A Bone to Pick, page 17
Once I saw a rough-looking little man turn and stare right at us in the line. Then a woman and child stepped out of the crowd and rushed to him—not one of Tell’s spies.
But finally our plates were loaded up, and I could let my aching legs fold to settle me at the end of a long table.
I had Ian, Lucy, and Jason sitting with me, safe, and not fighting each other either. That was a victory for now—I couldn’t think about the dangers, or the chance that we could make healing better than the dead end I called it, or about how deep in Maya was, or anything.
The food had no taste. The way I felt, it was just a mechanical task for chewing it and filling up my stomach. Right now that felt like enough.
Within the crowd, a woman was moving... no, searching... but I knew that neatly-coiled blonde hair, even with the dark glasses and the plain brown coat that tried to mask Helena Travers’s presence.
I waited until she was looking our way, before I stood up and gave her a quick wave over. No need to draw more attention.
“Here she is,” I told the others. “I told you about Helena.”
“Your boss?” Lucy blinked and straightened her shirt, a quick motion I would have missed if I hadn’t seen the impression Helena made before.
“She is, except when I’m working on the crazy side of things.” Which is too often, lately.
Ian stood up to meet her. “A pleasure. I suppose you’re tired of hearing how you look too young, for all the work you’ve done...” His flirting came out flat.
Helena smiled—but her head twitched in a nervous glance around, that the dark glasses couldn’t hide.
Because of me.
Of course she was haunted, after I’d let the Eye kidnap her, and she’d survived meeting the Scarecrow. I stepped close and whispered “You shouldn’t be here. I never asked—”
“I am not letting any of that keep me shut in,” she snapped. “This is one of your ‘important’ cases?”
Great. Of course this was how Helena dealt with fear: head-on.
“They’re healers,” I said. “Or they will be if they get some help at it. And if they can get out of sight long enough.”
Helena looked at the three of them, a single long glance of the kind that made me think she read people better than the Pulse. Then she said “Why don’t you come with me.”
We gulped down what was left of our food and worked our way out through the cafeteria crowd. I’d expected Helena to lead us straight away to some destination, but instead she stopped to look around us and then head toward the quieter side of the corridor. Even after we started that way, her head kept twitching, looking for enemies when she didn’t even know what we faced.
We didn’t go far, just to a spot along the wall that seemed quieter than most. And she turned to us and said “What is it you need?” with a single steady smile.
Lucy grabbed at the chance. “We need a hiding place, where the Mob can’t find us. I know it’s a lot to ask, but Adrian says we can trust you.”
“So I really am being your safe house again.”
Helena made it a joke, but it stung that I’d fallen back on her help so easily. I said “Sorry. But there’s a chance this will lead to something... bigger, than anything I’ve done.”
“So much bigger.” Ian’s words rushed out, so loudly he had to stop and force himself down to a whisper. “It has to do with unorthodox, cutting-edge medical techniques. I’m afraid it’s hard to explain.”
“You mean, the ‘sufficiently advanced technology’ that makes it...” Instead of completing the quote aloud, she moved her fingers in one elegant ripple. Magic.
“Uh, yes.” Ian’s eyes widened, that she knew that much, but he rushed on “And we need to continue our tests, and he said you run an insurance company—”
“You did not just tell me,” and Helena’s voice dropped ten degrees in temperature, “that Adrian said I’d bring you patients for you to experiment on.”
Not like that, I thought they’d work up to it!
But before I could step between them, Ian burst out “You’re his boss alright, you can’t see how—” He cut off.
I looked at him, at his embarrassed but unrepentant glare back at us. What was he doing, fuming about what I’d said to Sybil? If he thought I believed that, I should be apologizing, but...
Then Ian went on, in a steadier voice: “It’s not like that. I’ve been developing these methods for years now. And I know getting reliable results is a challenge for me. Still, the one thing I can promise you is to Do No Harm.”
Then Lucy added “But don’t take our word for it.” She held up her phone screen to Helena. “I’ve been keeping records—names, dates, conditions.” She scrolled the screen along, again, faster now. “You can see, it’s unpredictable but there are no side effects—”
“Keep that down,” I said. I knew Lucy kept their notes, but I’d just thrown everything I had into convincing Sybil it couldn’t work, and now Lucy was waving around proof that I’d conned her?
Instead Lucy passed the files to Helena’s phone. And we watched—Lucy looking more anxious than Ian now—as Helena began reading.
I saw her scroll deep down whatever the list was, and stop and read. Then she scrolled again, too far and fast to be searching for anything, and stopped again. Spot-checking the files at random, I realized, just as Helena began to slow down.
And she smiled.
* * *
Helena was still working her phone as we started for the exit, this time looking at files of her own. And Ian made one try to look over her shoulder at it, and she pulled the cell away with a warning about confidentiality. Lucy seemed more irritated than she did.
Then Ian stopped cold outside of one room. He looked through the door’s window at... a pudgy young man and a doctor just starting to unwind a thick set of bandages from his arm.
Ian’s focus narrowed, like a man reaching for a lifeline. “Now you’ll see.” He moved for the door.
