by Emery Belle
He frowned down at the sidewalk, which was shimmering with thousands of glass shards I knew I’d never be able to properly remove from my shoes. Then he held up the glass furnace. “So I’ve been working overtime at my shop every night to try and come up with a solution for cleaning up the mess fast, and here it is.” He hovered his finger over the red button and the handheld furnace began to shake even more violently.
“Ready?” he asked gleefully. “This is the first time I’ll be testing it out in the real world.”
His eyes gleamed with excitement as he pressed the top end of the device against the sidewalk, and I inched back a few steps, nervously casting my eyes over our surroundings for someplace to hide. I was just considering whether I should take refuge in the ambulance—and perhaps beg the driver to fly me someplace far away—when an explosion ripped through the air, knocking me backward.
My hands hit the ground to stop my fall, and I cried out in pain as dozens of miniscule glass shards embedded themselves in my palms. Through the clouds of black smoke billowing in the air between us, I could just make out a shell-shocked Gerald climbing unsteadily to his feet, his bottle-lens glasses shattered and his formerly thick blond eyelashes now singed off.
It took a few moments for him to regain his senses, and when he did, he stared down at his ruined invention sadly. “I guess it’s not ready yet. Back to the books.” Then, noticing my injured hands for the first time, he gasped and grabbed them, ignoring my yelp of pain.
“Shoot!” he cried, knocking himself on the head with his fist. “Shoot, shoot, shoot! You won’t tell anyone about this, right? The director said I only had one more chance, and if I accidentally hurt anyone again…” He slashed his finger across his throat and gave me an imploring look.
“Er… I guess not,” I said, then looked down at my hands, which were now streaked with blood. “But don’t you think I should get this taken care of before I start work for the day? It doesn’t seem very sanitary…”
“You’re right, you’re absolutely right,” Gerald blustered, wringing his hands. “We’ll get you healed—just not by a doctor. Like I said…” He drew his finger over his throat again and muttered something about mandatory reporting.
Then, suddenly, his eyes lit up and a broad grin returned to his face. “Which reminds me… this gives me the perfect opportunity to test out my newest invention-in-progress, the thermodynamic wound sewer. Let’s go!” And, ignoring the mess on the sidewalk, he grabbed me by the arm and positively danced me toward the hospital’s front doors.
Fifteen minutes later, with my hands wrapped in copious amounts of gauze bandaging—after taking one look at the thermodynamic wound sewer, I’d refused to let it, or Gerald, for that matter, within ten feet of me—I waddled off toward the hospital’s topmost floor, my housekeeping assignment for the day. I say waddled, because I was encased head to toe in the same hazmat suit I’d seen the dwarf outside wearing, which was so heavy and clumsy I felt like I was walking through molasses after visiting the puff shop one too many times.
Instead of elevators, the hospital had installed a network of glass ceiling tubes that whisked employees and visitors between floors with dizzying speed. Stuffing myself inside one, I pressed the button for the twelfth floor and held my breath, squeezing my eyes closed as my tube whizzed to life with a beeping sound and catapulted me up, down, left, and right so fast my head was spinning and my breakfast was churning violently in my stomach. Finally it came to an abrupt stop, turning upside down and dumping me onto the spotless hospital floor in a heap.
Staggering slightly as I climbed to my feet, I gave myself a quick pat-down to make sure all of my limbs were still intact before gazing up at the door separating me from the top-floor patients. I frowned. The door looked very sturdy, made of thick steel without a window or even a peephole to see what was happening on the other side.
I crouched down to study the space between the bottom of the door and the floor—or, I should say, the lack of space, because every crack in the doorframe was sealed tight. Seeing no handle or bell, I knocked tentatively, then pressed my ear against it to listen for any approaching footsteps, but the door was so impenetrable that any sounds coming from the other side were completely muffled.
After a few moments, I heard a series of bolts being slid back, followed by the sound of someone groaning as the door pushed open, little by little, to reveal a gray-haired security guard fully enclosed in a protective bubble, his wand trained on the door, his arm trembling with the effort of using his magic to open it.
