Accidental God -- Section 07

[This section actually required some research, and I still don't know if I got the medical details right, but hey--it's written now.

[Also, I've taken up running. I think the key for me to really stay committed will be to hire an angry, three-legged dog. Angry, so he'll chase me, and three-legged so he won't chase too fast.

[Also, for those who didn't know, I have the 'friends and family' copies of Fat Tony available. Send an email if you want a copy and don't have one yet.

[Finally, I heard that Fidel Castro is releasing a memoir. I'm somewhat interested in reading it, but I'd be more enthused if it were a 'how-to' manual for oppression. My children have way too much freedom.]


    It was quiet in the hospital room. There were the usual quiet beepings and hummings, the quiet sigh of oxygen, the conversation of nurses in the hall. It wasn’t a depressing room—mildly sunlit and human enough, as hospital rooms go—but it was an empty room. No one waiting for the man in the bed to wake up. No one talking to him as he lay there, giving no response. No flowers.
    So when Rodrigo Malena’s eyes opened, there was no celebration and no tears. In fact, at first, Senor Malena couldn’t even remember who he was. He did know one thing, though, and he knew that with the simplicity of a child.
    There was someone he needed to kill.
    Not a very childlike thought, but he felt it with every weak muscle and heavy breath, and he believed in it completely, totally, passionately.
    His increased heart rate brought with it the sound of quick footsteps and a nurse, male, walked into sight, leaning over the bed. He looked more like a moose than a nurse, but Rodrigo decided the scrubs were a give-away. Also, this wasn’t the man who needed to die.
    “Awake, are we?” asked the nurse.
    Obviously, thought Rodrigo.
    “You’re probably wondering about the tube in your mouth.” Do I have a tube? Rodrigo felt it with his tongue and decided to keep still, avoiding any gag reflex. “You went into anaphylactic shock, but the EMT’s got that bit of plastic in there in time. Also, the soreness in your side?” Hard to miss, thought Rodrigo. “Cracked rib from the CPR someone gave you. Probably helped save your life, so I’d suggest not getting too upset about it.” No, that’s not what I’m upset about. The moose-nurse kept talking. “I’m assuming you’re following what I’m saying, based on how your eyes are tracking me. You ready to breathe on your own? Your oxygen levels have been good for a while now, so we can take this thing out, if you’re up for it.”
    Rodrigo nodded slowly. It was an odd sensation with the tube down the inside of his neck.
    “Good,” said moose-nurse. “I could just do this on my own, but doctors tend to get their panties in bunches if I go running around, fixing people all on my own, so I’ll go get our local god, and he can pull that out for you. He’ll also ask you several annoying questions and check things that I’ve already checked, so you might want to get ready for all that as well. Back in a minute or five.”
    The nurse walked off and Rodrigo wasn’t sad to see him go. He needed to think, figure out what, exactly, had happened. It was hard to concentrate, though. His mind felt as if it had been washed with glue, and there was something missing. Something very important. And what was that thing clinging to the corner of the room? It seemed wrong. Gray and red and too many joints. But somehow familiar.
    What was that the nurse had said about a local god? Important, it was all important, the bits and pieces floating around in his head. A recipe jumped into his conscious mind: four parts sweetened condensed milk, one part cocoa powder, a dash of cinnamon, one part deadly nightshade picked at the blackest midnight, and three Drooping Butterflies lightly blended. He’d used that poison recently, he knew, or tasted it. Was that what put him in the hospital? Also there was a Swede, or some flavor of northern European. Baernson. What had happened to him? Rodrigo knew he didn’t hate the man, but he did know that Baernson was an obstacle to be removed. Had he removed him? The creature in the corner opened its mouth and licked an improbably long tongue across the blank skin of its upper-face and bald skull.
    “How are we feeling?” said the man who must be the doctor.
    Wonderful, thought Rodrigo, glancing at the narrow, self-important face for long enough to understand the moose-nurse’s feelings. Another idiot. He tried to pull back his feelings, rein them in. This man didn’t deserve his anger. He was a doctor, doing his job, and idiot or not, this wasn’t the person Rodrigo needed to kill. It was someone else. Who? And why?
    “Brock tells me you’re ready to get the tube out.” The doctor was talking, and part of Rodrigo’s brain made the connection between the name ‘Brock’ and the nurse. He supposed it was a good enough name for a moose, earthy and solid. Also very capable of crushing you. Rodrigo realized that the doctor was waiting for some kind of response, so he nodded. “All right, then. This is going to feel strange, and don’t be embarrassed if you feel like throwing up. Most of us aren’t sword swallowers, are we. Here goes.”
    The doctor undid a piece of tape from Rodrigo’s face and started pulling. It was like swallowing in reverse, food tickling its way back up in a direction it wasn’t supposed to go, like vomiting out of his lungs. He locked his muscles, refusing to gag. Showing weakness was out of the question. Rodrigo almost laughed at the irony—incapacitated in a hospital bed, weak like a kitten, but refusing to gag—but it mattered. He had to be strong. There were things to do, and strength starts right here, right now. It’s not something you can put off for later. Strength procrastinated is weakness.
    The tube came free and he suppressed a cough, licking his lips. Rodrigo grimaced. The taste in his mouth was something between a dead fish and a dead rat.
