CHAPTER EIGHT
“What?” I asked, shocked to hear it. “How seriously is she injured?”
“Hattie was conscious and they wheeled her off to x-ray a few minutes ago. But she asked me to call you. Said that she needed you.”
I grabbed for my purse and swung it over my shoulder. “Which hospital?”
Dex rose to his feet beside me, while I listened to Johnny.
“Tell Hattie that I’m on my way,” I said once I had the information. “I’ll text and let you know when I arrive.”
“Thank you, Kate,” Johnny said. “She’s pretty scared.”
I ended the call and looked over at Dex. “I need to go.”
He simply nodded. “I’m coming with you. I’ll drive.”
In a matter of moments, we were in his car and driving to St. Vincent’s.
“I don’t understand,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I worked a very intense protection spell for her and Johnny on Samhain night.”
“I meant to ask you about that,” Dex said as he navigated through traffic.
“I saw her last week,” I told him. “She picked up her gown, and I gave her fresh herbal sachets for protection. She told me things were improving for them, and she promised me that she’d continue to carry it…or at least she was supposed to be.”
Dex reached for my hand and held it, offering support.
“I know that no spell is fool proof,” I said, “but I’ve never had one fail like this before!”
“A vision popped in my head while you were speaking to Johnny,” Dex said, “and with my retrocognition, I saw her fall. If I’m right, then I don’t think that your spell did fail, Kate.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned. “What did you see?”
“It was an ugly fall down very tall concrete steps.”
I nodded in confirmation. “Johnny did say she fell down a flight of stairs.”
Dex squeezed my hand. “Hattie asked for you, didn’t she?”
I blinked back worried tears. “She did.”
“Hang on darlin’,” he drawled. “I’ll have you there in a few more minutes.”
A short time later, Dex pulled up to the emergency room and dropped me off at the entrance.
While he went to go and park, I headed straight for the front desk, texting Johnny that I had arrived.
I got in line, as there was a group of people ahead of me asking about their relative, and told myself to be patient.
While I waited, I mentally raised my shields.
The people in front of me were all sobbing; clearly whatever had brought them there was bad.
In fact, as I surveyed the waiting room, a sense of despair seemed to settle on me and I shivered.
To combat the energy I was picking up on, I visualized my aura growing bright and my shields growing thick and green like an impenetrable hedge.
A moment later the shivers went away and I felt steadier and grounded. The ER department doors swung open with a loud click and I saw Hattie’s fiancé, Johnny, in the doorway.
“Kate. Glad you’re here. Come with me.”
With a nod, I followed him back to a treatment room.
“We told the staff you were family and so they’re letting you in to the room,” he explained.
“How is she?” I asked.
“The doctors say she’s lucky,” Johnny said. “It could have been a lot worse.”
Hattie, he explained, had sustained a broken wrist and a mild concussion from her fall.
She also had a few cuts and nasty scrapes.
Once I stepped into her room, I saw the beginnings of a black eye from where she’d hit her cheek bone on the edge of one of the stairs.
They’d put butterfly bandages on the cut. It looked painful.
As I sat in a chair beside her bed, Hattie explained that she had a temporary cast and was waiting to be sent upstairs. She was being admitted for at least an overnight observation.
“Sweetie, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“It all happened so fast,” Hattie told me. “One minute I was standing at the top of the steps with my bridesmaids, and the next, Bam! Something hit me in the back, and I went flying down the stairs.”
“And no one bumped into you?” I asked carefully.
“No,” Johnny answered for her. “We know for sure because her friend Shelly was taking photos and videos of them all posing outside the bridal shop. The bridesmaids had just all picked up their dresses—and Shelly sent me a video of what happened.”
Johnny tapped on his phone screen, cued it up, and handed it to me.
There was Hattie and three of her bridesmaids all standing together, with Hattie at the top and the other girls two steps down.
Shelly was laughing and filming the group, encouraging them to pose in silly ways, holding up their dress bags like they were trophies.
Without warning Hattie went up—violently shoved forward—hard enough that her feet left the riser.
She tumbled past her friends and went down the steps, hard.
The camera swung, blurring, obviously from being dropped, and the frightened cries and shouts of the bridesmaids ended the video. I watched it again, checking to see if anyone had appeared behind Hattie before she was pushed, but there was no one there.
It was chilling. “Be sure and save that video,” I told him.
