Broken by Magic

by Rebecca Danese

  “I-I’m fine, thanks. Er, how are you?” I say stupidly.

  “Could be better. But no time for small talk. You’re in danger,” the voice says urgently.

  “Story of my life,” I say, before realising it’s not really the time for jokes.

  “You need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Danger is coming, and I don’t think I’ve been able to give you enough of a head start.” Whoever they are, they sound breathless, a bit weak even.

  “I can’t leave. Besides, what kind of danger? Who’s coming?” I’m not willing to trust a random stranger telling me to go, even though my gut is currently telling me to run. Besides, if there’s danger, then I need to protect my parents first.

  “Trust me, your family will be safer if you leave now,” it says urgently.

  “You don’t get it. I can’t leave,” I think of Dad in a coma just a few floors above.

  “Are you healing your father?”

  “What? How do you know my fa—“

  “No time. Answer the question,” they say abruptly.

  “Yes,” I say exasperated by the question. “We are, so I definitely can’t leave now.” I wouldn’t normally dream of telling anyone our plans, least of all someone I can’t see, but I get the sense that this is what he or she wants to hear.

  “Okay. I’ll do what I can. I’ve only got a few more seconds, but I’ll be watching you, Curtis,” it says.

  “Hang on, aren’t you going to tell me your name?” I call out but there’s only silence as a reply.

  CHAPTER 10

  “What’s with you and cats?” Ella says behind me, making me jump for the second time today.

  “Bloody hell,” I say, turning to her. “Nothing, but apparently cats have something with me. The weirdest thing just happened.” I explain my odd encounter with the voice, and Ella looks worried, but she shakes her head.

  “I don’t think we have time to worry about that now. It could be a trick by the Magic Circle to lure us out; it could even be a trap. We have more pressing concerns now anyway. David and Beryl will be here in about an hour.”

  “Did you tell them that I’m forever in their debt?”

  “Of course. I get the feeling that Jer and Lou are going to insist on coming too though.”

  “I appreciate the support, but why?”

  “Because I told them about the waiting room full of weird hypnotised people, and they want to check it out.”

  “Of course. Maybe Jer can recognise who the culprit is,” I say.

  “Yep, like an Augur bloodhound,” she smiles.

  We have time to kill, so we find somewhere to eat, and I order takeaway sandwiches and coffee for Mum while I try to work out who the voice belonged to, but I’m still no closer when the hour is up.

  “You’re sure you don’t know anyone who has the ability to make themselves invisible?” I say to Ella as we walk back to the hospital entrance.

  “For the fourth time, Curtis, no,” she laughs, nudging me with her elbow. “Stranger things have happened to us. Now stop worrying and let’s go save your dad.”

  We aren’t surprised to see David, Beryl, Lou and Jer parking up outside the hospital, but I’m stunned when Marco steps out of the car.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “Hello to you too,” he says jokingly.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” I say hastily, “I just didn’t expect you’d want to be here.”

  “I thought this might be more interesting than the alternative,” he says with a shrug.

  “Does Gio know you’re here?”

  Marco gives a vague wave of his hand, obviously not bothered. “When he asked what I was doing, I said I was going to make sure that you got Ella out of town as soon as possible. That’s basically true, right? I didn’t tell him that we’re running this little side mission, but what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” he says with a grin.

  I get the impression that Marco quite likes being out from under his brother’s thumb, and I’m not going to stop him, especially as he seems to be on my side.

  “I appreciate it,” I reply, giving him a light pat on the back and leading the way into the hospital.

  “Blimey,” Jer says as he sees the flow of people walking towards 5C.

  “I know. It’s really weird,” Ella says, peeling off from our group and taking Jer and Lou with her.

  “How will I find you?” I ask as they follow a family who have just been sent that way by the receptionist.

  “I’m not leaving this building without you, Curtis,” she says, giving me a little wave before disappearing into the crowd.

  “She’ll be fine, dear,” Beryl says giving my arm a squeeze. “Now, lead the way.”

  I take them into the lift and back to the cardiology ward, not bothering to tell the nurses where I’m going and just hoping that no one will stop me.

  When I enter Dad’s room, Mum is talking to a nurse but looks up in surprise to see the entourage I have come with. I realise that stepping into a tiny hospital room with three other complete strangers is probably a bit alarming.

  “I’m afraid that I’m going to have to limit visitors to just three at a time,” the nurse says to us abruptly, turning to me with a severe expression.

  “Oh, er, can we just have a minute with him?” I stumble, thinking I’ve blown it before we’ve even started.

  The nurse looks like she’s going to protest but Beryl steps in front of me and gives the woman the warmest smile she can muster.

  “We’re his prayer group, dear. We’d just like a few moments to see if we can muster all the hopes and prayers we can for his swift recovery.”

  The nurse narrows her eyes at us, but Beryl’s charm and look of complete innocence seems to disarm her. She gives a curt nod before telling Mum she’ll be back soon and leaving us alone.

  “Mum,” I say, stepping towards her, “these are my friends. Meet Beryl, her son David, and Marco. He used to work at the restaurant with me,” I say as Mum shakes each of their hands and smiles weakly.

