Page 38

Kerry

The noise wouldn’t stop.

“Go away!” I moaned, pulling the pillow over my head.

“Get up!” Hank pounded on the door again. “Gemma needs you!”

Well, that woke me up.

“Where is she? What happened?” Tangled in the sheet, I fell out of bed with a thump.

“The hospital ER. August called me. He asked her to go with him to check out this girl who—”

“Shorter, Hank.” I tried to wrestle out of the sheet and hobble toward the door at the same time. It wasn’t working too well. “I’m up, not awake.”

“She’s in trouble.”

She’s in tr—

I spun around, which tightened the sheet around my feet, and made a dive for my phone as I crashed to my knees. Scrolling through my contacts, I hit the first contact I saw who could do what I wanted.

“Why are you awake?” John didn’t bother with a hello.

“I need a favor.” I finally ripped myself free of the freaking sheet. “ ’port me to the hospital ER.”

“Are you hurt? Gemma’s—”

“In trouble. August called Hank. Get me there now !”

I got up off the floor, threw my door open, and nearly ran over Hank.

“Uh, Kerry, wait.” He followed me down the hall.

“I’m here!” John called out.

“Wait, kiddo.” Hank was still trying to talk to me, but I ignored him and ran ahead.

“Gigi’s started ’porting the others,” John said as I skidded around the corner, “and I’ll come back for Hank after I—”

“Don’t care!” I grabbed his arm and had to concentrate so I didn’t crush it. “Go, go, go!”

“Uh, bro, you sure you want everyone to see your boxers?”

#

Gemma

I held the girl’s small hand. Her skin was cold and clammy, and her chest rose and fell erratically, but she was fighting.

“Tough little thing, aren’t you? Won’t quit and don’t know how to give up.” I couldn’t help but smile. “I know someone just like you.”

“Gemma, Chief Vickers is coming back.” August stood at the edge of the privacy curtain, his head poked into the hallway.

“Already?” I laid the child’s hand back on the blanket and stood. “That was not an hour.”

“He looks angry.”

I sighed. I had a feeling I would, too, before the end of this.

It was hard to believe I’d been laughing and talking with my friends less than half an hour ago. Knowing it could be a while before Kerry was awake enough to call, I’d gone to breakfast with them to fill up the time. Then August had appeared in the cafeteria, asking if I would go with him to look at an unusual case in the hospital ER.

Unfortunately, we’d arrived too late for that poor person, but at least it meant we’d been on hand when this little girl had been brought in. I was all gung-ho to save her, but Vickers, the emergency room chief, was convinced the child was beyond hope.

“I’ve seen this horror story before,” he’d said as he’d scrubbed his hands over his face. “You need a warrior on hand to destroy a shrouder once you separate it from its victim. Otherwise, it will attach itself to you or anyone nearby.”

He had eyed me curiously, then apparently dismissed me and turned back to August.

“This shrouder is far too powerful for anyone we have on staff. I’ve put in a call to the Council, but whoever they send will arrive too late. The kid will be lucky to hold out for another hour. I have to terminate her before the shrouder does, or her soul will be lost.”

“I can’t let this happen.” I’d looked at August. “Do you think Kerry would—”

“For you, of course.” August had reached for his phone. “I’ll call while you do what you can for the child.”

And Vickers had agreed to give us an hour, but not a second more.

That had been maybe ten minutes ago.

“The Council has no higher-level warriors to send. I need to take care of this now .” Chief Vickers slung back the curtain and crossed his arms over his chest. “If it consoles you, she won’t feel any pain.”

Behind him loomed two men who looked like security guards and a nurse who kept shooting looks at the last member of the group, a man in a business suit who swept the room with a glance. Strangely, it was that guy who made me wary. He looked an awful lot like a lawyer.

I didn’t know if the law worked among the nephilim the way it did among humans, but I knew I most likely didn’t have a legal leg to stand on in either world.

I wonder if Kerry will be disappointed if he has to bail me out of jail? Hah. Knowing him, he’d be proud. Or amused. Or maybe all three. Doesn’t matter, though. This little girl needs someone on her side.

