“I’ll admit you surprised me, Dr. Stone. I wasn’t expecting anyone quite like you. And here the reports on you suggest you are little more than a hedge mage.”
“That’s all I am,” I said.
“A hedge mage who triggered all of the spells we held at one time?”
“I had help.” Without Barden granting me access to his power, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to do it. Even with his power, it was nearly too much for me.
“Yes. Your help. And then you go and do this. Do you really think you have the upper hand here?”
“I have the mark.”
“And I have you. How hard you think it will be to separate you from the mark?”
Maybe this was more of a mistake than I’d anticipated. Now he had me here, what would stop him from killing me? I might be holding onto a spell, but even with that spell, I wouldn’t be able to overpower anything he might do.
“I can see you are working through this now. Yes. Now you’re here, and now I have the mark, why would I even need to let you go?” That was something I hadn’t considered. “You can serve.”
“I’m not going to serve you.”
“I doubt you’ll have a choice.” He took a step toward me, and I hurriedly traced a circle on the floor, pushing a hint of power through it.
He stood in front of me, smiling. “You really are just a hedge mage, aren’t you?” With that, he reached through my barrier.
I jerked back, stumbling, and as I did, I tripped. John started toward me, and the coin in my pocket began to glow with a certain warmth. Not just glow, but it started to burn. I reached into my pocket, trying to move it, wanting to get it out of my pocket, but my hand throbbed. John seemed to take my discomfort for something else and he grinned at me.
A shifting of shadows appeared. Not just that, but it was a vampire. Jean-Pierre. John didn’t seem to notice until Jean-Pierre slammed into him. Then, he reacted more quickly than I would have expected, and hurriedly erected a barrier around himself.
I rolled off to the side, scrambling back. The coin in my pocket was throbbing with less intensity. Now I understood what Jean-Pierre had done. A tracking spell, or something along those lines. And he had followed it here. I suppose I should be thankful I had an elder vampire who had come and was willing to fight on my behalf, but I had just seen what John Adams had managed to withstand, and I wasn’t certain Jean-Pierre would be able to withstand it, either.
The attacks happened rapidly, one after another, Jean-Pierre using powerful magic that surged along my bracelet in a torrent of power. John fired back, each spell targeted toward Jean-Pierre, but the elder vampire moved quickly, avoiding the attacks. How long would Jean-Pierre be able to hold out? For that matter, how long would John Adams be able to hold out?
A muted coughing caught my attention, and I glanced back. There was a door, and I scrambled back to it and tested it, finding it unlocked. When I pulled it open, it was nothing more than a closet. The markings on the door suggested it was magically protected. Inside, Matt was bound and gagged, and his eyes were open.
Pulling the gag off, I nodded to him. “Are you hurt?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know, but I wasn’t going to let him harm you like that.”
“Dr. Stone—“
“You realize that after everything we’ve done now, you can call me Jen?”
Matt sighed. “Fine. Jen. That doesn’t change the fact you shouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah. I’m getting that sense. Now, is there anything you can do to help?”
“Help with what?”
“With that.” I pointed out of the closet, to where John Adams and Jean-Pierre were fighting.
Every so often, I was able to catch a glimpse of Jean-Pierre, but otherwise he moved far more rapidly than I could make out. John Adams continued blasting spell after spell. How long would it be before someone else came up here to investigate?
“I can’t believe he set me up like that,” Matt whispered.
“Who? The vampire?”
Matt shook his head. “John. I can’t believe he set me up like that.”
“If it’s any consolation, he made it clear that what he’s doing isn’t necessarily sanctioned.”
“No, but there still isn’t a lot we can do. He’s incredibly gifted, Dr. Stone.”
“Gifted enough to take down an elder vampire?”
“Yes.”
I shivered. I didn’t want to believe it was possible, but then again, I had seen how Matt had held his own against an elder vampire. “Then we need to help him.” I turned, holding onto power, and as I did, a strange shifting took place. It wasn’t just a shifting, it was a surge of magic I shouldn’t have possessed. It came from deep within me. That wasn’t quite right. It came from near my feet.
Leaning down, I found a slender length of metal wrapped around my ankle. “Barden, you little sneak.” That was what he had done when he grasped me. He had attached something of power so I would be able to borrow magic, but I wasn’t sure I could—or should—borrow from him. Then again, if I didn’t do it now, John would win. I’d be trapped here.
We needed to do this. Pulling on that magic, I started forward, then Matt grabbed me. “Dr. Stone, you—“
“Jen. Call me Jen.” I didn’t know many spells. Yet. What I did know was how to unleash power. “Does he have anything here I could trigger?”
Matt frowned at me. “What?”
“Trigger. You know, force the spell to activate. Apparently, that’s some gift I have.”
Matt looked around the office and he hurried to one of the shelves along the back wall. When he did, he came back with a pair of small sculptures. “Start with these.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. And as you do, think about John.”
I unleashed my magic on them, and it slammed into Matt and the sculptures.
