Flatline (Medicine and Magic Book 1) Read online

  I stepped back inside and felt a chill along my spine.

  It was the second time in the last week that I’d felt magic used. I had gone months without detecting anything. Staying away from those connected to the Veil had benefits, and that was one of them. For me to now detect it, and in my own condo?

  When I turned, my body on edge and ready for the possibility of an attack, I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  My grandmother had a finger pointed at me, wiggling it in a small circle. With that single movement, she could cast a dozen different spells, and each of them were more potent than anything I could manage, even though I could detect the magic she used. Gramps sat on my couch, staring at the TV, chewing on a straw. He waved absently at me.

  “You’re getting slow,” she admonished.

  My grandmother was nearly seventy, an age that was still relatively young for a mage—especially one with power like her—and she kept her hair magically dyed so that it made her look no older than forty. Most of the time, she looked as if she could be my mother, and had passed for her often enough.

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone to simply appear in my condo behind me.”

  How had she managed to do that without me noticing?

  The knock had to have been a distraction… which meant that she had gone through the window. I still didn’t know how she would have managed that.

  “Did you really go through the window?” I asked.

  She gave me a look that I remembered from my childhood, the one that seemed both a warning and a reproach. “You know as well as I do that I wouldn’t fit through that window.”

  “Then how did you manage to get in here?” I closed the door behind me, not wanting Marvin to know that my grandparents had come for a visit. The last time they had come, I had questions for days about the young couple who had visited. I couldn’t very well tell him that they were my grandparents—anyone not associated with the Veil would know better than that—but he already knew that my parents were gone. When I had told them they were my aunt and uncle, he had been disappointed that I hadn’t taken the time to introduce him.

  “You’re the one who doesn’t want anything to do with the Veil.”

  “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know how you managed to slip in here without me noticing.”

  “That’s on you, dear. If you had been paying attention during your training, you would have known the answer.”

  I shook my head, slipping the lock on the door and chaining it before making my way to the kitchen. “I did pay attention during my training. Just because I can’t do the same things as you doesn’t mean that I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said, following me into the kitchen.

  “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Whatever you were drinking is fine.”

  “I wasn’t drinking anything.”

  “Nothing? Didn’t you just finish a shift?”

  I arched a brow at her, debating whether to ask how she knew that, before deciding on another question. “I did just finish a shift, but seeing as how it’s morning—”

  “Which only means a lighter varietal,” she said, reaching for a bottle of rosé.

  I laughed but reached for a pair of glasses. I knew my grandmother and wine. She would drink it at any time of the day, and considering the nature of her work, she often pulled the same strange type of hours that I did. That was the nature of working for the council.

  Gran poured two glasses and tipped hers toward mine in a cheers before taking a sip. Her nose crinkled as she drank.

  “Not what you were expecting?”

  “We need to refine your palate.”

  “I need to be able to afford better wine before I refine it.”

  “I thought being a doctor paid well.”

  “It probably will when I get through residency.” Even then, I had to contend with the mountain of student debt I’d incurred getting through medical school. My grandparents might be mages, but that didn’t mean they understood the intricacies of investing and saving. Since they served the council, they didn’t really have need for money, which meant that we didn’t have money. Everything that I’d gotten had come through hard work—and lots of debt. “You still didn’t answer. How did you get in here?”

  “I didn’t answer because there wasn’t the need for an answer. And besides, if I share with you that secret, then you’ll have to start working with us.”

  I took a sip of the wine. It was a little too heavy for me this early in the day. Even though I’d been awake all night, it still felt like morning to me. I couldn’t switch over quite as well as some, a fact that some of the other residents liked to taunt me about, as if my need for sleep represented some sort of weakness.

  “You don’t want me working with you. Not with my kind of magic.”

  Gran set the wine down. “Don’t you go on about your type of magic. The reason you have the effect that you do is because—”

  “Because I have dark magic,” I said, taking another sip. “I’ve come to grips with it, which means that you should too. The council won’t learn of me if I don’t practice.”

  “They won’t learn of you because you don’t have dark magic, Katie.”

  I smiled slightly. She was one of the few who still called me that. “You don’t have any other answer about what it could be.”

  “Just because I don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that it’s dark. There is plenty of magic that I don’t understand.”

  “Not so much now that you’re working with the council.” It was a good job, and it was one that I knew she and Gramps had wanted for a long time. Working for the council was one of the first steps to having the chance to sit on the council. If they ever managed to reach that position, then maybe I wouldn’t have to fear revealing what I could do. “Besides, I’m happy, Gran. I really am.”

  Gran looked around the kitchen, her gaze taking in everything for a long moment before returning to look at me. “This is happy? I can see the weariness on your face. You’re going to age before you need to.”

  “Just because I’m aging normally?”

  “Normal? Using magic that delays aging is normal. This”—she motioned at me and my rumpled scrubs before making a point of tousling my black hair—”isn’t normal. This is self torture.”

