A Demon Does It Better

by Linda Wisdom

  “Please,” the girl whispered, clearly frightened but refusing to back down from the threatening presence before her. “My son said he had to come here. That you could make him better.”

  “This hospital isn’t meant for mundanes.” The receptionist raised her hands, magick causing them to glow a dark gold. “Go to the ones that will help you,” she sneered.

  “What’s going on here?” Lili demanded, instantly waving a hand to dampen the receptionist’s power before the girl and the boy were harmed.

  The giant snarled. “I don’t even know how she got in. There are plenty of wards on the perimeter to keep her kind out of here.” The receptionist growled at the teenager, who sobbed and took a step back, starting to turn back toward the entrance.

  “No!” The little boy screamed, then turned and held his arms out to Lili. “I sick,” he implored. “Make it go away.” He glared at the receptionist with a bravery that would have had Lili laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious.

  She didn’t hesitate. She stepped forward and braced herself as the boy launched himself into her arms. She wrapped them around his small body as he clung to her like a tiny animal.

  “Come with me,” she told the mother, offering her a reassuring smile.

  “Dr. Carter, you can’t—” the receptionist’s anger sent sparks flying.

  Lili’s expression caused her to shut up just in time. “Oh yes, I can,” she said softly, but with a large bite to her tone that let the giant know just who was in charge here. Her coffee-brown eyes snapped fire. “This child is in pain and will be treated. Right now, I wouldn’t care if he was from Mars. We are here to heal the sick. We all took a vow never to refuse treatment to anyone, magickal or mundane. You best remember that.” With a jerk of her head, she gestured for the mother to follow her as she strode toward the ER. She didn’t bother to look back to see if the girl would follow. For now all that mattered to her was easing the little boy’s pain.

  “Bring them in here,” Deisphe directed, moving gracefully toward the first examination room once the trio entered ER.

  Lili silently agreed, aware the room was set up with special wards for any mundane that might stumble in requiring treatment. This way the nonmagickal occupants wouldn’t be harmed by anything that might get loose on the other side. They had this setup in every hospital she’d worked in, but this was the first time she’d seen someone try to turn a mundane away. She knew it would be the last time.

  The little boy reached out and smiled as he patted the nurse’s cheek. “Kitty. Big pretty kitty.”

  Deisphe couldn’t stop the purr that briefly left her throat. “Aw, honey, I love you already.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose at him.

  “I’m sorry I caused you trouble. I didn’t know what to do,” the girl said, her voice thick with tears. “Kevin started screaming the minute we passed here and wouldn’t stop. He said he wanted the doctor here to see him. That they would know what to do for him.” She moved to the gurney as Lili carefully set the little boy down. “His father—” She shuddered and shook her head. “I’ve lived nearby all my life. I know this hospital isn’t really for humans, but if I take him to a regular hospital, they might say he should be taken away from me. That I did something horrible to him.” She swallowed a loud sob. “I didn’t hurt him. I swear to you, I didn’t. It’s just that something’s wrong with my baby, and I don’t know what to do.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Lili soothed her, noting the stress on the girl’s face and the tears that filled her eyes. “Now let’s see what’s going on with Master Kevin.” She smiled at the boy.

  She performed a quick check of his vitals and found them a little elevated, but that was no surprise, considering his anxiety. The scent of fear rolled off his skin, and she did what she could to calm him. Then she took a longer look at the mother and grasped her hand, sending calming power over her. She was pleased to sense the girl’s respiration slowing, and she seemed more at ease. “How old are you?”

  She emitted a watery smile when Deisphe offered her a tissue. “Nineteen.”

  Closer to seventeen, Deisphe mouthed.

  “What’s your name?” the witch asked. She didn’t doubt Deisphe’s calculations. The Were would have scented the girl’s age as easily as she would have scented everything else about her.

  “Cassie.”

  Lili and Deisphe didn’t miss that she didn’t offer a last name, and they didn’t ask for one. They both knew that their priority was the frightened little boy sitting there.