  “I’m grateful for all of you offering to help us, but I think we might be too late. The nurse there just told me that they want to move him now because they need the room for another patient.”

  I curse, and David frowns at me, probably for using bad language in the presence of our mothers. “Sorry. But that’s not good news. How long do you think it would take to heal him?” I ask.

  “Well, the heart isn’t as complicated as healing all the nerves in a spinal cord, as in your case, but it would still need to be a few hours,” David explains.

  “Possibly half that time with both of us working,” Beryl adds.

  “Okay, I think we should get started,” I say, thinking I’ll figure out the rest as we go.

  I take my jacket off and hang it on the back of the door to cover the glass pane that would otherwise reveal what’s going on inside and move one of the chairs so that it stops anyone coming through without warning.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Marco smirks.

  “Well, I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas,” I complain. He looks around the room briefly, examining it for a moment. He scratches his chin before making a little ‘ah’ noise.

  “I might have something up my sleeve,” he says, walking over to the wall on our right where Dad’s bed is pushed up against. Mum lets out a little gasp as she sees Marco put his head through the wall, which even I’m not used to yet.

  “Right, I’ve got something,” he says when he pulls himself back in. “There’s a single bathroom next door. If we can move him, then we just have to tell the unpleasant nurse that he’s already been moved.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” I say, grateful that Marco decided to tag along.

  “But how do we move him without alerting everyone?” Mum asks.

  “Like this,” he says, and puts his hand on Dad’s bed. He pushes his hand against the wall and gives the bed a tug. Like all hospital beds, this one
is on wheels and it moves with a little help from me once I see what he’s trying to do. Of course, I forgot that Marco can pull someone through with him when he’s in contact with them, as I experienced in the club.

  “Hang on, what about the machines?” I point to the monitors and IV bag hanging from above the bed.

  “Unplug them from the mains. I’ll take what I can with me,” he replies, and I oblige.

  I try not to think about how this must look to Mum, who has barely had contact with Augur powers in her life from what I know, and instead concentrate on helping to push Dad’s bed through the wall with Marco, half in and half out of the room, pulling it through.

  “How big is that bathroom?” David says, astonished.

  “Pretty big,” Marco pops his head back into the room to say.

  “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Mum says quietly, watching as Dad’s body disappears into the wall.

  “You know, if I hadn’t gone through seeing Carlton Munday turn into a monster before my eyes, I’d say so too,” I agree, grunting with the effort. David helps me to push the bed the last bit of the way, and Marco disappears altogether along with Dad’s feet.

  He comes back a moment later, to tell us that he’s locked the bathroom door from the inside so they won’t be interrupted and offers to take us in, one by one.

  “I don’t think I can.” Mum shakes her head as Marco holds out his hand to her.

  “It doesn’t hurt or anything,” I reassure her, remembering how Marco pulled me through the door of Lorenzo’s office yesterday. It was an odd feeling, but not painful.

  “Can’t I just go the normal way?” she pleads.

  “Not if we don’t want to risk them seeing a hospital bed crammed in there,” I reply.

  “I’ll go first, how’s that?” Beryl says and lets Marco pull her through the wall. David goes next, and I encourage Mum to go next, but she’s still shaking her head.

  There’s a knock at the door, and the chair I’ve put in the way scrapes against the floor. Marco quickly vanishes into the wall, leaving Mum and I standing in the middle of the room, and I try to make myself not look as guilty as possible.

  “What’s going on here?” Not-Nurse-Nightingale asks as she pushes the door open fully.

  “Oh, sorry,” I say, moving the chair out of the way, “I didn’t realise I’d put that there.”

  She narrows her eyes at me but is quickly distracted by the lack of patient in the room. “Where’s he gone?”

  “They took him already, love,” Mum says, lying smoothly. I’m surprised to hear how convincing she sounds.

  “What? Who did?” The nurse seems affronted that she wasn’t informed.

  “That nice doctor said to me earlier they wanted to redo his tests, so we didn’t argue, did we, Curtis?”

  I shake my head and the nurse looks around the room, befuddled.

  “You're sure?”

  “Absolutely. We were going to go and have a cup of tea downstairs while we wait,” Mum adds. “Would you like anything?”

  The nurse shakes her head and leaves with a bewildered expression on her face, and I only breathe again when I can tell she’s really gone.

  “Bloody hell, Mum, I never knew you had it in you,” I say, impressed. Mum smooths down her blouse and smiles at me.

  “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, love,” she replies, then knocks on the wall, to which Marco responds by stepping back through it.

  “Better hurry up and get this over with,” she says, giving Marco her hand and allowing him to pull her through.

  “She’s an impressive lady, your mum,” he says when he comes back.

  “I’m realising that more and more,” I reply, grabbing my jacket before letting him put his hand round my shoulders and guide me through the wall. I get that strange cold feeling in my body for a moment, and then I’m on the other side.

  The huge hospital bed takes up the entire floor space. David and Beryl are on either side of it with their hands on Dad’s chest, eyes closed and frowning in concentration, not wasting a second to get to work. Mum stands at the foot of the bed, cramped right up against the sink, watching them work. Marco and I squeeze in by the door and leave them to it, keeping as quiet as possible while they do what they can.

