Sapphire Curse Read online

  SAPPHIRE CURSE

  a Rebels of the Realms novel

  By E.E. Martin

  Copyright © 2019 E.E. Martin

  All rights reserved

  Paperback ISBN: 9781092130400

  Cover design by Adam Fields

  Dedicated to Rachael

  Well before you were ever my sister, you supported my writing journey. You have been there to listen, to read, and to cheer me on. You are one of the kindest souls I know. You inspire me by who you are—a hard-working intellectual, a dedicated mother, a passionate believer in caring about the world, and an amazing, unstoppable woman.

  1

  Blood consumed Darcy’s hand as Guns N’ Roses pulsed from the speakers in all the corners of the room. She pressed deeper into the body lying lifeless in front of her. Blood oozed out of the open wound. Rather than squirm, she leaned closer to the layered puzzle of tissue and organs. As the song hit its chorus, she pulled her hand out and danced with the music.

  “Gotcha,” said Darcy as she held up the tip of a bar dart on the end of her forceps. It was a quarter past midnight when she found the dart piece that was so tiny she had to squint to make it out. It was large enough, however, to cause the patient intense pains.

  “No way,” said Tanner, a slender young nurse with a delicate jawline. “Dr. Porter is going to freak that he didn’t catch this.”

  “It’s not a competition.”

  “With Dr. Porter it sure as hell is.”

  Darcy said, “If anyone beats anybody, it’s the Radley brothers for dreaming up the idea to tie a bar dart to a bottle rocket.” She gave a quick bow to Joseph Radley, the victim of drunken aim.

  “This is the same pair that thought offering a beer to a moose was a good idea,” said Tanner.

  The other staff members in the room chuckled. The whole Radley family was notorious for stories parents used to explain to their children why they should stay in school.

  “Let’s clean up and fill out the report,” said Darcy.

  Tanner groaned, “Dear God. Now that is a horrible idea.”

  Propping the back of her hand on her curved hip, she said, “If we finish the report tonight, Dr. Porter will see it first thing when he comes in tomorrow.”

  “Ooo,” said Tanner. “I knew I was going to like you.”

  Once free from surgery, Darcy went outside for a breather where the trees scented the air like a candle store in winter. There was a reason the town’s slogan was ‘The Hidden Gem of the East Coast’. Everything was on some winding road, hidden by trees or a body of water. Morgan General was on the northern side of town, a short hike away from the ocean and a cemetery.

  There was a small area in the back of the hospital with picnic tables made years ago by Russ Redwood, a local craftsman. There was no covering to obstruct Darcy’s view of the stars. It had always been big cities with muddled views of the sky. For residency. For college. For her father’s jobs. Here there was a sea of stars waving from above. It was mesmerizing, like thousands of secrets of the night waiting to be discovered.

  Darcy held up her stiff hand, the one that had guided her in the search for the dart tip. Her palm was raw from scrubbing. Her father used to tease her about how small her hands were, and she would snap back that they were good for getting into places no one else could. She winced as she tried to make a fist, but her fingers wouldn’t budge.

  The metal door behind Darcy flung open. She didn’t startle. She rarely did. Tanner had his cigarette between his lips before his foot hit the pebble path that led to the woods. The path had been made by the art guild, a collection of locals that held gallery showings once a month to sell paintings, ceramic bowls, and quilts. The lighter Tanner held in one hand was certainly not from the guild. It had a design of the grim reaper holding a margarita. In his other hand was his phone. He stared at his screen and walked right into Darcy.

  “Damn it. I’m sorry, Dr. Shaw!”

  “It’s okay. Really.”

  He nodded and grinned. He finished his text as he said, “I was telling my friend Jasmine about you.”

  She said, “You know you can’t share details about surgeries.”

  “I only said that the rumors are true. You really are a wizard. If I ever end up with unnatural objects where they don’t belong, I’ll be sure to call you.” He slipped his phone into the pocket of his brown leather jacket. He backed away toward the woods and pointed at her with his lighter. “The test results you ordered are in your mailbox.”