“Jesus, Dr. Stone.” He dropped the sculptures, and as he did, they began to shake, hurriedly beginning to elongate. They grew to about knee high. They seem to be all of stone or metal, and they turned to me.
What had Matt said? Think of John. I focused on him. “Get him.”
The miniature sculptures marched toward John, and they started to assault him, but John had a protection around him that prevented them from getting too close.
“Anything else?”
“Everything in here has the potential to be protective, but you can’t just unleash all the spells here.”
“Why not?”
“Because the kinds of spells he has here are potentially dangerous.”
“We need dangerous.”
I looked along the wall, and I found a small metal platter. Symbols had been worked onto it, much the same as the small statues. As I held it in my hands, I pushed out power, drawing from the borrowed stores of magic that Barden lent me.
Matt grabbed it, spun it around, and nodded. “Aim it at him.”
I hadn’t realized I was aiming at myself, but as the power flowed from me and into the plate, a surge of light exploded. It slammed into John’s spell and disrupted his protection. That allowed the two small sculptures to attack. I smiled to myself. If nothing else, they would take him down.
John turned toward me, casting a glance at Matt. He pressed his hand out, and power exploded from him, slamming into my chest, and I went flying backward. Jean-Pierre launched himself in that moment, and as he did, he wrapped himself around John. John thrashed, struggling.
I rolled off to the side, pain making every breath difficult. It felt as if he had crushed my chest, the kind of pain I had heard heart patients talk about with a sternotomy. Pain like that was difficult for anyone to withstand, but I had the unfortunate experience of having dealt with pain before.
I looked over, and Matt was pinned to the wall, his breaths coming slowly. I recognized that technique. I’d seen Matt use power similarly, and I glanced over to John with a deep frown forming. Was he the one who had prepared the spells
Matt had used? We were in a lot more trouble, were that the case.
I got to my knees, trying to reach for my sense of power, but it didn’t come to me. As it often did these days, it eluded me when I needed it. It was possible that being here, being scared and uncertain, and having no idea what else I could do had a lot to do with it, but it was equally possible I had simply spent too much energy already.
As I watched, John managed to fling Jean-Pierre off of him. The vampire went flying, and he crashed into the wall behind me. I staggered toward Jean-Pierre, putting myself between John and the vampire.
John only smiled at me. “Dr. Stone. You can’t save him.”
“Why?”
“Does there need to be a why?”
“I’d like to have an answer.”
“Power. I will have it. And I will ensure I have enough power to handle anything I might encounter on the other side.”
“That’s what this is about?”
“That’s what it’s always about, Dr. Stone. You haven’t been around the magical world long enough to understand, but the longer you are, the more you will come to realize that power drives all of us.”
“It doesn’t drive me.”
“No? A doctor has a different kind of power.” He continued toward me.
I couldn’t move. I was trapped. I had seen how powerful he was and how there was little I would be able to do to withstand it. There had been nothing that anyone was able to do to stop him. Not only had he overpowered Matt, and then me, but he had also handled Jean-Pierre far more easily than I would have expected anyone to be able to do.
I recognized that feeling. Helplessness. As I did, a sense of connection to my magic began to work through me, starting deep within me, and then washing outward. It came from helplessness, but it was triggered because I wasn’t helpless. It was almost as if my magic was a reminder that I was not.
As I remained crouched there, I remembered something I had seen on him when he was lying on the ground. He had fillings that had symbols on them.
John was right. A doctor did have a different kind of power. My power in particular was different. I could trigger it, and now I remembered those fillings, I could…
I pushed out a wave of magic at him. John deflected it, smiling at me. “You aren’t powerful enough to stop me.”
I shook my head. “I’m not trying to stop you.”
I pushed. Everything I had went into that push. Everything I could borrow from Barden went into it. Power flowed from me, and it slammed into John, but it did so in a targeted manner, focused on his head. On his mouth. That was a source of power for him. He might be a skilled mage, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have other techniques of augmenting his power, techniques he had demonstrated to Matt and others like him.
And I had the ability to trigger those spells. There had to be eight or more within his mouth. All of them were suddenly triggered.
John’s eyes went wide. He staggered back, and the focus of his magic shifted. The spells exploded one after another, uncontrolled. As they did, he stumbled, and the two small sculptures began to beat on him. John writhed in place, and he cried out.
I wasn’t sure I could watch. I was a healer, not someone who caused pain, and even though he had caused me pain, I didn’t want to do the same to him. Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. I didn’t dare do so.
The sculptures continued to attack, and then a surge of power came. For a moment, I thought John was going to overpower them, but after the magic exploded, John was gone.
I let out a heavy sigh. Turning back to Jean-Pierre, I found him already sitting up. Whatever injury had happened to him was fading. Matt dropped to the floor, and he gasped.
“Is it over?” I asked, directing my question to both of them and neither.
“For now,” Matt said. His voice was hoarse.
I glanced over to him. “Why for now?”
