Part 34 (2/2)
”Keeping you safe is the job I was given.”
”Just your job, huh?”
”Don't be stupid.” He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. ”I just never know what to say in these situations.”
”Well, I'll say thank you, and you don't have to answer that.”
”I might add that you saved mine. I don't know what Caleb did to me, but if you'd not stopped him, he might have actually figured out how to use that gun.”
I smiled and took another kiss.
”Which reminds me,” I said. ”What about Caleb? Did you-” I had trouble saying it outright. ”Uh, is he dead?”
”No. He fired one shot at me and missed so badly that I realized he knew nothing about guns. He was holding the sodding pistol in one hand. The recoil jerked him off-balance.” Ari's voice dripped contempt. ”He scrambled back into the car when I fired. I was only aiming for the tires, to disable it so we could make an arrest.” He shook his head, baffled. ”I a.s.sume he did something to my mind, and that you made him stop. Just before I fired, I mean.”
”Yeah, that's it, more or less.”
”I felt like I'd been drinking all day.” His voice shook with sheer indignation. ”I missed the tires. I got one shot into his rear door and bounced a third one off the trunk when he drove back onto the road.”
He'd missed his target for the first time in twenty years, I figured. ”So he got away?”
”Unless the Pacifica police have him, yes.”
”Don't be too hard on yourself.” I leaned back against the pillows. ”Most people would have stayed ensorcelled for hours. You snapped right out of it when I broke up the web of Qi. I'm not surprised you missed. I am surprised that you could stand up.”
”You're only saying that to make me feel better.”
”No, I'm not. Don't you remember how Doyle hit the ground? And how he looked afterward?”
He considered this. ”Yes,” he said. ”I do see what you mean.”
”You're amazing, Ari. You really are.”
He scowled at me, then suddenly smiled. ”Thank you,” he said. ”I still wish I'd shot out his tires, though.”
Father Keith trotted back in, followed by a solid-looking nurse with a wonderful ma.s.s of curly sandy-brown hair, pulled back into a pair of metal clips. The nameplate on her blue scrubs read ”Enderby.” End or be, I thought. Yeah, that was the question, all right.
”Ari?” Father Keith said. ”If you've got a cell phone, would you call Eileen and tell her that Nola's back with us?”
”And go out in the hall, both of you,” Enderby said. ”I've got to take her vitals.”
”Where are you taking them?” Father Keith said.
”Not very far.” Enderby's tone of voice implied she'd heard that joke too many times. ”Out!”
The vitals turned out to be blood pressure, temperature, and other routine measurements. The nurse p.r.o.nounced me fit to eat breakfast and sent in someone she called Doctor Poulis. I wondered why the doctor looked so familiar, with her deep-set brown eyes, slender face, and pointed chin, until I remembered the Nereid.
”Were you the admitting doctor?” I asked. ”In the ER when they brought me in, I mean?”
”I was, yes. I just came back on s.h.i.+ft and heard about the miracle.”
”That's me, huh?” I knew that at times an unconscious person could be aware of their surroundings, but I'd never had it happen to me. The ego's suppressed, but the animal sees and remembers. ”I'm recovering, right?”
”I'd say so, but hypothermia can be a funny thing. How are you feeling this morning?”
”Okay. Can I go home now?”
”I'd rather you stayed for a few tests and some more observation. I want to order blood tests to determine your various levels, like pota.s.sium and creatinine.” She caught my wrist and took my pulse all over again. ”I've got to admit that you look a lot stronger than anyone should after an extreme hypothermia incident, but still, another day here would be a good idea.” She let go of my hand and smiled. ”It'll give your boyfriend a chance to go home and rest. I take it he's the one who pulled you out of the water.”
It took me a few moments to understand that Ari had planted a cover story. I hid the delay with a sob and a snivel. ”Yeah, he was,” I said. ”It was really stupid of me, getting that close to the tide line. I know rogue waves happen along there.”
”There have certainly been a lot of them lately.” Poulis was watching the monitor above my bed. ”One more thing. You need to gain weight. Not a lot, no, but you had no resistance to the cold because you're dangerously thin.”
I started to argue, but she stopped gazing at the monitor to fix me with a gimlet eye worthy of Aunt Eileen. ”I know, I know. Everyone worries about being fat, but abnormally low body weight is just as dangerous. I'm estimating that you fall in the second or third percentile for your height/ weight ratio. That's abnormal. Anything under the tenth percentile is dangerous, and under five it's d.a.m.ned dangerous.”
”How much should I gain? Five pounds?”
”Twenty is more like it.”
”That's a whole dress size up! Maybe even two.”
”My heart bleeds. One size at your size is nothing. Two would be about right. Do you want episodes like this to keep happening?”
”No.”
”Then eat like a normal person.”
From the hallway I heard applause. Father Keith and Ari had been eavesdropping.
”If you're really worried about getting fat,” she went on, ”join a gym. The extra food will put on muscle, not fat, that way.”
”Okay,” I said. ”I'll do that.”
When Dr. Poulis marched out, Ari and Father Keith cheered her on her way.
”Very funny,” I said. ”Ha ha.”
Not that they heard me, I suppose, since they were still out in the hall. But what if I'd been a bit heavier? I wondered. Would I have had more Qi at my disposal to fight off Belial? That interesting thought made me remember my insight about the ocean: water to burn. No wonder he'd managed to overwhelm me, if he'd been drawing upon that vast reservoir of Qi. I could draw upon that reservoir myself-but I wondered if I could ever best him, even though I knew his secret now. Man or alien, whatever he was, he had power.
Out in the hallway, Nurse Enderby returned and began to talk to Ari. I heard her suggesting politely that he go home and clean up.
”No,” he said, less than politely. ”Not until Nola leaves with me.”
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