Seventh Seal - Jacquelyn Faye Page 0,53

in my hospital?"

"I didn't plan on being here to begin with. Not every day you get shot by the dickhead you were trying to save."

"I heard."

"You did?" I opened my eyes again. Involuntary reflex. The lights didn't seem half as bright and the pain was almost gone.

"Yeah. You came in with an entourage. They were calm but chatty. Almost like they knew you weren't in any danger?"

"Yeah. Short of incinerating me, I'm a pretty tough cookie."

"Nut."

"Nut?"

"Cookies are sweet. Nuts…"

"Are crazy?'

"Tough. Hard to crack."

"I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted." I sat up and turned on the bed, attempting to stand.

"What the hell are you doing?" He stepped forward and pushed me back down.

"You said I have to go for an X-ray?"

"Yeah. I've got some orderlies coming to wheel the bed down, dumbass." He huffed and shook his head, staring at me incredulously.

"Don't think you're supposed to call your patients dumb."

"I didn't. I called you a dumbass. It's a term of endearment."

"Awww. You like me." I grinned.

He chuckled and leaned over, pushing a few more buttons on the machine. I was kind of surprised. Usually doctors didn't have a fucking clue how the arcane machines worked and left them to their much smarter counterparts. Nurses. "I've never seen you do harm. Only good. That makes you sort of okay in my book."

"Gee. Thanks, Doc."

"Don't mention it."

"I'm surprised Materos let me in through the front door."

"You came in the back. ER entrance."

"Well, I'm surprised he didn't wheel my bed out the front door into traffic."

"Materos is…indisposed at the moment."

"How so?" He had officially piqued my interest.

"He's sitting in a jail cell."

"What? What for?"

"He was the one who shot you."

∞ ∞ ∞

"I don't fucking believe it." Shapiro was holding the X-ray up to the light, blinked twice and actually took the time to clip it into the wall reader. He flipped the switch and put his face about three inches from the giant picture of my skull.

"What?"

"It's gone!"

"My brain?" I chuckled at my own joke.

"I'm not sure if that was ever there to begin with. I meant the bullet."

"It just disappeared? You sure it didn't come out the other side?"

"See this darker area?" He used the tip of his first two fingers to swirl around a spot somewhere between my ears.

"Yes?"

"That's where it was. I saw your initial X-ray. I was thinking it was scarring, but now I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean?"

"I think the bullet disintegrated."

"Disintegrated?"

He sighed and turned to me. "Are you just going to repeat everything I say?"

"No."

He turned back to the X-ray. "See the pattern around what should be a wound? It's too dark to be scarring. I think it's metal."

"So, I have metal swirling around my brain?"

"It looks like it. The walls of your veins are pretty thick. The veins in your brain…they're a lot thinner. Probably because they're not surrounded by muscle. It's like the bullet's being absorbed into them. See how the darkening gets worse along this line?"

"Yes?"

"That's an interior cerebral vein. Now see how it turns here?" He slid his finger over a little more.

"Doc. Blah, blah, blah, science stuff."

"That's your inferior anastomotic vein. It's like it's getting sucked into it. I can't believe it. You are pretty fucking incredible. If there wasn't metallic dust in your head, I would send you down for a CT scan anyway." He put his hand under his chin and refused to tear his eyes away from the film.

"When I'm dead, I'll donate my body. You can study me to your heart's content."

He turned to me and narrowed his eyes. "Can't study a body once it's been incinerated. Since that's the only way you'd end up in my morgue, I'm shit out of luck."

"You'd totally dissect me now if you could. Wouldn't you?" I was almost afraid. He had that mad scientist look in his eyes. When he turned to look at me, it was like I was a big juicy steak.

"Of course not. But, when you're all healed and the metal is out of your head, would you mind stopping by for a couple of tests and scans?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "For your own personal curiosity or for a medical journal?"

He sighed. "I'd love to say my own personal curiosity, but the temptation to share what you are, and what you can do, with the world would be too great. Even if I ask again, say no."

I chuckled, slid off the hospital bed, and kissed him on his cheek. "That was for