by D. R. Perry
We ate the PowerBar even though it was the oatmeal kind with raisins. It took the edge off, giving a leaden lining to our ballooning head. Still, we weren’t steady enough to stand, let alone help rescue Tony.
A stretcher rattled by, then another. An Emergency Medical Extrahuman barked orders sharper than claws. She waved a crystal pendulum over the spot at Josh’s feet and a pale, still form levitated up from the wreckage.
We’ll never forget the whisper-scrape sound Tony’s tattered trench coat made as he floated toward the stretcher; it was like branches on windows. He turned his face toward us, gaze piercing ours until his eyes cut to Olivia. One side of his face was soot-streaked and pale beneath, the other blistered and cracked with burns. One corner of his mouth turned up as the stretcher rushed past, and his eyes closed. The second stretcher held a large, still form. Its face was covered.
One of us held Olivia tighter while the other’s tears mingled with hers. The EME from the second ambulance bundled us inside, and the vehicle sped off after the first.
Chapter Thirteen
Bianca
In the back of the ambulance, Horace left my body. He poked his head into one compartment after another, finally pointing to one. I blinked at him, too fuzzy-headed still to understand what he meant, but Olivia got it. She pulled open the cabinet and handed me two cans of Ensure.
I popped the tops and drank them as the EME spied my medical alert bracelet and whipped out a glucometer to check my sugar levels. She peered at the tiny cut under my shredded mitten, then put a round band-aid on it.
“You’re going straight to triage, kid.” The Emergency Medical Extrahuman gave me the stink eye. I didn’t blame her.
“Okay.” I hadn’t been taking proper care of myself for almost a month. If I had, maybe I could have escaped the Gattos on my own, and Tony would still be okay. I sighed, knowing I couldn’t ask Horace anything about where he’d been in front of this strange EME, no matter how well-meaning she might have been.
“What’s going on in the other ambulance?” Olivia put her hands on her hips, swaying slightly as the ambulance took a corner.
“No idea.” The EME didn’t make eye contact with either of us. “You should sit. It’s safer.”
“Whatever.” Olivia tossed her head, her nearly white hair cascading over her shoulder.
“That’s information for his family to get first, anyway.” The EME tossed her head right back at Olivia. It didn’t have the same effect, what with her hair being piled on top of her head.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Olivia narrowed her eyes. “You know who he is, right?”
“That’s not important.” The EME put the glucometer away in a compartment. “We treat everyone who needs it.”
“Oh, but it is.” Olivia gave her a glare that could have withered a hundred-year-old oak tree. “Radio the PD.”
“I’ll follow procedure, thanks.” The EME rolled her eyes again and turned her back to climb into the front of the van with the driver. “I’ve got it covered.”
“Trust me, you don’t.” Olivia’s lower lip trembled and her eyes got redder than they had been before, even with all of the earlier tears. I understood that she'd gotten fixated on Tony's situation. She wasn't thinking straight.
“Olivia, drop it.” I tugged the strap of her satchel. “This isn’t the battle you’re looking for.”
She sighed, then plopped herself on the padded bench next to me. I reached into her bag, pulled out her phone, and tapped it to wake it up. Olivia snatched the phone from me and began texting.
Horace peered over her shoulder. “Tell her to tell Lynn that Ismail needs to get to the hospital ASAP. I think Mrs. Donato's prediction about him matters now, and we know Jeannie's out of the Under.”
“Thanks,” Olivia said. “Got it.” She typed faster.
“Wait.” Horace blinked at her, then me. We’d both said the same thing at the same time, even without the benefit of sharing a body.
“What?” Olivia didn’t look up, just kept tapping.
“You heard Horace.” I leaned forward to look at the perfectly human-looking eyes in her face. “Again. So it’s not just some fluke from you coming off the meds.”
“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes.
“How?”
“I don’t know.” She lifted a shoulder, then lowered it. “I understand it’s weird, though.”
“Try unprecedented.” Horace raised an eyebrow, tapping his foot on thin air.
“Does your shifter parent have odd abilities too?”
