The Necromancer's Gambit: Epilogues: Doctor's Office

Bishop takes me to the Doctor. He was her mentor, up in Seattle, and that’s about the only reason he sees me at all.

He’s brilliant, though if he lives long enough he’ll see his star pupil outshine him. That’s a large if, though. I don’t know if she notices, but he’s a half an inch shorter than the last time I was here, and fifteen pounds lighter. For all of his skill healing others, he’s not a well man.

He’s not a young man, either. He keeps one sleeve rolled up, so everyone he sees can see the numbers the Nazis tattooed on him. It’s a badge, of what he’s lived through, what he endured. Maybe it’s a point of pride, although I think that would be a little crass for him.

But he loves Bishop, that much is plain. He hugs her on sight, and tells her loudly, “It breaks my heart, knowing you’re still working with the magical Gestapo.”

“Really?” I ask. “You’re going to just throw the Nazi card down on the table like that? You’re a Holocaust survivor. I don’t’ have to tell you how unfair the comparison with Hitler’s goose-steppers is.”

He notices I’m favoring my arm and looks at it, and reaches for it, “If the jackboot fits…” Then he squeezes it. “Now tell me, does this hurt?” I’m on some pretty good painkillers, but the pain cuts right through them, and on instinct my other hand goes into my pocket and cocks my spare pistol. He raises his eyebrows. “Resorting to violence at the slightest provocation.”

“We can set off a huge detonation around your arm, then I’ll squeeze the hell out of it, if you’d prefer I respond in kind.”

Normally, Bishop would be enjoying our pissing match a little more, but she can hardly look at me. I suppose that isn’t helped by the fact that I’ve been finding it difficult to meet her gaze. “I’m going to wait outside,” she says, and nods in the direction of my car, which she drove, and still has the keys for.

He handles my arm more gingerly, after that, examining it. “You’re lucky to have any flesh left on that arm. She told me, on the phone, the particulars. Do you know how many bones are in the human hand?”

“Twenty-something.”

“Twenty-seven. There are forty-three in your hand at the moment. That’s significant bone fragments, not counting the places where the bones are shattered into dozens of shards.”

“So I’m done playing the piano.”

“Or playing with yourself- or typing more than a dozen words per minute, which puts you about even with me. But absorbing all of that energy, the necromancer saved your life. Not that I gather that was his intension. I assume you murdered him.”

That’s not a conversation I want to have- not when getting any use from my hand ever again depends on him not throwing me out. “He was dangerous.”

“As am I. As are you. My protégé.”

“The difference between us and him isn’t all that subtle.”

“You’ve killed before, haven’t you? So you were both murderers. You believe the arbitrary line delineating authority between you makes you justified in passing judgment over him?”

“I think I’d do whatever I thought was necessary to protect people like you. And your daughter.”

That panics him, and instinctively he looks to the door, but of course Bishop isn’t there. “You knew?”

“It’s a little obvious. You didn’t follow some random padawan down here. And you’re dying. So the real question is: are you going to tell her before you die?”

“You going to screw her before I die?” he asks bitterly.

“I haven’t decided.”

“I guess I deserve that. But I’m old. I don’t have time for all the intermediary drama. I want to be to the point where she can call me ‘dad.’ But I’m afraid I won’t have time. That I’ll die, and she’ll still hate me for not telling her sooner.”

“Eh, you’ll bury me.”

“Been planning to since I met you. But will I bury not telling her who the truth? That I don’t know. And I’m forced to wonder, would she, would the both of us, be happier just being acquaintances with a pleasant relationship, than feuding my finals days away.”

“I might have an elegant solution, then.”

“If you even think of asking me to join your little ska band, I’ll turn your penis into a deer tick.”

“Okay. But you’re operating under a false dichotomy. You’re looking at the best case scenario if you don’t tell her, versus the worst if you do. I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t even pretend to know how things work out however you choose to act, but I know this: she’s special. Being her neighborhood pharmacist- even being her mentor- you’re missing out. And she could really use her father right now.”

I feel bad about that. If I’d done my job better, been faster, or smarter, maybe I’d have saved the King, who’d been a father figure to her for a while now. Or maybe if I’d been less hell-bent on repaying the necromancer, in kind, maybe she’d still have me to look up to. In one night I cost her two male role models; I hoped I wasn’t pushing this out of my own twisted guilt.

“But I won’t force the issue. It’s your life.” I swallow. “What do you think of the arm? ”

“I’m going to try to get it to heal in such a way that you’ll have some use of it. Whatever happens next, it’s going to hurt, and you should know that’s about the only reason I’m willing to help you.”