Sympathy for the devil

by Holly Lisle

  He smiled when he saw her; he'd had the same patients during the night Dayne would have during the day, so he would report to her.

  "Mrs. Paulley died at three thirty-five this morning," he said. "Bastard was in there coding her from about one a.m. He finally conceded defeat, but when you call him for anything today, watch out."

  Dayne nodded. Dr. Batskold after he "lost" would be mean and sarcastic and vicious for several days. "Maybe I won't have to call him for anything."

  Frank tapped the chart in his hand. "Well . . . don't count on your luck holding. At four-thirty a.m. I admitted Mr. Wilthom Fields, fifty-seven-year-old white male patient of Dr. Batskold, with chest pain—also hallucinations, paranoia, and possible psychosis." Frank went through Mr. Fields' vital signs on admission. "He's a twenty-four hour observation; his tentative diagnosis, aside from being nuts, is angina, possible myocardial infarction." Frank shook his head. "I don't think he's had a heart attack, though. I think he's cra-a-a-a-azy. He'll be out of here and on his way to Dorothea Dix tomorrow.

  "Petters in E transferred out of the unit yesterday. In E today you have Mr. Walter `Call Me Walt' Harvey." Frank grinned. "He's a nice old guy—seventy-five years old, patient of Dr. Weist, in to get a permanent pacemaker inserted. He's had some slowdowns during the night, but the temporary pacemaker kicked right in. He's prepped for surgery, and scheduled first—he may already be on his way by the time we get out of here. So you won't really have any orders on him until he gets back."

  Dayne heard yelling and swearing from the patient rooms and frowned.

  Frank said, "That's Fields. He's been doing that all night. Our only orders on him are cardiac—when I called to see about giving him a sleeping pill, Dr. Batskold said he wouldn't order anything for him because he didn't want to mask symptoms."

  "So you listened to that all night." Dayne made a sympathetic face.

  "Yep. Mostly he's been pretty funny. He says these little clear men keep stealing his covers and messing with the equipment. Every time we go in the room, the covers are in a pile on the floor in the far corner, and all of his equipment is bollixed up." Frank sighed. "It would be hilarious if he didn't insist on yelling at his hallucinations."

  "Clear men, huh? That sounds different." Dayne grinned. "Usually they can see them just fine—they always claim the problem is with us. So . . . has he had any chest pain since admission?"

  "Nope. Just clear men stealing his covers."

  "Okay." Dayne sighed and took Fields' chart from Frank, noting times the patient was due medications, checking for specific treatment orders, comparing the orders with the drug administration record, and scanning the vitals and nursing notes. Meanwhile another night nurse came in to give her report to her day relief.

  Frank said, "You ready to go do rounds?"

  She finished the quick look at the orders—she would go over them again once Frank was out the door—and went with him to meet the patients and make sure their equipment was all functioning.

  The patient in G had indeed already gone to surgery. Dayne introduced herself to his daughter, who was waiting and passing the time by gathering up a few of his things to take home with her, and then Dayne and Frank went in to meet Mr. Fields.

  His blanket was in a pile under the window. As they walked into the room, he was shouting at the top of his lungs and fighting with his sheet—though Dayne noticed he was definitely winning.

  "Good morning, Mr. Fields," Frank said. "This is your day nurse, Dayne Kuttner."

  He looked up at her with harried eyes, and said, "Can you see them?"

  Dayne looked at the way he clutched his sheet and twisted it in his hands, at the weariness in his expression, at the sweat that beaded his brow. She shook her head sadly. "No, Mr. Fields. I can't."

  "Would you look? I haven't been able to sleep all night—they keep stealing my covers; little men that look like they're made of clear gelatin. And they laugh at me and call me names. . . ." He wiped a hand over his forehead and looked at her imploringly. "Please . . . look."

  She nodded and gathered the sheet into her arms and looked down at the bed. "You see? Nothing there."

  "I see," he said gloomily. "But they'll be back as soon as you leave."

  Frank said, "I'm going to go out and make sure I didn't miss anything. Catch up with me before I leave, okay?"

