Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(11)

“I’ll watch her for a few minutes,” the first nurse said, punching words into the electronic medical record.

The other three nurses gingerly stepped over the drying puddles of water on their way out of the room.

I hovered near the ceiling above the scene, watching the machine breathe for the woman, watching as the nurse looked her over, checking the pulse at the ankle resting on the bed. She shook her head. “Keep fighting, Carmen. I hope they find the bastards who did this to you.”

The woman was me.

It should have panicked me, but I didn’t feel anything but tired. I saw that they had busted my head open again and beat my entire body, but it was hard to tell what else they did. A chill ran up my spine, causing me to shudder. Why did Dimitri leave me alive?

Was I alive?

If I were dying, why in the hell did I have to die wearing a hospital gown? Under all of the sheets and blanket, I knew my ass was hanging out. I hated those gowns worse than scrubs.



*

I covered my ears against the noise coming from above; a high-pitched scream so loud, it could shatter glass and bone. I was floating over my body again, over the room, but still felt the hair on my arms stand on end. Looking over my shoulder, there was a black, glittering film that stretched across the room in a slight arc. Though it was as black as coal, it was thin and swirling, molten. I reached my hand out, knowing somehow that the ebbing fabric wouldn’t hurt me. Dipping my finger into it, I expected it to be drenched with goo when I pulled it out, but my finger came away clean. I couldn’t see what lay beyond the fabric, only that there were shadows moving; like a light was cast from behind it, and their shadows were the only evidence that it was real.

From my right, I heard the sound of smacks on bare skin and shrill screaming. I eased through the building, through wall and ceiling, and peered into the hospital room next to mine.

A disoriented woman, also in a hospital gown, floated over her body. Two men grabbed her wrists and were pulling her toward the molten black dome hovering overhead. It looked like the fabric of the dome had torn in two, and a fissure sat directly over her head.

“Leave her alone, assholes!” I screamed. All eyes snapped to me.

One man looked at the other, grinning lecherously. “Two for the price of one. Our lucky day.”

Before I knew what had happened, a noose of crackling blue lightning whipped around my neck. I was reeled further into the room by the man who’d struck me with the bolt. He was gray; his skin, clothes, hair—even the whites of his eyes—gray. He was taller and thinner than his friend, but his friend was gray, too. Soon, the woman I tried to save had a lightning collar of her own. It flickered and pulsed in a leaping, jagged circle around her neck, ever changing, but never loosening its grip. The shorter, broader gray man disappeared into the fissure, pulling the woman through the hole behind him. She cried out, but allowed him to pull her anyway. My captor followed suit, and then I was being tugged toward the tear myself.

Hell, no.

Reaching toward the ceiling, I tried to grab anything that I could anchor myself to, but there was nothing. My fingers slipped right through everything. He jerked me hard, and I resisted harder, leaning back against his tugs. When I came to within a foot of the hole, I looked at the fabric as it flapped along the tear; a torn, dark flag battling the wind. I was able to touch it earlier; maybe I could grab hold of it, keep myself rooted in this reality. Instinctively I knew that whatever lay beyond was bad. I could taste the bitter flavor of despair and desperation as it leaked through the fissure.

I grabbed hold of either side with both hands and held tight, gathering the fabric and twisting it around my palms. When the man tugged, he met resistance. When he tugged harder, I gritted my teeth and held tighter. The flesh of my neck sizzled as the lightning leash dug into my skin. The smell of burnt hair and flesh made my stomach turn. I screamed in agony, but still held on as tenaciously as I could. The more he jerked and pulled, the more the lightning burned me, but I didn’t want to go inside the hole any farther.

My body was too weak to keep this up much longer.

Soon, my feet were inside. Then my knees and hips. Soon my stomach, chest, and head was inside. The only things keeping me near my own body, near my hospital bed, were my hands as they held onto two tiny swaths of fabric that gave way with each jerk the tall gray man gave.

My left hand slipped, leaving me holding on by only one hand. The torn pieces flapped angrily overhead, loud as a freight train. From below, my captor sneered, standing in a meadow that should have been a vibrant green, but was the same dull shade that he was. Gravity didn’t matter here. I was either going to crash or float, and neither seemed to be a good option. I chose option number three—to fight. Fighting was all I had left. But I was so tired.

I tried to swing my other arm up to get a firmer grip, but it was too late. The fabric tore off in my hand. I held onto it stubbornly, expecting to crash to the ground, but it was as if gravity didn’t realize I was here yet. My captor reeled me in. As soon as my feet hit the ground, gravity behaved itself, allowing me to stand on my own two feet.

“Stupid girl! Do you know what you could have done?” The man looked up at the hole. “You ripped it,” he said in a voice that hinted at both fright and awe. “It ain’t sealing! You...you tore it.”

I opened my palm where a piece of the fabric still shimmered in my hand. I watched as it began to move, and as my skin slowly absorbed it.