The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [151]
Slowly, stubbornly, my body began to reassert itself. Slowly the fever burnt itself out, flickered, and died; gradually the drugs were cut back; and late one night I swam up towards rationality, to lie on my back look-ing incuriously up into the room from a point just below the surface. A thin, shimmering film was fixed between me and the painted white ceil-ing, the white tile walls, the machinery above my head, the pair of grey eyes that looked calmly, quietly at me. I floated closer, bit by bit, and fi-nally the bubble softly burst, the thin membrane collapsed. I blinked.
“Holmes,” my lips said, though no sound entered the room.
“Yes, Russell.” The eyes smiled. I watched them for several minutes, remotely aware that they were somehow important to me. I tried to re-construct the circumstances, and though I could remember the events, their emotional overtones seemed, in retrospect, excessive. I closed my heavy-lidded eyes.
“Holmes,” I whispered. “I am glad you’re alive.”
I slept, and woke again to find the morning sun blazing painfully through the window. The fuzzy glare was broken in several places by darker shapes, and as I squinted at them a figure moved to the source of the light, and there was the swish of curtains being drawn. With the room now at a tolerable level of dimness I could see Holmes stand-ing on one side of the bed and a white-coated stranger on the other. White-coat laid firm, gentle fingers along the inside of my wrist. Holmes bent forward and settled my glasses onto my nose, then sat on the edge of the bed so I could see him. I could not move my head. He had shaved that morning, and I could see in intricate detail the pores of his hollow cheeks, the soft, powdery quality of the skin around his eyes, the slight sag to his features that told me he had not slept in some considerable time. But the eyes were calm, and a faint hint of a smile lay at the corner of his expressive mouth.
“Miss Russell?” I took my eyes from Holmes and looked at the doctor’s earnest young face. “Welcome back, Miss Russell. You had us worried for a while, but you’re going to be fine now. You have a bro-ken collarbone, and you lost a great deal of blood, but other than one more scar for your collection there will be no lasting effect. Would you care for some water? Good. The sister will help you. Just a bit at a time until you get used to swallowing again. Mouth taste better now? Fine. Mr. Holmes, you may have five minutes. Don’t let her try to talk too much. I shall see you later, Miss Russell.” He and the nurse went out, and I heard his voice going down the hallway.
“Well, Russell. Our trap caught its prey, but it nearly took you with it. I had not intended quite such a generous sacrifice.”
I licked my dry lips with a thick tongue.
“Sorry. Too slow. You hurt?”
“By no means, you reacted as quickly as I thought you might. Had you been slower her bullet might indeed have seriously disarranged my insides, but thanks to your father’s ideas concerning women on the cricket field, your good left arm saved me from anything more than a bruised rib and a missing flap of skin the size of your finger. I am the one to apologise, Russell. Had I been faster to my feet the gun would not have gone off at all, and you would have an intact collarbone, and she would be sitting awaiting charges.”
“Dead?”
“Oh yes, very. I shan’t trouble you with the details now, because the white-coated people would not be happy if I raised your pulse, but she’s dead and Scotland Yard is happily rooting about in her papers, finding things that will keep Lestrade busy for years. To say nothing of his American colleagues. That’s right, shut your eyes for a while; it is bright in here.” His voice faded. “Sleep now, Russ, I shan’t be far away.” The hard hospital bed rose up and wrapped itself around me. “Sleep now, my dear Russell.”
ow voices woke me in the afternoon. The room was still dim, and my shoulder and head throbbed beneath the stiff dressings. A nurse bent over