I woke up in a strange bed. I groaned in pain as various parts of my body registered their complaints. My back and butt hurt. My head felt like an elephant had stomped on it and my brain had swollen against the inside of my skull. Pain radiated through my midsection. My mouth was dry and when I tried to sit up, searing heat exploded in my chest and stomach.
I blinked and licked my lips, moving my head gingerly from side to side. I was in a white sterile room with two beds on either side of me and more lined up in front of me. There appeared to be someone passed out in one of the beds across the way, but otherwise the room was empty.
I was in the Infirmary. This was the Council’s version of a hospital. I looked up and saw a satchel hanging over my head. A cleansing bag. They were gray bags soaked in a charcoal-based anti-magic solution and filled with herbs to help absorb any residual magic. It was the sort of thing they did if you’d been hit with a particularly nasty spell or magical attack.
I struggled to remember what had happened. Slowly, it came back to me: the casino bathroom, the sudden rush of dark and silence, feeling like I was falling…
I groaned again and this time, managed to sit up despite parts of my body not being pleased with that development. I looked around for a bell or something to call the healer. There wasn’t one.
I pulled the thin blanket off of me and tried to scoot to the edge of the bed. Every part of me hurt and every movement seemed to make it worse. I sat panting on the edge of the bed for far too long.
The infirmary door opened and a healer came in. She was in her forties or so with gray streaks in her brown hair. Her eyes widened at the sight of me.
“You should lie back down,” she said. “You have two bruised ribs. I’m worried one might even be broken.”
“All the more reason for me to get home,” I said. Broken ribs weren’t the kind of thing medicine could heal. Mortal doctors would tell me to take it easy and witch healers couldn’t make the bones stitch back together either. They could give me healing potions that might make the process quicker, but I could probably brew something comparable, if less potent, myself.
The healer frowned. “You’re in quite a state.”
“Sadly, not new. How did I get here?” I asked. I put one foot on the cold floor. It was like ice. I wasn’t wearing socks. I’d been changed into a white gown, not unlike the kind of gowns mortal hospitals put patients in. It was funny how much witches feared and hated mortal medicine when their own healing centers mimicked human hospitals.
“The Watchers were called when you were found passed out cold on the floor of a bathroom in the Golden River Casino,” she said, trying to usher me back onto the bed. “You apparently blacked out, fell forward and slammed into a sink, and then hit the floor. Or so the Watchers on scene surmised.”
“Willow,” I whispered. She was a witch, after all, and witches usually call the Watchers in an emergency. Or the ones who trusted the Council did anyhow. No doubt she’d wondered what was taking me so long and called for help when she’d discovered me out cold.
Standing up straight actually made the pain hurt less, at least at the moment, though from how it hurt, I could tell there was definitely a nasty bruise on my backside and my midsection was a boiling pit of agony.
The healer frowned at me. “If you get back in the bed, I’ll bring you some soup.”
“If I’m going to be stuck in bed, I’d rather it be mine,” I said. Of course, first I had to get to the bottom of these blackouts, or I was just going to end up with worse injuries.
“That’s not a good idea. We have healing potions that can get you back on your feet in a matter of days,” she urged.
That made me pause. I might be capable of making an okay healing potion, but I wasn’t trained like a healer, and I didn’t necessarily have the best ingredients on hand. But then I looked around the rows of beds and took a whiff of the sterile, slightly acerbic floral air and decided I’d take my chances.
“Can I maybe get a healing potion to go?” I asked.
She gave me a look that said she thought I was unhinged, but also like she was starting to wonder if she’d rather it not be her problem.
The door opened again and my heart leapt into my throat.
Conor Ramsey came in. He wore his dark denim jeans and a black jacket, his civilian clothes. The Watcher’s uniform was an ugly monochrome gray, and while Conor managed to make it look good, he was way hotter in his regular clothes. His dark hair had gotten longer and now fell into his eyes. He came in and then froze, as if surprised to see me.
I patted my hair, sure that I looked like a hot mess.
“I heard you were here,” he finally said, tone still gruff, eyes still sliding off me like I was wrapped in non-stick coating.
“She’s being difficult,” the healer said.
Conor barked out a rough laugh. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
I glared. “Very cute.” I turned back to the healer. “So, about that healing potion?”
The healer looked from me to Conor and back to me. She sighed heavily, as if completely exasperated, and turned. “I’ll go get you two doses to take home. I do wish you’d consider staying, though. There’s something dark in your aura.”
Ice slid down my spine. I wanted to ask what she meant but with Conor there, I was afraid to push it. Of course, he could see my aura. Not as well as a healer—they were trained to really notice all of the intricacies and color changes in a person’s aura—but he could tell if something was really abnormal. She left to get my medicine.
“Why are you here?” It came out sounding more accusatory than I meant it to.
“I was told you were unconscious,” Conor said.
Great. He’d come to see me because he’d been told I was half-dead and totally out of it. Now that I was awake, he probably regretted making the trip.
“I woke up,” I said. I opened the drawer in the nightstand next to bed and was relieved to see my clothes. “Back in a second.”
