Issue #44, Honorable Mention #2

Terri Hamill is a retired computer hardware tech living in Massachusetts. She has been writing for many years and has been published by Black Hare Press.

Grimm’s Anatomy

by Terri Hamill

Full moon nights are the worst in the emergency department. I mean, every night is bad, don’t get me wrong, but when the moon is full we get the real weirdos. We rarely get the non-humans, thank you gods, but with five colleges and the university nearby we get everything else.

One cold night in October the waiting room was SRO. It was the Witch’s Moon, and so far a lot of college kids were coming or being brought in because of weird rites they were performing which blew up in their faces. Bloody amateurs. You need to be a professional to conjure on a full moon, or any moon for that matter. Whatever happened to the usual alcohol poisoning calls? At any rate, me and my counterpart, Amelia, were being run off our feet, and every room and hall bed was full. We had a full complement of nursing and technician staff, thank goodness, but only one GP and two on-calls.

Then an ambulance arrived. Dylan, the charge nurse, had given me a heads-up when he got the call from the EMTs—a twenties female presenting symptoms of possession, coming in from a notorious sorority house on the university campus. I groaned at the news. Alpha Psi was known as the sorority with the shadiest habits. We routinely received patients from that house who had been engaging in the darkest of rituals. I’m not talking just your standard Ouija Board crap either; no, I’m talking summoning circles, blood rites, animal sacrifice, you name it. No matter how often they were censured by the university board overseeing the Greek system, they kept at it.

I was assigned to triage her when she came in. She was thrashing, screaming, practically foaming at the mouth—in other words, the usual. I ignored her and talked to the EMTs.

“Female, about twenty-two,” Renee, one of the EMTs told me, “caught by campus police running naked through campus, screaming about ‘it’ coming after her. One of the police officers recognized her tat as being Alpha Psi but that’s all we know at the moment. Vitals are all over the place but nothing life-threatening. Haven’t been able to get anything out of her so far, so good luck.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I replied sourly, entering the slim data on our system.

Christine, one of our intake techs, approached with a tablet. “Do we have a name?”

With a sigh, I went to the gurney and firmly grasped the girl’s chin. She was strapped down, a bleached-blonde Barbie doll with a blanket covering her nakedness. I forced her to look at me. “What is your name?” I demanded, slowly and loudly, over her protestations.

She finally seemed to focus on me. “You gotta help me!” she said shrilly.

“Tell me your name!” I reiterated, giving her chin a little shake. “We know you’re Alpha Psi but we need your name and birthdate for our records.”

She was calming but her respiration was still way too high. “Andrea,” she said, “Andrea McCullough.”

Christine was looking through the database. “Oh, great,” she muttered, then looked at the girl. “Happy birthday?”

Andrea swallowed and nodded. I sighed. That complicated things. Then I noticed the bloody bandage on her left hand. My eyes widened. “Were you summoning?!”

Tears were running down the girl’s face but I didn’t care. The twit was summoning! “What were you trying for? What did you use?” I rounded on the EMTs. “Did anything follow you?”

“You mean it could follow me across the river?!” The girl’s voice crossed from shrill to supersonic.

No matter that I wanted to shout at her, I would be professional. The EMTs looked at each other, obviously disturbed. “Our rig has the standard wards on it, and I didn’t see anything,” Nick, the one who had driven, said. “But we made good time across the bridge.”

Giving Andrea one last glare, I turned to the ED secretary. “Is trauma two open?”

She glanced at the board. “Uh, no, we have a sleeper in there. We’re waiting for true love’s kiss.”

“She—”

“He.”

“He can wait in the hall. Get a gurney in there stat. That room has the strongest wards and this…” idiot I wanted to say, but held it back. “This girl will need them.” I turned back to her. “What grimoire were you using? Who were you trying to summon?”

