“And you brought her in yourself? Why Catherine, you had better watch yourself. It sends the wrong impression. One might think you cared about someone other than yourself.”
“You could say that I’ve taken a special interest in this one.”
Nurse Post blinked. A somewhat odd look with one of her eyes hidden behind a cross-taped gauze patch. Her face blanked for a moment as her single red eye wandered to Irene, looking her up and down.
“But,” Catherine said, “I’ve got things to do. Fix her up.”
She let go of Irene, pushing her into the seat as she moved away. She took one step away.
And paused.
Catherine’s hand reached out, gripping Irene’s good shoulder like a vice. She bent down and leaned in close to Irene.
Too close.
Her lips brushed against Irene’s ear as she spoke.
“Don’t let what happened scare you away. I’ll see you next class.”
Irene blinked and Catherine was gone. The door clicked shut leaving only two occupants in the room.
“Well, that was interesting.”
Irene turned to the nurse with an eyebrow raised.
“But never mind for now. Your arm is dislocated,” she said, eye wandering to the disturbing bulge in Irene’s shoulder. “A simple dislocation. I would say that most of your tissues and nerves are still in place, just shifted. We can pop it back into place without much trouble. It will hurt for a moment with some lingering ache, but should be fine otherwise. Would you like some painkillers?”
Irene didn’t hesitate in her answer. “If it isn’t too much trouble.”
Nurse Post chuckled to herself as she turned to a potion cabinet. “Drink it down quick,” she said as she handed a vial to Irene. “You’ll have general numbness for about an hour. Overkill? Maybe. But we need to move fast before you swell up too much. That creates all kinds of complications.”
The potion tasted a lot like rubber. Flavorless chewing gum in a liquid form. Not very pleasant. Luckily, the numbing dampened Irene’s sense of taste almost immediately. The rest of her body soon followed.
As the potion took effect, Nurse Post laid out a large mat on the floor. She guided Irene over to it and had her lay down on top.
“That potion had a slight muscle relaxant, but I’d still like you to keep as relaxed as possible. I’m going to turn your arm nice and slowly,” she said, taking Irene’s hand into her own.
Placing her other hand at Irene’s elbow to keep it from moving, she started moving Irene’s hand away from her chest.
Every now and again, the muscles in Irene’s shoulder would have a small spasm.
“Sorry,” Irene said after the third time. “I’m trying not to.”
Nurse Post just smiled. “Oh don’t worry, it is expected. Now, we are getting to the point where your shoulder will slide back into position. There might be a light snapping–”
Irene winced, more out of shock than pain, as her arm snapped back to where it was supposed to be. She tried to move it almost immediately.
Nurse Post gripped her arm and held it steady. “Let’s get you a sling before you start moving around. You should keep it on until the inflammation dies down.”
While the nurse moved to find a sling, Irene propped herself up.
“What was all that about Catherine caring?”
“Oh, not much. Dean Turner hired her on last year. She’s attended all the staff meetings and maintains the reception desk. Yet she’s never really interacted with any other staff. It has become something of a running joke among us that the public face of Brakket is so against socializing.
“Of course, that was before I learned a few things that shed some light on the situation,” she said as she pulled a pale blue sling from a drawer. “But that’s neither here nor there. Arm out, carefully if you would.”
She attached the sling around Irene’s arm and neck. “I’d like to keep you here for about the hour it will take for your potion to expire. Your deadened senses could be problematic. You might leave you hand on a burner and not notice. Apart from that, we should make sure your swelling starts subsiding. I can offer you a bed or a desk for homework.”
“No, that’s fine. I have an essay to finish for Professor Carr anyway. Though I need my bag.” Irene pulled out her cellphone intending to call Shelby and have her grab it.
But that would mean explaining how she had become injured in the first place. That was impossible. Catherine had used the excuse about stairs, but even that was embarrassing enough on its own.
“On second thought, I am fairly tired. Perhaps I’ll just take a nap.”
Chapter 009
Eva hadn’t seen all that many movies, but those she had seen were of the horror genre. And the scene in front of her looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
Blood stained the walls, the floors, and even the ceiling. The blood wasn’t smeared on, nor did it spell out macabre messages. It formed large circles of an arcane nature.
None of it dripped–Eva had made sure of that.
So thorough were her shackles that she actually had to finish up from outside the room. She didn’t want to risk trapping herself in her own shackles and have to call out for help. That would be beyond embarrassing.
Using her own blood, Eva was able to stay outside the room while she worked. The container of her blood came from her last treatment–completely unusable for most haemomancy yet still controllable after dipping her dagger inside. That made it the perfect medium for long-range shackle drawing.
And they were some impressive shackles. Eva had pulled out one of Devon’s tomes dedicated to advanced shackles. Every possible bell and whistle had been covered. No magic at all within the circles. No items could be passed from the inside to the outside. Sound and sight was obscured from the inside to the outside. Touching the edge from the inside would cause more than a little pain.
About twenty other effects as well, all designed to keep a demon contained and unable to interact with anything.
Zoe had offered input and supervision. While not an expert in diablery, she had decided that it would be prudent to learn how to create shackles given all the demonic incidents that she had found herself involved in over the past two years. She had set up air barriers around the place on the off-chance that the demon had already released some toxic gas or anything similar.
Eva was fairly certain that one of the shackles did something along those lines, but she hadn’t said anything. As Eva often felt the need to mention, she did not consider herself a diabolist and neither did she know all that much about shackles. It was all from the book.
Still, the drawings were fine handiwork, if Eva said so herself. So much so that Eva was absolutely certain that no demon she had ever heard of would be able to extract themselves from the room without outside assistance.
She thought that before Zagan walked in, walked around the giant ice cube once, and walked back out without a pause in his steps.
Eva shook her head. He was a devil class demon and therefore he did not count.
“So,” Eva said as Zagan approached her, “what is it?”
Zagan’s twin golden eyes glanced down at her. A thoughtful expression crossed his features for a moment before twitching into one of annoyance.
“That, my little embryonic one, is a curiosity.”
Eva frowned. “To be clear, you aren’t talking about a creature with the name of ‘curiosity’ are you?”
“An enigma, a mystery. Do make an effort to not be so daft.”
“What you are saying,” Eva said, brushing off the insult, “is that you don’t know.”
“It came from Hell, that much is clear. The summoning circle connected properly–I can smell the lingering aura of a domain in the air.”
Eva had been working within the room to set up the shackles and hadn’t smelled a thing. Even taking a deep breath now left her with a fairly neutral scent. There was the slight tinge of her own blood in the air, but nothing more.