Trial by Fire (Covencraft Book 1) (9 page)

“Would you let her know we’re on our way up?”

“Yes, of course,” Henri said, glancing quickly up at Paris and then back at Jade. It was obvious he was dying for an introduction and Paris didn’t disappoint him.

“Jade,” he said, turning toward her. “This is Henri, Henri, this is-”

“I cannot believe I am the first person in the Coven to meet you,” Henri interrupted as he leaned up and over his desk, shoving his hand past Paris and in front of Jade for a handshake. She started slightly and then gave it a good grip. “I am the first person you’ve met right?” Henri added quizzically.

“Seeing as I just walked in, yes,” Jade replied. Again she thought of a puppy as she regarded him. He was all excitable energy and enthusiasm, his dark eyes shining as he met her.

“Unreal!” he exclaimed. “I was just talking to my boyfriend on the phone and I was saying how I thought you would be here any minute and now, here you are!”

“Here I am,” she repeated. He was still pumping her hand up and down in a vigorous handshake when she pulled it free with a slight tug.

“Unreal!” he said again. “Do you know, we’ve all been dying to see you? This is the most exciting thing to happen to the Coven since Jolene set her own house on fire. She wasn’t in it at the time, thank God, but whoa, what a scene. But now there’s you! It’s been all very cryptic, you know. Very hush-hush. No one knows a damned thing about you, really. Except you’re very neat.”

“Neat?” she asked.

“You know. Tidy.”

“What?!” she glanced from Henri to Callie to Paris, who wore equally matching confused faces, and back again.

“My boyfriend Daniel knows someone in Accounting who is dating someone who works with Nick, who’s Callie’s boyfriend and he said that he overheard Callie on the speakerphone with Nick and Callie said that the only thing that Paris had said about you was that you were very neat. Is it true?”

Jade gave her head a little shake. “What?” she repeated again.

Henri took a big breath, about to explain again how he had come by that little tidbit of information, but Paris cut him off.

“Henri,” he said with his impressive tone. “Dr. Gellar?”

“Right,” Henri said with a slight flick of his hand. “I’ll tell her you’re on your way.”

Paris placed his hand on Jade’s arm and gave her a slight pull to follow him. She let herself be led off to the left, circling around the welcome desk. Jade could hear Henri paging Dr. Gellar on the phone and then, seconds later, he was back on it with his boyfriend giving him all the dirt on her arrival, down to what she was wearing. Callie fell into step with Jade as they started up a large, sweeping staircase that climbed ten steps before it reached a landing, splitting there into two separate staircases, one for either wing of the Covenstead.

“And that was our head receptionist and lead coven gossip, Henri,” Callie said with a smile. “If there is anything worth knowing going on in the Coven, Henri will know. And he’ll be more than happy to tell you, your friend, your second cousin twice-removed, and anyone in earshot.”

“I’ll remember to watch what I say,” Jade said.

Callie smiled. “I would do that. The strange thing is, he’s really very trustworthy. If you tell him something’s a secret, or if he thinks it’s too malicious, he’ll take it to the grave. However, if you tell him you think so-and-so has a crappy wind incantation, they’ll hear it by lunch time.”

As they walked up the staircase, Jade noticed that she was on the receiving end of just about every pair of eyes in the massive foyer. Surprisingly, they weren’t dressed in gowns and witch hats – they appeared normal. Some people openly stared at her, others watched out of the corner of their eyes. She tried to meet all the glances head on and more than one person turned away sheepishly. She also noticed that there was a general hum of whispers trailing after her as they ascended the staircase and turned off at the second floor. Jade let her eyes sweep the hallway. It was easily ten feet wide with large doors on either side that stretched up eight feet. That made the ceiling twelve feet high, she thought. She guesstimated that there were about seven doors on either side of the hallway, that made fourteen for this side of the Covenstead and presumably fourteen on the other side made a total of twenty-eight. She multiplied that by three in her head for the three floors and then added in the library beneath the ground floor.

“Christ,” she murmured.

“Pardon?” Paris asked, turning his head slightly.

Jade shook her head quickly. “Nothing.” She didn’t want to seem like the country cousin. If they could all walk around in such grand surroundings without blinking, so could she.

Paris turned into the second door on the left and she blinked twice in surprise.

Obviously it was some kind of hospital room. Medical machinery and paraphernalia filled the room, and several cots stretched out beside each cluster of equipment. The room was sterile and Spartan, only containing what it needed, while the marble floor’s pristine sheen reflected the dying sunlight. It had that faint antiseptic smell familiar to hospitals and doctors’ offices everywhere. She wrinkled her nose. Like most people, she had a dislike of hospitals or doctors’ offices in general. They reminded her of painful bone breaks and deep cuts requiring stitches.

“This is the Covenstead medical unit,” Paris said. “Obviously the city has its own hospital and we are more than welcome to use that. But most of our needs can be taken care of here at the coven. We generally only need to use the hospital in extreme circumstances.”

“Like my whole ‘getting hit by a bus’ example,” Callie said.

Paris’ lips curved in a dry grin. “Yes, that may be a little much for even Dr. Gellar to work a miracle.”

“I could work a miracle in a ditch with only a steak knife and a bottle of scotch.”

Jade turned to her right to see a contemporarily gorgeous woman with short red hair and dark-framed glasses emerging from an interior door which she shut tightly behind her. She wore powder blue scrubs that effectively hid most of her shape but projected an air of professionalism and sterility that most medical facilities seemed fond of.

“You must be Jade,” she said as she extended her hand. “I’m Elsabeth Gellar.”

Jade shook her hand and was once again impressed to find a strong grip on the other end. She had yet to meet a limp fish in the bunch.

