Flatline (Medicine and Magic Book 1) Read online

  “He’s gone?” the other man asked. He was nearly as attractive as his brother and had none of the accent. Unlike the other man, he had deep brown eyes.

  Something twisted my stomach.

  Death was coming again.

  I should have been more concerned about these men, but I focused on not vomiting again. “I’m sorry. The injury led to an unstable rhythm and we weren’t able to save him.”

  I swallowed, forcing down the unsettled sense in my stomach. I wasn’t sure that it would be enough. At least I hadn’t begun to feel the cold gripping my chest. When that came, then death was imminent.

  The attractive brother watched me for a moment. “Can we see him?”

  “When we get everything together, you can go back and see him.” I waited to see whether they would ask other questions, but they didn’t seem interested in asking anything. That should have been another warning. “Again, I’m sorry.”

  The men turned away from me and when another wave of nausea washed through me, I decided to get back into the lounge for a few moments. Maybe that meclizine Derek had offered wouldn’t be such a bad idea. As I stepped behind the desk, the sense of cold started in my chest—death coming again—and I took a deep breath.

  “Did you get his number?” Betty asked.

  “What was that?”

  Betty looked up at me. “His number. He’s the kind of man that warms up the insides, if you know what I mean.”

  I blinked. The comment was almost enough to tip me over the edge and make me vomit. “They lost someone they care about, but have at him,” I said, disappearing into the back.

  Time to get back to work. As awful as it was, that was why I was here. Not for the challenge or the medicine—though both were reason enough—but because being around death helped mask something else. Somehow, being around death suppressed the dark magic inside me.

  2

  The end of my shift didn’t come fast enough.

  I lost track of how many people who came through the doors and needed to be treated by me. It did no good counting, other than to remind me how abused residents are. Probably forty or fifty different patients during my twelve-hour shift. Thankfully, there was only one other trauma, and that had been a bad car accident, but there hadn’t been the sense of coming death.

  As I sat in the lounge changing my shoes, Derek came inside and leaned against the wall. He was one of the few nurses who dared come into the resident lounge. Most would yell inside from the door.

  “You feeling any better?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “As well as I can. Thanks for the meclizine. I don’t want to get you in trouble for doing it.” Taking meds was a definite no-no.

  A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth. “It wasn’t narcs, so no one will even keep track. Besides, it’s better to keep you working than to have to call someone else in.”

  I laughed, tying up my sneakers. I refused to wear the same shoes home. There was no telling what nastiness I might have stepped in while here. “That’s the reason you helped?”

  “Better you than some of the others.”

  “The other residents are all good.” At least in my year, they were. I was a second year—just beginning my second year, which made me only a little better than an intern in most nurses’ eyes.

  “They’re good enough. You’re good.”

  “You just didn’t want to work with Roberts.” He was an egotistical ass, but smart and knew it. He was the kind of guy who thought all the nurses wanted him, and it was all the worse that many of them did. I couldn’t stand the guy. “Do you get jealous that he might steal your attention?”

  “Nah. He’ll be gone in a year while I’ll still be here.”

  I finished tying my shoes and tossed my stethoscope in my locker—no need for that anywhere but here—and started toward the door. Derek still hadn’t moved. He looked just as fresh now as he had at the beginning of his eight-hour shift. The nurses had shorter shifts, but they had a union to watch out for them. Not many watched out for the residents.

  “I can’t tell if that’s a punishment or a reward for you.”

  Derek chuckled. “What, and miss more time with Locks? I think it’s obvious it’s a reward.” He pushed off the wall, studying me for a moment. “Are you sure you’re okay, Kate? You were a little off today.”

  I forced a smile. My stomach had been unsettled all day, but there hadn’t been another chill since after meeting Travis Dorn’s family. I figured that was a good thing. We didn’t need a flood of death in the ER. It wasn’t a good look. “I’m fine.”

  “It’s okay if watching Dorn die affected you. It means you’re still human. Hell, I get tired of seeing these old attendings brush it off like it’s nothing when they lose someone as young as him. It’s even worse when it’s your kind.”

  I arched a brow at him. “My kind? A woman?”

  “Not a woman. You know I could care less about that. I’m talking about residents. Too often, you guys get jaded early.”

  “What makes you think I’m not jaded?”

  “I know the signs. Just don’t let everything you see here change you. You’re better than that.” He watched me for a moment. “And get some rest.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “You back tomorrow?”

  “Another twelve,” I said.

  “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I stepped out of the ER and out into the brisk October wind that carried with it the smell of fall, that of the changing leaves and the hint of cold. At least this wasn’t the same cold as when death came. This was natural, and a dramatic change from only a week before when it had been nearly eighty degrees. That was the thing about Minnesota weather: If you don’t like it, wait a week and it’ll be different.

