Derik's Bane

He's only clinically dead, you dumb ass! What, you've got no training? Get to work!

But his neck ... his neck was . . .

Get to work!

Right. She set him down on the cement floor and started a closed chest massage. One and two and three and four. One and two and three and four.Oh, don't be dead. Don't. One and two and three and four.Oh, don't you dare leave me. Don't you dare. Like I could settle for an ordinary guy after this. Don't. And one and two and three—

"Sara ..."

"Now I'm alone," she panted. And two and three and four. "Alone with a zillion people in the world, and where the hell am I going to find someone else like you?"

"Sara..."

"What?" she wept. She stopped pumping and pulled him back onto her lap. "What, idiot?"

"Where's the bad guy?" The whites of his eyes were blood red, and blood was even leaking from his left eye like dark tears.

"I kicked him and he died," she sobbed.

"Way to make .. . make a guy feel... useful," he gasped, and coughed, and now there was more blood, oh, God, like there wasn't enough before.

"Does it hurt?" she cried. Probably not, she realized clinically; shock would keep much of the pain at bay.

"It's pretty fucking excruciating," he admitted.

"It is? Oh my God, Derik, I'm so sorry, let me go pull some robes off these dead idiots, you must be freezing."

"I just want a drink," he groaned. "Possibly ten. Help me up."

She almost burst into fresh tears—he had no idea how badly he was hurt. How he had minutes, at the most, to live. How he had already died, and she'd only brought him back through luck and some brute skill. The damage she could see was bad enough—she couldn't imagine what had happened internally. - Crushed liver. Collapsed lungs—it was a wonder he had the breath to talk at all.Oh, Derik. "Just—just lie still and the ambulance will come."

"Sara, it stinks in here, I've had a bad day, and I'd really like to get off this disgusting floor," he snapped. "Help me up."

"Just lie still, Derik," she soothed.

He rotated his neck on his shoulders, irritably, like a man trying to work out a kink. She heard the crackling sound of air popping free of bones, and then he coughed again, wiped the blood off his chin with a grimace, and sat up in her arms. His left eye was still bloodshot. The right was entirely clear.

"What a dump," he said in disgust, looking around the chaos of dead bodies, scorched robes, broken glass, upended tables. "What a day! Let's get the hell out of here. Stop it, that tickles."

She was feeling him all over. "Oh my God. Oh my God! So quick, it was so quick!"

"Yeah, well, superior life form, baby. I told you this already." He rubbed the eye that was still bloody, and when he quit she saw that it was now clear. "Doesn't hurt that the full moon's not that far behind me. And I think you had something to do with it, too."

"Me?" she gasped, feeling him.

"Yeah, I wouldn't be able to heal this fast normally. I think your power—your sorcery—I dunno, wrapped me up in a magical envelope, or whatever."

"Really? Let's consider this caref—"

"Later. Gripes, I'm sore. What a day."

"Shut the hell up." She put her thumbs on his lower lids and pulled them down. The sclera of both eyes were a perfectly healthy pink. "I can't believe it, I can't believe it! It was so fast!"

"Like I said. I think I've got you to thank for that. I mean, I'm a fast healer, but that was extra special. Maybe your power sort of wrapped me up, like a lucky hug. Or something." He grinned."I'd hug you, but first I need a new shirt. And possibly new underpants—that tree demon thingy was scary."

"What about Arthur's Chosen?" she asked, almost whispered. She'd never been in a room full of dead bodies before—not since nursing school.

"What about 'em? They're all dead.Luckily, the demon killed them all, and then you fucked him up before he could do anything else."

"You're right," she said after a minute. "Iam scary."

"Scarier than taxes, babe."

He took her hand and led her from the warehouse she'd honestly thought was to become her tomb.

32

"I guess the question, 'Will they be surprised to see us?' has been answered," Sara commented as they pulled up to Wyndham Manor. A huge banner reading GOOD WORK SAVING THE WORLD was strung across the front entryway.

They got out of the car, just as a dizzying parade of people poured out of the doors of the house—mansion, really. Sara found herself picked up and hugged by Michael and several other ridiculously good-looking men she'd never met before. Jeannie was kissing and hugging Derik, and a petite, stunning blonde was climbing all over him like a monkey, laughing and saying over and over again, "You did it! I can't believe you did it!"

