Mable didn’t reply, stretching and looking away delicately.
Sandra cleared her throat, trying to make the sound tactful and yet pointed.
“Oh,” Marvin said. “Before you met Mr. Wonderful again.”
Mable pursed her lips but didn’t look at Mr. Wonderful’s overly proud owner.
Marvin started the coffeemaker and went to brush his teeth. He wasn’t the jealous type, which was good, with Mable’s history.
Sandra made tea for herself and poured coffee. Mable, deeply involved in computer whizz code murmured thanks and kept typing on the laptop. Sandra stayed quiet and let her work.
When Marvin returned, he looked ready for work, wearing the sky-blue scrubs the medical types wore. He kissed the top of Mable’s blond head and said, “Okay, so you need to turn off the electricity in the surgical suite. Right?”
“Yes. And I can’t,” Mable said. “It is in a different part of Building Z. And every department of Z has its own backup generator.”
“So, what do we do?” Sandra asked, finishing off her tea. “We can’t let them perform surgery on Dani.”
“I’ll go in after her, but Mable needs to stay here and monitor the situations in both buildings. You can’t go with me, honey,” Marvin said.
“Without me, things might be dicey,” Mable said, her eyes on the screen. “You can turn things to soil but that might not be enough.”
“I’ll go,” Sandra said, the words out of her mouth before she even thought them.
The other two were silent long enough that Sandra figured they were going to refuse her. That possibility sent a strange confusion racing through her, the fear of her power, and the very unexpected desire to use it.
“If we get in trouble, you might have to . . . you know.” Marvin shrugged uncomfortably.
“Use your . . .” His words trailed off.
“Turn someone into an emu. Which I promised I’d never do again.” Sandra took her tea to the window and gazed out over the back parking lot and the petting zoo behind the school. Could she do it? On purpose? Her curse was exactly that. It had cursedherlife,Harold’slife, had caused her children to grieve, and had hurt her church. She had lost friends who didn’t feel a relationship with her was worth the possibility of becoming a stupid, ugly, flightless bird. Not that she could blame them. Just like she had moaned in the dining room when she was faking being upset, she had lost her life.
Sandra’s power level was strong, off the chart when she was first measured. Strong enough to even overpower a void’s natural immunity. She had been encouraged to learn to use her power, but some unhappy subconscious part of her had always shut her magic down.
Mable went to freshen up and Marvin took her place at the laptop. It gave Sandra time to think, while he monitored the screens for any changes.
Sandra pressed her teabag into the bottom of the empty cup with a finger, worrying, watching the small barn at the petting zoo. The barn manager let Harold out to run, and she smiled tenderly. He’d had long skinny legs as a human too.
When Mable came back in, Sandra left them alone and went to Marvin’s bathroom. Before she closed the door, she saw Mable sit at the laptop, looking perky and pretty, every blond hair in place. “What do you think she’ll do?” Mable asked.
Marvin said, “I don’t know. But I also don’t know if I can rescue Dani in time without her. Without getting taken down, too.”
Sandra closed the door softly. They had all managed to get showers during the night, so clean up was easy and quick. She brushed her teeth, smoothed her hair, and put on fresh lipstick. That was all the makeup she had ever worn, that and alittle rouge, and Harold had loved her natural skin. She studied herself in the mirror again. She looked okay. Gray headed. Old. Tired. Late nights did that these days. Harold would never recognize her now.
And . . .
She might have to turn someone else into an emu. She had sworn never to use her magic again. But to save Dani . . . She heaved a guilt-ridden breath. Yes. God forgive her. She would use her curse for Dani. Her best friend in the world. Dani had saved her. Had bullied her out of her intense depression after Harold’s transformation and made her go to work. She owed Dani. Her best friend, or BFF as the kids said these days.
Sandra straightened her shoulders, whispered a prayer for forgiveness, and changed into fresh scrubs that matched Marvin’s and Mable’s. She clipped her nametag to her collar and tested its retractable string before she returned to the main room of Marvin’s suite. “Anyone who tries to hurt Dani will be eating emu food for breakfast.”
Marvin stood and said, “Mable is going to monitor our progress and handle communication with the cops from here. Let’s go.”
Sandra sucked in a shocked breath.Now?
Silent, fear racing through her blood with every heartbeat, Sandra followed him from the room and down the hall. Down the elevator. Into the basement. And across the parking lot. The construction guys had not yet shown up for the day’s final repair work, but the sleepy-eyed first shift was just arriving and they fell in with the group. The medical personnel looked as tired as she felt. Considering what Mable had recorded about the hazmat-wearing transport crew, most of them probably had no idea they were treating people who had been removed and disappeared.
Dani had said that the higher-ups had to know. The bigwigs. But the lower paid people didn’t have to know. The surgeons didn’t have to know, only the nurse anesthetist who put them into partial comas upon entering Building Z, and kept them that way until they were put under fully in the operating room had to know. Even most of the nurses might not know. They probably thought, just like Shaniqua had said, that they were working on brain damaged patients who had donated their bodies and power with the intent to provide for their families by allowing the harvesting of their magic.
But. The COO, Margorie Devoe, had to know. The head of security had to know. A few others. There were probably ten or fifteen people whoknewthey were abusing and assaulting and doing unspeakable things to people.
