J. Ward - Lover Enshrined

“Tell them that he is resting after your mating, and that he has requested time to himself. I shall care for him.”

“When shall I return?”

“Does the sleep cycle begin soon?”

“Following Thideh prayers.”

“Right. Come back after all are settled. If this persists… I’ll need to go over to the far side and fetch Doc Jane, and you’ll have to stay with him.”

“Fetch who?”

“A healer. Go. Now. Extol the virtues of his body and your station. Be loud about it.” Cormia smoothed Phury’s hair back. “The louder you are, the better for him.”

“As you wish. And I shall return.”

Cormia waited until her sister left, then tried to give him something to drink. He was too out of it to take water, though, unable to focus on what she held to his lips. Giving up, she wetted a cloth and pressed it to his face.

Phury’s feverish eyes flipped open and clung to her while she blotted his forehead. “The garden… is full of weeds,” he said urgently. “Full of weeds.”

“Shhh…” She dipped the cloth in the bowl again, getting it cool for him. “It’s all right.”

On a desperate breath, he moaned, “No, it’s covered them all up. The statues… they’re gone… I’m gone.”

The terror in that yellow stare made her blood run cold. He was hallucinating, clearly out of his mind, but whatever he was seeing was very real to him-he was getting more agitated by the second, his body twisting and turning in the white sheets.

“The ivy… oh, God, the ivy is coming for me… it’s all over my skin-”

“Shh…” Maybe she couldn’t handle this on her own. Maybe… Except if his mind was the problem, then- “Phury, listen to me.If there is ivy overgrowing things, then we shall clean it up.”

His thrashing slowed, his eyes focusing a little. “We… will?”

She thought of the landscapers she’d watched on the far side. “Yes. We are going to get rid of it.”

“No… we can’t. It will win… It will-”

She leaned down, getting right in his face. “Says. Who.” Her forceful voice seemed to get his attention. “Now tell me, where should we start cutting it back?”

When he began to shake his head, she clamped her hand on his jaw. “Where do we start.”

He blinked at her command. "Ah… it’s worst at the statues of the four stages…”

“Okay. Then we go there first.” She tried to picture the four stages… infancy, youth, middle age, and the eve of passing. “We will start with the infant. And what tools shall we use?”

The Primale closed his eyes. “The shears. We will use the shears.”

“And what shall we do with the shears.”

“The ivy… the ivy is growing all over the statues. You can’t… see the faces any longer. It… chokes the statues. They are not free…they can’t see…” The Primale started to weep. “Oh, God. I can’t see anymore. I’ve never been able to see… past the weeds of that garden.”

“Stay with me. Listen to me-we’re going to change that. Together we’re going to change that.” Cormia took his hand and pressed it to her lips. “We have shears. Together, we’re going to cut free the ivy. And we’re going to begin with the statue of the young.” She was encouraged, as Phury took a deep breath, as if he were approaching a big job. “I’m going to peel the ivy from the face of the young and you are going to cut it. Can you see me?”

“Yes…”

“Can you see you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now I want you to cut the piece of ivy I’m holding. Do it. Now.”

“Yes… I will… yes, I am.”

“And you place what you’ve cut on the ground at our feet.” She brushed his hair back from his face. “And now you cut again… and again…”

“Yes.”

“And again.”

“Yes.”

“Now… can you see some of the statue’s face?”

“Yes… yes, I can see the young’s face…” A tear ran down his cheek. “I can see it… I can see… me in it.”

In Lash’s house on the far side, John stopped on the stairs and thought maybe the creep factor in the Tudor had shorted his brain out.

Because that couldn’t possibly be Lash down below, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the foyer, a warping blur swirling around him.

While John’s brain tried to tease out what was reality and what couldn’t possibly be real, he noticed that the sweet smell of baby powder permeated the air, nearly turning the shit pink. God, it didn’t eclipse the nauseous bouquet of death-it enhanced that godawful rotting stench. The reason the scent had always made him sick was because it was just like the bouquet of death.

At that moment, Lash looked up. He seemed as shocked as John was, but then he gradually smiled.

From out of the malestrom, the guy’s voice drifted up the stairs, seeming to come from a distance greater than the number of yards between them.

“Well, hello, John-boy.” The laugh was familiar and bizarre at the same time, echoing strangely.

John palmed his gun, steadying it with both hands as he trained it on whatever was down there.

“I’ll see you soon,” Lash said as he went two-dimensional, becoming an image of himself. “And I’ll give your regards to my father.”

His form blinked on and off and then disappeared, swallowed up by the warping rush.

John lowered his weapon, then holstered it. Which was what you did when there was nothing around to shoot.

“John?” The beat of Qhuinn’s boots came from behind him on the stairwell. “What the hell are you doing?”

I don’t know… I thought I saw…

“Who?”

Lash. I saw him right down there. I… well, I thought I saw him.

“Stay here.” Qhuinn took his gun out and hit the stairs, doing a sweep of the first floor.

John slowly went down to the foyer. He’d seen Lash. Hadn’t he?

Qhuinn came back. “Everything’s tight. Look, let’s go back home. You don’t seem right. Did you eat tonight? And while we’re at it, when was the last time you slept?”

I… I don’t know.

“Right. We’re leaving.”

I could have sworn…

“Now.”

As they dematerialized back to the mansion’s courtyard, John thought maybe his buddy was right. Maybe he should grab some food and-

They didn’t make it into the house. Just as they arrived, the Brotherhood filed out of the grand double doors one by one. Collectively, they were wearing enough weapons to qualify as a full-on militia.

Wrath pegged him and Qhuinn with a hard stare through his wraparounds. “You two. In the Escalade with Rhage and Blay. Unless you need more ammo?”

When they both shook their heads, the king dematerialized along with Vishous, Butch, and Zsadist.

When they got into the SUV, with Blay riding shotgun, John signed, What’s going on?

Rhage stomped on the gas. As the Escalade roared and they shot out of the courtyard, the Brother said dryly, “Visit from an old frenemy. The kind you wish you never saw again.”

Well, wasn’t that the theme for the evening.

THE DREAM… hallucination… the whatever-it-was felt real. Totally and completely real.

Standing in the overgrown garden of his family’s house in the Old Country, beneath a brilliant full moon, Phury reached up to the face of the third-stage statue and pulled the ivy vines free of the eyes and nose and mouth of the male who so proudly bore his own young in his arms.

By now, Phury was an old pro at the cutting, and after he’d worked the shears’ magic, he tossed another green tangle to the tarp that lay on the ground at his feet.

“There he is,” he whispered. “There… he is…”

The statue had long hair just like him, and deep-set eyes just like him, but the radiant happiness on its face was not his. Nor was the young cradled in his arms. Still, there was liberation to be had as Phury continued to strip off the ivy’s messy layers of overgrowth.