Phase 4? (Written by me, featuring Rye and Alana. Slight nsfw?)
It’s late when she gets that text, but Rye’s immediately on edge. Emmett hadn’t told her a lot, but he’d given her enough information to know he’s in a bad way. There’s only one person she trusts to call, knowing the importance of keeping things quiet.
“David, hey. It’s Mariah Saffron… I need a favor. And I need your discretion…”
In less than an hour, she’s just pulling up to the Red Roof Motel with Alana Rios Ramirez, a capable bee with healing abilities, and one of David’s trusted charges. Rye leads the way inside the hotel, offering a polite nod to the front desk person as she and the other woman breeze past. She heads for Emmett’s room, slipping a card from her jacket pocket. She slides the card between the door and its frame, gently pushing downward and wiggling slightly as her other hand starts to glow. A quick little zap from her fingers seems to trigger the mechanism and she maneuvers the card downward as the locking mechanism dies, preventing it from re-locking. Alana watches curiously, but mostly stays silent for now.
“Lock the deadbolt,” Rye instructs as the two women enter. Alana complies, while Rye moves for Emmett, sprawled out on the hotel bed.
“Hey you,” she murmurs, looking down at the man. He doesn’t look well. He’s pale and sallow, covered with a sheen of sweat, and his eyes look almost sunken as he opens them to look at her. He opens dry lips to speak, though no words come out immediately. He finally rasps out, “Hey, baby…”
Alana glances at those two little words, and Rye can feel herself blush instantly, quickly speaking. “We, ah… We used to date.”
“Oh, yeah. No worries,” Alana says with a swift smile, making a motion of zipping her lips. She joins Rye on the opposite side. “I’m just gonna see what’s going on with him…”
Alana starts to unbutton Emmett’s shirt and the man groans slightly.
“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to last right now,” he mumbles blearily at Rye. She draws a breath, refraining from outright face-palming, and Alana has to smother away a smirk.
“I think he’s got internal bleeding,” Alana says, motioning to bruising around his abdomen and sides. She places her hand on his skin, “And his fever’s pretty high… Gonna try to… Bring that down.”
Alana concentrates, her hand starting to glow. Emmett squirms underneath the pressure and suddenly she can feel his hand on hers, guiding it down. Alana yanks her hand away, trying hard not to laugh now.
“Emmett,” Rye says gently, “That’s not my hand… This is Alana. She’s trying to help you…”
Emmett’s eyes roll toward Rye as she speaks, and then he slowly raises his head, trying to focus on Alana sitting there on the bed beside him. He looks back at the blonde woman, giving a sly smile. “Weird time… for a threesome…”
“Not a threesome,” Alana and Rye practically blurt in sync.
“If you want to just… contain him a little,” Alana says. Rye nods, reaching for the previously offending hand and holding it. Emmett’s head rolls back toward her and he watches her, squeezing her hand. “Your skin… so soft.”
Emmett reaches with his other hand toward Rye’s face, trying to coax her toward him.
“Calm down, Loverboy,” she says quietly.
Alana shifts some, bringing a hand to Emmett’s forehead. “His bee is still… there, and connected. Everything’s just… a little messy right now. It was that bee smoke?” She looks toward Rye rather than Emmett.
“And blood magic, apparently. Not sure what they did with it but it hit him hard…” Emmett mutters something inaudible here.
“Yeah,” Alana says. “It’s almost like it’s still… inside him or something. Like… it should have worn off, right? How long does that sh–stuff last?”
“I think it depends,” Rye says, “I’ve seen reports of it being really temporary, and others where the effects lingered. So I think it’s just the combination of things that really did it.”
“It’s almost like he has blood poisoning or something,” Alana comments. “That’s why he doesn’t seem to be healing. Like… he might be healing something internally, or his body is still trying to, but he’s really messed up and there’s a lot of damage for the natural regeneration process to figure out. I think… I might be able to try to get some of it out of him, though–” Alana gives a thoughtful pause as Emmett murmurs Rye’s name, though he seems to have fallen asleep for the moment.
“Anyway,” Alana continues, “I’m not a blood magic person. But I can do things to try to draw out whatever’s inside… That’ll make it easier for him to recover. And I can stop the bleeding, too.”
Rye seems satisfied by this, nodding in response. “Whatever it takes, yeah.”
Alana places her hands on Emmett’s chest and the man immediately moans, shifting some. She glances down the man’s form, then over at Rye, cheeks red, “Is he always so…”
“Attuned…?” Rye asks.
“I was gonna say horny,” Alana offers.
“I am so sorry,” Rye says, sighing. Alana fights a laugh. “I think he’s going to be incredibly embarrassed when he comes to… He’s really not like this.”
“It’s fine,” Alana says. “I mean… it’s kind of funny, to be honest.”