  Lili offered a small nod and turned back to her new patient. “Why did you want your mommy to bring you here, Kevin?” she asked quietly as she kept her fingers loosely linked around his wrist while she peered into his antique-brown eyes. She frowned as she saw glints of gold and silver in the irises.

  “I’m sick, and you can make me better,” he said matter-of-factly. “You have pretty magick. It sparkles all around you.”

  She couldn’t help but smile at him. “So do you.” She combed her fingers through his dark blond hair. “I need to talk to your mommy, okay?”

  “Can kitty stay with me?” He looked past her toward Deisphe with a hopeful expression on his tiny face. He cast a quick glance at the door, and fear skittered across his eyes.

  “If this ever gets out that I let a kid call me kitty,” the nurse muttered, using a hip to nudge Lili out of the way. “Break room should be empty.”

  “Everything will be fine.” Lili didn’t miss the panic on the young mother’s face at the idea of leaving her son. “No one’s going to bother him with Deisphe on guard. Trust me, Cassie.” She pushed another hint of calming power into her touch as she took her arm.

  She slowly nodded. “Kevin trusted you, so I will too.”

  Lili sensed it took a strong force of will for the young woman not to flinch at the sight of the various creatures inhabiting the ER. One snaggletoothed Gorman growled at her, and she only moved closer to Lili for protection.

  Luckily, Cassie remained quiet until they entered the break room where Lili gestured for her to take a chair. She filled two mugs with coffee and set one in front of Cassie along with packets of sugar and artificial sweetener and flavored creamers.

  “Was today the first time Kevin has acted like this? Demanding that he come here?” Lili asked after sipping the hot brew and waiting for Cassie to drink.

  Cassie was quiet for a few moments as she cradled the mug between her hands, seeming to savor the comforting warmth it offered.

  Lili’s therapeutic wisdom sensed the girl’s weariness and the raw scent of fear overlaying her exhaustion.

  “The changes in Kevin’s behavior are recent. He’s had trouble sleeping lately, and he’s been cranky. This isn’t like him at all. I took him out for pizza about a week ago,” she whispered, staring into her coffee as if the contents held the answers she hoped for. “I like to give him a special night out on my payday. We get something to eat, sometimes see a movie, or we play miniature golf. I want him to have something to look forward to. I have to work so much that I don’t want him to think I don’t have time for him.” She looked up to see Lili nodding that she understood.

  “We usually sit on the arcade side at the pizza place, so he can play some of the games and I can keep a close eye on him.” She paused and took a deep breath. Her fingers shook as she lifted her mug to her lips. She used a napkin to dab at the coffee that spilled on her chin. “I don’t know how it started. Kevin was playing a car game he enjoys, then he suddenly looked over his shoulder. He looked so scared that I started toward him. Then he just started screaming that the monster was there. The staff knows us, and they thought maybe someone had touched him.” Her trembling moved to cover her body. “I had to pick him up and take him home. It took several hours to calm him down.” She blinked rapidly. “He didn’t even want to go to sleep that night. He said he was afraid the monster would get him,” she whispered.

  Lili reached across the table and covered her hand with her ow
n, sending some calming power to Cassie. “Did he tell you what he saw?”

  Cassie shook her head. “Just that a monster was there, and he knew it wanted him. He refused to go to day care the next morning. He said the monster could get him there. I couldn’t afford to stay home with him.” Guilt covered her delicate face. “My neighbor is like a grandmother to him, and she looked after him for me. Then he woke up screaming the next night. It was so bad my landlord showed up and threatened to call the police. He said if it happens again he will. He told me he knows I’d never hurt Kevin, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.” Her fragile features were pinched with the exhaustion Lili sensed. “I didn’t know what to do, then this morning Kevin said he wanted to come here. He insisted on it.” A faint smile touched her lips. “He might be four, but he’s very stubborn. I told him no one here would see him, but he said they would. And you did.” Gratitude lightened her face. “Thank you.”

