The Demon's Game (4 page)

With my patients taken care of, I was roaming the
hospital to find any break in the pattern. Instead, I found Ms. Manning
standing alone in the hallway outside the nursery. Even though the ER and the
nursery were at opposite ends of the hospital, it wasn’t the weird part. What
gave me chills was that the nurse was talking to thin air.

“Ms. Manning?” I asked.

She turned to me and smiled. “Dr. Yatunus. What are
you doing here?” She seemed frazzled and relieved to see me.

“Just going for a walk. Who are you talking to?”

She frowned and stared back down the hall. “A
patient. A woman was just here a second ago. She was worried because she
couldn’t find her baby.”

“Did you get her name?”

“Yeah. We were just going to ask Ruby to look it up.”

I approached the nurse station with Ms. Manning
following behind me. The head nurse of the woman’s department was an older lady
with long, braided gray hair and coke-bottle glasses. She was usually
kind-hearted, but her hearing was going and it made her easily frustrated.

“Mrs. Jones, I need you to look up a patient,
please.” I spoke clearly, but not so loudly as to insult her. She gave me a
blank look until I thought I would need to repeat myself, but then turned to
her computer.

“What’s the name, Dylan?”

I looked expectantly at Ms. Manning.

“Regina Carter. C-a-r-t-e-r.”

I gasped, my heart dropping into my stomach, but
neither woman noticed. After a minute, Mrs. Jones shook her head.

“There is no Regina Carter in the system.”

“Try the baby. Dylan Carter. Search for anyone with
the name Carter admitted this week,” Ms. Manning insisted.

I knew Mrs. Jones wouldn’t find anything, though.
This wasn’t the hospital I was born in and they wouldn’t have computer records
dating back to the early 90’s. I left them both and returned to searching the
hospital, only now I was focused on seeing ghosts instead of worrying about the
lights. As if they were aware of my decision, the lights stopped flickering.

So it wasn’t the hospital, but me that was the
target. Someone was messing with me and whoever it was knew about things they
shouldn’t, like my mother. I didn’t know how well they understood my
relationship with Regina, but it was pretty much a given that I would help the
evil old bat.

I had just arrived at the break room for some coffee
when I felt a change in the air. It was extremely subtle, but familiar. I shut
and locked the door only a second before Rilryn appeared. The first time I met
the Guardian of Dayo, I was focused on stopping the gates of the void from
opening. He seemed relatively harmless compared to some of the others, such as
Emrys or Ghidorah, but like his god, I knew very little about him.

“Hello, Dylan,” he said with composure. His posture
was rigid as if he was prepared for any attack I might use.

Do they all think I’m volatile?
“Hello. Did
Mreje send you here?” The Guardians could travel to any world, since all of
them had their names in every book. However, the arrival locations were never
very accurate, and they couldn’t locate another Guardian without assistance. 

On the other hand, it had occurred to me that each
one had some particular talent that the others did not. For example, Ghidorah
had his judgment, Emrys could travel through time, and Nano was an informant. I
didn’t know Rilryn’s talent.

“He did.” He studied the room as if he had never seen
Earth before.

The break room was a new addition to the hospital and
most of the nurses called it the nap room. There was a nice, wide window
against the west wall, overlooking the forest that enclosed the city. Soft
yellow walls made of plaster tried to lighten the mood of the hospital. The
floor was concrete and the ceiling was made with white foam tiles. It was very
different from Duran, and though this was my home world, it was small
differences like these that made me home sick for Duran.

Against the window was a lime-green couch, which had
been the means of more napping than I cared to think about. If it were less
plush or closer to the coffee machine, maybe it would have been more
appropriate, but so many staff members had fallen asleep waiting for the coffee
to brew. Luckily, the coffee was hot and fresh.

A long, gray laminate counter lined the south wall
and ended with a large white fridge. In the middle of the counter was a white
sink. Luckily, as the doctors and nurses here were held to high sanitary
regulations, there was no splatter or smudge in sight. Nobody wanted a
quarantine or outbreak in a town small enough to literally be forgotten if the
government wanted us shut down.

