I tore my gaze from Danny and looked back at the doc to let him know I was ready to take the punches. Pen stood next to me and held my hand.
He clasped his fingers over the clipboard and held it in front of his waist like a shield. “There’s really no good way to say this, Kate, and I’m damned sorry to be the one to do it.”
Frost lined my stomach. “Jesus, what is it?”
“The potion we gave Danny to keep him in a coma is still working. The machines are doing their job keeping his respiration and fluid levels normal. He’s young and relatively healthy, all things considered.”
I tilted my head. “So what’s the problem?”
He waved a hand toward the third, silent body in the room. “We’re managing to keep him alive, but the dirty magic is eating him from the inside.”
“But you said—”
He nodded. “The machines and potions we gave him are working. But unless we find an antipotion, his body is going to consume itself to feed the bloodlust the potion created.”
“What?” Pen said. “How is that possible?”
Doc rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “If there’s no blood coming in, the blood magic in the potion turns to the host to get its fix.”
I rolled up my sleeve. “Take my blood.” They could take every fucking drop. I didn’t care.
“That’s not all.” He shook his head. “The attack earlier was withdrawals. We’ve stabilized him for the time being, but he doesn’t just need more blood, he also needs more of the potion. The blood magic needs more blood and the alchemical components need more potion to sustain themselves.”
My mouth fell open.
“In my opinion, if he doesn’t get more Gray Wolf soon, he’ll die.”
Pen reached blindly for a chair and fell into it. As soon as her ass hit cushion, she crossed herself. Her inconsistent Catholicism was one of the many idiosyncrasies that endeared her to me. Right then I wished I believed in some sort of religion, too. One that would explain to me why bad things happened to innocent people. One that explained why bad people got away with murder. One that offered salvation in exchange for adhering to a few simple rules.
But religion and me? We weren’t on speaking terms. Which meant all I had to guide me was the seething rage and a bottomless pit of regret. I stood on the lip of that well and looked into the inky blackness. Ahead of me was the abyss—a future spent mourning. Cold memories to haunt my nightmares. Six feet of dirt and a mountain of guilt separating me from Danny for eternity.
A light rose from the abyss, and a voice in the back of my mind whispered, Are you ready to sell your soul to the devil to save him?
“Yes,” I whispered without reservation. There wasn’t a choice. Not really. Not one I could live with that was easier than owing a debt to John Volos.
“Kate?” Pen said, turning toward me.
I shook myself out of the protective cocoon of shock. “Yeah?” I said, as if I hadn’t just come to a decision that would change the course of all our lives forever.
“Did you hear what Dr. Henry said?”
I nodded but the movement was jerky. “I’ll take care of it.”
She went still. “What does that mean?”
I pulled my eyes away from Danny’s emaciated form to look at the fear in my best friend’s eyes. “It means I’ll take care of it.”
Pen shot a look at the Doc. “Excuse us for a moment.” She grabbed my sleeve and hauled me toward the door. I went with her without argument. The instant I realized how close I was to losing Danny for good, every drop of fight evaporated.
“Explain yourself,” she demanded. She had me backed up against a wall.
I couldn’t tell her everything. To do so would admit to things I wasn’t ready to admit to myself. So I simply whispered, “John said he could make the antipotion.”
She reared back. “John Volos?” she hissed. “What the hell?”
“He came here the other day to offer it. I turned him away, but now?” I motioned toward the doctor. “I don’t have the luxury of turning down help.”
I fully expected her to launch into a lecture about healthy decisions and not compromising one’s principles. Instead, my best friend nodded solemnly. “You think he’s telling the truth? Can he really figure out the cure?”
“Do you think I’d even consider going to him if I doubted he was capable of this kind of magic?”
She chewed her bottom lip for a minute. She glanced back at the unconscious kid on the bed—the one she loved almost as much as I did. Then my friend, who fully understood the implications of what she was about to say, looked me in the eye and said, “Go.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The text I sent to Volos read: We need to talk ASAP.
His reply was an address and instructions to meet him in one hour.
That gave me enough time to run home to grab a few things before I showed up for the meeting. The first thing I grabbed was my gun. It went into my shoulder holster. I stashed a salt flare in the holster at my ankle and a canister of salt-and-pepper spray in a jacket pocket. And, finally, I fingered the protection amulet Gardner had given me a few days earlier. I hadn’t put it on again since the day she’d given it to me in Danny’s room because it made my skin crawl with guilt. But considering I’d tried to cook the night before and was about to go meet a wizard to help him cook a dirty magic potion, my qualms about wearing a protection amulet were moot. The disc held a small bubble of glass in the center filled with a viscous green liquid. All I had to do was burst that bubble and an alarm would signal the team that I was in trouble and tell them where in the city to find me.
Once I had everything, I pulled out my phone and punched a couple of numbers. He picked up on the second ring. “Cupcake.”
I smiled despite the nerves roiling in my gut like a nest of vipers. “What’s up, Macho?”
“Ah, you know.” I could hear the smile in his voice and the creak of a chair as he leaned back to put his boots up on the desk. “Madman’s on the loose, the ASAC is breathing down our necks, and Eldritch is trying to blame the clusterfuck in the tunnels on Gardner, but beyond that I can’t complain. How’s Danny Boy?”
My chest tightened. “We had a bit of a scare this morning.”
The tension crackled through the line. “Shit, Kate. Is he okay?”
I swallowed hard. “He will be.” The words were as much a vow as an explanation.