by Rob Cornell
ENRAGED
Unturned: Book Four
Rob Cornell
Table of Contents
Title Page
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Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Books by Rob Cornell
About the Author
Copyright
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This one is for editor extraordinaire, Helene Ivie. Thank you for helping me make my stories the best they can be.
Chapter One
Three months after Sly’s Smoke Shop got trashed by a group of rioting vampires, the Detroit Ministry finally approved Sly’s claim for compensation due to a paranormal event. Believe it or not, three months was pretty good, especially since there had been a number of similar claims logged around the same time. Sly’s place wasn’t the only one the vampires wrecked.
Then there were those places owned by average citizens who didn’t have access to Ministry services because they didn’t even know the Ministry existed. The gas station across the street from the shop had blown up thanks to a good soaking by their primary merchandise. Also the vampires’ doing.
So, while the gas station remained a crumbled mess, Sly’s place was finally getting the facelift it needed, and I had the pleasure of taking part.
I stood on the top step of an aluminum ladder that wobbled a bit too much for my comfort. But I needed to reach high enough to touch up the paint on the wall where it met the ceiling. Sly had opted for a shade of sky blue that gave the room a bright and airy feel. Despite the light flurry outside, a clear stream of sunlight poured through the newly replaced plate-glass window that stretched the length of the shop.
I wasn’t a big fan of winter, but January had turned out to be pretty mild by Michigan standards. We’d only had more than a couple inches of snow fall in a single day once so far, and that had melted into the city’s gutters and drains after an almost spring-like week mid-month. More sunlight than usual, less snow, and not too many days below freezing. I could deal with that.
Of course, February was a week away, and that month could rain down winter hell. As the last month before spring, February seemed to like giving you a good blizzardy kick in the ass on its way out.
I finished my touch-up for as far as I could reach and started down the ladder, paint can in one hand, brush in the other. The ladder leaned a little too far to the left, and I could feel gravity about to dump my ass.
With a quick draw on my magical energy, I commanded the air to push the ladder right. There’d been a time when conjuring a breeze like that would throw me in the opposite direction, maybe even send me across the room. I had started working hard at using a little more finesse in my magic. So this time, the ladder tipped just far enough to keep it steady while I scurried the rest of the way down.
I turned toward Sly, who was installing rubber molding along the floor. He was crouched on his knees and bent forward. A glue gun lay on one side of him, a stack of molding strips on the other.
“This ladder sucks, you know.”
He didn’t respond. I realized he wasn’t working either. Just bent over and still, as if he’d fallen asleep with his face on the hard, bare floor—we hadn’t laid down any carpet yet.
“Sly?”
Nothing.
I set my paint can and brush on the floor, wiped my sweaty hands on my paint spattered jeans, and hurried over to him. I crouched at his side and peered down to find his cheek against the floor and his eyes closed. His gray ponytail hung down along his neck like a short, loose scarf. When he exhaled, the ends of his hair fluttered, and each breath sounded gravelly and congested.
But at least he was still breathing.
I rested a hand on his arched back. When he released a breath, I could feel the faint vibrations of fluid in his lungs.
This was so weird. He hadn’t shown any signs of being sick when we had started work that morning. Here it was noon, and it was like he’d been hit by a bad case of avian flu in the span of a few hours.
I gently nudged him. “Sly,” I said softly. Then, more loudly, “Sly? Wake up, man.”
His eyes opened but were clouded with sleepiness. He blinked a few times, then looked up at me. “I feel like shit, brother.”
“You look it.” And he did. Face washed out, skin almost gray enough to camouflage the gray stubble of his goatee. I noticed his breath smelled funny, too. Like over ripe peaches. “No offense.”
“A ton taken.”
He looked horrible, but his sense of humor remained intact. A good sign.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
Sly planted his hands against the floor and pushed himself up to a kneeling position. He swooned for a second. I grabbed his arm to help steady him. He worked his mouth as if he had a bad taste on his tongue. “Breakfast feels like it might come back up.”
“That’s an over-share.”
He rubbed one temple. “Sorry. I’m all achy and woozy. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
“It looks like you caught a bad bug. You want me to drive you home?”
He looked down at his unfinished work. He’d only started installing the molding forty minutes ago, so he only had half of one wall done. He groaned. “I’m never going to get this place back open.”
“Tell you what. I’ll drop you home, then swing back and finish this up for you.”
“I can’t ask…” He scrunched up his face and hissed between his clenched teeth. “Forget it. Get me the hell home.”
“Can do.”
