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I forced myself to move my head, looking for my medallion. I caught sight of it stuck in the cage divider.
The old man followed my gaze, and he grabbed the medallion. He inspected it. “Runes,” he said. “How fascinating.”
I swung my hand at the chain, grasping it between my fingers. There was no way I was letting it go. “Mine.”
“You’re some kind of magic negator,” he mused. “And this medallion does what exactly? Keep your power under control?”
Sirens erupted in the street, and I clutched my head.
The old man tensed and turned toward the sound. Turning back, he frowned down at me. “I’ll return for you.”
He tried to take the medallion but I wouldn’t let it go. Because the sirens were so close, he turned and fled. After he left, I forced the medallion over my head and curled up into a ball.
The sirens were very close now and I forced my eyes back open a crack. Two people in uniforms had climbed into the van.
“Are you alright?” the man asked.
“I’m okay,” I said, “but my head hurts.”
“Do you know what happened?” he asked while the woman checked me over for injuries.
“I was taken from the aquarium,” I said. “But then we crashed . . .”
“Okay,” he said calmingly. “We’re going to get you into the ambulance. Careful now.”
I tried to shake my head and winced. “I don’t need a hospital.”
“Yes, you do,” the woman said. “We need to make sure that head injury isn’t any worse than it looks.”
They helped me out of the van and over to the ambulance. The area was crowded with a police car and a fire truck as well. The two thugs who had been driving the van had disappeared.
I frowned. “What happened to the two guys?”
The paramedics shrugged. “We didn’t find any driver.”
“Just a couple of scared little mice,” a fireman with a hazy yellow glow whispered to another firefighter near me. “Like, real mice, not shifters.”
I blinked. The thugs hadn’t been real? That’s why my magic had crashed the van, because it had broken their spell.
“Mice driving vehicles. Silver Springs gets crazier every day,” the fireman said, and I realized that I recognized him. He was the guy who’d saved me the other day in O’Malley’s from the old man.
The paramedics bundled me onto the ambulance and I was soon on my way to Silver Springs Memorial. I’d never actually been to a human hospital. I’d grown up in a witch family; we’d always had a healer on call for injuries or sickness.
The female paramedic leaned closer to me. “Is there someone you’d like us to call?”
I wondered where my phone was. Was it still on the floor of the aquarium? I didn’t even know anyone’s number without it, not even Phoebe’s or our home number. “I don’t have anyone’s number.” I bit my lip. “Maybe you could call the aquarium. Ask for Levi or Roman or Hudson?”
“Okay.”
As soon as they got me settled in the emergency room, the paramedic said she’d call. Hopefully one of the guys would come, and they could get ahold of Phoebe. Maybe they’d even bring my phone.
I closed my eyes and leaned back on the cot.
Levi
I dropped the aquarium phone and took off in a dead sprint. I didn’t even know where the others had gone off to, but all I could think was, “Delphine is in the hospital!” I rushed out the front doors and grabbed the first taxi that I saw. We wound our way across town to Silver Springs Memorial, and I tapped impatiently on the back of the cabby’s seat.
The burly driver snarled at me, showing a bit of wolfish teeth.
