Books by Maggie Shayne (311 page)

But it hadn’t happened. So Puabi had to take matters into her own hands. If you wanted a task done properly, she had mused, you must see to it yourself. And why should she allow some other Dark Witch to claim a heart with nearly four thousand years of power pounding within its chambers? Why not make it her own?

After hunting Nidaba for months, Puabi had finally found her in the city. And she’d thought that her lust for vengeance would finally be sated. She’d altered her appearance and followed Nidaba to the rooftop gardens of a hotel, and there, Puabi had attacked. Nidaba was strong—more skilled in battle than Puabi had expected. The bitch nearly defeated her! But the Dark Witch had been prepared for that eventuality. She pulled the gun she had brought along, just in case. She could easily carve out Nidaba’s heart before the woman had time to revive from a gunshot wound.

Nidaba saw the weapon, and in the split second before the shot rang out—she jumped.

Jumped.

There had been a crowd. Police. Paramedics. And Puabi thought her chance at ice cold revenge was gone— that Nidaba had outsmarted her yet again It wasn’t until she had seen the article in the newspaper that she’d realized her chance was not lost after all. Her oldest enemy was imprisoned, drugged, helpless ... all but gift-wrapped. Just waiting for Puabi to come and claim her heart, as she should have done a long, long time ago.

Puabi had arrived here only minutes before Nathan had. She hadn’t expected to see him here. She’d planned to slip in, murder the bitch, and leave with her bloody prize beating endlessly in her hands. But Nathan’s unexpected appearance had ruined her plans, and she’d had to act quickly.

Just as she would act quickly now—to take the beating heart from her enemy, and claim the wealth of power from the mindless shell where it awaited her blade. It would be easy, like taking a fledgling.

She slipped her hand beneath the draped fabric of the blouse she wore, closed her fingers around the hilt of the dagger at her side, and turned toward the door of Nidaba’s padded cell.

“Excuse me?” a voice said.

Puabi let go of the blade, and looked up quickly— only to see the
real
Dr. June Sterling staring at her, her identification badge pinned neatly to her lab coat. “What are you doing here? This is a restricted area.”

Too late now to cast a glamour and alter her appearance to the good doctor’s myopic mortal eyes. The woman had already seen her. “I... seem to have got lost,” she said, concocting a smile she hoped looked sincere.

Dr. Sterling peered through the glass at her patient, worry in her eyes, before looking back at her again.

“The doors to this wing are kept locked.”

“I guess someone forgot that rule.”

“No one forgot,” Dr. Sterling said, her eyes narrowing. She lifted a hand toward her side. There was a small electronic box there, clipped to a pocket of the white lab coat. She knew Dr. Sterling would summon help by pressing the button on that box. She knew in an instant, and acted just as quickly. Her blade hissed from its sheath and slid cleanly between the psychiatrist’s ribs. Blood bubbled when she drew the razor-edged steel out again, and Dr. Sterling, her mouth working soundlessly, slumped to the floor. Her eyes were wide, wet, but fading.

She started to smile ... but then she saw the stubborn woman’s fingers twitch on that little box in one final effort.
Damn her!

Some sort of alarm went off, and the formerly silent hallways seemed to come alive with slamming doors, pounding feet. No time now to do what she had come to do.

Puabi, once the most revered queen of all Sumer, leapt over the fallen doctor, and ran. Nidaba’s heart—the trophy she had come here to collect—would have to wait for another time.

The woman sitting on the other side of the mesh lined, locked door, frowned at what was happening inside her mind.

For a moment there had been a ripple in the sky, and the young priestess-in-training looked up, tilting her head to one side.

“What is it?” Natum asked.

Nidaba frowned. “A voice,” she said softly. “Did you hear it?”

“No. Was it a man’s voice or a woman’s?”

She shrugged. “A man’s, I think.”

“And what did he say?” Natum asked.

“That he was coming to take me out of this place.” Nidaba frowned and tipped her head to one side. “But I don’t want to go.”

“Don’t you?”

“No. There is only pain out there. And loss.”

Natum tilted his head to one side at that. He was such a beautiful boy. His almond-shaped eyes were fringed with thick lashes. He had such a strong jawline, for a boy, and the nose of a king. Thirteen now, and she’d known him for a year and a day. “How do you know of this pain?” He asked her.

“I’ve lived it. We both have, Natum. Don’t you remember? It is our future.”

“How can 1 remember what hasn’t happened yet?”