  “It’s my choice.”

  “I know that it is. I never said I would take away your choice, only that I don’t necessarily agree with it. Now. Do you have a place for your grandfather and I to stay or not?”

  “You’ve never stayed with me when you visited before.” She frowned at me. “You know I’m happy to have you here. Can you at least tell me why?”

  “Nothing of much importance.”

  I arched a brow. “When you went off to Chicago, that was for nothing of much importance, too. Turns out you started working for the council.”

  “We didn’t want to worry you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “But you might have gotten worried when you learned that we had gone to serve the council. We only wanted what’s best for you, Katie.”

  “And how was your leaving what’s best for me… Is that why you went off? You think to shield me from the council?”

  The door to the kitchen opened and Gramps strode in. He was fit for a seventy-year-old and carried a mug that said There’s a good chance this is wine. When he saw the two of us, he looked over at Gran, frowning.

  “Now what did you do, Cyn?”

  “What did I do? Why do you always take her side?”

  He winked at me. “Who said I’m taking sides? I just wanted to know what you did to Katie to make her give you the angry eyes. You know the one. Hell, I could feel it before I even walked through the door.”

  I took another sip of wine. It was possible that my grandfather could feel it. He was sensitive to such things, much as I had a tendency to let my natural connection to
dark magic out when I was tired and around others who knew me well. They were the only ones who understood my magic as well as I did, even if they weren’t able to explain it. No one could. And we didn’t dare take any questions to the council. If they learned about the possibility of dark magic… there was a good chance that knight might be sent after me. Which wouldn’t be all bad, other than the fact that when the council sent knights after you, the outcome usually wasn’t good.

  “You felt it?” Gran asked. She looked at me, and I could see the disappointment in the way she studied me. “You should be better at controlling it by now.”

  “I do control it. Most of the time.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Just that there are times when I’m at work and…”

  “And what?”

  I took a deep breath. She didn’t need to know that there were times when I could detect the coming of death. There had been no reason to tell them before, so I had made no effort of sharing it with them. I didn’t want my grandparents to think I’d become too twisted by dark magic.

  “Katie?” she asked. She pried the glass of wine from my hands and set it on the counter next to me. “What happens when you’re at work?”

  “It’s nothing,” I said.

  “It doesn’t seem like nothing.” She looked at my grandfather. “Would you get her to share please, Veran?”

  “You know her. When she makes up her mind, there’s not much that we can do to change it. She’s got the same stubborn streak as you.” He winked at me again. “But then, she should be willing to share with us, especially when it comes to her magic.”

  “Gramps…”

  “Katie…” he said, matching my tone.

  I took a deep breath. “Fine. There’s something that’s been happening for a while now. I don’t know when I first started noticing it, but…”

  I described the sense of cold that came when death neared, watching Gran as I did. She had more experience with that sort of thing than anyone I’d ever met. It was the reason that I think she was allowed to work with the council, though I didn’t entirely know what they did for the council. Probably nothing more than ensure the various magical factions remained at peace, especially since she’d once had a strong role in working with the local vamps and the shifters, keeping them controlled.

  “You can feel death?” Gran asked when I was done.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know why. It’s probably nothing, right?”

  She glanced over at my grandfather. Normally, he smiled easily, but all pretense of smiling had faded from his face. He looked at my grandmother with concern.

  “We never did find out—”

  Gran shook her head. “Shush, Veran.”

  “You never did find out what?” I asked. My fatigue was beginning to catch up to me and I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to keep my eyes open. I needed sleep but didn’t know whether there was any way that I would be able to get the sleep that my body demanded until I finished with this conversation.

  “She needs to know. We’ve always wondered if there was anything…” He trailed off with a harsh look from my grandmother and glanced over at me, shrugging. “She doesn’t want to tell you that we never learned much about your father.”

  “Veran!”

  He forced a tired smile. “Cyn. Listen to what she’s saying to us.”

  I blinked, struggling to keep up. “My father? I thought you said he was a mage like my mother.”

  “We thought he was, especially with the power you have,” Gran started. “And we’ve tried to help you with that power, but you refuse to work with us.”

  “It’s not that I refuse—”

  “You refuse, Katie,” Gramps said. When I started to object, he pushed that smile of his, the one that could disarm any situation. “Not that I blame you. Neither of us do. If your father is a dark mage, then you run the risk of the council coming for you and burning out your magic.”

  That was the danger. Dark mages were typically destroyed. When it came to magic, that entailed burning off the ability to sense and use it. For most, it was painful and many never recovered. Considering how little I attempted to use my magic, I didn’t know whether I would feel the same way or whether it wouldn’t affect me, but the risk was what made me worry. Dark mages were known to change after their magic was burned off, most of them losing part of themselves. I couldn’t risk losing the part of me that practiced medicine.

