Chapter Four

SPARKS’S SHIFT AT the hospital had kept him running all night long.

It has to be a full moon.

He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his phone, and checked his Moon Cycle app.

“Well, see, that’s no surprise.” Sure enough, the full moon cycle had begun. Technically, the actual lunar event was a single day, but the three days prior to and after always displayed a higher level of crazy than any other time during the month. “Good Gods, we’re only on the first day of this.”

And normally, Sparks would have been in sync with the phases of the planetary changes, the waxing and waning of the moon only one of the celestial bodies he used to regularly track. But without a coven, there simply hadn’t been any need or desire to keep up with it.

Resigning himself to a full-moon-crazed week of busy shifts, he continued down the hall toward the nurse’s desk. He’d been paged, so presumably they had a patient transport or some other required task that promised to be distasteful.

As he approached the hub of the floor, with clinical staff swarming around like hummingbirds dive-bombing one of those red, plastic, sugar-water-filled feeders, his phone buzzed. A text had come in.

Sparks ducked into a nearby stairwell to look at his phone. Technically you weren’t supposed to be carrying the device on shift, but everyone did anyway.

WIATT: How was your visit with Dev and Tully?

Wiatt, his younger brother and the family necromancer, was a pretty decent guy, despite his penchant for dead things. Wiatt had been a twin. “Had been” as Wiatt’s womb sibling had died in utero, but because of complications their mother experienced during the pregnancy, she had to carry both fetuses to term. Once Wiatt’s talent had been discerned—at a tender age—the community elders assumed his close proximity to the dead at a point in time when Wiatt’s development would have been heavily receptive to supernatural forces created a magical tether to the underworld. Wiatt’s abilities stunned others of his kind. His talent enabled him to summon spirits long departed—a difficult task for most—had channelled beloved souls and allowed them to speak through his body, and at least once he’d played host to an unsavoury entity who expressed a great interest in tasting Sparks’s flesh. But Wiatt’s favourite witchy talent and the one he excelled in was the reanimation of small dead things.

Nothing complex like a human, but there had been a few hamsters in the Gemmell household who had enjoyed a second life.

SPARKS: It went really well. What are you doing for Mabon?

WIATT: Same as you. Nothing. Although I have some bones to harvest from a fox corpse I found out in the woods. I was going to boil off whatever meat still exists, clean and scrape them, and start the curing process.

SPARKS: Gross.

WIATT: But effective.

SPARKS: Dev and Tully were thinking of having the guys over. There’s talk of putting something new together.

WIATT: Are you ever gonna share with me what the hell happened that night you were called over? All the rest of us ended up with a ‘coven has been cancelled indefinitely’ text. A message which sent everyone spinning, I might add.

SPARKS: Not my story to tell, sorry.

WIATT: I’m your brother. Really?

SPARKS: Really. Dude, I’m sorry, I can’t. Maybe they’ll say something at Mabon? You in?

WIATT: Well, I’ve nowhere else to go. Why not?

SPARKS: Don’t sound too happy about it.

WIATT: Maybe the dead will tell me…

SPARKS: Wiatt!

Sparks rolled his eyes. Wiatt also held a university-level degree in being an ass, but he never devolved into being cruel. His sense of humour reflected his magical alignment. Deadpan and a little off. People often steered clear of Wiatt because of the dead’s affinity for him, and his brother liked to dress the part and play up the whole Goth, black-witch role. It involved a lot of dark clothes and the occasional swirling cape. Wiatt spent much of his adult time alone and, to some degree, had grown to be comfortable by himself. But if truth be told, he most likely wasn’t by himself—it’s just his company had more ethereal qualities and were only seen by Wiatt. Sparks had a soft spot for his brother and protected him and squashed any rumours he heard in the community. After all, Sparks, as the older sibling, had a duty to make sure Wiatt was okay.

He’d have to tell Dev and Tully that Wiatt agreed to participate in celebrating Mabon.

The prospect of the coven getting together again had instantly eased Sparks’s troubles. After his visit with the guys, he had finally slept a good night’s sleep, and his wayward abilities had somewhat settled.

Sparks emerged from the stairwell, sliding his phone into the pocket of his mint-green scrubs, and continued his way to the nursing station.

“Hey, Shammy, you called?”

“Sparks! Yeah, Mrs. Middleton.” Shammy—the charge nurse for the Geriatric Medicine ward—had been at the hospital as long as Sparks had worked there. She had a gentle soul, a warm touch, and the patients didn’t seem to mind her fondness for tattoos and piercings. Her septum piercing glimmered brightly in the overhead fluorescent lighting.

“Oh no.” Sparks had transported Mrs. Middleton for several diagnostic procedures. She had been well into her eighties, and a little cranky, but when you weren’t feeling well, being grumpy had to be expected. “When?”

“About twenty minutes ago. Can you take her downstairs?”

