In the Garden of Deceit (Book 4) (35 page)

“I
love you. Perhaps I wasn’t clear about that in the beginning.
Perhaps it wasn’t altogether clear to me. But I think I knew
the first day I met you.”

“Knew?”

“That
I’d met my future.”

Amanda
swallowed over a lump that rose in her throat, her gaze locking with
his. She leaned forward and bussed him gently on the mouth then laid
back down, snuggling close.

“Apology
accepted, my lord.”

###

Excerpt:
Thief of Souls

by

Cynthia
Wicklund

Present
day San Francisco

Regina.

Nick
closed his eyes, allowing her name, his recollection of her to stroke
his hungry senses. Had his powers not been impaired by his injuries,
he would have called to her, but he must save his strength for
mending his body. The morphine, when it was working, had helped the
pain, thus his concentration had sharpened. He was better, much
better.

Nick
smiled to himself, recalling Nurse Garza’s bewilderment over
his memory. Several times during the last few hours she had checked
on him, but a cautious, almost frightened look had never left her
eyes. She’d gone off-duty not long before, glancing at him
through the window on her way to the elevators. The look in her eyes
hadn’t changed.

Even
if he’d been inclined, how could he explain what she couldn’t
understand? Her world revolved around scientific logic—although
he suspected by Nurse Garza’s response to him that she was not
immune to superstition—and his existence was anything but
logical.

Truth
was, for three days he’d slept, except for brief periods which
he had concealed from the staff. The notable exception was Tuesday
evening when Dr. Ingram, with Nurse Garza in assistance, had looked
in on him—and the moment he had revealed himself to Dr. Miles.
However, sleep did not mean he’d lost awareness. Heightened
senses meant little escaped his notice, even in slumber. Many people
had come and gone from his room in those three days—he would
recognize every one of them.

Especially
his Regina. When had he begun to think of her in a proprietary way?
Was it the moment he had become cognizant of her standing outside his
cubicle that first day? He could see her now, her lovely face—not
beautiful in the traditional sense—as she’d stared at him
through the blinds of his room. Her eyes were green, very green.

Though
he could not read thoughts exactly, he had been immediately aware of
her fascination. That didn’t surprise him, nor did he feel any
particular vanity over the knowledge. Was that not his gift—his
curse—to intrigue, to enchant? How could he take credit for
that?

Gingerly,
careful not to aggravate his lacerated chest, he reached up to finger
the old crescent-shaped scar on his right cheek, then swore silently
when he realized it was now hidden beneath the bandage on his face.
The scar ached, an ancient malignant ache, reminding Nick of the
nightmare which had awakened him earlier that evening.

With
the reminder a portentous mood gripped him. Why now, he wondered,
when he’d not had the dream in over a hundred years?

***

Regina
entered her apartment, tossing her lab coat on the only sofa in the
small living room on her way to the bathroom. She ignored her spartan
surroundings. The apartment was moldering from age and neglect, only
a place to sleep when she wasn’t working. To her it was the
convenience—directly across the street from the hospital—not
the amenities.

It
was Sunday, and after days of twelve to eighteen-hour shifts, she was
exhausted. She glanced in the mirror hanging over the bathroom sink,
and the cracked surface sent back a distorted image that gave her a
hellish look.

“Welcome
to the
Twilight Zone
, Dr. Miles,” she muttered, doing
her best Rod Serling. Regina turned on the cold faucet, the old pipes
groaning in protest, and cupped her hands under the icy water,
splashing her face several times to revive herself.

Bobby
Allen had been sent home today. His mother Virginia Allen, her
features already set in lines of grief, had spirited him away,
perhaps for the last time. Regina was surprised by her own difficulty
in coping with the young man’s approaching death. Death was a
part of living—it was also a part of her job. Knowing that
didn’t make it any easier.