Then intros: Michael and Jeannie (whom she already knew), and their daughter, Lara, who had her father's odd yellow brown eyes and her mother's aggressiveness, and the petite blonde was Moira, and oh, several others that she lost track of, but she didn't mind, because even though they were all strangers, it was exactly like coming home.

"So you told them we were coming, huh?" Derik asked.

Antonia, who was just as ridiculously breath taking as the rest of them, shrugged. "Don't get pissy. It's what I do."

"Thanks for all your help," Sara said.

Antonia grunted. Sara had never known that someone who looked like a swimsuit model could be so sullen.

"So, what's next for you two?" Jeannie asked, picking up the pitcher of lemonade, pouring herself a glass, then promptly draining it off. They were sitting in a gorgeous sunroom, the remains of a glorious lunch laid out before them. "And why did I do.that?" she griped aloud. "Like I don't have to pee often enough. Pregnancy," she finished in a mutter.

"You're glowing," Michael said automatically.

"That's because of all the puking," she retorted.

"So?" Michael prompted. "You guys? What's next?"

"Um ..." Sara said, because she didn't have a clue.

"Well, we're getting married in a couple of days, and Mike's going to give us an RV for a wedding present, and then we're going to drive around the country looking for Rachel Ray."

"That's the lamest marriage proposal ever," Sara commented, while Antonia actually cracked a smile.

"Yeah, but you're gonna go along with it." When she didn't say anything, he dropped the cocky pose. "Right, Sara? Sara? Right? You're gonna be my mate, right? Sara?"

"Oh, Christ, tell him yes," Antonia said, rolling her great dark eyes. "Before I pick up this fork and jam it into my ear, just so I don't have to listen to any more of that."

"Actually, it's a refreshing change," Michael commented, biting the chicken leg in half and sucking out the marrow in one slurp. Sara managed to conceal her shudder. "Keep him on the hook, Sara."

"Never mind," she told them, and then said to Derik, "It would have been nice to have been asked, jerk. But it sounds like a fine plan."

"Congratulations," Antonia said, bored. Then she leaned forward and speared Derik with her gaze. "And before I forget, numb nuts, who told you to go to her house and kill her?"

"Huh? I mean, you did."

"No, I told you totake care of her. As in, look out for her, so she could destroy the moGhurn when it manifested."

"What?Wait just a goddamned minute! Younever told me to look out for her. You told me—

"Well, I knew you wouldn't be able to ice her, but I wanted you to stay close anyway," Antonia explained. "The world was saved because you were fated to love her, not because you were fated to kill her. Not to mention, you were fated to die ,. . but not for too long. Dumb ass."

"Nowwait one minute." Derik was as furious as Sara had ever seen him. She clutched at his sleeve, trying to get him to sit down, but he towered over Antonia and ignored Sara's tugging. "You sent me there to—"

"Take care of her—do I have to get out the hand puppets? Look, Derik, I couldn't tell you the whole thing. We probably wouldn't be sitting here right now if you'd known what I'd known. Not that you could ever be bright enough to know what I know—"

"'Goddamnit, Antonia!"

"Oh, take a chill pill. Everything that happened this week, you guys had to do. Itall led to the big showdown. High noon in Boston, so to speak."

"I still don't get it," Sara confessed. "The bad guys—Arthur's Chosen—made the demon-thingy on purpose? No?"

"No, it was an accident. You screwed up the spell. They were trying to bring Arthur back, remember? With your blood. But the spell screwed up—which anybody who watchesCharmed will tell you—and then they were in over their heads. I mean, that's the trouble with screwing around with black magic. You make one slip, and suddenly there's a world-devouring demon in your warehouse."

"Which Sara got rid of," Derik said, calming down. "You guys shoulda seen it."

Sara laughed, which calmed Derik down even further. "I was so scared, I didn't know what to do. I think I kicked it—the whole thing's kind of a blur. I guess my blood did away with it? Because my blood conjured it up?"

"Do I look like I'm wearing a pointy Merlin hat?" Derik griped. "Track down your mentor, Dr. Cummings. Ask him. He can probably explain the whole thing."

"And this whole 'everything is for a reason' bushwah ... you mean my car conking out was part of the big plan, too?"

"The universe is a mysterious place," Antonia said, popping the last cherry tomato into her mouth.

Derik sat down. "Fucking miracle it all turned out all right," he muttered."Miracle." ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">