Land of the Beautiful Dead (74 page)

“I didn’t realize how much blood there would be. I guess I ruined your bedspread.”

The claws of one hand punched through the skin of his trapped wrist; black fluid welled up, too thick to fall. He did not speak or look at her.

“I know what I did to you, okay? You think I don’t, but I do. I know I hurt you, but don’t you get it? It could only have worked if it hurt you! Do you think I wanted to kill myself? Do you think I did it because I was mad at you or ashamed of being with you? Hell, I’ve never been happier in my whole life, but I had to do it! I
had
to! Because you left me nothing else to try!”

He breathed, broad shoulders steadily rising and falling. Otherwise, nothing.

“Say something,” Lan said and even though she said it with anger pounding behind her eyes and eating up her guts, it shook in her throat and came out small.

He glanced at her, then took off his mask and, with no other warning, whipped about and threw it into the far wall with force enough that the horns imbedded several inches. It bobbed there, humming softly with the vibrations of impact while Azrael stood staring down at her, his entire body heaving as he breathed. “You,” he said, so quietly, “have always had the very
worst
notion of what makes up an apology.”

She dropped her eyes, looking down instead at the mountain ranges and rolling valleys of her body beneath the sheet. “I said I was sorry. How do you say that enough after something like this?”

He cursed in some other language, an ugly snarl of sound that seemed to tear the air as it passed through it, and paced across the room, past her bed, to the door.

“Don’t leave me.” Suddenly, she was crying, one hand holding her bandaged throat because it hurt so much. “Please don’t go. Don’t be angry at me anymore. I’m so sorry.”

He struck his fist against the door, then leaned against it for a long time with his head bent and his breath heaving in and out of him, loud as like a smithy bellows. She wanted him to come back. She wanted him to hold her and tell her…
anything
. He wouldn’t even look at her.

She cried, coughing up tears through razors, scarcely able to breathe, but still forcing out the words. She was sorry, so sorry. Don’t be mad, don’t hate her, don’t go. She was sorry. She hadn’t wanted to do it and she’d never do it again. She was so sorry. Please, Azrael. She loved—

He tore the door open, banging it off the wall, and slammed it shut behind him, final as a gunshot.

Lan struggled after him, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. She slipped bonelessly from the bed to the floor, tried to crawl and then just collapsed onto her side and curled up small, weeping into her empty arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

S
he stayed on under the doctors’ care another eleven days, long enough for them to quietly get on top of the infection that did indeed turn up. Her throat swelled, but wasn’t too bad. It was the gash on her arm that got really ugly, splitting open around her stitches and making her whole arm throb. The layer of bandages that concealed its suppuration were heavy and sweaty; the medicines they gave her made her nauseous and sleepy, often at the same time, to the effect that she occasionally woke up in a cooling pool of her own sick. That wasn’t as bad as it could have been, since her food during those eleven days was either broth or fruit juice, with a just a spot of thin porridge now and then to test her stomach’s stability.

Boredom was worse than the weakness. She had nothing but a window to look at, when she wasn’t staring morosely at the damage Azrael’s mask had done to the wall. She had no visitors, only the doctors, who rarely spoke to her, although they were friendly enough with each other in their own acid sort of way. Now and then, she could even hear the living doctor talking to Deimos, who she seemed to delight in needling, but Lan was nothing to her but a few numbers on a machine. She did hear Azrael’s voice outside her door sometimes, but he never came in to see her again, at least not when she was awake. The doctors made no secret of their suspicion that they were only mending her to be fit enough to plant in his meditation garden, but Lan didn’t think so. And if she was wrong…she wasn’t even sure she cared. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, not like it used to. Her world was a window, a damaged wall, a blinking number on a machine, and the echo of a slamming door.

“I’ll be sorry to see you go, actually,” the living doctor—even Lan had started thinking of her as Dr. Warmblood by then—said as she clipped out the last of her stitches. “It’s been a while since I was able to do any real medicine. Doctoring in New Aylesbury mostly ends in breaking backs. If I had even half the equipment there that I have just in this room!”

“I’m sure if you ask, Azrael will let you take some stuff back with you.”

The doctor startled, then laughed. “Back? You must be joking! Why, my room here is bigger than the mayor’s whole house! Clean clothes, fresh food, electric lights…flush toilets! Did you ever see such a thing? Why would I leave all that?”

“To save lives?”

