Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
The ER was bedlam—bloody pirates, screaming fairies, a man dressed as a zombie vomiting rum into a trash can.
Halloween week in New Orleans was always challenging, but this year felt different.
More desperate and more dangerous than usual, as if the entire city was racing toward an inevitable catastrophe.
Summer stood at the nurses’ station, staring at the same patient chart for the third time while her mind churned through everything she’d learned at the facility.
The silver-blessed ammunition hidden in Fabian’s medical cabinet, Vincent’s proof of systematic supernatural hunting, and the feral hybrid who’d ripped her forearm apart.
Each revelation felt like another piece of a puzzle.
“Dr. Vale?” Lisa Zhao appeared at her elbow, clipboard in hand and concern creasing her features. “Trauma bay four has been waiting for discharge papers for the last twenty minutes.”
Summer blinked, refocusing on the present. “Sorry. I was just?—”
“Distracted. I know.” Lisa’s tone was patient but firm. “Dr. Vale… Summer, you’re a mess. If you can’t do your job, do us all a favor and go home. If this ‘distractedness’ continues, I will have no choice but to report you.”
Heat flushed Summer’s cheeks. She prided herself on professional competence, on being the kind of doctor who never let personal issues affect patient care. “I’m dealing with some family problems. I’ll be more careful.”
“Family problems need to be dealt with and left at the door of my ER.” Lisa’s dark eyes were sharp.
Her attention and level of observation came from her many years managing ER chaos.
“Dr. Rooke mentioned you’ve been asking questions about unusual patient cases, tracking addresses, following patterns which have nothing to do with standard medical care. ”
Summer opened her mouth to deny it, then realized how futile it would be. Lisa saw everything and noticed every detail affecting her staff’s performance. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re conducting a private investigation instead of focusing on the job that pays your bills.
” Lisa’s voice carried real authority. She was used to cutting through excuses to reach the truth.
“And tonight, with the chaos we’re dealing with, I need every doctor operating at full capacity. ”
Before Summer could respond, the ambulance radio crackled to life. “Tulane ER, multiple incoming traumas. Halloween party incident, at least six patients, ETA ten minutes.”
“What kind of incident?” Lisa grabbed the radio.
“Unknown. Witnesses reports suggest a gas leak or food poisoning, but the symptoms don’t match standard presentations. Patients are disoriented, experiencing memory loss, and several have unusual wounds that appear to heal rapidly.”
Summer and Lisa exchanged glances. “We’ll take them,” Lisa snapped into the radio. “Prepare trauma bays one through six.”
The next hour passed in controlled chaos as numerous victims arrived.
Young adults who should have been enjoying Halloween parties instead lay on examination tables with the same mysterious symptoms Summer had been documenting all week—memory gaps, disorientation, and scarring which to Summer’s expertise suggested supernatural transformation.
Her palms glowed as she moved from bay to bay.
She tried to keep them hidden by double-gloving, putting them in her pockets or hiding under patient charts.
Noticing how the rest of the medical staff were watching, it was not sustainable.
“This is the eighth case this shift,” Dr. Rooke observed as they worked on a woman who claimed she couldn’t remember the past three days. “Either we’re dealing with a new street drug affecting memory, or…”
“Or?” Summer asked, though she had a pretty good idea what he was thinking.
“Or something’s happening in this city that our medical training didn’t prepare us for.
” Ethan’s voice was quiet, but his words were heavy with meaning.
He’d spent decades in emergency medicine, and Summer knew he’d pretty much seen everything the non-magical world could throw at him.
“These patients all have the same presentation, the same type of scarring, the same impossible healing rates. None of this is random.”
Summer nodded, her attention focused on the patient she was examining. A man with too-pale skin whose eyes reflected the overhead lights with a strange glow. “Have you noticed the timing pattern? Are you suggesting the cases seem to be accelerating as we get closer to Halloween?”
“I have.” Ethan lowered his voice further. “Summer, I know you’ve been tracking these cases, connecting patterns the rest of us are missing. What aren’t you telling us?”
