Minutes to Midnight (2 page)

The hand on my cheek moved my head to the
left and I felt lips brush my neck. "Sshh…just relax, Guardian.
It's not your time to die. I haven't even started with you
yet."

I felt a sharp pain where she kissed me, and
then nothing.

WHERE DiD THE BiTE GO?

When I lose consciousness, there's nothing.
Just a big black nothing. What brought me out of this one was a
cold touch against my cheek, and then a hand on my forehead. I had
a vague memory of my mother doing that when I was little and felt
bad. Checking for fever? Did I have one? I didn't feel feverish. I
felt…

Oh God…sore as hell.

I must've made a noise and moved, because
the hand disappeared and whatever I was lying on bounced a bit as
if someone sat down. "Oh fuck, you scared the shit out of me."

It was Mike's voice. You
know, for someone his size, he had a surprisingly soft tone. I
think the word was
melodic
. It was enough to soothe my
aching head.

Sort of.

The movement beside me set off a nasty woozy
feeling in my stomach. Oh Gawd…stop. "Mike…moving…no…"

"Oh, sorry." The bouncing beneath me eased
so I assumed he stood up. "I'm pretty sure you've got a concussion,
if not more, from several blows to your head. I swear it looked
like they dragged you through every rock-strewn plot in the
cemetery."

A word caught my attention as I opened my
eyes. "They?" Mike had to be kneeling beside me because he was
really close as he did his helicopter mom act.

When we met he was married, then he and
Teresa separated and went through a pretty amicable divorce. He was
also the father of a beautiful daughter, Brendi. Mike once ran a
new age shop near the bar where I worked in Roswell, Georgia for a
couple of years. Before I moved to Savannah.

We were instant friends,
sharing a fascination with the unexplained, the strange, and the
unusual, as well as a healthy love of
Dr.
Who
.

The friendship took on a new level after I
prevented him from making a deal with a nasty little spirit called
a Cozen. Little fucker wanted Mike's soul and needed a kiss to seal
the deal. I guess after that Mike felt he could trust me.

"Yeah," Mike answered, and then rose and
moved to stand near my legs. Oh right…the zombie bite! "There were
at least four of them in the cemetery. When you took out the one
swinging that stone, two more tag-teamed you."

"Tag-teamed?"

"It was actually quite intelligent, if a bit
unorthodox. One used the other as a living—" he made air quotes for
the word living "—extended arm. Held him out so he could grab your
leg with his jaw, and while that one held on to you, the one with
his legs in better shape took off running, holding the chomping one
by its torso. Before I realized what'd happened to you, a fourth
jumped in and tried to take a bite out of me."

"Bite," I cleared my throat as I pushed
myself up on my elbows. Whoa…I still wanted to throw up. "I got bit
by a zombie."

Mike frowned. "Yes. I saw it happen, but I
haven't been able to find it."

Huh? It took a bit of effort, but I pushed
myself up into a sitting position. I wasn't wearing anything but a
sheet. Dammit. I wish he'd stop undressing me. I pulled back the
sheet and looked right at the place where I saw that creature bite
me.

There was a bruise—and that's it. Nothing
else. I ran my fingers over it. Tender skin. A bit warmer but no
bite mark. "Where…what…how…?"

"That's pretty close to my reaction once I
got you home." Mike pushed my legs out of the way and sat down on
the edge of the bed, careful not to rock it this time. That's when
I realized we were in my own bed in our townhouse in Old Savannah.
I also noticed he'd been in here cleaning up again. Great. Now I
wasn't going to find anything because Mike the Manager had gone and
organized it. He gently lifted my leg and turned it to the left,
then to the right. There was nothing there other than the tender
bruise.

"But I saw that thing bite
me. Hell…I
felt
it
bite me and it fucking
hurt
."

He put my leg back on the bed and covered me
with the sheet. I'm not sure I was that jazzed about his
expression, since it was a mixture of relief and worry. But then,
that was his normal scowl. "The good news—besides the fact it
doesn't look as if I'll have to chop off your head to prevent your
imminent zombie transformation—is that they're all dead. I was able
to destroy all four and I bagged up their remains, or the remains I
found, and burned them."

I leaned back on my elbows. Damn, my head
hurt. "And the bad news? Oh wait." My heart fell. "No book?"

"Nothing. The mausoleum was empty—except for
the bodies and a lot of dirty silk flowers."

"So was it a setup? Or had there really been
a book?"

"I don't have your acute talent for magic
sensing, so I don't know if a tome had been inside the mausoleum. I
didn't find any physical evidence. As for whether we were set up or
not, I've been wondering that myself. Whatever the reason, they
were intent on dragging you off and not me."

I pushed and pulled myself
up on the bed into a sitting position again. Rubbing my hand on my
face was just an excuse to pause and think. The reason we'd been in
the cemetery was because someone we trusted assured us they knew
where a piece of the
Grimoire
—the book in my soul—was
hidden in Bonaventure Cemetery. I'd learned a month ago that the
book still wasn't complete; that there were still several pieces of
it missing. "Well, I'm not sure that's a setup or just that
circle-of-life thing. I mean, a pack of animals usually goes after
the smallest prey, right? And when I'm standing next to you, I
disappear…"

He didn't think I was funny. Didn't even
crack a smile. Instead he narrowed his eyes at me. "Why don't you
have a zombie bite?"

"Look, Mike, if you'd rather cut off my
head, instead of being happy that I'm not going to try and eat your
face in your sleep—"

When Mike punches, he does it with no
holding back. Didn't matter how much smaller I was. So when he
reached forward and popped the side of my jaw with a quick tap
instead of his usual knuckle sandwich, I took note. The guy had
been worried. About me.

