Ezra shot Major Grendel a sharp smile. “We’ll get there in a few; I just want all the events cleared up before I risk my and my cat’s life.” Lilith meowed again before licking her paw. Grendel eyed her with suspicion, and Lilith ignored her as only a cat could. “Where is Blevins?”
Grendel grimaced and gestured with one hand to the other side of the tent. “I’ll take you to her.”
Ezra scooped up Lilith and held her in the crook of his arm as he trailed after Grendel, the major leading him out into the night again. Ezra blinked, his eyes a bit stunned by the harsh glare from the huge light stations in the camp. They didn’t go far—Grendel stopped outside a long rectangular tent fashioned out of heavy white fabric with a spark of magic around it that he sensedas soon as he crossed the threshold inside. He flipped on his inner vision—the ability to see various types of magical energies, artifacts, and spells—and was impressed to see the medical tent was shielded extensively from the elements. It was a standard MERS medical tent, ready for any scale of catastrophe.
A medical wizard, a water elementalist based on her energies, sat at a makeshift table that was doubling as a desk. She looked up, startled, as Grendel led him down the center aisle, rows of empty beds and inactive equipment on either side. Only one bed was occupied, about halfway down on the right side, nearest the desk occupied by the doctor, and Ezra stopped two beds away and stared in shock.
With his inner vision active, he could see the ruin of Monica Blevins’ aura.
“Major, Ms. Blevins hasn’t regained consciousness yet…” the nurse stammered out, eyes on Ezra. She frowned at him, staring intently. If she was a long-term employee of MERS, she’d likely seen him before at other incidents in Canada and was trying to place him. He didn’t clarify who he was, too absorbed in deciphering what exactly happened to the young graduate student.
All living creatures had auras. Even some heavily warded or magicked items had auras, depending on age and use. Cursed objects and magical artifacts could have a type of aura that showed hints of their purpose, and Ezra was good at seeing things below the surface layer.
She shouldn’t be alive. Her aura was blown wide open, as if a magical explosion happened right in her face, and while her body had minor scrapes and abrasions, her aura was a gaping wound of leaking magical energies. If she had any magical talent prior to exposure to whatever was in that chest, it was castrated by the damage to her aura, her own innate energies. Her body wasn’t holding on to any of the living, unformed magic that wasnaturally generated within her being—usually living creatures shed magic once their own reserves were replete and it joined the ambient magic fields that covered the face of the planet.
The energies generated from her life force were oozing out, her body and aura unable to contain them, and she was shutting down. She needed some of that energy to fuel the part of her spirit that anchored her soul in her body. Her features were sunken, her skin wan and gray, dark circles under her eyes.
“Holy Hecate.” Ezra breathed out. “She was the one who found the artifact.” A declaration of fact.
There was no doubt in Ezra’s mind that Monica Blevins had pulled an object from the chest, and whether on purpose or by accident, activated the cursed magics in said artifact, nearly killing herself in the process, and unleashing the artifact’s inherent magics on the surrounding area. It was pure, unadulterated luck that she was still alive.
“We don’t know that for certain…” Dr. Simmons, who had followed them, stammered indignantly.
“It’s obvious as fuck, but sure, cover your own ass,” Ezra scoffed.
Either it was an accident, Monica decided to open the chest herself, or Simmons told her to. All three of those scenarios meant Simmons failed, since she was his graduate student, under his supervision, and if he’d made the conscious decision to open that chest, he’d outright murdered twelve people.
Ezra didn’t see much point in looking for the why of the chest being opened; he’d let the authorities deal with disciplining whoever was really responsible. It wasn’t his job to punish people.
It was his job to stop the end of the world.
CHAPTER TWO
EZRA
Ezra walked to the bedside and held a hand over Monica, trying to sense what type of magic might have crafted the artifact. Simmons spluttered in anger behind him, but Ezra ignored him.
The medical wizard hurried around her desk and all but sprinted to his side, ready to leap on him to protect her patient. Her name tag read Dr. Baines. “Miss Blevins needs to rest, sir.”
“She’s resting. Last nap she’s ever gonna take. She’s already dead, or close enough,” Ezra replied quietly. Dr. Baines gasped in outrage, but Ezra stopped listening, turning his full attention to Monica.
Lilith jumped from his arms and landed on the bed, eyeing Monica curiously, sniffing along her arm. His familiar’s physical senses were better than his, and through their bond he was able to take advantage of that fact—he got a hint of sweaty terror and an acrid, feverish emotion that Lilith greatly disliked. She sneezed delicately and sat primly on the edge of the bed, tail wrapped around her paws.
Monica Blevins’ soul was still in her body, though it wouldn’t be for much longer. It was slipping free from its anchors even as he watched, his affinity letting him see the process of her dyingright in front of him. What living energies she had were slowly converting to death magics.
She would be dead within the hour. Ezra pulled back, shutting down most of his inner vision so he could focus. He looked up and saw everyone watching him with varying degrees of confusion and anger on their faces, though the Major wasn’t showing anything on her face.
Ezra faced the medical wizard. “Does Monica have a DNR or living will?”
She shook her head. “She’s only twenty-three. Most people don’t have one at this age.”
“Her next of kin?”
“Her mother was notified and is making arrangements to get here, but it’s difficult.” Simmons butted in, sounding almost regretful but falling flat.
“What do her brain scans say?” Ezra asked after a long moment of thinking.
Dr. Baines relaxed a bit. “Her brain scans are normal. No physical brain damage.”
