He hoped the scream he heard echoing off the walls was hers and not his, but all he could really be sure of were the purple dots swimming in his vision and incredible pain in his left side.
“What…what have…you done?” Sorsha gasped. Her face flickered in and out of his vision; it was contorted with pain and her mascara was running. “We’re still in New York…the castle.”
“Is at the bottom of the north Atlantic,” Alex managed. “Along with Davis.” He felt light-headed, and a pleasant numbness was spreading out from his chest, erasing his pain.
“You couldn’t have…have moved my castle a thousand miles,” Sorsha said with a groan. “Even I couldn’t have done that.”
“It’s not the distance,” Alex said, his voice taking on a dreamy lilt. “It’s the mass.”
“What the devil is going on here?”
It was Iggy’s voice. Alex’s enhanced escape spell had dropped them right where it was supposed to, in the library at the brownstone.
“Hi Iggy,” Alex said. He was starting to feel drunk.
“A German spy tried…” Sorsha groaned and rolled more onto her side to take the pressure off her hip. “Tried to drop my house on Empire Tower. Alex did something…something to his escape rune. Sent my castle to the coast of Greenland, then brought us… ngg…here.”
“Good God,” Iggy said, his face going whiter than Sorsha’s. “You’re shot.”
“Hip,” Sorsha gasped. “What about him?” She pointed at Alex. Iggy’s face grew stern and sour.
“He used his own life energy to power the escape rune. Traded years, probably decades of his life for the power to transport your castle.” He leaned down and grabbed Sorsha under her arms and knees. “Brace yourself,” he said. “This will hurt.”
To her credit, she didn’t scream when he picked her up, but from where he lay on the floor, Alex could see her biting her lip so hard that it bled.
“Don’t worry, Sorceress,” Iggy said. “I’ll fix you right up. I’m a doctor, remember?”
“What about Alex?” Sorsha gasped.
“If he still has some life energy left, he’ll be all right after a good long nap.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then the damn fool’s nap will be of a more permanent nature.”
That sounded ominous, but Alex’s mind was drifting now. He couldn’t seem to make the words and sounds he was hearing make any sense. The room began to recede, as if he were sinking into the floor, until all that was left was a tiny dot of light far, far away.
Then even that was gone.
A knock at his door woke Alex sometime later. The light of midday streamed through his window, and he winked against its brightness. He wanted to bid whoever had knocked to come in but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.
Swinging his legs off the side, he tried to stand, but slumped to the floor instead. The door opened and Iggy came in, carrying a glass of water.
“Drink,” he said, kneeling down beside Alex and pushing the glass into his hand.
Alex had trouble raising the glass to his lips, and it took him a moment to remember how to drink. During that moment, water spilled down his front.
“How long?” he croaked once he’d got the water down. “How long have I been out?”
“Less than a day,” Iggy said. “You and your Sorceress girlfriend dropped in on me last night.”
Alex ignored the dig. “How is she?”
“No doubt resting comfortably in her suite at the Waldorf.”
Alex shivered, remembering Agent Warner’s corpse. There was no way Sorsha would go back there.
“Once I got the bullet out, she started regenerating quickly,” Iggy said. He offered Alex his hand and pulled the younger man to his feet.
“Regenerating?”
“Oh, yes,” Iggy said. “Why do you think sorcerers age so slowly? Their bodies are constantly regenerating.”
“It must not work if they’re in lot of pain,” Alex mused.
“I imagine they have to be in conscious connection with the source of their magic for it to work,” Iggy said. “Miss Kincaid’s level of trauma kept her from healing herself until I got the bullet out.”
Alex filed that particular bit of information away for a rainy day.
“I’m starved,” he said. “Is there any food in the house?”
“A bit of chicken from two nights ago,” Iggy said. “I’d make you something, but we don’t have too much time. The funeral for Father Clementine and the others from the Mission is this afternoon.”
“Right,” Alex said, and nodded soberly. “Let me take a shower and we’ll go down to The Lunch Box on the way. I’ll introduce you to Mary.”
“I’ve been there since she started working,” Iggy said. “Everyone knows her, including me.”
“All right,” Alex said, moving toward his little bathroom and its even smaller shower. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“How many minutes have you got left?” Iggy said, his voice quiet.
“What do you mean?” Alex asked, stripping off his shirt.
“You know damn well what I mean!” Iggy shouted, making Alex jump. “The only way you could have transported that sorceress’ castle was to power the escape rune with your own life force. So how much did you spend? A decade? Two?”
Alex started to smile, to brush the old man’s concerns away, but as he met Iggy’s gaze, he saw tears in the old man’s eyes.
“Iggy,” he said, struggling to explain. “I…”
Iggy sat down on the bed, his eyes staring blankly at the wall. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asked, his voice almost gentle. Alex crossed to the bed and knelt down to look him in the face.
“You know what would have happened if that castle had landed anywhere near Empire Tower,” he pointed out. The old man was far too smart to have any doubts what the result of that catastrophe would be. “If I’d just used my escape rune, I’d have come right back here in time for an explosion more powerful than any in history to turn this house and you and me, Danny, Leslie, Mary, and everyone else into a fine powder.”
Iggy nodded his head, but words seemed to fail him. Alex knew he was living that long moment that Alex had faced in Sorsha’s vault. A moment that led to one, and only one, inescapable conclusion.
“Remember what you told me when I asked you why anyone would ever use a life rune?”
Iggy nodded. “I’d rather lose some of my life, than all of it,” he quoted himself. Alex smiled at him.
“I don’t know how much time I’ve got left,” he said. “But then nobody does really. I could get trampled by a crawler tomorrow. At least, if I do, everyone on that crawler will be alive because Sorsha’s castle didn’t fall on Empire Tower.”
Iggy put his hand on Alex’s good shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You should never have had to be the hero.”
“Maybe they’ll throw me a parade,” Alex chuckled.
“The newspapers are claiming that Miss Kincaid moved her castle out to sea for repairs,” Iggy said. “Apparently the government is hushing the whole thing up.”
“That’s okay.” Alex chuckled again and regretted it instantly, as pain blossomed in his mending ribs. “I hate parades.”
Alex started to rise, but Iggy held on to his shoulder.
“You’re right,” he said. “None of us know what time is left to us. In the interest of that sentiment, there are some things I want you to know.” He paused and blinked, his eyes bright. “I’ve always thought of you like a son. The son I never had.”
“Iggy, you had a son,” Alex pointed out, a little embarrassed. “He paid for this house.”