The End of Magic (The Witches of Echo Park #3)(24)

Their own damn fault, he thought, but it was more out of habit. He didn't actually believe the words he was thinking. Hadn't for a long time now.

In truth, Desmond was disillusioned with the dogma he'd once wholeheartedly embraced. He was so entrenched in the movement, though, that, at this point, it seemed ridiculous to do anything but continue forward with the Bataan Death March he'd set himself on all those years ago. He hadn't known back then that The Flood would make a monster out of him. Only . . . he should've seen it even then, should've understood what he was sacrificing. He'd just been so angry and hurt by Eleanora's rejection of him: He'd loved her and she'd taken their unborn twins away from him, without even telling him he was a father. Then, to add insult to injury, she'd given the children away-he would've taken them both had he known-and subjected them to the horrors of adoption. Their daughter had come out all right in the end, but their son, well, Desmond only found David later in life and, by then, his personality (with all its imperfect traits) was already set.

So he'd brought him into the fold, made him a foot soldier in the war for a new world order. Only with time he'd become disillusioned and now he wasn't so sure that the future The Flood sought to bring about would actually make the world a better place. Human beings were flawed and imperfect. Magic, or the utter destruction of it, was not going to change that.

Now he wanted Daniela to wake up, to see her once more before he no longer counted among the living. This was the one hope he held on to, the only thing that kept him going.

"Father?"

Desmond was pulled from his thoughts by his son's rumbling voice. David stood in the doorway of the hospital room, and Desmond realized he'd probably been standing there for a while. Had probably already called to his father once, maybe twice, and Desmond hadn't heard it. He really was getting old.

Both of his witch lovers, Marie-Faith and Eleanora, dead and gone before him, and, here he was, still tenaciously holding on to life. It was surreal.

"Father?"

Desmond realized he'd disappeared into his head again.

"Yes," he replied, giving David an indulgent smile.

The man was physically handsome with a charming countenance, even if his brain was rotten. Tall, with perfect posture and silver hair cropped close to his skull, all holdovers from his years in the military, David looked very much like Desmond when he was younger.

"We should go. You're wanted."

Desmond nodded. He knew he couldn't sit by Daniela's bed forever-he would have to leave her for now. At least he knew she would get the best possible care here. He'd had her transferred to a clinic where many expatriates living in Italy went for treatment, the doctors and medical staff known for their top-drawer medical care. Besides, he'd be back-and, maybe, by then she'd be awake.

Desmond climbed to his feet, using his trusted cane for support. Every time he wrapped his fingers around the polished metal lion's head handle, he was reminded of Daniela. It had been her gift to him many years ago, and he cherished it.



       
         
       
        

"I'll come by and check on her while you're gone," David said. "Just in case she wakes up."

"Good," Desmond said, and then he took his son's arm and followed him out of the hospital room.





Daniela





Daniela floated, barely aware of her father's, or anyone else's, visits. She didn't know where she was, or even why she was there-just that she was alive and in pain. It was a strange surreal feeling. Like she was sleeping and not sleeping at the same time, her awareness of reality so tenuous that it hardly existed at all. Except for the pain . . . that was the one thing that kept her tethered to what was left of herself. The damage to her anterior insular cortex had been severe-had anyone done an MRI of her brain, they'd have seen a lesion the size of a quarter there.

Daniela could not quite remember what had happened to her, and she was only aware of the continued damage she was being unwittingly subjected to by the clinic staff because it hurt-and the pain brought her closer to reality. The men and women treating her didn't know that every time they touched her, they were only making her worse. That she was an empath, a very powerful one, and now that magic had returned to the world, instead of just her hands, her whole body had become a conduit for her empathic talents.

Touch her arm to take blood-damage done.

Lift her up to change the sheets of her bed-damage done.

Check her pulse-damage done.

The list went on and on-and all the damage done would be a constant reminder that the gloves she'd worn for most of her life would not be able to protect her anymore.