Spell Blind

CHAPTER 24

Once the helicopter landed and the EMTs starting working on me, I lost track of the time. I don’t remember the ride to the hospital-I wasn’t even sure which one they took me to, though I assumed it was Tempe St. Luke’s-and though I have vague memories of trying to fight off the nurses and doctors as they were putting me under for surgery, it’s all sketchy. I do know that I slept through most of the night, and that anything I said that made me sound crazy would have been blamed on the anesthetics and pain medication rather than the moon.

When I came to the next morning, groggy and nauseous, Kona was there beside my bed, reading a copy of the Republic. She had a bandage on her head and bags under her eyes. I had a feeling she hadn’t gotten much sleep.

“You been here all night?” I said. Or tried to. The words sounded as if they’d been scraped from my throat.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling and setting the newspaper aside. She scooted her chair closer to the bed. “Margarite was here, too, but she had to go. Something with her dad. She’ll be back later. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

“Want me to call for a nurse? They’ve been trying to wake you all morning, saying you’ve got to eat something. But I told them to let you sleep.”

I made a sour face at the thought of food. “Thanks.”

She passed me a plastic container of water and I sipped a little through the built-in straw. It felt good going down, but it didn’t help my stomach any. I handed it back to her.

“You’re a hero,” she told me, picking up the paper again. “Told you you would be.” She held up the front page for me to see.

“Blind Angel Killer Dead, Police Say,” the headline screamed in that really big banner type usually reserved for presidential elections and wars. Below, in smaller text, it said, “Police, Local Investigator Kill Suspect in South Mtn. Pk.” And below that were a pair of photos, one of a cloth-covered corpse that I assumed was Red lying in the ravine, the other an older shot of Claudia Deegan as a smiling, blonde teenaged tennis star. It was a little creepy to see her that way, and maddening to think that years from now, when they talked about this case, she’d be remembered, but Gracia Rosado wouldn’t.

“The article say anything interesting?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. I told them the guy was French, so now the media guys and the Feds are wondering whether this needed to be treated as a terrorism case.”

“How’d you explain the fact that he’d been burned to a crisp?”

“I said he’d tried to burn us with some unknown liquid, but that he’d lit himself on fire instead.”

“And Hibbard bought that?” I asked.

“To tell you the truth, he’s so glad this guy is dead, he would have believed anything. He didn’t even mind that you helped bring him down.”

“It’s like he’s a new man.”

“Well,” she said with a frown, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

We fell silent and I took stock of how I felt. My mind was still dull, the effect of the moon and the painkillers and whatever they’d used to knock me out for surgery. My ribs were a little sore, but my arm and leg, both heavily bandaged, didn’t feel too bad. I’d been lucky.

“Justis,” Kona said, her tone weird enough to make me look at her. “I called Billie, to tell her what had happened and where you were. She. . she said she wouldn’t be able to make it over to see you. But I had a feeling that maybe there was more to it.”

Kona missed nothing. That was one of the reasons she was such a good cop.

“There was,” I said, the ache in my chest duller than Red’s fire, but no less painful. “She doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

Kona grimaced. “Why not?”

“She found out that I’m a weremyste, and she knows all about the phasings and what they do to me.”

“How’d she find out?”

I met Kona’s gaze. “I told her.”

For a long time she said nothing. Then she shrugged slightly and picked up the paper again. “I guess you know what you’re doing.”

“I guess.”

Neither of us said anything for a while. I pointed to the water and she handed it to me. I drank a bit more, and this time held onto the container. I was starting to feel better.

“I liked her, Justis,” Kona said after some time. “Billie, I mean. I think she was good for you.”

“You’re not the only one.”

She nodded once. “Then I won’t say anything more.”

She left a few minutes later.

I flipped on the television and watched a Sunday talk show or two and then a Diamondbacks game. Most of it washed over me, but watching anything was better than lying there in silence thinking about Billie.

I wanted to be mad at her. I wanted to tell myself that she’d given up on me too soon, that she should have been willing to deal with the phasings and the magic and everything that came with them. But I knew better. I’d seen what that life did to my mom, and I didn’t want that for Billie. If I’d been in her position, I would have run from me, too, and I would have done it days before she did. Relationships were hard enough without all the extra baggage I was carrying.

I survived that second night in the hospital despite some pretty terrifying hallucinations of Cahors. Kona had come back to check on me and when I started saying weird stuff and losing touch with reality, she convinced my nurse to give me some sleep medication. Good thing, too. At one point I started to chant a spell in my head, though later I couldn’t remember what kind of spell it was. Chances are, I would have burned the hospital to the ground.

When I awoke the next day, I was alone. Of course. Kona had work to do, and she knew that the danger of the phasings was over, at least for a few weeks. The day dragged, the food sucked, and I started bugging every nurse who came in about when I could go home. They all told me the same thing: that I’d have to ask the doctor.

The doctor didn’t come in until late afternoon, meaning that I’d have at least one more night there. He gave me a thorough exam, took off my bandages and checked my bullet wounds, both of which seemed to be healing well, and said that I could leave the hospital the next day.

Kona showed up a couple of hours later and we made arrangements for her to take me home around midday. She didn’t stay long-she had a new homicide to deal with and was sure she’d be at 620 for most of the night.

I had a quiet evening. With the phasings over and the pain in my ribs a little more manageable, I slept pretty well.

The paperwork and billing took most of the next morning, and by the time Kona came to get me, I was ready to be done with hospitals for good. She drove me home, where the Z-ster was waiting in the driveway-Margarite had driven her home for me. The place still looked like hell-no surprise-and I wondered how I was going to pay for the repairs as well as my share of the hospital bill. I put those questions out of my head, since I knew that I wouldn’t be working for a few weeks. No one was going to hire a PI who had only one good arm and leg.

Kona helped me into the house and got me settled in the living room. She’d brought me some food, including some leftovers from a meal Margarite had made, and she stocked my refrigerator while I took in the cracked walls and ceiling, the broken windows, the mess on my furniture and floors.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she said, emerging from the kitchen after a few minutes.

“I’m wondering how I’m going to get this place fixed up.”

“With all that reward money it shouldn’t be too hard.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars, my friend. From the Deegans, remember?”

I’d forgotten all about it. “But you-”

Kona shook her head. “You know I can’t take any of that money. Department regulations. No rewards accepted. That money is all yours. And believe me, Hibbard’s good and pissed.”

I gave a little laugh. The reward money. Funny how a little thing like that could improve a person’s mood.