The Devil's Third (5 page)

I spotted Tori right away, standing at the nurse’s station, doing her charting. As if she could feel our presence, she looked up. Bags were forming under her hazel eyes, and the lines on her forehead wrinkled with worry. Wrapping a stethoscope around her neck, she greeted us with a weary smile. I wondered why she was still here. She usually worked the night shift. She must have pulled a double. That was the thing about nurses, they worked long hours and did a lot of the doctor’s crap work without being acknowledged for it. I never understood why Mom and Tori wanted to become one, but I knew it took a special person to be a nurse, and they were good at it.

She embraced me, and amazingly enough it didn’t hurt my back. Huh. It must have finally healed. But honestly, that was the last thing on my mind. I thought about Tree’s horrible phone call and my reaction afterward. I had grabbed my stuff and headed out the door to see Carrie. I saw the objection in Nathan’s eyes, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. I knew it was his fear of me getting hurt and appreciated him keeping his trap shut about it because frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for any hassles.

Tori pulled back and held me at arms’ length. She placed her cold hand on my cheek, diverting my thoughts to now wondering why hospitals always chilled me so. “She’s in a coma from head trauma.”

“What”–I cleared my throat and swallowed the tears back–“happened?”

To my horror, her eyes filled with tears, causing my own to do the same. “I know this is hard for you,” she whispered. “I-I think about your mother every day, missing her.” Nathan stepped beside me and took my hand, gently squeezing it, lending me some of his strength. “Carrie was at a four-way stop sign, and when she crossed the intersection a car barreled into the tail end. Her vehicle spun and flipped. A drunk driver hit her, and he’s in custody now.”

With my free hand, I wiped the tears off my cheeks. “Is she going to be okay?”

“There appears to be no brain damage, but a neurosurgeon is looking at her CT results, so at this point, we really don’t know much.” She looked away, blinking the tears away. “Tree is beside himself with worry and won’t leave her side. I’ve never seen him like this–distraught and lifeless.”

A continuous beeping noise went off, and our gaze followed in the direction of the sound. A few doors down, above the door, a little round light blinked.

Tori released a tired sigh and frowned. “I think Mrs. Spencer wants more pain medication. I better go check her morphine drip.”

When she turned away, I took her hand, halting her. “When Nathan was on the phone with Tree, we heard a code red. What happened?”

She looked at Nathan and blinked, as if he’d appeared out of thin air. Realizing he’d been standing there all along, she recovered graciously from her prior obliviousness to his presence. “I’m glad you’re here, Nathan. It’s always nice to see you.”

“Likewise,” Nathan said, offering her an understanding smile.

She glanced over her shoulder at the constant beeping noise. “We had an elderly patient,” she said, meeting my eyes, “go into cardiac arrest. He expired shortly after.” She paused and shoved her hands into her Snoopy scrub top. “Caroline went home to get some things, and Brayden is on his way. Apparently, he was in Seattle with his girlfriend.” A pang pierced my chest, and I must have had a strange look on my face because she went on. “I think her name is Cassie.”
Cassondra
, I mentally corrected her, wondering how Brayden could do this to me after what she had done? “If you need anything, you know where to find me.” She pointed to the powder blue door across from us. “Carrie is in there.”

“Thanks,” I said, watching her hurry down the hall and disappear into Mrs. Spencer’s room. Half a minute later, the beeping stopped.

When we entered Carrie’s room, the smell of alcohol and medicine assaulted my nostrils. I could also detect the rusty scent of blood, though I couldn’t see any. A white bandage was wrapped around her head, and with a start I covered my mouth. Could her brain be bleeding, and that was the blood I smelled? Tree sat beside her with his forehead resting on the bed. I wondered if he’d fallen asleep.

Nathan pulled me into the bathroom. “What is it?” He kept his voice low so only I could hear him.

“I can smell blood. What if her brain is bleeding?” I whispered.

“Her hematoma is what you smell. It’s when blood collects in the space between the skull and brain, due to head trauma.”

I blanched. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“Would it make you feel better if I found out more details on her prognosis?”

I nodded, grateful and amazed at his knowledge on this.

He gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

After he slipped out the door, I took a deep breath and told myself not to cry. I had to be strong for Tree. Besides, as much as I wanted to drape myself over Carrie’s body and bawl for her to come back to us, I knew she wouldn’t want me to.

I laid a hand on Tree’s shoulder. “Tree?”

He jerked and squinted up at me, his brown eyes glazed from sleep. I suddenly felt bad for waking him. Dried tear lines stained his face. I hugged my arms around him from behind, resting my chin on his shoulder. He smelled like leather and fabric softener, reminding me of home long ago.

“How you holding up?”

He covered my locked fingers around his shoulders with his huge hand. “Not good.”

My ears began to ring.

“Oh, no.”

Tree heaved a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I know. What if she nev--”

“No, Tree.” I dropped my arms and stood erect, my heart pounding. “There’s a dark spirit nearby.”

He sat up, wide eyes on my face. “Are you serious?”

I nodded right when a handsome dark-haired young male doctor waltzed in. I moved to the foot of the bed, and Tree followed me. The doctor raised his hand in a halting gesture, his blue eyes nonthreatening and glowing. I knew who it was by the vessel he chose and his mannerism.

Bael.

He took a chair and wedged it beneath the door handle.

“Hey. What the hell are you doing?” Tree barked, puffing up. He took a step forward, but I snatched his arm.

“It’s Bael. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Bullshit!” Tree reached into his pocket, but again I stopped him.

“He’s not going to hurt us.” At least I hoped he wasn’t going to. I took Tree’s hand and squeezed it in short spurts, doing Morse Code, telling him to keep his hand in his pocket, but don’t do anything unless necessary. I silently prayed he would understand and remember Morse Code from our war games we used to play. He squeezed back, saying okay. I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God he remembered.

“I just need a moment of your time,” Bael said to me. He glanced at Carrie and frowned. When he made a move toward her, Tree stepped in front of him, all six-five of him.

“Don’t even think about going near her,” he said, glaring at Bael, his voice dark and threatening.

Bael smirked and shrugged, unfazed. “Very well.” He looked at me, the smirk melting into a friendly smile. “Nice to see you again.”

I crossed my arms. “Are you going to kill me now that you know Solomon’s power is inside me?” I might as well cut to the chase and voice what I’d been wondering since that night. “And did you tell anybody?” Like he would tell me the truth. But I had to ask.

“I’m not going to kill you, Paige.” He touched his chest, as if it crushed him I would even consider the thought. “You intrigue me too much to do such a thing. I also enjoy your company. Believe it or not.” A slow enigmatic smile formed on his face. “As for anybody knowing . . . no, and I don’t plan to.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because it doesn’t fit my agenda.”

Tree made a disgusted sound. “Yeah. Right.”

Bael glowered at him. “I do wish you and Carrie would keep better company,” he said to me.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“Have you found where the incantations are?” He studied me closely, probably to see if I would lie or not. I wasn’t sure if he could read auras like Anwar, so I knew I had to be tricky about my answer. But I honestly didn’t know where the incantations were, so it wasn’t hard to answer.

“No. Not yet. And with Carrie like this, I’m not going anywhere but here and home until she gets better,” I said firmly. I didn’t care what anybody said–Nathan, Bael, the whole damned race. I wasn’t budging on this one.

“Well,” he said, sounding both amused and astonished, “we must get Carrie better then.”

“What’s with this
we
shit?” Tree said.

Ignoring Tree, Bael held his attention on me. “I have a proposal for you.” Before I could answer, he continued. “I’ll save Carrie’s life if you promise to take me with you when you discover where the incantations are and then destroy them.”

“You don’t know Carrie’s life is in danger,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach, hoping to God this was one of his ploys to get me to do what he wanted.

“Paige isn’t helping you do
shit
,” Tree said, jabbing the air with his finger.

Bael raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, a cocky smile crossing his face. It was the same smile he wore when he had inhabited Matt. I knew that smile. Hell, I knew that look. He was telling me the truth. I could feel it in my gut. My stomach twisted, and the room spun a little. I grabbed the footboard on the hospital bed and glanced at Carrie. She didn’t look good. At all. And the machine hooked up to her kept beeping, filling the short silence. I hated that disconcerting sound, and I hated how pale and lifeless she looked. But if he could save her . . .

