The Isis Collar

by Cat Adams

  “Celia? It’s Molly Murphy. I’m sorry to bother you. I just needed to hear a friendly voice.” She sounded like crap. The little hiccupping sounds in her breathing told me she’d been crying.

  “What’s wrong, Molly? Is Julie…?” No, I wouldn’t say the word. But my brain kept thinking it, no matter how hard I tried to shove it away. Dead dead dead. You’ve failed.

  “Not … yet. But she keeps getting worse, Celia. The medicine isn’t working. The doctor doesn’t know what to do. He told me I had to … prepare for the worst. How am I going to tell Mick, Celia? He’ll be here from the airport any minute. How am I going to tell Beverly?”

  I didn’t have any answers and found a chill settling over me. “I don’t know, Molly. But I’ll come to the hospital.” Maybe whatever guardian angel was watching over me would take pity on her.

  I hung up the phone and walked back to the living room. Alex was working with Dawna, explaining how she should turn her body when attacked from behind. “Hey, guys. That was Molly Murphy on the phone. Julie’s taken a turn for the worse and she’s asked me to run over to the hospital.”

  Alex responded immediately, taking her hands off Dawna’s arm. “Oh, man. I’m so sorry, Celia. Just give me a minute to pack up the dummy and we’ll be out of here. We can pick this up another time.”

  I shook my head and grabbed my purse. “No, don’t bother. You guys are welcome to stay here and keep working. Just lock up when you leave. I trust you both and who better to watch the house than a cop who’s looking for a fight?” I smiled, fangs and all, and they both laughed.

  It only took me a few minutes to get out of my sweats and change into something more presentable and put on enough makeup to not look three days dead. The trip to the hospital was slow because of traffic. All the hospital lots were full, and there were news vans parked on the street. Crap.

  I had to park blocks away, far enough that even with the sunscreen I’d slathered on my skin was feeling the burn. Dark sunglasses cut down on the glare, but the combination of bright sunlight and the workout with the dummy had brought the headache back with a vengeance.

  There were reporters at both the main and ER entrances. I’m not exactly a celebrity, but recent events had raised my profile enough that I didn’t want them to notice me. So I slipped around to one of the unmarked entrances at the back of the building and worked my way through the maze of hallways until I was just outside the isolation ward.

  The first person I spotted was Bruno, sitting in a chair in the main hall with a magazine open on his lap. I raised a hand to catch his attention, and something in my face must have told him something was wrong, because he stood up and opened his arms. I walked to him and let myself be enveloped with warmth and caring. “Hey, you okay?” His voice was concerned, warm.

  I nodded against his chest, but it was a lie. “Julie’s worse. Molly asked if I could come. Why are you here?”

  “Follow-up saliva test. I’m just waiting for the lab to call me. They’ve been backed up. Did you get the message from Dr. Gaetano?” I shook my head and he gave an extra squeeze. “I overheard him leaving it. Your results came back clear. So you shouldn’t have any other problems.”

  It was a relief and muscles I didn’t know were clenched loosened a bit. But that didn’t solve the bigger problem. “That’s good. But how many others aren’t, Bruno? How many kids are going to wind up here, just like Julie?”

  He paused for long enough that I pulled my cheek away from his shoulder to look at him. His eyes were both sad and angry. “A half dozen people more showed up overnight, Celie. All students and teachers from Third Street. The quarantine and isolation wards are filling up fast. Nobody’s said anything. Not a word. But I can feel the tension in the hallways. They’re getting worried, and especially since Julie’s not improving. Have you heard from Creede?”

  I shook my head and didn’t want to ask the next question because part of me didn’t want to know. I wasn’t sure I could deal with the combination of emotions that would result. “Any word on my mom?”

  He shook his head, just a fraction, and put a hand on the back of my head to pull me against him again. “They haven’t said anything except they’re still waiting on tests. The first batch was inconclusive.”

  I knew I should go to visit her, but what would it really accomplish? She was angry and scared and I was angry and scared and we would just feed off each other’s emotions like we always did. But I had to ask, to see if I was being unreasonable. “Should I visit her?”

