Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #2)(56)

His hair looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days, and his clothes looked like he had slept in them. Brody walked over to him and asked if they could speak in private. Brody spoke quietly, and Peter nodded his head and ran his fingers through his hair.

Brody’s shoulders slumped, and Mina could only guess that he was admitting to Peter that he was the one driving the car that led to the accident. Peter’s body stiffened in anger, and he turned and punched Brody in the face. Brody wasn’t expecting it and was knocked to the pavement.

Peter stood above Brody, yelling down at him. “I blame you for this, and I will talk to you about this later. But right now I want to know how we can help Nan.” He turned to face a stunned Mina and his band mates.

“Are you up for making a little bit of noise?” Mina asked hopefully.

“At this time of night, we will probably draw in complaints and bring the cops.” Magnus had found a bag of chips and was crunching them loudly. A moment later a van pulled up behind the bus, and their stagehands got out to see what was going on.

Naga shrugged his shoulders. “I ain’t afraid of no coppers. It will get us on TV, no doubt.”

Constantine went to the storage compartments under the tour bus and unlocked the first unit, pulling out a large speaker and guitar. “Let’s do it,” he answered. Constantine handed one of the waiting stage crew a box of microphone cords. “I’m ready for an impromptu concert. What about you, Pete?”

Peter ignored Constantine and walked over to Mina. “Are you sure that this is going to help?” he asked, his eyes filled with hope and pain.

She shook her head. “Not really, but this is only the first part of my plan; the second will come later. Are you in? Right now, I need you to be as loud as you can. I need all of the attention on you guys, so I can sneak in. Will you do this for Nan?” Mina pleaded.

Magnus began to set up his drums; Naga was pulling out extension cords, and Constantine walked over with a large black guitar case. Peter unzipped the case and pulled out the very large red guitar he had used at his last concert. Chills raced up Mina’s arms as Peter pulled the strap over his head. He took a cord from a stagehand and plugged it into his guitar.

More stage crew appeared and began to set up the portable sound system and lights. Brody jumped right in and began to help organize the equipment.

Quickly the band began to tune their instruments. Cords and wires run from the busses to various transformer boxes in the bushes of the hospital. A few hospital security guards came to see what was going on, but so far none of them approached the band. Mina looked up and saw the curtain in Nan’s room move slightly. Someone was in there already. She hoped it wasn’t the Reaper.

“Please, hurry!” Mina pleaded; sweat broke out on her forehead as she checked her watch again. It was 11:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes to midnight.

Brody ran a microphone and a stand out and placed it in front of Peter. They both glared at each other angrily.

“We don’t have time,” Mina pointed out.

Peter closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep shuddering breath. He opened them and pasted on a wide fake smile, transforming instantly into Valdemar, the lead singer. “One concert to wake the dead coming up.” He opened up his mouth and began to sing.

***

It was working. People began to rush to the windows, hallways, and down to the first floor to see what all of the commotion was. Mina was surprised to see how many of the hospital staff were excited for the concert. To them it was an unexpected treat. And because the band was in the parking lot, they didn’t really try to stop it. But eventually someone would. Someone would call the cops, and then the hospital would be swarming with police. The more police there were, the more likely the Reaper would give up and run away. Who was going to try and kill a girl if the hospital was surrounded by police? No one. Or at least Mina hoped that no one would. But then if the Reaper was a nurse, she could slip Nan any kind of drugs and no one would be the wiser.

She used the Dead Prince Society as a distraction and rushed through the emergency entrance doors. Since most of the hospital staff had gone to take pictures at the front of the hospital, she found it a fairly easy route to take. She bypassed the elevator and took the stairs two at a time to Nan’s floor. Mina opened the stairwell door and listened for sounds of hospital staff. There were none. She slipped onto the floor and tiptoed down the hall, pausing when she had to cross the waiting room.

As she expected, most of the night staff was at the window looking out onto the scene below. She could hear them whispering furiously deciding how they were going to take turns and go down to get autographs. Nurse Diedre and Dr. Martin were nowhere to be seen among the window gawkers.

Mina was just going to have to take a chance that they weren’t about. As she moved silently toward Nan’s room, Mina began to doubt herself and her plan. Maybe she should have just called the police and told them someone was going to try and kill her best friend. But then, what if they didn’t believe her? She shook her head in frustration. She would have been taken in for questioning and asked how she knew all of this. What was she going to tell them? That a boy in a mirror told her a Grimm Reaper was going to kill Nan at midnight? It wasn’t happening.

“I knew you would try and sneak back in,” A gravelly voice spoke close to Mina’s ear. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She turned to see that Nurse Diedre had come up behind her. Her grey hair was still pulled into a tight knot. Her plump arms reached out to grab her, but Mina ran forward. She ran down the hall away from Nan’s room, hoping to lead the Fae away. The nurse was right on her tail. Mina turned down a flight of stairs and through another hallway, ignoring yellow signs and construction tape. She ducked through a set of double doors and ran through two sheets of plastic and froze. The smell of sheetrock, dust, and paint assailed her nose. She had unintentionally run into an unfinished wing of the hospital.