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  “Good.” I took a deep breath and turned back to the glaring Dr. Hunter. “This hopefully shouldn’t take long.”

  I crossed the ER floor, aware that the eyes of all the support staff were on me. Most of them knew by now that Hunter had asked me out and that I had refused him. None of them knew about our second, disastrous meeting, however. I could tell, though, by the angry look in Hunter’s big blue eyes that he most certainly hadn’t forgotten about it.

  I was already feeling ill and a confrontation with a sexist asshole was the last thing I wanted right now. But it looked like there was no getting out of it so I squared my shoulders and walked up to him.

  “Yes, Dr. Hunter?” I said quietly but clearly. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to talk to you. Now,” he snapped. “Come with me.” He started to lead me away from the main ER but I tried to stop him.

  “Dr. Hunter,” I began. “If this is about this afternoon—”

  “It’s about a patient of mine whose orders you screwed up,” he snarled. “You nearly Goddamn killed him!”

  “What?” I couldn’t help feeling shocked. Suddenly instead of having the upper hand and being the woman turning down a man, I was cast back in the role of the lowly Intern who had screwed up and was being dressed down by the enraged Resident. “There must be some mistake,” I protested. “I don’t have any of your patients on my schedule.”

  “That’s what you think. Come with me and I’ll show you.” He turned away again but I was still reluctant to go.

  “Dr. Hunter—”

  “Dr. Walker,” he said, rounding on me. “Do you want to do this here and now where everyone in the ER can hear about your monumental incompetence? Or do you want to discuss it in private?”

  “In private,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat with shame. I kept my chin up, though, as I followed him out of the ER, despite feeling every eye in the place on me. It was a good thing, I thought to myself, that I had ordered Kristoff to stay behind. There was no way he could have listened to the crap that was about to come down on my head without reacting.

  Hunter led me down a dark hallway and into a dim, empty X-ray room. The X-ray tube was placed neatly on a pillow, resting on the fluro table and there were a pile of weights and sandbags in one corner and several lead aprons hanging from a rack.

  I stood by the chest bucky as he closed the door and rounded on me, his eyes flashing.

  “Dr. Hunter, I really think there’s been some mistake—” I tried again but he didn’t let me finish.

  “I have a message for you,” he said, taking a step towards me. I saw uneasily that his features had gone blank, though his voice still sounded angry.

  “A message?” Without thinking about it, I took a step back. This situation was beginning to make me feel really uncomfortable, and not just because I was about to get chewed out.

  “A message, yes. And it is this—True Incarnation or not, you will never sit the Golden Throne.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, taking another step back. Suddenly the situation seemed horribly familiar—it was the exact same mess I’d been in when the Carlos-thing came after me. But that time I’d had Kristoff to save me. This time I had ordered him to stay away—how stupid could I be?

  “You heard me, Empress.” Hunter’s eyes flashed cold and silver as he reached for me. “You’ll not live to be crowned. Tonight you die.”

  “Get away from me!” I screamed but the lead shielding in the walls muffled my voice—I was pretty sure no one outside the door was going to hear me.

  “Come to me. Do not delay the inevitable,” the thing which had taken on Drake Hunter’s appearance crooned. It came at me, hands stretched wide and I ducked wildly, trying to avoid it. I remembered well enough what had happened when the Carlos-thing had only brushed my skin with its hand. If this thing even touched me I could be dead.

  It was between me and the door but there was a small control area in the back of the room where the tech would stand to take the X-ray. I dodged for the little cubby, trying to get through it so I could run through the Radiology suite and come out the other side.

  Before I could get two steps, the thing caught me by the hair and yanked me back. “Don’t fight your fate, Goddess,” it said and put its cold, cold hands around my throat, choking off the scream that was rising to my lips.

  Suddenly the door of the X-ray room crashed open and Kristoff appeared, as from out of nowhere. The look of rage on his face was awful to behold—there was a fury like I’d never seen before in his whirling rainbow eyes which were switching colors too fast for my frantic brain to register.

