Witch Way Did He Go?

by Dakota Cassidy

  I cringed saying those words. I hated that a death would be involved, no matter how you sliced it, but that was the simple truth of the matter, and I was going to trust Win would pick the right body to do something this outlandish.

  “Okey-doke. I go look.”

  “Hey, Arkady? Find out where the heck we are, too, would you? We’re not in Eb Falls, for sure.”

  “Dah. You stay here with fluffybutt. Arkady be right back.”

  I sat down on the toilet and rested my shaking legs. My heart steadily beating a harsh pitter-pat. We were close. I knew we were close. That gut feeling sat stubbornly in the pit of my stomach.

  “You okay, Boss?”

  Looking down at my pajamas, the spatter of coffee across the front, the dirty cuffs at my ankles, I groaned. “I’m a little bit of a wreck. I look like I just rolled out of a night spent in a Dumpster after a drunken bender.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” he quipped in a light tone, landing on my head to fuss with my hair. “So tell me your fears, Boss. I know you have ’em, because I do, too.”

  “What if Win doesn’t remember us, Bel? Have we really talked about the repercussions? How do you feel about that?”

  He stopped moving and hopped to my shoulder. “Here’s what happens. If he stuck to his body-surfing code, the host body will have no one. No one to turn to, and he’ll be confused and afraid. He’ll need someone. We’re his someone, Stevie. We’ll always be his someone. He’s family—forever. So we do what we do. We take his broke-back butt home, fix him up, and make him love us all over again whether he likes it or not.”

  My heart swelled with Bel’s loyalty, with his dedication to me—to Win.

  I held out my hand for Bel to jump into my palm and brought his nose to my lips, dropping a kiss on his snout. “I love you, Belfry. You’re the best friend any witch or otherwise could have.”

  “Malutka?”

  I held my breath and closed my eyes. “Did you find him?”

  There was a very long pause, an uncomfortable, nerve-wracking pause, and then he said, “Yes. I think I find Zero.”

  “He’s in his brother’s body? In Balthazar’s?” I murmured in wonder. “Balthazar’s dying?”

  Yet, that explained the crazy message on my bathroom mirror. Look 4 bath. That had to mean “look for Balthazar,” and somehow the message had become twisted…but that also meant the message had to have been from Win.

  Excitement and fear danced together in a tangle of emotions as I fought to keep focused. Getting to Win was priority one, before any of the other worries could be attacked.

  Arkady sounded shaken up when he spoke. The slight tremor to his voice, one he’d never admit, was unmistakable. “Dah, Stevie. I see Balthazar’s name on chart. He is in coma on life support here at Chicago General.”

  “Were in Chicago?” I breathed in. “Deep-dish pizza. Of course!”

  “That Winterbutt. So clever,” Bel praised.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. “And why is he here? Did you see?”

  “He come to hospital with fractured skull. He look so much like Win, Stevie. It shock Arkady speechless. They are exactly the same. His room is right down hall. You can see for yourself.”

  Bel whistled his approval. “Holy Winterbutt! He did it—yippee! I knew he could do it!”

  Now I began to shake, an uncontrollable, violent shake that spread over my body like wildfire. Win… Win might already be here. Just feet away. I’d be able to touch him, see him instead of only imagining him.

  But, whoa Nellie. There was a caveat to this mess. “How do we know he’s actually in Balthazar’s body?”

  “Booo for technicalities,” Belfry said.

  “You know I’m right, Bel. So, Win’s twin brother is in a room, in a coma on life support, with a fractured skull. How do we know he made it into Balthazar’s body? He’d had to have died and been brought back for Win to slip in. Maybe the host body didn’t die yet, and Win’s hovering on some plane, waiting for his chance to get into his brother’s body. Maybe that’s still Balthazar in there.”

  “Ah, but it would account for long silence since almost two days, malutka. Maybe he jump into body, and that is why he is so quiet.” Then he laughed, a hearty, cheerful rumble. “My Zero! I think he do it! Hurrah for Zero!”

