Chapter 21
Broken
The mother idol was silent as Garenth winged away from the building, but he knew it was because he had secured her. She was content to be back in his possession, yet for some reason that didn’t reassure him.
He hurt. With every stroke of flight, the pain increased, making it increasingly difficult to keep flying. The wound in his side felt hot. It was becoming difficult to focus. Worse, he couldn’t use his right arm.
Minbar told him he wouldn’t die as long as he retained possession of the idol. But he had lost it, and now he believed he was being punished for that transgression. He would have to suffer to pay for his disobedience before Petbe would allow him to resume his non-human state, if he regained it. I may be too late. I may have to remain this way…forever?
Garenth breathed in the crisp air. This high up it smelled not of the city and its noxious odors, but it was clean. Pure. If he had to remain in this form, awake for all eternity…
Agony lanced through him. He stuttered, his wings halting in mid-stroke. He started to drop as his body seized up on him. Alarm and fear spiked as he struggled to resume lost altitude.
Blinking, he searched around for someplace to land, but nothing looked familiar. The obelisks appeared to have changed, both in shape and location.
Coasting downward, he circled and crashed onto the nearest roof. He was lost. He knew it and had to admit it. Crawling toward the edge, he tried to stand but his leg almost went out from under him. Overwhelmed by a bright spear of pain, he dropped onto his knees, still pressing the precious black bag to his chest.
He knew he’d been wounded, but now he was beginning to wonder if his injuries were life-threatening. Were they so intense that the mother idol couldn’t save him? Or was she condemning him to die because he’d allowed her to be taken from him?
He rubbed his forehead. It was getting harder and harder to think. His thoughts were growing confused. His logic was becoming tangled and twisted, and more convoluted by the moment.
A metal bird fluttered overhead, drawing his attention. At the sight of it, he realized he was flying around aimlessly. He had the mother idol back in his possession, but now what? What should he do now? He knew he hadn’t thought past acquiring the vial. He hadn’t made any plans beyond regaining it. It was time he did.
His first impulse was to return to his native lands across the seas, but that wasn’t feasible. Not now, anyway. Not while his body continued to be wracked with pain. These next few hours would determine whether or not he would completely regain all of his humanity, or if he would revert into his stone self again. If he became fully human, there would be no way he could fly back to his homeland. And it was too dangerous to start on his journey and risk losing his power of flight while he was over the seas.
He struggled to get to his feet when something warm ran down his side and over his arm. In the dim light coming from below, he stared at the dark fluid oozing over his stone exterior.
Blood. He was bleeding.
“What do I do?” he murmured.
He was answered as an image, a visage, appeared in his mind. A face. A beautiful face with a heart-tugging smile and dark eyes that had learned to look past the outer monstrosity of his own appearance.
Brielle. He had to return to Brielle. She would be able to help him. She would take him in and allow him to recover until he could figure out what to do next.
Lifting his face to the heavens, Garenth opened himself to the winds. Holding the black bag to his chest, he prayed to Petbe for guidance.
Something nudged him, urging him to turn around. He obeyed, and found himself staring across a wide expanse where the waters of a river sparkled under Khonsu’s light. Garenth straightened and looked to his left. Yes, that tower. And to his right, that obelisk with the glowing red beacon on top. He knew where he was. He knew in which direction lay Brielle’s home. He was no longer lost.
Giving a prayer of thanks, he leaped over the edge of the roof and gritted his teeth as he fought the pain to go to her.
* * *
She still felt groggy when she awoke. The nap hadn’t revived her. If anything, she felt more out of it and less inclined to get up.
Brielle glanced around the dark room. Not seeing a familiar figure on the fire escape landing, she rolled over in bed to glance at her alarm clock.
8:29
Damn. She’d been out of it for hours.
Her first inclination was to go ahead and get her bath, and go straight back to bed. Getting to her feet, she went into the bathroom to relieve herself, when she was hit with an intense thirst. She padded into the kitchen and withdrew the quart of milk from her fridge to drink straight out of the carton. In the back of her mind she imagined what her mother would have said if the woman caught her pulling such a stunt. She smiled as she imagined what she would have told her.
“Hey, it’s my apartment, my rules. I’ll use a glass at your place, but here I don’t feel like needlessly dirtying one just for a few swallows.”
A loud noise interrupted her reverie. Brielle froze, unsure if she’d imagined it.
A definite scraping sound came from the bedroom. No, from the fire escape.
