"Do you really believe that last about your soul?"
I settled into the pillow, and closed my eyes. "I don't know. I guess not, but it … " I opened my eyes. "Thank you for saving my life. If I can ever return the favor, I will, but I don't owe you an explanation of my personal life."
"You're quite right." She straightened her shoulders as if pulling herself back, and suddenly she seemed less intrusive, more businesslike. "Let's return to my analogy of the holes being like light sockets, and the men being the plugs that fit them. What you did was spackle over the holes, cover them with plaster. When the master attacked you, his power tore off the plaster and reopened the holes. You cannot close these holes with your own aura. I cannot imagine the amount of effort it took to put patches over them. Ted said you were learning ritual from a witch."
I shook my head. "She's more psychic than witch. It's not a religion, just natural ability."
Leonora nodded. "Did she approve of you closing the holes the way you did?"
"I told her I wanted to learn how to shield myself from them, and she helped me do that."
"Did she tell you it was a temporary repair?"
I frowned at her. "No."
"Your hostility flares every time we approach the fact that you have given these two men in effect the keys to your soul. You cannot block them permanently, and by trying to you weaken yourself, and probably them as well."
"We'll all just have to live with it," I said.
"You almost didn't live with it."
She had my attention now. "Are you saying that the reason the master was able to almost kill me was the weakness in my aura?"
"He would have hurt you badly, even without them, but I believe the holes made you unable to resist him, especially with them freshly opened as they were. Think of them, perhaps, as wounds, freshly opened wounds that any preternatural infection can enter you through."
I thought about what she was saying. I believed it. "What can I do?"
"The holes are meant to be filled by only one thing, the auras of the men you loved. Your auras must now be like jigsaw puzzles with pieces missing, and only the three of you together are a whole now."
"I can't accept that."
She shrugged. "Accept it or not, but it is still the truth."
"I'm not ready to give up the fight just yet. Thanks anyway."
She stood, frowning. "Do as you will, but remember that if you come up against other preternatural powers, then you will not be able to protect yourself from them."
"I've been like this for a year. I think I can manage."
"Are you that arrogant, or just that determined not to talk about it any more?" She looked down at me as if she expected an answer.
I gave her the only one I had. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."
She nodded. "Then I will get your friend, and I'm sure the doctor will want to speak with you." She turned and walked out.
The room was very quiet, full of that hush that hospitals are so fond of. I looked at her makeshift altar and wondered what she'd had to do to save me. Of course, I only had her word for that. The moment I thought it, I was sorry. Why was I so distrustful of her? Because she was a witch, the way Marks hated me because I was a necromancer? Or was it just that I didn't like the truth she was telling me? That I couldn't shield myself from magical critters until the holes in my «aura» had been filled in. It had taken me most of the last six months to fill up those holes. Six months of effort, and they were raw again. Shit.
But if they were open, why didn't I sense Jean-Claude and Richard? If the marks were truly unshielded again, then why wasn't there a burst of closeness? I needed to call my teacher Marianne. I trusted her to tell me the truth. She'd warned me that simply blocking off the marks was only temporary. But she helped me do it because she felt I needed some time to adjust, to accept. I wasn't sure I had another six months of meditative prayer, psychic visualization, and celibacy in me. It had taken all that and power, energy. Hers and mine.
Of course, Marianne had taught me other things, and one of those meant I could check myself. I could run my hand down my own aura and see if the holes were there. The trouble was I needed my left hand for that, and it was wrapped in bandages, strapped to a hoard with a tube in it.
Now that I was alone and not being pestered with hard questions, I began to feel my body. It hurt. Every time I moved my back, it hurt. Some of it was the dull ache of bruises, but there were two spots that had the sharp bite of things that had bled. I tried to remember how I could have cut my back. The glass in the window when the corpse took us back through it, that had to be it.
My face ached in a line from jaw to forehead. I remembered the corpse hitting me backhand. It had been almost casual, but it had knocked me half-senseless. Just once I'd like to meet a type of walking dead that wasn't stronger than a living person.
I lifted the loose neck of my hospital gown and found little round pads stuck to my chest. I glanced at the heart monitor beside the bed, giving that reassuring sound that said my heart was still working. I had a sudden memory of the moment when my heart had stopped, when the master had willed it to stop. I was suddenly cold, and it wasn't the overly ambitious air conditioner. I'd come very close to dying yesterday … today? I didn't know what day it was. Only the sunshine pressing against the drawn blinds let me know it was day and not night.
There were red patches on the skin of my upper body like bad sunburns. I touched one, gently. It hurt. How the hell had I gotten burns? I lifted the gown until it made a cave and I could see down the line of my body, at least until mid-thigh where the weight of the covers hid me from view. There was a bandage just below my rib cage. I remembered the thing's mouth opening over my skin while he cradled me, gently. The moment when he bit down … I pushed the memory away. Later, much, much later. I checked my left shoulder, but the scrape marks from teeth had already scabbed over.
Scabbed over? How long had I been out?
A man came into the room. He seemed familiar, but I knew I did not know him. He was tall with blond hair and silver-framed glasses. "I'm Doctor Cunningham, and I am very glad to see you awake."
"Me, too," I said.
He smiled and started checking me over. He used a penlight and made me follow the light, his finger, and kept staring into my eyes so long, he had me worried. "Did I have a concussion?"
"No," he said. "Why? Does your head hurt?"
"A little but I think it's from the sage incense."
He looked embarrassed. "I am sorry about that, Ms. Blake, but she seemed to think all this was very important, and frankly I don't know why you almost died to begin with, or why you didn't just keep on dying, I let her do what she wanted."
"I thought my heart stopped," I said.
He tucked his stethoscope into his ears and pressed it to my chest. "Technically, yes." He stopped talking, listening to my heart. He asked me to breathe deeply a couple of times, then made some notes on the chart at the foot of my bed. "Yes, your heart did stop, but I don't know why it stopped. None of your injuries were that serious, or for that matter, that kind of injury," He shook his head and came back to stand by me.
"How did I get the burns on my chest?"
"We used the defibrillator to start your heart. It can leave mild burns,"
"How long have I been here?"
"Two days. This is your third day with us."
I took a deep breath and tried not to panic. I'd lost two days. "Have there been any more murders?"
The smile wilted on his face, leaving his, eyes even more serious than they had been. "You mean the mutilation murders?"
I nodded.
"No, no new bodies."
I let out the breath. "Good."
He was frowning now. "No more questions about your health? Just about the murders?"