by Linda Wisdom
“I can’t believe that.” Jared smiled at her. “You’re more than just a Guide, aren’t you?”
She wrinkled her nose in an impish manner. “It depends on you who talk to.” She closed the door after her.
“I’ll miss her,” Jared admitted, watching Lili move the table and chairs back in place.
“You could have helped,” she told him.
“Yes, but you do it with a flick of the finger.” He took a chair and lifted an inquiring eyebrow until she conjured up two cups of coffee. “Thanks.”
Instead of sitting across from him, Lili took the chair next to him. She warmed her hands with the cup as she stared into the dark contents.
“I told Dr. Mortimer that I felt you should be released,” she said in a low voice.
Jared froze. “Why would you do that?”
Like him she studied her coffee cup. “Because there is no way you have any mental instability in you.” She looked up when she felt the table tremble. “Jared!”
If he were a mundane, Lili would have known he was having a seizure, but this wasn’t like any seizure she’d seen in mundanes or preternaturals.
Black foam rimmed his mouth, and he fell from the chair, flailing around. Lili winced at the sound of a gong ringing outside the room. She fell to her knees carefully as she wrapped a protection spell around him so he couldn’t hurt himself.
And regretted the door wasn’t secured when Turtifo and Coing barged in.
“What the fuck have you done now?” the former snarled, reaching down and grabbing Jared’s shoulders in a rough hold while Coing took his legs.
“Don’t touch him!” she ordered.
“No way Dr. M. won’t find out about this,” Turtifo told her as they carried Jared out. “You’re in big trouble now.”
“I need to treat him!” She followed them out.
“No treatment. He just needs to sleep it off.” Turtifo grinned at her, revealing his blackened teeth. “And you need to get out of here.”
Lili deliberately waited until she heard the clang of Jared’s cell door, then waited another fifteen minutes before she left the room. She could hear the two ogres laughing heartily in their private break room.
“Probably downloading porn,” she muttered, reaching Jared’s cell door.
She looked through the bars and saw Jared sprawled on the mattress with her protective spell gone. His skin was gray, his eyes wild.
When she touched the lock to deactivate it, she was shocked so badly, she was thrown backward and fell on her ass.
She stared at the lock that sparked black.
Jared was not only locked in. She was locked out.
Chapter 13
“I’ll turn them into slimy toads,” Lili fumed, pacing the small confines of her office. “Or go further and send them back as amoeba. Algae to be skimmed off a pond. Hedgehogs. No, forget that, I like hedgehogs.”
“Wow, what has your witchy dander up?” Deisphe braved the hex of a tantrum and dropped gracefully into a chair. She ignored the suffocating power in the air.
“The ogres finally did it,” Cleo announced from her spot on the couch. “They set a trap on Jared’s door so Lili was zapped when she tried to open it. I bet Dr. Musty had something to do with it.” She stretched her mouth in a wide yawn, revealing finely honed fangs.
Lili held up her hands to show her badly blistered palms.
“Oh no!” Deisphe was out of her chair immediately and grasped her hands to examine the burns. “Why didn’t you heal these?” she demanded with a hint of a growl, while her eyes glittered a dark gold.
“I can’t,” she said tightly, closing her eyes. “Magick won’t work on them.”
“Stay here.” She was out of the office and returned before Lili had time to blink. Deisphe gently pushed her back into her chair and set a small tray on the desk. After setting Lili’s injured hands palm up on a towel, she picked up a tube and started slathering the ingredients on the scorched skin.
Lili hissed as the cream hit the raw spots.
“This will help ensure there will be no scarring or infection since, as you know, some curses can do that,” the Were assured her. “Not strictly magick and meant for burns.” After she carefully slathered the cream on, she wrapped the witch’s hands with gauze. “No instant healing, but they should feel better in about an hour or so. We use it on injuries that magick doesn’t heal. And this is for being a good girl.” She unwrapped a Tootsie Pop and edged it between Lili’s lips.
Lili didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She settled for doing both.
