Revenant(72)

“I’m looking for an enchantment that will disguise me from angels. Make me look like another species or something.”

His lip curled again, but this time, there was no hint of amusement. “Does this have something to do with the attack?”

“Yes. Obviously, I’m being hunted for some reason. Could have something to do with a patient I treated or maybe I’m being confused for someone else. Either way, it’s clear I’m not safe, and I can’t stay at UG anymore. I can’t put anyone else at risk.”

He came to an abrupt halt. “Put me at risk.”

She wheeled around to face him. “Excuse me?”

“You can stay with me. Think about it,” he said as he stroked his hand down the hilt of a blade at his hip. “No one in their right minds would come after you with me around.”

True, but how long would it be before he was the one she had to run from? Her pager went off in an urgent tone. “Hold on.” She glanced at the message, and her heart stopped.

Your gallbladder blanchier patient from yesterday is code 12. Hurry.

“I gotta go!” She ran toward the Harrowgate leading to the hospital, and wouldn’t you know it, Rev was right on her heels. She didn’t bother taking the time to tell him to go away. He wouldn’t listen, and her mind was racing anyway.

The blanchier’s operation had been routine and unremarkable, so what the hell? She hit the Harrowgate at a run, with Rev sliding in after her. There was only one flashing light inside, and that was the symbol for Underworld General. She touched it, and instantly the gate opened into the hospital’s bustling ER.

She jogged to the surgical wing and the bank of rooms set aside for post-op patients, and the insane activity outside the second door on the right told her that was the blanchier’s room.

Several staff members were frantically trying to revive the pale, elflike demon. Slash, another of several Seminus brothers Eidolon had hired recently, was gripping the blanchier’s ankle, his dermoire glowing madly as he channeled healing power into him. Unfortunately, the blanchier was a species that didn’t respond well to a Seminus demon’s healing power.

“Fuck,” he barked. “Something is shutting down all his systems.”

Bane, his brother, snatched the IV bag off the pole. “This is saline. It’s fucking saline.”

Oh, shit. Blanchiers were highly allergic to saline. Who would have ordered a saline drip? Or had someone accidentally spiked a bag of saline instead of glucose? Blas grabbed the demon’s chart and scanned it for physician orders.

Eidolon had ordered labs. Bane had given an injection of hydrogen peroxide. Blaspheme had ordered… saline.

All around her, the alarmed beeps from hospital equipment and the raised voices of the people trying to save the demon faded into a distant buzz. Blaspheme’s pulse fluttered in spastic bursts as guilt stabbed her in the chest like a dull blade. She’d marked the wrong damned box.

“No,” she whispered.

Revenant appeared at her side and peered at the chart in her hand. “What is it?”

Nausea racked her, stealing her voice, and when she could finally talk, her voice was barely a whisper. “It’s my fault. I meant to mark D5W. I remember now. I was distracted and… fuck. I didn’t even sign my name on the chart.” Shoving the clipboard onto its hook at the foot of the bed, she leaped into action. “Someone give him a glucose injection. Hurry!”

“We already did that. He’s dying,” Slash said.

“Did you try adrenaline? Cefazolin?” She scrambled for the open drawers and cabinets, knocking stuff out of the way as she desperately sought every drug known to help blanchiers. “Acetazolamide?”

“We’ve tried everything!” Doctor Shakvhan’s shrill voice rang out, but Blaspheme didn’t stop tearing through supplies, knocking wrapped syringes, bandages, and who-knew-what-else to the floor.

Behind her, she heard Revenant’s low curse. She stopped her frantic search to watch him shove his way through the crowd of doctors and nurses.

“Hey!”

“What are you doing, asshole?”

“You can’t be in here —”

Revenant ignored everyone to lay his hand on the demon’s forehead. For a moment, everyone went silent as the room filled with a strange, electric energy. A heartbeat later, the patient inhaled a great, gasping breath, and all the machines that had been beeping in alarm suddenly went back to normal.

Shocked expressions quickly yielded to relief, and then the scramble to stabilize the guy began.

“You saved him,” Blas croaked, her mouth dry from the adrenaline overload. “Oh, damn. You did it.” Her hand shook as she swiped a paper cup from the dispenser, splashed water into it, and downed it to relieve her parched mouth. When she could speak without sounding like a three-pack-a-day smoker, she asked, “How did you do that?”