Lucy started after him. “Why is it always you—”
As she reached to catch at him, she stumbled, barely caught herself. Her movements were still off.
Ian said “That’s why it has to be me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry I did it to you, but... concentration matters here. The patient comes first.”
And he stepped inside and let the door close.
Just when she stood up for herself, she got held back by the damage he’d done to her? I looked away from the fuming, frustrated woman. Jason stood turned away, quietly keeping an eye on where we’d come. More of Tell’s men could still be around somewhere, that was always the risk.
Through the door’s window, I saw Ian walk up to the doctor and patient. He looked around himself, waving his hands like some excitable fool who’d gotten lost... and he ‘tripped’ and fell and brushed the patient’s back. And the proud Ian slipped into the roll so easily, he must have used it many times.
“He’s... determined,” Helena said.
That was the word, alright. At the corner of my eye I saw Lucy’s face squeezing the pain down and away from sight.
Ian stepped out the door again.
He halted just outside, holding it open a crack behind him. Enough for us to hear the voices behind him:
“Well! That looks good. The cuts are almost closed—”
“Hold on, what’s this—”
Ian’s eyes clenched shut. But he stayed there, we all stayed, for the long seconds until the doctor said “Looks like it just needs more time—”
Ian spun away from the door, and I could hear it thump closed.
This was the same outcome he must have seen so many times before, a wound refusing to stay closed. He’d barely had a moment of touch to work on the injuries. But Ian stomped away like the world had come to an end.
Jason caught after him. “Quiet!” he hissed.
“Or what? What are you going to do, hit me? Here, you want another shot at my back?” He pulled away.
“Hey!” Lucy ran up to him, caught up to him.
She didn’t say another word, just looked at him, and some of the fury seeped out of him and left him sagging where he stood.
Then he drew himself up again. “Come on. I saw another patient here on her list.”
And he set off at a quick walk that had us scrambling to keep up.
Helena looked at me. “You found these people. Do you think he remembers we’re trying to hide him?”
Welcome to my day—but instead of that I said “Let’s give him one more try here.”
Or... I still had the small jewels I’d bought, that were going to be my surprise gift for their healing work. If I they could carry magic, their simple binding power might be better for making a cut stay closed than anything Ian had... which was the last thing he needed to hear right now. And I couldn’t even test charging the gems until the stars came out.
Instead I reached in my pocket and slid the Bones from their insulating box, ready for my command again. After the brief rest at dinner, their cold bit down on me as if it had never let go.
Lucy caught up with Ian up ahead, and they slowed. I moved up enough to catch some of what they said:
“...you using the wrong kind for this? What did he say, it’s the words...”
“The words work,” Ian hissed back. “Dr. Lizt gave me the key for affecting pain and the nervous system. But making wounds heal?” He held up his right hand. “This one’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“I discovered it. It took me months of testing variations on his words. But I know it, this does work.”
Lucy leaned closer, whispering, and I forced myself to draw back. Had he really said he found the words for making magic close wounds?
A minute later Ian stopped in front of another room’s door. He didn’t speak, only squared his shoulders ready to march in.
“Here,” Jason said. “Maybe you just need more time in there.” And he reached under his coat, and drew out a tightly-folded bundle, the uniform he’d swiped before. “Thought we could need this again,” he added.
Ian took them, muttered a word of thanks, and spun away toward a rest room. He came back just a minute later—the shirt’s edge hung a little high on him, but he wore the medical outfit like he’d never worn anything else.
When he opened the door I saw the patient inside, a pale little boy sitting up in bed. Then all I had were glimpses through the window: Ian glancing at the chart, Ian helping the boy stretch his fingers open and closed, giving the test again and again and again.
Helena watched beside me, a flicker of conflict on her face as she took in how Ian simply impersonated hospital staff, against the promise behind what he did. Lucy only looked away, like she’d seen it all before, and Jason stood with his gaze quietly on the corridor around us.
Ian guided the boy’s fingers with his left hand only, the hand with the nerve ring... until he reached up and added his right as well, the ring for wounds. And they worked away at it, on and on, and a stunned smile began to spread over the boy.
Ian drew his hands away, and the boy’s exercises never slowed. He was still flexing those fingers minutes later when Ian left the room.
“I knew you’d get it.” At some point Lucy must have moved to watch the window too. “That looks like one of our clearest improvements; you may have given him more help than weeks of physical therapy.” She glanced at Helena for her reaction.
Helena only looked at me—what do you do with people like this, how do you find a place for them in a business or a world? I could only grin back helplessly.
Ian shrugged. “It’s just about putting in the work. And a well-timed change of clothes,” and he nodded to Jason.
Then his smile went tighter, more smug.
He added “And understanding what goes with the uniform. But some of us know what that means,” and he turned deliberately away from Jason to give Lucy an exclusive grin.
“Ian...” She shook her head.
Jason didn’t move. Ian smirked at him. “Oh, nothing to say, of course not. That’s fine.” And he held out his arm to Lucy.
Jason turned away, slowly, a picture of studied indifference.