“Get in quick,” he said, grabbing me by the wrist and forcing me through the doorway. He took one look at my hazmat suit, snorted, and shook his head as he turned his wand on me. “Whoever sent you up here in that getup is either as clueless as a rock or has a death wish for you.”
His wand glided over me, a shimmering bubble emerging from its tip before forming itself around my body in a perfect fit. The hazmat suit melted away, and I took a deep, grateful breath to celebrate finally being free of the suffocating material before prodding my finger into the bubble, which felt as solid as the door I’d just passed through.
“Follow me,” the guard said, turning on his heel and striding down a long, empty corridor with harsh overhead lighting and walls made of gray concrete. “Visiting hours are over in fifteen minutes on the nose. Our patients need plenty of rest if they’re going to recover.”
We came to the end of the hallway and turned a corner to find another equally drab corridor stretching endlessly before us, though this one was separated from us not by a door but by some kind of translucent blue barrier that stretched from wall to wall. “I’m not a visitor; this is my first day working in the housekeeping department,” I said to the guard as he poked his wand tip against the barrier and muttered a spell under his breath.
“That so?” he asked as a person-sized hole appeared in the barrier with a suctioning sound. He gestured for me to step through it, and I did so, shivering against what felt like hundreds of icy fingers skating over my skin. The guard followed, chuckling to himself as he gave me a sympathetic look. “How did you end up with a gig like this? Does someone have it out for you?”
I thought of Misty the dwarf and my stomach dropped. “Why?” I asked, my protective bubble wobbling around me as I hurried to keep up with the guard, who was traversing the second corridor with long, confident strides. “What sort of patients are…”
But when we rounded a second corner and came to another steel door, the rest of the question died from my lips. Above the door, printed on a sign in sturdy block letters, were the words: 12th Floor: The Cornelius B. Pebble Ward for Highly Infectious Diseases. Enter at Your Own Risk.
“Well, this is where I leave you,” the guard said cheerfully. “They’d need to give me a few hundred extra silver coins on my paycheck each week to convince me to step foot in there.”
Guiding the door open with his wand, he thrust me forward as soon as a wide-enough opening appeared, and then jumped back and let his wand arm fall to his side. Just before the door swung shut with a heavy clank that reverberated through my skull, I looked back to see the guard taking three steps forward before vanishing, leaving me entirely alone.
Wait…
Not alone.
A man whose skin seemed to be glowing faintly purple was sprinting down yet another hallway toward me, holding what looked like a blowtorch that was spitting out flames of the same color.
I stepped back, pressing my back to the steel door, willing it to open… or maybe even swallow me whole—at this point, it seemed a better fate than whatever was awaiting me at the end of this labyrinthine hospital ward. But it did not, and when the man reached me, he popped the protective bubble still around me with a single jab of his wand and aimed the blowtorch in my direction.
It arced out of his hand and spun in a circle around me, enclosing me in a solid wall of purple flames that licked my skin, spreading a pleasant, slow-moving warmth all over me. After a few mom
ents, the flames evaporated, leaving behind a slightly numb sensation in my limbs, along with that same faint purple glow.
The man was watching me earnestly. “Does it tingle?” he asked, looking me up and down as I wiggled my fingers, which felt heavier than normal. When I nodded, he gave me a satisfied smile. “Now you’re fully protected. Welcome to ward twelve.”
He started walking down the hall toward a set of double doors, and through the windows I could see nurses bustling around holding charts and doctors wearing stethoscopes. It all looked very normal, and I could feel myself starting to relax as I matched his stride.
“I’m Dale, head nurse for ward twelve. Gerald called up to tell me we’d be expecting you. Since we don’t get too many visitors on this floor, I take it you’re the new hire from the housekeeping department?”
“Yes,” I said, then pointed at the blowtorch, which was still emitting feeble purple sparks. “What does that thing do?”