“No, don’t,” Deisphe purred, putting her arms around her shoulders.
“I don’t care that Dr. Mortimer will fire me for disobeying his orders,” she sobbed. “It’s that Jared is now even more of a prisoner down there. They’ll tell Dr. Mortimer what I did.”
“No, they won’t.” There was a grim set to her mouth.
“They can’t.” Cleo chimed in.
Lili looked at the two cats in her office. “No, you can’t kill them.”
“As much as the idea appeals to me after what Turtifo and Coing did, I think there are other ways to handle them.” Deisphe grinned, displaying her own impressive set of fangs. “Just leave them to me.” She put her tools back on the tray. “It’s quiet in the ER, so stay here and let that cream work. If things get bad, I’ll give a shout.” She picked up the tray and headed for the door.
“Deisphe.” The nurse looked over her shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it. I haven’t had this much fun in ages.” She closed the door after her.
“She’s not so bad,” Cleo commented. “For a leopard.”
“Elitist.” Lili wrinkled her nose at the bandages. She could feel a tingling along her wounded palms, indicating that a healing process was already taking place. She closed her mind, but images of Jared caught in a bad place haunted her, so she opened them again.
“Couldn’t Jazz help you with that cursed lock?” Cleo asked. “Curses are her specialty.”
“Yes, but there’s more involved here than just me,” she replied. “I refuse to believe he’s now a complete prisoner down there.”
“Why do you think that seizure happened?” The feline hopped off her silk pillow and moved to the top of Lili’s desk.
“I don’t know. I wish I did.”
“Maybe a side effect of whatever Dr. Mortimer does to him in that locked room. Please don’t try that lock,” she advised, placing her paw on Lili’s arm. “At least not until you have a way to do it without getting badly hurt. That could be even worse than what just happened.”
“Why Cleo, are you worried about me?” she teased.
“Of course I am. At least sometimes you remember to purchase quality food for me.”
“And there goes that warm and fuzzy moment.” Lili laughed softly, getting up and moving to the couch. She tossed Cleo’s pillow to the end and stretched out. She set her mental alarm clock to wake her in an hour and closed her eyes. Luckily, no images of Jared appeared, but she felt them on the edges of her mind as she drifted into a light sleep.
***
While Dr. Mortimer didn’t appear to reprimand her for being with Jared, Director of Nursing Garrish did arrive in the ER with the news they were short a nurse.
“She didn’t call in, and she isn’t answering her phone,” the dragon-shifter groused. “We will just have to adjust to it for now, because even if Calla shows up, she will discover she doesn’t have a job any longer.” After delivering her news, she left.
Deisphe and Lili glanced at each other.
Another one? The Were mouthed, wide-eyed.
Lili gave a bare nod of the head.
“Something odd about this,” Heron commented. “I talked to Calla a few days ago, and she didn’t mention she was going anywhere. In fact, she just got back from vacation a month ago.”
“That’s true,” Vanna, another nurse, added. “She even said she spent so much money, she was hopin
g to take on extra shifts to pay off her Visa.”
Lili jammed her now healed hands into her lab coat’s pockets, feeling the reassuring protective runes surround her skin. She suddenly frowned. Why hadn’t the sigils in her scrubs and lab coat protected her below? She hadn’t worried about anything from the first day she was here, had felt their protections kick into gear anytime they were needed. Yet this time, they’d abandoned her.
While her first thought was to call Maggie and ask her about it, she knew better. The Hellion Guard would pull her out before she could blink, and Eurydice would ensure she couldn’t return to the hospital.
“Want to go out for dinner after work?” Deisphe asked in a low voice as the group dispersed.
The idea of going home didn’t appeal to her. She’d only spend the hours worrying about Jared and what could be happening to him. “That sounds good to me. Anything is fine. I’ll meet you out in the parking lot.”
She nodded and walked off.
Lili looked around, realized there was nothing urgent going on and decided to beard the dragon in her den.