“I have a feeling that’s not the last time we will see him.”
“Great.”
“At least now we know,” Matt said. “I can let others know. And we can turn our attention to him.”
“Why will they believe you now, when they wouldn’t before?”
Matt reached into his pocket and pulled out an old-school tape recorder. “I have proof.”
“Will it be proof enough?”
“If it’s not, I will vouch for you,” Jean-Pierre said.
I sat in silence, not sure what to do or say, and then I turned to Jean-Pierre. “You came after me.”
“I owed you a debt. It seems I still do.”
“How?”
“How did I reach this place or how did I find you?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“They are tied together.”
“The coin.”
“The coin.”
“It wasn’t a replica at all, was it?”
“It wasn’t a replica, but it also wasn’t a mark.”
“What, then?”
“It is something I have not given out for many years, Dr. Stone.”
“What?”
“It marks you as a familiar. An elder’s familiar.” Jean-Pierre got to his feet, and he flashed a smile that was more fangs than anything else. “You don’t need to worry. It doesn’t mean I will feed on you. Though if you would offer…”
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
He shrugged. “It means you are under my protection. It is more formal than a mere token. And it means the rest of the vampire families will honor it.”
I licked my lips, swallowing. Somehow, I had the sense this was even more significant than the mark he had given me before. “Why?”
“Because you have done well, Dr. Stone. You have proven yourself. And now… Now you will have my protection. The Council was fractured and he tried to take advantage of that, to twist it to his advantage. And he nearly succeeded.” He turned to Matt. “You will be able to bring her from here?”
Matt nodded.
With that, Jean-Pierre suddenly disappeared.
I sat, looking at the room. The strange sculptures were fixed in place, but they were turned toward me, almost as if waiting for me to tell them what to do. The problem was I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Where you want to go?”
I looked around the office before my gaze settled on Matt. “Home, I guess.”
21
My shift seemed to last forever. It was an endless stream of mild injuries, illnesses, and the variety of complaints that made emergency medicine unpleasant. There was nothing interesting, but after what I had experienced over the last few days, that lack of interesting was for the best.
My phone had been vibrating, alerting me all day, Barden checking in to ensure my safety. I had to admit it was nice to have someone actually concerned about whether or not I was safe. He had recovered, though the attack had left him considerably weakened, more so because of the power I had drawn off of him in order to withstand John Adams’s assault.
According to Matt, the organization was now searching for John. I had no idea whether that was true or not, and decided it didn’t matter. It wasn’t my responsibility. That is, until John decided to come after me.
The vampire council was fractured, and John had either triggered that fracture or attempted to take advantage of it. Either way, that fracture was now out in the open. Hopefully Jean-Pierre could suppress the fracture, but if he couldn’t, we might face a different threat.
Which was why Barden had made clear I needed to work with him more diligently. The risk of someone like John out there—a mage who was more than just a mage, with considerable power, who now had a grudge against me—meant I wasn’t necessarily safe.
And now the hospital was under Mage Council surveillance. That should have reassured me, but I could only imagine how Kate would react when she returned to find that after everything she had gone through, I was the one reason the Mage Council had decided to have a presence at the hospital.
After wrapping up my s
hift, I made my way out of the emergency room, up to the ICU, and stood outside Brad’s room. He was no longer intubated, but he was still here. His head rolled off to the side, and he was sleeping, snoring softly. I took a deep breath and entered his room. Balloons rested on a table. A pot of flowers was on the counter near the sink. Cards hung on the wall, well wishes from people who cared about him.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have people come to me the same way if the situation was reversed. Would I have well-wishers like Brad did? I didn’t begrudge him the fact that he had people who cared for him. After what he had gone through, I realized I had a certain affection for him, though I wasn’t certain what it meant.
I took a seat next to the bed, watching him. I was tired, and dozed. I drifted in and out, and when I came around, I found him watching me.
“Hey, Stone.”
I smiled. “Brad.”
“Were you worried about me? I’m a little cold, so I was wondering if maybe you wanted to crawl up in here and keep me warm.”
“You’re such an ass.”
“I know.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Shitty.” He watched me for a moment. “I hear I have you to thank for my survival.”
“I’m not the one who repaired your aorta, Brad.”
“I didn’t say you’d become a cardiothoracic surgeon. You were there. You were the reason I got the care I needed as quickly as I did.”
I nodded. It might have been more than just that, though I still wasn’t sure what role magic had played in it. And at this point, I wasn’t sure it mattered. He was here. He’d survived.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been by as often as I wanted to.”
“They tell me you’ve been stopping by.”
“I have, but I was hoping to be here when you first woke up.”
“That would’ve been awful.”
“Thanks.”
He coughed, wincing as he did. “Not like that, Stone. You would have had to deal with my mother.”
“I’m sure she’s wonderful.”
“Oh, she is, but seeing a woman like you coming in here and worrying about me, she’d only get her hopes up. I wouldn’t have the heart to tell her you aren’t into men.”
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