That question caused more ripples in the fabric of the world around her. She stared harder down into the waters of the Euphrates from where she and Natum sat on its grassy bank, their robes pulled up to their knees and their feet dangling in the muddy water. She searched the blue sky and examined blazing red sun. Then she focused on the palm trees, their fronds swaying slowly in the gentle, searing breeze. Part of the sky seemed to fold away, and beyond it Nidaba saw a door, with a glass window that had wire crisscrossing it and a wall lined with some kind of cushioning.

Don’t look there. Don’t!

“This isn’t right,” Nidaba said, averting her eyes from that tear in the world. “We never had this conversation.”

“No, we didn’t.”

She concentrated, and the rippling stopped. The world around her solidified once again. The tear was gone, the sky sealed itself in place again. “That’s better,” she said. “I know what this is. It’s our first rite together. You’ve been studying for a year and a day, so to celebrate. Natum, we shall conjure a boon from the Gods.”

“I was afraid you’d forgotten.”

Nidaba lowered her head. “I would never forget. I... I even made a gift for you.”

Natum smiled broadly, his white teeth gleaming in his copper-skinned face. “You did?”

Nodding, Nidaba shyly opened her pouch and extracted a tiny piece of a clay tablet, already baked hard by the sun. She handed it to him.

Natum held it in his palm, and drew it closer. He looked down at it and read aloud the symbols she had inscribed. “ ‘Nidaba. Eannatum. Forever Friends.’ ” He pressed his lips together and closed his hand around the small piece of clay. “Thank you, Nidaba. I will treasure this always.”

She tipped her chin up. “Even when you are a great king and your people shower you with gifts of gold and lapis?”

“This bit of clay is more precious than any of that could ever be.” He opened his palm and looked at it again. “And no mistakes!”

“I had a good teacher.”

“As did I... I hope.” He looked a bit nervously toward the area Nidaba had set up. Candles stood in a circle, and a libation of honeyed wine lay at the ready, beside a dish of salt.

“We’ll soon find out. Have you decided what your request shall be?”

He licked his lips. “Does the priestess Lia know we are doing this, Nidaba?”

Nidaba shook her head. “The priests and priestesses of the temple are planning a stuffy initiation rite for you, to be held in the temple
cella,
as befits a future king of Lagash,” she told him. “It will be very boring, and I assure you nothing of note will happen.” She smiled. “I’ve learned many secrets, the greatest one being that magick works best when practiced outside, beneath the sky, bare feet in the grass. But if I told them I thought so, I would be condemned for heresy.”

“So might I, if we’re caught,” he said.

“Are you afraid?”

Holding her gaze with his, he shook his head slowly.

“Come, then.” She took his hand, and again the tingling bolt rushed into her, and into him. This they had taken note of, discussed, but neither could explain it. Nor could they explain what happened next.

“My petition to the Gods should be one made for the good of all the people of Lagash, rather than for my personal good.”

“Kingly already, are you?” she teased.

“I am trying to be.”

What a wonderful leader he is going to become, Nidaba thought, but she did not say it aloud. She wouldn’t wish to fill his head with too much arrogance or pride.

“The fishermen have been complaining of dwindling catches,” Natum said. “So I will petition Enki to send an abundance of fish into the waters of the Euphrates.”

Nidaba lifted her brows. “It is a good request,” she told him.

They walked together to the circle, and while Natum sat down in the center, preparing himself for the rite, Nidaba walked ‘round, lighting the candles one by one. Then she moved to the center and sat down, facing Natum. He lifted his palms, and she hers, and the two pressed their hands together. And together they began to chant the incantation.

“Enki me en. Uta am i i ki Enki
... I am of Enki. I conjure thee, Enki.”

And the sky darkened, and thunder rumbled in the distance. The waters of the Euphrates began to lap against the shoreline.

“
Ana-am ersetam nara-am
! By Heaven, by Earth, by the river!”

The winds increased, and Nidaba felt a rush of power coursing through her body. She knew Natum felt it too when his fingers laced with hers, clenching tight.

“
Amesh ikiba ul ishu-u
! Water without taboo!”

Lightning flashed, striking so close by that she felt the jolt sizzle up into her body from the ground, and her eyes flew open. They met Natum’s, and she nodded once. Together they stood, facing the now roiling black waters. They lifted their joined hands, extended their forefingers side by side to point to the waters, and shouted, “Fill the Euphrates with Fish. Enki!
Akalu!”

Lightning flashed again, this time striking the water itself and causing a huge spout to arise in its midst. The force made the hairs on Nidaba’s nape stand erect, and her skin tingled. Then, slowly, the odd wind died, and the sky cleared. And when it did, she stared, wide-eyed, as fish leapt and jumped amid the now calm waters in numbers she had never seen before.