Of
course, she would be handling the stress better if she’d had
some sleep. However, when she did manage to snatch a few hours in
bed, she found herself unable to rest. Strange musings, even stranger
feelings, slipped into her thoughts as soon as she began to relax and
disengage herself from her patients and work. She didn’t have
to look far to realize the source of her anxiety. Thoughts of a
certain individual who had occupied a bed in the ICU—he had
been moved to a semi-private room today—kept popping into her
mind when least expected and most unwanted.

Mr.
Nicholas Anthony had managed to have an unsettling impact on her.
Over and over she had relived the moment on Tuesday morning when she
believed he had come awake to stare at her through the window of his
room. How could she have imagined that?—his one eye so black
and intense as though he saw right through her, knew what she was
thinking, anticipated what she would think next. The weakness that
had assailed her at the time returned now with the memory.

Today
had been worst of all, Regina thought testily as she turned from the
sink to dry her face. Her job usually transcended other concerns,
leaving her free to concentrate on her professional responsibilities.
But for the last several hours as she tried to work, she’d been
distracted by the same troubling thoughts which plagued her when she
tried to rest. There was something sly and invasive about those
thoughts as if Mr. Anthony had crawled into her skull and was gently
tickling her consciousness, insisting she acknowledge him. The very
idea gave her the creeps.

Reason
told her the man didn’t know and had no interest in her. The
obsession was hers. Right now, exhausted and emotionally drained, she
decided reason could take a fat flying leap off the nearest bridge.
And she knew just the one. Regina laughed aloud. Who the hell was she
trying to convince, anyway? Herself? Now there was a nonproductive
exercise, since her deadened brain didn’t have two cogent
thoughts to rub together. She knew what she needed; jogging always
cleared her head. The weather was cold and misty, but rather than
deterring her, she relished tackling an activity which, by its very
harshness, would restore her common sense. If she were lucky, she’d
collapse from fatigue and sleep by default.

Within
minutes she had changed into a heavy cotton warm-up suit and pulled
her hair into a ponytail. In the kitchen a quick inspection of the
refrigerator revealed the remains of a boxed hamburger meal—ground
beef, noodles, and the overriding flavor of powdered bouillon. She
removed the plastic dish from the shelf and, lifting the lid, took a
sniff. Regina shrugged. It would have to do. Finding a spoon, she
shoveled several cold bites into her mouth. What would it be like,
she asked herself as she returned the bowl to the refrigerator, to
sit down to a normal meal, one not only hot but appetizing? It had
been so long she’d forgotten.

Regina
exited her apartment building moments later and tugged the hood of
her sweat jacket over her hair, shoving her hands into the pockets.
The weather had deteriorated in the half-hour since she’d
arrived home. It was drizzling lightly now rather than misting, and
the damp air felt colder. Across the street the hospital rose several
stories into the rainy twilight, the gray concrete facade, sprinkled
with lighted windows, stark and uninviting. Which room was Nicholas
Anthony’s she wondered, and why did she care? She turned in the
opposite direction.

At
first the chilly conditions irritated her lungs, a tightening she had
come to expect since she’d had asthma as a child. Even as an
adult, exercising in cold moist air often made her wheeze. Regina
paced herself, her running shoes beating a slow easy rhythm on the
rolling sidewalks characteristic of San Francisco. The catch that had
started in her upper chest, threatening her breathing, began to ease.
Now she could allow herself to float mentally, her mind lulled by the
repetitive motion of her body.

She
came to an intersection and stopped for the light, jogging in place.

“Regina…”

She
stumbled, halting her movements. “What the devil—”
Glancing behind her, she searched out the source of the disembodied
voice.

No
one. No one anywhere near her. Her heart started to pound oddly in a
way that had nothing to do with jogging. She took several steps
forward but began to wheeze again. The wheezing wasn’t caused
by the jogging, either, because as far as she could tell, the voice—a
man’s resonant voice lowered to a papery whisper—had
originated in her head.

Now
she was being foolish, she decided as she forced herself to shake off
the foreboding that bubbled within her. She hadn’t heard
anything. Her imagination was working overtime because of her
exhaustion. Still, she couldn’t escape the feeling that
something was wrong. What if Bobby Allen had been brought back to the
hospital? What if one of her other patients needed her, and she
ignored an intuitive warning because she was afraid of being
superstitious?

