Extraits

I pulled on magic, forming the sword.

Each time i did, it became easier. Some of that had to do with the fact taht the magical sword was now familiar to me, and some of it was that that my magic required a certain visualisation, a willing of magic rather than speaking the right words or performing the right movements, the same way my grandparents had to perform their spells. Familiarity made that easier. Quicker.

"I would encourage anyone to embrace teh power within them. If your power involves you serving as a physician, then so be it. If it involves you embracing the magic that rages within you, then so be it. In your case, you are both. I would have you embrace both of them."

Though I'd seen enough gunshot wounds in my days, I'd never even shot a gun, let alone been shot at. How had I not seen the brief muzzle flash with each shot?

Talents.I didn't always feel as if they were talents. Sometimes they were a curse, though it was that curse that had allowed me to do so much. At least I didn't have to believe that I had dark magic, not as I once did, I might not know whether I had demon magic or something else, but there was a hope taht whatever I possessed would be useful.

I had tried to convince my grandparents taht the magic the dark mages possessed was connected to the Unseelie fae, but that required the mage council to believe their magic was somehow tied to the Seelie fae. I wasn't sure I hade been successful.

The magic flowed of my hands.

I tried directing it, controlling the effect, but with my magic, there wasn't much in the way of control. I could create barriers and use it to blast my enemies, but attempting more control than that had proven a challenge.

Chapter 1

The sight of blood no longer bothered me the way it once did. Not only had I been around it often enough in the ER to no longer feel squeamish about it, but in the time that I’d been using my magic more openly, I’d inflicted a certain amount of bloody damage myself. Still, there was something about having it pulsing out of an open wound that unsettled me more than a little.

It might be that the steady creep of death began to work along my spine. The longer we were at this, trying to save this patient, the more the sense of cold continued to work up my spine. As much as I might be tempted to use magic—and I was—I couldn’t.

Bright surgical lights glowed overhead, pushing away everything else around us. I barely registered the surgical technicians or the anesthesiologist, keeping my focus on the patient.

The patient was young. Hispanic, maybe late teens but looked even younger. The tattoos on his arms looked to be done at home, and the massive cross over his chest must have taken days—and been incredibly painful. If he survived, the scar would forever distort that ink.

“Pressure here, Dr. Michaels.” Dr. Darnold had a hard way of speaking, something not altogether unique for a trauma surgeon. Blood splattered his blue surgical gown and a hint of sweat trailed down his cheeks.

Moving the gauze pad off to the side, I placed pressure on the abdominal incision, trying to keep the surgical field exposed. Dr. Darnold continued to suction the blood flowing from the wound, but we hadn’t reached the source yet. Much longer, and we wouldn’t be able to find it.

Dr. Darnold had a steady hand, dissecting through muscle and fascia as he worked quickly to expose the abdomen. The stench from the electrocautery was something I couldn’t shake and was thankful this was only a one-month rotation, and near the end. It might have been better for Dr. Darnold—and the patient—had he asked for one of the surgery residents to scrub into the case with him rather than me. I was no better than a medical student.

Every so often, he would pause, and I had learned that was for me to shift where I was holding so he could get a better handle on the tissue. “Suction,” he said and the surgical tech handed him the device. “Damn.”

“What is it?” I shouldn’t speak up—residents weren’t allowed to question Dr. Darnold—but that didn’t suit me and I was curious. The kid had been shot in the belly twice. The amount of bleeding I’d seen on the ultrasound had indicated a significant injury, but getting in to it had proven difficult.

“The bullet sheared his renal artery.” His hand remained almost perfectly still as he contemplated his next move.

The first time I’d seen him operate in a trauma—a three-car pileup that had lacerated a guy’s spleen—he had done the same thing. At the time, I had thought that he wasn’t sure what to do, that maybe his hesitation came from ignorance or uncertainty, but I’d come to realize it was a contemplative move. By hesitating, even if only for a moment, he was able to come up with his next steps and operated that much faster because of it.

“Call vascular,” he said.

He continued to cauterize, trying to stabilize the wound. The longer he worked at it, the clearer it became to me that he wouldn’t be fast enough to save this kid. The cold along my spine was a painful sensation. Even without the sense of cold, there had been too much blood loss. There was only so much we could squeeze back into him.

Honestly, seeing how quickly blood pulsed from the wound left me surprised EMS had managed to get him here in the first place. It was a wonder they had gotten to the hospital with a chance for survival.

Vascular wouldn’t get here in time to make a difference.

There was something I could do that would make a difference, but I wasn’t sure how to do it with so many people around and watching. Dipping into my magical stores wasn’t as difficult as it once had been, and I still didn’t have very fine control over it, but enough that I thought I could help.