  Stuffing my knuckle in my mouth, I winced. “I hate to be the pin in your bromance bubble, Arkady, but we need to know for sure if he’s in there. If he’s in a coma, there’s no way to know. He can’t tell us because, well, he’s in a coma.”

  “There sort of is,” Bel offered, hopping off me and back onto the sink. “We could just ask the nurses if Balthazar coded at any point, right? If he coded, Win probably took the opportunity to jump in when it happened.”

  “Oh, good point, Bel!” I almost reached for the door handle, but my appearance stopped me. “Well, we could ask—if I didn’t look like I’ve just come back from an all-nighter. And besides that, they’re not going to tell me anyway. I’m not family, and if he’s been here in a coma for any length of time, they know he doesn’t have any. Those were Win’s rules of engagement, right? No ties to anyone? Balthazar was a foster kid and a vagabond—a mean one at that. Last I knew, he was working in a cell phone store. There are probably very few people who’ve visited him, if any at all. So how do we find out?”

  “You could pretend to be a long-lost relative, maybe a girlfriend? It’s not like you don’t know how to pretend, Stevie. You do it all the time when we investigate a crime.”

  I held out my dirty pajama shirt. “Looking like this? What I need is a disguise.”

  But Baba had teleported us here. I had no money, no clothes, no phone. I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but we were virtually stranded.

  “Malutka! Listen to Arkady. I have big-big idea…”

  Adjusting my surgical mask as I approached the ICU unit’s desk, I was grateful it hid a multitude of the sins of the past few days. I looked like you-know-what, and I knew it, but my red, swollen eyes lent to the tired temp-nurse role I was about to play.

  Arkady’s suggestion to dress up as a surgical nurse was brilliant. Finding scrubs, a mask and a cart had been the easiest parts of this—especially so late at night. The rest was going to be tricky at best if I got caught.

  I wasn’t exactly winning awards for my acting, but as I came closer to the ICU desk, with two nurses attending, I reminded myself this one was for Win.

  I purposely didn’t look into the window of the room Win was in, keeping my face averted to the glass, or I felt certain I’d falter. I needed to keep it together, and seeing him for the first time, live and in person, wasn’t meant to be done without preparation.

  Bel hid in the pocket of my hoodie, which I’d turned inside out and rewrapped around my waist to keep him close.

  “Go get ’em, tiger,” he whispered, just seconds before I stopped short at Win’s room, praying I could get in there without being seen.

  Thankfully, his room was positioned far enough away from the desk that, if the nurses turned their back for just a second, I could slip in unnoticed.

  We’d decided to see if I could read Balthazar’s chart before we went chatting up nurses and I’d be forced to play a more vocal part. I tend to ramble when I’m lying, and I know as much about medical procedures as your average Grey’s Anatomy watcher. I couldn’t risk being caught.

  “Stevie! Go now, popsicle!” Arkady whispered to me, and I paid heed, slipping inside the room and letting the door close with a hush.

  He’d promised to give me the outline of the room so I wouldn’t be tempted to peek at Win as a just in case a nurse showed up and I had to hide.

  Scrunching my eyes shut, I whispered upward, “Gimme the lay of the land, Arkady so I won’t crash into anything if I have to make a break for a hiding place.”

  “Two beds. Zero to the left, old man to right. Both on life support. Window in middle of room. Chair in right corner. Two nightstands. One on right of old
man’s bed, one on left for Zero. Many, many machines.”

  As I opened my eyes, I assessed and familiarized myself with the room only in my direct line of vision, eerily lit with red and green lights from the heart and vitals monitors.

  You didn’t have to be a witch to know death waited here. I felt it wrap around me, oppressive and heavy, as I listened to the alternate beeps and tweets sounding off their readings.

  I swallowed hard and clenched my hands around the handle of the cart, forcing myself to keep my eyes glued to anything but the body in the bed to my left.

  “Belfry, close the curtains. We can’t attract attention.”

  Bel wiggled out of my pocket and zipped upward, moving out of my line of vision, but I heard as he pulled the curtain to the window shut.

  Feeling a smidge safer we wouldn’t be spotted, I asked. “What if I just take a peek? Just a little one.”

