Death by Dragon

Author:Madeleine Ribbon [Ribbon, Madeleine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LGBT, Mystery/suspense, Paranormal, Vampire, Shifter
Publisher: Loose Id LLC
Published: 2015-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

A scruffy man in overalls had me pinned to a white-and-green tile wall. It was the sort I’d seen at hospitals, at schools—really, anything institutional built in the seventies. His thin lips, buried in an untamed beard, came crashing over my own. I willed myself to struggle, but my body simply sat there, unmoving and passive as his scratchy facial hair rubbed my face raw.

I was ecstatic to be woken from the vision until I heard the coughing. I got off the floor and surveyed the bed. Theodore had curled in on himself. His shoulders shook with each forceful hack. His breathing, when he wasn’t bringing up a lung, was fast and shallow. Andrew’s breathing wasn’t nearly as bad, but still didn’t sound healthy. On his other side, Trudy looked up at me with frightened eyes.

“Is he okay?” She pushed herself into a sitting position.

“I don’t know.”

Trudy slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to the couch, where Clarisse was sleeping.

I looked at the alarm clock and winced. We’d gotten seven hours of sleep. It should have been enough, but I felt so tired. I’d used a lot of energy healing last night.

“What’s up?” Clarisse’s voice was slow and heavy with sleep. Another chorus of coughing from the bed pulled her attention almost immediately, and she came over to check on Andrew.

I touched Theodore’s forehead. His skin felt hot and was coated in sweat. His temperature was way beyond normal, even for a shifter. I ran my hands over his head and chest. The little prickles I’d felt earlier weren’t so little anymore. They felt sharper, now. More painful, like stabs. As I dipped what was left of my magic into him, I felt the extra fluid in his lungs. I cleared them out as best I could, but almost as soon as I finished, they started filling again.

I had no idea what was wrong. I couldn’t figure it out. None of the symptoms matched the wounds he’d come in with last night—or anything else I’d dealt with before. I couldn’t be sure I solved the problem unless I knew exactly what was happening to his body.

Andrew let out a weak cough. Then another. I moved from Theodore to Andrew. He was showing the exact same symptoms, only milder. Clarisse swooped in behind me. She took Theodore’s vitals, frowning.

“What is it? What’s wrong with them?” I stared at Clarisse, silently begging her to have the answers.

“I don’t know.” She had a stethoscope lodged in her ears and had the other end pressed to Theodore’s shaking chest. “They both have it, whatever it is.”

I let out a string of curse words and kicked somebody’s shoe across the cabin, punting it into the wall. It must have been loud enough to wake Jett out in the shed, because he came running into the cabin.

“What’s wrong?” He flipped on the light.

“We can’t figure out what’s wrong with them,” I said. “They have fluid in their lungs, their breathing is shallow, and they both have a killer fever.

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