Her blubbering was making it harder to understand her. “Please… it was just some papers stapled together, it was only for help on my mid-terms! It wasn’t supposed to conjure—”

Right. Dancing naked and cutting yourself wasn’t supposed to conjure anything. How stupid was this girl? Well, pretty stupid for using a sheaf of copied papers as her grimoire. “Whatever,” I said. “We’ll get you into the room and activate the wards. You’ll need stitches for that hand, I’ll get a nurse to prep you. In the meantime we’ll need to contact your parents. Are they local?”

“No… oh my God, my mom’s going to kill me. She’s a witch…”

Then you should have known better, I didn’t say.

In short order the sleeper was moved to the hall and a new gurney put into trauma two. The increasingly nervous EMTs wheeled Andrea in and shoved her on the bed before beating a hasty retreat. I couldn’t blame them. Who knows what insanity this idiot child had called up?

The room’s wards activated, and I turned my attention to her hand. Ebony, the nurse in B pod where trauma two was located, prepped her hand for sutures and froze it. While waiting for the anesthesia to take effect, I called my contact over at the university, got them to go over to Alpha Psi’s house to look for the stapled pages my patient had used. I made sure they didn’t go alone and took protection spells with them, just in case. They promised to be careful and to report back when they had the info I needed.

Andrea was in a gown with a heated blanket over her when I walked back into trauma two. She was cradling her injured hand with her arm and still had tears running down her face. Ebony had given her a box of tissues but she hadn’t used them. The makeup on her face was dripping with her tears and her eyes looked like a raccoon’s.

I snagged the stool and rolled over to the bed where Ebony had the suture kit ready for me on the bedside tray. “I’ve got someone going to your house to look at what you’ve done,” I said to her, keeping a normal tone with effort. “Where were you doing this? In the basement?”

She gulped and nodded. I inspected the cut on her hand; it was shallow but long and would require at least half a dozen stitches. It had already mostly stopped bleeding. “I hope the knife you used was at least clean. You’re going to need a tetanus shot as well.”

She hiccupped and managed to say, in a small voice, “Did you call my mom?”

“Not yet. Once I get you stitched up and bandaged I’ll call your parents.”

“Okay.” With her other hand, she got some tissues and wiped her face. It just smeared her makeup around and made her look more ridiculous.

I finished with the eight stitches required to close the cut and had Ebony bandage it up. I told her I’d be ordering a tetanus shot for the little twit and some Ativan if needed to calm her down. Then I went back to my cubby to do just that, and to call Andrea’s parents. If her mother was a witch, she could be here shortly and that might be a blessing if whatever the girl had summoned proved to be bad.

Beck, my contact at the university, called as soon as I hung up with Andrea’s mother. They’d found the place where Andrea had performed her rite and had what was left of the stapled pages.

“It looks cribbed from all over,” Beck told me. “Half summoning spell and half ritualistic conjure. Who knows what would respond to something like this?” They sounded disgusted. “I’ve got a crew working on cleaning up the blood and fire but whatever was summoned is no longer here. I’d keep an eye out if I were you.”

“Great. Thanks, Beck. I owe you one.”

“No worries. I’m going to submit another report to the board about Alpha Psi if that’s okay.”

“More than okay. Nail their skins to the wall.”

They laughed. “As you say. Ta!”

I moved on. Amelia had the sleeper among others and I had a dozen other patients ranging from a slip and fall with head trauma to minor curses. And the waiting room was still full.

Shouting from B pod brought me out again. The charge nurse filled me in: Andrea’s mother had broomed in and was going off on her kid. Well, who was I to interfere? The dink had acted irresponsibly and if her mother was the one to dress her down for it, more power to her. Lord knows I couldn’t, not and not face a lawsuit. Ebony knew where to find me if the mother wanted to speak with me.

I was in the middle of removing a minor curse of infinite flatulence when I heard screaming from the waiting room. The PA system announced, “Security alert, code purple, emergency department; security alert, code purple, emergency department.” I sighed again. Whatever Andrea had conjured had finally caught up with her, I figured.