  “Not on the computer?”

  He replied, “Whenever Patricia gets around to it. We always keep a paper trail. Our computers go on the fritz all the time.” He struck his flame with ease.

  When Tanner disappeared into the darkness, Darcy ran her hands up her arms that had become numb in the October chill. Spinning on her heel, she shuffled back inside the hospital.

  Nearly all the patients were asleep as Darcy made her way down the hallway that had been freshly painted, eggshell on the top and navy below the chair rail. The few that weren’t asleep were watching old black and white television shows. Sometimes the televisions went in and out but seemed to be fine for now. Darcy nodded at the night desk receptionist who had yet to say a word to her. He grunted at the game on his phone.

  “Dead bodies coming through!” The warning rang down the hall, loud but unenthused. Darcy had encountered Lucia Ramirez a couple times, and they were all memorable moments. Dr. Ramierz was a small woman who looked like she would be challenged carrying groceries, but she had no problem pushing one body in front of her and pulling another behind her.

  Darcy tightened the band that held her auburn hair out of her face as she flagged Lucia down. “Do you need some help?”

  “Most would say I do,” said Lucia. She stopped and propped her hand on one of the tables. She had broad shoulders and a square jaw. She wiggled her black brow at Darcy. “Randal is off tonight. The dead wait for no one.”

  “I’m free,” said Darcy, taking a table. “Lead the way.”

  They rolled the bodies down the hall toward the elevators. There were paintings of sunrises and pictures with inspirational quotes on the walls. There were metal signs with inscriptions regarding the town or the hospital’s history. Unlike the hospitals Darcy knew from school and residency, this one felt like it was part of the community.

  “What happened to your guests of honor?” asked Darcy, leaning forward as she kept her table steady and away from the wall. Despite the coverings over the bodies, there was no denying the smell of them. It was a mix of woods, animals, and rot.

  Lucia glanced back over her shoulder as she stopped at the elevator. A piece of thick dark hair sprung free from her cap and fell over her round brown eye. She said, “Deputy Anders got a call from some campers. They saw signs of a bear nearby. I peeked at the guy downstairs. It’s gruesome.” Her voice swung up with delight. She rarely seemed excited unless it regarded an interesting death. Lucia casually planted her elbow on the table next to the body’s head as she waited for the elevator. “How are you liking it here so far?”

  “It’s charming,” said Darcy.

  “Code for agonizingly small.”

  “It’s big enough for a hospital.”

  “Thanks to Mr. Morgan’s donations.” Lucia fell back into the wall. “This town is small enough that you can escape the big city life, but somehow it’s big enough to have too much of what I can’t stand.”

  “What’s that?” asked Darcy.

  As the elevator door slid open, Lucia pulled her table inside. She replied, “People.”

  Darcy followed her onto the elevator with her table and said, “I’d like to get to know people better.”

  “For a second I thought we might get along,” said Lucia. The elevato
r door closed. “Maybe there is still hope. I heard you snap at Dr. Porter. It was classy yet brilliant.”

  “He deserved it.”

  “Most people do.”

  The door soon opened, and the light in the elevator flickered. The door stopped moving, leaving barely enough space for Lucia to poke out her head.

  “Great,” said Lucia. “Stuck with a couple dead bodies.”

  Darcy patted her table and said, “You’re always around dead bodies.”

  “Yes, but it’s much more fun in my little shop of horrors. Are you sure you want to be my friend?”

  “You’re by far not the strangest friend I’ve had.”

  The lights flickered again, and the women were finally welcomed by a windowless hallway. The basement was for storage and autopsy. There were no rooms for patients, so there were no frivolities. No paintings. No fancy lighting. There were overhead lamps on the ends of chains and a thick chemical smell. Lucia used her elbow to open a door at the end of the hallway.

  “No badge?” asked Darcy.

  Lucia explained, “Small towns put more money into the school bake sale than security.”

