by Candy Crum
“Death.” It was only one word, but as she said it, she could feel acknowledgement in the wave of energy in the too-small room.
Kailah swallowed hard as she turned and looked directly into the abdomen of Death. Her eyes wandered up…up…up until she finally saw his face. Like before, there were no features. Only blackness inside the cloak where his face should be with smoke pouring from two places where eyes should be.
The wall clock just to the left of Death’s shoulder had stopped moving entirely, and she knew everything—at least in the unit—had been locked down and frozen. No one would be bothering them anytime soon.
Kailah thought back to the vision she’d had of the ritual between Taima and Sayen. Sayen had seen Anubis, but she never saw Death, who had come to collect all the spirits Sayen had amassed in her lifetime. He could have come and gone in the vision, but he’d chosen to acknowledge her.
It seemed that he wanted to do so again.
He was a black, ominous vortex of energy that hovered several inches from the ground. He billowed like thick, black fog and blurred at the wavy edges as the smoky energy faded away. Like he’d been described throughout human history, he was a cloaked figure, but that was no ordinary cloak.
The longer she looked, the more a translucent outline of a man began to show just beneath the dark barrier of energy. She could feel every soul trapped in the cloak, and it called to her. Something hard hit her back, and she quickly realized she’d backed into the counters without even knowing she’d moved.
Maybe I’m a little more afraid than I thought, she thought to herself.
“What do you want?” she whispered. She was afraid that if even a single sound left her throat, it would quickly be followed by a scream.
A deep, guttural noise came from him that was a cross between a growl and a groan as he lifted one of his incredibly long, demonic looking arms. The air beneath him shifted again as the black energy around him imploded on itself just before he appeared even closer to Kailah. Only a foot or so separated them. She arched her back, trying to distance herself further, but it did no good. He had her pinned.
The cloak called to her more now, and it almost felt as though it was trying to swallow her in. It seemed to reach for her. As drawn to it as she was before, she couldn’t look away from it right then.
Looking into the black abyss, she saw Immortal souls, Demonic souls, and Vampiric souls. There were many others, too, but those were the only ones that she could recognize. They were all evil in nature, and she could tell nothing pure had resided in any of them.
Even hell rejected them. Chills ran through her again as those words occurred to her.
Without saying a word, Death placed the long, jagged tips of his fingers against his chest. The moment he did, tiny orbs of light held in his chest became visible. They were cocooned inside his chest and carefully tucked under the dark cloak.
Some of the orbs were light in color—almost white. Others were dark and sinister. Even as tainted as some of the spirits were, they were nothing compared to those in Death wore as trophies. Those collected and kept inside his chest were human souls, possibly those collected that day alone and carried for transport.
Unable to help herself, she stared as an area deep inside of him seemed to glow brighter than the rest. He slowly reached inside to pull it free from his chest. He extended his hand out to Kailah, and she froze. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he wanted from her or what he wanted her to do with the soul that had been freed.
He narrowed his eyes, and another chill crept over her. The Reaper refused to speak, but she knew he wanted her to take the soul. She looked from what represented his eyes down to the white orb, slowly reaching for it. As she held it in her hand, she saw the familiar face of a woman as it flashed through her mind. It was the owner of the lost soul.
She was also a patient—the patient being treated for infection following surgery.
Deep guttural sounds clawed through him before he could actually form words. “Still… time.” He pointed back to the clock on the wall, the hands still frozen in time.
With the same explosion of energy he’d used to teleport directly in front of her, he disappeared, and the clock on the wall began to move again. Looking down, Kailah watched as the soul slowly absorbed into her hand, and the surrounding skin began to glow with a light blue hue.
While she had no idea what the hell she was supposed to do with a human soul, she wasn’t going to sit there thinking about it when she could potentially save the woman’s life.
Kailah turned and rushed out of the kitchenette and ran towards the patient’s room. She ran toward Calli at the nurse’s station, who was clearly ignoring the patient’s light.