I ducked into one of the infirmary’s two bathrooms. Putting my jeans back on was a painful process but I felt more like myself once I shed the hospital gown. I emerged triumphant, if limping, and left the gown balled up on the bed I’d been sleeping in.
I hobbled over to the door where my leather coat hung from a coat rack and pulled it down. Conor watched, assessing me.
“What happened?” His voice was tight, edged. Probably trying to keep it professional. The last time we’d seen each other, he’d promised he wasn’t going to turn me in for my illegal demon magic, but then had gotten irritated at my refusal to go through an exorcism to be sure the magic wasn’t just some piece of demon lodged in my throat or something. “The intake form says you were unconscious on the floor of a casino.”
“It’s a long story,” I said, pulling on my coat and wincing from the pain in my ribs. Broken or not, they hurt like hell. How had that happened? I remembered swaying unsteadily in the dark. The healer had mentioned the sink. I must have crashed forward into the sink that jutted out from the wall and then slammed onto the floor. From the pain in my…well, everywhere, it had been a hard fall.
“If that dragon had his goons attack you, I can go after him.” Conor’s eyes burned with intensity and anger.
A swell of heat rushed up my cheeks. “Rian didn’t do this. I don’t owe him money or anything. I’m helping him track down a stolen item,” I said.
“Then who did?” Conor demanded.
I struggled to zip my coat and finally got it to close.
He folded his arms over his broad chest. “Warren, if you tell me who attacked you, I can help.”
“I don’t need help from the Watchers. The only reason I’m here is that there was a witch on the security staff and she probably freaked when she found me. I’ll be fine.” I slid my phone out of my coat pocket and checked the time. Nearly three in the morning. I’d been out for a while. I didn’t know how much of that was the weird darkness and how much was the giant bump growing on the back of my head.
“You’re not fine. You were out cold and you’re obviously injured.” Conor gave me a stern look. “Who did this?”
The healer swept back in, much to my relief. She handed me two glass mason jars full of a viscous, blueish liquid. “Drink one tonight and the next tomorrow night. It should speed up your healing process by quite a bit. Come see me in a week if you’re still sore. I can brew you a new batch.”
I took the jars and thanked her. She’d probably started brewing these the moment I came in. Potions didn’t have a long shelf-life, which meant you could only keep them on hand for a short time before their potency started to wane.
I headed out of the infirmary and down the hall with my jars of sloshing potion. Behind me, I could hear sounds of life. This was the Magic Council’s main office, not the Watcher’s headquarters, and if it was after three am, it was close to quitting time. Witches, like most supernaturals, tended to follow a nocturnal schedule. The infirmary was in the back half of the building and I bolted out the first exit I found.
Bitter cold slapped me in the face. Temperatures had dropped since earlier this evening and I shivered. I juggled the jars with my phone as I tried to summon a ride-share car.
The back door banged open behind me. “I’ll drive you home,” Conor announced. It wasn’t an offer so much as a command, and that made me immediately want to refuse.
But I also didn’t want to stand around in the cold November air and wait for a car. Besides, the blackness seemed to hit at random and if it happened again, I’d rather not be stranded in the back of some human Lyft driver’s Prius.
I followed Conor to his SUV and started to put the jars in the back wheel well when panic shot through me. “My sword,” I said. It hadn’t been with my things in the infirmary.
Conor frowned.
“I must have left it at the casino.” I’d had it on me when I passed out. Maybe the Watchers who’d come to get me unhooked it from my belt. Not having it was bad enough. Not knowing where it was made me want to break out in hives. I couldn’t relax until I had it.
Conor’s frown deepened but then he let out a breath. “If I stop by Golden River and get your sword, do you promise to spend the whole day resting and letting yourself heal?”
I wanted to argue but honestly, given how many parts of me pulsed with pain, I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to get much work done during the day anyhow. I might as well use the time to recover while I researched from my couch.
“Okay, sure,” I said.
Conor nodded sharply and helped me into the passenger seat.
Chapter 7
I lowered myself gingerly on my sofa sideways, so I could use it as a temporary sick bed. Conor had carried my sword up, which he’d run in to get from the casino’s security office where Willow had been keeping it for me, along with the jars of potion. He grabbed a pillow from my bedroom and shoved it behind my back and then foisted one of the mason jars at me.
“Drink,” he said.
“Normally when a guy tells me to drink, I think he’s up to no good,” I said, unscrewing the jar. The potion smelled of lavender, chamomile, and rosemary, though I was sure there were a lot more herbs and magical energy in the concoction. It tasted like a fancy floral soap smelled but I was able to chug down about half the jar. Warmth spread through my midsection.
Conor stood in the doorway of my bedroom, eyes trained on me as if he was afraid I might try to pour the rest down the drain if he didn’t watch me drink it all.
“You’re really not going to tell me who attacked you?” he asked, as I took another swig and swallowed it down.
“No one attacked me,” I said.
Conor’s frown reached a new level of concern. “You have a welt on your head and bruised ribs. That doesn’t just happen.”
I swallowed another mouthful of the thick healing potion. It was like drinking soup made from scented candles, but I could feel the tingle of its magic spreading through my body, so I kept going.