Chapter Two
Sly’s house sat in a row of similar looking suburban ranches that lined on
e edge of the Red Run Golf Club in Royal Oak. He had a view of a sand trap not far beyond his family room’s picture window. It was like beach front property, only without the ocean, and an occasional golf ball through the window.
I half-dragged him inside, and we stumbled like a couple of drunks down the hall into his bedroom. He flopped onto his mattress and curled up into a ball. A couple seconds later he was snoring.
I laughed to myself and wandered out to his kitchen. Today’s strange smell (his kitchen always smelled weird because he did some alchemical experimentation there) had a hint of red pepper with a dash of bubble gum. I had smelled a lot worse in there.
Before I drove back to the shop to install some rubber molding (woo-hoo, lucky me), I gave my mom a call. She was going through one of her funks, and I wanted to check up on her. The funks came and went, which said something of her strength. She had learned she killed her husband a few months ago. Didn’t matter that she had had a good reason, or that she was meant to fly off this mortal coil with him. You don’t bounce back from that kind of thing very easily. But Mom had plenty of good days mixed among the bad, especially with her new neighbor and best friend, Gladys, a white witch with a massive collection of old spell books Mom loved to pore over. I think, without Gladys, Mom’s funks would have been more permanent.
She answered the phone with fake cheer. It sounded convincing, but I knew better.
“Just seeing how you’re doing,” I said.
“I’m fine.” The cheer in her voice dropped in an instant, leaving her tone flat and annoyed.
“Have you eaten anything today?”
“You had breakfast with me, Sebastian.”
“I had breakfast. You stirred your Cheerios until they turned to mush.”
“I had a bite.”
“Even if that were true, you need more than that.”
She sighed with a little growl to it. “I had a piece of cheese and a couple slices of ham. Satisfied?”
I looked up at Sly’s cuckoo clock – which did not cuckoo. He had removed the bird and noise mechanism from because it annoyed him. I don’t know why he didn’t just get a new clock.
It was after one in the afternoon. My stomach was growling, and a bit of cheese and lunch meat wouldn’t cut it. It wouldn’t cut it for her either. “That’s all you’ve had today?”
“Please stop pestering me.”
I heard a ragged, ugly coughing come from Sly’s room. I cringed at the sound. “I’d take you out to lunch, but Sly’s got some kind of flu, and I think I should stick with him. Will you please make yourself an actual sandwich, or heat up one of those pot pies in the freezer?”
She grunted, which might have been a yes.
Sly’s coughs grew louder, more frequent, and had a bark to them that made my own chest hurt just by hearing it. I would have to trust Mom to take care of herself. I couldn’t take care of both her and Sly at the same time.
I got an abrupt goodbye out of her, then I went down the hall back to Sly’s room.
I found him on the floor.
His eyes were closed as if he were still asleep, his knees brought up toward his chest, and he coughed and coughed and coughed again, each time spritzing the light green carpeting with blood.
“Aw, shit.”
I stood there, frozen a moment with indecision. What to do? How to help? Should I call an ambulance? Or maybe a magical healer? I knew Sly had a healer he used on occasion. She had helped me once, after I got myself messed up fighting one of Detroit’s best demon hunters at the abandoned Pontiac Silverdome of all places.
I couldn’t remember the healer’s name, though. I might have never heard it, at least not while conscious. So even if Sly had her number in his phone, unless he labeled it Magical Healer Woman, I wouldn’t know which number to call. Mom probably knew someone. But, unlike hospitals, healers didn’t have emergency vehicles with sirens that parted traffic for them. I didn’t have time to find a healer and get them to Sly’s.
So, that made my decision for me.
I dialed 911, gave the operator a quick rundown of the situation. He asked if Sly had lost consciousness with a certain tone that suggested he wouldn’t send anyone otherwise. Could you cough your lungs out while unconscious?
“Sure,” I told the guy. Why not? When the paramedics show up and it turned out Sly was conscious, were they going to bitch about it? Let them.
He had me stay on the line until the ambulance arrived. It only took them a decade.
During the wait, I knelt beside him, rubbing his back, watching him cough blood, and feeling utterly helpless the whole time. I tried to think of some way to use my magic to at least ease the coughing. I could fling fire, control air, manipulate water, and occasionally do small spells to find things or see through another’s eyes. I could even make a small pile of rocks get up and dance. None of that would help.
I had to leave things to the paramedics when they finally showed up. They asked Sly questions he couldn’t answer because he couldn’t stop coughing. What’s your name? Did you ingest anything recently? Have you taken any drugs?