The direct question caught Summer off guard. She looked around the ER—at Lisa coordinating triage with her usual efficiency, at residents struggling with cases which defied medical explanation, at patients who carried the lingering aura of supernatural corruption.
Summer hesitated. How could she explain supernatural heritage and transformation capabilities to someone who lived firmly in the human medical world? “I don’t know any more than you, Ethan. Just doing my best to keep people alive.”
Ethan studied her sharply. He’d learned to read between the lines during decades of emergency medicine. “You think this is targeted, not random.”
Summer shrugged and moved to check on another patient, a young woman who insisted trees were talking to her. “Halloween week with full moon tomorrow. You know as well as I do the chaos that comes our way. Just gotta survive the night.”
The radio crackled again. “Tulane ER, incoming critical trauma. Female, approximately thirty, found unconscious in the Quarter. Vitals unstable, presenting with severe blood loss and what appears to be surgical scarring.”
“Bay seven,” Lisa called, already moving to prepare the trauma room.
When the paramedics brought the patient in, Summer’s supernatural senses immediately screamed warnings.
The woman was pale beyond normal blood loss, her skin carrying a waxy texture suggestive of supernatural corruption.
But more disturbing were the fresh surgical marks crisscrossing her torso—the same precise scarring Summer had seen on all the reversal victims, but these were still bleeding.
“What’s her condition?” Summer asked the lead paramedic while trying to ignore the excruciating flames from her supernatural senses. She bit back a gasp and stilled for a moment before she began her examination.
“Found her about an hour ago in an alley behind Royal Street. No ID, no witnesses. She was conscious when we picked her up, but she’s been fading fast.”
Summer worked rapidly, starting IVs and checking vitals while her enhanced senses cataloged everything her medical training couldn’t. The scarring was fresh—done within the last few hours. But unlike other reversal patients, this woman’s transformation appeared to have been interrupted mid-process.
“She’s going into shock,” Lisa observed, reading the monitors. “Blood pressure dropping, heart rate erratic.”
Summer leaned closer to check the patient’s pupils and caught a whisper so faint it was barely audible. “Doctor…”
“I’m here,” Summer said softly. “Can you tell me what happened?”
The woman’s eyes focused on Summer’s face with difficulty, recognition flickering in their depths. “You’re… the doctor. From the files.”
Ice filled Summer’s stomach. “What files?”
“Le Sang…” The whisper was growing weaker. “Basement… wolf… silver…”
“Who keeps a wolf? What basement?” Summer leaned closer, but the woman’s eyes were already losing focus.
“Don’t trust…” The woman’s words were barely audible. “He collects…”
The monitors flatlined with a steady tone. It announced the end of another life in Fabian’s web of deception. Summer stared at the woman’s still face, her mind processing the implications of what she’d just heard.
Did the woman mean Rowan was in Le Sang’s basement?
Had he been there all along? But no, she’d detected his scent in the warehouse.
He could have been directly below where Summer slept, while she researched his location, and she had accepted Fabian’s care and comfort.
While she knew the beautiful mansion with its elegant furnishings and extensive library was also a prison, had she been living above her mate’s torture chamber?
No, she would have felt him through their bond, wouldn’t she?
“Dr. Vale?” Ethan’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “Are you alright? You look pale.”
Summer forced herself to step back from the examination table, to look normal and professional despite the revelation crashing through her consciousness. “I’m fine. Just… a long shift.”
But she wasn’t fine. She’d remained in a vampire’s mansion where her mate was being held prisoner, probably tortured.
Why hadn’t she seen through it all sooner?
She’d been seduced with pretty lies, letting the vampire convince her Rowan had abandoned her.
The basement of Le Sang wasn’t a sanctuary; it was Rowan’s living hell.
She had to go back there tonight, had to pretend she knew nothing while she figured out how to reach him.
The Halloween chaos around her continued—drunk tourists and costumed revelers mixing with genuine supernatural emergencies—but all Summer could hear was the dying woman’s whisper: Wolf… silver…
Time was running out, and the most dangerous part of her investigation was about to begin.