  Bruno let out the sound that he always made when confronted with a seemingly insurmountable problem, part growl and part thoughtful hum. “She’s headed back to jail from here?” I nodded and closed my eyes before shaking my head slightly in frustration. He sighed and I felt his forehead rest against my temple. “It won’t do anything but get you both upset. But it’ll be a sore point if you don’t, too.”

  That’s what I was afraid of. I just needed to hear it out loud. “Then you think I should, huh?”

  He pulled back slightly and touched me under my chin with his fingers. “Well, your gran is here. In fact, she’s already pissed that you haven’t been here doing vigil with her. So, while it won’t do any good with your mom, you probably need to do it anyway.”

  Oh, crap. Gran. Here. I should’ve known. And she would be pissed. Damn it.

  Bruno pulled me close again, letting me rest my head on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay … eventually.”

  That made me laugh. It was a little hysterical, but it was better than crying. And it was exactly the reaction he’d planned. Nobody knows me better than Bruno. He “gets” me. We have the same sense of humor, share most of the same attitudes. When it works with us it’s so very good. I took the moment of solace he offered and let my mind and body be whisked away to a better place.

  Until the screaming started.

  We both reacted as if cattle prods had been shoved into our spines. We sprang away from each other and turned, searching for the danger. It was interesting seeing which people ran toward the danger and which ran away. The doctors and nurses, by and large, went toward. The clerks and orderlies, away. I would have thought at least the orderlies would stay. They’re usually stuck with the strong-arm stuff when it came to violent patients. But the looks on their faces as they passed by the waiting room said they wanted no part of whatever was down the hall.

  There are laws about what you can bring into a hospital, so all I had were charm disks. I came on such short notice to comfort Molly that I didn’t even think about bringing my knives. Well, I wasn’t totally unarmed. I had a level-nine mage by my side.

  And who needed more than that?

  We rounded the corner and got our first look at the future of the city, and possibly the world, if we didn’t stop this disease. The man was big, tall, and bulky like a construction worker or pro boxer. He filled the hallway, standing still but sensing around him, searching for something to attack. His skin was black—and I don’t mean like an African-American’s, but black like something from the back of the refrigerator, where you would rather throw away the bowl rather than risk taking off the plastic wrap. What remained of his clothing was stuck to the goo oozing out of the lesions that covered his skin. Doctors and nurses surrounded him, completely baffled about what to do.

  Bruno skidded to a stop beside me. I wondered what our options were. “Jesus. Is that the endgame of M. Necrose? I’ve never seen it.”

  “Yeah. But he’s way worse than Principal Sanchez was. This guy’s eyeballs are missing. That is, except for what’s left dangling on his cheek. And for the record, eww. But he’s tracking the people around him.” One arm made a grab for a nearby nurse and managed to catch the fabric of her scrub top. She was quick, I’d give her that. She stripped out of that thing so fast you’d think it was burning. Her bra was snow-white, matching her widened eyes.

  I could smell the death on him, but he sure was active for a corpse.

  Bruno said, “I might not be a
ble to pack the body-binding spell into a charm like Creede, but I sure can cast it directly.” I felt the hairs all over my body rise in unison as he raised power without half-trying. He whispered the words and I felt the energy leave his outstretched hands and fly toward the zombie in the hallway. “Corpus bidim.”

  The spell should have frozen the man’s muscles, causing him to fall straight over and hit his nose on the linoleum.

  Note I say, should. Because that’s not what happened. The power struck him all right, but, like a movie said when a nuclear bomb exploded uselessly against an alien ship, the target remains. Bruno got a shocked look on his face. One of the doctors looked at him and said, “Whatever spell you tried to cast … do it again. He’s still moving.”

  Bruno cast a second time and the power he used not only raised my hair but also brought on a sudden bout of my hypervision. I really should have had a nutrition shake before leaving home. While I enjoyed drinking fruit or vegetable juice, they didn’t satisfy my hunger. I had to have either broth or a shake to keep the vampire down.

