Maudlin's Mayhem (Bewitching Bedlam #2)(23)

“Where is that doctor?” I motioned for Sandy and Aegis to back away. Bubba was nervous, I could tell that much. It had to be scary, and I was beginning to realize just how much the cjinn relied on the feline part of himself. Bubba could never manage as a human because he wasn’t human by nature. He needed his cat form to feel secure.

“Watch for the doctor, would you?” I nodded to Sandy and she headed to the front door. I turned back to the table and slowly got down on my hands and knees, crawling under the table with Bubba. He had finished his sandwich and now he gave me a wide-eyed look and curled up on the floor, his head on my lap. I stroked his hair, feeling sorry for him. He really didn’t understand what was happening and while we could talk to him now, he seemed more confused than when he was in his cat form.

“It’s okay, Bubs. We’ll find out what’s going on. I’ll figure out how to make it right.” I hated promising something I wasn’t sure I could deliver, but he seemed so forlorn.

“I’m scared, Maddy.” He sniffled and I realized he was crying. I rubbed his ears, hoping that the familiar sensation would calm him down.

Aegis peeked under the table. “I’m going to look around the house and see if I can find anything that might suggest why this happened.”

“Thanks. Something had to trigger this.” I paused as the doorbell rang. “Hold on, that might be the doctor.”

Sure enough, it was Farrows. Short, with black wavy hair and a ruddy face, he was a youngish doctor, or looked youngish, but I knew that he was a powerful witch—a healer by specialty—and he was probably older than I was. He entered the kitchen.

“So, you said you have a sick cjinn? Where is the little guy?” He was talking to Aegis, who pointed under the table at us.

“He’s right here, Dr. Farrows. Bubba wasn’t feeling good, and then, tonight, we’re not sure what happened but he ended up in human form. Come on, Bubs, let the doctor look at you.” I tapped on Bubba’s shoulder.

He shook his head. “No. Don’t know him.”

“Bubba, you need to let the doctor examine you. He might be able to tell what’s going on.” I used my I mean business voice. Bubba glanced up at me and I gave him a stern look.

“Don’t want to,” he grumbled, but crawled out from under the table.

The doctor stared at him for a moment. Then, without a word, he set his bag on the table and opened it. He draped a stethoscope around his neck, and then took out several interesting-looking instruments. I wasn’t sure what they were, but he laid them out on a cloth on the table.

“Come on, Bubba. Let me take a look at you.” Dr. Farrows had a soothing voice, and Bubba slowly responded, allowing the doctor to steer him to a chair.

Bubba sat very still, staring straight ahead as the doctor checked his heart, ears, eyes, and then held a square electronic gadget against Bubba’s chest, looking at the screen on the front of it as it registered a number of waves that looked like sine curves. After making a few notes, he took out a circlet made out of some sort of metal and fitted it around Bubba’s head. He pressed a button on the side of it and stared at his tablet. I peeked over his shoulder and saw a number of undulating curves rolling by on a graph. Finally, the doctor cajoled Bubba into letting him take a quick blood sample, to which he added a pale blue powder. The blood foamed up and turned bright magenta.

“I think we’ve found the problem with this…little…guy. He’s under a curse.” Dr. Farrows turned to me. “He’s the victim of a hex, though I’m not sure what kind yet.”

I stared at Bubba. “He’s been hexed? Who on earth would have want to hex my cjinn? Can you do anything? Is this hurting him?”

“First, yes, it can harm him if he stays too long away from his natural form. His magic stems from his very nature. He can’t use his magic now, and the longer he stays in human form, the more chance there is he’ll lose it altogether, even if he does transform back. Also, his mindset isn’t geared toward being human. This is causing him great distress.” He paused, looking at Bubba, who was staring at him, eyes wide with fear.

“Bubba, you stay here, all right?” The doctor motioned to me. “Let’s talk in the other room.”

I followed him into the living room. “What can you do for him? Can you break the hex?”

“Not at this point, but what I can do is to place him in stasis. That will keep him from panicking and it will prevent the hex from draining his magic. But I can only keep him that way a couple weeks. If Bubba were human to begin with and changed into a cat—or a cjinn—it would be different. He would still have the mental and emotional facilities to cope with this. Humans and other bipeds are much more open to change. But cats…and cjinns…they’re creatures of habit and routine. Stress that routine to any significant degree and it can send them into shock.”

My heart began to race. “Stasis? What about the curse?”

“I’ll start researching to figure out just what kind of hex he’s under. Until I know more, I don’t want to try random curse-breakers. It could make things worse.” Dr. Farrows glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen. “Ms. Gallowglass, do you know anybody who could want to cause him harm? Or you?”

I froze. “Me? You think somebody hurt Bubba because they’re mad at me?”