  “Ignorance is bliss, right?”

  “Makes for tasty cherry pies.”

  Darcy brought her table into the autopsy room, wide enough to comfortably hold three tables and an empty spare tucked in the corner. Darcy slid her Jane beside the John already in the room. She rested her hands on her hips and said, “Looks like a full-on party.”

  Darcy pulled on the edge of the covering on the table that had been waiting for them. The body was saturated with blood. It was a Japanese male. He was rather thin, sickly almost.

  Lucia said, “I would put him in his forties. Watch the counter. Fresh organs waiting for pickup.”

  Nonchalantly, Darcy turned to the table she had brought in. It was a female with rich dark skin. She was covered in as much blood as the thin man. She appeared to be younger than him, maybe twenty. Her hair was natural and tightly coiled near the head. There was more blood than hair. Her face was shaped like a heart with round, soft cheeks.

  “They were found out by Lake Casper,” said Lucia.

  Darcy revealed the woman’s torso. There were tears in her clothes, but there were no major cuts or marks on her skin. Lucia went through her cabinets to gather gadgets to investigate the bodies while she hummed a children’s lullaby. Darcy went to the third table.

  It was a Caucasian male. His hair was thick and long enough to graze the bottom of his ears. It was dark and wild and all over his face from the blood and mud. There was stubble along his jaw and round chin. The width of his shoulders didn’t fill the table. It was merely the muscle that made him appear brawny at first glance. As Darcy pulled the cover lower, she found he was narrow and lean.

  “You’re a curious one,” said Lucia.

  “Always,” said Darcy.

  The man was completely still. He had a thin scar that ran from the end of his left brow to the bottom of his ear.

  A tan phone on the wall by the door rang. Lucia muttered under her breath as she answered it. “What?” Lucia asked. “I can’t hear—what did you say? Another one? It’s already lively down here. Wait. What?” She grumbled at the phone before hanging it up. “I need to run upstairs and see if I’ve got a new recruit.”

  “I can stay,” said Darcy.

  Lucia glanced from the body to Darcy. “He may be a good guy, but you deserve better. At least go for someone who breathes.”

  Darcy laughed until she caught something move out of the corner of her eye. The man’s mouth twitched and then fumbled like a fish in its last moment of struggle above water. Gasping, Darcy took hold of his face with both of her hands.

  Lucia said, “If you’re into that sort of thing, I’m not judging. We’ve all got our dark sides. At least grab some gloves.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “No pulse. No breathing. Telling signs.”

  Darcy let go of the man’s cold face. He didn’t struggle or mutter or breathe. Darcy glanced down at her fingers, wet with blood. “I get hopeful, I guess,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Lucia, moving to the door. “There’s the real reason I doubt we can be friends.” She slipped out into the hall. “You’ve got a heart.”

  Once the door slammed shut, Darcy leaned over the man’s body and pressed her cheek as close to his mouth as she could get it without touching him. Everything in the room was quiet when she stilled her own breathing. She slowly pulled back. His mouth hadn’t moved again. Not even a strand of hair was out of its wild place. Still, she peered at him.

  She grazed the tips of three fingers over his lower lip. The second she did she jerked her hand back. Though his body was as cold as the autumn night, her whole hand suddenly burned. Then his mouth twitched.

  Quickly, she scanned the room. There was nothing there to put him back together, only to tear him apart. There was no sound or sign of Lucia. Darcy held one hand over the man’s chest. She drew a breath and said, “I’m not giving up on you.”

  Darcy’s fingers started to rattle. The hairs on her arm all lifted in unison. Her knuckles cracked, one by one like her bones were the moving parts of a machine that had been awakened. Then blue light sparked from the tips of her fingers. She cringed as the sparks pulled together into her palm, and then she rammed her hand into the man’s chest.