When Rilryn said nothing more, I retrieved a
Styrofoam cup from the cabinet above the sink. “Do you want one?” I asked,
pouring coffee. I assumed he wouldn’t know what coffee was, or make the same
exaggerated gagging sounds that Mordon did.

“I would love some. We don’t have coffee on Dayo.”

I poured him a cup and handed it to him. “How often
have you visited Earth?”

“I haven’t been here in about thirty years. Before
that, I would visit very often. In fact, I lived here for a year.”

“Why? Did you get in a fight with Mreje?”

He laughed. “No one gets in a fight with their god…
except you. Guardians obey our gods whether we agree with them or not. We have
no power or courage to stand up to them. Actually, your father and Kiro got in
a fight about their books. It was before you were born and over something
really silly. He never told me exactly what it was about, but he said it had
something to do with his brother not trusting him. Apparently, Ronez let twice
as many people sign Earth’s book than Kiro did Duran’s.”

“How did that result in you living on Earth?”

“I lived with Ronez. I believe Ronez was wavering in
whether to live here or there, and he wanted me to talk him into staying. I
hated coming between the brothers, but Kiro couldn’t live here with his
weakened magic and Ronez loved it here. I think Kiro felt like Ronez chose
Earth over him.”

Rilryn was the one my father trusted with a letter
for me. I didn’t know if it was because they were great friends or because
Rilryn was the only one my father trusted not to open the letter, but that
trust meant something to me.

“Did you need something or did you just come for a
visit?” I asked.

He took a drink of his coffee. At this point, I
noticed very slight details about his appearance that had changed. His
silver/red hair was slightly longer and shaggier than it was when I last saw
him, and he looked just a little thinner. He wore a collared, dark blue, cotton
button-up shirt with simple black pants and boots. Hanging at his waist on the
left side was his black leather book bag, very similar in size and shape to
mine. The gold specks in his stone-gray eyes were sort of dull.

“Your father never told me much about the gods. He
knew enough to get himself held in suspicion by the gods, but he refused to
damn anyone with him. I did discover from his books that there was a war. I
asked Mreje about it, and he told me in no uncertain terms to mind my own
business… So I asked Nano. While it cost me a few favors, I found out there
were many gods before the twelve Iadnah, and that they were destroyed in a war.
It wasn’t until very recently that I discovered they had weapons.”

“Like actual, proper weapons?”

He nodded. “Like swords and axes that could kill a
god or even an Ancient. And there is one of them on Earth. I don’t know what it
is, but I know it could be of use. Whatever attacked us… it controlled me, even
took Emrys’s powers. I don’t believe it’s really gone.”

“Ron closed the gates.”

“I know that. I also know it wasn’t Vretial who
attacked us. And although I trust you because you are Ronez’s son, I know you
haven’t told us everything. At first, I was upset, but I realized after a few
months that you were probably trying to protect your sons. I get that, but I
can’t sit around and wait for something to happen. We need to find this weapon,
and find out if there are any more, so that we can protect ourselves.”

“If you possess a weapon that can kill the gods, they
will be furious.”

“I know.”

“How did you get Mreje to agree to this?”

“I told him I was trying to find a way to defeat the
demons. That’s all this is; I want to be capable of fighting our enemy. As long
as the gods do not try to kill us, I consider them on our side. Dylan, you must
understand that I cannot bear to feel helpless.”

“I do understand.” Of course, I was suspicious. My
wife was a god and the others were her brothers. Part of me wanted to tell him
to go home and leave everything to them… but he was Ronez’s friend. My father
trusted him.

“So you’ll help me?”

“I will let you look for this weapon on Earth, but I
can’t go with you. I have a job now and I need to do it. Unless something
definite happens, I need to put the hospital first. If you get in danger or if
some enemy tries to stop you, I will assist you. Until then, you know where to
find me.”

He nodded. “You have a much higher sense of
responsibility than your father had. Thank you.” He vanished.