“No.” Olivia had stopped tapping her phone screen, but she still didn’t look up. “I mean, the people who raised me are just regular humans. They have no idea what kind of shifter I am besides what's obvious. I turn into an owl.”
“But—”
“Look, this isn’t the time or place to have a heart to heart. I'm adopted, okay?” Olivia put her phone back in her bag as the ambulance’s engine cut out. “I’ve got a cat-man to worry about right now.”
She opened the door, revealing the emergency entrance at Rhode Island Hospital. I followed her out, Horace floating along beside me. The EMEs from the ambulance called after us as they chased us into the ER. After that, they let us go. I could understand why. The triage nurse wasn’t even at her desk because the place was a riot of living and ghostly chaos.
“Code Blue down from ICU!”
“Move him to Trauma Six!”
“Six is for transport, go Trauma Seven!”
Masked and gowned nurses and doctors dashed past, some with carts, others with gurneys. One of those held Tony, whose eyes stared at the ceiling, as blank as marbles. I turned my head, scanning all the ghosts. None of them looked like Tony Gitano. I could breathe again. At my side, Olivia let out a matching sigh.
Olivia pointed at another gurney. “Professor Watkins,” she said.
I dragged her along as I went after the professor, but she took one long look over her shoulder as staff members wheeled Tony into Trauma Six.
Even though I couldn’t get into Trauma Seven, the door had a window. I noticed that the silver thread at the professor’s midsection looked thinner than it had the last time I’d seen him. His cheeks were pinched and ashen beneath the breathing mask they had on him.
“Come on!” Horace pointed at the line of silver trailing back down along the hall. We followed it, Olivia close behind us. I wasn’t sure what she could do, but since she saw ghosts, maybe having her along was a good idea. It might be better for her, too. The alternative was standing around feeling useless while doctors tried to save Tony.
I followed the professor’s silver thread out of the emergency department, down a flight of stairs, and past X-Ray and Imaging. Voices carried from the space under the door to a utility closet. I had recognized two of them before my hand grasped the doorknob.
“You have to stop this now.” I opened the door to see Ignacius holding his hands out in front of him, palms facing Mrs. Redford. “Nathaniel Watkins will die if you don’t let him go back to his body. You’re not a killer, Mrs. Redford.”
“Delilah’s not in…charge, you know.” The woman chuckled. “She hasn’t been for most of the time, in case you haven’t noticed.”
It all made sense now. Delilah Redford’s ghostly partner had taken over her body almost completely. That was the reason she’d sounded like a different person giving her lectures, but not like two people talking at the same time as Horace and I had. This ghostly medium, whoever she was, had gotten the upper hand. Delilah had probably been losing time and experiencing blackouts. Everything made sense now.
Of course a ghostly medium trapping her host wouldn’t be able to compel other ghosts, so that’s why she called me into her classroom do it. And it explained Rob’s weird behavior. He must have been trying to rat her out, but couldn’t due to his familial contract with the Redfords. Or Delilah had flat-out banned the Colonial ghost from talking about her partners at some point.
“Okay, then.” I
gnacius took one step toward her. “Just let Wilfred and Nate go. Take me instead. We left some big issues unsettled between us, right, Katie?”
I blinked, then looked up. Delilah Redford’s right hand was in her pocket, but the left was raised above her head, clutching a shiny blue crystalline object—the soul spindle. How had I not noticed she’d been using the wrong hand all month? Mrs. Redford wasn’t a southpaw, but apparently, this Katie person was. I blinked again, wondering how in the world Ignacius knew her.
“You, of all people, should know how I feel. We ought to be ruling this world, not slaving away in it.” Five silver threads protruded from the object in Katherine’s borrowed hand; one was the professor’s, which I’d followed in from the hall. The other four held Wilfred and Nate to the ceiling. The strange blue aura surrounded them both. I’d never seen anyone use a soul spindle. I shivered.
“You lived through the Reveal, Katie.” Ignacius reached toward her with one hand. “You know that’s not right anymore. This world belongs to the humans as much as it does to the extrahumans. Helping some crazy Extramagus isn’t going to change things back.”