  His whole body flung up from the table, nearly knocking Darcy off her feet. Blue light swelled in his open mouth like a beacon from a lighthouse. He slammed back down. When all was calm again, Darcy eagerly watched the man. Her heartbeat was her clock. The longer it ticked the closer she drew to her patient. Though faintly, he breathed.

  Darcy covered her mouth with her arm instead of her bloodied hands. Darcy’s fingers locked up as she tried to curl them into her palm. Then there was another sound—a whimper from the woman on the middle table.

  Darcy rushed to the woman’s side and yanked the covering completely off. The woman quaked. There was life in her, but it was painful. Darcy held the woman’s head in her hands and steadied it. There was something rough on the back of her neck. Darcy gently lifted the woman’s head to find a piece of metal lodged in the neck that glowed like a blue ember.

  The woman convulsed. The light in Darcy’s hand this time was a soft ball of mist that she held over the glowing metal pendant shaped like a star. At the center of the star was a sapphire. The metal popped out of the woman and into the ball of light. As the woman coughed, the light and pendant vanished.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Darcy whispered. Pain swelled in the bones of her hands. Carefully, she lowered the woman’s head to the table and moved to the last body in the room. “Three miracles in one night? This won’t be suspicious at all.” She tugged on the covering, and the man beneath it chucked her to the ground.

  Darcy’s head struck the floor, blurring her vision instantly. She opened her eyes to find the man holding onto her throat, his mouth open and teeth bared as he roared at her. A literal roar.

  Darcy jabbed the thin man with all she had. It didn’t free her or harm him. He jerked Darcy up off the ground as easily as a breeze would whip up dust.

  “Your quick death is mercy,” he said, his voice feral. Darcy swung at him again but missed. Before she could strike him, she was thrown onto the table. He was flung across the room in the other direction.

  The man Darcy had brought back to life now stood with his back facing her. He was an easy six feet. The remaining light on the other side of the room dimmed like it feared the sparring men would snuff it out if it didn’t do it itself.

  The thin man ran at the woman who had yet to get to her feet. The man with the scarred brow leapt over the woman with strength and speed Darcy couldn’t compare to any animal. Darcy rolled off her table and went to the center of the room. She pulled the table with her as she stumbled back to the corner. The woman whimpered again, and Darcy took hold of her hand. She wasn’t sure how yet, but she was determined t
o save her patient.

  The men snarled back and forth, but it was the man with the scar that had control of himself and of the fight. The light flickered wildly as he picked up the other man by his throat.

  “You know what I’m capable of, Naoki,” said the scarred man. There was a hint of an accent, but it wasn’t clear in the moment. He sounded more like a creature than a man. “I will give you a chance to leave. If you don’t take it, I’ll make sure your story is my worst.”

  Naoki said, “Your clan will get what’s due you.” Then he spat.

  The scarred man calmly wiped the spit from his cheek with his shoulder. He sighed, “I tried.” The lights flickered out. Something heavy hit the floor.

  Darcy’s breathing was shallow and fast, but she kept it quiet. There was a thud on the table. She reached out quickly for the woman. She patted the table from one end to the other until she felt something like wet putty. The lights came back on long enough for Darcy to see Naoki’s head now in her hands. It was rubbery and lost its shape as the skin melted into blood.

  She kicked the table away. With little grace, she jumped up onto the counter that lined the wall. She had yet to scream. She focused the pain in her chest into her hand and cringed again as she forced blue light out, this time between her fingers like a chain.

  The glow from her hand showed the scarred man was on her side of the room. He laid the woman down on the table and examined the back of her head carefully.

  “She’s not well,” said Darcy. “I need to help her.”

  He huffed and turned back to the injured woman, cradling the back of her head in his hand.

  Darcy barked, “You’re a monster.”

  The scarred man suddenly closed the distance between him and Darcy to a mere few feet. She pressed her back against the wall, and her mouth parted on a gasp. His pupils were thin and vertical like a reptile’s.

  Darcy leaned closer with her light. She asked, “What are you?”

  “Like you said—a monster. You must be an idiot. You’re not running.”