Toxic Influence Page 12

  "Shut up and move, greenhorn." And between us, we got back to standing. I was carrying a lot of weight, and we still had one flight of stairs to go. We rushed as much as we could, but her right leg was completely dead weight, dragging behind her.

  "We're almost out." My voice sounded like shit…and I had to use it. "We're here!" I screamed the whole way down that last flight of stairs, hoping anyone would come and grab us, help us get out there. If they knew there were survivors…someone would show. Someone had to show.

  A gas-masked agent stumbled in and locked eyes with me. He nodded and waved me toward the front door. We'd get out. We'd get out and die on the street instead of there in the apartment complex.

  I staggered us both out onto the stoop and the agent took over King's right side, helping us both stumble forward. White fog poured out from a two inch hole in the sidewalk. A fucking two inch hole to the mysterious poison dimension was doing us in.

  I hit my hands and knees in the middle of the street. With one shaking, barely cooperating hand, I ripped the gas mask from my face and sucked in shuddering, weak breaths of fresh air. The pain was receding, and welcome as that was, I knew it wasn't right. I had exposed bone on my hands. Every inch of me should have been engulfed in agony. I was shutting down.

  I crawled over to Agent King, barely able to shimmy along the pavement. Blackness crept in at the edge of my vision. Welcome, beautiful darkness where all the pain would go away for good.

  King was still down. I craned my neck for anyone, but couldn't see much anymore. We needed to let him know. "Call Swift. Call Agent Swift."

  That was all I got before, finally, the pain was just gone.

  Chapter Ten

  Coming back to consciousness sucks no matter what. But coming back to consciousness is ten times worse when you can barely breathe and every cell in your body is on fire. A fact I was becoming way too familiar with for my comfort.

  As realization spread through my mind, it felt like I had an IV of boiling water pouring straight into my veins. Was there screaming? You bet your ass.

  "Damn it." A low voice I didn't recognize. "You weren't supposed to come around yet."

  I don't know if it was magic, or if I just didn't feel the tiny needle pinprick of anesthesia compared to the dragon burning its way from my heart out, but soon more blackness came, more numbness and sweet, sweet nothingness.

  Then I woke again. I couldn't have said how long I was out. Slow. No boiling water. No screaming. Still braced for the pain, sure it was coming again. And come it did, by god. I hurt. Everything hurt. I couldn't even pinpoint one thing that actually hurt. My body didn't exist anymore. There were no hands or feet or any of that. Just agony.

  "Oh good, you're back with the living." That was a voice I knew. I strained my neck just enough to see blonde hair and a glittery cheekbone. Casey walked over, pushing a little stainless steel cart in front of him. "I was getting worried you wouldn't make it back out."

  Okay. We were aiming for conversation. That would be fun to try and figure out. "And leave you sad?" Shit I sounded terrible. Like gravel inside a coffee can. "I wouldn't do that."

  Casey's mouth set into a slight frown. "Well that's sweet. But try not talking right now. The treatments I gave you guys for the lung damage are taking their time kicking in. You two took a lot of poison, so everything's struggling a little bit to keep up."

  I nodded. Of course we took a lot of poison. We were in a closed building with poison gas coming at us from both sides. And because I couldn't leave Abigail behind with her keeled over in front of me, we both hung out in the poison for a long time.

  Because I had to drag Agent King out.

  I had to drag her out because she was dying.

  My mind flashed back to her with her gas mask askew, then her on the street, not moving. Goosebumps raised on my skin, shooting lightning pain across every inch of me. I swallowed hard, and just the movement of my Adam's apple ached against the skin and tendons of my neck. "King. How is she?"

  "Worse than you, but you'll both recover. Now shut your pretty little mouth. I need to concentrate."

  I looked to one side. Far as I could tell, we'd been transported back to DC, but honestly one medical room looked like the next. It was only on seeing my clothes piled up that I realized I was butt-ass naked except for a paper sheet covering my unmentionables.