“Absolutely.” Sparks looked up to Shammy. She personified nursing and Sparks had watched her for years with her patients. She always took extra time to ensure everyone in her care was comfortable. One day soon, Sparks would be a nurse of the same calibre. He only had one more year left of classes to earn his nursing degree. School, hospital work, and being a witch proved to be an exhausting schedule.

“Thanks, Sparks. Hey, don’t forget, Sharon’s retirement tea is this afternoon in the conference room. The new resident will be there. There’ll be cake. I know you like your cake.” Shammy referred to Sparks’s predilection for a tight ass, not the sugary carb kind of cake. Sparks was a butt man, and Shammy and he would stand back and evaluate the new medical students as they started each rotation.

Sparks smiled and winked. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Once in Mrs. Middleton’s room, Sparks adjusted the metal gurney so the brakes were off the wheels for her final trip downstairs.

That was the code word for the morgue. If people were around, or within earshot, the staff referred to the cold drawers as downstairs so other patients and their visitors didn’t get upset. After all, he did spend the majority of his shifts in a ward designated for the elderly.

Someone had gone to the trouble to appropriately cover Mrs. Middleton. Wrapped in plastic, with ties around her head, middle, and feet, tagged and bagged, she had been prepped correctly. Dead bodies were treated with health codes in mind. But if the general public had any idea how their last journey would be carried out, Sparks conjectured most would choose to leave this world in other ways.

If Sparks had a choice in the matter, he’d prefer to be lugged off and buried in the woods. No plastic. No metal. No sterile environments. Just him and his connection with nature.

Maybe even pushed away from shore on a rickety raft out into the middle of a huge lake during a summer thunderstorm surrounded by floating lanterns and a cheering crowd on the beach. Now that was going out in style!

He glided the bed down the hall and into the service elevator. The uneven floor between the elevator car and the hospital floor made for a bumpy transition. Oddly, a family had found themselves on the wrong elevator, and instead of asking Sparks for assistance, the parents continued their argument about which floor they needed to go to.

The youngster who accompanied them spied the metal box hiding Mrs. Middleton. The child’s eyes widened as he snuggled up against one of his parents’ legs. Sparks smiled at the kid and surmised he was smarter and more observant than most. But as Sparks continued to try to convey comfort with his friendly grin, the boy’s horrified glare became far too familiar.

The glazed-over stare mimicked his brother when Wiatt conversed with the dead. This child was a medium. A seer of the dead. Sparks crouched, resting on his haunches to equal the same level as the boy.

“It’s okay. I’m going to take good care of Mrs. Middleton.”

The boy didn’t look like he believed it.

“She’s so angry,” he whispered.

“She always kinda was,” Sparks chided.

The door opened, and the parents hurried their child away.

The family exited on the main floor. The doors closed and Sparks and Mrs. Middleton had an uninterrupted journey down to the morgue.

Once alone, Sparks cleared his throat and bellowed with authority, “No funny stuff, Mrs. Middleton. I have a necromancer for a brother, and if you get mean, I’ll have him transport your soul into a cockroach’s body.” Wiatt had taught him to convey a sense of power and control; otherwise spirits would run roughshod over anyone present.

After handing off the body to the medical examiner, Sparks took the long way to his usual fourth-floor assignment. But before returning, he passed by the cafeteria to see the lunch special—hot roast beef sandwich—written in fancy script across the chalkboard. He’d had the hot roast beef before. It wasn’t special.

Sparks turned a one-eighty to head toward the elevator which would take him to the main floor and the courtyard where food trucks were often stationed in the nearby parking lot. Tiny restaurants on wheels would offer up a better selection of food options. As he turned to head down the hallway, his shin slammed into the corner edge of a footplate on a wheelchair. He damn near toppled over, trying to catch himself and not fall face first into the chair’s occupant. Through his flailing, the scrubs entangled even more, catching his pant leg and ripping it.

Dammit. He’d have to go buy a new pair of pants.

As Sparks righted himself, he refocused on the more important part—the patient in the chair. He came face to face with him.

Byron Radcliffe sat in the wheelchair, his hands hovering over the wheel’s brakes, as if he didn’t know whether to bolt or hold still. His laugh lines were deep, and his crow’s feet wrinkles expressed more exhaustion than the joviality Sparks had known from Byron. His hipster-styled beard had been trimmed short, and his hair had been buzz cut. Byron had lost his charisma, his larger-than-life presence. He had in a few short months grown old.

“Ah, sorry, Byron. You okay?”

“Sparks.” Byron ignored the question.

“What are you doing down here? Aren’t you up on three?”

Byron glanced over his shoulder. Sparks followed Byron’s lead and stared in the same direction. A large sign above two swinging doors read “Rehab Department.”

“Ah. Right. I guess. How’s the shoulder?”

“I hear you’re the one who brought me in?”

