“Airball?” I raised an eyebrow.
He shrugged. “Like a fireball, but air. You think of a better name.” I didn’t need to; I’d seen Charles do similar recently enough. “Anyways, it fucking disintegrated. There was like, a shockwave, and some static, and he seemed to get disoriented. He kept looking around, and when he tried to stand up, he fell down instead.” Jason nodded toward the bed. “So we ended up here. His phone was bricked, so we didn’t know what else to do.”
I stepped over beside Charles’ bed. “He passed out?”
Jason nodded, going from the window to the sink and putting the cigarette out. “Yeah. It was a little strange, y’know? He seemed fine, if bleeding and dizzy, mumbling about ‘blood magic’ and ‘should have expected it’ and stuff. But then he seemed to get more and more disoriented till he just suddenly dropped. Not like any concussion I’ve seen.” He glanced at me, crossing his arms. “Not that I’ve seen a lot or anything.”
“Huh.” I perked up as Charles’ heartbeat, previously sluggish, picked up as he stirred.
“Shhhhalt,” he mumbled. “Shhhouldaahad...morre shhhalt.”
“Wow. I thought he was out.” When I spoke, Charles lolled his head towards me, his eyes fluttering vaguely. His injured arm flopped out in my direction. “Should he be out?” I leaned in closer toward the sedated magician. “You did a badass job, man. Calm down and don’t worry about it. I can handle it from here.”
To my surprise, he gripped the bottom of my shirt clumsily, like he was trying to pull me closer, and mumbled something I couldn't make out.
I glanced at Jason. Somewhere in the back of my mind, alarm bells started ringing. “Correct me if I’m wrong…But are they supposed to sedate someone with a concussion?”
“I dunno, I mean, I’m no doctor, but…” Jason leaned over Charles and grabbed his IV bag, looking it over, then took a long whiff. “Yeah. This is a helluva lot of morphine, yo. Like, overdose amounts.” He glanced at me. “Don’t ask me how I know that.”
I frowned. From my dad's stories and too many medical drama reruns, I too recognized someone on unholy amounts of painkillers. Even more worryingly, he looked clammy, and his skin was paler than typical. I might’ve left my medical degree back in my other pants, but this didn’t seem right at all. After a moment’s hesitation, I moved toward the IV.
Rain slipped back in, his light brown eyes wide, and softly closed the door. Then he locked it. “So, guys. Curious question.” He put his back to the door and lowered his voice as the two coherent people in the room gave him curious looks. “Is there any reason that the police should be looking for Charles?”
“...Maybe?” I said. I exchanged a look with Jason, the “I told you so” visible in his jaded, blue-gray eyes. I thought about it. “Not unless they’re here about his marijuana collection or something.”
“Fuck that,” Jason mumbled.
“Well,” the younger boy fidgeted. “We might want to do something then, maybe? There’s a detective or something in the hall looking for someone with his description. And there’s several other policemen with him.”
Shit, shit, shit. Something was definitely wrong, and I could feel it going further south by the moment. I glanced around the room. Charles was hardly coherent; Rain was halfway to freaking out and Jason was looking to me for answers. “How long do we have?”
Rain blinked, then tilted his head, an almost animal-like motion. “Uhh... They’re knocking on the door next to us?”
Shit.
On the bed, Charles stirred, rattling his IV. His eyes popped open, pupils constricted to pinpoints. “Whud are yoo waiting furr,” he slurred. “Ghed me outtahere.” He held up his arms toward me, like a baby asking to be picked up.
“You've gotta be fucking kidding me,” I muttered. I glanced around once more. No time to lose. “Quick, grab that bag of Charles’ stuff.” He’d stake me later if I lost his coat. “Stuff all of those things in it.” Meanwhile, I tore the IV out of Charles’ arm as carefully as I could. I winced at the sight and smell of blood as well as the hunger that both roused in me; a hunger that seemed more potent after my dream encounter with the Blood Man. Great. Just great. I got the floppy wizard extricated from the bed, and he groaned as I threw him on my back, tossing the bag over my other shoulder and sticking his long ass staff between the strap and my back. It was cumbersome, but manageable—I hoped. “Okay. I got this. As for you guys—”
“Don't worry about us,” Jason interrupted. He shared one of those brief looks with Rain.