I was right. I wrapped up the removal and joined the gang of security and techs in the waiting room to see a lesser demon, fully eight feet tall (and poking holes in the ceiling with its horns), roaring, scattering sparks, and scaring everyone—putting some of them into hysterics. Security was split into trying to keep the civilians safe and corralling the demon. Fortunately—or unfortunately, take your pick—I recognized the damned being.

“A’pknat’k!” I shouted over the roaring, which stopped as it rounded on me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Where is she?” it demanded, trying to menace me. “Bring the wench to me! She’s mine!”

I’d faced down greater demons than A’pknat’k and anyway, the ED was one of my Places of Power. “She’s my patient, A’pknat’k; I claim purview. Get out of my waiting room, you’re scaring the patients.”

Amelia came out with our battered copy of Grimm’s, ready to do battle if necessary. I appreciated the help but A’pknat’k just wasn’t that much of a threat. At least, he never used to be. It seemed like he was always the one to respond to half-assed summons by half-assed summoners and I wondered, in passing, why that was. Maybe he was going for a bulk discount.

I raised my hand, ready to sketch out the banishment spell, but as it turned out, I needn’t had bothered. I heard Ebony’s voice behind me, calling out, “Ms. McCullough! Wait!” Then the waiting room door burst open and an older version of my patient came storming out.

“You!” She pointed one finger at A’pknat’k. I could feel the power coming out of her in waves.

Surprisingly, A’pknat’k paused, looking a little uncertain. “The wench—“

“My daughter is under MY protection! You are not wanted nor needed!” She snapped her fingers. “Begone!”

Leaving behind an astonished expression, A’pknat’k vanished in a puff of brimstone. Amelia and I looked at one another, eyebrows raised to our hairlines, then turned to Ms. McCullough. “Uh, ma’am, you…” I began, but she cut me off.

“Are you the attending physician to my daughter?”

“Uh, Physician’s Assistant, ma’am, and yes. How did you…?”

She waved her hand. “I’ve dealt with the likes of it before. I used to be a Resident Assistant at Alpha Psi. I was dead set against Andrea joining that house but she out-stubborned me. I had a feeling something like this was going to happen.” She lifted her chin. “She’s pre-med, you know. She’s the first non-witch in our family in generations.” She gave me a narrow-eyed stare and I fought my instinct to squirm.

“Well, she still should have known better,” I muttered, looking away.

The security guys were taking care of the crowd and Amelia said, “I’ll let Dylan know to call enviro for cleanup and ward renewal,” before turning to go back into the ED.

I nodded, still a little wary of Ms. McCullough. “If you’ll take responsibility for Andrea, I can discharge her now,” I told her.

“Oh, I’ll be taking responsibility for her, don’t you worry,” she replied, her voice grim. “Can she borrow the gown she’s in?”

“She can take that,” I assured her. I used my badge to get the door to the ED open and ushered Ms. McCullough in.

“And you’re quite right,” she said, “she definitely should have known better. I’ll be sure to thoroughly educate her and her sorority sisters on the proper use of a grimoire and exactly why summoning spells should not be used. Ever.” I decided I liked Ms. McCullough, even if she did reek of power, and almost felt badly for her daughter and the Alpha Psi girls.

Almost.

I let her go back to trauma two while I worked on the discharge paperwork. The report for the presence and banishment of the minor demon would have to wait until I had a little more time, not that I would until the end of my shift. Which meant overtime again. Well, it wasn’t as if I actually had a life outside the hospital, hardly any PA does.

I ran my fingers through my hair. I kept it long so the vestigial horns didn’t show, though I knew Ms. McCullough could probably smell my demon blood. I mean, how else did I know that boneheaded demon’s name? I’m just glad we’re only related on dad’s side.

By the time Ebony delivered the paperwork to the McCulloughs, I had already moved on. An actual case of alcohol poisoning after a hazing, how prosaic! If only they were all like that.

Copyright 2024 by Terri Hamill