Chapter Twenty-Nine
The underground community of Ţărână
4:22 P.M.
John woke to an inner foreboding and went limp, fighting to stay hunkered down in the mire of unconsciousness. His senses were coming back online with slow waves of input, and the info he was receiving wasn’t reassuring—he heard the hefty tread of footsteps generally associated with large men and smelled the sour antiseptic reek of his least favorite place on earth: a hospital.
The reality waiting for him on the other side of his closed eyelids wasn’t one he wanted. Better just to hang out in the dark. But the veil of blackness obstinately grew thinner and lighter, the electrical impulses in his brain increasing, and full consciousness arrived despite his best efforts. His eyes unstuck themselves on their own.
And as suspected, it was bad.
The most off-putting face imaginable was right above his: Devid Nichita’s.
“Welcome back to the living, Waterson,” Nichita sneered, his drawling voice grating against John’s flesh, his nerves. His mood. “Not very much fun, is it, waking up cuffed to a hospital bed?”
He was? He rotated his wrists and felt a padded restraint on one. A tic twitched in his eyelid.
A nasty smile split Nichita’s goatee.
John’s breathing roughened. No brain surgeon license required to figure this one out: he was about to be handed a load of retribution for having cuffed Nichita to a hospital bed years ago, the incident happening right after a shootout between the two of them. John had needed to interrogate Nichita, damn well get some straight answers about the strange shit always surrounding the guy. During the questioning process, John might have been somewhat of a bastard, so he supposed it made sense that now he’d come full ’round to the proverbial payback is a bitch.
He heard some scuffling movement and craned his neck up, quick-scanning the room. The two men who’d been with Teeth-Tattooed Asshole earlier in John’s apartment were there—one with a blond flattop, the other with black, buzz-cut hair. John sank his head back down. Way too much power for him to deal with, even on his best day with both hands free. His knees jolted, then his feet, as if his “flight” reflexes were gearing up his body for a run that no way he could manage. Even if he had the energy and the strength, he was—as Nichita was savoring—trapped.
“Although you’re no longer much of a worthy adversary, are you?” The flare of satisfaction in Nichita’s expression dimmed. “What the hell happened to you?”
Boy, it was just so much fun for men who didn’t have more health worries than the occasional zit to keep pointing that out.
“He’s obviously very ill.”
John dropped his eyes shut at the sound of the voice that’d been haunting his dreams, and a good deal of his waking thoughts, for years.
Toni.
His long-hoped-for reunion with the love of his life was finally here, and it was so far from the myriad fantasies he’d entertained about this very moment, it was pathetic.
His favorite fantasy was of him charging in—cape flying, of course—to save Toni from the men who’d kidnapped her. She would be dressed in the same clothes he’d last seen her wearing, especially the wraparound blouse that had done things to her breasts no woman should have a right to do. It just wasn’t fair to the male population. John would vanquish her abductors, then sweep her into his arms and stride off to the safety of his apartment. There, he’d peel her slowly out of her wraparound blouse, and after a lot of tangling up the sheets, she’d agree to marry him and have his babies.
Another favorite fantasy was of her showing up on his doorstep—like she’d suddenly reappeared at Scripps Memorial Hospital four years ago—and moonily confess that her recent harrowing experiences had given her a new perspective on life. She knew what was really important now…and would John please marry her and grant her the esteemed honor of bearing his children?
None of his fantasies—not a single one—included his current reality: Toni looking sterile in a white lab coat, him lying before her as the skeletal remains of a man who was no longer worthy of her.
Toni peered down on him with sympathetic eyes. God, and what eyes. He’d forgotten what clear blue skies they were. “How are you feeling, John?”
Oh, just a couple of railroad spikes still jammed in my skull. No biggie. The mere act of shifting his focus over to the other two men who drew up to his bed—across from Toni—hurt like fuck.
One was Teeth-Tattooed Asshole. Nichita stepped back to make room for him, moving kind of carefully, it seemed.
