Malevolent (The Puzzle Box Series Book 1) (15 page)

I woke up super early the next morning. The sun was hardly up, but a mocking bird had begun to sing outside my window, and he was freakishly loud. I listened with the simple enjoyment of lying in bed, warm and comfortable, with no sickness in my lungs or stomach.

Maybe it had been worth killing the orchard. It would grow back. Hopefully.

I was forced to get up, though, because my stomach tried to tear its way out of my middle and eat my face. So I dashed downstairs and cooked a massive omelet in self-defense. Mom and Dad were already up and drinking coffee in the living room, so I poured a cup and joined them.

"You're up early." Mom scanned my face. "Feeling better?"

"Way." I sipped my coffee. "I'm going to skip my meds today and see how I feel."

"I hope it's not a one day thing, like last time," said Dad. He already wore a t-shirt and stained jeans, ready to tackle the farm. "I need my helper back on her feet."

"Believe me, I'm ready to be well." I drank my coffee and tried to mentally frame an explanation about Mal. No matter how I tried, I couldn't. Just like in my books, they'd think I was either lying or crazy. Heck, so would I.

"Oh, Libby," said Mom. "Tiffany called yesterday evening, after you were in bed. She says she can tutor you so you can graduate, but you have to start now."

My brain exploded with a galaxy of possibilities. I was well--that meant I could go back to school. Which also meant that I only had four months to make up for missing the first half of the year. I could go to college. My entire life lay before my feet again--a beckoning yellow-brick road.

I drained my cup. "I'll call right away."

I hadn't actually seen Tiffany since Christmas. We mostly we kept in touch online. She'd offered to tutor me before, but I'd been too sick to even think about it. But now--heck yeah, I wanted to graduate.

It would keep me from brooding about Mal.

Since it was only six-thirty, I had compassion and texted Tiffany first. She texted back, "Working on project, you can call."

I took my cellphone upstairs to my room. Her phone rang once. "Hi Libby!"

"Hi, Tiff. Mom said you can tutor me?"

"Oh, yes. I was looking over a sample copy of the standardized test for this year, and I know you could pass with tutoring. You don't have to learn anything to pass the tests. You just learn the test. You know Miss Hill--she'll let all that homework slide if you get a good test score."

"I'm feeling way better today. Want me to come over?"

"No, I wanted an excuse to drive somewhere." Her voice dropped. "And I have something serious to talk to you about."

"Did you break up with Jeremy?"

"That ended months ago. No, this is different."

Her voice sounded odd. Almost ... afraid. There were vampires and liches running around, but she wouldn't have had contact with them.

Wait. Mal said that Robert had been biting girls at school. What if ...?

I waited anxiously for Tiffany to arrive. She showed up in her sleek, silver coupe about eight o' clock. Everything about her was sleek--her smooth black hair, her olive skin, her blouse and slacks. She was half-Asian. While every guy in school admired her, they called her the Ice Princess. She was simply not interested in anything but science. Jeremy had wrung a few dates out of her because he was the other top science student.

I'd become friends with her when I helped her in English, and afterward I invited her to my gaming guild, because nothing says friendship like headshots.

Tiffany carried in a couple of books and a binder. Mom was vacuuming, and we had to talk over the noise. "Let's study in your room. Less distracting."

Once in my room, Tiffany set everything on my computer desk, then sat on my bed. The cool, professional charade fell away--her eyebrows scrunched, and her chin quivered. "Libby, something's wrong with me."

Icy horror hit my middle, and I sat beside her and scrutinized her face. I'd been dealing with magic, monsters and the undead, so that's what first came to mind. I struggled to think of a more normal problem. "Like cancer?"

Her eyes widened, and she rubbed the back of one hand. "No. It's barely noticeable. Weakness. A cough. Like I'm getting valley fever."

My horror changed flavors. I stared at her hand. There was a red welt on the back, as if she'd been scratching a mosquito bite. "By any chance, did Robert, um, bite you?"

"Uh-huh. That's when it started."

I needed to talk to Mal. He could heal her--then I reeled. He could only heal her by killing more things. But he was all I had--no doctor could treat death motes.

Tiffany must have thought that my shock was normal, because she kept talking. "I work in the biology lab at Cal State on weekends, so I took some samples and tested them on their equipment." She twisted her fingers in her lap. "And--and there's these black things in my blood and tissue."

I had to stand up. My insides went hot, and I struggled to speak carefully, because I really wanted to scream. "Black things?"

She nodded. "They're not bacteria or viruses. Maybe they're spores. I brought the images." She opened the binder and handed it to me.

I fumbled the cover open with sweaty hands. Inside were four grainy microscope pictures in black and white. Each one showed cells like fried eggs, and black dots, like gnats, clustered together in swarms.

Tiffany pointed at the top image. "I couldn't capture the way they move. That's what scares me. Bacteria swim around, interact with cells, that kind of thing. But these--they dive in and out of cells, then penetrate all tissue at random. Like radiation." Her scientist tone rose toward tears. "And they're inside me!"

She sobbed. I put my arms around her. She clung to me and cried.

Sympathy tears knotted my throat. She had the vampire infection. I would have to talk to Mal, much as I didn't want to. Maybe his bees could spare a little honey.

My tears vanished, and I drew a deep breath. Of course, the honey would heal her without killing more land. That was Mal's loophole. That was why he raised magic bees, so he didn't have to kill things. I'd been so caught up in the lich thing that I'd forgotten everything he taught me in the beginning. He had started my education with what he believed was most important--the magic honey that kept him human.

A tension relaxed inside me--the fear of a predator that I'd carried since yesterday. Mal may be a lich, but he was still my friend.

