After calls like that one, Elise really wished she had major aggressive magic. Fire powers, maybe, like Delainey could sometimes manage. Or more than the tiniest smattering of bloodmagic. If she could make peoplereally hurtwith her magic, she would …
Not. Because she was a healer down to her marrow.
Elise groaned and shut her locker, wincing at the clang as she slammed it with just a bit too much force. "Sorry!" she muttered and realized she was apologizing to inanimate steel.
She wasn't really on shift. She probably didn't need to lock her stuff up. But habit was habit. No one wanted to accidentally leave their phone in a wildlife enclosure.
It was true that she mostly did admin work for the wildlife rehabilitation center.
Officially.
But off hours andreallyoff the books, she did a little … moonlighting.
It was great being in a small, chosen coven. Really great. Except for the meddling, but witches were meddlers by nature, so there was no escaping that.
But with a coven so small, she didn't get ample opportunities to use her powers outside of soothing Delainey's cramps when her period got really bad and working her magic on colds and the occasional UTI.
Ah, the glamorous life of a healer.
She wasn't sure if her coven-sisters would throw a fit if they knew she snuck into the zoo sometimes to heal the animals. It wasn't dangerous. Not really. She wasn't about to sneak up on a polar bear or a Komodo dragon. And even if she did, she probably had enough magic to knock a creature out before they could really damage her.
Probably.
But the bears and Komodo dragons were doing just fine.
Tonight, Elise was worried about the fox.
She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting when she started working for Stewart County Wildlife Rehabilitation. A year ago,if someone had asked her what a wildlife rehabilitation service did, she'd say … rehabilitate wildlife?
It was mostly foxes and does. Then there were the raccoons and the squirrels. She'd expected more birds, but apparently, they were handled by another facility.
The rehab center was attached to the Stewart Central Zoo, though they were a separate organization.
And that was what allowed Elise to sneak in.
The zoo security guards were never sure of the Wildlife Rehab's schedule, and when they had particularly tough cases, it wasn't unusual for one of the vets or some of the techs to stay overnight.
Elise was neither a vet nor a tech, but the security guards didn't need to know that.
Tonight, she'd put on a borrowed pair of scrubs. They were purple and covered in Snoopy, which was achoice. She was more of a Hello Kitty girl herself. And if any of the security guards caught her, she could flash her Wildlife Rehab badge and let her scrubs do most of the talking.
So, the fox.
It had come in with a broken front paw and some labored breathing. The vet on call had been worried about a respiratory infection and thought the paw would need to be amputated. Elise knew that foxes could survive after limb removal.
But with a broken limbandan infection, the vet wasn't confident and wasn't willing to do much more than administer antibiotics and pain meds until they had a better idea of the animal's potential for survival.
Vet medicine was tough like that. If she had her way, she'd save every animal she could, no matter how injured.
But too many miracles might cause questions. And Elise could only supply so much magical healing.
Tonight, the fox was getting a miracle.
She wanted to creep down the hallways like some kind of thief but forced her shoulders back and her chin up. After hours, the lights were dim, and she cast a long shadow. She tried not to be freaked out by it. If a security guard saw her, she had to look like she belonged there.
But no security guard spotted her and, thankfully, her card worked when she scanned it to get into the med center. The sensor beeped and the color changed as the door unlocked.
She found the fox in a cage against the far wall, and he looked miserable. His fur was a bit matted, and his eyes barely opened as she approached, even though her presence was his only option for entertainment tonight. He looked absolutely miserable.