Lucy stepped back and pulled her arm out of Ian’s reach. “Is that how you’re going to treat a victory? Scoring points at... whatever that’s supposed to be?”
Ian froze. “But...” Then he spun around to Helena. “You saw that, didn’t you? That was real pain reduction and lost function restored. And I counted no loss of effect after two minutes—”
I backed away a few steps to let their voices fall away. Ian had shown what he could do, if he’d just stop showing off and let us get them out of here. My head hurt from the drama, while Jason still just stood there unmoved in the middle of it.
Lucy stepped away and walked toward me.
“Problem?” The word slid right out of me, too ready.
“Just...” She leaned against the wall. “Ian, burning away at my nerves. And then today he zapped my motor reflexes too.”
Laughter chortled up through me. So that was how medical magicians joked? At least she could joke about it.
In my pocket I could feel the bulk of the jewelry I’d bought, the binding magic I still hadn’t spoken about.
I added “I remember what you said, before he went in for that patient with the bandages: why is it always you? You really want to do start doing this yourself?”
“I’d like to try. I’m still getting used to the idea that the power never had to be just him... But, he told me his magic is one secret he was given, and one more that he discovered himself, from him building on that. That kind of dedication...”
She looked down, her eyes closed to settle into deeper thought.
But a second later her head swung around and looked at me. “Is that you got your emotion magic? That is, if you don’t see it the way he does and measure yourself by how much you can hide from your friends?”
The Bones burned cold in my pocket. “Me? You don’t want to know.”
Something flickered across her face, tremors of regret that settled in on well-worn paths along her face. Then she smiled “Well, if you’d have to kill me—”
“I already got a friend killed. The Pulse is what I stole from his killer, and it reminds me some things are too big to undo.”
I kept that answer quiet, when the words wanted to tear out of me and slam the subject closed.
“Oh.” Lucy blinked, opened her mouth and let it close again.
I tried to smile, and I stole a glance around the corridors—
A face ducked back behind a corner. The scarred face of the spy from the clinic.
Shock flared through me, spun me around. So Tell was still having us watched, and I’d let my guard down...
I reached into the Pulse, stretching past the close presences of Lucy and Ian and Jason and the still-haunted Helena, past the echoes of dread and anger and all the other emotions swimming in the nearest rooms. There, that grudge-gnarled flash of purpose was lurking just beyond the turn.
Just one of them, so far, and nobody that felt like him on any other sides. “Get everyone moving!” I waved Lucy toward the group. “Keep them together, get them to a crowded spot and stay there, stay ready for anything.”
She shook her head. “You think Ian’s going to listen to—”
“I think you’re the only one he’ll listen to. And someone has to make him.”
She stumbled back towards them, and I had an instant to wonder if I was panicking and moving too soon, or already too late. Then I dug into the Pulse again for that same knot of resentment...
There, that had to be Tell’s spy—the one pulling rapidly away beyond the turn. What’s he up to?
I rushed for the corner, dodging around two arguing men. Up the corridor I got a glimpse of his dark coat through the currents of people. Making out his presence among their emotions was harder, enough that dropping the Pulse and simply stepping between them at a quick walk felt like running free.
Free and too late. Why had I let us stay in the hospital at all? I could have snuck us out the moment Helena arrived, if I’d made them listen.
The people around me thinned, left me looking at a half-empty corridor with scattered figures moving around it and breaking up my view. What glimpses I caught showed my target still beating a firm retreat. He knew he’d been spotted.
Let him think he’s lost me. Instead of chasing him I slowed, gritted my teeth, and opened myself to the Pulse again. Emotions battered at me, booming and shaking around me—telling his harshness from other emotions was harder than just tracking the one resentful presence on the path away.
When he’d drawn further off, I chased after him again. That meant closing the Pulse and diving blindly in among what could be anything from angry parents to more killers, and trusting all the families and doctors and everyone walking around to keep me safe. Or if someone quietly stuck a gun in my ribs, that would put him within my own reach as well. I just had to hope there was no other team closing in on Helena’s group.
There he was, far ahead, back to me and striding away—
A quick footstep sounded right behind me.
Stupid—I spun around, and found myself facing Detective Poe.
His round face seemed to fill my view. “So now you notice?”
“Look, there’s a Mob spy getting away—”
“Them? We’ve been keeping an eye on you for hours, and you missed those tails?”
He had to be bluffing... or I really was that tired, and trying to find neat cop labels over glimpses of emotions in a crowd...
Arguing took too long. “Come on!”
But Poe stepped in front of me. “What were you doing with the patients here? And how’s Helena Travers tied up in this?”
How had I let that happen— All I could say was “There’s a Mob spy, getting away,” and I twisted around him and raced after the enemy.
Too many people streamed across the corridor to spot him. I broke into a jog and heard Poe moving behind me. If I just got past that group looking up at the wall’s TV screen...
Then I broke clear of them, to see a clear corridor with a mocking number of branches beyond it, and no spy in sight.
Poe’s footsteps closed in at my rear. And I’d just given him ammunition against Helena too, unless I could show him something better.