“Yeah. We can take care of ourselves,” the younger boy confirmed, nervous yet certain.
I eyed them, knowing I must’ve looked skeptical. Once again, I had few choices but to trust them. They may be young, but they’re supernaturals too, I reminded myself. Like Corey? Another part of my mind nagged unhelpfully.
I’d have loved to simply take Charles Next Door; not only would that be expedient, but it’d probably suspend his drug-addled state so that I didn’t have to deal with his shit. But while death energy might hang thickly overhead, it was also out of my metaphysical reach. I’d have to do this the old-fashioned way and trust that Rain and Jason were able to keep up.
“Can you stick close?” I asked, hopeful. I walked over and dimmed the lights.
“Just watch us,” Jason replied.
With no more time for argument, I slowly, carefully drew in the room’s shadows, gathering them around me. We were in a hospital, surrounded by sensitive medical equipment that people’s lives might depend on. Using Next Door power at all was a calculated risk; I didn’t want to be responsible for destroying any of said equipment.
I put my hand on the door and felt the tiniest pop from the air behind me, immediately echoed by a second, identical one. I felt a puff of a sudden displacement of air, only the barest hint of static; the lights didn’t even flicker. Glancing back, I didn’t see Rain and Jason, and I didn’t have time to search.
“Th’shell…ahre yooo dhoing?” Charles burbled, like a drugged, talkative backpack.
“Shut up, Charles.” I pushed the door open and stepped out into the hallway. My plan was to wrap us both up in shadow, skirt the mundanes as quickly as I could, and hopefully even get out of the hospital before the jig was up.
It didn’t work.
I made it a single step into the brightly lit hallway before the scathing, pure white light drenching it ripped my concealing shadows away. I hadn’t known that was possible, and it was one hell of a time to find out.
I staggered as my shadows fled to the darkest corners they could find and slammed directly into an inconveniently placed medical cart. It bounced off of me and spun noisily to the floor, clattering, metal drawers flapping open, clipboards, instruments, and pill bottles scattering across the hall and bursting open. I lost my concentration completely, cursing silently as all along the hallway the lights flickered once and dimmed.
I glanced around. Maybe no one had noticed.
Everyone had noticed.
I’d made a spectacle in the middle of a crowded hospital hallway, and now I was poised awkwardly near about a dozen people with one of their most freakishly ungainly patients draped over me like I was trying—incompetently—to steal him. Every set of eyes in the area was set squarely on me. For an instant, no one moved. I flashed a sheepish smile at the armed officer about four feet from my face, who looked about as startled as I was.
Then everyone moved, all at once.
Someone screamed, and the hallway was suddenly full of shouting and motion, everyone’s words falling all over each other in an indistinguishable din of noise. The officer reached for his gun. Time slowed down for everyone but me.
When you’re supernaturally fast, everyone seems to slow to a crawl by comparison. All the regular ol’ mortals, at least. It was Einstein’s Theory of Relativity at work. I took that long, drawn out moment to glance over the crowd, my mind working overtime. There were some patients and quite a few medical staff in the hallway. And f
our policemen; I noted three uniforms, plus the detective Rain had mentioned, making particular note of his dilated, bloodshot eyes as he slowly turned my way, as if immersed in molasses.
The hallway lights flickered a second time for a split second, and I was gone.
I caught the door to the room across the hall, my strength overcoming wind resistance to push it quickly closed. Before I could push it shut, two gray and brown blurs shot by my feet, quickly fading into monochrome shades as I flicked the light switch off, then pulled it out of the wall.
We were in a big utility closet; there were plenty of objects around, like wire shelves and floor buffers and mop buckets, but nowhere to actually hide. At least, not for a vampire carrying a wizard and half of his worldly possessions.
