A Burning in the Bones (Waxways #3)

Chapter 19 Mercy Whitaker

19 MERCY WHITAKER

The hospital was a nightmare.

Overrun would have been a generous description. However, Mercy thrived in the chaos. She hadn’t stopped moving, assessing, treating. Eventually they’d activated emergency protocols. Patients who were not there because of the disease had to be sent home, unless they’d been previously labeled as critical. Dr. Horn should have been the one to sign off on the decision, but he’d gone home for a family issue and still hadn’t returned. She feared the worst. Only a true crisis would have taken Horn from the hospital at a time like this.

Three of four wings were converted into isolation centers. All focus went to victims of the disease. The first floor transformed into one big intake station, as well as a holding area for the cases with the mildest symptoms. Several factors were involved in the opening assessment. First, the spread of the patient’s initial bruising patterns. Mercy was surprised how accurate this was as a measurement of degree. More bruising led to more severe symptoms, and less bruising usually meant a mild case. She’d seen no exceptions to that rule.

Next, they factored in the relative health and age of the subject. They moved patients based on their degree of risk. The second floor was for anyone with debilitating symptoms. The third floor was reserved for potential mortalities. The most at-risk patients. There had already been three casualties the last time she’d checked with the morgue. She made a mental note to check again, but for now the living demanded her attention. She entered a room occupied by a family.

The mother was tending to her husband and two children with all the focus of a trained nurse. Mercy introduced herself. The children—twins—smiled shyly as she put her stethoscope against their bruised chests. The echo was there. It was always there. Mercy winked at the little boy before moving to his father and beginning the process again.

All of them had the echo, didn’t they?

Nance’s words haunted her. She could not escape him or the near-death experience in Running Hills. Those memories were like a spot of blood she could not rub out, no matter how often she held her thoughts under the water and scrubbed. Hindsight made it clear that Nance had been there to monitor the results of an experiment. Designed by him? By some other entity? It seemed likely a larger group was involved. Creating and spreading a disease would be difficult. Nor would it have been a small task to remove all the evidence she’d left behind in that water treatment facility. She couldn’t help wondering how they’d created the disease in the first place. And more importantly, to what end would they spread this plague? Her mind always lingered longest on that question. To what end?

There was evil in their world, but it rarely existed without purpose. She’d witnessed all sorts of tragedies during her time at the hospital. Spells that blinded or tortured or maimed. Nearly every one of those patients had a story for why . A thief stealing a purse. A spurned lover, seeking revenge. It was a rule of human nature to act in one’s own best interests. This Nance—whoever he was—would not spread the disease simply to watch the world hold its breath. There had to be a why .

Mercy finished with the family. None of them were severe enough to be advanced to another floor. Very young children seemed especially resilient against the disease. Often showing just a few bruises. She was grateful for that small silver lining. She suggested the family head home, if they felt they could reach home safely. From there, she returned to intake. Her point person—a nurse named Bathly—was filling out a series of charts. Mercy had given the command to skip most of the usual paperwork the hospital required, but basic information was still a requirement for basic organized treatment.

“Where do you need me next, Bathly?”

The woman shrugged. “Intake is down to a trickle. Now’s as good a time as any to visit the morgue. I know you wanted to get a look at some of the casualties. No sign of Horn yet by the way.”

Mercy eyed the first-floor waiting room. There were fewer than a dozen people there. It was always possible another flood of new patients would hit them in the middle of the night. Bathly was right, though. She would not have a better opportunity to set triage aside and focus on the other elements of the disease. “Who’s on rotation down there?”

“New guy,” the nurse answered. “Williams.”

Mercy eyed a few of the charts before thanking Bathly and heading downstairs. The basement floor was the quietest wing of the hospital at the moment. She knew there were patients in these rooms, but the normal flock of nurses and doctors had been pulled into the chaos upstairs. The only mild discomfort came from the lighting. Cantrips had been installed overhead. She suspected the original castings had covered the entire walk, but no one had refreshed the magic recently. The unhappy consequence was that the radius of each light fell just short of the next and she found herself walking through brief slivers of perfect darkness. Each time she expected something to leap at her from the shadows.

Gods, I’m losing my mind.