He glanced down at it, frowning when he noticed the sparks. “Time for a new one,” he muttered to himself, giving the torch a good shake. The sparks died out with a crackling sound, and with a wave of his wand, he sent it flying into a box nailed to the wall just outside the double doors.
“It works twofold,” he said, pushing his way through the doors and holding them open for me. “The fire sanitizes you to ensure you don’t bring any additional diseases or contagious viruses into the ward, and once you’ve been thoroughly cleaned, it leaves you with a protective barrier over your skin so that you don’t contract any diseases or viruses while you’re here.”
Too bad hospitals in the human world couldn’t rustle up one of those magical torches for themselves, I thought, impressed. Then another thought struck me. “Why didn’t the guard at the first door have one of these?”
“It takes a fair bit of magic to perform the spell needed to operate it,” Dale said modestly. “So before you reach me, the bubble has to do. Besides, that’s why we have so many corridors separating the ward from the entrance to the floor. Viruses can only travel so far.” He pursed his lips. “Except for mad hen syndrome. But we haven’t seen one of those cases for at least a decade.” He shuddered. “The squawking was unbearable. And don’t even get me started on the pecking…” Dale discreetly rubbed the inside of his thigh. “Still got some of the scars.”
Now that we were through the doors, the ward looked like a hospital wing anywhere else in the world, with nurses checking charts and chatting behind a wide wraparound desk, visitors carrying balloons and chocolates, and television programs blaring out from the patients’ rooms.
Of course, I thought, trying to peer into any open rooms without being too obvious, most hospitals elsewhere in the world didn’t treat patients whose skin was covered in hundreds of fluttering butterflies, or who were hurling themselves against an invisible barrier while roaring like a lion, or who had sprouted deadly-looking spikes on every square inch of their body. When an elderly woman screaming like a banshee—maybe she was a banshee—removed her left eyeball and hurled it at us as we walked past her room, Dale didn’t even falter in his step.
“You have a wand, right?” Dale asked, coming to a stop outside a door marked Housekeeping. He eyed me up and down, looking for my wand, but when my empty hands and pockets finally dawned on him, he raised his eyebrows incredulously. “Wow.” He whistled, shaking his head. “You must have really been hard up for a job, huh?”
The second I clocked out for the day, I decided right then and there, I was going to march straight down to the employment office and give a certain lady dwarf’s bushy beard a good hard yank.
Chapter 5
Armed with a bucket of cleaning potion, a mop, and a face mask, I set off down the hospital corridor to the first room scheduled for cleaning. The door was closed all but an inch, so I tapped on it lightly before poking my head inside.
“Housekeeping,” I called, struggling to set the bucket of cleaning potion onto the floor without spilling any. The fumes pouring out of it were making my head spin, but Dale informed me that only industrial-strength potion would be enough to decontaminate the patients’ rooms. Glancing down at my hands, I breathed a soft sigh of relief to see that they were still surrounded by the faint purple glow.
“Come in, my dear,” a deep voice called, and I stepped into the dim room and squinted toward the figure lying on the bed. I couldn’t make out his face, and his body was bathed in shadows, but I could tell by his shape that he wasn’t quite… human. Although, to be fair, most of the people who inhabited Magic Island stepped straight out of the pages of a horror story.
But this man was different, I realized as I flipped on the overhead light and my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. He was…
Magnificent.
His luxurious coat was chestnut and threaded with strands of silver that glimmered like starlight. His hair cascaded over his bare shoulders and broad, muscular chest in thick waves that would have made any woman jealous. Every inch of his skin that wasn’t covered in fur was taut and bronze, as if he spent his days galloping under a sunny sky. Which he probably did, I thought, eyeing his powerful legs that ended in hooves.
He chuckled, low and deep, his pale blue eyes twinkling. “I take it you’ve never met a centaur before?”
My cheeks heated. I’d been staring, but he was so positively stunning that I couldn’t tear my eyes away. “Not an adult.” I had, in fact, been kicked in the face by a centaur foal at the daycare center a few weeks ago, but the foal’s skinny legs, thin chest, and short coat had barely even hinted at what he’d someday be.