  Dayne nodded. "I'll be out in a few minutes. I'm just going to fix his bed for him." As soon as Frank was out of earshot, she turned to her patient and said, "Guys never can get this right." She grinned at him, and with brisk movements, tied both the bottom of the sheet and the bottom of the blanket to the bed. She found a couple of safety pins and pinned the covers to the bed from under the sheet—then, for good measure, pinned them to the mattress from outside. She said, "Now you can get some sleep, Mr. Fields. The covers won't go anywhere."

  His smile held an element of doubt, but he nodded. "I hope you're right. I'm so tired, the world is spinning. If I don't sleep soon, I'm afraid I'm going to lose my mind."

  Dayne tactfully kept her opinions on the state of his mind to herself, and with a wave, headed out of the room to find Frank.

  He was waiting by the lockers. He raised an eyebrow as she approached. "I don't hear him yelling yet."

  She winked. "Secret trick of the trade."

  "You brought in sleeping pills from home and gave him one?"

  "Tied his sheets to the bed and pinned them there."

  He smacked his forehead with the flat of his hand and groaned. "Why didn't I think of that? If we put up with his screaming for the last two hours for nothing, I'm going to turn in my nursing license."

  "Oh no you don't." Dayne laughed. "Judy would leave the unit short-staffed again, and I promised myself I wasn't working overtime this week."

  "I hear you. So . . . heard you had an exciting weekend. Saw you on the news, too. Pretty wild stuff."

  Dayne nodded. "You could say that."

  "I wanted to ask you something. . . ."

  Her heart sank. Here it comes, she thought. She watched him, holding her breath.

  "Lacy's been trying to get pregnant for years now—we've been to all the specialists, and we've done all the treatments. Nothing worked, and we really can't afford to keep trying—" He looked at her, and his eyes wore desperation plainly. "There's a waiting list so long for adopting that when we went in, the social worker told me that by the time the list gets to us, I'll be too old for them to consider us."

  He looked at her and she could see it in his eyes—the hope that she could work a miracle.

  She wished she could.

  "Could you . . . pray for us?" he asked her.

  "Frank, I will—" his eyes lit up, and she wished they hadn't "—but you have to understand that God will listen to you praying for something that you want with all your heart, more than he will listen to me praying for something for you."

  "But if you could get God to give all of Hell a second chance—"

  "I believe Torry is—was—maybe still is in Hell. The thing I wanted most in the world was to know that he didn't have to suffer forever. I was afraid for everyone else who was there, too—because of this place. Because I could imagine how terrible forever could be." She rested a hand on Frank's shoulder. "But you and Lacy are the people who want a baby more than you want anything else. You need to pray."

  "You think we haven't?" Frank's eyes narrowed.

  Dayne sighed. "No. I'm sure you have. I don't know why God answers prayers the way he does."

  "But you will ask for us?"

  Dayne nodded. "I'll ask. Please understand that I can't promise anything."

  Frank grinned. "I figure we have a better chance with you than with Social Services."

  Chapter 32

  Jezerael handed her references and credentials to the hospital administrator. "They're all in the folder," she told him, and crossed her legs, making sure her raw silk skirt rode up, and the little slit in the side fell open when she did.

  His
eyes followed the skirt's movement, then looked away, and he blinked nervously. He flipped through the folder, making an obvious effort not to look at her. "Very impressive," he said. "Harvard is a fine institution."

  She smiled and said nothing.

  "How long do you think your . . . ah . . . your project will last?"

  "I anticipate a completion date of just under one month . . . but my plans might change." She licked her lips. "Tell me, Mr. Connelly, are you married?"

  She saw his eyes flick to his wedding band, and shift left quickly. He was considering lying to her. "Well . . . yes," he said. "I am."

  She pressed her index finger to her lips and sighed, and studied him sadly. "Oh," she said. "How . . . nice."