  “He’s a smart little boy, then,” Lili smiled back. “Did he tell you what the monster looked like?”

  Cassie reached down inside the battered canvas tote on the floor and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Kevin drew them this morning.” She placed them on the table, her fingers quickly drawing away as if she didn’t want to touch them any more than she had to. A tear trickled down her cheek.

  Lili conjured up a tissue and handed it to Cassie before picking up the papers. She could feel the fear quivering on the surface.

  Shades of black, gray, and brown dominated the white paper, but they weren’t the erratic scrawls of a little boy. Each page displayed a ghastly face with multiple mouths filled with brown jagged teeth dotted with stark black circles. She deliberately kept her fingers from tracing the lines of the creature and the stick figure of a little boy that cowered under the monster that loomed over him.

  She lifted her head to look at Cassie. “Did he say what kind of sounds this thing made?”

  Cassie shook her head. “I think drawing those pictures took so much out of him that he only talks about being scared. Do you know what it is? What’s wrong with him? Is he… is something wrong with his brain?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Lili quickly assured her. “Does Kevin’s father see him?” She only had to look at Cassie’s red cheeks to know the answer.

  “It was just the one night. Six weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant, and my parents kicked me out because I didn’t want to give my baby up for adoption,” she admitted in a soft voice. “What happened isn’t his fault. I wasn’t going to give him away as if he didn’t matter. It means I work a lot, but he’s worth it.” She offered up a watery smile.

  “For Fate’s sake, Cassie, you were barely thirteen at the time!” It wasn’t a story she hadn’t heard before, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

  “And I looked older. I lied about my age, found a job as a waitress, and even managed to get my GED,” Cassie said matter-of-factly, not bothering to try to lie about her age again. “But it’s Kevin I’m worrying about now, and something tells me this place doesn’t take my HMO.”

  “That you don’t have to worry about.” Lili got up and topped off their mugs. “Cassie, what do you remember about Kevin’s father?”

  “He was hot, he told me how pretty I was, and the rest of the night was a blur. Not like I was drugged blurred, but…” The girl suddenly looked horrified. “Was Kevin’s dad the monster he’s seeing now? What did I do?” Her wail revealed her inner pain. “I was stupid back then, okay? I thought I knew what magick was all about. I snuck out of the house and went to clubs I shouldn’t. Drank and smoked and…” she shuddered at memories she obviously preferred not to revisit. “But I never took any drugs. I swear it! What have I done to Kevin?” she sobbed.

  “I don’t think it has to do with drugs, Cassie. At the same time, you were still nothing more than a child. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Lili was quick to comfort her. “And Kevin won’t turn into anything bad. He just has a few extra chromosomes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m a witch, gifted with a strong healing power,” she explained. “I sense pain and illness, and what I feel that’s inside Kevin is a frightened little boy who’s starting to experience changes he can’t understand.”

  “Those changes are hurting him!”

  “And I can help him with that.” She conjured up a card and quickly wrote across the back. “This has the hospital number along with my cell. And this is a name and number of someone who I’m sure can also work with Kevin and help him deal with those changes. I want you to call him right away. Asmeth is unconventional,” she smiled, thinking of the portly wizard, “but he will help you. Just tell him I sent you.”

  Cassie reared back at that. “Changes? More will happen to Kevin?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know exactly what,” Lili said honestly. “I can offer you potions and charms.” She paused, waiting for the girl to scoff at her suggestion, but Cassie remained silent, merely nodding her head. Lili studied the dark circles under her eyes and the pale cast to her skin. No amount of makeup would conceal her fatigue. There was no doubt the girl was tottering on the edge. She knew Cassie needed much more than her assurance that her son wouldn’t end up in an institution.

  Lili thought of the dank dark cells below. Of the mentally ill creatures they held and the horrors most of them had performed.

  Her resolve to help Kevin and Cassie grew by the second.