Another set of stairs led down to the morgue. The sub-basement offered a natural chill. The perfect environment for reducing the rate of decomposition. Mercy shouldered through the door to find the new guy sound asleep. He had long hair that had started graying at the temples. He wore a crimson-colored mask and was nestled inside a winter coat to ward off the cold. Mercy crossed the room as he continued to snore. The first form had been signed by Arthur Bow. Their longtime coroner. The other two finished forms? Also signed by Arthur. Which meant their newest hire had done nothing since his arrival.

“Hey,” Mercy called. “What the hell is this?”

The new guy bolted awake. “Huh? Oh. Oh . Hello. Sorry. I am so sorry. I was just…” A yawn rolled through the middle of his sentence. “Just trying to catch up. I’m new. Dr. Williams.”

“Catch up?” Mercy repeated. “You haven’t actually done anything. You haven’t processed any of these patients.”

He eyed the row and looked surprised by the number of bodies waiting there.

“Shit. More corpses came.”

“You are in a morgue. And there is a plague going around.”

“They could have woken me up,” he grumbled.

“You could have also chosen not to be asleep. Look, the rest of us are working triple shifts up there. You’re not the only one who needs rest. Pull it together.”

He nodded. “Of course. I guess I just kind of assumed they weren’t going anywhere.”

She stared at him. “The bodies?”

“Well, yeah…” When she said nothing, he finished the thought. “Because they’re dead.”

Mercy didn’t laugh. The awkward silence forced him to his feet.

“Right. Sorry again. I’m on it.”

“Good. I need to see all of them. Rapid check.”

He blinked. “Really? All of them?”

“Yes. There’s an unknown disease ravaging the city. We now have multiple corpses and multiple corpses—”

“… creates a pattern, and patterns provide strategic response. Understood. I read Pulliver’s manual too. You’re right, you’re right. Let’s open them up and take a look then.”

At least he was trained. Borderline derelict of his duty, but properly trained. He walked the row, unzipping one patient at a time. As always, her scarred fingers itched slightly when she stood near the dead. There was also a brief sharpness in her lower stomach area. She knew it was where, five years before, her appendix had burst and needed to be removed. Mercy ignored those phantom pains and focused on what was in front of her. She picked up her replacement journal and began taking notes on each of the victims.

The first patient was seventy-four. An older man with bruises scattered across delicate, olive skin. A fit for her profile. The next two patients, however, were in their twenties. It was surprising enough that Mercy paused to read their case files. One was an elemental engineer. Mercy didn’t know much about that branch of magic, other than that they worked with weather patterns and shaping raw materials in landscapes. The other was a classically trained weaver. Mercy frowned at what she read in that file, then moved on to the next corpse. Of the nine dead, five were under the age of thirty.

“The original profile isn’t holding up.”

“Really?” Dr. Williams asked. She’d almost forgotten he was there. “I thought this was a new disease. How could there be an original profile?”

“I investigated the same blight in Running Hills. About a month ago. There was evidence that it was more dangerous to the elderly—which fits with most communicable diseases. The only casualty there was an old nurse who served as the town medic.”

He frowned. “You assumed a pattern from one casualty?”

“Of course not. There was also a pattern amongst the living patients. At the time, it appeared that older victims suffered the worst symptoms. Fastest onset as well. But this new data runs in the opposite direction.”

Before Williams could respond, the double doors at the back of the room slammed open. Mercy jumped, but it was just a team of Brightsword paladins. They filed in with another body. Safe Harbor’s tenth official victim. Mercy knew it was still a relatively small mortality rate—but the sight of another body reminded her of how Nance had responded to her accusations. That careless shrug. As if the death of innocents simply did not matter to him.

To what end?

“Bring the body over here,” she ordered. “We’ll go ahead and take a look.”

Williams signed off on the transfer. Mercy didn’t wait for him to perform the unzipping. A small pull from her and the metal teeth parted. The fabric opened. She let out a shocked scream that had the paladins pausing at the doorway, their hands drifting down to their weapons. Dr. Williams was there in a heartbeat, placing himself between her and the body, but it was not that kind of threat. This was no revenant. No foul magic was at play. She’d screamed because she recognized the casualty. The tenth victim was none other than Dr. Horn.