?”
“I know.” Still, Nick had to lean in and kiss John’s hand, press his forehead to it, and John rested his other hand on the back of Nick’s head, comforting him. “But we can’t put you in a position like that again. We have to find a way to prevent it.” Melissa’s tea had worked wonders -- there had to be something else, something stronger that would work against more powerful ghosts.
“It’s not likely to happen again.” John paused. “Is it? Because you’ve managed just fine up to now and, hell, you won last night, didn’t you?” His hand slid up to the back of Nick’s neck, possessive and comforting. “I knew you would. Never a doubt about it.” His thumb found the perfect place to rub against and his voice was rich with pride and satisfaction. “You kicked his arse, lad.”
“I think it was more like I tripped him and got lucky and he hit his head,” Nick said, even though that was a poor analogy at best. His voice was muffled against the thin cotton blanket draped over John, so he rolled his head to the side. “But I have no idea how I did it. I want to know. I’ve been going along on instinct for too long, thinking it would be okay -- and you’re right, it has been, mostly -- but now I need to know what works, and why.”
“It’s not like you can send off for an instruction manual,” John pointed out. “And you said once that those of you who can do it aren’t even all that connected with each other.” He frowned. “You don’t have a webpage, or anything?”
The idea was enough to make Nick grin. “No. No webpage.”
“No one you’ve heard of who’s like the top man or woman? Someone who could give you a few pointers?” John persisted. “What you do, it’s a skill. A talent. But you’re not the only one, and like my dad used to say, cream rises; if there’s someone out there who’s really good at this, it stands to reason you’d find him if you looked.” He made a face but there was no real heat in it. “You could always ask Greg. Assuming he didn’t take off after last night.”
“He was here,” Nick said, surprised. “Don’t you remember?” He thought back, but the night
was
kind of a blur of doctors and nurses and moving from the emergency room up to the room they were in now. “I guess you were a little busy with the six thousand medical professionals who had their hands all over you. He followed the ambulance in his car and hung around until after they brought you up here. I’m supposed to call him today, actually; let him know how you are.” Glancing at the clock showed that it was still too early to call. “He wouldn’t know, anyway. There are some people I can check in with; people I know, like Isabel. We’ll figure it out.”
John nodded. “Aye, we will.” He yawned, knuckling the sleep out of his eyes, and Nick was hit with a surge of homesickness for Traighshee, where he could wake up beside John in their bed, with the clear air, salted and clean, blowing through the window John kept open unless it was actually snowing or Nick protested enough. John’s lips would be warm and sleepy as they kissed, missing each other’s mouths because their eyes were still shut and not caring, his hands finding Nick under the covers, pulling him closer because they usually woke up at opposite ends of the bed, no matter how tangled up they’d been when they’d fallen asleep. “But maybe not today.”
“No,” Nick agreed, standing up and leaning to kiss John’s forehead. “Now, I’m going to go down to the cafeteria and get you something to eat. Knowing hospitals, it’ll be a couple of hours until they get around to delivering breakfast, and I think you’d feel better if you had something before then.”
“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” John told him, lying back and closing his eyes. “You could maybe ask for waffles?”
“Anything you want,” Nick said, and went to get food.
Chapter Seventeen
“Did I mention I’m nervous?” Nick wrung his hands; he’d been doing it for the past half hour, to the point where his knuckles were starting to ache.
“Aye,” John said, putting the car in park and shutting it off. “A dozen times or so.”
“Only that many?” Nick caught John’s hand before he could get out. “It felt more like a hundred.” Then he asked the real question. “What if he doesn’t like us?”
John was silent, the reassuring answer Nick had expected not coming immediately. “I’d like to say it doesn’t matter,” John said finally, his thumb moving in a deliberate caress over the back of Nick’s hand. “That a week ago you didn’t know he existed, so what difference does it make if this doesn’t go well?” His hand tightened. “But we both know it does matter.” His face broke into a slow smile. “And I know there’s no one who doesn’t like you once you turn on the charm, so…”
“Apart from the minister,” Nick said a little shakily, because John’s belief in him was so absolute it sometimes felt impossible to live up to.
“Well, he liked you before he found out you were hell-bent on seducing me,” John pointed out. “And I think he’d have forgiven you in time, if you’d picked someone else, mind. We’ve never got on. Englishman,” he added as an explanatory afterthought. “What can you expect?”
“Josh isn’t.” Nick sighed and slouched down in his seat, giving himself permission to postpone the meeting for another minute or two. “He’s American, and so am I. That has to count for something.” He shook his head, grateful for the touch of John’s hand. “Who am I kidding? He’s just a kid. He wouldn’t care if we were from
“Like the ones you insisted we shop for, you mean?” John reached into the back and dragged the shopping bag forward between the seats.
Nick grinned ruefully. “Yeah, well…hopefully they won’t hurt.” He looked at the house -- it was bigger than he’d expected, with a well-cared-for lawn and two fairly new cars in the driveway.
“She sounded nice, did she? His mum?” John asked tentatively. “Not like Alicia?”
“Much better than Alicia,” Nick confirmed. He thought about it a little bit more. “Sort of between my mom and Alicia, actually. Not that I talked to her that long, but…yeah. She sounded nice.”
“Well, that’s…good.” John sighed and shook his head. “Get out of the car, will you, Nick? Because there’s someone watching us from behind a curtain and I’m thinking you’re not the only nervous one. He’s meeting a brother he never thought to see, as well, you know.”
Startled, Nick looked toward the house again just in time to see the curtain closing. “Oh geez. Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”
They got out of the car, John holding the bag of toys and things, and walked up to the front door. Nick knocked, his heart pounding in his chest, echoing the sound of his knuckles against the solid wooden door.
A moment later, the door opened, and he was presented with the sight of a wide-eyed boy with sharp green eyes and a tousle of brown hair streaked with blond. “You’re my brother,” Josh said. He wasn’t smiling; John was right, he looked almost as nervous as Nick felt.
“I’m Nick. And you’re Josh.” Nick hesitated, then held out his hand as Josh’s mother appeared behind him. Josh shook Nick’s hand solemnly. “Hi,” he said to Josh’s mother, shaking her hand, too. “I’m Nick Kelley.”