  I struggled my neck around to look to the other side and there was King. In a paper gown, with her face slightly scarred and very red, and her hands blistered and blackened, soaking in big beakers full of some sort of cloudy green liquid. But not moving. He wouldn't treat her if she was dead, would he? Or was this some other thing? Some last ditch effort to undo the impossible?

  King opened her eyes and looked at me. Slightly dazed, but there was still a spark of light there. "You should have left me, greenhorn."

  Even in the world of magic, I figured talking meant not dead more often than not. "Then you'd actually be dead. Now you only look like a corpse."

  She turned her head away, smiling ever so slightly. "Necrophiliacs everywhere, Rourke. I can still get laid."

  "You two stop your chattering or I'm going to have to take drastic measures." Casey sprayed what I assumed was his magical liquid all over my chest—because that didn't sound remotely sexual—and worked his way down, lifting the covering when he got low enough. It was cold on my junk and I jerked back. Which I guess was good. No lasting damage where it counted. It wasn't great when it started to burn like a motherfucker, but whatever.

  Casey sighed as he went down my thighs and my legs. "I'm not supposed to have a return patient with this poison gas, you know that right? Most agents would be a little brighter and, I don't know, not willingly expose themselves to a fresh dose of the poison that almost killed them last time. And don't answer back, I'm lecturing you and your throat is in no shape for arguing."

  "I thought—"

  "What did I just say?" He set the spray down. "I don't know how the damage will progress, yet. Especially with you. Return patient, remember? I'm still piecing half of this stuff together on the fly. So hush, or I'll have to throw a little forced beauty sleep on you."

  I nodded and couldn't help myself one final quip. "I think I need more beauty sleep. Look at my hair."

  And instead of chiding me, Casey cracked a smile. "I'm concerned about your hair, too. As soon as I make sure you have thigh muscles and can breathe, I'll get a comb."

  It was probably the strangest thing that had happened to me since getting pulled into this OPA mess. Lying there starkers with a gay quarter hag regrowing basically all the skin on my body…and apparently my muscles, too. All while the senior-most spook laid on the exam table next to me. It itched, it burned, and every part of me felt tight, like…well, like when you grew new skin over a wound. My throat and chest both ached, and I kept replaying the scene of King toppled over in my mind, no matter if I was trying to or not.

  "All right, turn over for me. Your back's not in great shape, either."

  "You got it, Doc." I pushed myself onto my side and flipped, ignoring the sharp pain ripping through my legs and flanks. But hey, my voice only sounded like gravel in a plastic coffee can, now, so that had to be good news.

  I also got a look at myself in the mirror. Just for a second. And I looked like Oscar, lying in that hospital bed. Not quite as scarred up…but damn. That was sobering. I turned my head to the side so I could see my temporary roommate instead of myself. "Hey King. Sorry I—"

  "Sorry for saving my ass? I encourage that behavior." She shook her head. "Besides, I was a Nirvana groupie. This is nothing compared to…well, I'm an FBI agent, now. But it wouldn't be entirely false to suggest I did acid off a man's penis."

  Damn. Okay. That threw me for at least a second or two before I could respond. "I mean, who hasn't?" I tensed up at a fresh, stabbing pain in the middle of my spine.

  "Sorry. Trying to get all of it, and you had a deep lesion back there." Casey sprayed it with the cold shit
, and soon it was feeling…not okay, but less like a bullet wound. "You two are going to be on a regimen of daily scrubbers to get this all cleaned out of your system. I'd say for two weeks, just to be safe. Don't want any of this lingering. But I took some samples from you two. See if we can't get a workable field treatment put together. Since everyone wants to run into the poison nowadays, and there's only one of me to go around."

  A few more minutes of lying on my stomach, getting sprayed with the stinging shit, then Casey tapped me lightly on the shoulder. "Okay. Go ahead and sit up. You should be clear on infections, plus you have skin and muscles again. Slender as you may have looked with exposed bone, I think this is better."

  "Me too."

  "Time to check on your lungs, see how those are coming along."

  I sat up and looked down at my bare chest and stomach. Nice manly scars. A lot of them. A…concerning amount, if my stomach dropping straight out of my feet was anything to judge by. "How…how permanent is all of this?"

