The Isis Collar

“Daddy!”



“It’s all right, baby. I’m here.”



It would’ve been touching if I wasn’t bleeding and in pain. Oh, and terrified. Let’s not forget that. Because the bomb was about to blow. I could feel it. The magic had built to a climax, power crawling across my skin in burning waves that literally stole my breath.



Like all magic, the blast was taking the shortest route to air, straight up. The edges of the floor in front of me began to glow, power misting around the edges of each tile until they began dissolving in front of me. I was going to plummet into the basement carrying a child who wouldn’t survive the fall.



I ran into the nearest room to escape the collapse, but the tiles were giving out here, too. No doors close enough. There was only one way out and it was going to hurt.



It’s hard to describe the feeling of jumping feetfirst through a closed, reinforced-glass window. The shock to the spine is first as the metal wires try to slow down your momentum. But I’d put a lot of force into my flying kick, the magical explosion gave us an extra push, and the window gave way. It wasn’t a clean break by any means. I wrapped my jacket around Willow’s face and head as best I could as slivers of wire and glass tore at my legs and arms. My body did fit through the window opening, but the metal wasn’t kind to my shoulder as the blast pushed me through. I landed hard on my back on the asphalt and my shirt rode up as we skidded for a solid thirty or forty feet. Road rash isn’t a fun thing as it’s happening, but I couldn’t turn over or move my arms for fear of hurting Willow.



So I endured it, knowing I’d be picking pieces of gravel and glass from my back and scalp for hours a week or more. At least it would only be hours rather than a year, with the accelerated healing.



A pair of officers rushed forward to help, taking Willow from my arms and pulling me bodily toward the perimeter that had been set up across the street. I saw Harris and the other cops near the ambulances.



Every muscle in my body ached and itched and I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes, which I worried about. Then I saw a friendly face. Julie Murphy came racing toward me as I cleared the yellow tape, her blonde pigtails flying behind her. She wrapped me in a hug. “Celia! They said you’d never make it out in time.”



I let out a pained chuckle. “Never count me out, kiddo. I’m tough to keep down.” She pulled away from me and smiled. Then she noticed her arms, which were covered with smears of red. She started screaming for help. I guess I was bleeding and didn’t realize it. Oh, yeah. I should have realized I was bleeding from the pain in my back. Duh. That was when my body started to protest and pain rushed through me in a wave fast enough to make my stomach roil. The paramedics raced my way with bags in tow. One of them smiled at me and I recognized him.



But then he frowned at just about the time the ground raced up to meet me. I don’t remember whose arms caught me as my nose connected with the curb.



3



“You look terrible!”



The glare I shot Dawna was probably less than effective, what with the dark glasses and all, but I glared at her nonetheless. I had already been in a foul mood. Having her criticize my appearance didn’t help. Of course she looked perfect. She was wearing a hot pink tailored business suit that showed off both her coloring and her figure. She’s half Vietnamese and exotic looking. She also has the best fashion sense of anyone I know. I swear she missed her calling as a stylist to the stars. Instead, she works as a receptionist in my office building. She seems to like it most days. God alone knows why.



“I didn’t mean it like that! You know I didn’t.” She shot me a stricken look. “It’s just you’re pale, even for you. And you’re limping. And what’s with wearing sunglasses indoors?”



“Headache.” I stuck with a one-word answer because I really didn’t want to talk about it. Not even to Dawna, who is one of my best friends in the world.



“Still? Shouldn’t all of this have healed by now? I mean, I’m just a plain old human, and I’ve never had a headache last for more than a day—let alone two weeks.”



I grabbed my messages and started for the stairs. Maybe if I kept moving we wouldn’t have to continue this conversation. Because if it went on much longer, I wasn’t sure I could remain civil. I know she’s just worried about me. But that didn’t make me any less frustrated. I didn’t want to take my mood out on her and wind up saying something I was going to regret.



“I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow evening.”



“Evening? Do doctors even do evening appointments?”



“This one does.”



“But…,” she started to argue when the phone rang. Since she’s the receptionist, she had to answer. I pretended not to see her signal for me to wait and hustled up to my third-floor office.