  Several minutes pass without anyone saying a word, the only noise in the room coming through the door from the busy hospital outside. I watch Mum, a combination of apprehension and resignation fighting their way over her features. She fidgets restlessly with a tissue between her fingers, and if I could move, I would go over and hug her, but instead we’re left with occasionally meeting each other’s gaze and nodding encouragement.

  After half an hour, there’s a rap on the door which makes me nearly jump out of my skin.

  “Everything alright in there?” comes the insistent voice of a woman, a nurse I’m assuming.

  I look around the room frantically, but David and Beryl only look at me before continuing their work. Marco puts a hand on my shoulder before I can say anything and says, “All good, thanks. Just finishing up.”

  “Ahem, well if you need any assistance, young man, just ring the buzzer.” I press my ear to the door and hear her heels clicking away, wiping the sweat that has started beading on my forehead away.

  “Thank you,” I mouth, and he shrugs and smiles.

  “I think that’s all we can do for now,” Beryl announces quietly after another ten minutes of agonising silence.

  “He’ll be awake soon if we’re lucky, so we should probably get him back in the room.” David lets go of my father’s chest and mops his brow with a handkerchief.

  “Thank God. I can barely breathe in here,” Marco says, squeezing past me and grabbing the bottom of the bed. He puts his head tentatively through the wall to check the coast is clear before giving us a hand signal for us to help push Dad through, followed by each of us.

  “I’ll just go back in and come out the normal way in case that nosy nurse thinks I’ve died in there or something,” he grins, disappearing again and coming through the door normally a few moments later.

  We plug the machines back in, and the steady beep of the heart monitor starts up again.

  “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” I ask.

  “It’s up to him. He might wake up in two minutes or two hours, but we’ve healed the remainder of the scars on the heart after his operation and made sure the body is supplying all the right amounts of blood to the right places,” David explains. Listening to him, I realise why he’s a well-paid doctor. He has the combination of magic and medical training that would make people come for miles to be looked after.

  Mum gives David and Beryl each a hug.

  “I don’t know how I can ever, ever repay you, but if you need anything, just let me know,” she says to them both, the colour in her cheeks finally beginning to show.

  “Well, thank you, but Curtis is family to us, and by extension, so are you,” Beryl replies, giving Mum’s arm a squeeze. After all the stress of the day, I feel a prick of tears in the corner of my eyes, but I blink them away and grab them all in a big bear hug.

  “Want us to stay a while?” Marco offers. Mum shakes her head.

  “If he finds a bunch of strangers in his room right after he wakes up, he might have another heart attack.” She gives a small smile. They nod and say they’ll go find Ella downstairs just in case, leaving Mum and me alone again.

  We each take one of the hard hospital chairs on the far side of Dad’s bed, and Mum puts his hand in hers again, brushing her fingers over his knuckles. The simple gesture sends a flood of guilt through me again for abandoning them, and I let out a quiet sigh.

  “I’m sorry, Mum.” I look at her, dark circles under her eyes, eyes still puffy from earlier tears.

  “Whatever for, love?”

  “For leaving you. I feel like a terrible son for disappearing like that.”

  “Oh, Curtis, I understand.” She puts her free
hand on my face and smiles. “All I can say is that, despite my misgivings, I’m glad that you have a family like them to support you. They really are good people.”

  “Don’t I know it. I wish Dad knew it too.” I watch him lying on the bed and notice that there’s more colour in his cheeks than before, a good sign I think.

  “Yes, well, he has his own reasons for his hatred, I suppose,” she says, looking away from me and back at him. She opens her mouth but then closes it again, as if deciding against saying something.

  “What is it?”

  She shakes her head sadly. “It’s not my place to say. It’s his business.” She presses her lips together as if to stop herself from saying something she shouldn’t.

  “Mum, after everything you’ve seen and we’ve done, surely you realise you can trust me?” I’m sure she wants to put up more of a fight but loses her resolve pretty quickly.

  “I hate to say it, but his sister’s death is the reason that Pete hates Augurs so much, love. He won’t trust them after what happened to her.”

  My eyes widen at the realisation of what she’s saying. Augurs were responsible for his sister’s death.

  “Do you know how she died?” I ask quietly.

  “Not really, but he tries to talk about it sometimes. You know, when he’s had too much to drink and starts getting nostalgic.”

  I nod, remembering too many times when I’d heard him whisper her name before crying into his sherry, usually at Christmas time.

  “There was a man involved, and you know I hate to gossip,” she adds, though I know full well she’s one of the biggest gossipers I’ve met. “Some kind of affair was going on. There was a child too I think, although we never knew if that was true or not.” Mum has dropped to a whisper herself now.

  “But how do you know it was Augurs?”

  “Because your father said so, often. We’d only just been together a few months when he told me she’d died, and I had to hear almost daily about how the world would be a better place if there were no Augurs. How they’d taken his big sister away from him. Love, don’t get me wrong,” she says hurriedly, seeing my face. “I don’t think he has all the facts himself, and you know me, I’ve nothing against your friends. But I know that you need to be careful no matter how many people with powers you have around you.”