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“Hi, I’m here to see Bert Flaherty. I probably should have called ahead, but I was in the neighborhood.”
The nurse behind the desk looked at me, then checked on her computer. “Seventh floor, east wing, room 742.”
“Is he allowed visitors?”
She looked at me with a frown. “Are you close family?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m the person who found him. We worked together.”
She raised a brow. “You found him? Are you the one who did preservation spells on him? You’re probably the reason that he’s still in a coma. You can’t go around acting like you have a doctor’s degree because you can play a little tune.”
I backed away from her. “Thanks, I’ll just…” I backed away and bumped into someone else, apologized and then hurried towards the elevators, balloons bumping as I rushed. Had I maintained his coma instead of his life? I was such an idiot!
I was rubbing my face when the elevator doors opened and I stepped out onto my floor. It was quiet, with no one at the nurse’s station on the corner. I peered into empty rooms as I walked down the hall. It was creepy enough that I eased out the file I kept in my bra band. There should be a guard on his room, right? No one had captured the attackers, and maybe Bert had seen something, although the odds of him witnessing something when Horace hadn’t was slim to none. Still, some people liked to tie up loose ends. Other people just liked to kill people. Either way, Bert would be a target.
My heart was pounding by the time I got to his room. A doctor was humming under his breath, dancing around with some pretty slick moves while he checked his clipboard. He turned, saw me and screamed, flinging his clipboard at me.
I sidestepped, and it hit the doorway and sent papers fluttering down. “Hi there,” I said, crouching to pick up his papers. “Sorry for startling you. I worked with Bert, so I thought I’d stop by and see how he’s doing. You’re his doctor? How is he?” I stacked up the papers and handed them back to him while he ran a nervous hand through his hair.
“Oh, he’s fine. Still unconscious, but we’ve got him on tubes that will keep him healthy until he decides to wake up. No idea why he’s still out.”
“I heard that someone did a maintenance spell on him?” Yeah, that was subtle.
He shrugged and edged his way past me. “That’s not likely the issue. Whoever heard of a maintenance spell working on something organic? I’ll leave you to your visit. This room is monitored, so make sure that you keep things professional.”
“Excuse me?”
He flushed beet red and ducked out, apologizing as he went. Maybe he was talking about dancing. I walked around the room, checking the shelf filled with cards and flowers before I added my pastry and let the balloons float to an out-of-the-way corner. I took my time turning to face him. There was a chair on the side, so I pulled that over and stared at the sad, mustache-less face of Bert. He looked thinner, much more vulnerable than just a sleeping person with the tubes in his nose.
“So… I’ve been tuning lamps,” I said, feeling incredibly awkward. Was this professional enough for the people watching? I tapped my file against the inside of my leg, nowhere anyone could see it. Not that I needed it in this hospital room with so many other things I could use for weapons, needles for stabbing, tubes for strangling, and blunt force with the machines hooked up to poor Bert. No, I definitely shouldn’t mess up the machines keeping him comfortable and alive while he was in a coma. I’d have to talk to Mirabel about what she could do to help him in case his prolonged sleep was my responsibility. That was another number I should have in my phone.
“I brought your favorite kind of pastry, so you should wake up and eat it before the doctor does. You know how those people with degrees are, think that they’re entitled just because they know better than to sing people to sleep… permanently.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair, kicking my legs out while I stared at Bert’s profile. It was so sad without a mustache. I could paint one on. How long should I sit here to prove that I cared about him? I did care. I’d really tried to keep him alive, and not so that he could be in a coma. Maybe the board thought that I’d done this on purpose, working with the Scholar for some nefarious reasons I’d never be clever and villainous enough to understand. Who could I call who would have the Scholar’s number? Felix probably had the number of the lab’s vault, but then I’d have to call the library, and if I heard Jessica tell me about how happy she was on the board, I’d probably sing myself to sleep.
We were like that, companionably dozing, when a spider unfolded from behind one of the machines and leapt onto Bert’s bed.
I hadn’t seen an assassin spider for ages. I’d used them a few times, but they weren’t foolproof, and I hated killing the wrong person, even if they were also evil. Its body was the size of a baseball cap, and it was shifting its weight on Bert’s body while it loaded its poison in its probiscis needle. It was less than a blink before I was moving, slicing half its legs off with my file, then spin kicking it against the wall hard enough to crunch the syringe at impact.
Almost immediately, another one launched at me, half the size of the first, which meant that it was faster, deadlier, and trickier to stop. It had been years, but some things were more muscle memory than anything else. I blocked its thrust with my phone, batting it against the other spider as it tried to launch at me again, less effective with half of its legs missing. The impact ruined number one’s trajectory, and I barely had to kick it away.
Was there another one in here somewhere? I always packed them in threes, transporting them all in the large spider’s abdomen.
I checked my phone for cracks in the screen, but I’d sensibly used the back as my racket. I called up the library before I could think about it or feel the pain from the rending.
The large one crouched down, skittering back and forth while it tried to get a new balance, and the phone rang.
“Library of Antiquities, Main Desk, a bored voice answered.
The small spider leapt at me, spiraling like a maple seed. “Transfer me to the vault, please,” I said before blocking the spider with it, knocking him towards spider number one, so its volley of scattershot acid barely brushed me. Still, that was a nasty thing to have in its arsenal. What else did it have? Would the acid be flammable? That could cause a distraction while it went for a direct kill.
Where were these spiders from? Mech magic was tricky, and I only knew a few people who manufactured them.
“Hello? This is Felix from the Vault of Antiquities.”
“Hey, hold on.” I dodged the next leap from the second one, and blocking another thrust from the big one with my boot. Boots were such a good choice for visiting sick patients.
“Sorry about that,” I said as I kicked the thing on its back and whirled around to stab the small one with my file. “Could you give me the number to the lab’s vault? This is Libby.”
“Oh, hello, dear. You did beautifully yesterday.”