“Warren.” Conor glared in my direction. I stared straight ahead, toward my window. The blinds were drawn and there wasn’t much to see. “Dani.”
“It was just a blackout,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew how stupid that was. People don’t just blackout for no reason.
Conor came closer and sat on the easy chair kiddy-corner from the sofa, so he could look me in the face and I couldn’t avoid him unless I got up. “What made you blackout?”
I didn’t want to tell Conor Ramsey, the demon hunter who thought my demon magic meant I had demon left in me, about the weird blackouts that were suspiciously like being sucked into a world of demonic shadows.
But then, demon shadows weren’t the only darkness in the magical world. It might be a mage trick of some sort. Conor might have heard of something similar. He might have an easy cure, like beating the crap out of the mage who kept stealing things. I could go for some good ass kicking. Once I could walk, anyhow.
“I don’t know what’s causing it.”
“Causing?” His eyebrows rose. “This isn’t the first time?”
“Damn you and your clever detective skills.” I took the last gulp of healing potion and set the jar on the coffee table. I swallowed it down and more warmth spread through my middle, heating my bones. At least it was working. I hoped it worked fast. “This is the first time I actually passed out.” I’d definitely blacked out for seconds at a time, but I hadn’t totally lost consciousness or my ability to sit and stand before now.
“What does that mean?” His voice went up slightly.
I weighed my options and then sighed. I told Conor about the strange darkness that had started near Carlyle’s stall, and how I’d been seeking something stolen from a mage. Conor listened, his brow scrunching up more as I added details about how the blackness came on like a sudden storm and then colors and sounds began filtering back in. “Sound like any kind of mage curse or confusion spell you’ve encountered?”
“No.” His blue eyes bore into me like lasers.
“What?”
He tore his gaze away from me. “It sounds like a demonic attack.”
I blinked. “I’ve fought my share of demons and I’ve never experienced anything like that.”
“It’s usually part of being possessed. People who are possessed describe symptoms like those.”
Ice flooded my veins and pushed out the warmth from the healing potion. When I’d been possessed, there had been times when everything went dark and silent as the demon took over and pushed me out of my own mind. The memory made my stomach churn and some of the lavender liquid rose in my throat. I swallowed it down.
“I’m not possessed,” I said, a little too vehemently.
“No,” Conor said, his voice gentle, trying not to upset me, “but perhaps the residual demonic energy is causing these episodes.”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. I know you think my demon magic means I’ve got demon left in me somewhere, but I’ve had it for years and nothing like this has happened before.”
Conor shifted uncomfortably. “Perhaps it has merely needed time to build up.”
“It has to be something else.” Stubborn maybe, but seriously, if something inside me were going to cause episodes this bad, why start now? “Are you sure you’ve never heard of a mage using any kind of controlling magic or mind spell?”
“Mages control elements,” Conor said.
“Maybe one figured out how to mess with spirits or something,” I suggested.
“I think it’s more likely to be demon related. Perhaps it’s not your… condition… that’s causing it.”
“Condition?” I made a face but I didn’t appreciate being talked about as if I were a Victorian woman with the vapors.
Conor ignored me and plowed forward. “Perhaps whatever demonic stuff is left in you is allowing a demon to attack you from the outside.”
My hair stood on end. That might be possible. Whatever allowed me to have demon magic might also allow
a demon to take advantage of me somehow. After all, demons could gain power over people in a plethora of ways: having a sample of their hair or blood; being in the same circle or physical space.
“If that’s the case, we need to hunt down the demon who’s doing this,” Conor said. “And you should see my friend. He exorcises demons from those who’ve been possessed. He recently removed the demon from Desmond Cook.”
I shivered. Desmond Cook was a star demon hunter who’d been possessed by a demon as part of the demon-worshippers’ plan to use him against the Watchers.
“Is Desmond okay?”
“He’ll be fine. He’s been cleared of wrong doing since the demon trap was discovered and one of the captured witches admitted to putting it there. He’s being held for evaluation.”
“It’s been a few months,” I said. The thought of being held for “evaluation” by the Magic Council for so long was terrifying. Yet another thing I could look forward to if the Council ever got their hands on me—assuming they didn’t march me straight to the gallows.
Conor shrugged. “They have to make sure the demon is gone. And Desmond has to adjust to what happened.”
That I could understand. Being possessed was a special kind of hell where you were locked inside your body while someone else pulled the strings and dictated what you did and said. I shuddered at the memory. “There’s no demon left inside of me,” I said. I knew it for a fact. I remembered how it felt and there was no way any of him was left behind.
“So then let me bring Pete over.”
“Pete? Your exorcist is named Pete?”
Conor was not amused. “Get some rest. Let yourself actually heal. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”
“With Pete,” I said.
“Yes.” Conor stood.
“Can we trust Pete? Won’t he just turn me over to your bosses?” I asked. That was what all loyal Council members were trained to do, after all.
Conor paused, face twisting with consternation. After a long moment, he said, “We don’t have to tell him the truth. We’ll say we fought demons and it left you with these strange episodes.”
Demon Fate Page 4