“Saved yours, didn’t I? And as it’s been my experience that doing oneself in isn’t the sort of thing one does just once, I’ll probably have to save it again.” She eyed Lan’s face and smirked. “I see you don’t agree, but Dr. Deadhead tells me his lordship’s dollies off themselves quite regular-like. You’ll probably go on denying it right up until you stick another knife in your neck, and by the by—” She gave the bandages a final brisk pinch and then tapped the other side of Lan’s neck. “This is the vein, love. Nick that and you’ll be done before you can say Devil’s dolly. All right?”

“Are you…Are you telling me how to kill myself?”

The doctor shrugged. “Just telling you how not to arse it up. That’s what separates us living folk from the Eaters, you know. We can learn. Well…some of us can. Right! Off you go!”

“You’re letting me go?” Lan reached up to touch her neck. Her newborn scar felt raw and waxy and scabby and hot. Her fingers felt like hooks dragging across an open wound. “Already?”

“Soonest begun, soonest done, love. I can send you off with something for the pain, if you like.” The doctor glanced over her shoulder at the open door, then lowered to voice to a scarcely-audible breath. “And I can give you something for later…to make it quick. You can hide it in your cheek until you need it. It isn’t painless or pretty, but it’s quick.”

“No.”

The doctor shrugged. “Suit yourself. Nurse!”

Deimos stepped into the doorway. “Doctor.”

“Escort my patient here wherever it is she calls home and keep a close watch, in case she comes over flowery.”

Deimos put his hand on his sword and held out the other, never taking his steely eyes off the doctor. Lan got out of the bed that had been her prison and walked on stiff legs to join him. She was annoyed to find that being upright after so many days lying-in did indeed have a wilting effect on her, so that she was obliged to actually accept the arm the Revenant offered. The feel of his cold flesh through his immaculate uniform raised the fine hairs all over her body; she tried not to let it show.

As he led her out of her sickroom into an unfamiliar hall, the damned doctor called out, “It’s a pity I won’t see you again either, nurse. Good help is so hard to find and once you’ve trained up some, why, you could almost be adequate!”

The dead don’t have to breathe except to force air through their vocal chords and Deimos did not speak, so there was no reason for him to take that deep breath and let it slowly out again. Lan watched him from the corner of her eye while pretending to keep her full attention on her feet. Her senses, sharpened by days of convalescing boredom, effortlessly brought her the creaking of his leather glove as he adjusted his grip on his sword and the minute flexing of the muscles under her hand, but that was all he did. He did not stop. He did not turn back. He did not knock the head off the doctor’s shoulders with one practiced sweep of that deadly weapon. Whatever emotions he might be feeling, he held them in reserve for the next time Azrael sent him out to slaughter a village.

“Where is he?” Lan asked, now thinking of Azrael.

Deimos did not require clarification. To him, there was only one ‘he’. “Our lord has matters to attend to elsewhere.”

“Matters like sharpening a pike?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What’s he going to do to me?” Lan asked bluntly.

One of the Revenant’s eyebrows arched, although he did not look at her. “Nothing, as far as I know.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“How many other meanings are there?”

“You can’t possibly be saying he forgives me.”

“Oh no.” Deimos actually laughed a little, in a cold, dead way. “No, I’m certainly not saying that. This way.”

She followed Deimos blindly through the maze of halls and out into fresh air and chill sunlight, neither very welcome. He had a car waiting, the only car in all the empty lot, but still he’d parked it in the outlines painted to that purpose, even though it meant a longer walk. There was plenty of room right up by the doors, but there was a sign there saying the space had been reserved for emergency vehicles and Deimos was dead. In absence of direct orders, he could only obey the laws of Haven, where Azrael was lord.

Lan sat quiet while he got the car going and carefully navigated his way out of the lot, just as if there were hundreds of other cars and careless pedestrians to factor in. He even looked both ways before pulling out onto the street. She studied what she could see of his handsome face in the rearview mirror as he drove and finally said, “Do you know why I did what I did?”

“Do I understand your motives, you mean?” His cool eyes tapped at her once and went back to watching the traffic. “Yes.”

“If it was you who had to forgive me…could you?”

The faintest crease appeared between his brows. “I can’t answer that.”

Lan nodded and looked away.

“But only because I don’t care,” he explained.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

“I don’t think I meant that the way it sounded.” He heaved another of those curt, unnecessary sighs, his hands flexing on the steering wheel. “I can’t care. About anything, apart from our lord’s will. I can forgive nothing if I can’t take offense.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t imagine that’s much comfort to you. Our lord cares very deeply about things.” Deimos rolled his eyes just a little before adding, “About you.”

The words went through her head and heart a hundred times before she could bring herself to say, “I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

“Oh, it is.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because he’s angry.” He glanced at her with another of those almost-frowns. “That’s probably not very comforting either. I apologize. I’m not very good at comfort.”