“Hey, get that light, would you Kerri?” Calli asked without looking up. She stuffed a grape into her mouth and continued to ignore Kailah.
Kailah was so livid that she didn’t bother dignifying the lazy bitch with a response to her stupidity. Instead, she just barked orders. “Get the fuck up off your ass! I need help!”
“Excuse me?” Calli looked up, obviously pissed off with the way Kailah had spoken to her. “What did you just say?”
Kailah took off her badge and threw it at the LPN, hitting her in the chest. Calli picked it up, and her eyes widened when she noted the RN/BSN after her name. Kailah smiled and turned to leave the station. “You’re losing your fucking license is what I just said.”
Without wasting another moment of time, Kailah ran into the patient’s room. She was slightly blue and completely still. She quickly made her way over to the bedside and dropped it down flat before beginning CPR.
“Calli!” Kailah called, vowing she’d throat punch her if she didn’t get in there soon.
The LPN ran in and saw what was happening, her hands covering her mouth as she froze. Something inside Kailah told her right then that she could handle the situation alone and would be better if she did. That was reinforced as she saw the nurse with more years of experience than Kailah standing there like someone shot her cat.
“Go find a doc if you’re just gonna stand there!” Kailah snapped. Every nurse knew exactly what to do in code situations, and Calli continued to prove she had no interest in doing her real job. But when she left, Kailah felt glad that she could focus on whatever it was Death wanted her to do.
Kailah continued chest compressions and quickly realized the patient was on a heart monitor. That just pissed her off more. Calli hadn’t told her that in report and it hadn’t been charted, which meant the LPN had spoken to a doc at one point or another and got orders for it but never charted it. Furthermore, she hadn’t watched a single monitor.
Had Kailah known, she would have made Calli help the tech. Kailah’s oversight might have cost her patient her life.
The moment she thought about her terrible decisions, she was reminded of what her future-self had told her. She would make some stupid mistakes, but they would land her exactly where she needed to be.
“Let’s just hope that’s with you alive,” she said quietly between compressions.
A few moments passed, and Kailah still wasn’t getting anything in return from the patient. “Come on! You’re not supposed to die on me!”
Over and over, Kailah checked for a pulse and breathing, but nothing was taking. She couldn’t understand why Death would give her the opportunity to save someone who she was incapable of saving. The glow in her hand began to disappear, and she became even more worried.
She continued CPR, but her body was wearing out. Tears began to fill her eyes as she became more and more exhausted and worried she might fail. With every second that passed, she felt the hopelessness growing, and it overwhelmed her. She was supposed to save that woman, and she didn’t have the power to do it. She wasn’t strong enough.
“Please—don’t die,” she said through chest compressions. Flashes of the woman’s life began to flow through her mind, and it made the desperation worse. “You’re only—thirty—years old—and ha
ve twin—five-year-old boys.” She paused when her arms started to give out and gave her two breaths before starting again. “They need you. Help me—help you.”
Kailah felt that deathly chill again, and she turned her head to see Death standing at the foot of her patient’s bed. He shook his head, and Kailah wondered if he was disappointed in her or if he knew this would happen. His long fingers began to snake around the patient’s ankle as he collected her soul once more.
“No! Don’t you fucking touch her, you bastard! You gave me the chance to save her. Now, let me do it!”
Rage coursed through Kailah at the sight of him toying with the woman’s life like it was something to do for fun. Though he had no face to display any kind of emotion, it didn’t matter. He was a creature of neutrality, and as such, he couldn’t emote well.
Even without a show of emotion, she knew he was arrogant, and that he didn’t have the least bit of faith in her. She found herself wondering if he’d only started that little project because he wanted to watch her fail and see what she did as a result.
As the anger flowed through her, so did a familiar heat. Kailah felt like her chest was about to explode as energy began flowing down her arms and into her hands. Is this what spiritual power feels like? Can I pull her back from Death?
