Blood of the Demon (34 page)

I held up my hand, still coughing, trying to nod and shake my head all at the same time. I finally took an uneven breath. “No … no one else,” I managed to choke out. “Just me.” My eyes felt clogged with silt, and when I could finally breathe without agony, I focused on wiping them enough to look up at my savior.

Good ole boy
was the first thing that popped to mind. He looked like he was in his sixties, dressed in stained
jeans and a frayed white T-shirt. He had the deep leathery tan of someone who spent his days out in the sun and a wiry build with just a bit of flab around the midsection. He crouched next to me in the boat. “Y’sure no one else was in the car with you?” he asked again.

“Quite sure,” I rasped. “I was by myself.”

He relaxed visibly. “That’s good. I saw the whole damn thing, saw the car go off the bridge. I was at the bend up there,” he said, waving a hand in the general direction of upriver. “Got over here as fast as I could, but that car went under fast.” He shook his head. “Good thing the river decided to spit you out,” he said, giving me a grin.

I smiled weakly.
That’s about what it felt like
.

He looked up toward the bridge, shading his eyes with a hand. “I heard a bang, then saw that truck just plow right into you. Next thing I knew, you was toppling right on over.” He scowled, then pulled a cell phone out of a plastic bag in his tackle box. He glanced down at me. “You a cop?”

I nodded, feeling the effort of even that much movement. “Detective. Beaulac PD.”

“Hunh. Make all sorts of enemies as a cop. I was a deputy with St. Tammany for more than thirty years. Retired now. Get to fish all I want.” His eyes swept over the river, and I could see what I knew was plain old naked love. He dialed 911 and gave the dispatcher a brief rundown of the incident. He glanced down at me. “What’s your name, darlin’?”

“Kara Gillian.”

He relayed my name and told the dispatcher that he’d meet them at the landing by the bridge. A few minutes later, I felt the boat crunch up against sand, and he leaped deftly out and pulled it farther up. I stood as soon as I was marginally stable, though my legs were still insanely
wobbly. But he grabbed my hand in his thick, calloused one and practically lifted me to the bank. I gave him a smile of thanks and then staggered two steps to a spot on the bank that was reasonably rock-free and sank to sit.
Holy crap, I’m not dead
. I looked back at the bridge, wanting to laugh and shiver at the same time.
Did someone want me dead, or was that an accident?
I hugged my arms around myself, then shifted into othersight and looked at where my car had gone in the water. The truck had hit me twice. Tough to believe that was an accident.

I could see none of the incredible potency of the river that had surrounded me before. Was it because I didn’t need it anymore? No way to know, but I knew the river was just a river now.
I wonder if they’ll be able to get my car out. And what they’ll think of the damage to it
. I’d barely been able to make a blue glow in my hand back at my aunt’s house, but just a few minutes ago I’d harnessed and controlled enough potency to rip a car into pieces.

And even that might not have been enough if the old fisherman hadn’t been nearby.

I turned back to him. “Thank you,” I said. “I don’t even know your name.”

He smiled, a nice, friendly, open smile. “Raimer. Hilery Raimer.”

“I’ll remember that name.”

He nodded and looked back at the river. “Y’wanna hear somethin’ strange? You’re gonna think I’m crazy.…”

“I’m the last person to call anyone crazy,” I said with a weak grin.

He gave a small snort of laughter. “Funniest thing … ’bout five minutes before your car went into the river, I was anchored around the curve. Never woulda seen your car go in, and even if I’d heard it, I never woulda got here
in time.” He shook his head. “But I coulda sworn I heard a lady yelling at me.” He glanced at me, uncertainty flickering across his face.

“Go on,” I urged.

He shrugged, trying to play it off. “I dunno. I been out in the sun a long time. But I coulda sworn I heard some lady yell, ‘Hey, old man, get your bony ass to the bridge. My knees hurt!’” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Not the kinda thing a guardian angel usually says, huh?”

I echoed his chuckle even as a chill walked down my spine. My knees?

Or my niece?

AS SOON AS I CHECKED MYSELF OUT OF THE ER, I HAD Jill take me over to the neuro center so I could check on my aunt. The fisherman’s words seemed to echo through my head as I made a righteous scene, barging my way past the receptionist and nurses, holding my badge up and baring my teeth at anyone who even looked like they wanted to get in my way.

But when I made it up to her room, I got the shock of a lifetime.

“Where is she?” I whirled away from the sight of Tessa’s empty and made bed to confront the nurse assistant who had followed me into the room. Cold misery threatened to sweep over me as my mind quickly ran down the possible reasons why Tessa wasn’t in her bed.

“I’ve been trying to tell you!” the young woman panted. “She’s been moved to another section.” She bit her lip, hesitating.

The misery began to tighten my chest. “Where? Is she still alive?”

The nurse assistant gave me a nod that was clearly more emphatic than necessary. “She just needed to be given better care than she could receive here.”

I gave her a hard look. “Is she on a ventilator now?” I’d tried to mentally prepare myself for this possibility, especially with how much her body had been declining, but it was still a harsh blow when the young woman sighed and nodded.

