Magic Rises

you remember that you asked me to set up meetings with you and the three packs tomorrow morning? Do you want to cancel?”
    “Hell no. I want to go and look them in the eye when they tell me they didn’t attack our medmage in the middle of the night.” Anger flared inside me. I would find the assholes responsible and they would pay. Nobody hurt Doolittle and lived. “He was a noncombatant. We will find whoever went after him and I will personally make them regret the day they were born.”
    “What she said,” Keira said. “Nobody touches the medic and lives.”
    George swung into my view. She held a bottle of brown liquid in her hand.
    “What is that?”
    “Whiskey.” She handed me a wadded-up rag. “Here, I need you to bite down on this.”
    What the hell? “Why?”
    “I’m going to clean your wounds.”
    “The hell you are.” Not with alcohol. It didn’t disinfect the wound unless one drenched it, it killed the living cells, and it generally did more harm than good. Not to mention the wound would take forever to heal after being treated with alcohol, and pouring whiskey on an open gash guaranteed scars.
    “Kate,” George said, her voice suddenly very patient. “You don’t have a shapeshifter’s immune system. Your wounds need to be sterilized.”
    “You’re not sterilizing them with whiskey. Are you nuts?”
    “They always do it in movies and in books. So many people can’t be wrong.”
    I channeled every iota of menace I had into my voice. “George, if you come near me with that bottle, I’ll hurt you.”
    “Right.” George looked at Barabas. “We may need to hold the Consort down.”
    Barabas looked at Derek. Derek shrugged, as if to say, I don’t know . Barabas clamped my arms to the floor.
    “Do you need me to help hold her?” Desandra called out. “Because I can totally do that.”
    “George!” I snarled.
    She uncorked the bottle. “I’m sorry it’s going to hurt. I don’t want you to get sepsis.”
    “Barabas, let go of me. This is an order.” I strained, but I had no strength left. I might as well have tried to lift a car.
    “It’s for your own good,” Barabas said.
    George stepped toward me with the bottle.
    “Let me go, you idiots!”
    “I’ll make it quick.” George leaned over me.
    “Stop!” Doolittle said.
    Everybody froze.
    “Georgetta, put down that bottle.”
    George sat the bottle on the floor and stepped away from it.
    Doolittle had raised himself in the tub and was looking at us. “I don’t have the strength to tell you all of the things that are wrong with what you doing. Release the Consort this instant.”
    Barabas raised his hands. I slumped on my blanket. Thank God. He was conscious. Thank you, thank you, Universe.
    “Derek, find a large blue bottle marked STERILE SALINE SOLUTION . Georgetta, look for a green wooden box with clean gauze. Keira, did you hit your head?”
    Keira’s eyes got really big. “Yes. Among other things.”
    “Is that rag on your head cold?”
    “Ummm . . .”
    “It should be cold. Preferably iced. Blurred vision?”
    “No.”
    “Did you vomit?”
    “A little. I’m fine now.”
    “You need to ice that rag. Why is Eduardo naked? Did none of you think about the man’s dignity? Find him a clean sheet. Has anybody checked his vital signs? There is a pregnant woman here covered in blood and none of you are alarmed by this. Nobody is helping her to get clean.” Doolittle surveyed us. “I leave you for a few brief minutes, and you’re courting disaster.”
    Suddenly everyone became terribly busy.
    “I’m glad you’re okay, Doc,” I told him.
    “I shouldn’t be alive.” He looked at me. “It seems it was my turn to be the patient.”
    “Let’s not do that again,” I told him. “You’re so much better at being the doctor.”
    Doolittle hesitated. “What kind of healing . . .”
    I read the question in his eyes. He had seen me heal Julie. He’d watched my blood sear hers, cleaning it of the virus and binding her to me, and now he wanted to know if I had done something with my magic that compromised his free will. I looked into his eyes and I didn’t see gratitude or joy at being alive. I saw suspicion and fear. He was terrified that I had turned him into an abomination. In that moment I knew with complete certainty that Doolittle would rather die than be brought back to life by me.
    An invisible wall slammed into place around me, cutting me off. I was still in the room. I still heard