Dagger Magic

"That's our man," McLeod murmured, pointing the way with a jerk of his chin. "He's only just come out of surgery. I was waiting until they'd finished getting him settled before pressing for a prognosis, but any questions on that account are probably better coming from you, anyway."

As two uniformed nurses busied themselves around the patient, the female surgeon concluded her notes with a brisk flourish and presented them to her male colleague, pausing long enough to answer a brief inquiry from one of the nurses before making for the exit. Adam and McLeod stepped back from the doors as she came through, and she nodded to McLeod and pulled off her surgical cap to ruffle a hand through short, curly dark hair.

"Will I get to talk to him?" McLeod asked.

She glanced back at the doors swinging closed behind her and shrugged. "I wouldn't say the chances are very good - certainly not right away. We're waiting to see what will result from his head injury; we may have to go in again. Meanwhile, he's got a definite concussion, some cracked ribs, two broken legs, he's probably lost the sight in one eye, and he was bleeding internally. We had to remove his spleen - "

"Tell Dr. Sinclair, if you please," McLeod interrupted. "He's a special police consultant."

"Dr. Stirling," a voice called from the recovery room, as a nurse poked her head through the door. "Could you take a look at Mrs. Bell? She's looking a little shocky; she might be hemorrhaging."

"On my way," the surgeon said, giving Adam an apologetic shrug. "Sorry, Doctor. If you want, you can go ahead and have a look at Mr. Grant's chart, but I don't expect it will make much difference, one way or the other."

Murmuring his thanks, Adam snagged a spare hospital gown, plus one for McLeod, and pulled it on over his suit before following the surgeon into Recovery. The other surgeon and one of the nurses had already gone to tend the ailing Mrs. Bell, and the remaining nurse continued to adjust an IV drip as Adam picked up Grant's chart. He now could see that Grant was also on a respirator, not just oxygen; and the vital signs being monitored on the bank of machines to one side described a patient very ill, indeed.

"Bad, huh?" McLeod murmured, close by Adam's elbow.

Gravely Adam nodded, eyes scanning the chart. "I can only say that he must have a tremendous will to live. He might make it, though."

Behind them, Dr. Stirling and her colleague were preparing to wheel Mrs. Bell back into surgery, and most of the medical staff were congregated at that end of Recovery, including the nurse who had been monitoring Grant.

"Well, I very much doubt he's going to be able to talk to us, so maybe I'd better see if I can go to him," Adam said softly, replacing the chart at the foot of the bed. "This will be quick and dirty, if it works at all, but we'll see what we can pick up."

Moving closer to the head of the bed, Adam prepared himself with a single deep breath to ground and center himself, at the same time framing a silent prayer of petition to the spiritual guardians who ruled the Inner Planes. He must be very careful, for one of the nurses had just come back. Despite that distraction, however, he could feel the first faint glimmerings of rapport with the soul resident in the shattered body before him - and knew that the link of soul to body was tenuous, else he would not have been able to perceive it so clearly.

But before he could stabilize the forming bridge between them, the beep of the pulse-rate monitor increased in tempo and Malcolm Grant shuddered and roused, his one unban-daged eye snapping wide in a sudden, agitated return to consciousness. Simultaneously, he started gasping, fighting the ventilator that had been helping him breathe. Alarms began going off on all his monitors as his heartbeat faltered.

"Code Blue!" the nurse shouted. "I need a crash cart!"

Even as she moved in to begin administering CPR, and other medical personnel began converging on the patient, including Dr. Stirling, Adam bent to the stricken man's ear, both hands gently steadying the thrashing head.

"You aren't choking, Mr. Grant," he murmured. "There's a machine helping you breathe. Let it do the work. Just try to relax."

But Grant deteriorated quickly, despite the efforts of the crash team, and slipped back into unconsciousness even as a nurse wheeled a defibrillator into place and Dr. Stirling positioned the paddles on his chest.

"Clear, everyone!" she ordered, and everyone else fell back.