Setting the milk on the bar, she made her way over to where she’d tossed her purse on the side table near the front door and withdrew her cell phone. Grabbing her umbrella from where she kept it propped in the corner, she held it out in front of her and entered her bedroom. She hoped it was Garenth on the landing. But in the event some asshole was trying to get into her apartment via that route, he’d find himself on the stabby end of her bumbershoot while, at the same time, she’d be dialing 9-1-1.
Someone was definitely on her fire escape. A dark shadow blocked the moonlight. There was a grunt, and the figure collapsed next to her window. She paused beside the bed and debated whether or not to turn on the lamp on the nightstand, when a voice faintly whispered.
“Brielle.”
Garenth.
Throwing the phone and umbrella on the bed, she rushed to the window to find him bent over on the landing.
“Garenth? What’s wrong?” She remembered he wouldn’t understand what she was saying, but she hoped he could hear the concern in her voice.
She placed an arm across his shoulders to help him to his feet, when her hand encountered something wet and warm. Lifting her fingers to her face, she smelled the unmistakable metallic whang. “Oh my God! You’re bleeding! You’re hurt!” She flung her arms around him and tugged. “Come on. Get inside. How badly are you hurt?”
With a little more cajoling, she managed to get him to step over the transom and into the bedroom. She guided him over to the bed where he half-sat, half-laid. It wasn’t until after she pulled down the window and drew the shade that she turned on the lamp.
Brielle gasped in horror to see bright red streaks of blood flowing down his arm and leg. A wide swath of smeared blood covered his side, hip, and stomach. “Oh dear God, Garenth!” Snatching up her phone, she threw the umbrella to the side of the room and opened up the translation app. “What happened? Why are you bleeding? Stay right here.” She laid the phone on the bed beside him and rushed into the bathroom for towels and a wet washrag. When she returned, she saw him holding out a bag. It took her a second to realize what it was.
“Mother idol,” the app intoned.
Stunned, she took the bag but didn’t open it. Laying it on the nightstand, she proceeded to try and staunch the flow of blood coming from a hole in his right bicep and a nasty gash running across his ribcage. Garenth flinched and hissed at her touch but didn’t try to stop her.
“Where else were you shot?”
“Shot.”
“Yes. You were shot with a gun. These are bullet wounds, Garenth.” Her mind reeled. He needed immediate medical care, but taking him to a hospital was out of the question. Neither could she call EMS.
Pressing a towel to his arm, she snatched up his free hand and had him hold the towel in place. “Garenth, you need medical care. I-I don’t know if I can help you. I don’t have anything here outside of a Band-Aid, Tylenol, and some spirits of camphor.” Her throat constricted as she fought the tears welling up in her eyes. “You could die, and there’s not a fucking thing I can do!”
An odd little smile quirked the corners of his mouth, and the app replied, “Fucking.”
“It’s a curse word,” she quickly explained as the heat rose into her face.
She gathered more towels from the bathroom. Pressing several washcloths to his arm, she used a bath towel to secure them in place. “We have to keep pressure on that wound to stop the bleeding.” The mark on his side already appeared to be healing. “It looks like you were grazed here.”
“Leg.”
“Your leg?”
He vaguely pointed to his right calf. Getting on her knees, she lifted his foot to see blood soaking into the coverlet. Quickly, she raised his leg higher to see where another bullet had plowed into the back of his calf. Although she wasn’t medically trained, it was evident the bullet had exited and taken a chunk of the muscle with it. Brielle hastened to try and staunch that wound, too.
“Are you injured anywhere else?”
“’La.”
“No,” the app intoned.
Garenth groaned softly as she stood up. There was nothing more she could do. She couldn’t even give him anything to help with the pain. There was no telling how his body would react to modern chemicals.
“Lie down.” Standing over him, she pushed on his chest to make him lie prone on the bed. “You must rest. If you keep moving around, you’re going to bleed out.”
He stared up at the ceiling, but his eyes seemed unfocused. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear his rocky exterior had either faded or gone white. Placing a hand on his chest, she waited until he finally looked at her.
“Would you like some water?”
“Na-am.”
“Yes,” the app replied.
‘La and na-am. No and yes. Her first Arabic words. Brielle smiled to herself.
“Stay here. I’ll bring you some.”
She went into the kitchen and filled a glass from the tap. Fortunately she had a few unused straws she’d saved from eating out, and placed one in the water.
When she returned to the bedroom, she found him lying still, his eyes closed. A flash of fear went through her at the thought that he’d died while she was away, until she saw the faint rise and fall of his chest. He was asleep, and that was good. It was the best thing for him, but he was far from being out of the woods.
Sitting the glass of water on the bedside table, she went back into the living room and curled up on the couch, expecting it to be a long night.
She had no recollection of falling asleep.