“Yes. It happened only a few hours ago. We tried to call you, but there was no answer.”

“My phone got wet,” I said numbly, in drastic understatement. “I need to see her.”

“Of course,” the woman murmured. “This way.”

She led me to the third floor, a section of the hospital that
looked
like a hospital, with beeping monitors, and tubes, and a lingering absence of hope. She directed me to a room that held three other patients, each separated by a curtain.

I don’t know how long I stood there, struggling to reconcile the knowledge that this was her body against the sight of the degrading form before me. The only part of her that was recognizable as being
Tessa
was the frizzy blond mop of her hair, and even that seemed to hang lank and lifeless against her skull.

I finally took the necessary number of steps forward to put me beside the bed and made myself pick up her limp hand, shivering in reaction to the feel of emptiness.
Come on, Tessa
, I thought toward her desperately.
I know you’re out there somewhere. You need to come back. Time to come back now
.

Eventually I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and I looked up, surprised to see Jill. Then I realized that she’d
been with me the entire time, staying still and silent and giving me the time I needed.

“Come on, Kara,” she said gently. “You need to go home. It’s been a long day. She’s going to be fine.”

I looked up at her for several heartbeats, then nodded and slipped my hand from Tessa’s. I knew I should feel encouraged by Mr. Raimer’s comment, since hopefully that meant something was happening with Tessa, that maybe she was on her way back. But all I could feel was a desperate need to see some sort of improvement, a twitch of awareness. Anything but the fading body that surely wouldn’t last much longer.

I walked out of the room, feeling weighed down and empty. I started down the corridor toward the elevator, then abruptly spun back and headed for the nurses’ station.

“My aunt is
not
a DNR,” I said to the nurse beyond the counter, nearly snarling. “Do you understand me? She does
not
have a Do Not Resuscitate order on her chart. If anything happens to her, you people will fucking do everything in your fucking power to keep her alive. You got that?” I could feel Jill’s hand on my arm, but she wasn’t pulling me away—most likely just making sure that I wasn’t going to do anything more confrontational than snarl.

The nurse didn’t seem particularly cowed by my vehemence. I could see in her eyes that she thought I was in denial and was being unrealistic, but fortunately—for her—she didn’t give voice to any of that. “Yes, ma’am” was all she said.

I resisted the urge to repeat what I’d said, to tell her again that she needed to keep my aunt’s body alive. It wouldn’t make any difference, I realized. If my aunt’s body
coded, they would most likely go through the motions but wouldn’t make any extraordinary efforts—a well-meaning but misguided attempt to spare me and my aunt a torturous wait for an inevitable end.

I looked at Jill. “I want to go home.”

She nodded and led me away.

A POUNDING ON MY FRONT DOOR JERKED ME OUT OF the soundest sleep of my entire life. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I moaned as I yanked the pillow over my head. I needed sleep. I
deserved
sleep.

The pounding came again about three seconds later, and I lifted a corner of my pillow, a bleary glance at my clock showing me that it was nine in the morning.
Okay, so I’ve slept for twelve hours, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve even more sleep
. Especially after the heinous day I’d endured.

I sighed as the pounding came yet again. I knew who it was even without going to the door. There was only one person who would bother to drive out here just to yell at me. And I had no doubts that he would yell.

I grumbled an obscenity under my breath and hauled myself out of bed, groaning as every bruise, scrape, and pulled muscle announced its presence. I plodded to the front door and pulled it open without bothering to look through the peephole.

“Your car went off a fucking bridge and you didn’t even fucking call me?”

I squinted at Ryan in the morning sun. A deep scowl etched his angular features, and a small vein stood out on his left temple. He didn’t look as if he was about to lose his cool. He was
way
beyond that. “My phone got wet,” I said. I’d thought about calling him. Briefly. But I hadn’t wanted to expend the emotional energy that calling him might take, especially since our last conversation hadn’t exactly ended on a pleasant note.

He made a strangled noise. “Your phone …” His hand tightened on his own phone, and for a brief crazy instant I thought he was going to squeeze it into a crumpled pile of metal and plastic. Then he glared at me again. “You couldn’t find another phone to call me from? After your car went off a
fucking bridge?”

Leaving him in the doorway, I groaned and started walking to the kitchen. “What are you, my father? I was a little occupied and a lot exhausted. The only real rest I had yesterday was the ambulance ride to the hospital.”

He shut the door and followed me. “Were you hurt? How badly? Why did you need an ambulance?”

The level of stress in his voice surprised me and—I had to admit—sort of secretly pleased me. It was cool to know that anyone would worry about me like that—especially him, and especially after the other night.

I glanced back at him as I pulled the carafe out of the coffeemaker. “No, I wasn’t hurt, except for a lot of bruising and a cracked rib.” I dumped the remains of yesterday’s coffee into the sink and began to wash the carafe out. “I submitted to the ambulance only because I knew I’d be able to lie down—which I would
not
have been able to do in the back of a state police vehicle.” Since the accident
had happened on a state highway, the state police had taken over the investigation. Unfortunately, that detail hadn’t kept everyone with the barest trace of authority in Beaulac PD from descending on the ER to question me
ad nauseam
about what had happened.