And
yet…

Slowly,
almost reflexively, Regina turned around to look at the building,
several blocks back where she worked. One window out of all the
others caught her attention. For long moments she stared at the
shadowed pane.

***

Nick
pressed his open hands to the cold window, the glass made frosty by
the heat in the room. With his fist he wiped away the moisture,
creating a spot he could see through.

Light
precipitation dimmed the sixth-story view, but he strained to see,
his gaze flicking over the occasional car whose headlights shone like
beacons through the rain and the approaching dark. On the opposite
side of the street two or three blocks down, a solitary figure in
sweats had paused at an intersection. His pulse quickened.

“Regina,”
he whispered.

Nick
knew it was she as surely as he knew he wouldn’t let her go.
He’d been aware of her spirit fading from his detection as
though she’d left her living quarters and was moving away from
the hospital rather than toward it. She rarely did that, at least,
not in the few days he’d been watching her. She worked too
much; he didn’t like that. He did, however, like her near him.

Since
his arrival at the hospital he’d kept track of Regina as she
did her job. He knew when she left the building, for she faded
somewhat. But he assumed she lived nearby because he felt her
presence, though muted, even after she’d departed for home.
Nick was depressed when she was gone. His concern wasn’t that
she wouldn’t return—he’d never let that happen. He
simply refused to suffer even briefly the pain he felt in her
absence. Already he was addicted to her as if she were a narcotic and
he a junkie. She excited him, her generous, caring spirit unique in
comparison to the scores of diverse individuals in the hospital.
Always he could feel her, her aura breaking through the throng like
the clearing of a radio station as it is tuned in, eliminating all
other human static.

Nick
had reached out to Regina over the preceding days as his strength had
increased, but subtly, no more than a wisp of contact so as not to
alarm her. Perceiving her restlessness, especially when she tried to
sleep, he knew he’d not been completely successful. He was
sorry for that, but he couldn’t let sentiment dissuade him from
his goal. And frankly, her exhaustion would be to his advantage.

His
motives were selfish, he knew, for he rarely approached a woman whose
need for him did not match his for her. And he doubted Regina had
need of him—yet. But after hearing her speak of her heritage
with Dr. Williams in the ICU on Tuesday, Nick was convinced she was
the one he’d been seeking, the one who could end the purgatory
that bound him.

He
suspected he had relayed some of intensity of his need to Regina, for
she’d been troubled more than normal today, going about her
duties but distracted. Now as he watched her on the street corner,
she turned to stare up at his window. Nick sensed her agitation.
Something in her attitude indicated renewed determination, which Nick
interpreted as an unconscious attempt to reject him. Excellent. He
liked a challenge. It made winning all the more savory. The pleasure
of the chase aroused him, and his body began to throb with that
strange mixture of earthy lust caused by his humanity and the Magic
that made him a predator.

He
wanted her. He would have her.

Nick
moved closer to the window until his nose touched the glass. His eyes
rolled back in his head, and his lids fluttered shut. When he looked
again, Regina was headed back toward the hospital. His lips peeled
back in a self-satisfied grin, his hot breath fogging the window
pane.

“Ah,
Regina, my sweet Regina…my soul…”

For
several moments he basked in the erotic pleasure that was his at the
beginning of the hunt. Anticipation had its own reward. He watched
Regina’s progress until she entered the hospital, then Nick
forced himself to consider the more practical aspects of his
situation.

Earlier
in the day he had been moved to this semi-private room because he had
ceased to need the critical care given in the ICU. Thankfully, the
other bed in the room was empty, affording him necessary privacy.
However, he must leave the hospital in the next day or two, he
decided, if he were to keep the nature of his existence a secret. He
was healing rapidly, too rapidly to fool his doctors much longer.
Based upon the strong performance of his heart and the recovery of
his strength, he had astounded the medical experts working on him.
Over the days he’d become something of a celebrity.