  “You shall not have her!” he snarled and then he drew the incredibly long sword which was strapped to a scabbard on his back. A Great sword or a Bastard Sword. My mind gabbled RPG gamer terms even as the thing’s hands crushed my windpipe. I wished inanely that I was someplace safe, playing Diablo II with my friend Zoe instead of being choked to death by a killer robot thing.

  Then Kristoff’s sword arced through the air and Hunter’s head parted company with his body. It spun through the air like a hairy bowling ball but as it whirled, I saw it change. Hunter’s handsome features became smooth and blank and silver until there was nothing left when it hit the floor but a vaguely head-shaped shiny sphere.

  The hands, however, continued to choke the life out of me.

  “Goddess!” Kristoff growled, coming forward to yank the spasming hands away from my throat.

  “You…came,” I whispered and dissolved into a coughing fit. Thank God my windpipe wasn’t crushed but I could tell I was going to have some serious bruising and I still felt light headed due to oxygen loss. “You came,” I repeated when I could. “Even though…I told you…not to.”

  “I should have come sooner,” he said grimly. “You can court-martial me for disobedience later, my Lady.”

  He was examining me anxiously as he spoke and just then Sebastian came rushing into the room.

  “What did I miss? What happened?” he demanded. Then he saw the still-jerking pile of metal scrap that had been Dr. Hunter and his eyes got wide. “Oh my God! What is that?”

  “Assassin-droid,” Kristoff said grimly. “And I’m afraid it had nanites in its hands. See? Here—and here.” He pointed to my throat, which now felt like it was on fire. “We have to get them out and then I need to get her up to my ship.”

  “No, no—” I started to protest but Kristoff took me by the shoulders and shook me.

  “Listen to me, Charlotte,” he said, using my name for the first time since I’d first seen him in the ER. “Your life is in danger here. Not only yours but the lives of all you hold dear! Do you know what these droids do? They attack someone you know—someone close to you—and suck out their life essence so they can make an exact replica. A replica that will lull you into a false sense of security so they can kill you!”

  “You…” I choked. “You mean Dr. Hunter is really…really dead? And Carlos too?”

  “Dead and sucked dry—unrecognizable husks, even to their loved ones,” Kristoff said grimly. “The droid probably picked this male because it saw him leaving your residence. But it could just as easily have picked him.” He pointed to Sebastian who went pale. “Or someone else you love—a friend or family member.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered and coughed again. “I…I didn’t realize.”

  “While you stay here on Earth everyone you know and love is in danger,” Kristoff said harshly. “And you yourself are ill. I do not want to force your hand, my Lady—it is a crime punishable by death. But if I must take you to Femme One against your will in order for you to survive, then so be it. I will do what is in your best interests even if I am killed for it.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I don’t…don’t want you to be killed. I…I’ll go.”

  “Good.” He looked relieved. “But we have to do something about the nanites first.”

  “The MRI room,” I said. “It’s just down the hall.” I took a step t
owards the door of the X-Ray room, stumbled, and nearly fell. My throat was on fire and my legs felt weak and wobbly.

  “Where is it?” Kristoff stooped swiftly to swing me into his arms. He looked at Sebastian. “Lead me there.”

  The MRI machine at North Florida Regional was a closed bore, superconducting magnet which meant that the magnetic field was never off. For safety’s sake, the door to the main magnet room is kept locked—so some idiot with a pacemaker or an aneurism clip won’t ignore all the warning signs and wander into the magnetic field and kill themselves.

  Luckily for me, there was a tech there, preparing to scan a STAT patient who was being sent down from the floor.

  “What in the world?” she exclaimed when we appeared in her doorway with Kristoff holding me and Sebastian tagging along, wide-eyed.

  “We need to get in the magnet room—now!” he exclaimed. “Get the key and unlock it—hurry!”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor but I can’t let you go in just like that!” the tech protested. “You haven’t been screened! And you…” She eyed Kristoff with his thick metal breastplate and greaves—not to mention the tall sword with its hilt poking over his shoulder. “You’ll get sucked in and I’d have to quench the magnet to get you out!”