  She used her fingertip to trace a rune on the tabletop. “You’re a very strong young woman, Cassie,” she said softly. “You’re the kind of mother every child deserves. You didn’t run from Kevin when you feared the worst but ran to a place and those who can help him.” Her brown eyes delved into Cassie’s darker ones. She used that same fingertip to smudge the rune before it took a life of its own, then stood up. “Let’s make Kevin start to feel better.”

  “Dr. Carter.” Cassie held out her hand, brushing her fingers against Lili’s arm. “What is Kevin? He’s not completely human, is he? Whatever his father is…”

  “Kevin is an empath,” Lili said quickly, not wanting Cassie to think about what she might have had sex with that night five years ago.

  Cassie shook her head. “I thought empaths detected emotions.”

  “They do, but there are some who can see beyond a creature’s illusions if they’re in hiding. Or sense what they are. Deisphe is a Wereleopard, and Kevin saw that. Whatever he saw in the pizza restaurant was probably in hiding. I would guess he saw its true self, and it frightened him. I can show Kevin’s drawings to someone who might be able to identify the creature. We’re not all monsters, Cassie.”

  She nodded jerkily. “If you can help Kevin, I will be forever grateful. I’ll do anything you want.”

  “No!” Lili quickly softened her voice and grip on Cassie’s shoulder. “Never make a promise or vow to any magickal being,” she warned. “For many it’s considered unbreakable, and you could land in a lot of trouble. If you want to say thank-you, fine, but nothing more. Crying Souls is here to help, and that’s what we’ll do.”

  Relieved she was able to get some information from Cassie, Lili guided her back to the examination room where they could hear Deisphe entertaining Kevin with stories of her childhood. Both women smiled at the boy’s laughter. He looked up and smiled happily to see his mother, holding his arms out for her.

  “No green skin,” He looked at Lili. “Not a mean witch. A pretty witch.”

  “See why I love him?” Deisphe grinned.

  Lili smiled at Kevin as she pulled a pad out of her pocket and began writing. She tore the paper off the pad and handed it to the nurse. Deisphe glanced at it and nodded.

  “Back in a jiff.”

  Lili rechecked Kevin’s vitals, relieved to find him a lot calmer and even smiling. She knew she had the Were to thank for that. While she wanted to ask him questions about what frightened him so badly that night, she knew it was best not to.

  “Kevin, do you know what witches are?�
�� she asked quietly, placing herself on the stool by the gurney.

  His eyes widened. “They’re not like you. They’re ugly, and they cook little boys in an oven.”

  No way was she going to tell him that some fairy tales were based on fact.

  “And there are witches like me who make little boys feel better. We have special drinks and special things you can carry.” She looked up when Deisphe returned carrying a tray. A small squat bottle filled with a pale blue liquid glimmered under the light. Lili picked it up and poured the contents into a glass. “What’s your favorite thing to drink?”

  He squirmed, glancing at his mother. “I like Coke, but Mom doesn’t like me drinking it.”

  “This will taste just like Coke then.” She handed him the glass. She glanced up at Cassie. “It will help dampen his abilities for a while,” she explained as she picked up a small medal on a leather cord that she then placed around his neck. The bronze metal glowed slightly when it touched his skin. “This is a protection charm. Between the two, no one will be able to detect Kevin or his abilities, but it’s not a permanent solution. He needs to be trained. That’s where Asmeth can come in handy.”

  “How do you know he’ll be willing to help us?”

  “It’s what he does best.”

  Cassie shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “I don’t make very much money,” she said softly.

  “He won’t ask you for payment.” She knew her old friend well enough that the softhearted wizard would take the girl and her son under his wing without expecting anything in return.

  Lili waited until the boy drank the entire potion down. She allowed her senses to flare and noticed the change immediately. She still made them wait a bit while she checked on other patients and returned to make sure the potion still worked.

  Cassie promised to call Asmeth as soon as she returned to her apartment. As she left the hospital with Kevin in her arms, she looked at Lili and smiled broadly, looking more relaxed than she had since she first arrived.