Being caught would be bad. I might be immune to bullets and stuff, but mostly-unconscious Charles enjoyed no such protections. Neither did any of the other innocent people that might get caught in the crossfire; normal police might not discharge their weapons in such an environment, but I had a sneaking suspicion that things here weren’t on the up and up. Not to mention what might happen if one of them thought they’d seen a vampire or something crazy like that and panicked.
I pushed the door completely closed; it clicked shut, the sound deafeningly loud to my worried ears, despite the cacophony on the other side. Wincing, I looked up and caught bloodshot eyes staring at me through the door’s cloudy glass panel.
Uh-oh. I leaned against the hollow steel long enough to break off the door handle, then retreated into the darkness.
For part two of my hastily-conceived master plan, I needed to hide. Somehow. Hopefully no one would make the mental leap to the conclusion that a vampire had been trapped in their supply closet. If I was lucky, they’d probably just assume I was hopped up on a lot of fun drugs.
I hustled to the back corner looking for the last place a normal person would look. Weighing my limited options to the background noise of shouting from the hallway, I leapt straight up in the air. Catching myself in the corner—and careful not to smush my backpack-wizard against the ceiling—I braced myself in against the walls. With my strength, it wasn’t too hard to stay there, and it wasn’t like I was going to get tired, not unless I was here until dawn.
I shuddered at that thought.
“Ghunna gettus kilt,” Charles mumbled from near the ceiling. “I dun wanna die shtuck to you.”
“You're the one that won't be quiet,” I hissed hoarsely over my shoulder, wondering how he was even conscious, much less becoming progressively more coherent. Then again, as a wizard, he was uniquely used to dealing with mind-altering substances of all sorts. Was he so aware of what was going on because his mind was, even now, watching me from Next Door?
I hoped not. This was embarrassing enough as it was.
From somewhere beneath me echoed two quiet, fast-paced heartbeats. Repeatedly scanning the shadows, I finally located two tiny, furry forms, near invisible in the dark underneath cluttered shelving. My curiosity toward Rain and Jason’s alternate forms was suddenly, finally sated; I didn’t imagine hospitals typically came standard with a pair of small Midwestern coyotes.
Indecipherable shouting just outside resolved into a forceful banging that resounded throughout the room; I could see the door flex in its frame as someone threw their weight against it over and over. Slowly, carefully, I once again called to the shadows; relief flooded me as they came to my call, the same as they always did. I didn’t want to call power from Next Door again, but what choice did I have?
The supply closet door didn’t last as long as I’d have liked before the damaged handle gave way, a heavyset officer from the hallway spilling into the room, wielding pistol and flashlight together in both hands. Another officer was with him, as well as what looked like a burly orderly, and behind the three of them was the bloodshot-eyed detective whose jittery hand never strayed far from his holstered sidearm.
Aside from the detective, all of their heart rates were up as the first officer tried the lights and cursed virulently. Any hope I’d unnerved them enough to let the matter drop died as the policeman barring the doorway started to slowly scan the room with his light and gun. The gun by itself didn’t scare me, as long as he was accurate enough to just hit me and no one else, but I didn’t want to be found at all.
No, at the moment, it was the officer’s tac-light that scared me the most. He thoroughly swept the room, then, to my surprise, raised it higher and began the scan again. I could only hold my position and wonder: was the powerful little flashlight not strong enough to pierce my conjured concealment, or would the direct light cause my obfuscation to skitter through the cracks and back Next Door, leaving me stranded in the corner like a shitty Spider-man?
One way or another, I was about to find out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Medical Emergency
A concentrated cone of light cut across the room, scanning thoroughly, leaving no shadow untouched. I waited tensely to see whether the bright tac-light’s beam would breach the lightless cocoon that sheltered Charles and myself, and wondering what I’d do next.
I never got to find out.
