Sunny - Mona Lisa Eclipsing

“He shouldn’t be this weak,” I said softly to Hannah.

“No, milady, he shouldn’t,” Hannah agreed.

“We can’t wait. Follow me.”

I dashed past the guards, moving at full, blurring Monère speed, and entered the room, dodging around bodies until I saw him. And then I stopped, frozen solid with shock and dismay.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

My words, the feel of my presence, drew Jarvis’s eyes directly to me, past all the people gathered around his bed.

There was a sudden exclamation as people caught sight of me and Hannah. Hey, who are you? You can’t come in here without a gown! How did you people get inside the room? But I had eyes and ears for only one person—Jarvis.

Ash-blond hair curled in loose waves around the lower strands singed. He had the face of an angel, an archangel, with strong, noble features and vivid blue eyes. No wonder people were calling him an angel.

Those blue eyes grew huge and wide, the only part of him that moved. The rest of him was still.

He lay on his stomach, facing the far end of the room where Hannah and I stood. His face was the only visible part of him that was not burned. A tented-sheet canopy had been erected over him and I caught a glimpse of his neck and upper arms from where I stood: they were completely scorched, ugly charred burns mixed with raw, blistered flesh, everything smeared liberally with a gooey paste.

An older doctor sitting near the bed turned around to look at me, unblocking some of my view so I could see the unblemished back of Jarvis’s lower thighs and calves emerging from the other end of the tented canopy. As I watched, the IV catheter the doctor had just inserted into the back of Jarvis’s knee was slowly pushed back out, the white anchoring tape no match for the strong rejection of Jarvis’s body to the inserted foreign object.

The doctor muttered a foul curse and glared at Hannah and me, as if we were to blame for what must have been the one-hundredth failed attempt to put an intravenous line into him.

“Please,” Jarvis said, looking at me with clear panic in his eyes. He had been so utterly still, not even breathing, so that it was like watching a rock suddenly come alive as he levered himself up off the bed, disrupting the canopy above him.

Amidst the sudden uproar of voices, Jarvis slid down to kneel in front of me, his horribly burned arms spread out wide, out to his side. “Please, milady, she’s innocent. She doesn’t know anything.”

Only then did I realize the protective nature of his gesture.

The she he referred to was the girl Jarvis had leaped out of bed, stark naked, to shield: the young teenager sitting on the other side of the bed, Kelly Rawlings, the runaway. Both of her hands were swathed in white bandages up to the forearm. Had Jarvis been at full strength, I would not have felt her much weaker presence—a Mixed Blood, as I had suspected. But with his energy signature almost as weak as hers, it was easy to discern.

Jarvis thought I was here to kill him and the girl.

“I’m here to help you,” I told him, “not to harm either of you.”

He stayed kneeling, clearly not trusting my words, begging me with his eyes to spare the girl’s life. For his own life, not one word or plea.

“Jarvis, what are you doing?” the girl exclaimed. “Get back in bed. You’ll infect your wounds!”

“Stretch out your senses, Jarvis, and see for yourself that I am like her,” I told him.

He did and his eyes widened even more in confusion. “But . . . you are a Queen.”

“And also a Mixed Blood. I give my word, I am here only to help.”

“What is the meaning of this and who are you two?” demanded one of the suit-wearing men. There were two of them inside the room. Well, actually four of them now; the two others posted outside had come into the room as well.

“They are Jarvis Condorizi’s friends,” McManus said, pushing his way in past the interns, still tying up his gown. “And I am his attorney. Who are you?”

“FBI,” the man snapped, flipping out his badge. “Special agent in charge, Richard Stanton. I wasn’t aware he had asked for a lawyer.”

“His friend here, Lisa Hamilton,” he gestured to me, “obtained my services on his behalf.”

I waved at Special Agent Stanton.

Stanton’s brows, less bushier than McManus’s, lowered in glowering disapproval. “And who the hell, Ms. Hamilton, are you?”

“I am a Monère Queen. A representative for our people.” My cool and calm statement drew a shocked breath from Jarvis.

“Are you hurt?” Kelly asked, coming over to Jarvis.

“No, I’m fine, Kelly.” He kept his arms spread, blocking her attempt to come around in front of him. “Sit down and stay behind me.”

At his urging, she settled back into her seat, her brown eyes fixed intently on me, her gaze none too friendly.

“What’s a Monère Queen?” Stanton demanded.

“Um—perhaps a sheet for his modesty,” I said, waving a hand at Jarvis.

Kelly pulled a sheet off the bed and draped it over Jarvis’s lap from behind.

“A Queen is what they call a lady of light,” I explained. “Someone who is able to draw down the rays of the moon and share its energy with her people.”

“And who the hell are your people?” asked Stanton.

“My friend, Hannah, here. And people like Jarvis,” I answered. “Kelly, too, if she wishes.”

Jarvis trembled almost violently at my words. I wasn’t sure if it was dismay from what I was revealing to the humans here or from the agonizing pain from the burns and the position he still maintained, kneeling on the floor.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” Stanton growled. “Who are the Monère? I’ve never heard of them.”

“We are the children of the moon,” I answered. “Its descendents.”

Jarvis made a horrible, panicked sound deep in his chest. “Please, milady. They may be able to hear you outside. You will bring them all down upon us.”

“There’s nothing to fear, Jarvis. I’m here at the request and approval of the High Court. I’ve been appointed an ambassador, of sorts, to represent our people. We’re taking advantage of the opportunity you provided to go public.”

The shock of my declaration, on top of his pain, proved too much for Jarvis. He swayed, looking faint, and I moved quickly, lightly grasping his face to keep him from falling.

With that contact, the moles in the palms of my hands flared to life and power was pulled from deep within me, drawn by Jarvis’s pain. It flowed out of me and spread into him. Carefully, I stepped back and released him.

“You took away my pain,” Jarvis said, looking at me with awe, trembling but no longer swaying unsteadily.

“Just the pain,” I told him, “and only for a little while. Will you allow Hannah to lay hands on you? She is a healer.”

My claim set off the disgruntled physician who had been working on Jarvis when we had come in. “A healer? What can she do that we can’t? I can’t even get a blasted IV to stay inside him.”

“His body will naturally expel any foreign object,” Hannah explained, her gentleness and compassion obvious to everyone in the room. Turning back to Jarvis, she asked, “Will you allow me to help you?”

Jarvis nodded his silent assent.

Hannah came to stand in front of him and I moved back. Jarvis remained kneeling on the floor.

Everyone cried out in protest as, without ceremony, Hannah laid her ungloved hands gently on Jarvis’s burnt shoulders and pushed down through the gel until her hands came in contact with his skin.

“Quiet!” I commanded, glaring at them. “None of you can help him, only she can. Let her work!”

“She’ll infect his burn wounds!” sputtered the older doctor, obviously the senior physician in the room.