  The eyes flicked to the ring again, and to her face, and she could see him composing the lie in the instant his mouth opened. "I wish it were," he said. "My wife . . . well," he looked down at the top of his desk. "I won't bother you with my problems. You're here to do research, and the problems of a man old enough to be your father—"

  "Hardly," she interrupted, with a lift of her brow.

  ". . . are not problems you'd be interested in."

  She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, knowing that when she did so the elegant V-neck of her silk business suit gaped open and exposed a tremendous amount of cleavage. She'd practiced that move in front of a mirror in her hotel room the night before, and had been pleased with the effect. "I would be interested, though," she told him. "Perhaps we could discuss it over . . . lunch?"

  He flushed. Good. His thoughts were going in the right direction, then. "Perhaps we could."

  She stood, making something of a production out of it. "I have some additional things I need to take care of today. But if you are agreeable, I'd like to begin my data collection tomorrow morning."

  "That would be fine."

  "And perhaps we could have lunch tomorrow at noon—to discuss further what I hope to accomplish and how the research might benefit your hospital." She tugged at the skirt, and watched his Adam's apple bob up and down. "If you'll notify the ICU that I'll be coming tomorrow, and that I'm to have access to the charts . . ."

  "Of course." He stood and came around the desk to walk her to the door. She held out her hand to shake, and when he took her hand, she caressed his palm with her thumb. He flushed, she smiled, and they stood staring into each other's eyes.

  He cleared his throat.

  She said, "I'll see you tomorrow, then, Mr. Connelly." She made her voice husky, a little deeper than it had been, slightly breathy.

  "Wynne," he said. "You can call me Wynne . . . Dr. Jezick."

  She regarded him through lowered lashes. "Wynne. I like that. And please call me Mhya."

  She slipped away and sauntered out of the administrator's office, down the long, plush gray-carpeted hall, past several doctors, whose heads swiveled as she swung past.

  He wasn't going to bother checking her references, she thought smugly. He had too much to lose.

  Chapter 33

  Mr. Fields snored—the snoring wasn't as loud as the yelling had been, but it was nonetheless impressive. Dayne grinned and glanced up at the monitor to check his heart rate. The green line that belonged to him wiggled across the screen in a perfect sinus rhythm, the heartbeat as normal as her own. The machine recorded him at eighteen breaths per minute, and she chuckled, marking down the number. She could double-check that from anywhere in the unit, simply by counting the number of times in a minute that she heard a musical whistle followed by a phlegmy rumble and punctuated with one sharp, short snort. Mr. Fields was to snoring what Paganini had been to the violin, or Rachmaninoff to the piano.

  She looked up from the desk to study him through the glass. He looked fine, and quite content; he was curled on his side and sleeping soundly. She noted his condition, then frowned. When she'd looked up, she'd seen something—or rather, several somethings—that her mind hadn't registered at first.

  She'd seen a quick flash of something that was the most astonishing shade of blue—and she had noted movement at the foot of Mr. Fields' bed. She looked up again, slowly.

  She frowned. Whatever had been blue was gone. However, the movement that had caught her attention remained quite visible. It appeared that someone was popping popcorn under Mr. Fields' blanket. Portions of the blanket at the foot of the bed bounced up and dropped down. Up and down. Up and down. Nothing came loose, because not even an act of Congress was going to get that blanket off the bed . . . but something was trying very hard.

  Mary Deiner was charting next to her. Dayne nudged her with an elbow, and when Mary looked up, Dayne nodded in the direction of Fields' room.

  Mary looked, and her mouth fell open and her eyes went round. "What in the world . . . ?"

  "I don't know. I'm going to find out, though. Want to come with me?"

  Mary nodded.

  Both nurses dropped to a squat and used first the nursing station, then the half-wall below the glass in Mr. Fields' room for cover as they crept forward; they peeked through the glass into the room and watched, unmoving, as a little creature no more than two inches high, as transparent as if it had been molded of clear gelatin, scooted out from beneath the bedspread and dropped to the floor. Another of the little bouncing popcorn lumps stopped bouncing and wriggled to the edge of the bed, then slid out into view.

  "He wasn't crazy," Dayne whispered.