  “You said if. You’ve always told me that he was a dark mage.”

  Gran shrugged. “We assumed he was. With the type of magic you have access to, we thought he would have to be, but what you’re describing isn’t any sort of dark magic that I’ve ever heard about.”

  “Maybe it’s different,” I said.

  Gramps smiled. “Maybe that’s all it is.”

  I could hear it in his voice that he didn’t think so. And that bothered me.

  “If that’s not it, what is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Gran took a drink of wine and set her cup down. “But whatever it is, we’ll help you get to the bottom of it while we’re visiting.”

  “And how long will that be? You still haven’t told me why you’re even back here.”

  “Because it doesn’t matter, Katie. All that matters is that we are here,” Gran said. “And now that we know about your gifts, we’ll work with you to help you understand what they mean.”

  “Great. Now I’ve got to deal with old people cramping my style.”

  4

  The monitor beeped steadily, though it was a rhythm that indicated life. Nothing dangerous about this rhythm, though the injury to the man lying connected to the monitor reminded me of Travis Dorn when he’d been in the ER over a week before. Why should I have that memory?

  “Dr. Michaels?” Derek said when I entered the room.

  “What do we have here?” I already knew this was a GSW, much like Dorn. Unlike Dorn, there was no odd rhythm and no chill that might tell me death was coming. Thankfully, it had been days since I had known the pull of death.

  “The guy came in about an hour ago. Shoulder wound.”

  He pulled back the gown to reveal the injury to the shoulder. Like the good nurse he was, Derek had already cleansed the wound. Blood still oozed around it, but not with much intensity. This would be a painful wound—he might not use his right arm for a while—but not the kind that would be fatal.

  I leaned toward it. “It’s a strange shape,” I said, pulling on a pair of gloves and probing the wound. It angled backward and down. Either he’d been shot from the front, and downward—suggesting he’d either been seated or on his knees—or he’d been shot in the back by a much shorter person. Considering the size of the front wound, I thought that it was the exit wound.

  “It’s symmetrical.” Derek grabbed the guy and started to roll him, revealing the wound on his shoulder. Someone must have already ordered plenty of pain meds for him since he didn’t moan or make any sound. “Check this out.”

  I reached my fingers into the wound on the other side. As he said, it was symmetrical, the same as the other side. Often, there was a difference in shape from entry to exit, typically from the way a bullet would destabilize as it traveled through tissues.

  Not only was it symmetrical, there was almost no bleeding on this side.

  That surprised me.

  I grabbed the light overhead to move it into a better position. Derek started to lower the guy back down, but I shook my head. “Hang on a sec,” I said.

  “Only for you, Dr. Michaels.”

  “Whatever it takes for you to follow orders.”

  Derek grinned. “Be careful. Someone might think you’re hitting on me.”

  I ignored him, peering into the wound. It was smooth and the edges on this side almost seemed cauterized. A bullet wouldn’t do that, but there was something else that might. The kind of weapon that I’d seen recently.

  “This isn’t a gunshot wound,” I said, taking a s
tep back.

  “Sure it is. Look at the contour. Pretty typical for a GSW.”

  I looked over at Derek. Would he believe me? “Check out the tissue on his shoulder back here. The wound is cauterized. Ever see a bullet do that?”

  Derek let go with one hand and stuck his fingers into the wound, frowning. “Shit. I didn’t see that before.” He lowered the guy back onto the bed. “What do you think did it?”

  “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “A sword.”

  Derek started to laugh but trailed off when I didn’t join in. “A sword? Kate, you can’t go to Dr. Foles and tell her you think this guy was stabbed with a sword.”

  “Foles is on?” I hadn’t checked to see who the attendings were, but Dr. Foles was the sort of no-nonsense doc that most people wanted to have when they came into the ER. That didn’t make her resident friendly. She could be incredibly challenging to work with and often would ask question after question to the point where you didn’t know whether to trust your assessment. She was the absolute wrong person to go to with a claim that this guy had been stabbed by a sword.

  But then, if I didn’t say anything about the cauterized wound on the posterior shoulder and Foles picked up on it, she would be equally challenging.

  “What makes you think of a sword anyway?” Derek asked.

  “Because I saw a guy attacked with one on my way home about a week ago.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I shook my head. “Wish I was.”

  “What happened with him?”

  Too late, I realized that I had shared more than I should have with Derek. How would he react to the idea that there was some crazy out in the city attacking with a sword? “I think it was part of a performance,” I said quickly, though I don’t think Derek believed it.

  “What kind of performance?”

  I shrugged. “You know the crap that happens down by the river. It’s probably someone from the university thinking to get YouTube views or something.” That was mostly believable. We had seen plenty of idiots in the ER who had done something like that, thinking that they could go viral by doing stupid stunts. A couple of guys had gotten pretty seriously hurt.