âYou should find yourbrother. Sheâs nothing but trouble. You need to be with your own.â
I could have been in thrall with Holly, he thought, staring through the leaded panes. The moon threw nets of silver over the crashing waves far below. Those who were loved by the Cathers witches were doomed to die by drowning.
Maybe my dreams are wishful thinking .
He watched the water and wished he were free of all this. And free of her.
âTeaâs ready,â Eve announced. âYou drink it black.â
âAnd as hot as possible,â he replied. âSo it burns as it goes down.â
Her hand trembled as she poured the boiling water into a white china cup.
Seattle: Dr. Temar
âOh, my God,â Dr. Temar murmured as he watched the EKG blips on the monitor attached to Kari Hardwicke, who had been dead for months. Sheâs coming back online, he thought giddily, because he couldnât make his mind say the real words: Itâs finally happening. Sheâs coming back to life.
He was wearing a pale blue scrub cap, scrubs, booties over his shoes, and gloves, and he glanced from the monitor to the small, still form beneath the sheet on the hospital bed, then back again. The heartbeat wasstronger. Should he do a quick EEG scan? He wanted to see her brain wave activity.
He licked his lips and took a step toward her bed. In the dead of night, during a rainstorm, he had moved her shipping crate to the basement of his Queen Anne home. He couldnât guarantee enough privacy at the university. Experimenting on cats was one thing, but if someone had discovered a human body in his lab, how could he have explained it?
His house had been left basically intact during the fires and floodsâa few windows had cracked; the attic was destroyed. He put up tarps, and continued his quest.
Sweat broke across his forehead. He was ecstatic, and terrified. For centuries, millennia, science had tried to do what he had done.
And practitioners of magic, too, he thought. Rose and her people are waiting to hear my results.
And then, it was done.
Sheâs alive.
His fear evaporated and he raced to her side. Her face was dead white, with slight blue lines running beneath the skin. Her veins. She had never turned the dark purplish black associated with livor mortis. But she wasnât rosy-hued, like a living person.
Maybe sheâs not going to make it all the way back, he thought anxiously, remembering the cats he hadnât succeeded in resurrecting. Heâd named his one successOsiris, after the Egyptian God whoâd risen from the dead.
He didnât want her to be frightened by the five electrodes attached to her body, so he gently pried the two off her shoulders, shifting the layers of gauze to get at the ones on her sides and midsternal areas. He felt her cold skin through his surgical gloves. He had kept the room temperature low to stave off infection.
There, done. He wanted to clean off the jelly and adhesive necessary to make the electrodes work, but he didnât want to startle her. He placed the green, brown, and white discs on the gunmetal gray equipment cart and pulled the sheet back over her body.
Her eyelids fluttered, but her eyes stayed closed. He dropped down to one knee and reached beneath the sheet for her hand. Her fingers jerked and she grabbed him, squeezing hard.
âKari, itâs Nigel.â His voice caught. âYou wereâ¦youâve been sick. Youâre in Seattle. Youâreâyouâre safe.â
She grimaced.
âAre you in pain? I can give you something.â
âHeadache. Bad. And myâ¦heart.â Her hand moved in his grasp. He blanched. He didnât want her to find out what had happened to her, not quite yet. He was worried about what the shock would do to her. All his prepared speeches evaporated from his memory.
âOh, Kari,â he murmured, so in love and filled with joy that he thought he would faint. âKari,
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