Doc Sidhe by Aaron Allston Read Free Book Online Page A

hearing.
    He never even felt the impact when he hit the walkway beside Jean-Pierre.
     
    Sound returned first. Indistinct murmurings that became words: " . . . said he wasn't . . . off-guard . . . stop laughing . . . "
    Then, sensation. Warmth. Uncomfortable, lumpy softness under his back. A little pain in his leg. The pain was actually comforting. It meant that the events he was starting to remember had actually occurred.
    Light through his eyelids.
    He opened his eyes, and for the second time in hours saw a face hovering over his.
    It wasn't the beautiful blond man again. This was a large pug nose surrounded by a merry round face and eyes as green as jade; this man's skin and hair were nearly as brown as a pecan shell. He wore a stiff white shirt, undecorated and short-sleeved, and a large, bulky stethoscope around his neck. He glanced back over his shoulder, revealing his ear to be sharply pointed, and called, "Your rescuee is awake, my prince." His voice was surprisingly light, his accent cultivated and not quite American.
    "You'll be healing yourself if you keep at me." The voice was Jean-Pierre's, and angry. Harris groggily turned his head to look.
    He was in a big room, the size of a low-ceilinged gymnasium, crowded with dozens of large work tables. Some tables were piled high with books, others with burners and glass tubes and complicated glass-and-wood arrays Harris didn't recognize, still others with what looked like mason jars filled with jams and jellies. The walls were paneled in dark, rich wood, and the floor was wooden planking of a lighter tone.
    Bright light, the color and warmth of noonday sunlight, glowed from banks of overhead lights that resembled fluorescent light fixtures. Along the far wall, a bank of tall windows looked out over a glittering vista of skyscrapers at night.
    Harris found that he was lying on a long paisley sofa in a corner of the room; there was other living-room furniture arranged nearby, including a very large version of the round-screen TVs he'd seen earlier.
    On a nearby stuffed chair sat Jean-Pierre, his tuxedo jacket off, a blue bruised spot on his jaw the souvenir of their meeting; he looked irritable. Nearby, curled up in a corner of a divan, sat the woman who'd clobbered Harris. From ten feet away, she seemed tiny, even more dainty than most of the women he'd seen earlier. She wore some sort of pantsuit cut from burgundy silk, the jacket sleeves full and flaring; her expression was serene. Next to Harris, the man with the nut-brown skin sat on a sturdy high-backed wooden chair.
    Jean-Pierre rubbed his jaw and the bruise Harris had given him, then narrowed his eyes. "Awake, are we? Then it's time to answer a few questions."
    Harris ignored him for the moment; he struggled to sit up and pulled himself back so that the high arm of the sofa supported him. Only then did he realize that under the blanket they'd thrown over his legs he wore only underwear; his pants and shoes were gone. "Hey!"
    The moon-faced doctor grinned. "Sorry, son. Had to tend your wound. Your breeches were a loss, torn and bloody." He reached down behind his chair, where a pair of gray trousers lay folded across an old-fashioned doctor's bag. He handed the pants over to Harris. "Try these."
    "Thanks." Harris hurriedly pulled the trousers on, barely glancing at the white bandage wrapped around his thigh. His injury wasn't giving him much trouble; the doctor must have given him something for the pain. "Okay. Where am I?"
    "The Monarch Building, up ninety. I am Alastair Kornbock. I hear you have already met Jean-Pierre Lamignac and Noriko Nomura; formal introductions are probably moot."
    Jean-Pierre picked up something from his lap, a wallet, which he flipped open. "Is your name Harris Greene?"
    "Yeah. Hey, that's my wallet." Harris tried to stand, but weariness tugged at him and he thought better of it.
    "Yes, it appears to be." Jean-Pierre flipped it shut and negligently tossed it to Harris. "I gather from the