M Sellars - Miranda

“‘Cause she’s a goddamn sadistic bitch, I guess,” Ben answered from the hip with a healthy shot of sarcasm chasing the words. “Who the fuck knows? Hang on, I’m gettin’…”

“No,” I pressed, cutting him off while squinting my eyes together as the eighteen ramped up to a twenty-two. I literally growled the demand, “I mean why do the fingers matter now?”

Constance’s urgent voice barked, “I just hit the call button.”

A high-pitched peal suddenly began issuing from the vitals monitor as an alarm started to sound. For some reason, even though only a portion of the telemetry was actually connected to me, the tone was swiftly followed by another, and then another, until it cascaded into an unscored symphony of electronic noise. Through my watering eyes, I could see frantic movement on the other side of the glass.

The door to the room flew open and bodies dressed in scrubs piled in through the opening, barking orders as they shoved Constance and Ben out of the way.

“Dammit Ben,” I groaned.

“Jeezus Row…” he huffed as he backpedaled out of the way.

“Why? Why the fingers?” I demanded once more, forcing the words out with everything I could muster.

“The guy’s a deaf-mute,” my friend called to me as he was being pushed out the door. His confusion about my curiosity was evident in his voice as he added, “He can’t communicate with us, and we can’t communicate with him.”

Twenty-two jumped straight to fifty, light bloomed in a harsh explosion of contrast, and the radio blared as thousands of dead, screaming voices poured directly into my skull.

When simple magick works, it works well. When simple magick fails, it fails big. However, this sudden collapse of SpellCraft wasn’t just a catastrophic failure; it was flat out epic, and I was at the center of it all.

“You had some of us worried for a little while, Rowan,” Constance said.

“Yeah, I kind of got that impression,” I replied.

Ben snorted and then quipped, “Not me. It was all them. I knew you were fine.”

“Liar,” I sighed.

“Yeah, okay. So maybe I was worried just a little.”

“Uh-huh. Just a little. Sure.” I answered him with a sarcastic grunt and then said, “Thanks though. I appreciate the concern.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “It’s all good.”

I let out another labored sigh then closed my eyes and attempted to will myself to relax. I hadn’t been having much luck with that exercise so far, and I wasn’t expecting to now, but that didn’t keep me from trying.

The somewhat overestimated crisis itself had ended almost as quickly as it began, probably even quicker, in fact. Even so, it was nearly an hour before Ben and Constance were allowed back into the room with me; and that only happened once it had been decided that my shivering had somehow caused abnormal readings to feed back through the monitors, thereby falsely setting off the alarms. Since various and repeated checks of my vitals showed they were as normal as they could possibly be given my current physical condition, that was the only explanation that seemed to fit the minds of the medical professionals tending to me.

Of course, I knew better. There was definitely something else going on. While I certainly wasn’t an expert, I doubted that it was my shaking or that there were system anomalies causing the alarms. My money was on the fact that a door between the worlds of the living and dead was once again propped wide open. I even had the familiar pounding headache and background drone in my ears to prove it, both of which were ailments I had never imagined I would be glad to have back.

Until now, that is.

Still, I just let the doctors and nurses believe their faulty conclusion. It would be better for everyone concerned if I left it that way.

“Are you still feeling okay, Rowan?” Constance asked.

“Okay as can be expected, I guess.”

“Do you want to try sleeping now? I can make Storm shut up if you want me to.”

“Hey!” Ben exclaimed. “I’m not the one yammerin’, you are.”

“Don’t worry… You’re both fine…” I said.

At the moment I was reclined farther back in the bed than I had been earlier. The intensity of the spasms I’d experienced had apparently caused a bit of concern as well, in particular regarding the status of my incisions. That in turn had led to an examination of the wounds just to be sure nothing had torn. Along with that came an unscheduled change of the dressings. This was the first time I had seen the injuries-that I could remember anyway. From the quick glimpse I caught of the jagged rows of staples, it was obvious that I would be sporting some pretty serious scars. Of course, there really wasn’t anything new about that, so it was really the least of my concerns.

Now, however, due to all that extra activity, the pain in my gut was even further agitated than before. It was vying hard for my attention, and without a doubt, winning; but I still wasn’t ready for the dump of painkiller into my veins just yet. I had a pretty good idea that once I did cave in and press the button, the ensuing nightmare would be taking on a whole new level of intensity. To me, that much was a given.

Unfortunately, that conclusion also left me in a quandary. On the one hand, I wondered if the horror of the darkened dream might bring answers. On the other, I questioned whether or not they might be answers I didn’t really want. Still, under the circumstances, I knew it was eventually going to happen whether I liked it or not. I only hoped that I would be prepared for whatever it was I would see.

The stretch of impromptu quiet finally came to a close when Ben elected to offer a personal observation. “Ya’know, if I didn’t know better, I woulda thought you were goin’ all Twilight Zone on us earlier. I mean, that’s kinda what it looked like.”

I opened my eyes and rolled my head toward him. “Actually, I was, sort of.”

“Whaddaya mean?” he asked. “I thought ya’ said Miranda had ya’ all locked outta that or somethin’?”

“She did,” I agreed then tried to shake my head. “But she doesn’t anymore.”

“That a good thing or a bad thing?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m leaning toward good.”

“Okay… So, you seein’ anything out there in la-la land now?” he asked.

“No. Not yet but I suspect it’s coming soon.”

“Okay, so, not tryin’ ta’ be an ass or anything, but how do ya’ really know ya’ got your Witch-fu back?”

“Trust me,” I sighed. “I know.”

“Do you know how it happened?” Constance asked.

“Ben broke a spell,” I replied.

My friend shook his head and huffed, “Yeah, right.”

I answered the objection. “I’m not kidding.”

“Okay, ya’ wanna explain how the hell I managed that? You’re the Witch, not me.”

“Actually, it was both of you,” I said. “Constance told me the victim upstairs had my name carved into him.”

“Yeah, well that’s an understatement. Poor bastard’s prob’ly gonna hafta change his name ta’ Rowan after this ‘cause of all the scars he’s gonna have.”

“My point exactly.”

“I don’t follow,” Ben pressed. “We already know the bitch is a fuckin’ psycho, and she’s fixated on you an’ Firehair.”

“True, but that wasn’t just some sociopathic act on Miranda’s part,” I explained. “Was it just Rowan, or was it my full name?”

He shrugged, “Both, I guess. Some spots it was just Rowan. But wherever it’d fit it was first, middle, and last.”

“I figured as much. That means there was a very specific purpose behind her doing that. She was naming him after me. Literally turning him into a living poppet. An effigy of me, actually.”