“I don’t want things back.” Katherine shook Delilah’s head. “I want to see progress in the right direction, the one where the most powerful rule. People like Richard Hopewell. People like the man you were before you had to marry the poisonous egg factory. People like your son, if he’d only grow the stomach for it.”
“That’s got nothing to do with Wilfred or Nate, Katherine.” Ignacius took a step forward.
“It does, though.” She sighed. “They meddled too far, both of them. Wilfred with his heroics during wars he should have focused more on profiting from, and Nathaniel by softening this new generation toward the mundanes. The Rogers family Psychics swore an oath to help the Hopewells. You know that. Letting these two go makes his Quest harder.”
“Katie, please. If you ever loved me, let them go. Delilah, too. You know she’s got a kid at home, and he’s worried sick about her. I promise to stay with you this time. Nothing’s stopping me, not now when we’re both like this.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Iggy. Letting them go, I mean. But you’re right. I’ll take you up on that offer to stay with me for old time’s sake.” Delilah’s mouth curled in a sneer unlike any of her usual expressions. A sixth silver thread emerged from the top of the bright object in her hand. As it shot toward Ignacius, a seventh protruded from the bottom.
“Do something!” Olivia’s voice came from behind me in the hall.
I stepped into the room, even though I had no idea what I could do while saddled with a body. If only I could have gone out like Nate, I might be able to fix this mess, but I was a medium, and we couldn’t project. As a solid, I couldn’t touch the silver threads.
I thought about something Professor Watkins had said in Incorporeal Studies class. Technically, I was wrong about projecting. Any medium could choose to leave their body, but nothing would keep it alive. If I did that, I’d die in moments, but would that be long enough for me to stop Kate? Then my partner rushed in once again, intending to save me and all the other incorporeals in the room.
“We’ll do this together.” Horace winked at me, took my hand, and stepped into my body. This time, I stepped out.
Horace
I couldn’t feel Bianca this time. The shock of being in her body without her presence mingling with mine almost jolted me back out, but I held on when I saw her beside me, as translucent as I had been on the day I’d died. I felt the connection between us like I had when we’d shared her body before, but stronger. I knew I was her anchor and had to hold the door open for her to get back in. If I left or got expelled, we’d both be ghosts.
I hadn’t expected her to go that far, but it made sense. Only a ghostly medium could touch ghosts who hadn’t been mediums in life, but only a living Psychic medium could use a contract anchoring a ghost to sever other ties. Technically, at that moment, Bianca was both.
“Wilfred! Ignacius! I call you to duty!” Bianca snapped her fingers, the tip of one not even pushing through the other as their contact made a percussive sound. I checked for a silver thread, but there was none. She wasn’t drawing strength from her body like Professor Watkins had. She was a real ghost and just as strong as Rob, who’d been one for hundreds of years. I blinked, then remembered to close Bianca’s mouth. It was slow going. I’d nearly forgotten how to move a solid body without Bianca’s recent experience to draw on.
The silver threads binding the dragon ghosts frayed and fell apart. Delilah bellowed in a voice not entirely her own, calling on more energy to power the device again. She opened her hand to reveal more of the soul spindle. Faceted like a cut-glass doorknob, it glowed light blue. It reminded me of moths dive-bombing a bonfire. I found it both entrancingly beautiful and utterly terrifying.
Bianca flexed her hands and steel-looking gauntlets covered them. I’d taught her well about how ghost’s bodies responded to their willpower. She reached up, grasping at the threads that held Nate Watkins to the ceiling. Wilfred moved to help, and I noticed he looked tattered, worn, and frayed around the edges. Being bound up in the soul spindle had cost him. If he went back at it again, he could lose too much of himself and become a wraith.
Ignacius noticed, too and brushed past Wilfred. “Stick around and watch your egg hatch, windbag,” he said. His hands sprouted thick red scales and his nails lengthened into claws. It had to be enough to protect him, I thought.