Kailah left one hand on her patient’s chest and instinctively lifted the other to her patient’s forehead. She closed her eyes and focused everything she had into the energy swirling around in her body. Her instincts hadn’t led her terribly wrong yet, so she gave them the benefit of the doubt.
A sharp intake of air pulled Kailah from her thoughts, and she looked down at the woman lying in the bed. Her eyes were wide open as she stared at Kailah. Her breathing was heavy, and Kailah could feel the steady beat of the patient’s heart under her hand. Kailah turned and saw Death slowly bow his head before disappearing again. Rapid footsteps echoed down the hall as the doctor and Calli made their way toward the room.
“Are you an angel?” the patient asked.
That caught Kailah’s attention. She looked down to see a look of wonder on the patient’s face. Kailah smiled. “No. I’m no angel.” She stroked the woman’s hair softly, trying to calm her. She could still feel just how afraid her patient was—not that Kailah was doing much better.
“You’re something. You protected me. You pulled me from the darkness and cradled me against you while I was lost and couldn’t find my way. And your eyes…”
“What about them?” Kailah asked with curiosity.
“They’re the most beautiful, crystal-clear blue I’ve ever seen. When I first woke up, they were glowing. Your entire body was. I still believe you’re an angel.”
“How is she?” Kailah heard a stern voice say as she was all but knocked out of the way. It was Doctor Jacobs, her surgeon of all people.
“She saved me,” the woman said. “She’s an angel.”
“Hey, Kelcey.” Calli grabbed Kailah’s arm and pulled her back beside her. She’d been crying. Kailah almost felt bad for her. Almost.
After everything that just happened, Kailah finally hit her breaking point.
“Did you work in healthcare before you became a nurse? Or did you just go straight through nursing school?” Kailah’s voice was a little harder than she meant for it to be, but she needed to make a point. At that moment, she really didn’t care what the other nurse thought of her. She needed to get a few things off her chest.
Calli shook her head. “I was never an aide. I went straight through nursing school. Being a CNA is what you do when you can’t hack it at the real thing.”
Kailah’s brows furrowed, and her nostrils flared. “Actually—being a CNA is what you do to prepare yourself for being a nurse. Loads of amazing nurses go straight through school and were never aides. You, my dear, are not one of them. I was a CNA and tech here while I went for my bachelor’s degree in nursing. I’m not far from graduating with my master’s and a three-point-nine GPA. Clearly, I didn’t have a problem doing both.”
“You have no right—” she started, but Kailah cut her off with a raised hand.
“Oh, no. No, sweetheart. You have no right. You listen to me and listen well. I am not a tech, but I will fight for them every damn time. You have no business having a license, and I will report absolutely every awful thing you’ve done because your negligence in reporting and charting caused both of us to risk that patient’s life.
“Your aides, or techs, or assistants, or whatever the hell you want to call them are your spine. You cannot move without them. They are your eyes and ears, and you are supposed to be their brain and hands when they can’t physically, skillfully, or legally do something that needs to be done. You are absolutely no better than anyone else because you have a degree.
“In fact, I saved three lives in nursing school alone catching mistakes in other hospitals from negligent nurses like you who chose to believe a piece of paper made them a genius and lacking one made someone a moron. Judging from how you reacted to what happened here today, I’m betting you’ve nearly killed more than a few from lack of attention.
“From now on, learn who you’re working with. Learn their credentials, and for fuck’s sake, learn their fucking names. Show them some damn respect. And for love of all things holy, woman… If someone comes running out of a room yelling that they need help, then you need to drop whatever it is you’re doing—especially if it’s a game on your stupid phone—and help first and ask questions later. Don’t be a lazy ass.”
Calli’s mouth and eyes were wide. It was obvious she’d never been spoken to like that before. Good, Kailah thought. She wanted her to know just how badly she screwed up.