Director of Nursing Garrish was seated at her desk with a cup of tea in one hand and a scone in the other. She wasn’t pleased to have any interruptions to her teatime.
“Will you have some tea, Dr. Carter?” she asked politely.
“Yes, thank you.” What is it with tea? Don’t they know it’s coffee that keeps all of us going? She took a seat and accepted a delicate teacup that was at odds with the stocky nurse, who was known to actually breathe fire.
“So what brings you to the dragon’s den?” Her smile wasn’t pleasant, but it held a hint of wryness.
Never underestimate a dragon-shifter. “I came here about Calla.” She already knew the head nurse preferred plain speaking, and that was something Lili was very good at doing. “I don’t feel she left of her own accord.”
“Oh? I didn’t realize you were psychic, Dr. Carter.” She sipped her tea, then looked at Lili over the rim of her cup. “Have you had a vision where the little gnome went? Perhaps you aren’t aware of this, but gnomes in the healthcare field aren’t very plentiful. They tend to prefer working in the open air to being stuck in an antiseptic room.” Her dark eyes bored into Lili. “Calla was a competent nurse, but I know I can do better.”
“Except she left like the others who suddenly dropped out of sight,” Lili countered. “No advance warning. Just silence. Don’t you find this the least bit unsettling, since she’s not the first one to do this?” She drank the tea, barely managing not to wince at the hot liquid scalding her tongue. No surprise; the tea was very strong. She took a bite of her scone, promptly remembering she hated currants but had no way to cough them into a napkin.
“What is your interest in this?”
“One of the missing nurses is a friend of mine,” Lili said candidly. “Sera came here because I suggested it. I worked with her, and I know how trustworthy she is. She wouldn’t just walk away like that unless there was a very good reason.” Her stomach tightened at the idea of what that reason could be.
Nurse Garrish seemed to look off into the distance. Lili sensed a hint of sulfur in the air and managed to keep her seat instead of bolting for the door the way she wanted to.
“You’re a very levelheaded witch,” the shifter said. “I admire your dedication to your friend, but let’s be frank here, Doctor. What do you expect from me? I have no reason to think that Sera, Calla, or anyone else left here other than of their own accord. If you can prove differently, I will help you any way I can, but without proof…” She held up her hands to indicate she couldn’t otherwise.
Lili nodded numbly. “I understand.” She finished the tea and managed to eat the rest of the scone even though it lay like a stone in her stomach. The day hadn’t been a good one, and she was feeling it more by the second.
“Now I have a question for you,” Nurse Garrish said when it appeared Lili was ready to leave. “Why are you telling me all of this and not relating your fears to Dr. Mortimer? After all, you’re a doctor.” Her thin lips stretched in a narrow smile. “Most doctors would seek him before coming to me. Even more so, since Dr. Mortimer is kindhearted and I am… not.”
Lili was never as glad as she was then that she could think fast on her feet. “Nurses are your area, not Dr. Mortimer’s. I’ve noticed nurses and doctors leaving without notice. It happens in all hospitals, but not this many in what appears to be a short period of time. I also know you care about your nurses. You don’t allow them to be browbeaten by us doctors, and if anyone can help me figure this out, it’s you.”
Nurse Garrish poured herself a cup of tea and leaned across the desk to refill Lili’s cup.
“I gather that was one of the reasons you returned to Crying Souls.” She picked up the plate, but Lili refused another scone.
“Yes.” She still felt cautious, but she felt it was too late to back away now. Plus, she had an idea that the shifter and Dr. Mortimer weren’t bosom buddies. And if they were, well, eeuwww!
The shifter turned to her computer and tapped a few keys. “You were listed as one of Sera’s references,” she said finally. “You even wrote a letter extolling her skills as a more-than-proficient nurse.” Granite-colored eyes turned toward her. “There is nothing in the records to say why Sera or any of the others left. No reports of harassment or any type of wrongdoing. I’ll be honest with you—I doubt Dr. Mortimer knows, or cares, about this matter. So what do you expect me to do, Dr. Carter?”
