Page 64 of Bewicched

I waited in the dark and silence for what seemed like a very long time. Oh, my legs and back stopped hurting. Someone must have slid a chair under me, so I wasn’t leaning over the end of the bed.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, I heard Dave’s perpetually pissed-off voice,Leave this one.

Oh, it’s you. Come slumming, have you?

Why this host? Did she summon you?

That’s nothing to do with you.

I think you’ll find you’re mistaken about that.

I don’t answer to you and I don’t care who your daddy is. You don’t scare me.

I should.

Pain, like nothing I’d ever experienced, burned through my body for a moment and then it was gone. Something was different, though. Nothing felt or sounded as it had moments ago. I tried to locate the demons again and heard only my own thoughts echoing inside me. He’d trapped me in something, hadn’t he? Damn it!Let m—

A loud hiss reverberated around me.

Fear was new for me. Horrible images preyed on me, but I always knew I could protect myself. I wasn’t feeling that way now. I’d been trapped by a demon in something similar to what had trapped his girlfriend. If he did not get me out of here soon…well, clearly nothing. How the hell do you escape from a demon box? Asshole.

And then I was blinking my eyes open, my head on the side of the bed, my hand still wrapped around Sylvia’s ankle. I lifted my head to find Mom and Declan watching me.

“Are you okay now?” Declan asked. “You got really agitated there for a while.”

“Yeah,” I said, sliding back into my glove. “He and the demon were trash talking and then this one hit the demon with a ton of pain. It was horrendous for the blink of an eye and then he put me in a mental box, keeping me safe from their spat.”

“Did you hear who the sorcerer is?” Mom asked, her hands wrapped tightly around Sylvia’s.

I shook my head. “No idea. Maybe Dave knows, but I didn’t get anything from the demon. He was just a voice for me.”

A nurse walked in, and we all froze. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice us, so the spell was holding. She checked Sylvia’s chart, took a small vial and a syringe from her pocket, and injected the medicine through the port in her IV. She checked the IV line on the back of Sylvia’s hand, secured the tape, and then walked around the bed to where Dave was standing.

I was afraid she’d walked right into him on her way to the EKG display. Instead, she stopped, pulled back her right arm, and punched Dave in the jaw. Mom and I threw spells at the same time, knocking the nurse to the ground.

“What the hell was that?” Declan demanded.

Just then Dave—who’d barely flinched at the punch—opened his eyes as the heartbeat line on the EKG went flat. An alarm sounded in the hospital and footsteps pounded down the hall.

We all got out of the way of the nurses and doctor as they began working on Sylvia. The medical personnel were doing their jobs while also shooting us confused and angry looks. They knew we weren’t supposed to be here and were no doubt thinking we’d done something to cause this.

“Call the cops,” the doctor shouted when a nurse ducked his head in the door. “We have a nurse on the ground and this patient is coding.”

Before the nurse could leave, I added, “Ask for Detective Hernández.” I’d been helping the woman. The least she could do was keep us out of a jail cell tonight.

Mom, Declan, and I watched them work on Sylvia. Dave leaned against a wall, his eyes on the downed nurse.

After what felt like either hours or seconds, they stopped what they were doing, took a step back, and the doctor checked the wall clock, declaring my aunt dead at 12:03 in the morning.

Two nurses rushed to the nurse sprawled on the floor and checked for a pulse. One of them gasped while the other glared at us, her eyes filling with tears.

Hospital security stepped in to stay with us while we waited for the police. When the nurses started to move the dead nurse, both the doctor and the security guard told them not to. This was a crime scene now.

Sooner than I would have expected, the door swung open again and this time it was Detective Hernández with a very large man. Declan and the man stared each other down for a moment and the man then blew air out of his nose while Declan crossed his arms over his chest, adopting the same stance as Dave.

The detective was almost as tall as Declan—who had to be at least six and a half feet tall—but had even broader shoulders, if that was possible. Like Hernández, he wore a jacket and slacks. His button-down shirt was blue. He was a Black man with close-cropped hair and eyes a light, golden brown.

While Detective Hernández came to talk with us, the large man prowled the room.

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