Part of their routine, I guess. It sounded so stupid to me. A waste of time. But they never stopped moving. While it took a decade for them to arrive, it took seconds for them to get Sly on a gurney, roll him out of the house, and tuck him away in the back of the ambulance.
I rode with him, holding his hand. He had coughed up so much blood, it was smeared across his lips.
I couldn’t help but think of vampires.
Chapter Three
Hospital waiting rooms. Didn’t matter how nice they were, they sucked and always would until the end of time. But Royal Oak General Hospital had a fairly cozy one, all things considered, including a chair that could convert to a small cot if you kicked up the foot rest and leaned the back down. I hoped I wouldn’t be staying long enough to test its comfort.
The air had a dry taste and a starchy smell. It left my mouth pasty. I couldn’t stand the feel of my own skin because of how much the arid heat dried me out.
Three other people shared the room with me. A man, woman, and a teen girl, who all resembled each other so much, they could never deny their relation. The woman and the girl had glassy eyes and furtive gazes. The man sat with stiff back, but a slack expression, gaze never so much as twitching. I didn’t know their story, and didn’t want to. I knew whatever was going on with them, that sick feeling of helplessness probably sat in each one of their bellies.
The woman caught me staring. Instead of scowling at my rudeness, she offered the saddest smile in world history, and the sickness in my own belly doubled.
Last I had seen of Sly, he had nearly quit breathing. They had whisked him away, leaving a nurse behind to tell me how to find the waiting room and promise they would keep me apprised of Sly’s condition.
I felt my phone buzz against my leg in my pocket. When I checked the number (it was Mom), I also saw the time. Somehow two hours had passed since I sat down in the waiting room. What the hell were they doing to him for so long? He had a bad flu. Right? What else could it be?
I shouldn’t have asked myself that. The default answer came quickly to mind—cancer. It was always fucking cancer. At least for average mortals. People like me and Mom, sorcerers born with natural magic, did not develop tumors of any kind. It probably had a lot to do with that inherent magic. It certainly wasn’t anything we did consciously. After all, other magical practitioners who weren’t born with their power still could end up victims of the Big C.
Sly’s mother had died of some kind of cancer; I couldn’t remember which. Wasn’t there a genetic component that would make Sly susceptible as well?
I squeezed my eyes shut. I had to stop thinking like that. Especially since—
“Sebastian, are you there?”
I had forgotten I had the phone to my ear.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”
“How is Sylvester doing? Better I hope.”
For a moment, I suffered a sp
in of vertigo. I stared at a fixed point in front of me, a spot of something on an otherwise clean wall. The spinning passed. “Worse,” I said. One word seemed plenty enough. Too much.
“Worse? What do you mean? Sebastian, what’s going on?”
“I had to call an ambulance,” I said slowly, enunciating each word because my lips felt numb and I didn’t want to slur my speech. “I’m at the hospital now. I haven’t heard anything more since we got here two hours ago.”
I heard a soft gasp through the phone. “I’m on my way.”
“Don’t, Mom. You’ve got enough to deal with.”
“What are you talking about? I’m fine.”
“Did you end up eating lunch?”
Silence. But I could practically hear her eyes roll.
“I will pack myself a sandwich before I come.”
My stomach gurgled. I hadn’t eaten anything. I didn’t want to eat anything. I felt guilty for feeling hungry. Thankfully, my rational brain parts knew how stupid that was.
“Can you bring me one, too?”
“Of course.”
About fifteen minutes later, a short, dark-skinned doctor with thinning black hair and a soul patch on his chin came into the waiting room. He wore a white coat with a gold name badge that I couldn’t read from where I sat. His gaze went from the family, then to me.
“Mr. Light?”
“Yes.”
He came over and sat next to me, offered to shake.
I took his hand. His skin felt rubbery and moist.
“I’m Doctor Prashad,” he said. “I have good news. We have managed to stabilize Mr. Petrie.”
After that, all the stuff he said flowed into a meaningless blur. He sounded like a character out of Grey’s Anatomy (not that I ever watched the show). That mundane touchstone was the only thing that kept me from shouting at him to stop babbling and go do something. Stabilize. Stabilize. What the hell did that mean?
Then Prashad ended his spiel with the doctor cliché of all doctor clichés.
“We’ll need to do more tests.”
I nodded, then tilted my head to one side and looked at Dr. Prashad as if he had slandered my best friend. “In other words, you don’t have a fucking clue what’s wrong with him?”