  “She’s right,” I managed to croak. “Kristoff…can’t come in.”

  “Then I’ll go with her. Here, just bring her to the doorway,” Sebastian snapped. Then he looked at the tech. “I’m Dr. Trent and I take full responsibility for this. Dr. Walker and I need to get in the magnet room and I promise you, neither of us has any implants or pacemakers or clips.”

  The tech looked like she wanted to protest but a growl from Kristoff got her moving. Grabbing the key, she unlocked the heavy, shielded door and swung it open so that we could hear the quiet pulsing of the superconducting magnet.

  “Here.” Sebastian stripped off his lab coat which held most of his electronics. Kristoff set me on my feet and Sebastian grabbed me by the waist, slinging my arm across his shoulder. He wasn’t strong enough to carry me like Kristoff—then again, almost no one would be—as I said before, I’m not a lightweight—but he was able to help support me. Half walking, half dragging, we finally made it into the magnetic field.

  I didn’t even have to go into the MRI machine itself—the relief was immediate. The burning in my throat stopped and the feeling of doom which had been building inside me since the Hunter-thing wrapped its hands around my neck seemed to subside. I still felt dizzy and light headed, but I was able to stand on my own.

  “Okay…I’m okay,” I whispered to Sebastian and straightened up so I wasn’t leaning on him quite so hard.

  “Good—you’re heavy.” He took a deep breath and then looked anxiously at my throat. “The red marks are fading. How do you feel?”

  “Better,” I said. “But still not completely right.”

  “Come back out in the hall so I can take your temperature again.”

  He led me out to where Kristoff was watching anxiously and the tech was staring with wide eyes. Sebastian shooed her back to her room saying something about patient privacy. Picking up his lab coat, he found his temperature gauge and popped it under my tongue. When it beeped, he frowned anxiously.

  “What?” I asked when he took the probe out of my mouth.

  “See for yourself.” He handed me the unit. “A fight and an adrenaline rush like you just had should have raised your temperature, not lowered it. But you’re down to 89.8. That’s not good, Charlotte. Really not good. How do you feel?”

  “Hotter than ever.” I tugged at the loose neck of my scrub top. “Like I’m burning up.”

  “It’s the Calet Sanguis—the Burning Blood.” Kristoff sounded as anxious as Sebastian looked. “It is part of the Royal Cycle, as I said before. Empress, you must leave this place now and come with me.”

  “He’s right.” Sebastian nodded. “You need to go, Charlotte.”

  It didn’t seem I had any choice.

  “All right,” I said heavily to Kristoff. “How do we get out of here?”

  “I need a large, open area to call my shuttle to,” he said.

  Sebastian snapped his fingers. “The helicopter pad. On the roof of the hospital.”

  “Let’s go.”

  I would have walked but Kristoff swung me into his arms again as though I weighed no more than a feather.

  “Lead the way,” he told Sebastian.

  Before I knew it, we were standing on the large, flat space watching as Kristoff did something to a control on his belt that presumably called his shuttle.

  “He’s like Batman with that thing,” Sebastian, who had one supporting arm around me, murmured.

  “Yeah—it’s like an alien utility belt.” I tried to laugh but it came out as more of a choked sob. “Sebastian,” I said, “I’m scared.”

  “I know, hon but Kristoff seems to know what’s going on with you and I sure as Hell don’t,” he said frankly. “Who ever heard of a sickness that makes your body hypothermic even though you feel like you’re burning up? Also, we don’t need any more killer robots tearing up the ER trying to get to you.”

  I knew he was right but it still made me want to cry. Where was this mysterious place I was going and would I ever come home again? Would I ever see the hospital or finish my internship? Something inside me doubted it—doubted it very much. And then there was my family. I wasn’t very close to them—not because I was adopted but just because we had never quite clicked somehow. Still, I didn’t want my mom to worry.

