Call of Night (Thorne Hill 3)

But I can’t.

Darkness surrounds me, pulling me down and pinning me against the cold, hard ground. A fire burns behind me, crackling and smoking, burning something that leaves the most awful smell in the air. A baby’s cry rings out, blood-curdling and full of pain. His endless cries fill the night. Suddenly, there’s silence, followed by a woman’s scream. I can feel her pain as if the loss were my own.

Wind blows embers onto my face, and the sky above me is red.

He’s been here before, and he’ll be here again, as soon as they find someone worthy of calling him forth. He’ll walk amongst the living and spread his—

Something sharp pierces my arm and my eyes slit open. Lucas is standing at the bedside, fear in his dark blue eyes. I go to jerk my arm back, moving away from whatever sharp thing is after me.

“Hold still, my love,” Lucas urges, stepping closer and holding my arm still.

“Can you hear me, Callie?” It’s Abby, and she moves around the bed, giving instructions to the person who’s stabbing me. I tip my head, looking for Lucas, and see the nurse instead. She’s trying to put an IV line in me.

“Get ice packs,” Abby tells another nurse. “As many as you can get. We need to get her fever down.”

I flit in and out of consciousness, seeing flashes of a blood-tinged sky. The IV fluid is cold inside my veins, and Abby arranges ice packs against me as another nurse wraps a blood pressure cuff around my arm. In just a matter of minutes, I have an IV going and am hooked up to several monitors.

I start to feel alive again as my fever goes down. I’m exhausted, though, and still can barely open my eyes. Screams echo around me, and a deep feeling of satisfaction seeps through my bones. Horse hooves click and clack over a cobblestone path and dozens and dozens of rats scurry around the horse.

“Callie?” Lucas’s deep voice pulls me away from the burning village. I’m getting really fucking sick of these cryptic visions. Premonition isn’t one of my powers, though this wasn’t like I was seeing the future. It’s not even like the other visions I had before where the Blue-Eyed Man purposely showed me.

No, this is different, like I’m accessing memories from a part of my brain that was only recently unlocked. Not by me, but by someone—or something—else, that has a connection with me.

I force my eyes open and look at my wrist, where the demon scratched me yesterday. He didn’t break the skin and left only a neat little welt. My hospital bracelet is on that wrist, the thick plastic band covers that little red welt.

Only, the red line isn’t red anymore. It’s black.

Chapter 29

“I don’t understand,” my sister says into a phone. “That’s not possible. Run it again.” She looks at me and then turns away, talking to whoever she’s on the phone with. Lucas has my hand sandwiched between his, and hasn’t left my side for even a second.

The IV was placed about twenty minutes ago, and that paired with the ice packs have lowered my fever, but not as much as Abby thought it would. She ordered blood work and is waiting on the results before prescribing an antibiotic. She’s been in and out of the room a few times, and I thought she was giving me special attention because I’m her sister.

But it turns out I’m actually really fucking sick.

“What do you mean, it came up as inconclusive?” Abby lets out a frustrated sigh. “Okay. Send someone up, please.”

“What’s going on?” I ask, throat sore. Every word hurts.

“There was an issue with your blood work.” Abby puts the portable phone in the front pocket of her lab coat. “It’s probably a machine malfunction. It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve seen the computer readings be way off for blood work a few times over my years in the medical field.”

“What’s the issue?” Lucas asks.

“It’s not reading it correctly.”

“What could make that happen?”

Abby shakes her head. “A computer error, I’d guess. They can try to run the report again, but in order to do a new test, they’ll need to take more blood.”

“It’s fine,” I say, knowing that my sister is worried about me. I’m handling being in the hospital better than I thought, though I’m honestly too weak to be freaked out. And after talking to Lucas about my time in a research lab, being treated like a zoo animal, I was able to let go of a lot of the repressed fear and emotion. “They can just take it from that little port thing, right?” I look at the IV line in my arm.

“Right. You won’t get poked anymore.” She types something into the computer and stands. “I don’t want to wait any longer for antibiotics, though. We need to start fighting off the pneumonia. I just put in an order for IV antibiotics and some pain medicine for the headache.”

“Thanks, Abby.”

“Of course, Cal. I have to go see another patient, but the nurse will be in soon. Hang in there, and we’ll get you better.” She pats my shoulder and leaves. I close my eyes, turning my head and snuggling with Binx until the nurse knocks on the door. Binx shadows away, staying close but out of sight.