“Oh, we will,” he said. “The damn bridal shop is already saying Hattie and the girls were horsing around and being careless, so they are not responsible for the fall or any injuries.”
I made a mental note to ask Nash Ellington if he could get access to the bridal store’s cameras to see if there was a different view of the incident.
“I promise, I’ve been keeping that protection sachet with me,” Hattie insisted, her voice slurring a bit from the pain meds she’d been given.
I patted her leg gently. “Hattie, I believe you.”
“It’s still in my bra,” she said, feeling around her chest for it.
“Babe.” Johnny stilled her uninjured hand. “They cut you out of your bra when they put the hospital gown on you, remember?”
“They did?” She frowned up at him. “Oh no! My protection is gone!”
Reaching for my own pendant, I said, “Hattie, take this.” I unclasped the chain from around my neck and stood. “This is a protective pendant; my grandmother gave to me. I want you to wear this. Don’t take it off.” Then I slipped it over her head and secured the clasp.
Hattie squinted down at the pendant. “What is it?”
“It’s called a Hekate’s Wheel. It’s an ancient Greek symbol of the triple goddess Hekate. It’s very protective.”
“But it’s a gift from your grandmother,” she said. “I can’t just take it.”
“The pendant is yours now,” I told her. “Wear it with my blessing.” I pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head and sent her some healing energy. “Get some sleep,” I told her and then smiled when she sighed and dropped right off.
Johnny turned to me. “When Hattie first floated the idea to me that she thought maybe her wedding gown was cursed, I didn’t want to believe her.
But with everything that happened, me having anaphylaxis out of nowhere, and all the problems with getting the house, I started to take the whole situation much more seriously. ”
“I did work to break the spell that was cast against her on the sabbat of Samhain—Halloween night,” I told him. “It seemed to have worked at the time.”
Johnny nodded. “Halloween was three weeks ago and yeah, things did improve. For a little while anyway. So what the hell happened today?” Then he blanched. “Sorry, I wasn’t criticizing your spell casting.”
“It’s okay,” I said to him. “I’m not too happy about this situation either, and I promise you that I’m going to make it my priority to find out what’s going on,” I assured him. “Would you please forward me the video that you showed me?”
“I’ll do it right now,” he said, pulling his phone from his back pocket.
“Are you still carrying the protection sachet I put together for you?” I asked him.
He patted his front shirt pocket. “Yes, I am.”
“Good. Keep it on you.”
“I’m carrying my grandmother’s rosary too,” he admitted. “She gave it to me for protection after I had that reaction to peanuts.”
“That’s a strong magick,” I said. “A spiritual and loving gift from your grandmother.”
“It won’t like…contradict or cancel out the stuff you gave me or Hattie, will it?”
I smiled. “No, it won’t. They’ll complement each other nicely.”
“Okay,” he said and blew out a long breath. “Thanks for coming down here, Kate. Hattie and I truly appreciate it.”
“Where are Hattie’s parents?” I asked.
“They were in Tuscaloosa, visiting her paternal grandparents. They’re on their way back.” He checked the clock on the wall. “I imagine they’ll be here soon.”
“I’m going to head out,” I told him. “You call me if you need to talk, or if you or Hattie need anything.”
“I will,” he said.
Impulsively I gave him a quick hug. “It’ll be okay,” I said to him.
To my surprise he hugged me back and held on. He was truly frightened, I realized, as he clung to me for a few seconds. While I had the chance, I checked Johnny to see if he had any hexes laid against him. I was relieved to find that he did not.
I’d put money on the table that it was because of the rosary that he was carrying.
We let go of each other and I slipped out of the room and headed for the exit. Dex, I discovered, was sitting by a window in the waiting room. As soon as he saw me, he rose to his feet.
“How’s she doing?”
“Broken wrist, concussion,” I said. “They’re going to keep her overnight at least.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t any worse,” Dex said and slipped his arm around my waist as we walked out together.
Happy for the support, I leaned into him a bit.
I waited until we had returned to his car and could speak without anyone overhearing before I told him the rest of what I had found out. After watching the video that Johnny had forwarded to me, Dex’s expression changed.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “You can see her go up in the air from the force of the blow...yet there’s no one behind her.”
As we drove back home, I explained how I had given Hattie my own pendant for protection.
He frowned. “You gave your pendant to Hattie?”
“She needs it more than I do,” I said, rubbing my forehead. A tension headache was brewing, and I was feeling slightly sick to my stomach.