But then, given what we'd been through in
the past months, I'd do anything for him. And if something happened
to him, anything at all, I'm afraid whoever was responsible would
die.

By my hand.

Mike pointed at me. "Pay attention. Besides
not finding this tome Tango swore was in that mausoleum, we have to
figure out why you looked tastier than me."

"First we have to find
out
where
the
zombies
come from and plug
that
hole. I don't know about you, but I've never seen
zombies before. I thought they weren't real."

"Oh, those were real all right. I haven't
heard anything at the bar about zombies or any apocalypse.
You?"

"Nope." I moved back and swung my legs off
the bed.

"What're you doing?"

"Getting up. I gotta pee, Mike. How long
have I been out?"

He checked his watch. I couldn't wear one of
those. I always managed to stop them. Even pocket watches. "Well,
it's Saturday morning, about eight thirty. A little over thirteen
hours."

My jaw broke the sound barrier traveling to
the ground as it dropped. "Thirteen…hours? I've been out that
long?"

"You hit your head several times, Dags. And
from what I could see from the ash and zombie parts in your wake,
you shot fire and slung that sword of yours."

"Why do you sound mad?"

"Christ, Darren. How much magic do you
have?" His brow furrowed. "It's like I don't know what's coming
next with you. You're either freezing things in mid-air, or setting
them on fire, pulling a sword out of your ass—"

"Hand."

"Shut up. And every time you do I find you
asleep somewhere. Or unconscious."

I lowered my hands and looked sideways at
him. "You were worried."

"Only because I can't afford this place
without a roommate."

I gave him my best smirk and he reached over
to ruffle my hair. "Stop that."

"You have bedhead. Get a shower. I got
breakfast fixed."

I did manage to half-fall, half-stumble out
of bed. Mike caught me and made sure I wasn't going to face-plant
into the floor. I was still light-headed, and the headache pounded
against the front of my skull. A hospital would be the best place
for me, but we were already dodging calls from Memorial University
Medical Center. I'd spent a bit of time there a month ago—after
having landed in the Savannah River escaping from Alfheim with some
seriously open wounds. At first things seemed fine. They cured a
staph infection; I went home.

Then the phone calls started. Some doctor
there took a closer look at my blood and wanted me to come in for
tests. I did, just because I didn't want to risk any other
infections I might have contracted. But Dr. Lisa Pollard wasn't
interested in infection—she was more interested in the fine wood
residue she'd found in my blood.

After giving my teacher, Nona, a call about
Pollard's enthusiasm and wanting to pay me for a blood study, we
avoided the woman like the plague. Nona didn't trust the woman and
warned me to stay as far away from conventional medicine as
possible. Unfortunately, the only healer we knew was Samantha
Hawthorne, a witch living in New Orleans and a friend of Mike's.
I'd first met her a month after I arrived in Savannah. She'd saved
me from an Angel attack in a different cemetery and then healed me
several times during our little adventure in the world of
Alfheim.

Maybe I should avoid cemeteries?

Pollard was still calling. And I was just as
happy not to visit a hospital.

I figured if Mike ever got wounded, I'd dial
911. I didn't want to take chances. But then…Mike never got hurt.
Dude was made of Teflon or something.

He was looking down at me funny. "What?"

"You think it was the book that healed
you?"

"Maybe it did? Maybe that's why I don't have
a bite mark?"

"Well, I thought about that,
but why not heal everything? You're still black-and-blue in all the
worst places and the look on your face tells me you've got a
massive headache. It just seems a little weird. And a little picky.
There's aspirin and bottled water in the bathroom. I suggest
a
long
shower." He
pointed to the bathroom. "We have a class at four."

"Class?" I called back as I shuffled out the
door in front of him and turned to the right into my bathroom. It
was a pretty cool townhouse, with a master bedroom and private
bathroom on the third floor. My bedroom was one of two on the
second floor. The bathroom on this floor was bigger, but split
between my room and the other one. I flipped on the light and saw
the aspirin and water. After I threw the pill back and drank half
the bottle—pausing for brain freeze—I turned a confused face at
Mike in the doorway. "What class? I gotta be at work at five."

"Sword class. You missed it on Wednesday and
Shi-han Shu noticed."

"I had to work."

"Sword classes come first."

"No, making money to pay rent comes first."
I finished up the water and looked in the mirror. Wow. Shouldn't
have done that.

I don't consider myself an attractive man. I
did have serious bed-head. The thick shit was sticking up at odd
angles, which only gave a humorous note to the mottled bruises on
my cheek, over my left eye, and on the right side of my jaw. I
turned my face to the right, then the left and looked down to the
darker marks on my chest and upper arms. "You think this makes me
look tougher?"

Mike looked pained. "No. It makes you look
beat to shit. Just make sure if they ask if it was me, say no."

"No one's going to think you beat me. Hell,
they still think we're a couple." I glanced back at him and made a
motion to close the door. "Gonna…make myself pretty."

"Yeah. Good luck with that." Mike left.

I leaned against the door for a time,
listening as he went downstairs. I worried about him, more than I
wanted him to know. He was sadder now than when we first met.

His ex, Teresa, and I had been friends. She
had given him custody of their child a few years ago, in an attempt
to start the reconciliation process—not to get back together, but
to make their divorce as easy for their daughter as possible.

Then something horrific happened. Something
no parent ever wants to experience.