Love Is in the Air (29 page)

“Histamine.”

Where the HeartsBlood touched the edge between pale flesh and black burn, the skin flashed a bright pink. The tissue along the wound swelled.

Healing started with inflammation. And pain.

Tyr’s hand reached down, weakly trying to dig into the itch. The sensation must have felt like a thousand bee stings, but she couldn’t stop.

Once the edge was a robust magenta, Sal used another drop.

“Cytokines,” she whispered. Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the tissue receded to a healthy pink. Sal was witness to a day’s or week’s worth of healing playing out in front of her. The cleanup hormones of the body were preparing the leg for revascularization.

“Fibrocytes,” she called. Tiny veins sprang from the tissue and pushed into the charcoal substance that had once been flesh. The charred surface throbbed.

Sal spread out another drop, “Collagen.”

Tyr moaned as his body replaced destroyed flesh with scar tissue.

The black defect in his leg contracted, but didn’t disappear. The damage had gone deep. Fixing the surface wouldn’t heal down to the bone.

She gripped Tyr’s hand. “I’m going to have to inject the HeartsBlood.”

Sal wasn’t even sure if he could understand. He didn’t even squeeze her hand back, but he did flinch as the needle went straight into the center of the burn. Pushing several drops into the tissue surrounding the bone, Sal pulled out the needle. She repeated the maneuver another dozen times. With each stab, Tyr reacted less and less, until his hand fell flaccid from hers.

The HeartsBlood used, Sal abandoned the syringe and felt for his carotid.

She almost thought he didn’t have a pulse, but it was there. Weak and slow.

His color had faded to the color of the gray concrete beneath them. Briefly, she considered pulling more blood from his heart, but the puncture wound on his chest still dribbled.

Her worst fear had come true. Tyr had gone into DIC. The medical term meant disseminated intervascular coaguopathy, but around the hospital its nickname was ‘Death is Close.’ Once the blood stopped clotting, you could bleed anywhere. Heart, lungs, brain.

Sal knew she had utilized the HeartsBlood to its best advantage, but now she needed good old medicine. Steroids.

She was loath to leave his side, but she had to get help. Lionel should have gotten back to the City by now. The cavalry should be on its way.

Looking over her shoulder, she surveyed the long, empty corridor. Pipes ran along the ceiling, leaking from decades worth of old rust. The moisture fed the moss that grew on the brick sections of the wall. Bare concrete, green brick, bare concrete. The passageway looked like a chessboard that stretched on forever.

From her previous tours, Sal knew that this passageway dead-ended not far from here. The 1989 Santa Cruz earthquake had collapsed the tunnel.

That left going back into the firestorm. She looked up to the metal door, now a burnished red, the steel nearly melting.

Her Praxis was too weak to face such fury.

Checking Tyr’s wound again, she found good news and horrible news.

The black had been replaced by pink, but the new tissue was mottled and oozing. It appeared that the HeartsBlood had healed the burn of intent, but left behind a real third-degree burn. An enormous third-degree burn.

If it didn’t get treated, infection would creep into the wound and into Tyr’s blood vessels. If he somehow survived the DIC, he’d be septic within the hour. Not even San Francisco General could help him, then.

Maybe she could dig her way through the collapsed tunnel?

BANG!

The metal door warped. She’d heard the sound before. Back at the museum. The beast sought to break in. And what the beast sought to break, he usually shattered.

Another
BOOM
and the door flew open with a blast of furnace air.

CHAPTER 101

Sal threw herself over Tyr’s form as flames shot into the damp hallway, their fury only slightly subdued by the moisture. Then the conflagration pulled back up the stairs, sparing them.

Had she somehow done it? Then her heart fell.

In the doorway, the beast strode. She had thought, or at least hoped, he’d been injured by the fire, but there he stood, the flames crackling around his dreadlocked mane. He seemed immune to the fire.

Which shouldn’t have surprised her. What else was he but hatred given form?

The beast’s tail swished in victory. Sal couldn’t fight him, let alone battle the fire at the same time. They were going to die.

Wait. She might die, but could she save Tyr? Could she somehow protect him until the authorities arrived?

