Page 15 of Born Chaos

“What’s happening?” she cries as Diana herds her out the door.

I start him on oxygen, treating every symptom. Sebastian stabs a needle into his chest, something to stop the seizures, but he keeps thrashing.

“He’s burning up,” I state as I read his temperature. “106. He’s going to have brain damage if we don’t get his temperature down.”

I yell out an order for cooling blankets and snap back around to give him a shot of a fever reducer.

Sebastian is a whirlwind of activity, desperately trying to figure out what’s wrong with this man.

“Have you ever seen something like this?” I gape. I take the cooling blankets and drape them over the man’s body.

“Never,” Sebastian says, his eyes wide, his hands swift. “Vampires don’t get sick. Injured, yes, but sick? This…” he shakes his head. “This almost seems like poison to me. Or, maybe the work of a gifted?”

We need to talk to his wife. She’s human but obviously knows he’s a vampire, considering how he looks right now, and she knew he’d been out feeding. Or was it her who tried to take him out, and now she’s playing the part of the panicked, concerned wife very well?

“Are there any gifted in the city that can do this?” I ask, stepping out of the way as his arm flails in my direction.

“Not that I know of directly,” Sebastian answers, checking his oxygen levels again. “But I only know a handful of the gifted. We need to call Sigrid.”

But neither of us is going to get the chance. Because the man’s body seizes sharply before his entire body goes rigid, his hands pressed to his sides, his knees locked straight. He looks like a plank. His jaw locks together tightly, and his eyes stare wide and panicked up at the ceiling.

And then he falls limp into the bed, his eyes closed.

“He’s unconscious,” Sebastian declares, never once ceasing treatment.

But a sense of dread dips into my stomach. I grab his hand and pinch the back of it. When he doesn’t react in any way at all, I pinch the tender skin in the crook of his arm. Still, no reaction whatsoever. “I think he just slipped into a coma,” I correct. I stand straight, shaking my head. This is… mind-boggling.

“Oxygen levels are falling,” Sebastian observes. “Let’s get him on a ventilator.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I declare as I get the equipment. “Vampires don’t technically need to breathe!”

“Yet his vitals are dropping,” Sebastian reports as he gives the man another shot. “It’s like… it’s like he’s an eighty-year-old man with pneumonia.”

I hate intubating people. So often, it’s the last resort and isn’t always enough.

But we have to give him some time. We need time to figure out what’s going on.

So I slip the tube down his throat, and once it’s in place, we begin the flow of oxygen.

“His heart rate is evening out,” Sebastian reads, the barest hint of relief in his voice. “His temperature is dropping just a bit.”

Slowly, the black veins surrounding his eyes retreat, and just a minute later, he could pass as human.

Just a few minutes later, the both of us listen to the steadybeep, beep, beepof his heart.

“I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ve been working here for five months now. And I’ve never seen anything even close to that.”

“Me either,” Sebastian says. And without another word, he crosses to the door. He pokes his head out and summons the man’s wife. She walks in, her face tear-stained, her eyes hollow and dark.

“Patrick,” she says with a sob, crossing to his side. She takes one of his hands in hers and presses her lips to his fingers. “What’s wrong with him?”

Sebastian and I look at each other once before focusing back on the wife. “We assume you’re aware of what your husband is,” Sebastian states.

“Of course,” she says with a tiny nod. “He Resurrected just last year. We’d already been married for two years.”

I nod. “We’ve never seen a vampire with symptoms come into this hospital before. Injuries, yes, but a sickness like this? Never.”

“Is it possible your husband was poisoned?” Sebastian just gets right to it. “Did he have any enemies? Have the two of you been in any arguments lately?”

---