It had been two full weeks since the “incident” at the grade school. Normally the vampire side of me kicks in, healing injuries in minutes, days at the most. But it hadn’t. Oh, the road rash was gone. But the bite mark was still swollen and sore, with nasty bruising, and there was this huge, black bruise on my thigh that was seriously ugly and simply would not go away. And then there was the headache. It was hideous: blinding pain, light sensitivity, nausea. I’d been to the clinic on campus, a chiropractor, and four specialists so far and nobody seemed to have a clue. It was frustrating as hell. Almost as frustrating as dealing with the insurance company.



I opened my office door. As usual, I had to push my way through a buzz of energy that prickled my skin. I have some serious wards on my office because of the weapons safe that holds all the tools of my trade, some of which are seriously valuable and would qualify as major magical artifacts. I’d hate to lose them. So I keep them protected.



I closed the door in a none-too-subtle hint that I didn’t want to be disturbed. Dawna would probably be annoyed, but she’d respect my privacy. Dottie … well, I’d learned early on that Dottie does pretty much whatever she pleases. Still, she doesn’t undertake the steep flights of stairs without good cause. In a week or so the construction folks were supposed to show up to install an elevator. We’d had to wait until we could get one that wouldn’t lose the building its “historic” status.



God, how I hoped my head would be better by then. I didn’t even want to think about how painful the noise would be otherwise.



“Don’t think about it,” I told myself sternly. “I could be fine by then.” To distract myself, I flopped down behind the desk to go through messages and the mail.



The top five messages were all from the same man. Alan Tuttle, Security Chief of MagnaChem, a local pharmaceutical manufacturer. God, but the man wouldn’t give up! He wanted an escort for the new owner and some of his staff to his plant in Mexico where the drug gangs had all but taken over the town.



The most recent message was marked URGENT and had a note attached to it because the message had been too long for the slip.



Fifth call – I did what you asked and told him that you weren’t feeling well, and wouldn’t be taking any out-of-town jobs for the next few weeks. I suggested Miller & Creede to him. He said the owner of the company has a “personal issue” with Creede and won’t use them. He said that they were willing to double your usual fee if you would clear your calendar and leave for their offices in Mexico immediately.



Well, hell. Double? I charge a fairly high fee to begin with. It was a real shame that I was too sick to go anywhere. But, no. I couldn’t work. Not like this. Too bad about Creede, though.



The only other interesting message was from Bruno. He was back from the East Coast! For the moment he was staying in the Graduate Student Apartments, but they were kind of a dump. He said he’d be moving out as soon as he found a house he liked.



I grinned. He was back. Bruno and I have our issues. I trust him with my life, just not with my heart. He’s broken it twice. I’m not sure I’ll ever get past that. But he’s more than my former fiancé. He’s my friend. He’s also a world-class mage and a great guy to have around when things get hairy. Which, sadly, happens a lot in my life. Too, he makes me laugh and that means a lot.



The first two letters in the stack of mail wiped my smile right off my face. All of the doctors I’d been visiting insisted on getting insurance information to file claims even though I was willing to pay cash.



I have my insurance through the university—part of a special alumni package that gives full benefits provided I pay and pass at least one class per semester. Letter one was from the health insurance division. It ever-so-politely denied any and all of my health insurance claims incurred since the vampire bite that turned me because, as an Abomination, I was part vampire, and therefore dead and the policy clearly states they do not pay claims postdeath. They offered their sincerest condolences and indicated that the appropriate paperwork had been forwarded to the life insurance division to pay out my death benefits to my beneficiary.



The second letter, from the life insurance division, regretfully denied said benefits on the basis that as I was an Abomination; I was part human and therefore not dead.



Typical. Throwing the letters onto the desk in disgust, I returned to the stack of phone messages. After all, I’d made a lot of calls the past couple of weeks. Surely Alex, or the principal from the school, or Harris …



I flipped through the little pink slips of paper a second time to be sure.



Nada.



Now that was just weird. Almost as weird as how fast the incident had disappeared from the news cycle. Just a couple of days reporting on a “failed attack” on a local school, with the culprits apprehended on scene. Congrats to the police and fire departments on a job well done, yadda da yadda da. But no word about repairs or moving students to different schools or anything I’d expected to see.



Still, it might not be any sort of cover-up. After all, news moves on. And the hottest Hollywood power couple’s filing for divorce and the assassination of the British prime minister had taken over the headlines.