Page 59 of Wicked Deeds

“Seriously,” I said, “I’m fine and you can’t do anything I can’t at the hospital. I’ll make them take us to St. Isidore’s. Meredith will help us.” Or if she wasn’t on duty, there’d be another healer in the hospital. The healers who worked in hospitals knew tanai existed. We’d be fine.

He nodded, but waved off the Decker employee who was standing at a not-so-discreet distance, obviously ready to usher him back to the meet and greet. Half the people still in the queue were gawking at our table, trying to see what was happening.

“Get everyone back in line,” Damon said, his tone as close to a snap as he allowed himself to get in public. “I’ll be over in a few minutes. I need to make sure everything’s okay here first.”

“Of course, Mr. Riley,” the employee said and backed off.

The paramedics arrived next. They didn’t fuss with Maia’s work, just took Gwen’s vitals, got us to repeat what had happened, asked Maia what the injury was, and then bundled Gwen onto a stretcher to be carried out.

The shorter of the two, a black woman with close cropped curls, who was in charge, asked, “Who’s coming with us?”

“Me,” I said, pushing out of the booth. “We need to go to St. Isidore’s.”

“St. Isidore’s? Is this a healer situation?”

That was the delicate way of asking if Gwen was a witch. “Yes.” I wasn’t going to explain she was tanai. It was enough that they knew I wanted a healer to examine Gwen first. Meredith would know if Gwen’s parentage would cause any issues.

But the paramedic didn’t ask for any clarification. “Fine. Let’s go.”

I turned to Maia. “Call ahead. Let Meredith or whoever the healer on duty is know we’re coming.”

The ride to the hospital didn’t take too long, though the medical smells made my pulse pound. Hospitals brought back too many bad memories

Gwen’s new bandage was stained by the time we reached the hospital. The paramedics had dosed her with a hypo of painkillers and hooked her up to an IV they assured me was just saline.

When the ambulance’s doors swung open, Meredith was waiting for us. She looked like it had been a long day already, the green scrubs under her white coat wrinkled, but she smiled at me, pushing the long brown braid of her hair back over her left shoulder.

“Maggie, hi,” she said. “Hang on.” She turned her attention to the paramedics, letting them update her. When they were done, she stared at Gwen for a long moment before stepping back and nodding at the paramedics. “Okay, let’s take her through to the ER. I’ve got an exam room ready.” She watched intently as the paramedics unloaded Gwen and trundled her off in the stretcher.

Meredith turned to me. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“There’s glass in your hair.”

“So people keep telling me.”

“I’ll get a nurse to clean it up for you.” She glanced down at my hands. “You can clean those, too. What happened?”

“A light globe exploded. Or the fitting fell. Or both. Glass and metal falling from the ceiling, anyway. Gwen was in the way.”

Meredith was too professional to wince but she made sympathetic noises as she led me toward the ER.

“It looked bad. Lots of blood,” I said, clenching my hands again. The blood was mostly dry now and the tight sensation was nearly worse than the fresh blood had been.

“We’ll take care of it,” Meredith said. She lowered her voice. “She’s tanai?”

I nodded. “Yep, her mom is…from there.”

We’d reached a door labeled ‘Exam Room 5’. Meredith waved to the nearest nurse, a slightly frazzled looking redheaded guy who had a datapad in one hand and a box of bandages in the other.

“Pete, this is Maggie. She had a close encounter with an exploding industrial light bulb. Her friend got the worst of it but can you find someone to get the glass out of her hair. Examine her scalp, too. And the rest of her clothes. There could be glass shards anywhere. And she needs to wash her hands. Once she’s done, she can come back here. No need for a patient record, I’ll take care of that.”

Pete nodded. “Sure thing, Dr. Dempsey.” He nodded his head at me. “C’mon, we’ll use one of the cubicles. It won’t take long.”

He started walking and before I knew it I was seated in a curtained-off cubicle while he angled a bright light at my hair and picked glass out with tweezers. After he made me put on a gown so he could check for cuts and shake out my clothes. For once my game club casual had paid off. My jeans and leather jacket had protected me from the glass. Pete declared me glass-free and pointed me at the sink so I could finally scrub the blood off my hands.

When I was done, Pete escorted me to the exam room, where Meredith was rebandaging Gwen’s arm.

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