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Snatches of speech came through the haze.
“… call EMS!”
“Holy shit … thought she was dead …”
I felt a sheet or blanket being wrapped around me. The pain in my shoulder receded, and I realized that it had been from my arm being twisted awkwardly up behind me. Had I fallen? Nothing made sense. What happened to being dead?
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I heard a vaguely familiar voice. “It’s her. Holy shit, it’s Kara. Someone call Agent Kristoff!”
“Where …” I tried to say, but nothing seemed to come out. “What’s going on?” I tried again.
“She’s awake! Kara! Come on, Kara. Open your eyes so you can tell us what the hell happened to you!”
I groaned and struggled to lift the obscene weight of my eyelids. Vague blurs coalesced in front of me, and in the distance I could hear someone shouting something about an ambulance.
“I thought I was dead,” I croaked out, successfully this time. Or so I hoped.
A weak laugh. “So did everyone else, chick.” It was Jill. That was Jill’s voice. “Can’t wait to hear you explain this one. We found your blood on the scene. Lots of it.”
“I was dead,” I repeated. My vision slowly began to clear. The blur above me took on vague facial features.
Jill patted my shoulder. “You’ve been gone, that’s for sure.”
I could hear sirens approaching. “Gone? Just a coupla minutes. I died for just a little while.”
Jill gave me a shaky smile. “Girlfriend, there was enough of your blood on the scene for you to be dead three times over. But no body. No one knew what happened to you. But we knew that you were … that you couldn’t have survived.”
I made a valiant attempt to sit up, which was phenomenally unsuccessful. I might have managed to tremble slightly. “I don’t understand. I came right back.”
“Darlin’, you’ve been gone for a couple of weeks. We had your funeral and everything.”
I decided that was as good a time as any to go back to being unconscious.
Chapter 31
The next time I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. A monitor beeped softly beside the bed, and an IV ran down to a needle in my arm. Dozens of flower arrangements crowded the room, and the incongruous thought struck me that it was a good thing I didn’t have allergies. My vision was clear now, I noted with relief, and I took a careful deep breath, relieved again to find that the strange searing pain was gone. Was that because it was the first breath that my lungs had taken?
I gave an involuntary shudder. I’d died. Holy fucking shit. And I’d seen the demon realm. Another shudder went through me at the memory of that beauty, the turquoise sea, the demons in flight. I’d never seen so many demons at one time. I probably never would again, and the realization sent a curious ache of grief through me.
I lifted a hand to rub my eyes, dismayed at how much effort it took. I guess all my muscles will have to learn how to work again.
A man I hadn’t noticed before stood abruptly from a chair by the window. It took me a couple of seconds to process who it was, simply because of the deep lines of fatigue and stress etched into his face.
“Ryan,” I said, voice cracking annoyingly.
“About fucking time you woke up.”
I gave a breathy laugh. “Sorry. I was busy being dead.”
An agonized expression flitted across his face. “You … God almighty. Everyone thought you were dead. I mean, really dead. I saw you disappear with the lord.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I thought he’d taken your body just to fuck with us. Michelle disappeared, too, but there’s been no sign of her.”
Michelle was the payment for giving me the chance to return, I realized with a guilty ache. I dropped my head back and stared up at the ceiling. “I was dying. I mean, seriously. I had only a couple of minutes, if that. And he took me with him, back to his realm, when he returned.” There was a tightness in my throat that I was having difficulty speaking around. “I did die. I mean, I died in the other sphere, so I was just dismissed back to this one.” I gulped. “He gave me the chance to re-form here.”
Ryan looked confused, then his expression cleared. “Like the demons? When they’re killed on this plane they’re dismissed back to their own plane?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I don’t know everything about it, but I guess it was the best chance I had.” A shiver ran down my back. “I got the impression that it doesn’t always work.”
He let out his breath, then gave me that crooked smile that I’d always found so charming. “You know you’ve managed to confuse the crap out of everyone?”