A roar filled the narrow tunnel. A roar of confidence. A roar of arrogance. But Sal didn’t flinch. Let him roar.

She brought Tyr’s blade to her wrist. In a single, smooth motion, Sal nicked her wrist. As she thought of nothing but the man who lay on the floor and her love for him, blood dribbled from the wound onto the blade. It ignited white.

The beast just guffed. He’d seen that trick before. As Tyr had explained, her fear-blood couldn’t hurt him anymore. But her love blood? Sal wanted to see how he handled that.

Flicking her wrist, she sprayed blood over her. “Protect.”

Not waiting to test the command, Sal charged at the beast. Fire parted before her as the beast nimbly backed away from her slashing knife.

Undeterred, Sal kept up the attack. Sal had no hope of hitting him, but she drove the beast back far enough to close the door behind her.

Sal gulped. Tyr was safe, but now she stood alone, in the center of a firestorm fueled by hatred of the most sordid kind, to face a beast that outweighed her by four hundred pounds. And that didn’t even include his claws and Praxis.

Soon, very soon, either the fire or the beast would test her mettle. And Sal knew they would find it wanting.

With a snarl that sent flames alight, the beast seemed to want the first bite.

CHAPTER 102

Sal desperately slashed, slicing his foot. The beast howled, intensifying the heat around them like a flash point. She could feel the flames pressing up against her protection shield. Tasting the blood. Seeing if it was pure.

The screams took on a maniacal edge. Those tortured so long ago sought revenge. The fire, fed by their hatred, was fixed upon her. They wished her to suffer as they had.

Around them, the prison seemed to be made of wax, the thick cement walls melting as the figures had in the cells. Metal bars dripped red-hot steel, bending as if made of nothing more than plastic.

It might not be the fire or the beast that was her undoing, but Alcatraz falling down upon her head.

The beast’s tail was at it again, only this time not displaying confidence but agitation. She’d hurt him again. He didn’t like that. Then why would he not leave? The fire welcomed him. He could turn and easily flee. His token braid was nearly as empty as Tyr’s bandolier. The one item she could make out was the small chunk of bloodstained statue.

“You think yourself my equal, witch?” the beast slurred.

Sal raised Tyr’s knife, trying to look as threatening as she could while still holding love in her heart. “Just leave. Go back to your time.”

The beast’s lips pulled back into something akin to a cruel smile. “Not until I bleed Tyr to his last drop.”

“Why? He’s no threat to you.”

The beast took a step closer. “Did he not tell you?”

His human eyes bored into her. Sal tried searching them for some clue, but she could find only hatred.

“Tyr is my brother.”

CHAPTER 103

“Brother?” She whispered as she fell back a step. How could that be?

“A dead blood can have no sibling.”

The beast’s lips stretched into a feral grin, exposing his four-inch-long fangs. “None after. But I am his elder.”

Why hadn’t Tyr told her? As her mind faltered, the fire licked at her feet. Sensing her conflict, it sought a way past her Praxis. She firmed her resolve. “It doesn’t matter,” Sal said, hoping that the words made it true.

He strode forward a step. “I wish him to live long enough to know that I violated his woman.”

Her instinct was to push him back away, to gain ground between them.

Then something in his braid caught her eye. Something pink. Something Hello Kitty.

Maria
. Her stomach knotted to know that the beast had taken her best friend’s blood, and then ripped the choker from her neck. Revulsion weakened her shield, and the flames lapped at her toes. Gaining confidence.

Then love of her best friend welled from somewhere deep in her heart. As tears threatened, Sal feared that the fire would get the upper hand. Instead, the inferno rolled back. It was only an inch, but it rolled back.

As the beast snarled, she knew what she needed to do. She didn’t want him to back away, but come closer. Really close.

“I thought you said you were going to take me?” Sal baited.

The beast’s head cocked, not certain of her change in tone.

She raised the knife. “What’s wrong? Afraid? Your brother would have had me on my back by now.”

He launched at her even faster than she had imagined possible, but her blade was at the ready. In his leap, the beast deftly defended his body against the knife, when she really aimed for his mane.

Throwing herself to the side, Sal cut the dreadlock off, then clutched it to her chest as she fell to the floor.

