Кей Хупер - Blood Ties

He appeared to be asleep, eyes closed and hands clasped peacefully across his lean middle, the recliner tipped nearly all the way back. His face—that unexpectedly, almost unnervingly handsome face—was relaxed in a way it never was when he was awake.

Hollis didn’t trust that seeming serenity, especially since she couldn’t see his aura. But according to the big clock on the wall, it was nearly five A.M., and she didn’t want to wait any longer. From what she remembered of her own hospital stays—though the ICU tended to have its own rhythms and bursts of activity—the general hospital routines began early.

Her chances of getting caught and ushered away from Diana increased considerably as the time for doctors’ rounds and mealtimes and visiting hours grew closer.

Almost holding her breath, she slipped from her recliner, grateful there were no creaks or squeaks to betray her, and eased her way to the door. A glance back at DeMarco showed him still sleeping. Hollis wasn’t sure she believed he was asleep, but she did believe it was now or never.

She opened the door just far enough to allow herself to pass through it and within seconds stood out in the hallway, her heart pounding.

Oh, shit .

In her determination to keep her mind calm enough to deceive DeMarco, she had forgotten the other little thing guaranteed to test her nerves here in this place.

Spirits.

She could see five of them in this single stretch of hallway—three men and two women—wandering around aimlessly, their expressions mixing uncertainty and confusion with dread. All of them wore regular clothing rather than hospital gowns, and Hollis wasted a moment wondering fleetingly about that; where had she read or heard or been told that spirits wore the garments in which they’d died, at least until they completely left this world?

“You can see me?”

Hollis realized she was rubbing her hands up and down her arms, because the gooseflesh was actually painful. She felt very cold, and everything except the anxious woman standing in front of her seemed to have faded… or receded… or become less real.

Almost as though she herself had one foot in the world of the dead.

Jesus, is this how it started for Diana? Have I always been able to step toward the gray time but never realized it?

Drawing a quick breath, she whispered, “I can see you. But there’s somewhere I have to go right now.”

“No, please—just tell me. Am I dead?”

Before Hollis could answer, a nurse whose lively print scrubs appeared weirdly faded began to bustle past her and then stopped, her preoccupied expression turning inquisitive.

“May I help you, Agent?”

Hollis cleared her throat. “No. No, thank you. I needed to stretch my legs a bit.” And please move a little to the right, because you’re half standing in this poor woman ….

“Don’t wander far, please.” The nurse smiled and bustled on, completely unaware of having passed through the spirit of another woman.

“I am dead, aren’t I?” the spirit whispered.

Hollis glanced around quickly, hoping no one else was nearby to see her apparently talking to herself. She kept her voice low. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I can’t help you. A friend of mine is still alive, and I have to get to her right now.”

The spirit took a step back, nodding. “Oh… okay. I understand. It’s just… I don’t know what to do now.” She looked up and down the hallway, adding somewhat forlornly, “Isn’t there supposed to be alight?”

Oh, shit ,

“I’m sorry. I don’t know. But I believe you can… move on… if you want to.”

“I guess I should want to, shouldn’t I?” The spirit nodded and wandered away, looking even more lost and alone than she had before.

Hollis felt worse than useless and made a mental note that, if she survived all this, she would devote a lot more time to the study of mediums in general and her own abilities in particular, so she at least would know the right thing to say to these poor souls. But for now she moved away from the waiting room and headed toward the ICU, keeping her gaze directed downward as much as possible so she wouldn’t make eye contact with any of the other spirits.

There were four more wandering around the ICU.

There were also two nurses.

Guessing that asking to visit Diana at five in the morning wouldn’t go over at all well, Hollis slipped into a room marked EMPLOYEES ONLY, which turned out to be a supply closet. Keeping the door open just a crack, she watched the nurse’s desk.

The waiting was difficult enough, but what really unsettled Hollis was the realization that the whole place had a grayish sheen to it and a kind of remote dimness, as if she was looking at something farther away than she knew it to be. No matter how many times she rubbed her eyes or tried to shake off the sensation, it remained.

Only the wandering spirits looked colorful and close and real, their auras bright with energy.

And that was creepy as hell.

It was another long fifteen minutes before one of the nurses was called away from the desk by something clearly not an emergency and the other turned her back to Hollis to take what looked like a personal phone call.

Hollis was able to slip past the nurse’s desk and into the ICU.

There were only three patients: two men and Diana. All three were on ventilators, so the haunting sound of machines breathing for people was the first thing Hollis was aware of. Then there were the other machines, beeping and clicking as they monitored and measured. Lights blinked faded red numbers. Bags hanging above the patients dripped liquids into tubing and then needles and then bodies; bags hanging lower on the beds received fluids the bodies no longer required.

Trying to ignore all that, Hollis was relieved that at least there were curtains on either side of the beds and, in Diana’s case, they were drawn far enough to provide for some privacy. She stepped into the semi-private space.

“Hey, Hollis.”

His voice was low and rough, still hoarse from shouting the day before and maybe from talking to Diana ever since. His fair hair looked as if fingers had been raked through it many times, even though he was holding Diana’s hand tightly with both his, and on his face was a hollowed-out look of exhaustion and desperation and a terrible need.

Hollis had to look away from that, but when she did it was to see Diana in the bed, lying so still and unnaturally straight. A machine breathed for her with a hush…. thump repeating steadily, and other machines monitored her heartbeat and blood pressure and whatever else they monitored. There were bandages and drains and…

It was even harder to look at Diana. Not because of the machines or tubes or bandages, but because she had the same gray sheen as everything else, and that scared the hell out of Hollis.

“Hey, Quentin.” She tried to hold her voice steady.

“They told me she might not make it.” His gaze was fixed on Diana’s face. “They’re wrong about that, you know. She’ll make it. She has to make it.”

“I know.”

“Do you? I didn’t know, not really. Not the way I know now. Not until I saw her go down, saw all the blood and… That’s when I knew. It happened so fast, so goddamn fast, there wasn’t even time to tell her. All these months I could have told her. And didn’t. What kind of fucked-up sense does that make?”

Hollis was silent.

He turned his head finally and looked at her, with eyes she knew were blue but looked grayish, bloodshot, and darker than she’d ever known them to be. In a queerly conversational tone, he said, “I can’t see the future. Not now, not when I need to. I’ve tried and I can’t. But there’s one thing I can see. No matter what they say about brain scans and a heartbeat, Diana isn’t here. I’m holding on as hard as I can, as hard as I know how, but… I’m holding her body, not her soul.”