  “All right,” I said to Sebastian. “But promise you’ll tell everyone—my family included—that I’m all right.”

  “I will.” He was half crying now, too as he hugged me. “I promise I will.”

  And then a smooth black craft that looked like something out of a high-end car commercial, only with wings instead of wheels, landed silently on the helicopter pad.

  “Come, my Lady,” Kristoff said, taking my arm. “It’s time to leave this place.”

  I gave Sebastian one final hug and then Kristoff was swinging me into his arms again and placing me gently in the strange, black craft.

  The last thing I saw of Earth was Sebastian waving and the lights of the hospital receding into the night.

  I didn’t know when I would ever see either one again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kristoff

  Charlotte lost consciousness before the shuttle was halfway to my ship, still hidden on the dark side of the Earth’s lone moon. By the time I carried her inside my vessel, her pulse was weak and thready and her breathing was frighteningly shallow. Her skin was cool to the touch too, which I knew was a bad sign.

  I had never heard of any Incarnation of the Empress having such an extreme case of Calet Sanguis before, but then, during the Culling Ceremony for the potential Consorts, the Empress usually only gave a few drops of her blood to each candidate to ingest.

  Charlotte had given me a whole bag of her blood and I hadn’t drunk it—she had pumped it directly into my veins. I supposed it wasn’t surprising that she was in such a bad way. But I still had no idea what to do.

  Even with my hyperdrive set on maximum capacity, there was no way I could get her to Femme One in time to save her. The seat of the Majoran empire, also known as Majora Prime, was located in the very center of the Goddess’s Cloak, on the edge of the supermassive black hole that served as the central spire of the entire galaxy.

  I was sent to save her and now instead, she’s dying because of me. Because she saved me, I thought bitterly. How amused her enemies would be if they knew that the new Empress’s kindness accomplished what their fucking assassin-droids couldn’t manage!

  I cradled her close in my arms, feeling a powerful emotion surge inside me. Charlotte wouldn’t die—I couldn’t allow it! And yet… how could I save her?

  I couldn’t think of a way.

  Normally I have a very cool head under pressure—one cannot be trained in the arts of covert diplomacy without b
eing able to stay calm even in the direst circumstances. But there was something about my new mistress that stirred me—stirred me so deeply I could barely think past my concern for her. My heart and mind were in turmoil and I couldn’t determine a course of action.

  I’m not a praying kind of male. As a rule, though I serve one who is supposed to be divinity made flesh, I do not believe in supernatural forces. And yet, as my desperation grew, I felt words rising to my lips—words I didn’t even try to hold back.

  “Goddess,” I prayed aloud as I held Charlotte close. “Help me to save my new mistress! It’s my fault she’s sick—help me find a way to heal her before it’s too late.”

  No one spoke to me from mid-air and the sky didn’t open up to reveal the face of the Goddess of Mercy, but I felt a sudden calm come over me and the panic and guilt cleared from my brain.

  Dr. Churika, I thought. She would know what to do.

  Dr. Hanalan Churika had been the personal healer of my old mistress, Sundalla the 999th. She had stayed with the old Empress until the end and then, heartbroken, had judged it best to go back to her home planet of Denaris where she lived with her two mates. Denaris was much closer to Earth than Femme One—in fact, they were in the same quadrant of the galaxy.

  Carrying Charlotte in my arms, I made my way quickly to the control and communication center of my ship. Cradling her head against one arm, I typed with my free hand, calling up the special code Churika had been given when she was in the service of the old Empress. This code activated a tiny chip in her arm which had been implanted when she had first been appointed the royal healer. The chip set off an alarm that would compel her to answer my call, no matter where in the universe she was or what she was doing.

  Of course, that was when the old Empress was alive. Dr. Churika had no reason to answer the code now. But I prayed she would anyway.

  “Answer,” I muttered impatiently. “Come on, Goddess-damnit! Come on!”

  I hadn’t drawn three breaths before my viewscreen flickered and Churika’s wise face appeared.