He drove in silence through the city while Lan leaned up against the window and watched the buildings roll by. Her eyes had a way of lighting on and identifying architectural details, which put her in mind of Master Wickham. She wondered if he’d been feeding her fish all this time, even though she knew she didn’t have to wonder; he’d said he would and he had. All the same, the thought grew stronger and when at last the car turned onto the familiar road that led to the palace, she said, “What happens to me when we get home?”

“Nothing, as far as I know,” Deimos said again. “You’ll not be kept under my watch, although I doubt he’ll hesitate to give the order, should you make it necessary.”

Her heart sank. She shored it up with thoughts of koi, sparkling like jewels in the water of her garden. “Would it be all right if I go to the library then?”

“No. I’m to take you to our lord’s chambers to be prepared.”

The first image that came to mind on hearing those words was that of the Mayor’s kitchen, a pot over the fire and a hen hanging from a hook.

“For what?” asked Lan.

Deimos gestured vaguely toward the cresting sun. “For dinner.”

“Dinner?” Lan stared at the back of his indifferent head. “Tonight?”

“I had taken to understand you living ate every night.” He glanced at her in the mirror again. “If it’s Lareow you want to see, he asked me to tell you…he found your note.”

She had nothing to say to that but, “Oh.”

“He did not disclose its content to me, but he seemed upset.”

“Oh,” said Lan again. It was still all she could think to say.

“His duties kept him at the palace while you were away. Otherwise, he assured me he would have called on you and that he’ll discuss the matter further when you resume lessons with him tomorrow.”

“Resume…?” She shook her head, not refusing to go as much as trying to throw off her shock as a dog throws off water. “And that’s it? Like nothing ever happened?”

“I should think you would be grateful for that.” Deimos considered that and smiled a Revenant’s steel-edged smile. “Our lord is so very angry.”

The rest of the drive passed without conversation and soon enough, she was back in the palace, approaching the door to Azrael’s bedchamber. There, Deimos passed her into the care of Serafina, who did not appear to be overwhelmed with sentiment at her return.

Lan was made to stand while her handmaiden stripped away her bandages and then circled her several times, inspecting the damage. At length, Serafina punched her hands onto her hips in a resolute manner and declared, “Well, you weren’t what anyone would call a great beauty beforehand, so you haven’t ruined much. At best, you’ve put another stain on a fusty drape, but it’s still my job to iron it. Get in the bath. I have—”

“The doctor said not to get my wounds wet.”

“Or what, they’ll scar?” Serafina asked, putting a poisonous twist on the last word that would have done Batuuli proud.

“They might get infected.”

“I’ll risk it. You stink. And if you’d let me finish, you might have heard me say I have something for you.” Head high, Serafina stalked over to the row of bottles Azrael kept at the side of the bath. One of them had been set a little apart from the others and it was this one Serafina picked up and brought back to her. She opened the jar, dipped her fingers in the colorless, pungent ointment it contained, and daubed it none too carefully on Lan’s neck. It was cold and had a prickly sort of sensation that was not quite an itch.

“What is it?” Lan asked, now holding out her arm so Serafina could smear the stuff over her ‘practice’ cut. It had not been a straight line to begin with and the subsequent infection had pulled it even further out of shape. The raised dots where the stitches had been made it look a bit like an old railway track.

“How should I know? Lord Azrael said you were to have it, to keep the wet out. Although why he should show you such consideration after what you have done, I’m sure I don’t know. Now get in the bath.”

Lan obeyed, sitting on the third descending stair with her arm propped up along the lip of the bath so that she was as fully enveloped as she could be without submerging her wounds. She could see water beading up over the ointment where errant splashes found her arm, so the stuff did seem to be working, but she doubted it would hold up very long if she went all the way under. And she was tempted to. The doctors had wiped her down fairly often during her long lie-in, but that was no substitute for a good soaking. Once, she would have been appalled to see herself wasting so much clean water, but the thought had no substance now. It blew through her like a ghost, briefly disturbing and then forgotten. She leaned into the uncomfortably right-angled wall and closed her eyes, letting the heat relax her body and the familiar sound of her handmaiden muttering just loudly enough to be heard over the fountain soothe her mind.

She was home.

Gradually, it dawned on her that the last time she’d been in this bath, Azrael had been with her. He’d sat just where she sat now and she’d been curled around him and the knife had been under the mattress, just waiting for him to leave. She got up, wading deeper into the water, but the thought followed her. She found herself looking out over the tiles, searching for bloodstains. She found none, but she had bled here. A lot. Some of that blood might have plausibly trickled over the stone floor and dripped into the bath. She might be bathing in her own blood even now.