Nidaba turned to Natum and said, “You must tell no one of our rite, Natum.”

“But why?” He was breathless, his brows arched in wonder as he watched the fish bounding and diving about, where before the waters had appeared barren. “We—look what we did, Nidaba!
We
caused this. We
must
tell!”

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “What do you suppose the High Priest of the temple would say of a child who could command such powers as we have just done? More powers than anyone in the temple? More powers than the High Priest himself can command?”

“The High Priest is my father’s most trusted adviser!”

Nidaba swallowed hard and looked at him intently. “I know more of the man than you, Natum. Please, if you are my friend, you will not speak of this.”

He stared hard into her eyes. “Is it so unusual, what we’ve done here today?”

“Unheard of, Natum. We are a powerful force, you and I.”

He nodded once, smiled gently. “Yes. We are that... and more. Because you ask it, Nidaba, I will tell no one.”

“Thank you, Natum.”

Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek very gently. “We are friends,” he said. “There are no thanks needed.”

When he left her there, alone, she wondered which was the greater miracle. The fish splashing about in the water... or the warmth his kiss had left on her cheek.

“Now, do you understand what to do?”

George was frowning at Nathan in absolute concentration. “I can do it. Just the way you said.”

“I know you can,” Nathan told him, patting him hard on the shoulder.

They were sitting in a parked car in a rural part of New Jersey, across the street from a century-old building that still had the words “Brooker Asylum” chiseled into its stony face. It was dark outside. Midnight, and neither the moon nor so much as a single star managed to pierce the gloom. A steady drizzle misted the windshield. And it felt damn cold outside.

In his pocket Nathan had a small bottle of ether and a gauze pad. He hoped he didn’t have to use it, but if he did, he figured it was far better than the alternative.

George opened the back door with a gloved hand and got out of the car, bowing his wide back against that cold, misty rain. Nathan glanced beside him at Sheila, who sat behind the wheel. “And you, Sheila? Are sure you want to go through with this?”

She pursed her lips. “If you’re determined to do this, then so am I. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I don’t, you know. I don’t like it a bit. This is completely unlike you, Nathan.”

“It’s more like me than you know.” Like the man he’d once been, he thought vaguely. Not the one he’d become. Not the one Sheila thought she knew.

“Ah, you’re talkin‘ in circles again. If you knew the woman in the photograph, Nathan, why didn’t you just say so? The authorities would have let you take her— unless she’s totally insane.” Sheila widened her eyes. “Is that it, Nathan? Are you bringin’ a lunatic into the house?”

Nathan took a breath to bolster his waning patience. “It wouldn’t be safe for this woman if anyone were to know where she was. I can’t explain any more than that, Sheila, and I’d appreciate it if you would stop asking me. Just... trust me on this.”

“Oh, sure, and suppose you’re caught? What then, I ask you? Is this crazy woman worth getting yourself thrown into the pen?”

He stared at the building in the distance, with its barred windows and safety glass, and he thought of the woman he’d seen yesterday, sitting inside, a captive of this place and, perhaps, of her own mind. And he nodded. “Yes, as a matter of fact, she is. She’s worth ... anything.”

“They likely have security cameras,” Sheila said, continuing the argument she’d waged all the way out here. “I don’t suppose you’ve thought of that.”

“As a matter of fact, I have. It’s been ... taken care of.” He couldn’t tell her that he’d called up a bit of the magick he’d learned from the very woman he was about to rescue. But he had. His magickal skills were rusty, but not forgotten. Some things, once learned, were never truly forgotten. He only wished he’d thought to disable the cameras when he’d visited here yesterday. Perhaps no one would make the connection.

Sheila tipped her head to one side. “I swear, I’ve never seen you like this, Nathan.”

“I haven’t
been
like this. Not—not in a long time.”

“Maybe you’ll explain that remark to me one of these days.”

He turned toward her, touched her cheek. “It means a lot to me, you and George standing by me like this. Insisting on coming along when I would have done it alone.”

“You couldn’t get by without us, and you know it. Go on with you, now. Fetch your woman and let’s be away with her.” She glanced toward the hospital and shivered. “This place gives me chills.”