Lili opened her mouth then closed it again. “I—I don’t know,” she admitted reluctantly. “I just refuse to believe Sera is…”
“Dead.” She said the word Lili couldn’t allow to slip past her lips. “But you feel Sera’s disappearance is linked to the hospital.”
She nodded. “And now Calla’s gone the same way as the others.”
“I don’t know what I can do for you, but I will take another look at the records of those who left the hospital without notice.”
Lili finished her tea and stood up. She knew a dismissal when she heard it, and that it was wise to exit right away. Plus, she had received a lot more than she expected. Nurse Garrish wasn’t known for any type of helpful behavior.
“Thank you.” She nodded her head as she left the office.
“The only reason I’m willing to do this is because you show respect toward my nurses and you are an excellent healer,” Arimentha Garrish said at her back. “Otherwise, I would have escorted you out of my office before you uttered one word.”
Lili nodded again. She decided it would be even money if there were ever a smackdown between Eurydice and Nurse Garrish. She silently ordered her shaking knees to remain in the locked upright position and managed to leave in one piece.
It wasn’t until she was back in the safe confines of her office that she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Always nice to have the dragons on your side,” she said to herself.
***
“We can help too,” Deisphe told Lili over a dinner of Thai food after she described her visit to Nurse Garrish’s office. She forked up lime chicken stir-fry. “You were nuts to think you could do all this yourself.”
“Asmeth has done what he can,” she defended herself. “He picks up the gossip the way we’d pick up makeup.”
“But he doesn’t have all the inside dirt we nurses and doctors do,” the Were reminded her. She waved her fork at her in a mock-threatening manner. “Didn’t you trust me?” There was a hint of hurt in her voice.
“I did, but I’m so used to doing things for myself,” Lili explained. She felt exhausted, upset, and actually calmer. Deisphe was right. She didn’t need to try to do this all herself. She knew she had Maggie and others who’d be here in a heartbeat, but Lili felt guilty that she was the one who had sent Sera to what could have been her destruction. She toyed with her rice, picking it up a grain at a time.
“Stop playing with your food and eat,” Deisphe ordered with a growl. “Otherwise, no luscio
us coconut cake for you, and the one here is to die for.”
Lili smiled and returned to her plate of garlic chicken with mushrooms and pineapple fried rice. The food was spicy and actually made her feel better. Especially when the Were kept on tempting her with the promise of dessert.
As promised, the two-layer cake was moist with toasted coconut covering the fluffy frosting. The perfect end to the meal.
Refusing to allow Lili to sink back into worrying, Deisphe dragged her to a few shops where they indulged in some necessary retail therapy.
By the time they left the last shop, Lili felt her credit cards whimpering, and her arms were weighted down with bags.
“It sucks we have to wear scrubs at work,” the Were groused. “Although the alternative isn’t all that great, either. So much nasty stuff ends up on my clothes every shift. I don’t think I’ve found one reliable cleaning spell. The last one burned holes.”
“You have to be so specific, it’s not funny,” Lili agreed, feeling more relaxed than she had in a while. She didn’t realize that sharing her worries could ease her mind so much. She hugged Deisphe as they stopped by Lili’s SUV. “Thank you,” she whispered, meaning much more than just the evening out.
“Hey, that’s what friends are for.” She hugged her back. “See ya tomorrow. You can always wear the sexy undies you bought,” she teased.
Lili laughed. “If I’m lucky, Cleo hasn’t ordered up more catnip wine and trashed the house.” She climbed in and fired up the engine and heater.
Except now she was alone with her thoughts and worries about Jared.
What if he couldn’t call on the shadows any longer? Trapped in that cell until… until what? Until he was nothing more than an empty husk who had no conception of his surroundings?
She parked her car in the garage and pulled her purchases out of the back.
Sexy lingerie she didn’t need, gorgeous shoes, and clothing designed to have a guy think wild things.
“And here there’s no guy around,” she muttered, walking into the house. And froze the moment she entered the kitchen.