The Demon's Game Page 3

  The woman looked unsure and the man looked insulted. “It wasn’t our choice. They pulled her out of the wreckage and sent her here. We thought she would be okay because she never shifted before.” Now he looked embarrassed. “We were told she would never be able to shift because we have different beasts.”

  I sighed. “That was my fault. I believe I unlocked her shifting ability.”

  “Then you have saved her life. We can’t heal any more than a human without shifting,” the woman said.

  “She is stronger than you give her credit for,” I assured them. I ran my magic through her again, saw that she was fully healed, and made her shift back. Although her parents looked astounded, I learned from Mordon that it was easy to manipulate someone’s shift when they were unconscious.

  “Now, I suggest you get her out of here and be more careful in the future.” I left the room. By the variety of signatures in my book that were written before I was even born, I knew many races had access to Earth. I wondered for a moment how many people I met were actually from another world. Then I was busy again.

  * * *

  I tried to call home, but nobody picked up. John called Stacy and asked her to keep Ron and Hail because we were going to be late. In fact, it wasn’t until a little after ten before I got home. By the time I unlocked the front door, I honestly felt like I had been in the pileup, pulled myself out from under a car, and walked the entire way home.

  Once I saw the couch, what little strength I had left in a rush. I flopped down on the soft cushions and had enough time to wonder where Mordon was before I passed out. Even in my sleep, I was aware of my pain for some time.

  Finally, the pain faded and I sensed Mordon’s presence. Assured that he was safe, I slept peacefully.

  * * *

  “Flatlanders can’t hear sound because sound is caused by sound waves!” Ron yelled. “Sound depends on the amplitude and frequency! That’s three-dimensional!”

  “They see in one-dimension, not hear!” Sammy argued at the top on his lungs.

  “Even if they can hear in two-dimension, which they can’t, they wouldn’t be able to differentiate sound! You’re so stupid!”

  “Not being able to differentiate sound and not being able to hear it are completely different! Besides, sound is two-dimensional, so they can hear it! I’ll prove it!”

  “No!” Divina joined the argument. “If either of you create flatlanders, I will ground you until you’re Rojan’s age!”

  There was silence for nearly a minute until… “Would you ground us in the second dimension so we can listen to music?” Hail asked.

  “Oh my god, Hail, shut up!” Ron yelled. “You’re going to wake Dad!”

  I sat up and looked over the breakfast bar into the kitchen. Mordon, who was sitting in the chair next to the couch, put his finger to his lips to silence me. When I checked again, I realized Ron was making breakfast and Divina was setting the table.

  Hail flopped down in a seat with a scowl on his face. “Dad would know if he was awake,” he grumbled.

  Ron leaned over him and plopped several pancakes on his plate, then patted his hair. “We can look it up on the internet at school today. Mom, what time does Dad have to be at work?” Ron asked, returning to the stove.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. If they can keep him late, so can I. He’s going to get enough sleep and if they don’t like it, I’ll put the fear of---”

  “Mom,” Ron warned quietly. “Dad likes this hospital. Let him decide his priorities or he’s going to think you’re trying to control him. Mordon, breakfast is ready.” He looked over the bar, saw that I was awake, and smiled brightly. “Morning, Daddy.”

  My little angel just defused all the tension in Hail and Divina with a few words and a calm voice.

  “Good morning.” I went into the kitchen right behind Mordon and kissed Divina. She was worried.

  Her dark blue satin dress shirt had dirt on the left cuff and there was a small tear in the right calf of her black jeans. Obviously, she hadn’t changed since whatever she was up to the day before. I figured that she would tell me what she was working on if she thought I needed to know and it wasn’t worth pushing her for information.

  “Did you get enough sleep?” she asked.

  “I did.” I glanced at the clock on the stove and felt relief that I wasn’t late for work. “And I’m on the second morning shift, so I’m not due at the hospital for another hour.”

  Ron set a plate of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns in front of me, along with a mug of coffee. We had a wonderful breakfast, with good food, goofy bantering, and the boys complaining about their class schedules. Obviously, I couldn’t get them perfect schedules in the middle of the school year. Still, just spending time together before we each began our hectic day was a gift. It would have been better if Edward was there, but he would be as soon as he got done with his assignment.

  * * *

  The hospital had a bit of a creepy feel to it that morning. It was raining and very dark outside, which made the interior lights look cold and synthetic. Even that wasn’t so bad until they started flickering, just a little bit, but definitely rhythmically. It took me about thirty minutes to figure out they flickered three times once every ten minutes. Something was going on at my hospital, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  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?”