“Shall I get the nurse?”
He nodded again.
I pressed the “nurse call” button and a woman in purple scrubs stuck her head in, her eyes taking in everything. Shesaid, “He’s awake, that explains the vitals we’re seeing just now. Give me a minute and I’ll be right in.”
She was still tying her blue gown when she entered. “Tommy, I’m your nurse, Ginny. How are you? No, don’t struggle. Just listen. Are you listening?”
Thomas nodded once, slightly. Even that looked painful.
“Oh my God. Tommy!” his sister said. Robinelle flew from the chair to his side and burst into tears. So did Thomas.
Ginny said, “We just got his four a.m. labs back. His kidney function improved dramatically overnight. His liver enzymes are improving, and his gases are excellent.” To Thomas, she said, “We’ve turned down your oxygen and your ventilator isn’t doing much at the moment. The unit’s hospitalist, Dr. Pench, plans to try and remove the tubes this morning. But you have been a very sick man, Mr. Langer. You aren’t out of the woods yet. And if you fight the ventilator, that will slow down your progress. I need you to relax, okay?”
Thomas gave a second faint nod and his shoulders relaxed slightly.
Ginny looked back to Robinelle again. “Do you want to tell him about his hands and feet?”
Robinelle closed her eyes tightly but nodded yes. “He’s going to want to see.” Ginny began to unwind his bandages. Robinelle started telling her brother he had lost some fingers and toes.
I slipped out of the room. I didn’t need to intrude on that painful moment, and any interview could take place later.
In the next room, I found Erica Lynn Quinton, who played lead guitar. Or, I should say, who had once played lead guitar. Her hands were heavily bandaged; blood and green goo had leaked through to the outer sticky wrap; the stench ofdeath and decaywas strong and Erica was on a ventilator. I started to back out, but someone wearing scrubs stopped me. It was the hospitalist from my previous visit, the one who had been—legitimately—too busy to talk to me.
“I’m Ruth Pench, the hospitalist. I’m responsible for general medical care of hospitalized patients on the paranormal unit this morning. You’re with PsyLED, right?”
I gave my name and she asked, “What can you tell me about the efficacy of the null rooms?” It sounded more like a demandthan a question, but she was entitled. She was a human battling a paranormal disease, one with deadly symptoms but no typical medical cause. “We put Thomas Langer in the one outside and he improved drastically overnight. We put Quinton in it and it hasn’t helped.”
“The one at HQ is better. Every time you move a portable one, it loses some of its—” I stopped and frowned. “Some of its nullness? And the sooner you get a patient into them the better.”
“How long do they stay inside? Do they need medical personnel to stay with them?” Pench asked.
Dang FireWind for making me be here instead of a more senior member of the unit.“It’s more of an art than a science. There haven’t been any double-blind studies on witch energies or null energies and certainly none on whatever this is. There isn’t any money for that kind of research. The Nashville coven suggested half an hour for anyone before they start showing symptoms. After symptoms, a minimum of an hour was their suggestion, and the patients need to be read by a witch after to see if thedeath and decayhas been neutralized. That’s what we’re calling it. But frankly, longer time in a null room won’t hurt them, and might help them. Medical personnel are absolutely essential.” I was laying down rules to a doctor.FireWind should not have put me in charge...“You don’t want investigators taking care of your patients.”
“The patient who died with this magic working began to decompose immediately. The body saponified a green goo and the fingers and toes fell off before we got it moved to the morgue. I hear it decomposed so fast down there they had to scoop the body parts off the autopsy table and into plastic bags.” Her eyes were hard and brittle as glass. “She was melting like wax.”
I said, “Melting. Yeah. Good a term as any.”
“Okay. I’m initiating a new protocol. The plan going forward is to take all stable patients from Cookeville to your headquarters before they come here. The EMTs and paramedics will have to stay with the patients. Then, I need a witch to read them. I have a few names and contact info on file somewhere.”
I tilted my head to show I had heard and that I didn’t disagree.
“Then we can send any patient to your office for more nulltime as needed. It’ll cost a fortune, and no one is gonna be happy with me.”
“Except your patients and their fingers and toes and internal organs.”
Pench whipped sharp eyes to me. “There is that.”
“You could request a budget increase next year for a null room here on the paranormal unit.”
“In-house. Yeah. Are they expensive?”
“Ithinkthat if you have a slab floor system and a designated place for it, it isn’t too bad. Construction and then fifteen to twenty-five thousand for the working?”
“Twenty-five K?” Pench made a chuffing sound like Occam often made. “I can raise the money for that myself. And we can take over an existing patient room.”
“Be careful that you get a well-regulated, full coven for the null working.”
“Suggestions?”