  But the second spell likewise had no effect. I tapped his arm and he noticed my glowing skin and reddened eyes. Nobody else did because everyone was too busy watching the zombie, who was baring sharp-looking teeth and clawlike fingernails, all the better to spread the infection with.

  “What the hell?” Bruno’s voice held equal parts disbelief and anger. He’d probably never failed at casting before, but I knew why as I stared at the zombie with different sight.

  I tapped Bruno’s arm a second time. “I know what’s wrong—why the spell isn’t working.”

  A doctor looked at me and his eyes widened. He reached for the cross around his neck as Bruno said, “Why? What can you see that I can’t?”

  I pointed toward the zombie. “You’re casting one spell, against a single individual. But that is a million billion individuals, working together. He’s glowing with tiny dots of energy.” It was bizarre, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Each dot seemed to have the same bands of energy I’d see in a living person. “What else can you try?”

  “Freeze, cut him apart … a thousand things. What do you think will work?”

  I had an idea. It was on the theory of divide and conquer. “Crowd control during a riot. What works best?”

  He shrugged. “Scatter, disorient the group. Make them…” A smile lit his face. “Make them disperse.” He walked forward, toward the doctors and nurses. “Folks, I’m an A and C cardholder and I’m declaring this an emergency. You need to find somewhere else to be. My lady friend and I can take care of this, but you need to be out of our way.”

  Most of those present were happy to obey. Only two doctors remained behind. One of them, a middle-aged man with silvered temples, shook his head. “We can’t leave this man if he’s still treatable. Can you guarantee he’s deceased?”

  I nodded. “There’s no blood flowing through his veins. His heart isn’t pumping and I can’t see any brain activity. There’s no fear center reacting to me. Is that enough for you?” I let the doctor see my fangs and red eyes. “Trust me. If he was alive, I’d know it. Frankly, just the scent of his skin is making me nauseous.”

  Bruno raised his brows. “I’d believe the nice Abomination if I were you.”

  The doctors looked at each other and without a word, turned and walked away, leaving us with the colony of disease that wanted to make us just like it/them. The empty sockets turned our way. “Okay, then. Crowd control. We’ll start with distraction.” I pulled several charm disks from my pocket and threw them hard at the floor in front of the zombie. Light and sound exploded and I went abruptly deaf. I knew the sound probably wouldn’t have any effect, but intense light is sometimes processed oddly by microbes. It could be good, or bad.

  The zombie lurched away from the light and froze briefly, as though trying to figure out how to proceed. Bruno began a series of complex, targeted castings that I knew were intended to threaten each bacterium individually. The goal was to hopefully cause a threat response to our two attacks and force them to huddle together at the core of the body. I can’t really explain how I knew what we were planning, but I knew.

  Bruno threw a spell that looked like a starburst firework. A thousand tiny points of light raced through the hall to hit the body, killing small groups of microbes. If Bruno hadn’t had a nearly unlimited amount of magic to work with, this wouldn’t work at all. But our plan was working, slowly but surely. Unfortunately, I was running out of charm disks. If this guy had been my size and weight we’d already be done. But his sheer mass was making it take longer.

  “I still have one of John’s binding disks. Do you think it’s weak enough yet for that to work?”

  “I … don’t think it matters anymore.” I’d been watching Bruno, but now my attention snapped back to the zombie, which was apparently starting to feel desperate. He lumbered toward us, wildly flailing, with claws and teeth bared, making odd noises that weren’t words. We backed away. The guy’s arms opened wide enough to nearly touch each side of the hall. There wasn’t much room to move in the narrow space.

  “Bruno, when I count to three, dive into the nearest room. Let’s see whether the little guys have pain centers.” I didn’t give him time to do anything more than open his mouth when I said, “One, two, three!”

  He trusted me and reacted without question. He dived into an examination room and I bunched my leg muscles and pushed off from the floor. I sailed high, over the head of the creature, just barely missing smacking my head into the ceiling tiles. Arms reached up to grab my legs, but I tucked them under me and somersaulted over him to land behind his back. I kicked out and hit him hard in the back with every ounce of energy I had. There was a disturbing squish as my heel hit dissolving flesh. I heard a snap as his spine broke. He flew forward down the hall, skidding part of the way on one arm and his face. Bruno peeked his head out of the room and pursed his lips in appreciation. “Nice. Good hit.”