  "Or we are," Mary suggested.

  "I want to catch one."

  "Well, you're crazy, anyway," Mary told her. "The jury is still out on me."

  "Help me—we have to see what they are."

  "No we don't. We can just ignore them, and maybe they'll go away."

  Dayne made a face at Mary. "I'm going to catch one."

  "Fine. I'll be here to call for help if you run into trouble." The other two ICU nurses had stopped in front of the nurses' station and were staring at Dayne and Mary. One started to say something, but Mary put a finger to her lips and shook her head. They shrugged and quietly moved into the nurses' station to watch monitors and to chart.

  Dayne crouched just behind the doorframe and held her breath and listened.

  An entire conference of the little gelatin-men was going on no more than two feet away from her on the other side of the wall—three out of every four words were hair-raising profanity, and she was the subject of their ire. It became obvious that they didn't think much of her trick with the sheets.

  She was willing to bet they were going to think a lot less of what she planned to do next.

  She jumped around the corner, landing in the middle of the confab and grabbing two; something crunched under her left knee, and suddenly it was wet and sticky, and she realized some of the tiny monsters had been closer than she thought. The two she captured shrieked like miniature banshees, and the rest, excluding the one ground into her uniform—she guessed there had been fifteen or so in all—blinked out of existence.

  She held both of the little monsters by the scruffs of their necks and stared at them . . . and through them. They didn't feel at all the way she'd expected—she was reminded of the time she'd picked up a blue indigo snake as a child, expecting it to be slimy, and found instead that it was cool and dry and very firm and even pleasant to the touch.

  The two little monsters were almost hot to the touch, and their skin was as hard and dry as a beetle carapace, with the same feeling of brittleness. Dayne had expected the little monsters to look almost identical, and was startled that except for the fact both were clear, they could easily have belonged to completely different species. One had a long tail and curling horns and a flat face. Spikes grew from the second monster's back; it was tailless and had a long-muzzled, reptilian face with two shorter spikes growing out of the tip of its nose. Both creatures had one head, two arms, two legs, tiny feet and tiny claw-tipped hands; both were unbelievably ugly, and both screamed imprecations at her at the tops of their lungs. They didn't bite or scratch, however—they just yelled. She held them
firmly but gently, and looked down at the stain on her knee where the third little monster had been. She felt badly about that.

  "Hush," she told both screamers. They didn't obey.

  She started to head out of the room, holding her squirming prizes in front of her, when a light flickered in the air and grew into a tiny shimmering ball. She stopped, the tiny monsters shut up, and all three of them watched as a piece of paper grew inside the little ball of light. Then the light died and the paper hung unsupported in midair.

  Dayne carefully transferred the monster in her right hand to her left, and with her free hand took the paper.

  Hell's Accounting Department Invoice

  North Carolina Division of Bodies

  Wastage and Destruction Sector

  "We'll Have Our Pound Of Flesh"

  INVOICE NO: 518KT34972-00000000014A

  Bill To: Customer Status:

  Dayne Kuttner oü New Customer

  Earth Region 17945-8492-253 o Regular Client

  Sisters of Hope Hospital o Account on Established Credit

  Charlotte, North Carolina

  Tracking Data: Invoice date: Invoice Processor:

  15 BJRT H.D.14/346/97084 Ulkbilge

  Customer Number:

  NC1487245

  UNIT

  QTY DESCRIPTION PRICE AMOUNT

  1 Gremlin 3rd Class, body, wasted and $43.25 $43.25

  nonrecyclable—broken during

  unwarranted attack

  1 Replacement body, Gremlin 3rd Class $43.25 $43.25

  1 Punitive damages for squishing one of $462.81 $462.81

  God's little creatures

  SUBTOTAL $549.31

  SALES TAX $33.02

  SHIPPING & HANDLING $18.00

  TOTAL DUE $600.33

  Cash or Hell-Card Only.

  Bill due upon receipt—no grace period offered.

  If you have any questions concerning this invoice, drop by our offices in Charlotte, Raleigh, Fayetteville, or our home office in Hell.