    “Well done, Mr. Malena,” said the doctor. “No need to rush things, but when you’re ready to drink something, let us know.”
    “Now,” he whispered.
    The doctor looked surprised, but the moose already had a straw between Rodrigo’s lips. Brock gave him a wink, and Rodrigo decided he liked the man. When the water hit his mouth, he liked him even more. The straw was gone too quickly, but it was probably wise to start slowly. The doctor was right: no need to rush. No delay, but no undue haste.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Tired.”
    “Just let me listen to your lungs for half a minute.” The doctor put a stethoscope into his ears and touched the cold metal to the skin just over Rodrigo’s hospital gown. Rodrigo decided that, while death was certainly an overreaction to idiocy, a solid beating might be in order. He filed that away for later and took a deep breath, as instructed. “Excellent,” said the doctor, pulling the stethoscope down around his neck. “Considering that twelve hours ago you were dead, you are in remarkable condition. Now, Mr. Malena, try to get some rest.”
    The doctor patted his patient on the leg and walked away. Brock the nurse started to follow, but Rodrigo caught the man with his eyes and held him there.
    “Did you need something?”
    Rodrigo licked his lips again. “I was dead?”
    “For a bit over four minutes, dead as can be. A Good Samaritan kept your chest pumping air as long as possible, so your brain probably had all the oxygen it needed. I wouldn’t expect any kind of brain damage, so I think you should lose that angry look there, Mr. Malena. You’ve got a lot to be happy about.”
    Rodrigo closed his eyes and opened them again, trying to will his face into some kind of pleasant expression. “You’re right, Brock. There is much for me to be happy about. I am only tired, I imagine.”
    Moose-nurse grinned and shrugged. “I expect most people who used to be dead usually are. Want me to dim the lights?”
    “Please.” And the nurse was gone, closing the door behind him.
    Dead. Rodrigo had died, and he had lost what he had worked so hard to obtain. He could remember it now, the rush of power like sunshine in his veins, how the curry had tasted richer and more real than curry had ever been before. The feel of the cloth napkin under his fingertips, the smell of rice and spice coming from the kitchen, the annoyingly friendly look on the face of the waiter—though he supposed they were all called ‘servers’ now. What had ever been wrong with ‘waiter’ and ‘waitress?’ Americans were crazy, with their determination to brutalize the English language. The Spanish could make progress in rights for women without having to assassinate any words to do it.
    Assassination. Who had killed him? He didn’t remember any attack, and a quick check didn’t turn up any bandages other than what was needed for the IV in his arm, so it wasn’t an assault. All he felt was a deep ache in his chest and neck. He’d been eating, so it was poison, then. How ironic. The power that came to him through the subtle art had left him the same way.
    The creature in the corner twitched, reminding Rodrigo of its presence. Magical, obviously, making it harder for most people to see, which was why the idiot doctor wouldn’t be having nightmares for the next several months. But what kind of creature was it? Familiar, somehow, but the memory was wedged in the middle of every fact he’d ever gleaned from any magical tome or codex. He could almost remember something, but there was only one of the creatures, so it couldn’t be that.
    Then the other creature crawled along the wall and into Rodrigo’s field of vision, a gray, double-jointed shadow with a tail.
    “Of course,” whispered Rodrigo to himself. “Ipthakorians. You’re here after what I’ve lost, aren’t you?” He wondered if they’d been feeding off him while he slept, draining away the residue of divine energy. His forehead creased with a puzzled thought. If they’d been sucking away his soul, or whatever all that energy counted as, why was he awake? He didn’t recall any description of Ipthakorians that included the words ‘restraint’ or ‘self discipline.’ ‘Hunger,’ ‘greed,’ and ‘appetite,’ those were the words. They would have sucked him dry, if they could. So why hadn’t they?
    The creatures on the wall circled each other in a strange, vertical dance, tails bumping into limbs with a soft rasp. He couldn’t stop them if they tried to come closer, but they kept their distance. They almost seemed nervous. What could have them scared of an invalid?
    A slow smile crept across Rodrigo’s face, cracking his dry lips. He had a hunch. How to test it? He looked around: no flowers, no people, nothing living in the room. Except for the Ipthakorians.
    “What shall we call you, my pets? Why not Fausto and Faustina. Are you hungry, little ones? Would you like to eat, mi cachorros? I have something that you want, and I’m willing to share.” The creatures had stopped moving, their blank faces staring at him intently. “I do have something you want, don’t I? I didn’t lose it all when I died, and that’s why you’re frightened, but you don’t need to be, my Fausto. Come closer, Faustina. I’m willing to share.” Rodrigo took a deep breath, his chest aching with the effort, but he hardly noticed. He concentrated, pushing his breath down his arm, imagining energy reaching out through his hand. A glow like a sunset faded into view over his right arm, and Fausto inched closer along the wall, Faustina along the ceiling. “Interested, aren’t you? Come, my puppies. Come eat and become my friends. My good little friends.”
    He pushed an extra effort of soul down into the glow, and it was enough. Faustina surged across the ceiling and dropped onto the bed, neatly straddling Rodrigo’s body, her tongue lapping at his hand. Not to be left behind, Fausto was right behind, clinging to the hard plastic railing along the bed and eating just as furiously.
    “Yes, my ugly ones,” said Rodrigo. “Eat as much as you like—almost. And then, together, let us go and get more.”