Tree moved to my side and held my hand. “Don’t even think about it, Paige.” He pointed a harsh finger at Bael who still held the cocky smile on his face. “He’s full of shit.”

I looked up at Tree, my heart racing. “No, he’s not.” I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat and fixed my eyes on Bael. “How are you going to save her?”

“Her brain is swelling, which is causing the blood supply to it to be blocked,” he told me. “The brain stem regulates the breathing. If her brain continues to swell, it’ll compress its stem, and she’ll die. Not to mention she has an intracerebral hematoma.”

I glanced at Tree. All the color from his face had vanished. In the back of my mind I wondered what was taking Nathan so long. My stomach sank when I thought about him tracking down Carrie’s doctor and getting the full details of her . . . What did he say earlier? Prognosis? Yeah, that was it. Maybe it was taking so long because her prognosis was grim and every detail had to be explained to him.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said.

Bael pulled back the sleeve of his white lab coat to look at his watch. Glancing at me he said, “Let’s just say the neurosurgeon here is involved in the dark arts and is well acquainted with me. In fact, he’s conversing with Nathan as we speak, and although for confidentiality reasons, the physician is not supposed to divulge Carrie’s cat scan results, he’s doing so on my direct orders. However, his allotted time to distract Nathan for me is almost over, so before you reply to my request, I need to make an amendment to my proposal.”

My heart thudded in my ears. I knew there were humans with a soul who partnered with dark spirits. I just never thought there would be one here and a surgeon of all people. It shattered my image of prominent, professional people having the sense not to get entangled in the dark world. One might not be able to sell his or her soul as mythology claimed, but a person could swear a blood oath instead where both parties had to fulfill their agreement or otherwise become a slave to the party owed. So I guess in a sense it was like selling your soul.

Omigod! What if Bael wanted me to do a blood oath? Feeling lightheaded, I swayed. Tree held my hand tighter to keep me steady.

“Neither one of you can mention this arrangement to anybody,” he continued. “If you do”–he looked at me and pointed to Tree–“he dies.” He turned a cold gaze on Tree. “If you do, your whole family dies, including offspring.” His lips twisted into a devious smile. “So what’s it going to be, Paige?”

I had no choice. There was no way out of it. I hated him for this, putting me in a position where either way, I would surely lose someone I loved. I’d finally got Nathan to realize we needed to work together as a team and not withhold secrets from each other, and now I was going to do exactly that.

“Will I have to perform a blood oath?”

He frowned and shook his head. “The blood oath won’t work on you. You can thank Solomon’s power for that, thus, the drastic measures I have to take to seal this deal.” He paused. “Do we have a deal?” He stuck his hand out, waiting for me to shake it.

Tree pressed my palm in Morse Code, saying he’d keep his mouth shut, and I wasn’t alone, he’d help me through this.

I grabbed Bael’s hand and squeezed it harder than normal, yanking him toward me. “If anything happens to the people I love, I’ll find those incantations on my own and make your existence a living hell.”

His glowing eyes poured into mine, amused. I balled my hands into fists, wanting to punch him.

“I love that about you. Your fierceness,” he said. I pushed him, causing him to dance backwards. He almost lost his footing but recovered and straightened his lab coat. “You don’t have to worry about me keeping my word. I always do.” He removed the chair from the door, cheerfully whistling to himself. Shooting a dark look over his shoulder, he flashed me a sparkling smile. My blood ran cold. “I’ll be in touch.” He strolled out the room with a hop in his step.

I was in hell.

Chapter Five

Nathan

Dr. Sweeney explained Carrie’s CAT scan results to me in a room much like where Carrie lay hurt, except unoccupied on a different floor.

With the help from Tree’s mom, I tracked down the neurosurgeon with no problem. He’d recently finished going over Carrie’s results with the radiologist and her primary care physician, when I had caught up with him halfway down the hall. I noted his slouched shoulders and his brown hair graying at the temples, though he looked no older than thirty-five. He held a manilla folder close to his chest, his slender fingers splayed across the back. He was cordial when I explained who I was, but I couldn’t help but notice the odd way he kept looking at me, as if he were waiting for me to sprout wings or something.