“I will not let you terminate her.” I narrowed my eyes. “Not while there’s a chance to save her.”

At a nod from Vickers, the security guards separated and flanked me while the lawyer stood on one side and the nurse on the other. The guards looked ready for a fight.

Good. They’re going to get one.

“What don’t you understand?” Vickers spoke through gritted teeth. “If that girl dies with a shrouder on her, it will consume the rest of her soul. Is that a sacrifice you want to make?”

“She’s still alive. You said we could have an hour. I’m asking you to give us that hour.”

“August, you talk to her.” Deciding I was a lost cause, Vickers appealed to my warden. “You of all people understand healing must be balanced with mercy.”

“I do.” August folded his hands like he was going to pray and gave the chief a small bow. “And I also understand hope is a healer’s greatest weapon.”

Vickers huffed and turned back to me.

“Look, you’ve played at being a doctor long enough. It’s time for the professionals to do the real work.”

“Oh, I assure you, I am not playing.” I tilted my head and smiled. “And neither will my friend when he gets here.”

“Your friend isn’t powerful enough to contain that shrouder!”

“Kerry Harker is more than powerful enough to take on one lousy shrouder. You’ll see.”

“Kerry Harker? Why is that name—” His eyes bugged out. “The demon-tainted kid? What are you thinking, inviting something like that into my ER?!”

“You better watch yourself.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Or you’ll be in your ER for a whole different reason.”

“You stupid little girl! You’re going to get yourself, this child, and possibly everyone on this floor killed!”

Losing his temper, he grabbed my shoulders and shook me so hard, my teeth clacked.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by a blue cloud that lifted him and his friends and threw them against the wall and held them there.

“Nobody touches Gemma like that!”

When it’s drawn from a sheath or scabbard, a real sword doesn’t make that schring! noise like in the movies. An expert like my uncle Paul can do it with less than a whisper of sound. Since Kerry manifested his katana directly, there wasn’t even that much of a warning before it was in his hand.

I could still tell he had called one up. Like the hum from an electric fence, a vibration that was more than noise filled the space at my back.

“Angel? What are you messing around with in here?”

I looked at him over my shoulder. He had his gray t-shirt on backward and inside out, his hair was a hot mess, and he wore plaid flip flops with his dark jeans. And a sword did, indeed, glow in his hand.

I couldn’t giggle, couldn’t even smile, because the Diabolical scent of the shrouder had brought his tiger to the forefront.

“What’s going on, Gemma?” Gigi asked.

I looked beyond Kerry to see her standing with Hank Bishop and the rest of my breakfast bunch.

“This little girl is sick, but I can’t heal her because she has an evil parasite. He,” I pointed to where Vickers hung suspended in the air, “wants to kill her before it does so that her soul is saved. But she doesn’t have to die. If Kerry peels off the parasite, I can heal her.”

“That’s it? Sure.” Kerry dissolved the sword. “No problem.”

“No, wait! You can’t—” Vicker’s voice cut off in a strangle.

“Angel, can I rip this guy’s head off?”

“No.” I pointed my index finger at him.

“Please?”

“ No . No beheading today, only shrouder-killing.”

“Grr.” He made a face, but came over to stand next to me. “All right. I’m on it.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute!” protested one of the security guards. “Let’s slow down here, kid.”

“It’s a very strong shrouder,” the other chimed in. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“Um, could you let us down first, please?” The nurse’s eyes grew huge. “I, for one, would like to not be anywhere near here for the next few minutes.”

“That’s up to Gemma.” Kerry shrugged. “She’s calling the shots on this one.”

“Let them go,” I murmured.

The instant the room depressurized, the nurse scurried away. The security guards both glanced at Vickers, then started to stealth up on Kerry. I was ready to call out a warning when blue fire shot up in front of the guards and harried them out of the room.

Kerry hadn’t even looked, and not one flame went astray or burnt anyone or anything. He was that good. Still…

“Not nice.” I frowned at him.