Kailah started to walk back over to the patient’s bed, but stopped and looked back at Calli. “One more thing. My name is Kailah. Not Kerri. Not CNA. Not girl. Not hey you. Kailah. Kailah. Kailah! I learned and memorized your name just walking past you when I met you years ago. You go out of your way to make yourself feel superior, but I guess that ends today, doesn’t it?”
“My, that escalated deliciously,” Kailah heard a feminine voice say.
Her jaw fell open. Standing in the door was Wendy Cain, the beautiful Immortal woman with white-golden blonde hair that almost glowed. She’d saved Kailah and Amanda, and she had a feeling the Immortal was there to help again.
“Can I help you?” Doctor Jacobs asked.
“Not at all,” Wendy said with a cocky smile.
Sydney rounded the corner. Kailah hadn’t even felt the Vampire approaching, and she wondered if that might have been because she’d just used so much energy to save her patient.
“Hello, I’m Doctor Sydney Austin,” she said as she stepped through the door. “And I’m going to need everyone’s attention.”
She gave a bright smile, and the energy in the room changed, causing Kailah to start feeling a little queasy. Ah, there it is, she thought.
“Come, Kailah,” Wendy said. “You don’t want to be here for this.”
Kailah’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?” She looked around and saw that the expression on Calli’s face went slack. Doctor Jacobs and the patient weren’t any better. “What the—”
“Compulsion. Trust me, you don’t want to be here for this. It’ll make you sick,” Wendy said.
“Nice to see you again, Kailah,” Sydney said with a wink.
Kailah wasn’t sure if she wanted to smile and greet her or hit her for being part of what caused of all this mess. She assumed the random anger was due to her Immortal powers reacting to the flare of her energy swelling in the room.
“Why is she compelling everyone?” Kailah asked. “No one saw anything.”
“Well, for a few reasons. That patient is perfectly sane, and when she tells everyone an angel saved her, people are going to start looking at her funny. You don’t want that. She’ll be looked at as mentally unstable, or people will believe her, and your position here at the hospital might get a little awkward. Two: that was a massive amount
of energy you just used, and barrier or not, Khia had to have seen it. So, Sydney here is going to make sure everyone forgets about the angel that saved this woman and make sure that you’re cleared to leave work early today without getting fired.”
“But I was floated here because they were short,” Kailah said, not that she minded getting away from Calli. “Plus, I wasn’t joking. That nurse needs reported. She will end up killing someone from negligence.”
Sydney smiled. “I’ll take care of everything, Kay, even that. I checked the schedule, and I got you covered. I was here long enough to learn how to do that. You should go now, so I can finish up here.”
Kailah didn’t like it, but she agreed. They probably knew what was best, and it was becoming blatantly clear long shifts at work were impossible. Any fraction of being normal was impossible.
“Where are we headed?” Kailah asked once they were outside.
“Back to Sayen.”
Oh, no, Kailah thought.
She hadn’t planned on facing Aeric again for at least another eight or nine hours. A quick memory of the previous night’s episode flashed through her mind at the thought of his name. Facing Aeric isn’t as bad as facing down Death himself. She remembered how he’d reacted when he’d seen her vision, and it made her face scrunch up.
“Hmm. Maybe it is just as bad,” she said.
“What dear?” Wendy asked.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all.”
Chapter Eight
While walking up to La Casa Dei Vampiri, Wendy couldn’t stop herself from offering her opinion on a situation Kailah wasn’t too sure about. On the way back to Louisville, she’d received a rather unexpected phone call. Sam, the male nurse who works in the ER, called to ask her something even more unexpected.
He’d invited her to go on a date with him—something Kailah had wanted for quite a while. Regardless of how long she’d wanted it, she knew it couldn’t happen. It would put him in danger, and she just couldn’t risk it.
“You can’t say no. He’s so cute and you like him. I saw that guy down by the ER when I walked into the hospital. You should go out with him!” the Immortal argued with far too much excitement.