Dr. Gellar tucked her hands back into the pockets of her scrubs and turned to face Paris. “Did I just hear you doubting my medical skills?” she asked good-naturedly.

“I was merely explaining to Jade that while our medical facility is fully functional, it is not equipped to deal with larger scale emergencies.”

“Well, that could change if you would approve my funding,” Dr. Gellar said smoothly.

“I believe the accounting department laughed when they heard how much money you wanted.” It was clearly a friendly disagreement they’d had many times if their easy banter was any indication.

“It wouldn’t matter how much they laughed if you told them to do it. If you said yes, they would find the money.”

“Yes, and then I would have Security after me for their share of the pie, and then Administration and then the other departments one by one. I can already see Callie’s eyes lighting up as you and I stand here talking. She’s probably calculating what new books she could purchase or track down if I gave her even half of your requested budget.”

Callie didn’t answer, but she swayed on her feet with a dreamy look in her eye.

Dr. Gellar smiled. “Well, I’ll just keep harassing you then. I never know when I might get lucky.” She turned back to Jade. “If you’re like other witches, you’ll want to get your physical and power testing the hell over with and never come back to the med lab again.”

“I don’t like doctors,” Jade blurted evenly.

“Most people don’t,” Dr. Gellar replied without a trace of hurt feelings or malice. “No matter how many times I tell them we don’t bite. But we must still complete your physical. Why don’t you go into one of the examination rooms and change into a gown. I’ll be in shortly.”

Jade looked briefly at the doctor and then at Paris again, wondering if there was any way she could get out of the exam.

“Twenty minutes is all she’ll need,” Paris said. “Dr. Gellar is very efficient.”

Jade moved begrudgingly towards one of the examination rooms at the back and then eyeballed the hideous green gown on the bed. She picked it up and waved it back at the group.

“Seriously? You guys have untold magic power and you can’t do better than this?”

Without waiting for a response to her mostly rhetorical question, she shut the door behind her and started changing into the gown. At least it was one of the ones that fastened at the shoulder and not at the back or the side.

She detested the feel of hospital gowns. They looked like they should be soft but they never were. Then, there was the wonder at who’d been wearing it before her. She left her socks on and hopped up on the bed, swinging her feet. Two minutes later there was a knock and, at her assent, Dr. Gellar came into the cramped room.

It was a typical exam. A few blood vials drawn that Gellar did herself, an eye/ear/throat exam, blood pressure, heart rate, lungs, and some questions about medical history. The dreaded stirrups came out but thankfully, Gellar wasn’t one of those chatty doctors that wanted to make small talk while she worked. It took less than three minutes before Jade was sitting upright again, answering more questions about her general health.

“Once Paris and Callie located you, I was able to request your medical files,” Gellar said and Jade sensed the forced neutrality in her tone.

“Oh.” Two could play the forced neutrality game, Jade thought.

“You seem to have had a few broken bones in your lifetime. A lot of trips to emergency rooms.”

Jade shrugged. “I was a klutzy kid.”

“Two or three trips, maybe. Seventeen? No.”

Dr. Gellar waited for her to say something and Jade stared back in return. She’d out-waited and outwitted a lot of medical professionals in her time, most of them when she was a kid.

“Jade, I’m going to be your doctor here at the Coven and anything pertaining to your past medical history may be important.”

“Just some broken bones; cuts and scrapes, doctor. I’m in pretty good health.”

“Yes, you are. You’re probably one of the healthiest people at the Coven. You exercise regularly and eat a balanced diet. But I would like to know how all those bones got broken.”

Jesus, the woman was like a small, determined dog. Dr. Gellar kept her gaze steady and even, staring at Jade with her large green eyes, trying to look empathetic and professional at the same time.

“Who can remember all of their childhood? Kids fall down.” Jade shrugged.

“I can remember exactly where I was when I broke my wrist.” Gellar countered. “I was ten years old, biking half a block from home and I fell off. It was June. I think I even recall it was a Sunday.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, doctor. I guess they just weren’t as important to me.”

Dr. Gellar stared at her again and the silence lengthened. She tapped her finger on the side of the chart.

“Well, perhaps after you’ve had time to settle in here, your memory will improve and you’ll be able to tell me what happened.”

Jade said nothing. After all this time, she wasn't going to become suddenly chatty about her childhood now.

“I would like for you to trust me, Jade. But I understand trust takes time. You can get dressed now. I’ll meet you outside for your power tests.”

The doctor seemed genuine and, while there was a part of Jade that wanted to trust her, there was a bigger part, the louder part, which reminded her that the only person she should ever trust was herself. Things just worked out better that way.

Jade dressed and walked back out, knowing from the way Paris and Dr. Gellar looked up that she’d walked in on a conversation about her. She tipped her head to the side and cracked her neck loudly. Several snaps echoed as her vertebrae slid along one another - it was a nervous habit, something she did without thinking about it. She saw Paris stiffen slightly and wince at the sound. Jade smiled, not at all trying to make it look like she wasn’t baring her teeth.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you - that isn’t good for your neck,” Dr. Gellar said.

Jade shrugged and looked around the medical area.

“I sent Callie home. Your testing is next and it’s best to have no other witches about when it occurs.” Paris answered her unspoken question.

“What about you guys?” Jade asked, gesturing to the doctor and the coven leader.

“Oh, I’m not a witch,” Dr. Gellar said. “I just work for the Coven.”

Jade looked at Paris as he spoke. “Part of the test involves your power being tested against another witch. I’ll be testing your power with mine.” He smiled benignly at her.

“Is it going to be like the other night, when you were trying to kill my fire?” she asked, wary. Thinking about the sick, heavy feeling that had permeated her chest and stomach made Jade wrinkle her nose in distaste. Paris made a waffling motion with his head and looked uncertain.

“Possibly,” he admitted.