“Dr. Yatunus, you’re needed at the ER. Dr. Yatunus,
please report immediately to the ER nurse station,” the overhead called.

I tossed my cup in the trash and took off for the ER,
naturally choosing the shortest path. Unfortunately, the fastest way from the
break room to the ER was through the “silent” hallway, which was the hallway
that connected our labs. These labs contained our big equipment, such as the
MRI machine, as well as where blood was tested. It was called the silent
hallway because everyone felt the need to be quiet here. There was something
very oppressive about the atmosphere in this area.

Because of the equipment, I had to be extremely
careful to contain my energy. Before I made it to the end of the hallway, the
doors slammed shut.

When closed, the doors locked automatically and the
only way to unlock them was to pull the fire alarm or have the nurse station
unlock them. Of course, I could have unlocked them with magic, but my energy
would have damaged the nearby medical equipment.

I turned back with the intention of going around when
the second doors slammed shut, trapping me in the hallway. “Shelf stocker,” I
said to myself aloud. “Next time I’m going to be a shelf stocker at the grocery
store.”

“Dr. Yutunus, please report immediately to the ER nurse
station,” the overhead called again. I pulled out my phone and called the
station. It took two tries before Ms. Manning answered.

Apparently, she checked the caller ID. “Dylan, you
need to get up here now.”

“I’m locked in Hallway 3B. I need you to unlock the
south doors of Hallway 3B,” I said. There was an electronic buzzing through the
doors before the locks released. I pushed them open and stayed on the phone
until I made it to the ER. Ms. Manning hung up when I walked in. “What’s going
on?” I asked. There weren’t doctors and nurses running around in panic, so it
couldn’t have been another accident.

“Alyssa Cofer is in room thirty-three. She’s
screaming and thrashing in pain, but her parents refuse to let anyone help her
except you. They said you helped her yesterday and you’re the only one who can
help her now. We were going to call child services, but…”

“Yeah, I know, I was closer.” It was easier to give
in and call me than call child services and get them involved. I went to room thirty-three
and before I even opened the door, I could hear the girl screaming.

Inside, the little shifter was writhing on the bed,
fur sprouting and receding all over her body. Her fingers sharpened into claws
and tore at the paper she was lying on. I pushed the mother aside and grabbed
the girl’s arms when she tried to claw her own stomach open. With her arms
pinned, I poured my energy into her. I didn’t have time to administer medicine
and I needed her awake, so I had to calm her with my energy alone. It wasn’t
like with Mordon, who I could send calming thoughts to.

She had too much adrenaline, so the first thing my
magic did was balance her hormones. Iadnah energy was instinctive; it did what
I needed it to as long as I was powerful enough to control it.

“What’s wrong with her?” the mother asked, panicking
even as her child calmed.

“Her body is trying to stabilize. She has three forms
and her body doesn’t know what to do with them.”

“Is she going to lose her shifting ability? She loves
her beast.”

“I think it’s most important to make sure she doesn’t
get stuck between forms right now,” I said. Both her parents looked horrified.
“What are you?” I asked the father.

“My beast is a raduma. Humans call me… I’m sort of a
black cheetah, but I’m bigger than Earth cheetahs. My wife is a varug, which is
like---”

“A wolf, I know. Do either of you have a pack or are
you three the only ones here?”

“We left Skrev because our packs tried to kill us
when Malla got pregnant. They couldn’t accept us being together. Ronez saved us
and brought us here a few days before Alyssa was born. Please help our
daughter. We can’t lose her.”

While he was talking, I let my magic do its work
intuitively. Alyssa was quiet now, just watching me as if waiting for me to
tell her she was doomed. I didn’t know what her eye color was before, but now
they were glittering gold like her father’s. I brushed her hair back and
examined the color carefully. Her irises were shifty, but definitely staying
gold.

One last scan determined that she was stable. She
definitely had the potential to shift into a cat, but it looked like the wolf
was the dominant beast for now.

“Please, tell us what’s wrong with her,” the mother
cried.

I sighed and turned to her. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,
but there’s nothing I can do.”