“Come closer.” The centaur set aside his crossword puzzle and the beautiful silver filigree pen he was using and beckoned me forward. “I want to get a good look at you.”
As I crossed the hospital room toward him, he kept his eyes fixed on mine, his expression intense, probing, as though he was trying to read my soul. When I came to a stop at his bedside, his eyes flashed silver for just a moment before returning to their usual color. “You are not what you appear to be,” he said.
“Well”—I gazed down at my glowing hands—“you’re right, I’m not usually this purple, but apparently it’s supposed to help with—”
“No,” he boomed, cutting me off mid-sentence, his irises silver once more and his gaze strangely blank. Raising his hand, trancelike, he stretched it out toward me, then pressed his fingers against my chest, over my heart. “Here.” He tapped my chest. “You are… an imposter.”
“I am not,” I said indignantly, pushing his hand aside. A shudder ran through his body, rippling the muscles in his powerful chest and convulsing his hind legs, and he gave a little start before smiling up at me, the silver fading from his eyes.
“Not what?” he asked, his tone gentle once more.
I stared at him, wondering if short-term memory loss was a symptom of whatever horrible disease he had. “An imposter. And you also said that I’m not what I appear to be… whatever that means,” I finished crossly, folding my arms over my chest.
“Apologies, my dear,” the centaur said, inclining his head gracefully. Up close, I could see that he was far older than he’d seemed at first; his bronze face was weathered, and deep wrinkles creased his forehead, but they only added to his splendor. “When I have a vision, I become unaware, separated from myself. Sometimes I say and do things that aren’t quite within the usual social norms; my sight has gotten me into plenty of trouble over the years.”
I frowned at him, trying to make sense of his nonsensical words. “Your sight?”
“I was born with the gift of sight,” he said gravely. “It is both a blessing and a curse, but a gift nonetheless. It is one I have nurtured throughout the ages, and hope to one day pass down to my own children. But alas.” He sighed heavily. “So far neither have shown the signs. Perhaps it is for the better.”
He smiled up at me, then waved his hand toward the cleaning supplies I’d left on the ground. “You are the aide, I presume? Is it time for
my morning wash?” The centaur began lifting the bedcovers off himself, exposing the deep V at the end of his long torso.
“No!” I said, hastily averting my eyes. “I’m just here to tidy up your room.”
“Ah. Well, carry on then. But please don’t disturb the small tokens of appreciation I’ve been sent. It took me an age to get them arranged just right.” He waved his hand toward the plants, get-well-soon cards, and other gifts piled on his bedside tables—the centaur had so many well-wishers that the nurses had to bring in a second table.
When I promised I wouldn’t, he inclined his head at me once more before resuming his crossword puzzle, sticking the end of the pen into his mouth and sucking on it earnestly as he pored over the game. “Some of these clues are quite ridiculous,” he murmured to himself as I picked up the bucket of cleaning potion and mop and began scrubbing the floor. “What kind of bumbling idiot doesn’t know that a three-letter word for ‘forest beast’ is elf?” He began filling in the letters, then stopped and scratched his flowing beard with the tip of his pen. “No, wait, that doesn’t fit…”
His voice faded into the background as I began concentrating on my work. Every so often, I allowed my gaze to flick to the centaur, who had now kicked the covers aside and stretched out his long legs over the bed. What was wrong with him? He seemed perfectly healthy, in far better shape than most of the other patients I’d seen so far in the highly infectious diseases ward. Not even a single hair on his head looked out of place, and he sounded perfectly lucid to me.
Unless… was all that business about having visions some type of delusion? And a dangerous one at that? I eyed him warily and began mopping a little faster, but he was too engrossed in his puzzle to pay me any more attention. After finishing up as quickly as I could, I began gathering my cleaning supplies and setting them in the corridor. I had just poked my head back through the doorway to bid the centaur farewell when I heard a tiny gasp coming from inside the room.