Nathan nodded, pulled on his gloves, and got out of the car. “Keep it running, Sheila.” Then he closed the car door and gave his lapels a tug. Hunching his shoulders against the frigid autumn wind and slashing droplets, he crossed the narrow drive and walked along the winding path up to the old brick building. It was grim, this place. Dead leaves skittered across its lawns and sidewalks. The bricks were uneven, chipped in places, and the bars installed when the structure had been built in the 1890s remained in the arching windows. They had never replaced them with the modern mesh equivalent. The place looked like a prison. Dirty and cold. A Gothic nightmare. No night sounds reached him beyond the rustling of the dead leaves and the whisper of the cold rain. No crickets chirping. No night birds singing. But he could hear, on another level. A deeper level, even though he tried to block his own empathic tendencies. Ghosts of this building’s past lingered, howling and shrieking in their madness, their torment too powerful to filter out.

No such sounds pervaded the nights around the building anymore, he supposed. Today, the terror of insanity was drugged into slumberous submission. Just as Nidaba had been when he’d seen her here the day before.

The front doors opened easily, and he walked through a foyer that looked shockingly modern—so much so that he’d been startled by it when he’d first seen it the day before. There were padded chairs and magazine racks, and a reception desk with no one in attendance, since visiting hours were long since over. The main doors stood before him, and they too were unlocked. They led only to an admitting area, a nurses’ desk, and a row of administrative offices. The patients were housed on the second through fifth floors, with every stairway and elevator inaccessible without a key.
His
patient, Nathan mused, was in room 419. For a bit longer, anyway.

He nodded toward the fire alarm on the wall in the dim reception area, and George followed his gaze and nodded back. They’d planned this. Rehearsed it. Gone over it. Nathan was as prepared for tonight’s adventure as he used to be when leading his army into battle. He’d bought clothes, prepared a room for Nidaba, and researched this building. He’d even studied blueprints. He was ready.

Something stirred inside him. Deep down. Adrenaline, excitement even, surged in his veins, and he thought for a moment that he felt more alive than he had in years.

George backed into a shadowy corner to count silently to one hundred, just the way they’d planned, and Nathan went through the second set of doors. A nurse looked up from a folder at the desk and said, “Visiting hours ended at seven.”

“Yes, I know. I wanted to see one of your doctors,” he lied. “Dr. Sterling. Is there any chance she’s still here?”

“You a friend of hers?”

“A... colleague, actually. I was hoping to discuss a case with her.”

The woman’s expression eased a bit. She had a pinched look about her, even then. Narrow nose, skin a hint too pale. She didn’t get a lot of sun. “I guess you didn’t hear, did you?”

“Hear?” Nathan’s senses went on alert.

“Dr. Sterling’s in the hospital—she’s critical. One of the patients upstairs attacked her yesterday.”

“What?”

Nodding hard, the nurse rose from her chair, smoothed her dress. “Stabbed her,” she said. “It’s a miracle she didn’t bleed to death on the spot.”

“I can’t believe this.” Nathan’s mind raced. He pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the certainty that there was more to this than he was just now hearing. “I just saw her yesterday afternoon. When did this happen?”

The nurse shrugged. “The alarm went off just after four. We found Dr. Sterling outside our Jane Doe’s room on the fourth floor, but Jane was still trussed up nice and neat. All the patients were accounted for, in fact. I still can’t figure it out.” She rubbed her arms, gave a little shiver. “No one saw anything unusual. It’s as if a ghost did it. I’ll tell you, it makes you want off the night shift in this mausoleum.”

The woman had been stabbed—right outside Nidaba’s room. By someone who had managed to go undetected. And only minutes after Nathan’s own visit. Could all that be coincidence?

“Did they... did they find a weapon?” he asked slowly.

“No, actually, they didn’t. Whoever it was took it with them. But we searched all the patients’ rooms and—I suppose whoever did it probably hid the weapon somewhere before running back to their room. You know, some of these psychos are sharper than we give them credit for. Obviously.” She shook her head. “Poor Dr. Sterling.”

Nathan was so shocked to hear all of this that he nearly forgot his plan. But his nerves were bristling, and he didn’t like the feeling of static dancing up and down his nape and forearms. Like a storm in the air. Something was very wrong here.

He vowed to get to the bottom of it all later, but now he steered himself back to the subject at hand. He glanced at his watch, then pretended to sniff the air. “My God ... is that
smoke
I smell?” he asked.

The nurse sniffed, frowning and tipping her head to one side. “I don’t smell anything.”

Right on cue, George hit the fire alarm in the waiting room. A bell went off, and the nurse flew out from behind the desk, her key ring in hand. Others came running. She raced to the stairway doors, to the control panel there. Inserting her key, she turned it and hit a button to release the main locks. According to the building’s plans and renovations, the individual rooms would still be locked, and the elevators would go to the bottom floor and shut down. But now the stairways and all the exits were unlocked. They would not be that way for very long.