The beast roared in triumph as he turned on her, only at the last second realizing what she held in her hand. Just as he leapt, Sal raised the Hello Kitty choker and Maria’s vial of blood.

“Let’s try this again,” she said as she smashed the vial against the concrete floor.

CHAPTER 104

Thinking of the look on Maria’s face when she opened the sparkling Hello Kitty choker, Sal felt a gust of wind swirl around her. She might love Tyr, but Maria? Maria she cherished beyond words. If hate fueled the flames around her, could love quench them?

A white flame shot up from the shattered vial, singeing the beast as he charged. He threw himself back as his scream merged with the crackling laughter of tortured souls. The stark light burnt up his leg and singed away half of his mane. Under the charred hair, Sal could make out a small and very human ear.

The light spread outward, cooling the room a good twenty degrees. While the glittering flame had burnt the beast, it served to only embrace Sal.

All was not well, though. The tortured wails shrieked as the white light engulfed the red flames. Worse, the struggle between the burning hatred and fierce love threatened the stability of the prison.

The building rocked underfoot as the third floor collapsed onto the second, and the second story swayed as if floating on water.

Sal turned to rush back to the tunnel as dripping-hot chunks of concrete fell from above, all around. The white light of Maria’s love might be extinguishing the hate, but the loathing still fought to claim her.

Protecting her head, Sal backed away from the tumbling concrete, which now steamed under the white light’s cooling effect. Her plan had exceeded her hopes. Maria’s love bathed her and quenched the fire. Things should be so much better, only as she ducked and dodged the collapsing building’s debris, being forced farther and farther from the tunnel and Tyr, they were more dire than ever.

How could she have come so far, only to fail now? As the disintegrating building crashed down around her, blocking any exit, Sal knew that she was done. She could only pray that the tunnel held and that she had saved Tyr.

CHAPTER 105

Darting under a pile of rubble that seemed more stable than the buckling walls, Sal closed her eyes. The tormented screams had joined with the screeching of metal and the shattering of concrete. Alone, she waited for the world to cave in on her.

Then she heard a tinkling of laughter. More dementia. Only it didn’t sound tortured or crazy. It sounded happy. Delighted, even. Were the damned souls finding another way to be cruel? To laugh as she died?

But she recognized that laugh. It was too delightful and too infectious to be mean. Sal peeked out from her unstable shelter to find the torn choker at the center of the white light.

Maria’s choker.

Maria’s laughter.

Tears sprang to Sal’s eyes. She wasn’t alone, after all. Maria was here to comfort her.

Another huge portion of the roof collapsed, shaking the rubble around her. It wouldn’t be long. She looked back at the choker and embraced the laughter that surrounded her. Best friends would be rejoined.

Then she noticed that the white light didn’t spread out in a pool, but rather followed the angle of the choker. Across the stacked debris, Sal noted a large defect in the wall. Beyond the white light shone the stars.

An escape route.

“Thank you, Maria,” she whispered as she dashed between falling boulders of cement. Sal snatched up the choker as she fled the prison.

Stumbling onto the rocky terrain outside the prison, Sal felt the white light explode behind her. Maria had held back, waiting until she was to safety before releasing the full power of their bond.

The prison looked like a house of cards blown by a stiff wind. The red flames fled upward, trying to escape into the sky, but couldn’t outrun the searing white. The light entangled the red. It seemed as if the white strangled the red out, and then Sal realized that Maria’s spirit wasn’t out to destroy the hatred, but to embrace those lost souls.

Tears spilled over. Typical Maria, bringing them to her bosom. Her laughter joined her best friend’s as the red finally gave out, giving itself over to love.

In a single moment, the prison that had held such pain collapsed completely, leaving only an enormous pile of rubble, the hatred burned out forever.

Sniffling as the laughter faded as well, Sal felt wonder leach away as reality set in. If she and Maria could do that with just a little blood, what could the beast do with Lionel’s gel?

Tyr’s words eclipsed the joy she felt at feeling her best friend’s loving spirit again. “He could split the world.” Looking at a national landmark leveled in a matter of minutes, Sal knew that Tyr hadn’t been exaggerating.