  “Nyet!” Arkady barked the prickly order. “Do not look at Zero, malutka,” Arkady warned. “I must insist you do not lose head at the sight of him. You are too emotionally charged up to resist pausing to really see him for first time. Every second counts if you do not wish to be caught. Read chart first. It is at end of bed. Stay focused, sweet one.”

  Arkady was right. I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t get caught up in the moment and forget all about why I was here because I was enamored with actually being able to see him. Goodness knows, my emotions had gotten the better of me plenty during this mess.

  Keeping my eyes down, I paid particular attention to the white knit blanket and the edge of the bed. Locating the chart, I grabbed it up and flipped it open, forcing my crazy curiosity and excitement to sit and stay—if only for a few minutes more.

  “Are you kidding me?” I hissed as my eyes scanned a series of scribbly words and half sentences. “Who could read this? It’s like Greek. I can’t tell if he’s in a coma or he’s had breast implants.”

  “Hold up chart, malutka. Let Arkady see.”

  I did as I was told, all the while fighting the impulse to look at Win. In fact, I turned my back to his bed and focused my gaze on the man across from him.

  An elderly gentleman with snowy-white hair, a frail frame, and a million machines hooked up to his body. The drip, drip, drip of the IV mesmerized me, the pumping up and down of his chest, the long tubes wheezing in his throat.

  As Arkady read Balthazar’s chart, my heart hurt for whoever he was, clearly critical, and incredibly frail.

  “Sweet cabbage, malutka. Arkady cannot read, either, and I know how to read many languages. Is mess,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “So now what?” I asked, my hands dropping to my sides while I used every ounce of will I had to keep from turning around. “Do I go play nurse? Do you think I can pull it off?”

  But I didn’t have to worry about playing anything…

  “Awww, hey…Winterbottom, is it? Super-spy extraordinaire? Look who came to our body-surfing party? It’s your ladylove. Stevie! It’s wonderful to see you,” a playful voice growled from the door.

  My heart began to pump so hard, my ears hurt from the pound and my hands went icy cold. I looked up and to the door at my right to find a short, balding man in a lab coat slipping inside the room.

  So, here’s the thing. I pretty much knew who it was, but I think it goes without saying, in times of pure terror, we do stupid stuff. We go into the basement when everyone is screaming for us to go the other way. We take the flight we dreamt had crashed the night before we boarded.

  We ask lame questions like the one I asked when I already knew the answer. “Who are you?”

  “That really is stupid questions, don’t you think?” he asked as he began to disrobe, throwing his lab coat on the floor at the foot of Win’s bed.

  Okay, I’d give him that. It was stupid.

  Oh, and the “him” in the equation being Adam Westfield. Using, according to the nametag, a Dr. Marrakesh’s body.

  My pulse thrashed in my ears like a whale out of water, but I reminded myself that he was in a human body, something he appeared to possess with great ease. I wondered vaguely if that had something to do with him being a warlock.

  The question was, could he use his magic while in this particular human body? I couldn’t remember if he’d used magic when he’d possessed poor Edmund, the teen who’d worked for our local caterer, Petula. I was so drunk from lack of sleep, I couldn’t remember since the last time we’d run into each other. But my hope was, at the very least, his magic was dulled.

  So I took a chance and postured, maybe foolishly, but I did it anyway by walking right up to him and jamming my face in front of his. Show no fear.

  Before crossing my arms over my chest, I yanked the surgical mask off and narrowed my gaze. “I think the question is, what are you doing here, Adam?”

  He cocked his shiny head and grinned—and it was when he smiled from ear to ear, when his round face and moon-shaped cheeks lifted, that he epitomized evil.

  Adam’s hatred for me, his deep-seated disgust, was written all over his face as he gazed into my eyes.

  “That body right behind you? You know the one, don’t you, Stevie? The one that belongs to Win’s brother?”

  Alarm bells rang in my head, and my pulse roared in my ears and my mouth went dry. “What about him?”

  Again, another dumb question. I have no defense for it other than it’s some kind of subconscious stall tactic on my part that I can’t seem to control.