  The zombie was having a hard time getting up with a broken spine. Yeah, the bacteria colony could probably figure it out, given enough time. We didn’t intend to give it any.

  The body-binding charm was next to hit the floor, and Bruno lashed out with a similar spell. The combination was too much for the zombie and he froze in place like a really disturbing statue. “That’s fine for the next ten minutes. But we need to get this locked up somewhere where it can’t get loose.”

  Bruno shrugged. “I recommend a crematorium. That’s the only real fix for this. Most hospitals have one on premises for vampire bite fatalities. But I have no idea where it is.”

  He offered to stay with the zombie and keep him disoriented while I went to find a doctor. My vision was back to normal, and other than the delicate fangs that I could usually cover, there was nothing about me to make anyone look at me twice. One of the older doctors was able to tell me that the crematorium was in the basement, next to the morgue. We probably needed to figure out who the dead guy was, but there was so little left of him to go by that it might take a missing-person report to connect the dots. But to do that … “Hey, before you torch him, make sure you take some pictures. Maybe someone could ID him by his clothes or jewelry. At least his family would want to know…” Well, not details, maybe. But still.

  “What are we going to do if it happens again?” It was a logical question from the head physician while he helped push the gurney toward the makeshift incinerator. “I mean, I know Mage DeLuca is checking the rest of the building, but it seems like that took a lot out of you and it was only one.”

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of an answer. “I guess you’ll need to call the police. Maybe their mages can set some sort of barrier spell that’s targeted to the disease.”

  He gave me a look. “Perfect. A spell to keep the sick away from the hospital. I’m sure our accountants would be thrilled, but it’s not much of an answer.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not a witch, but I’ll bet there’s something that’ll work. It mi
ght take trial and error, but this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

  He let out a sound that might have been a tearful laugh. “That’s what I’m afraid of. But we do appreciate your help today. At least he didn’t make it up to the second floor, where the quarantine wards are. The last thing we need is a secondary vector. We’ll have to disinfect the whole hallway as it is.”

  Oh, no doubt. It stank to high heaven in the whole area. I’d nearly coughed up my liquid cookies. I wanted to back off on visiting my mom, but when I mentioned that to Bruno, he frowned at me in a way that told me he didn’t approve.

  So I headed upstairs, leaving Bruno and the doctor to put the zombie into the furnace. Frankly, that’s not something I really wanted to see. I went upstairs to the quarantine ward. Dr. Gaetano wasn’t there, but the nurse told me, with a smile on her face, that my mother had been cleared and was being released. Huh?

  The nurse probably didn’t expect my frown before I bolted down the hallway.

  I peeked through the window of her room, standing where it would be hard for her to see me. Sure enough, she was getting dressed and didn’t seem to have any … jewelry that would prevent her from walking out the door.

  Maybe I’m a horrible daughter. In fact, I have no doubt I am. But I didn’t go into the room. Instead, I grabbed the nearest nurse and explained the situation. She agreed to call a security guard to keep everyone in the room.

  Then I scrolled through my phone’s address book until I got to Security Officer Baker. I didn’t even give her a chance to do more than pick up when I whispered, “What the hell, Baker? Why isn’t anyone here watching my mom? They’re about to release her. Didn’t you tell them she was a prisoner?”

  “What?” Her outrage was immediate and I realized that it wasn’t her at fault. “Natura was … Oh, fire and water, never mind! My apologies, Princess. I will be there in ten minutes. No more. Could you, and I hate to even ask, keep her there?”

  Like I had a choice. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to be in the room when the lady with the cuffs arrived. No, as much as I wanted to see Molly and Julie, it was better for everyone if I stayed away until my mother was back in custody. I sent a text message to Molly’s phone to explain and told her I’d try to talk to her tomorrow. Yeah, I knew I wasn’t being the best friend, but sometimes that’s the best I can do.