A second before it would have hit us, the light darted downward, accompanied by the spooked, surprised yelps of several grown men. Two coyotes burst out of the room in a flurry of furry motion, barking, yipping, and weaving in and out of the startled men’s feet. They made noise and dodged back and forth around probing hands, far too quick for a human to catch, nipping and tugging at clothes until the officer turned around and the two other men broke off and gave chase, all the while exclaiming questions about “what the hell was going on” and “who let those tiny dogs in.” In a flash, the two scruffy “dogs” were gone, disappearing down the hallway and inciting a fresh riot of shouting.
Coyotes. On the third floor of a public hospital. I couldn’t help but grin as Charles and I were temporarily forgotten amidst the chaos; if I’d had a free hand, I would have tipped an invisible hat to them. I was still a little worried about the two young shifters but figured they wouldn’t have volunteered as a distraction if they couldn’t handle it.
Only the detective with the bloodshot eyes remained behind. Stepping cautiously into the room, he flicked on a flashlight of his own, checking the dark corners and behind the boxes, vacuums, and chest-high floor polishers. But he didn’t think to look up. I could hear the fear in his erratic heartbeat as he approached, standing almost directly under me.
A faint smell wafted up off of him, something with a cloying scent, but I couldn’t place it.
I briefly considered dropping down and choking him out but decided against it. It seemed like the police were moving on; better to wait it out than to do something that might bring them back around looking for where their superior had gotten off to.
He didn’t linger long before shivering and making his exit with Charles and I still undetected. That left me alone in the dark with a semi-comatose wizard who was now snoring in my ear. I didn’t drop down to the floor just yet though; my luck being as it was, I figured I’d hit the tile just in time for the burly cop from before to pop back in for one last glance with his tac-light. Instead, I closed my eyes and tuned into my hearing, listening to the dissonant chorus of heartbeats resonating in the hallway.
I must have hung there twenty minutes with a sleeping wizard stuck to my back. Meanwhile, I listened to the heartbeats in the hall start to disperse, biding my time and trying to place where everyone was.
The sound of human hearts wasn’t the only thing that drifted in from the hallway though. This was still a hospital, and I quickly became aware of the scent of human blood, both fresh and stale. My earlier dream had stirred my hunger before its proper time, and after a solid twenty minutes with my nose full of the intoxicating scent of food—not to mention a big, helpless sack full of it on my back—my hunger was hitting an apex.
Finally, I felt my willpower starting to fray and decided I’d hung out here long enough. Dropping
down, I padded over to the door, already open a crack and peered out. My vision confirmed what my ears had told me, and I crossed my fingers as I slowly relaxed my grip on the shadows surrounding me. They slithered obediently away with only a minor dimming of the nearest lights.
Gripping Charles and his gear tightly with one hand, I flitted from room to room supernaturally quick, careful to avoid any concentrations of people as I worked my way toward the stairs down, one lightning-quick step at a time. I paused in a room with one sleeping patient in a half body cast, once again peering out the cracked door at passing medical professionals. I grinned; now, only the waiting room separated us from freedom.
A waiting room full of people.
Just my luck to hit a crowded waiting room—on my particular floor, no less—in the middle of the freaking night. I could try to hide and wait for them to leave, but I had no idea how long that would take, and I needed to get both myself and Charles out of here sooner rather than later. Not to mention making sure Rain and Jason weren’t forced to hide in a hospital all damn night. No, I figured my best bet would be to simply dart past the lot of them, hit the stairs, and just be gone before anyone could react. So I made up my mind, waited for my moment, and moved.
I froze in my tracks at the doorway as Salvatore looked up from his magazine and met my eyes.
He grinned.
A quick glance told me there were only two legitimate human occupants of the room; an old lady dozing in her chair and a younger man wearing headphones.
The other four were Sanguinarian vampires.
As the inhuman occupants of the room started to rise from their seats, I gave Salvatore a cheesy grin in return, made a mental apology to the poor unfortunate souls on night shift, reached out, and pulled the fire alarm.
Blood Red Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 2) Page 17
