God Bones

Chapter 6: Ice Pick

Lucy

My training went as usual over the next few days. I'd set the bar low enough that any successful completion of an exercise was a miracle to Laith. I didn't care what he thought of me since the day at the shooting range. It was liberating. Over the last few days, I'd trained myself to run.

I was in bad shape. I was quite healthy but far from athletic. When I first had to run, I could barely finish a kilometer before the nausea and side stitches hit. Laith had the same frustrated expression on his face as he did in the shooting range. I was doing somewhat better. Running was going to be my best from of defense considering my personal style was more flight than fight.

I still couldn't shoot. I didn't want to. Every time I picked up the weapon, it felt wrong. I didn't want to kill anyone and I was sure I would never have to.

We had seven days left now. I didn't know much about what Kiernan was doing. My routine was the same. Wake up, train, sleep, but before sleeping I would pour over the meager scraps of information I had about the Vagi.

Sometimes, I would stare at Arion's picture and wonder what he would be like. Would it be easy to lie to him or would he be more perceptive? Would he be as cruelbas I've been told? Controlling? How do I get him to trust me? Will I have to force myself to like him?

Sometimes my thoughts would be a little more dangerous. Sometimes I'd run my thumb over the photo and imagine what his hair would feel like. I'd catch myself immediately, remind myself that it was all fake. He isn't mine and will never be. He's a target.

The thought brought a sense of finality to it and most nights, I would keep the photo down, allowing thoughts of beautiful men and evergreen eyes to exist only in the safe confines of my dreams.

My physical abilities were getting stronger and stronger by the day. I was able to run faster and longer and I could somwhat defend myself. I was nowhere near Sera or Laith and wasn't going to be, but that's okay.

My life was thrown off course again when the call came.

It was at the ungodly hour of 3 am in the night. Witching hour, some legends called it. It was Laith and I was tempted to ignore it and go back to sleep. I was tired from all the practice but I didn't. Plus I had taken a painkiller before sleeping which had made me extremely groggy.

"Hello?" I answered, barely awake.

"Can you come to the hospital?"

I sat upright immediately, completely awake. "Sera-?"

"Sera is fine. So is your dad. The professor Sera was looking for. We found him. Can you get here immediately?"

"Ten minutes."

I didn't even stop to change, just pulled my coat and stepped outside. London was an amazing city. I had no trouble finding a cab and I was at the hospital in twenty minutes.

It was a miracle. Maybe he would know what happened to Sera. Maybe I wouldn't need to go on this foolhardy mission after all. Laith hadn't seemed particularly excited so I tried to temper my hopes but I couldn't help it.

I called Laith once I entered the hospital. "I'm here."

"Psychiatric ward."

Huh. Okay.

I had been to this hospital many times over the last few days but it still took me a couple of minutes to find the psychiatric ward. I immediately found them. There were three of them, Kiernan, Laith and a sorcerer I couldn't recognize. Or maybe it was a human, it doesn't matter. The ward was empty aside from the Hellis men.

They were hunched over an old man in a wheelchair. I could only see the back of his head, covered with silver hair. He was dressed in a wrinkled blue blazer and dress pants caked with dirt. The excitement and hope was snuffed out the second I looked at his face.

Many years ago when I had a lot of free time on my hands, I used to watch a lot of documentaries. One particularly gruesome one was on the subject of lobotomies, where a surgery had gone bad and the patient was left catatonic. Blank eyes, open mouth, drool slipping down the chin. Couldn't respond, or maybe he couldny even hear people anymore. He would never recover.

The professor looked exactly like that. As if someone had carved out half his brain with an ice pick and the only thing left was the body and the part of the brain that kept his heart beating.

It was worse than death.

"What happened?"

"We don't know," Laith said. "Someone found him near his office. He must have escaped and wandered there."

"Is it magic?"

"Yes. His lab reports are perfectly normal, except there's no brain activity."

"Can you even do this with magic?" I asked.

"Not really. We can cast illusions and influence emotions but this? Shattering someone's mind? We can't."

I stared at the professor. The husk of a human being that was a lecturer at a prestigious university only weeks ago.

"The Vagi?"

"The Vagi," Kiernan confirmed. Even he looked sickened by this. "Sometimes he talks. It might be Greek so we got you here. You can speak Greek, right?"

Yes, I'd studied it at university.

We waited there. We were waiting for him to move, to speak but it didn't happen until three hours later, sunrise. For three hours nobody said a word. Then slowly, the professor whispered.

Min ton koitás sta mátia.

Nobody heard it except me. Laith was sleeping on one of the beds. Kiernan had gone home. I was the sole witness to it.

He did not move after that. Didn't even blink. I took his hand and squeezed. I didn't know him but I was as rattled as if he were my own father.

Fear trickled into my nerves, filling my brain. This. This could happen to me if I am discovered. I would be in this wheelchair.

I didn't fear death, but this? This was terrifying.

I left Laith to his slumber and headed straight to the shooting range. For the first time, I didn't mind the pain in my wrist, I didn't mind the recoil of the gun when I shot.

The professor's warning ricocheted in my skull louder than the sound of the shot.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Do not look into his eyes.

I took off my safety glasses and saw that all my bullets had hit dead center.

I couldn't even bring myself to smile.

____

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