  Adam moved closer to me. His host body, though small, was well muscled, and he cracked his knuckles, staring at me for an intense moment. “It’s going to be mine, of course.”

  And then he snapped his fingers—and everything, the movement outside the window of the room, the flutter of the curtains from the heating register…everything but the machines froze.

  Okay, so that was a negatory on dulled magic.

  Ten-four, good buddy.

  Chapter 13

  “Malutka, look out!” were the words I heard screaming in my ears directly after Adam shot off a freezing spell and declared Balthazar’s body his own.

  At first I didn’t understand the command from Arkady—until I caught Adam’s right hook just under the left side of my chin. He knocked me so hard, with such incredible force, I flew backward and landed on my butt with a crack of bone, crashing into the small chair to the right of the windows.

  “No, malutka, no! Do not let him get to Zero! Protect Win’s body!” Arkady bellowed, just as I was trying to scramble from the floor.

  Now, if you’re wondering what’s going on here, let me just give you a brief overview. Balthazar wasn’t officially dead yet, and we still had no idea whether he coded, but I’d bet my eyeteeth Adam was going to make sure he died by pulling the plug on him and jumping into his body at the precise moment of death, before Win could.

  Which meant, Win wasn’t here yet, and I had no idea where he was.

  Which meant I was on my own if I wanted to save this body for Win.

  Which I think is the thing I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m not sure.

  What I did know I was spot-on about was this—if Win tried to get into the body with Adam’s healthy, albeit twisted soul already in there, Win’s soul was doomed.

  So I did what Arkady said and bolted upward from the floor so fast and with such precision, I found myself wishing Win had seen me in action. But my precision didn’t last for long, because I was also dead tired and, as a result, dizzy.

  The sterile room swam before me, forcing me to steady myself by stretching my hands forward. Still, I only wobbled for a second before I used my thighs and launched myself at Adam’s orthopedic-clad feet, sliding across the slick floor on my stomach and gripping his ankle just before he could get his hands on one of the many plugs attached to Win.

  With a sharp groan, I gave his ankle the yank of a lifetime, forcing him to fall backward and crash to the ground.

  “Good job, malutka! Bravo! Now get up and clobber him! You m
ust keep him from Zero at all costs! Get up and give him one in the kisser!”

  I did as I was told, the same way I always do, my eyes frantically searching the room for something to use to knock Adam out.

  As he skittered across the floor toward the underside of the elderly man’s bed, I heard his harsh breathing match my own.

  Somewhere in this melee, Belfry appeared and began to pluck at Adam’s host body, screeching and swatting at his head and face with his wings. Blood dripped down Adam’s face into his eyes, making him howl in anger as I grabbed the first thing I could find to whack him over the head while he was still vulnerable on the ground.

  Okay, it happened to be a bedpan, but beggars and choosers, right? It was heavy and hard and that was all I needed.

  As Bel attacked and Arkady instructed him about weak points on the body, the cords from the elderly gentleman’s monitors catching on the soles of Adam’s shoes, I lifted my hands high, the bedpan poised and ready to take his head off, when all manner of lights and screeching warning sounds went off.

  I’m not sure where my head was at, but I was so startled, I fumbled that stupid bedpan like a football player fumbles the ball. It fell to the ground and rattled, rocking back and forth in a loud clatter.

  That gave Adam the opportunity he needed to rise to his feet, using one of his hands to swipe at Belfry, successfully grabbing him and holding him up high in the air as though he were the prize sacrifice in some ritual.

  “Get off me, you mongrel!” he howled, his borrowed face red and lathered with sweat.

  “Belfry!” I screamed in fear, as he lobbed my little familiar across the room at the wall with a velocity so forceful, I heard the whistle of the wind it created.

  I heard Bel squeal, heard the thud of his small body against the wall, watched in horror as he slid down that wall and fell to the ground…

  And I became enraged.

  As Adam moved closer to Win’s bed, he snapped his fingers once more, quieting the machines going off and the ruckus of sound coming from the machinery, his gaze dead as he stared at me.