  Casey offered another frown. "No idea, sweetie. They could fade once the scrubbers have finished cleaning you out, or they could stick around until you die. Which is going to be pretty soon if you keep running into clouds of poison gas, by the way. Just my expert medical opinion."

  "If I don't try to kill myself, I wouldn't have any excuse to come visit you."

  "Well, not to sound like I have low self-esteem, but I'm definitely not worth it. Next time, just slam your fingers in a car door. That I can fix no problem." He had the silvery rods out again, moving them in weird patterns, but this time he actually dragged them across my skin, light, feathery touches over my chest, down to the very top of my abdomen, and back up all the way to underneath my jaw. Then he had me drink the weird not-disgusting brown medicine again. All the while, I could feel the stinging and stabbing all across my body as more and more tissue grew to fill in what I'd lost. "All right, let's hear your voice, see if we got any progress."

  I swallowed and started. "This is my voice. This is not the way I usually talk." It wasn't, but it wasn't bad. I sounded like a had a bad, bad sore throat, and it was getting a little better with each word. "I sound like a sexy Tom Waits, though, so that's a plus. Oh, now I'm Batman, even better."

  Casey chuckled, and even King snorted a laugh. She rustled as she sat up. "I think we're okay, Casey. Just get us the scrubbers. And preferably some clothes."

  "Scrubbers I can do. Clothes, you'll have to raid what we actually have to offer. Which isn't a lot. I'm keeping everything else for testing."

  "Can I request a T-shirt that doesn't have horses on it this time?"

  Batman and Tom Waits were both totally gone, and I was sounding damn near normal, now. I guess that was okay, but it meant no sexy phone calls for me. Too bad.

  Casey sighed. "I can't promise you we have anything better. If you want to send someone to your house to get some clothes…I mean, any of us can get there and back in a couple minutes."

  Remote transport. Which could probably take them straight into my living room. "Yeah. My address should be in my file." And I made a note to ask Zar or Gutt about blocking my place off from remote transport, if that was even something that could be done. Them walking in was…well it wasn't okay, but it was acceptable in certain situations. But I didn't need every preet and their grandmother porting in and out of my place. Especially not if they had a bone to pick with me because of the OPA work.

  Agent King got up and rolled her shoulders back. "I'll go myself."

  "I'd tell you not to, but you wouldn't listen." Casey went to a drawer and pulled out a little orange pill bottle. "One every twelve hours until they're all gone."

  She grabbed the bottle. "I'll be back."

  And she walked off, holding her paper gown shut. I sighed. "I'll listen."

  "Of course you will. It's not her first near-death experience on this job."

  "Hey, I got pretty close last time."

  Casey shook his head. "Not really. You would have just been out of commission, but it wasn't anything your body wouldn't have recovered from on its own. Eventually. But now you have this super manly poison story to pick up chicks in the bar."

  "Oh, come on. I'm way more likely to use it for sympathy when I go back to counterterrorism."

  Casey looked me up and down. "You're still planning on going back?"

  Of course I was. It made sense to head back. I was here on a consult, and that was the extent of it. Which didn't explain at all why that wasn't coming out of my mouth.

  Casey saved me from actually having to answer. He shook his head. "It's none of my business, really. Your career. Just promise me you'll occasionally get yourself a magical injury so you can come back and see me. I need a workplace crush, and you're a way better option than Bancroft."

  "Well of course." It niggled in the back of my mind, why I wasn't able to confirm that I was for sure going back. But it was just the back of my mind. "Provide me with the location of the nearest fairy colony and I'll visit once a month to get bitten."

  "God, don't go that far. Fairy bites are nasty business. I'm thinking something sexier. Use your imagination." He was back to his normal bantering self, which I figured boded well for my imminent recovery.

  He went for the phone on the far wall. "I'll call in for someone to get you some clothes. Me with a naked man who's now fully healed? What will the neighbors think?"

  "I'm pretty sure we don't have neighbors here in DC."

  He shrugged. "I guess it's not a problem then. I didn't care what they thought anyway."