The curly-haired woman’s focus goes back to Emmett and she draws a breath, gaze fixed on her hands on his chest. Her hands start to glow, a faint purple seeming to envelop them. Immediately, Emmett starts to cough, amorphous reddish-gray misty clouds expelling in little puffs from his mouth with every cough. He groans between coughs, shifting more and trying to get up, eyes going wide suddenly. His free arm grabs for Alana, trying to pull her away from him, and she releases him, scrambling back a bit, trying to secure his legs as he starts to thrash. He’s sweating more profusely now, skin moist to the touch and almost fiery hot as he starts to shiver.
“Emmett,” Rye’s tone stays surprisingly gentle as both women work to keep him flat on the bed, “Emmett it’s OK. Relax… She’s helping you.” Rye leans over his face, looking into his red-rimmed eyes, and Emmett tries to speak, but starts coughing more.
“You’re OK,” Rye reassures. “You have to get it out.”
“I’m gonna give his bee a little boost with the bleeding,” Alana says. Her hands are on Emmett’s abdomen now, glowing again as she gently moves them in an easy circular pattern from his abdomen, down to his hips, and outward before coming back. She does this several times, Emmett groaning uncomfortable as the bruising pattern across the surface of his skin seems to change with the movement. It doesn’t go away, but the coloring seems less intense, with yellowy hints around the edges of the bruises as his body works to slowly heal them.
Emmett coughs a couple more times, though the mist seems to have dissipated. He manages to slip both arms around Rye now, pulling her against his burning chest, shivering so hard his teeth are practically chattering as he manages to mumble, “S-s-soooo… c-cooo-ld.”
“You have a fever,” Rye murmurs, laying half beside him, half on his chest as she tries to support her body weight with one of her elbows and not put pressure on him.
“His body should burn through it pretty quickly,” Alana assures. “It’s just a lot to heal, but the worst of it is mending.” For her part, Alana now looks much paler, a little more drained, while Emmett’s color seems to be returning to his skin. It doesn’t take long for the shivering to slow, now mostly just an occasional erratic twitch as he starts to settle again. His temperature is still warm, but not dangerously high as his body focuses on the slow and tedious process of healing.
“Now it’ll just take some time, but it’s… he’ll be fine,” Alana says. Her hand comes to her head as she starts to massage one of her temples.
“Are you OK?” Rye asks, straining some to keep a watchful eye on the other woman.
“Yeah,” Alana says with a small nod, “This is, uh… pretty normal. It’s just a little draining. I’ll be OK. Um… You should probably stay with him as he heals, though… Just, you know, in case. Do you want me to stay, too?”
“No,” Rye says with a little shake of her head, “I mean… Unless you need to rest here. Otherwise I think I can handle this part. But, um… do you need someone to help you get back? I can get one of my people…”
Normally Alana would probably say no, maybe just peace out directly to Agartha, but a wave of nausea hits her pretty suddenly and she steadies herself against the bed. “Uh, I might, actually.” She moves to sit in an armchair in a corner of the room.
“Alright,” Rye says, hesitating before freeing herself from the now sleeping Emmett’s grasp as she moves to retrieve her cell phone, “I’ll call Morales.”
—–
After Ollie collects Alana, Rye is left alone with Emmett, who’s mostly sleeping things off as his body continues to heal. He’s looking a lot better, though still gets the chills here and there. She makes a point to lay with him when he shivers, heating up her own and his bodies with a little bit of anima, despite his fever. If it spikes too much, though, she places an icy hand on his head to bring things down just a bit. During brief periods when he awakens, she makes sure he’s drinking water and staying hydrated. She keeps a watch on his phone just in case Geary or anybody else checks in, but refrains from snooping beyond any necessary messages.
In the meantime, her focus is on finding out more information about the blood mage Emmett encountered. She’s a little disappointed he didn’t collect the man for direct questioning, or at least try to get more out of Marion about him, but he was obviously not in the best frame of mind by the end of the altercation, so the next best thing is the man’s information. Emmett’s being a lot more cautious on this assignment than she would prefer, but she also understands he’s trying to do things as by-the-book as he thinks Geary wants. And Rye is happy to help out with some of the legwork. She wants him to succeed, after all.
She makes a few calls to their people and finds out the mage’s driver’s license is a fake and the credit cards in the wallet all seem to go to ghost accounts. The only other information in the wallet is a handwritten address for The Modern, along with David Marion’s name. Bodyguard, it seems. So who hired the blood mage, or loaned him out to Farsight’s CSO?
The blood mage’s phone appears to be a burner, but there are a few calls in it to other numbers. Most of those also appear to be useless, but there is one number that actually goes somewhere: a security company with ties to an Alejandro Rivera. The name doesn’t mean much to her, but when she has it run through a couple databases, Alejandro Rivera is a known alias of a Phoenician agent. Emmett’s hunch is right. Purple definitely wants some of whatever Farsight can do, and they’re likely offering to protect Farsight’s execs. Really, they should have known better than to send a single agent to a fight with a bee, even with the smoke. She has a feeling if there is another encounter, it will be messier, and possibly bloodier. Rye casts a wary glance Emmett’s way as he stirs in his sleep, debating her own next move in all this.