The second guy had black hair, too, but he looked like he’d just stepped out of a Hugo Boss sportswear ad.
Toni set a gentle hand on John’s forearm. “Can you tell me what’s wrong with you?”
He didn’t say anything. Being gravely ill in front of Toni was probably only marginally worse than discussing it with her.
Soft lines pleated Toni’s brow. “I’ve given you some morphine for your pain, but I don’t want to prescribe anything else until I know what’s going on. What have you been diagnosed with?”
He licked his dry lips and sweated some more. Was she even more beautiful than she’d been four years ago, her skin more youthful and vibrant, her hair more luxurious? He didn’t see how it was possible, considering she’d been held against her will this whole time. That had to be hard on a woman. Then again…she did appear pretty exhausted.
“John, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“You can always dissect him to find out,” Nichita suggested nastily.
Toni flashed an admonishing look in the direction of Nichita’s voice.
“This man isn’t our concern, at any rate,” the Hugo Boss guy said. “He shouldn’t even be here.”
Toni shook her head. “Jacken was right to bring him.”
“John Waterson is a topside police officer,” Hugo Boss countered hotly with this not-completely-accurate statement. “I would think Jacken, of all people, could appreciate the dangers of having such a person here.”
John’s nemesis crossed his tattooed arms. “Something about what’s going on with Waterson is getting under my skin, Roth. He doesn’t belong at a topside hospital until we’ve figured it out.”
“Where am I?” John croaked.
Toni gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, John. You’ve been brought to the hospital at the top-secret research institute where I work.”
The lie clutched at John’s insides. No such “institute” existed and hearing Toni offer up such a bullshit answer only confirmed that she was still in trouble. Although, weirdly, she wasn’t giving off any of the behavior subtleties he’d expect from a woman who was under duress but trying to hide it. No secret pleas buried in her eyes. No tension lay around her mouth, like the muscles were constricted from holding back the truth. Probably his disease-rotted brain was just missing the signals. It also didn’t help that his skull was currently crushed in on itself.
A dark-haired woman wearing scrubs entered the room. “Here are the films you ordered, Dr. Parthen.”
“Ah, good. Thank you, Shaston.” Toni patted John’s forearm. “Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out what’s going on with you now. I took X-rays of your head when you first arrived.”
The nurse tucked a couple of X-rays under the clips of a viewer, then turned on the light. A skull materialized on the screen—apparently his—at two different viewpoints.
Toni walked up to the viewer and examined the pictures. A frown tugged her mouth down. “Odd,” she murmured.
“What?” Teeth-Tattooed Asshole moved up next to her, so close he brushed shoulders with her.
She didn’t pull away.
John chewed his teeth.
“I’m not entirely sure what I’m seeing. I…” Toni stepped closer to the X-ray and squinted. “It appears that John has extra bone matter traveling up from the top of his canines into his cranium. Here.” She pointed them out. “I don’t know what would account for—”
“Holy night,” GQ Roth hissed. “Fangs.”
Toni whirled around, her eyebrows startled high.
“Those are fangs,” Roth insisted.
“What? That’s imposs—”
A hard exhale from Teeth-Tattooed Asshole interrupted her. “This explains what’s been bugging me about Waterson…what I’m seeing in his eyes.” He pointed at John. “Hunger.”
Toni’s whole expression went wide. “Are you completely off your rocker?” She looked back and forth between Roth and Teeth-Tattooed Asshole. “John doesn’t have fangs.”
“I’m afraid he does.”
This announcement came from a different doctor, who’d just stepped into the doorway. He was slender and black-haired and meticulous in appearance, a real Madison Avenue type in a dark gray suit under his lab coat. He looked like the kind of man who wouldn’t lift a hand to swat a fly, much less deliver a statement that carried enough damning heft to fell an entire room.
But he did.
“John Waterson,” he said, “is my son.”