Lucas gets up, moving out of the way. I take a pain pill and then the nurse hooks the antibiotics up to my IV. She stays in the room for the next few minutes, taking my vitals and making sure I don’t have a reaction to the medication. I’m starting to feel sleepy from the pain pill, and my mind is all fuzzy when a girl comes in for more blood to take to the lab.

The nurse checks on me again, and the constant poking and prodding is getting annoying. I just want to sleep. The blood pressure cuff on my arm automatically inflates every twenty minutes, so even when someone isn’t in the room, I’m being bothered.

“You feel hot again.” Lucas gently runs his hand up my arm. “Your whole body is hot.” He stands and touches my forehead. “The fever is back.”

“It can’t be,” I mumble.

“It is.” He smooths back my hair. “I’m getting your sister.”

“There’s no need for that.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel something take hold of me. It presses down on me, dark and heavy. My heart rate spikes, making an alarm on one of the monitors start going off. Sickness twists in my stomach, and it’s a struggle to sit up. I make a feeble attempt to point to the trashcan, and end up puking all over the floor.

My hands start trembling uncontrollably, and the sick smell of death surrounds me. The sound of a horse trotting along cobblestone echoes through the room, and my body heaves again, pushing up the last bit of food left in my stomach.

Lucas calls for the nurse and holds my hair back. Everything starts to echo again, and I can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s a fight to keep my eyes open, and the trembling in my hands plagues the rest of my body. I go limp in Lucas’s arms, and he holds me upright, afraid I’ll choke on my own vomit.

A team of nurses come running in, and the rapid beeping of the alarm grows louder and louder until it turns into children’s cries. They’re all together in one room, and two men wearing masks and robes walk in.

Lucas lays me back down against the mattress and the head of the bed is raised to keep me from choking. Everything happens in a blur, and I go back and forth between the ER room and the dark room with rows of cots, filled with sick children.

“Callie.” Lucas’s voice sounds so far away. He’s holding my hand again, and he picks up my wrist, fingers sweeping over the welt from the demon scratch.

And then I pass out again.

Silence.

Everything is silent.

The sky. The air. Even the ocean.

I look at the line where the water meets the sky, not wanting to turn around and see the piles of bodies behind me. I bring my hand up to block out the sun, and I see it. The welt on my hand has darkened, and the veins around it are turning black.

“How’s she doing?” a voice rings out, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I recognize that voice.

“They can’t figure out what’s wrong.” Deft fingers run up and down my arm. Cool fingers. Luca

s’s fingers.

“She’s strong and incredibly stubborn. If anyone can pull through this, it’s her.”

“She is strong,” Lucas agrees, and I place the other voice. It’s Eliza. I try to open my eyes but can’t. They’re too heavy and I’m too weak.

The sounds of the hospital slowly start to register, but I don’t think I’m in the busy ER anymore. The blood pressure cuff tightens around my arm, and someone knocks on the door.

“Did you get the test results back?” Lucas asks someone.

“The results are still inconclusive,” my sister answers. “Are you sure witch blood is the same as human blood?”

“Yes,” Lucas tells her. “Biologically witches are human. There is nothing in their blood that’s different than humans who don’t possess magical powers.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening then. The lab ran her blood twice and got the same results. I can’t treat her if I don’t know what I’m dealing with, and so far nothing is working to keep her fever down.” She comes around the bed and picks up something that was resting against my head, replacing it with another.

Oh, it’s more ice packs.

“People can’t survive with fevers this high. I honestly don’t know how she’s alive and not having febrile seizures.”

“But she’ll be okay, right?” Eliza asks.

“Yeah,” Abby says and even I don’t believe her. “I’ll…I’ll figure something out. I was able to pull a favor from a friend who works in pathology in a private lab. She’s analyzing her blood now and will call once she gets results. Until then…we’ll keep her as comfortable and stable as we can.”

Abby smooths my hair back and rearranges the ice packs. “I have to go back to the ER, but I’ll come up when I can.”

Back to the ER? I was right, I’m not there anymore, but where am I? Exhausting myself trying to open my eyes, I fall asleep again. For how long, I have no idea. I’m woken up when someone moves my feet, bending my knees a bit and putting a pillow under my legs. It’s the nurse, and she repositions my weak body to keep it from getting any sores.

“There’s something familiar about this,” Lucas says once the nurse leaves. He leans in and puts his face to the IV port, smelling my blood. “And I think I might know what it is. Stay with her,” he tells Eliza.