“Yes.” Sparks wanted to get away so badly. Nervous energy coursed through his body, making his feet twitch. This was beyond awkward. He had known Byron for years. Byron had assisted him as a teenager trying to get a handle on his ability, which had been a task considering the wildly fluctuating emotions of a gay teenage boy. When Sparks had come of age, Byron had been the one to introduce him to his first coven, the Brethren Elementals, although by the time Sparks turned twenty-three, he had joined the Night Grove. With his birthday this past February, Sparks had turned thirty-one. That made eight years of being in a coven with Byron as its leader. The man had been like an older brother, if not a father figure.

Sparks had been the one to bring Byron to the hospital, but in retrospect, he hadn’t visited him a single time since his admission. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to avoid him. He had checked on his health status occasionally with Bryon’s nurses but had steered clear of any personal encounters.

Sparks had seen the wounds on Byron’s shoulder, and only one creature could create such havoc. A werewolf. And the night he spent cleaning up the splattered remains of Eddie and Gus had also been the work of the violent beast. The claw marks and teeth and size of the wounds made the culprit pointedly clear. Oddly, Sparks had no clue where Addas had been that night or why he was missing from the scene, or even why the mammoth man hadn’t shown up the last few months.

Instead, Sparks made some mental leaps of logic.

Any witch would have recognized Addas’s infection. The man had literally grown half a foot in the last year. Grown adult men don’t continue to gain height or physical mass regardless of how often they might have gone to the gym. No amount of working out would have ever built up muscles like Addas had gained in such a short time period.

And now that Dev and Tully had clued him in to what Byron had done, the sacrifice of smaller creatures, the imprisonment of Dev’s friend who had turned fae… Sparks wanted nothing to do with his ex-high priest.

“So, from the look on your face, I guess the boys told you everything.” Byron scrunched his lips together. They were thin and white. He glanced away, his eyes watery. Even Byron’s hair had changed. His closely shorn head held far more grey and had thinned. Trauma hit the body hard in many ways.

“I guessed some of it. I only found out recently about the extent of…well…everything.” Sparks took a nervous step backward, away from Byron.

Byron turned away and cleared his throat.

Despite everything that had happened, a sharp pain speared Sparks’s heart, and his stomach dropped. In all the years he’d known Byron, he had always been a paragon of strength and knowledge. He wanted to give the man, his former High Priest, a hug, and yet…

Byron had been knocked off his proverbial pedestal and the crash landing had been hard.

“You okay?” Sparks knelt beside the chair, but still had a hard time initiating and maintaining eye contact.

Byron sniffled. His head bobbed, attempting to convey as much, but his face scrunched up and turned bright red. An obvious attempt at trying to contain his emotions. He reached up with his arm and went to wipe away the tears that were beginning to form, but his wounded shoulder wouldn’t let him.

“Dammit.” Byron bit his lip, glanced at Sparks, then shifted his eyes away again while lifting his other arm. Using his sleeve, he wiped his face. “It’s definitely not okay, Sparks.” An edge of anger and hurt cut sharply in his words. Byron took in a huge breath. As he exhaled, he quivered. “You’ve always been a kind-hearted man.”

Sparks glanced at his watch. Lunch started in a handful of minutes, and his break didn’t last long. “Do you need help getting back to your room, or…”

An internal battle warred within Sparks. A man he’d known for so many years, who had committed some grievous crimes against the Shadow Realm and its community, sat unravelling before him. He wanted to be mad at Byron for all the wrong things he had done, yet, he had done horrible things trying to save the love of his life. Sparks had to wonder if the situation had been reversed, would he have done any different.

Byron continued to fight some overwhelming emotions.

Sparks looked around, growing increasingly more uncomfortable with the current situation. Thankfully no one was nearby. “I’m sorry, Byron. Not everyone knows. I only found out recently. I should have come seen you…but…”

“No. I get it.” Byron wiped his face again, then dismissed Sparks’s comment with a wave of his hand.

“But you’ve been dealing with this all by yourself. And that’s not good. Anyone would have had a hard time.”

Another tear rolled down Byron’s cheek as he sniffled again. He ignored the teardrop. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. He was everything to me. Even more important than the Night Grove.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do. And honestly, I hope you never have to go through any of what I’m feeling right now. I know I did some shitty things…” Byron swallowed hard and managed to pull himself together. So much rage nested in his soul. Sadness too. Two emotions that left unchecked were a bad combination. Especially if a werewolf incubated beneath his skin. “I’m getting out soon. Even though I didn’t get any visitors, I didn’t exactly communicate to everyone in the group either. So I’m just as much to blame.”

“But Byron, you needed time. To heal. To cope.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

“Do you want me to take you back to your room?”

“No. I don’t even need to be in this chair, but the hospital has rules, and as long as I’m a patient, I can’t walk about unless I’m supervised. Wheel around, sure. Then I won’t fall. It’s fine.” Byron shook his head, his jaw clenched so tight the vein at his temple throbbed.

He swivelled his chair away from Sparks and headed down the hall.