Maleficium by Granger Shauna

Author:Granger, Shauna
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The back of the cruiser was hard plastic, the seat molded for my cuffed hands to fit neatly into it. It was cold enough to make my teeth chatter, but my heart rate was way down—it had slowed as soon as the collar went around my neck—so I couldn’t be sure if it really was cold in the cruiser or if my body was just slowly crashing. Maybe both.

I’d stumbled down the cement stairs, led by a silent, stone-faced police officer. Once on the sidewalk, someone read me my Miranda rights, but I couldn’t tell you if they read them in full or not because it was so difficult to focus on the words as the world shifted left and right under my feet. The cop who led me downstairs had to keep his hand on my arm to keep me from falling over, and to be honest, he seemed used to doing that.

The collar was a little too tight so that when I swallowed, it pressed against my windpipe. The world was still listing as I waited in the cruiser for someone to tell me what was going to happen next. I felt like a cork bobbing on the ocean, waves picking me up and setting me down farther and farther from shore.

Pain blossomed at the base of my skull, and my sinuses felt plugged. Like I’d drunk too much red wine and missed my seat when I tried to sit down.

The blue and red lights outside flashed against the apartment windows, making my stomach churn. People had come out of their homes to see what the hubbub was about. Intellectually, I understood—if that had been my apartment building, I would’ve done the same thing—but as the person in the back of the police cruiser, I hated them for looking, for whispering. I just wanted to zap them all so they’d go inside and leave me alone to my embarrassment.

Somewhere, Duncan was in another car, cuffed and collared just like me, like another wild animal. I’d watched them bring him downstairs after me. He had been crying unabashedly, trying to get someone to listen to him, but all they wanted to know was whether or not he understood his rights as they were given.

After they’d slammed the car door in my face, I watched the paramedics race up the stairs, balancing a gurney between them. It wasn’t long before they came back out, a tiny body strapped to the bright yellow board, and carried Antonia to the waiting ambulance. But even in the pale dawn light, with the swirling red and blue lights, I could see her wrists were cuffed to the gurney. I already knew she was collared like the rest of us.

The pain in the base of my skull was bleeding into the rest of my head and making me see spots.

I closed my eyes and whispered, “Sano curatio salveo.”

But nothing happened. The healing spell should have washed through me, clearing the pain in my head

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