Iona Portal Read Online Free PDF

around her.  Voices.  One that seemed familiar somehow… but she couldn’t place it.  Then a wave of darkness crashed over her.
    Lys opened her eyes again and struggled to focus.  It was darker now.  Someone was leaning over her... a woman dressed in blue.  
    “So you’re finally back in the land of the living?” the nurse asked casually. 
    Lys looked at the nurse.  “Where am I?  What happened?  I don’t understand…” 
    It was an effort to speak.  She tried to turn her head, but it seemed frozen in place.  Bandages covered much of her face.
    “Take it easy, honey,” the nurse said softly.  “You’ve had a hard time, but I think the worst is past.”
    Lys faded in an out of consciousness several more times.  Doctors and nurses came and went, performing their nameless rituals.
    A man came—a police lieutenant—asking questions about the accident.  Lys mumbled something incoherent about a black BMW and men with cruel eyes.  Then darkness overtook her again and she slept.
    There were dreams.  Strange dreams.  Surreal nightmares that grew more and more bizarre.   She was in the car.  Kareina was with her, but she no longer looked like Kareina.  Kareina’s face had lengthened and distorted and gained reptilian scales.  As Lys watched in horror, Kareina drew her lips back, revealing jagged fangs.  She was leering at her with eyes like coals of fire.
    The dream shifted and Kareina was gone.  A man was in the car, a stranger.  They were floating together in weightlessness.  Time had stopped.  The man reached out and seized her roughly, grasping her body in his strong hands.  Helpless to resist, he pulled her close, and held her in a tight embrace.  Then the world exploded.
    Another dream.  Lys was in a place she didn’t recognize.  The landscape was stark and rugged, and the sky swirled in a maelstrom of ash-dark clouds.  There were birds in the clouds, thousands of them, great birds that fought and tore.  One of the birds held a long gleaming sword in its hand.  And one looked very much like Kareina.
    And then it was morning.  Lys was still in the hospital.  She struggled to remember how she got there but her mind was filled with fog.  Disconnected images jumbled together in her brain, tumbling over each other:  The men in the BMW.  The warning signs flashing past.  The sound of ripping steel. 
    Finally Lys again heard a familiar voice.  Climbing out of a deep well she struggled to open her eyes, and for the first time since the accident saw a familiar face.
    “Roger?”  She mumbled feebly through swollen lips.  Then her face brightened in recognition as she flashed him a crooked smile, “Roger … DODGER!”
    Roger Johnston laughed out loud at his sister’s greeting.  Lys was still groggy from the pain medication and her speech was slurred.  She sounded thoroughly drunk.  
    “That’s Doctor Roger Dodger to you, young lady,” he responded playfully.
    Dr. Roger Johnston was a resident surgeon at Brentwood Memorial Hospital.  Though he was seven years older than his half-sister, the two had been close since childhood.  Lys hadn’t called him Roger Dodger since they were kids. 
    “Roger…” she repeated, her voice clearer this time, “I’m so glad to see you.”
    He reached down and clasped her hand, “I’m happy to see you too, Sis, but next time you want to get together, just give me a call and we can do lunch.  This is a hell of a way to get family time.
     “But,” he said warmly, “you don’t know how glad I am to see you alive.  For a while I thought we’d lost you.  Mom and Dad have been worried sick.  They’re coming up to see you this weekend.  They want to take you back to Dallas as soon as you’re strong enough to leave the hospital.”
    Her mind was still foggy.  It was hard to put words together.  “Roger… the accident… those men in the BMW… Why did they want to kill me?  I’ve never seen them before.”
    “I