I cleared my throat. First order of business was to calm Tiffany down. I patted her back. "How did you get pictures of elemental particles?"

Talking science always calmed Tiffany. She sat up and wiped her eyes, and sniffed. "I had to use every filter they had. I could see something there, but it was hard to make it appear on camera."

"Have you told anybody? Like your parents? Or professors?"

She shook her head. "I didn't know what I'd found. I thought Robert had a staph infection he'd been passing to girls. I've seen him bite you. But this ... It's like radioactivity. You must have it, too!"

I nodded. How in the world could I explain death motes? Or should I try? Tiffany's brain worked in formulae and theories. She wouldn't buy something as nuts as life and death motes.

Mal would know how to handle it.

I stood up. "Come on. We're going to talk to a friend of mine."

***

I loaded Tiffany in the golf cart and we drove out to the bee station. It was a warm, sunny morning, and the orchards were snowy white with blossoms. The air smelled so sweet, it gave me a headache.

"So," she said, "you're telling me there's a beekeeper who knows about these particles?"

I kept my eyes on the dirt road. "Yeah, he's a specialist. He's been trying to educate me."

More or less.

"You know," said Tiffany, studying me, "you don't look very sick. Your voice is stronger."

"Oh, uh, they changed my meds. I've gotten much better." But my face grew warm from the effort of the lie. Tiffany picked up on it, but from her frown, she couldn't figure out why I was bothering to lie in the first place.

As we neared the bee station, my nerves stretched tighter and tighter. I hadn't seen Mal since he'd killed the orchard--what would he say? Especially when I dumped Tiffany on him? Would he be mad?

The last time Mal had gotten mad, he'd ripped Robert apart and buried the pieces. The thought made me want to turn the cart around and flee to the house, butI kept driving. Tiffany was infected, and worse, she'd discovered the motes. I couldn't pretend I didn't know anything--and I couldn't hide that I was mysteriously well.

We pulled into sight of the bee station, and my nerves stretched so tight I thought I'd snap inside. There was nobody there but bees and their hives. I exhaled and went loose as an unstrung guitar.

Tiffany looked around at the bees and white-flowered orchards. "I've never been out here in the spring. It's really beautiful. And that's a ton of bees! Why do those have rings around them?"

I looked where she was pointing. Mal's beehives all had metal hoops around them. Something to do with the motes, probably.

Several bees circled my head. Their buzzing formed words. "We suffer illness from the death of the land. Mal is protecting us."

I glanced at Tiffany, but she hadn't noticed their voices. "Thanks," I whispered, and waved them away. When Tiff looked around, I added, "Mal's in the middle of an ... experiment. Let's try his camper." My tension returned, but with it came an eagerness to see him again. He protected his bees as he'd tried to protect me.

The camper sat in its usual place behind the orchard on the access road. The curtains were drawn. I parked a short distance away and squeezed the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. "Stay here, Tiff. Let me talk to him a minute."

She looked at my hands, then my face, but didn't say anything. She didn't say it so hard that I added, "We're just friends."

I left her smirking, and hurried to the camper. Dread crawled up my throat. What if he told me to take a hike? Worse, what if he stood there and stared at me and never said anything? I had hurt his feelings pretty bad. I hadn't even listened when he tried to explain about how he'd saved my life. Guilt joined the dread.

I tapped twice on the door with my fingernails.

Footsteps thumped inside the camper and the door opened. Mal looked down at me. His eyes crinkled in his almost-smile. "Libby!"

His clothes and hair were rumpled, as if he hadn't bothered changing in days, and he smelled like it, too. Stubble sprinkled his chin, but his eyes caught the light as spring green.

Tense wariness and joy fizzed inside me like Diet Coke and Mentos. One wrong move and I'd explode. I'd missed him, dang it. I hadn't realized it until I saw him again--but fear tainted the gladness. I swayed forward to hug him, but checked myself and clasped my hands instead.

He stepped down out of the trailer, and his cold hands closed over mine. "I'm glad you returned. I'd begun to consider leaving."

"No! Don't do that!" I drew a breath to steady myself. His touch was like coming home, and I never wanted him to let go. I lowered my voice. "I can't handle this without you. This is my friend Tiffany, here. Robert bit her."

He glanced at Tiffany in the cart, and his mouth tightened into a frown. He continued to hold my hands. "Libby, my bees are struggling to survive after I ... the incident. If I harvest their honey, I may lose them all."

And another healing ritual would kill more of the ranch. But neither of us said it.

He released my hands, and I immediately dragged my fingers through my long hair. "Tiffany's been testing herself to see what's wrong. She took pictures of the death motes."

Mal groped for the doorframe and leaned against it, as if his knees threatened to give out. His white face turned gray. "Pictures. What have you told her?"

"Only that you study them. She thinks that you're a scientist. Are you okay?"

His chest heaved with a quick breath, almost a gasp. "I must speak to her."

He closed the camper door and stepped past me, but stopped and laid a hand on my shoulder. "I need to apologize to you, first." His eyes turned sad and amber.

I looked into his strange, pointed face, and at that moment, I lost my fear of him forever. Lich or not, he was also a lonely man with a lousy life. Had our places been swapped, would I have killed the orchard to save him?

In a heartbeat.

I patted his cold hand. "It's okay. I forgive you."

We gazed at each other a long moment, and a new tension strained between us--things we felt but couldn't say. Then he turned away and approached Tiffany. I followed, unsteadily. Why did he churn up these feelings inside me? Why couldn't I make it stop? I didn't want another boyfriend. But these feelings were definitely not friendship.

Tiffany watched us with a knowing expression. But as Mal approached, she stepped out of the cart and became a smooth, professional scientist. "Hello, sir. I'm Tiffany Taichi."