“Don’t care. Wanna go back to bed.”

I raised my eyebrows, but knew I would only waste time if I tried to argue, so I pointed to the little girl instead.

“All right, all right! Sheesh, you’re bossy!” He stretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles. “Gonna turn my eyes on. Don’t look in them. It wouldn’t hurt you, but you wouldn’t enjoy it, either.”

A pair of bright lights swept the room first, then landed on the little girl.

“Wow. That’s one big tick.”

“How come you’re the only one who can see it?” Jax complained. “I want to see it! How can we learn anything if we can’t see it?”

“I can do that.” John moved closer. “I can make it visible, but it’s not something I can undo once it’s done. Be sure you really want this.”

I lost track of their conversation when Vickers turned on our wardens.

“Hank! August!” Red-faced with temper, Vickers flapped his hands. “What are you doing?! This is not a classroom or a drill. That is a real person dying from a real shrouder!”

“Can’t think of a better time to learn,” Hank drawled.

“Calm down, Bert.” Prim, proper, old-fashioned August rolled his eyes, and I bit my lip to hold back a grin. “We won’t let the child die or anyone get hurt.”

“I can’t believe this!” The chief was working up to a real hissy fit, which was when the man in the suit stepped up, and the adults all turned to him.

“You’re dismissed, Vickers,” he said. “Be gone.”

He waved a hand, and a pearly white bubble encased the chief. Still protesting loudly, Vickers sailed out of the room, his heels dragging along the tile floor with a squeal.

“Thanks, Earl.” August clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “He was getting on my nerves.”

Well, whoever Earl is, he’s a transitionist.

“He may run the ER, but I run the hospital.” Earl grinned. “Besides, I only helped him ‘move on’ to where he belonged.”

“That one never gets old, does it, Early Bird?” Hank grinned.

“Last warning,” John called out. “If you don’t wanna see this thing, leave.”

When no one did, he threw out his power and a shower of dark purple swarmed over the child’s body like a bruise before it coalesced on something hovering above the hospital bed.

And then we could see it.

Kerry had called it a tick, and that’s exactly what it looked like, only one the size of a tuba. Its head was buried deep in the little girl’s neck, and its grotesquely swollen abdomen bobbed in a slow rhythm above her torso. The brown skin—or whatever a shrouder had—was stretched so thin, I could see through it. And what I saw was at once amazing and sickening.

Churning inside the shrouder’s abdomen was a luminous cloud of pearly white. That’s when I realized the shrouder wasn’t full of blood, but soul , and my hand flew over my mouth.

“Warden, you gonna lead this?” Kerry glanced at Hank.

“Nope.” Hank propped himself against August’s shoulder. “We are here in a supervisory capacity only.”

Kerry nudged me with his elbow and bent his head down. After I explained the two wardens were only going to watch, he straightened up.

“Okay, here’s how this is gonna work.” He had to pause for a huge yawn.

“Don’t get too excited, Kerry.” Tara bounced up and down on her toes.

“I’ll yank it off.” He didn’t even blink at her sarcasm. “Gemma, you grab the kid and get outta here and start with the healing. Chessie, you go with her and get ready to call the soul back where it belongs. Soon as you both clear the area, I’ll kill it.”

“You always get to kill it.” Jax gave him a belligerent look. “Let the rest of us try first.”

For a moment, he looked nonplussed, and I had to smother another giggle.

“All right. After I rip it off, each of you give it your best shot.”

“Not me.” Chessie held up both hands. “I’m only here to help the little girl. After all, Gemma and I are not front-line combatants. Our job is to salvage what’s left of those who are.”

“Whatever. Everyone ready?”

Stretching his arms high over his head, Kerry leaned to one side. His shirt rode up a few inches, and I got a good look at taut skin and hard muscles, making my belly flutter with butterflies.

“Gemma?” He raised an eyebrow, probably confused by my red face. “Ready?”

“Yes. And thanks for doing this.”

“No problem, angel.” His lazy smile made my stomach muscles clench. “But next time, find trouble a little later in the morning.”