  The hospital was located downtown, which made walking home easy enough, though on the salary residents were paid, my rent cost nearly all my take home pay. Better that than stay in some of the less safe neighborhoods, the kind where many of my patients came from. Most of the neighborhoods around mine had been undergoing redevelopment, a drive to bring more people downtown. It had worked almost too well, practically driving me out of my ability to afford my condo.

  I headed toward the river, pulling my coat around me, though I didn’t need it. While it was cool enough today, October had been unseasonably hot, and with the drought we’d experienced this summer, dropping the water levels in the river, there hadn’t been any rain to cool it off in far too long.

  Since I was tired, I didn’t notice the idiot getting too close to me.

  Something sharp jabbed into my back.

  A knife. At least it wasn’t a gun.

  I’d trained in martial arts since I was a kid, my grandparents’ way of ensuring I had another outlet for what they called my “energy” but was really just my kind of magic. My training kicked in. I wasn’t about to let someone drag me into their car, and as long as he wasn’t carrying a gun, I liked my odds of getting away.

  “Why don’t you come with me,” a voice whispered in my ear.

  It was barely 8 p.m., and his breath stunk of booze.

  “Why don’t you let me go and I’ll promise not to break anything?”

  The man laughed.

  That was enough of a distraction.

  I flipped my heel up, catching him in the genitals. As I spun, I stomped down on his toes. He bent down, and my knee came up, connecting with his chin.

  Just like that, it was over.

  His nose was bloodied, and he was still bent over, trying to look over at me and seem tough at the same time. It wasn’t an easy thing for anyone to do, let alone an idiot who thought that he could attack me. Had he not been drunk, it might have been more difficult. When it came to fighting, it was best to take the easy way out and run.

  He still held his knife, a long, serrated hunting style. Had he managed to jab that into my back, he likely would have torn through my intestines on the way out. An injury like that would require surgery,
and I would be laid up for weeks or longer, even with my magic doing its damnedest to heal me.

  I kicked the knife out of his hand.

  “Get out of here,” I said.

  The man glared at me.

  I made a move as if to kick again, this time at his knee.

  He stumbled back, getting away from me, and turned to stagger down the street, barely managing to avoid an oncoming car that he ran in front of.

  “Idiot,” I said.

  “I was going to offer you help, but it didn’t look like you needed it.”

  I spun around, ready for another attack, and nearly drove my fist into a guy who most definitely would have been difficult to bring down, not that I wouldn’t have minded trying. I had thought Travis Dorn’s brothers attractive. This man had sandy blond hair, a tight black t-shirt that accentuated his muscular build. I forced my eyes up to his face to see him watching me. There was something in his gaze that triggered a tingling…

  Had it really been that long since I’d been with a guy?

  No. This was different. This was a chill that worked through me. It started in my chest and worked outward. The sensation was too much like what I felt when death came, though why would I feel it here? There was nothing wrong with this guy.

  Unless it was me.

  I took a step back.

  “Hey, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Looks like you’re good.”

  “Yeah. I’m good.”

  He studied me for a moment. As he did, the chill lingered in a way that told me that someone was dying, and with as strong as it was, it had to be close by, but where?

  My mind raced through the possibilities. Maybe there was a car accident nearby. I hadn’t heard anything, but it could be a street or two over. If that were the case, I wouldn’t expect to pick up on the sense quite as strongly as I did. Could someone have fallen and hit their head? I’d seen stranger things—hell, a classmate of mine had slipped on the ice coming back from the bar two weeks after graduation and smacked his head, bleeding so much that there had been nothing to do but harvest the organs. Maybe someone had arrested.

  But… all of those things required me to actually be near whoever death was coming for. That was how it worked for me usually.

  “Alright. I saw him approach with that big knife. When I go, maybe you grab the knife so you have some protection on your way home.”

  “I don’t need protection.”

  He cocked his head, studying me. “Maybe you don’t. Your choice. Good luck.”

  His gaze lingered and a flash of icy cold surged through me.

  What the hell was that?

  I watched him leave, not able to help but notice his broad shoulders and tight ass. I really did need to find someone. It wouldn’t do to let myself get charged up like that.

  As the man left, the sense of cold faded.

  It was him.

  Christ.

  I couldn’t let him head off, not if something was going to happen to him and if there was anything I could do to stop it. I had no idea what might happen to him, but the sense of death was unmistakable.

  It wasn’t that I was the Grim Reaper. When I detected death, it could be reversed. I didn’t fully understand why I had the ability, only that I did and that it had been incredibly accurate. Working in the ER had helped hone it, and I had begun to pick up on patients who were destabilizing before others. Most thought I was a good doc, if overeager to rush into traumas, and I wasn’t about to share that it was something more than medicine that allowed me to know when to focus on particular patients.

  Chasing the man down the street, I was glad I had slipped my sneakers back on. My jacket flapped in the wind, and even though I was tired, the thought of doing nothing wasn’t possible.

  A small part of my brain thought that maybe I could save the guy and take him back to my place.

  I pushed that part into the background, forcing it down into the depths. That wasn’t how a doctor should be thinking about a potential patient—or whatever it was that he might become.

