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Menolly nodded. “If no one claims her body, I will. I honestly don’t know where her family is.”
Nodding, he turned away. “I’ll make a note of that. Six others also died in the fire.”
Menolly crouched down into a squat as she wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock. “No . . . no . . . no . . . what the fuck happened? Who did this and why?”
Camille stepped between her and the healer, pushing him back. “Keep us informed,” she said brusquely. She took Menolly by the shoulders and drew her to her feet, moving her toward the door. Menolly allowed herself to be guided along. She did not resist, did not speak, a horrified expression branded on her face. And then we were in the hall and Aswala was there, looking ready to scold me.
I shook her off. “We need to leave.”
“I have to see them. I have to know who died.” Menolly’s stammers were barely above a whisper, but they echoed through the still hall.
“You aren’t in any shape—” Camille started, but let her words drift off. “All right. Delilah, go get dressed. You’ll still be on bed rest till tomorrow when we get home.”
Pain flared in my hand, digging deep, sending me leaning against the wall moaning. The image of a scalded Chrysandra came to mind. I couldn’t fathom the pain she’d been in—it must have been excruciating beyond any scope of the imagination. I straightened my back as I headed back to my room. By the time I got there, I’d broken into a sweat, but I downed a glass of water, then another, and my stomach slowly began to settle.
Aswala followed me in, and silently handed me my clothes. She removed the IV from my arm and stood back, watching me.
“Your sister. She’s going to need some counseling over this.”
“Riiiggghhht. . . .” Menolly was about as likely to agree to counseling as I was to agree to a boob job. “That’s not going to happen.”
“It was her bar. She feels responsible. I could see it in her eyes. Until they find the reason for the fire—and let’s hope the reason is beyond her control—she’s going to imagine the worst possible scenario.”
“Oh, we’re pretty sure this was arson. We have full reason to believe it.”
“Regardless of that possibility, your sister is still going to blame herself. Trust me, I’ve seen this sort of situation far too often.” Aswala opened my chart and scribbled something in it. “I’m releasing you, because otherwise I have a feeling you’ll just sneak out. But get your butt home and in bed. You hear me?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I do. I just . . . we need to be home right now.”
“I understand. Get dressed. And I want you to drink a lot of water over the next few days. It will help dilute what toxin still runs in your veins. The antivenin is helpful but it can’t negate all of the poison.”
I accepted the bottle of water she pressed in my hand and began to dress. All the quietude of the past couple of months had vanished in a snap of the fingers, in a quick gust of wind.
Aswala handed me a kit containing the healing salve to put on my wound, as well as a week’s worth of bandages. Then, feeling I should say something, I caught her gaze.
“I promise to go home and rest. But our lives . . . there is seldom down time. We’re . . .” And then I stopped. I couldn’t tell her about Shadow Wing. I couldn’t tell her about the war back in Otherworld. All I could do was shrug and give her a faint smile.
She held my coat for me. “I understand. Perhaps more than you know.”
I headed out of the room, bracing my arm from time to time against the wall to steady myself. “Where are Camille and Menolly?”
“I imagine the morgue. It’s—”
“I know where it’s at.” I waved her off. “Go do what you need to do.”
I found the elevator and punched the button for the third floor down and held on as the car descended to the underground levels. The Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigation unit had the main floor, then three stories below ground. There was rumored to be another floor, lower still, but no one had ever confirmed it. Not even when I was dating Chase.
Riding in the quiet elevator, I stared at the nicely polished mirrors in the corner. I knew they housed hidden cameras and I realized just how pale I must have looked. Too fucking bad. There wasn’t anything I could do about it right now except take it as easy as I could.
The doors opened with a soft whoosh and I stepped out. The morgue was straight ahead and I pushed through the double doors with a muted thud.
Here, the dead came to rest, limbo before their final consignment. Here, memories were severed. Blood and bone were mere leftovers of lives once lived and now lost. Death played no favorites, claiming the young and the old, the sick and the well. There was no get-out-of-jail-free card. And then my gaze fell on Menolly. She was standing in the middle of six tables covered with the snow white blankets of the dead. Sheets so pristine they made me shiver.
There were ways to cheat death . . . but at a high cost. Menolly had found out the hard way. Though eternity had not been her choice, she made the best of what she had. I wondered—could I do it? Could I face an unchanging existence, caught in my body, my soul trapped until either fire claimed me, the sun took me, or a stake plunged through the heart? Mortal thoughts, these, and not easy ones.
Camille had her phone out and was writing down the names of the dead as Menolly turned from table to table, the expression on her face fading from horror to disbelief. She was losing her ability to take it in—I could see it in her eyes. She’d reached overload and, for the first time in many years, fear flickered in her eyes. She began to back away toward the wall, whimpering.
“Camille!” I nodded toward Menolly and Camille dropped her pad and pen, softly moving forward. Menolly was crouching again, leaning against the wall, and the predator was coming to the surface. She looked cornered, like a mountain lion trapped against a cliff face.