Together, Bianca and Ignacius pulled the threads. They screeched against Bianca’s gauntlets like razor wire on steel. Ignacius’ claws tore the thread, but it cut into his scaled hands. He bared his teeth and soldiered on, willing energy from his lower half into his lacerated hands. The threads stretched as thin as spider silk, approaching a breaking point.
“Now, Olivia!” Bianca’s voice rang out as the first of the threads around the professor snapped.
The owl shifter screeched, making the hairs on the back of my borrowed neck stand on end. Olivia tackled Delilah Redford, knocking her into a boxy steel cart. I saw her eyes go amber and wider than a human’s could. She screeched again and batted Delilah’s blue left hand, and I understood what she was trying to do—break the Psychic’s contact with the spindle.
“This is for Watkins!” Olivia managed to knock Delilah’s wrist against the cart. The spindle clinked on the floor, but Olivia was too enraged to bother with the spindle. “And this is for Tony!”
That night, I decided I’d cross any other kind of shifter before I’d piss off an owl. Spacy, petite, bookish Olivia Adler now resembled legendary descriptions of Harpies. She screeched again and drew back her foot to swing it at Delilah’s head, except she didn’t just kick Delilah. Somehow, she also managed to kick the ghost possessing her.
The ghost of Katherine Rogers landed directly on the soul spindle, and her mouth and eyes stretched like an empty electric socket. She flickered with Psychic and ghostly energy, reminding me of old reel-to-reel projectors when the lightbulb inside was starting to go.
I almost took a step back. Instead, I glanced up. Nate floated, propped between Bianca and Ignacius, free of the threads. The only one connected to him now came from out in the hall and led back toward his body. I stepped forward instead, bent my borrowed knee, and punted the soul spindle. It landed next to Delilah’s prone form.
“Transport to Trauma Seven,” said the intercom. They’d stabilized the professor’s body, then.
I breathed a sigh of relief too soon. Katherine Rogers had become a wraith, and she was heading for the strongest ghost in the room—Bianca.
I stepped forward, but Ignacius moved faster. He’d always moved fast for a ghost. Maybe it had something to do with being able to fly while he lived.
I thought we’d end up having to deal with two wraiths, but light poured from the wounds Katherine’s wraith dug in Ignacius, and finally, I understood. Ignacius hadn’t been waiting for Blaine to grow up or for Hertha to die. Like many dragons
, he hadn’t been permitted to marry his destined love because a Precognitive Psychic had predicted he’d make full-blooded dragon babies with someone else. A woman named Katherine Rogers had been his unfinished business. Ignacius was moving on.
He embraced his Katie like a groom taking the bride in his arms. The ghost of Ignacius Harcourt smiled down at Wilfred and mouthed something that looked like “Thanks, windbag.” The light pouring out of him banished all the shadows in that dingy old utility closet as he moved on. When everything dimmed back down to normal, I saw that Katherine’s wraith had moved on with him.
Bianca left Nate with Wilfred and covered her eyes with her hands. I knew it didn’t stop any incorporeal from seeing, but that wasn’t the point. I put my arms around her, hugging my partner back into her body with me and answered her grief with love, all I had to give her. It never ran out because she kept giving it back.
We spun on our heel as the door slammed. Olivia had left the closet. We heard her voice both in our ears and over the intercom in the hall, declaring a Code Silver to the utility closet in X-Ray and Imaging. We separated and hurried out the door, leaving it open behind us so responders would find Delilah, and took off after Olivia.
Chapter Fourteen
Bianca
“Olivia, wait up!” I hurried after her, surprised to see such a short girl moving so fast. The owl shifter was full of surprises that night.
When I caught up, she didn’t even look at me. I understood why when the intercom chimed again, followed by a page for Mr. Gitano. We pushed through those service doors back into the ER, hugging the walls to stay out of the way and hopefully beyond notice. Horace surged ahead with Wilfred and the professor. They sailed into Trauma Seven, where, through the window, I saw them help Nate Watkins back into his body. A nurse and a doctor gave each other a high five at his bedside. I saw a flash of fangs in the doctor's mouth.