The nurse ran to the first landing. Nathan headed up, too, only a few steps behind her. He could hear others coming behind them, but he knew the staff would be thin at this time of night. Still, that wouldn’t stop them from questioning his presence, if George didn’t hurry up and...

Before he completed the thought, the lights went out. “Good man,” Nathan muttered under his breath. He shrugged off his overcoat, revealing the white lab coat he wore underneath it, folded his overcoat over one arm, and continued up the stairs. At each landing the head nurse shoved open a stair door and shouted behind her, sending a handful of her staff onto that floor in search of the fire. The emergency lighting finally kicked in, but it was dim.

“Do we evacuate the patients?” someone asked at the first landing.

“Not yet. Let’s just make sure this isn’t another false alarm first.”

Nathan bit back his instinctive response to that. He wanted to chastise the fools. If the fire had been real, their hesitation could have cost lives. But it wasn’t real. And he was concerned only about getting one patient safely out of here.

At the fourth floor, he simply went in with the rest as they spread out to check the rooms. His eyes were sharp, even in low light. Years of immortality tended to hone all of the senses to new levels. He chose one nurse, a small blond woman who blinked like a mole at him in the darkness when he said, “I think it’s coming from in here” and led her straight to Nidaba’s door.

The nurse didn’t even hesitate, and the others were racing down the halls, running from room to room, getting further and further away. She unlocked the door, and Nathan gripped her hand, tugged her inside, and closed the door behind them. “Don’t you smell it?” he said. “Over there, by the window.”

The nurse hurried forward, and he quickly moistened a gauze pad with the chloroform in his pocket, recapped the bottle, and moved up beside her.

A second later, his hand was covering her face, and she was slumping in his arms. He laid her down gently, carefully. “Sorry about this,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice.” Mentally, he willed her to forget this incident, but he had to hurry. He had no idea if the command would take.

But there was just no more time. He hurried to the bed where Nidaba lay still, eyes closed, totally oblivious to the alarm sounding throughout the halls.

At least she wore no straitjacket now. They must put it on her only when forced to be in the room with her. He scooped her into his arms and headed to the door. He looked up and down the hall, but the searchers had moved past this point and the path to the open stair door was clear. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and he ran. He reached the stairway, raced down it, and emerged at the bottom after three flights.

A burly attendant appeared as Nathan crossed toward the reception area. He hadn’t seen Nathan yet, but he would at any second, unless ...

Even as the attendant started to turn toward Nathan, George’s shadow fell over the man. Sensing it, the attendant whirled, but not in time. George picked the man up by the front of his shirt and tossed him aside like yesterday’s garbage. Then, even as the man struggled to his feet, stumbling toward the control panel to re-engage the locks, and even as the stampeding of a dozen pairs of feet thundered down the stairs, George ran ahead, opening the doors, and holding them as Nathan carried Nidaba through. Nathan heard the locks engage as he passed. They’d only just made it out in time.

Outside, they sprinted across the lawn for the car. George said, “Let me carry her, Nathan! I’m bigger than you are.”

Nathan shook his head. “Can’t do that, George,” he panted. Nidaba’s weight was a warm burden in his arms, and her body pressed to his, even limp like this, was something he had long thought he would never feel again. Silently, he heard a little voice telling him not ever to let anyone take this woman from his arms. Not ever. But he knew better than to think that way. She had changed—even if he
could
reach her and bring her back to him, she would still have changed. And so had he. Lifetimes had come and gone, for both of them.

George opened the back door, and Nathan cradled Nidaba closer to his chest and folded himself into the car. The single attendant stepped outside the madhouse doors, rubbing his head and looking around. He had probably mistaken George for a patient and wondered where he’d gone. But no one had seen Nathan taking Nidaba away. And Nathan hadn’t been stupid enough to leave the car in plain sight. He’d had Sheila park it in a well chosen spot, away from any streetlights and with a line of shrubbery between the car and the front door of the hospital. Between those precautions, the moonless night, and the steady drizzling rain, the car was all but invisible to mortal eyes.

Still, he had no doubt that the police were on the way, or would be shortly. George went still, crouching beside the car until the attendant walked back inside, shaking his head. Then George ran around and got into the front seat, and Sheila shouted, “Hold on!” and hit the gas.

The tires spun a little, caught, and the car lurched into motion.