  I leaned back on the table and stared at the ceiling. Alone, focusing on nothing but myself, I felt the pain. Little waves of it, just under the surface of my shiny new skin. "I'm going to have to grow back all my body hair now, aren't I? It's not just the legs anymore, is it?"

  "Yeah. It's gonna itch like crazy. If I were you, I'd just start shaving. Or be prepared to suffer." He picked up the phone and dialed in some extension. "Yeah, hello, I need someone to go get a change of clothes from Agent Dashiel Rourke's house. Well I'm sure someone is riding a desk right now, you can spare them for two minutes. You've got his permission, address is in the file. Thanks." He hung up the phone and turned. "Okay. All set, Just have to wait."

  "Thanks." I sighed and sat back up. "Did anyone else get hurt there?"

  Casey paused, then nodded. "Yeah. There were a few victims who weren't as lucky as you. One of them had asthma, they had no chance. One bit of that poison and that was it. A dozen more…they just didn't get cleared out before the whole place was shot."

  Fucking fuck. Thirteen dead people. I should have focused on the dozens that were saved, but of course that wasn't how it worked. Thirteen people died on my watch. The terrorists managed to kill thirteen more with the FBI in the fucking building.

  "It's not your fault. Sometimes these things—"

  "I'm going to be pissed off about this, Casey. People died. That's on me and King as much as it is on the terrorists."

  "Not really. The terrorists killed them. Unless you're the one summoning up that poison gas, in which case you're an idiot for constantly letting yourself get exposed."

  "Or is the exposure my brilliant cover story so no one ever suspects me?"

  A short, bespectacled woman walked through the door, carrying pants, boxers, and a white buttondown. "Here." She handed them off to me with a nod, then turned and left.

  Casey called behind her. "Thanks, Cindy." Once she was out of earshot, he rolled his eyes. "She's pissed because Swift brought you in. She's been gunning for OPA work for a year, but between you and me, she's a little unstable."

  "Always good to mix instability with a gun and a security clearance." I pulled on my boxers under the sheet, then got to my feet. Legs were still a little weak and shaky, and I was tight all over and also fucking starving, but otherwise I felt pretty damn good, all things considered. Way, way better than when I woke up the first time. I could move, and I didn't scream just because I existed.

  Cas
ey checked me out. Like, medically. Prodding and poking and feeling. "She's qualified, and normally she's fine. But there've been enough complaints she should be out of the FBI. That's why she's riding a desk. Technically, she's in major crimes, but they never give her any cases anymore. And she passes every psych eval…sorry. Here I am, gossiping like a fishwife." He pulled back and nodded. "Okay, you can get dressed. I'll give you the same scrubbers I gave King, same instructions, one every twelve hours."

  "Okay." I pulled on my pants, then the shirt. "Are my shoes by chance still viable, or am I buying another pair?"

  "Yep, but no socks." He handed me the shoes, which looked like they'd been cleaned. Probably trying to find residue. We still had no bead on what this particular poison was, besides magical and really dangerous. And possibly Norwegian. "So, any idea how that stuff got around the gas mask?"

  "Osmosis. That's why the damage was so…everywhere. It got in through your skin, then spread through your bloodstream. Gas mask mitigated a lot of it, but…still dangerous."

  Wow. That was mitigated, huh? "Well I hope we figure out how to make clothing like the terrorists wear pretty soon, then." This was dangerous shit. And I could say that with firsthand experience. "Thanks for fixing me. Now I owe you two."

  "Keep this up, you'll owe me sixty-nine and I might cash in."

  "If you save my ass from dying sixty-nine times, I am officially your bitch and you can have whatever you want." I winked at him and he rolled his eyes. Then I sighed. "Okay, I need to go talk to Swift."

  "Yes you do. And if he tries to send you out in the field again, I will learn how to hex just so I can hex his ass. You need to go home and recover for a day. Doctor's orders."

  "Yes sir." And I headed out. I apparently knew the way back to the office from here already and made it over. King was just ahead of me, already through the doors, and she looked functional. And very neat. Professional.

  Almost like she hadn't been through the same poison ordeal I just had.