  Where had he gone?

  I searched for signs of him, but he must have headed toward the park near the river.

  If I were smart, I’d return home. There was no reason for me to really believe that anything would happen to him—anything other than the fact that I could feel death coming. Seeing as how he was the only one near me at the time, and the only one likely to succumb to whatever it was that I detected, it had to be him.

  When I reached the park, I paused. A young couple made a casual stroll along the sidewalk but headed out. There was an older man walking his dog who followed them. A couple of college age girls laughed as they passed me.

  Maybe I had picked up on someone here. The older man was a reasonable candidate for a heart attack. While he was on the slender side, I’d seen enough men his age and much fitter come in with a massive MI.

  But no.

  The chill didn’t return. It had only been there when the guy had been near me. That meant that whatever it was that I had detected had come from him.

  A shout deeper into the park caught my attention.

  I made my way there at a jog.

  As I neared, the distinct sense of magic pulsed on me again. It was the second time today that I had felt it, though the first time had to have been nothing more than a residual from the chill of death.

  The hot guy was down near the river. He crouched over someone lying on the path. A pair of men approached behind him, but it didn’t look like he even noticed. Where was everyone else? The park had emptied, leaving only these people around.

  One of the men pulled out a sword. A freaking sword!

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  The guy who had thought to help me spun and noticed the two men. He leapt into the air, pulling out a pair of wickedly long daggers, and caught the sword, deflecting it downward.

  What the hell was this?

  As the dagger connected with the sword, there came a pulse of magic.

  When it came, it echoed within me. There wasn’t any other way of describing it. The magic pulsed, and my body reverberated.

  I had known about magic my whole life—how could I not when my grandparents had both been mages?—but had not often seen it practiced. I lived on the periphery of the magical world in Minneapolis, aware of it—something that not everyone could claim—but not entrenched in it. My grandparents had warned me away after my mother had passed, not wanting me to get too deeply involved after what had happened to her.

  Now I felt magic like I hadn’t felt before.

  And the chill of death returned.

  The man with the sword spun around and his blade began to glow. Hot guy slashed at it with his dagger, but the sword cut right through his dagger, leaving him with nothing other than a stump of a weapon.

  And the other guy crashed into him.

  I started running toward him before I even knew what I was doing.

  By the time it registered, I was already too far down the path and the two men looked up at me.

  When they did, I could see they weren’t men.

  They were twisted and grotesque, almost like caricatures of a man. The one holding the sword had an elongated face, almost as if it had melted, and his hair had a waxy appearance. The other was squat and solid, like stone that had been pulled off the shoreline of the river.

  “Get away from him,” I shouted, skidding to a stop. I didn’t dare get too much closer.

  The man with the sword swung it down and stabbed hot guy in the chest. He gasped, and blood burbled from his lips.

  Christ. There might not be anything that could be done for an injury like that. If it ripped through one of the pulmonary vessels, he’d bleed out.

  The smaller guy barreled at me.

  My training kicked in. I knew ways to avoid men who were larger than me, and it involved pivoting out of the way and using a person’s weight and momentum against them.

  As he approached, I spun, thrusting my foot out. r />
  It caught his leg and he staggered forward. He nearly tore my leg off from the force of it.

  The guy with the sword charged at me.

  He was the more competent-appearing of the two. He slashed with his blade, swiping it down as if to cleave me in half.

  I didn’t have much weapons training, but I knew to get the hell away from a sword.

  Jumping off to the side, I nearly crashed into hot guy. He lay motionless, blood pooling in his mouth. The cold in my chest had returned, the fight distracting me from it, and told me that he might be already gone.

  I noticed a sword at his belt.

  What was he doing with a sword too?

  I grabbed the sword and yanked it free, whipping around as Long Face reached me.

  I managed to block his attack and then kicked, my heel connecting with his chest and sending him staggering back. He stumbled into the other guy, crushing him, and the pair of them crashed to the ground.

  There was a moan, and I looked over to see hot guy trying to sit up. Somehow, he had grabbed another dagger.

  “You need to lay back down. I don’t know how badly you’re—”

  He flung the dagger, and it went whizzing past my face.

  I spun around and saw the dagger had implanted in the forehead of Long Face. As it did, flames consumed him, burning him into nothingness.

  That was magic. There was no question about it. But what were they fighting about?

  The hot guy tried getting up, and then fell back to the ground.

  “I told you not to move,” I said.

  He moaned and then said nothing else.

  My medical training kicked in. He’d been stabbed in the chest and I examined the wound, trying to see whether there was anything that I could tell of the injury. I had to tear away his shirt, revealing a muscular chest. Scars marked his chest, at least three different ones that made it look as if this wasn’t the first time he’d been stabbed like this.

  When I checked his vitals, I found a steady pulse. He was breathing when I pressed my head against his chest—maybe I should carry my stethoscope with me—and listened to his breathing. The left side had good breath sounds, but the right… They were diminished.