See Part One for Disclaimers
Ski paced up and down in the waiting room while the hospital ran tests and kept his friend breathing. Finally, Randal came out of the examination room shaking his head. Ski assumed the worst.
"Doc?"
"Herman. It's all right. He'll pull through. It's just very, very odd that he should have caught what he did."
"Caught what?"
"Plague. Well, that covers a lot of illnesses. In this case, it's a very rare variety of pneumonic plague generally not seen outside of Japan and China. In fact, the last documented cases were well before World War II."
Ski looked as dumbfounded as he felt. "How the hell?"
"I don't know. Luckily, it is not immune to antibiotics. I want to keep him here for a couple of days until the worst is over. After that, he should be well enough to go home."
"Need to disinfect his house?"
"Bleach and hot water, or a spray disinfectant should take care of any lingering bacteria. And it is bacterial, not viral, so that's a definite help. He's quarantined for the next two days. You'll have to wear a plastic suit if you want to go in and see him."
"No problemo. None at all."
Jonathan found himself in darkness. He looked around for light, any light and finally discerned a glimmer in the distance. He moved toward it, soundless on bare feet. He carried a sword in his hand. It felt good, right. He heard the sounds of someone stroking a samisen. The hand was sure, delicate, talented. He stopped to listen.
Someone was with him. He turned to look, sword at the ready. The highly painted face of a high ranking lady of antiquity stared back at him. Blue-black hair cascaded down her back, shading into the brocade of her kimono. Black was not a popular color at court.
"Who are you?" She smiled, a secret, knowing smile, and offered him her hand. It was a small hand, well manicured, soft. He knew that hand, knew its touch, its bewitching spell. "You."
"Yes. Me. And you."
He pulled back, bare skin contacting a rough wall behind him. He kept his katana between them. She reached out and touched the blade, running her finger up the sharpened edge, slicing the pale skin, drawing blood. She pulled the finger away and watched as blood collected and dripped off of it. She put the finger in her mouth, the artificially red lips closing around the pale, blood stained tip. He trembled watching her, desire firing his loins, quickening his breathing, his pulse beat.
"Come to me, Jonathan. You know you want to --"
"No!" he growled, baring his teeth in a snarl comparable to any demon mask he had seen. She drew back a little, not from fear, but to assess this confrontation. She tilted her head to one side, then bent forward slightly, letting her loosened hair fall across her face. She peeped at him through the strands. "Are you sure?" she whispered. She seemed to promise him all things, whispers in his mind of joys and experiences to come.
He fought down the beginnings of panic. Whoever and whatever this woman was, he found her terrifying on a primal level. She spoke to his most secret desires, things he would not even admit to himself were intriguing, evil things that twisted at his soul. He kept the blade between them, knowing that to drop the blade was to accept her, to succumb to her lures, to lose himself in her for all time. A part of him was drawn to what she offered, to letting go, to letting her take him.
The blade wavered. A smile of victory curved her lips as she stepped forward, reaching for him. He pulled himself together and interposed the blade again, almost cutting the white skin at the base of her throat. She drew up, her black on black eyes spitting fire at him. "I said, no," he told her quietly.
"You will die anyway. Even now your body burns from the inside. You will be ash and nothing, your name written on the wind -------"
"Then I will die." He knew an incredible calm. Death held no worry for him, and only one regret, that he would not see his son.
She screamed in anger then, knowing she had lost him for now. "You will never find your son. Never. The Black Dragons will have him, will take his birthright from him, will turn him to your destruction. He will kill you never knowing who he destroys."
He laughed at that. "So be it. He will live." He closed his eyes and sank back against the cold stones, her screams of rage ringing in his ears. He was tired. He was content. He was thirsty.
Jonathan opened his eyes and blinked. His throat hurt. It was dry and sore and he seemed to be having a hard time swallowing. He also seemed to be looking at things through plastic. He frowned. Someone dressed in white, wearing a protective mask folded back the plastic and looked in on him.
"Mr. Raven. Good afternoon. We were beginning to worry you weren't coming back to us. Hold on."
Latex gloved fingers pulled tape off his face and removed a tube from his mouth. He could feel it coming up out of his throat as well and fought gagging. That felt much better. A chip of ice was dropped onto his tongue. The melting water felt good on his parched throat.
"Don't try to talk. Give the water some time to work. Dr. Randal will be in to see you in a few minutes. And then I think Mr. Jablonski would like to know you're back."
Ski. Damn. He must have scared Ski badly. Hell, he'd scared himself badly. He wondered what had happened to him that he felt so incredibly weak. The explanation was not hard to follow. Bacteria. Plague. Sickness. Lucky to be alive. He'd been in the hospital ten hours. It felt like a life time of being battered. He'd passed though the crisis period and was on the mend. He'd be in the hospital for two or three days until they were certain there was no internal organ damage, and then he could go home for a lot of rest and recuperation.
Home. It sounded wonderful.
Ski came in looking worried, wrapped in a disposable plastic bubble suit. He was appalled by the nearly gaunt look of his friend. "Hi."
"Hi." Jonathan's voice was weak, but it sounded a lot more like the Jonathan he knew than he had just before his collapse.
"Feelin' pretty bad, huh?"
"Lousy."
Ski smiled at that. Yep. That was the Jonathan he knew. "Doc says you can go home in a couple of days. Maybe we'll get a pretty nurse to help you out the first couple of days home?"
A weak laugh escaped the patient. It felt good to be back in the land of the living, even if most of seemed to be plastic wrapped for the moment. For just a second, everything froze for him. Back in the land of the living. Was that where he had been? Was that where she was? He took a breath and time started again. No one else seemed to have noticed. He was suddenly very glad he wasn't at home. The first thing he noticed when he did get home was that the doll in the isplay case was missing. The second thing he noticed was a long, carved wooden box. He looked around at Ski. "Where's the doll?"
"What? Oh, that thing. Some little oriental lady came while you were out of things at the hospital. She said the doll was shipped by mistake. She had that box with her, with a note from Kesh and that Duncan fellow. Apparently the doll was being held for a collector and they got the instructions all screwed up. She was real apologetic and all."
"Oh."
Why was he relieved that the thing was gone? He read the note and smiled. Kesh and Gary had been in Okinawa with Duncan when she had spotted the enclosed. It reminded her of him. He opened the box. The sword within was ancient, the scabbard repaired over the years. He pulled the blade free and marveled. This was -- unbelievable. He quickly unwrapped the hilt and freed the tang. There was no makers mark. That in itself was odd. There was a slip of rice paper inside. He unfolded it.
"Duncan says this is very, very early. He's not certain who the maker was, only that he was very good and certainly almost the equal of the known masters. There's a twinkle in his eyes when he says this, and a shade of smirk around his lips. It's either his, or he knew the student who made it. Use it well."
He put the hilt back on and rewrapped it slowly. Once he was done, he took it in both hands and felt a flow of familiarity. He looked closely at the edge of the blade. About a third of the way back from the tip there was a faint discoloration. He had a momentary vision of a pale finger touching the blade. Very, very carefully, he returned the blade to its scabbard and set it back in the box.
"Nice sword."
Jonathan managed not to jump at the sound of Ski's voice. Just.
"Yes. It is. Very." He looked around at Ski. "Thanks."
Ski colored slightly and shook his head. "You hungry? I even got you some fresh sushi. BK found a place that does it the way you like it ---"
fin
Ba-da-bing -- Ba-da-boom
"See how uneasy life can be?" -- The Doll Li Shan
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