I was angry. I knew it was irrational, but I was angry at Blake for acting like the mercenary he was and taking payment to kill Carter. I was angry at Carter for saying we needed to change locations. I was angry at Sean Costas and Nosizwe both for their stubborn insistence on war instead of peace. Why couldn’t the two of them come to some sort of agreement on those blasted Stones of Fire? Find a way to help their people together? I was angry that I was a bystander who’d been sucked into their conflict, and my family kept having to pay the price.
I was still fuming a half-hour later when a knock at the door heralded a visitor. I told them to come in, expecting hospital personnel arriving to check vitals or take blood or any number of reasons people come in and out of a hospital room. I was surprised to see an RN I didn’t know enter the room. She was about my height, with straight black hair drawn into a ponytail, high cheek bones, brown eyes behind green, horn-rimmed glasses, and beige skin.
“Hi. I’m Lola,” she announced. “You must be Taylor. Yolanda was just telling us all about your marriage and the baby. Congratulations.”
She said it pleasantly, but behind her horn-rimmed glasses her eyes were sharp, appraising.
Or maybe that was my imagination, like the whiff of some bad odor that seemed to have come in with her. I sniffed quietly a couple of times, but couldn’t rid myself of the faint stench. Like decay. Or decomposition.
I shook off a funny feeling and summoned up a smile. “Thank you. We’re—very excited.”
Liar.
“I’m sure you are. Yolanda sent me to give Mr. Ballis his next dose of pain medication. I’ll do that and scoot on out.”
“More pain meds?” I glanced at the clock. “He’s not due for more meds for another hour-and-a-half. Besides, he’s sleeping fine. No need to wake him up, is there?”
“I’m just following orders,” she shrugged.
She reached for Carter’s IV. In her hand, I saw a needle and syringe. Warning bells pealed in my mind. Something was wrong, and it wasn’t only the smell in the room, which had gotten a little stronger.
“Wait, just a second, please,” I said, jumping up and making my way around the end of the bed. “He was taking his pain meds orally before. Why are we switching to the IV?”
“I’m just following orders,” Lola repeated, but there was a harsher edge to her tone. Some of the pleasantness had worn off.
“What, exactly, are you giving him?”
“The same thing he had before.”
She was intent on the IV. Maybe I was off base, but I was intent on preventing her.
“Wait, I’d like to check with Yolanda first. I’m sure she said he didn’t need further meds for an hour-and-a-half. Plus, I’d like to find out why they’re switching from oral meds to the IV.”
“Ma’am, if you’ll calm down and step back we can get this taken care of,” Lola said firmly.
She wasn’t listening to me, and the warning bells were chiming. Something shouted at me not to let her do this. Not only was I sure it was against hospital procedure, but it just felt off. Maybe it was paranoia from Blake’s assault earlier. Maybe it was even some sort of PTSD. Whatever the case, I didn’t stop to think. My hand reached into her space and plucked the syringe right out of her fingers.
“I’d like to wait for Yolanda, please. If you’ll wait a second, I’ll call her—”
I never got the chance to call Yolanda or even to finish my sentence.
A ripple passed over Lola’s skin, and I was face to face with a living, breathing monster. I choked on a scream, stumbling backwards as the human fell away to reveal a creature from someone’s worst nightmares. It was gaunt like it had been starved, its bones pushing against its skin so that the outline of the skull could be clearly seen through the tattered skin of the face. The skin was grey as a corpse’s, and the faint whiff of decay that had entered the room with Lola was abruptly overpowering, gagging me. The creature’s lips were torn and bloody, and there were open sores and wounds all over its flesh.
With a screech, it lunged at me, jaws gaping, displaying sharp, pointed black teeth. I swear, in that instant, I thought it wasn’t merely trying to attack me—it was going to devour me.
Survival instinct—fight or flight—took over. I had nowhere to go, being trapped between the creature and the wall behind me, but even if I had I couldn’t leave Carter, lying there helpless, still passed out from his meds.
My arm holding the syringe came up. It was the only weapon I had and I slammed it, needle first, into the creature’s shoulder. My thumb automatically pressed down onto the pump, sending a full dose of whatever was in the syringe into the creature. Obviously I didn’t know what she had planned to give Carter, but I guess I was hoping maybe the jolt of the needle would at least give it pause until I could scream for help, open the door—do something.
The needle did more than give it pause.
In an instant, a ripple passed over the creature’s grey skin and Lola stood before me. Her cheeks had paled, and she clasped a hand to her shoulder, pulling the syringe out. She dropped it on the floor, covering the wound with her fingers.
“What have you done?” she panted.
I couldn’t talk. My tongue, my throat, were frozen. I gaped at her with wide eyes. The abrupt transforming back and forth were almost too much for my brain to process.
She wavered on her feet, swayed, caught herself with a hip against the bed railing.
The jolt, the noise was enough for Carter’s eyelids to crack open. His head turned and he saw Lola. A dark look passed over his features as he bolted upright in bed.
“Wendigo,” he snarled, and then the same ripple that had passed over Lola passed over him, as well. The patient in the bed was gone and the Talos was there. The bandages burst, the IV falling from his arm as he clambered out of bed.
Lola either figured it was time to leave, or else whatever was in the syringe was having a swift, deadly effect. Maybe that, plus the emergence of the Talos, were too much for her to face, despite her shifter alter. She stumbled away from the Talos and limped towards the door, one leg dragging behind her.
Carter charged, but I threw myself in front of him, afraid of him getting into a physical altercation and ripping his stitches, worsening his wound. Afraid of him fighting with Lola. Afraid of more bodies left behind that could be tied to us.
“She’s already wounded,” I said, my hands on the Talos’ bronze chest. “I injected her with whatever she was going to inject into you. It had an immediate effect. She’s not going to get far, not without an antidote. Please, Carter, don’t fight and hurt yourself worse. We have to get out of here.”
The Talos pressed against me, like it was going to move me out of the way, but Lola had opened the door by this point. I turned my head in time to see her stumble out. The door fell shut behind her, the stench of death, the odor of decay fading with her exit.
Chapter Eleven
“We have to get out of here.”
Ellie’s words reverberated in his brain, but took a minute to sink in. The Talos’ first instinct was to move Ellie out of the way, go after the wendigo and snap her neck. Keep her from being a threat to Ellie or anyone else ever again.